User:Tryptofish/ACE2015

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Go away! Don't read this!
You really should not care what I say here. I'm not a reliable source, and everything that follows is nothing more than original research. The entire voter guide system is flawed. Many of the guide writers have axes to grind, and some guides are just weird. I do hope that you will vote in the election, and that you will think carefully about your vote. But voter guides should not be taken too seriously. And if you are here just for the lulz, you are going to be disappointed by how boring my opinions are.

I don't try to predict the outcome; rather, I try to give you good faith advice about who would or would not serve best on the Committee, based on my long-time very close observation of them, and my participation in cases. I don't do "neutral" or "abstain", so I'm going to offer an opinion on every candidate, for better or for worse. I'm not going to qualify my supports or opposes as being "strong" or "weak", but you can get a feel for those nuances if you read my comments, which you should. There are nine seats to be filled in this election. I don't try to support exactly nine candidates and oppose the rest (so called "strategic voting"), but I do try to align my level of support approximately with the level of need. (This year, I am supporting more candidates than there are open positions.) Consequently, you will see that I oppose some candidates, not because I think that they would do a bad job, but because I think that other candidates would do better.

I don't have any litmus tests, but I look for candidates whom I trust. I consider how well a candidate's views match up with where I think the community is at, and how I think the particular candidate will fit in as one member of a committee. That latter point includes how well the candidate communicates with the community and is inclined towards transparency, and how well I think they will be able to handle the tensions of the workload and the controversies. I also care about being open to improving how the Committee works. I think that's especially important this year, because we are at a time when there needs to be some self-examination about how ArbCom works. I have increasingly become convinced that members should not serve too many consecutive terms, although it can be fine to come back after being off the Committee for a while. This year, I think it is necessary that there be significant turnover, so I am holding incumbents to an especially high standard, although I consider every candidate as an individual. I've recently noticed a dismaying tendency for ArbCom to see cases in terms of whether or not they see diffs that reveal obvious incivility, without considering how a decision will impact the overall editing environment, thereby missing chronic problems with POV. Consequently, I also care about willingness to consider the evidence, to not act rashly, and to listen to feedback and change one's mind.

Per this discussion, I want to offer candidates the opportunity to rebut anything that I say here. Please feel free to do so at User talk:Tryptofish/ACE2015, and if you do, I will make a notation in the table below, just to the right of my recommendation, so that anyone looking here will be directed to it.

And finally...
Being on ArbCom is a difficult and largely thankless task, but if it is done right, it makes Wikipedia a better place for the rest of us. Thank you to everyone who is a candidate in this election!