Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2007/Candidate statements/Cbrown1023/Questions for the candidate

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Questions from Heimstern
My questions are kind of nitty-gritty, but I'm not looking for really specific answers as much as trying to see your thought process and approaches to the issues.

1. What is your philosophy on how to handle edit warriors? Under what circumstances should the Committee ban users who continually edit war, and when should they use lesser sanctions, such as paroles or editing restrictions? What factors should the Committee consider in deciding what sanctions are appropriate?

2. What about uncivil editors (including those making personal attacks)? What factors should the Committee consider in deciding whether and how to sanction them?

3. When should an administrator be desysopped? In particular, how should a sysop's failings be weighed against his or her useful administrative actions, and when do the failings merit removal of adminship? When, if ever, is it appropriate to use a temporary suspension, such as was used in Requests for arbitration/Jeffrey O. Gustafson?

4. Under what circumstances should the Committee consider an appeal of a community ban?

5. Two recent cases, Requests for arbitration/Allegations of apartheid and Requests for arbitration/THF-DavidShankBone, were dismissed with no decision made after the Committee had been unable to come to a decision concerning wrongdoing or sanctions. In both cases, the arbitrators seem to have felt that the cases' issues were no longer current, either because the community had resolved the issue or because a participant was no longer active at Wikipedia. Now, consider a similar situation in which the Committee cannot agree on finding concerning user conduct or on appropriate sanctions, but in which the case issues are clearly current. What should be done in such a case?

Thanks for your consideration. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 04:04, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your questions. I agree with your statement that they are "nitty-gritty", but one of the main parts of Arbitration is dealing with those types of problems. :-)
 * From my experience, I have found that edit warriors are very detrimental to the project. I believe that, as with all types of banning and sanctions, action taken against users should be done based upon their own contributions: how much they revert, how many warnings they've received to stop, how they've respond to these warnings, how many times they've been blocked for revert warring, how many times they've been sanctioned before, the number of articles they've edit warred on, etc.; all actions should be taken into consideration.  Lesser sanctions should be used first, then more restrictive sections as the problem(s) persist(s).
 * Uncivil editors are another large problem to the project, they can turn of other editors from contributing. The Committee should consider all factors, including: how many times they've been warned/blocked, how many people they've been uncivil to/attacked, how long they've been acting is such a way, etc.  As with edit warriors, lesser sanctions should be used before more restrictive ones, under normal circumstances.
 * An administrator should only lose his/her rights if (s)he has lost the trust of the community (or if his account has been hijacked, of course). Desysoping is done on a case-by-case basis and I believe that all of their actions should be taken into account.  A temporary suspension, as shown in Jeffrey O. Gustafson's case, is rarely the correct route to follow and may be viewed as puntive by some.  However, in cases like Jeffrey's, where we have a good editor who just needs to take a short break from the tools but not all editing, a temporary suspension may be just the right action to resolve the problem.
 * Our policy on banned users, WP:BAN, outlines the avenue for appeal by banned users: Bans imposed by the community may be appealed to the Arbitration Committee. All appeals should, in some way, be considered by the Committee when they are brought to its attention.  However, the actual unbanning or not-unbanning would have to be decided on a case-by-case basis.
 * Arbitration on Wikipedia exists to solve disputes that cannot be solved in any other way; if the community is adequately handling a matter by itself, there is no longer a need for Arbitration. Furthermore, if there is another user stops editing and the dispute resolves around only two editors, there is no longer a need for Arbitration.  The other situation you outlined is slightly unlikely but would be a large problem and the case would need to be dismissed.  If the Committee cannot agree on an issue, then it would need to go back to the community for a larger discussion or perhaps even Jimbo would need to make the decision.
 * If you were asking for more specific answers for any of the above or I did not completely answer your question, please do not hesite to ask for a clarification.  Cbrown1023   talk   04:49, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Question from Wanderer57
Based on ‘Request for comment on user conduct’ processes that you have followed closely, how would you rate them in terms of fairness to the accused?

Thanks, Wanderer57 07:10, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Do you have a specific case in mind with your question? I believe that usually Requests for comments are very fair towards the subject of the dispute, (s)he can make statements/comments for their own benefit and others can post statements/comments that show problems with the user; both have equal opportunities.  It seems that the most fair RfCs are those that have a lot of comments because this gives a full-view of the dispute and brings in the opinions of many uninvolved/neutral users.  Most of the time, but not always, the subject of the Request for comment, is treated fairly (though, as with any process, this does not always happen).  Cbrown1023    talk   16:29, 4 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your answer. I did not ask the question to raise a specific case.   Wanderer57 16:39, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Questions from Majorly
These are generic questions, so apologies if you've answered them elsewhere :)


 * 1) How do you think that your personality would make you a good arbitrator?
 * 2) Do you have any experience in real life that could relate to activities arbitrators have to deal with?

Thanks for your time.  Majorly  (talk) 13:36, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your questions.
 * As expressed in my statement, I believe that I am level-headed and neutral in disputes. I also try to be easily-approachable towards users and pay attention to them, so I believe that that would be helpful for an arbitrator.  I also try to listen to all items being said before I make a decision, and attempt to nice and fair to all those that I meet and talk to.
 * I do have experiences in real-life that relate to Arbitrator activities. I have lead a large group of my peers overseas on a 3-week-long ambassadorship program.  While there, we needed to represent America well and act maturely at all times, the same is true for how an Arbitrator must act (in addition to leadership qualities).  I also have to coordinate and act together with others many times in my life, which is something Arbitrator definitely need to be able to work with each other.
 *  Cbrown1023   talk   22:46, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Question from xaosflux

 * 1) As functions assigned by ArbCom, describe your view on the assignments of Oversight and Checkuser permissions, including thresholds for (or even the possibility of) new applicants.  Thank you, —  xaosflux  Talk 15:18, 4 November 2007 (UTC) (Note:Generic question for all candidates, other candidates are WELCOME to copy this question in to their subpages)
 * Oversight and CheckUser permissions would need to be given very sparingly and only when there was a need for it. Of course, prospective recipients of the permission(s) would need to be over 18 to agree with the Board of Trustees' policy regarding this matter.  New applicants would contact the Arbitration Committee for these permissions and would most likely get them if they were trustworthy and tech-savvy enough to use them as they should be used, provided there was a strong need for another user with these permissions (like a backlog of requests).  I would most likely not be getting these permissions personally.  Cbrown1023    talk   16:20, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Question from Ragesoss
In the Wikipedia context, what is the difference (if any) between NPOV and SPOV (scientific point of view)?--ragesoss 03:10, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Under normal circumstances one would hope that there would not be a problem in expressing the scientific point of view in a science article. "Scientific point of view" would be the conclusion reached by many scientists (and most likely peer-reviewed and published in journals).  Scientific point of view and possibly other points of view held by a large number of people would be included in the article to present it in a neutral light.  SPOV would be one of the routes to which articles attain a neutral point of view, so there really is not a different between NPOV and SPOV.  Neutral point of view discusses how we present the issue and scientific point of view is one of the views we present.  Similar to a problem with NPOV, a problem with SPOV would need to be solved through one of the dispute resolution outlets.  Is this what you were looking for?  Cbrown1023    talk   23:28, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Question from Soleil

 * 1) What, if anything, do you believe is wrong with the current arbitration process, and/or the committe? This includes anything related to the committee and its actions. If appointed, what do you intend to do to resolve these issues? &mdash; Soleil (formerly I )  03:24, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The only real problems I see are the speed at which cases are decided (sometimes this is a little too slow) and the fact that there is a slight bit of inactivity. However, to the Committee's defense, it is not always the Arbitrators fault but sometimes the parties to the case are slow in providing evidence and proposals.  (I do not see anything particularly wrong with any of the individual Committee members.)  Another possible issue would be the lack of transparency in some issues, but I do not know what happens behind-the-scenes so I cannot really comment on that except by saying that I would share as much publicly as possible.  If I were appointed to the Committee, I'd try to be active as much as possible (rarely taking breaks from arbitration) and would try to speed up the Arbitration process a bit.  Cbrown1023    talk   22:41, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Question from Cla68
I saw a box on your userpage that says that you helped take an article, The Public Enemy, to Good Article (GA) status, but the article has since been de-listed. Which articles have you helped (edited) in a significant way to reach GA or Featured Article status? Cla68 03:26, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * On the subject of The Public Enemy's delisting, I did not necessarily agree with it at the time because "it's too short" isn't really too good of a reason, in my opinion, and it is rather difficult to find sources for a movie that was filmed in 1931. I felt that I would try and bring the article back-up to GA status after I had actually seen the movie. ;-) (I haven't seen it yet... :-
 * I have not been able to do much article writing recently. But I've created a few stubs on people and added quite a bit of sources to Vatican City back in March (among a few other articles).  I feel that my best article contributions are adding references, fixing grammar and spelling, and just collaborating a bit with other users.
 * I am a proud member of WikiProject Films and was one of the major organizers of it back in 2006 to early 2007. While active there, I worked heavily on the style guidelines that serve as a basis for all Film articles, started back up and ran the Cinema Collaboration of the Week for a while (which significantly improved many articles), and started the Peer review department which accesses many articles and helps get them to FA/GA status.  So, I've had a great deal of help on getting articles up to good and featured status, both directly and indirectly.  Cbrown1023    talk   22:34, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Question from Wikidudeman
In my experience, many larger arbitrations seem to suffer from the fact that the arbitrators do not spend as much time on examining the evidence and statements as they should be spending. Examples of problems that arise would be proposals not being used or relevant issues not even being addressed. This is probably due to the large backlog and caseload. What would you do to ensure that all arbitrations are ended efficiently and fairly and that all issues and concerns are addressed and all needed remedies met?  Wikidudeman  (talk) 14:37, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I would agree that some Arbitration cases do have these problems. However, in the defense of the Arbitrators, we need to have a lot of supporting evidence and detailed statements in order to pass a proposal.  I would try and make sure that enough evidence was provided to pass the proposals that the community and the other Arbitrators felt were needed (as was expressed on the Worskhop pages) and if we did not have enough evidence, I would make the parties knew this so that they could gather more support.  Above all, spending more time on the Workshop pages with the cases would help get a feel for what the community and the other parties want to pass and try to make that happen.  Cbrown1023    talk   21:14, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Question 2 from Wikidudeman
In some arbitrations, editors will introduce numerous irrelevant proposals in an attempt to obfuscate the real purpose or create a fog cloud with unrelated material to misdirect the arbitrators from the intended purpose of the arbitration, generally user conduct. What will you do to prevent arbitrations from getting off track due to editors introduction of irrelevant material in mass which can sometimes cause confusion or the false impression of difficult or complex circumstances for arbitrators.  Wikidudeman  (talk) 14:37, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I would communicate with my fellow Arbitrators and the parties to the case/community on the workshop pages, telling them that this were completely irrelevant and that it best be ignored. However, it's important to keep in mind that while I might find something irrelvant, another arbitrator or party to the case may differ, which is why it is best to discuss this on the Workshop pages.  Basically, just communication should help fix that problem.  Cbrown1023    talk   21:14, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Questions from east718
Thanks, east. 718 at 16:19, 11/6/2007
 * 1) Do you feel that the Arbitration Committee takes too long to close cases? Or do you feel that they act too hastily and some important facets of cases occasionally fall through the cracks? Either way, what will you do to remedy it?
 * 2) Can you give some examples of proposed principles, findings of fact, or remedies on voting subpages that you disagree with? How about some proposals that actually passed? If you consider any completed arbitration cases to be failures in their intent, scope, or remedy, could you please name them and your reasoning why?
 * I feel that both problems occur, in some cases the Arbitration Committee and the parties to the case take too long to get one closed and in some cases (like large ones) we don't pay enough attention to the details or certain proposals. To remedy this, I would try to communicate more with the parties and other Arbitrators so we include everything that needs to be included in the final decision but also give a little push when cases are moving along slowly.  (I will also take a look at all of the proposals when voting/discussing.)
 *  Cbrown1023   talk   22:24, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
 *  Cbrown1023   talk   22:24, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Question from Ultraexactzz
Best wishes in your candidacy, and in your tenure on the committee should you be elected. I'm asking this question to most of the candidates, so I apologize in advance if you've already answered a similar question from another editor.

Some background. I was an avid reader of the encyclopedia until December 2005, when I decided to begin editing. I had started to delve into the workings of the project, reading about AfD's and the ANI and, most interestingly, the work of the Arbitration Committee. When elections came around in December 2005/January 2006, I thought that a fresh perspective might be of value to the committee. So, in my haste to pitch in, I made my 13th edit (!) by nominating myself to the Arbitration Committee.

Needless to say, it did not go well.

However, I did find some editors who supported my candidacy on moral grounds, offering encouragement and concuring that a different perspective was of value in the committee's work. Looking back, it got me thinking, as this round of elections begins: What is the most valuable trait for an arbitrator? Your statement and answers to other questions will address this at length, I'm sure, but if you had to distill the essence of being an effective arbitrator into one word, what would that word be? ZZ Claims~ Evidence 22:51, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the most important quality of being a good arbitrator is being neutral, yet being able to deal with the users firmly. (I got it down to a sentence! :-) If you want something a bit longer, just ask.)  Cbrown1023    talk   01:06, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Questions from WJBscribe
A few questions from me. I'm asking all candidates the same thing. I don't think anyone's asked these yet but I they have, feel free to just point me to a previous answer. Thanks for your time and good luck. WjBscribe 23:28, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Appointment to the Arbitration Committee is for three years - a lot can change on Wikipedia in three years. Should there be a mechanism by which the Community can recall an arbitrator in whose judgment it loses confidence? Do you have any thoughts as to what form that mechanism should take?
 * 2) ArbCom is responsible for assigning checkuser and oversight access to users of the English Wikipedia. Would you advocate withdrawing the access in the case of someone someone who failed to make sufficient use of it? If yes, what sort of activity level would you say is required?
 * 3) Where the Community finds itself unable to reach a consensus on the formulation of a given policy, do you think ArbCom has a role to play in determining that policy?
 * An arbitrator servers on the behalf of the community and should resign if they do not have the faith or confidence of the community. If for some reason there is a problem with an Arbitrator, a community member should probably discuss that with Jimbo or other Arbitrators and the issue would hopefully be solved internally.  (I hate to bring this up, but something like this has happened before.)
 * I am not a believer that inactive users should have any of their access removed solely because they are inactive (the case would be different if there were a clause in the CheckUser policy saying "only XXX can have this right on any given wiki"). However, I would not oppose the removal of someone's access solely because of this reason (I'd be neutral on the matter, there are plenty of other factors to take into account).
 * The Arbitration Committee should not rule on policies or encyclopedic content, so I don't think ArbCom really has a role in determining the policy.
 * Thank you for your questions and for the nice sentiments. :-)  Cbrown1023   talk   00:09, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Questions from jd2718

 * 1) I've seen it written that to be a good arbitrator, a WPian needs to be a good editor. Do you agree or disagree with the sentiment? How do you consider your own editing?
 * 2) If you could change one WP policy or widely cited guideline, what would it be? Why?
 * 3) A considerable number of cases at ArbCom involve groups of editors involved in nationalist disputes. Should these sorts of cases be treated any differently than others? Jd2718 22:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I would have to agree with that statement, in order for an Arbitrator to effectively decide on disputes from editors, he or she know what it was like to be in their shows. It depends on what you consider "editing" though, I consider it anyone who contributes to the encyclopedia at all (Wikipedia needs all different types of people focused on all different aspects of the project).  I would consider myself, like most people, as a good editor: I con tribute in my own areas and do not break policies in the process.
 * I would elect not to change any policy or guideline on Wikipedia. I believe that, even though sometimes policies can be annoying to follow, we should still follow them and only the community can/should overturn or rewrite a policy.
 * I do not think that they should be exceptionally treated any differently from normal disputes, except that normally in nationalist disputes there might be more policies violated like Wikipedia is not a battleground and civility and it may be viewed that they are treated more harshly than parties in other cases. Do you have any specific examples in mind (either hypothetical or previous cases)?
 *  Cbrown1023   talk   21:55, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * 3 (follow-up to #3): Recently closed: The Troubles, Allegations of apartheid, Bharatveer, Digwuren, Liancourt Rocks, Dalmatia, Artaxerex, or 7 of the 15 closures in October and November 2007 (so far), but none of the 7 open cases. Macedonia may well be accepted in the next few days (I commented). I expect that somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 - 40% of cases fall into this category. Jd2718 01:23, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I recall Digwuren the best, because I actually clerked that one. I would have to agree with you that a large amount of these cases are due to nationalist problems, and the nationalist problems can have the most agressive participants.  Cbrown1023    talk   02:17, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Question from Revolving Bugbear
In light of the recent ruling in the French courts re WMF:

The servers for English Wikipedia are hosted in the United States, and the WMF is incorporated in the United States (Florida, specifically). But Wikipedians can access and edit Wikipedia from anywhere in the world (with the possible exceptions of China and Burma, maybe, but that's neither here nor there). Given that, as an ArbCom member, you might be dealing with issues such as possible legal threats against Wikipedia, whose laws does Wikipedia need to follow? What should be done if there is a legitimate concern raised by a Wikipedian that an article may be in violation of US law? What about law of a country other than the US? - Revolving Bugbear  16:22, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I am familiar with that case. Fist and foremost, Wikipedia has to follow the laws where the servers reside, Florida state-laws and United States laws.  Other countries'/states' laws should still be taken into account, but after we have taken the other laws into account.  If a legitimate concern is raised about a violation of US law, we should act quickly to try and fix the problem.  The same is true for a law from another country.
 * The only problems I may see with this are when the two are divergent or if following the law is not in our best interest. If they are divergent, we would follow the US/Florida laws.  If it is not in our best interest to follow the other countries' laws, we would need to discuss that on a case-by-case basis.  Of course, the Foundation's general counsel, Mike Godwin would be involved in a possible legal threat.  Cbrown1023    talk   21:55, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Questions from Piotrus
--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:19, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Do you think an arbitrator should be active in all cases he has no conflict or interests in?
 * 2) If the arbitrator is active, should he be expected to comment in workshop / arbcom discussion pages?
 * 3) Do you think some editors should be more equal than others? I.e. should incivility of experienced editor - one who registered years ago and wrote or contributed to many articles - be treated differently from incivility of a relative newcomer?
 * 4) How can WP:CIV and similar issues be enforced? Should they be enforced as efficient as 3RR?
 * I think an Arbitrator should be active in as many of the cases as he possibly can, provided that he hasn't a conflict of interest. This should get the most opinions on a case and hopefully move it along at a good pace and make a fairer overall case.
 * Yes. I believe that an Arbitration should actively comment/discuss proposals on Workshop and other discussion pages.  It works best to see what the community and the parties want and to discuss the different parts of decisions before they go to voting.
 * In most cases, an experienced editor would be held more accountable to his or her actions, he or she has been around long enogh to be familiar with our standards and guidelines. A relative newcomer would just need to be warned and told of our guidelines first.  However, in cases between an "experienced editor" and another "experienced editor", they should be dealt with as equally as possible.
 * Civility cannot be as easily defined as reverting can. Issues such as this would need to be rather obvious and long-term.  In previous cases, users are put on "civility parole" where (because of many previous civility issues) they are warned/blocked if they continue to act uncivil to different users.  The previous problems would need to be taken into account to specify the type of civility parole.
 *  Cbrown1023   talk   00:07, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Points of View: When does including "notable" points of view become problematic for NPOV?
When I first came on to Wikipedia a year and a half ago the project was more centered around "Just the facts" - articles were more crafted around the who, the what, the when and the where, with some emphasis on the why. Of late, the why has taken on a dominant role in articles on contentious issues, with each side in the political spectrum putting forth their own "notable" mouthpiece to spin what the who, the what, the when and the where means. Do you think this is a positive development? Do you think this is educational, or do you think it makes Wikipedia another platform for the dichotomized public debate--that there are two sides to every issues, and two views--that is prevalent in American society?-- David  Shankbone  18:23, 17 November 2007 (UTC)