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

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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 01:28, 2 November 2007 (UTC)


 * First let me note that I would prefer using "subject" as a terminology, rather than "accused". The subject of an RfC is not necessarily being accused of anything specific. Anyway, I find requests for comment on user conduct tends to be a fairly lenient process in some aspects. For a start, the "two user certification" process safeguards against a fair amount of frivilous complaints, but of course there will always be some frivolous RfCs. UninvitedCompany once suggested we remove this certification, I believe, but nothing came of that discussion. In general, I find RfC a very forgiving process for user conduct issues. It's a nice way for people to organise constructive criticism in an ordered fashion. I only tend to follow the ones which are perhaps more well heard of, such as Tony Sidaway's and Kelly Martin's. In these cases I find the process useful. Constructive criticism was raised, and it is clear exactly what proportion of people involved support what views on the user in question. A more recent example is Requests for comment/Jimbo Wales, which I feel is frivilous simply because of the fact that the subject of the RfC is Jimbo, and that it's basically just a rehash of Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/My desysop of Zscout370. So, to summarise the above, I find RfC a very fair process to the subject, as the only possible way that any form of action can be taken on an RFC is if the subject agrees that the criticism is justified. Of course, this makes the process useless for people that will quite obviously not pay any attention to the process, but that was not your question :-) --Deskana (talk) 02:27, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Questions from Picaroon

 * 1) Please see Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2007 and User:Picaroon/Stats. Do you have time to vote on most of the approximately eight cases a month that will come before the committee? Would you resign your post if you found yourself consistently (say, 2-3 months on end) unable to even get near that goal? An issue more with you than all the other candidates except Raul, do you think you'll find enough time for arbitration while promoting admins, changing usernames, flagging bots, mediating, checking users, and oversighting bad revisions? Under what conditions besides inactivity would you resign your post?
 * 2) *Yes, I do believe I can devote the time.
 * 3) *Yes, I would resign if I felt I was not living up the promises I made in my nomination statement, as you need to be active to effectively arbitrate.
 * 4) *Firstly, I plan to resign from the Medation Committee should I be elected. I would still serve as an advisor to other mediators much as I do now, when I am needed. Flagging bots requires relatively little time, as I am not at all involved in the decision process, I just have the technical ability to flag bots. Oversighting bad revisions is not much of a problem either, 99% of cases on the list take 5 minutes to resolve and the appropriate action to take is immidiately obvious. The main ones on the list you've given are closing RFAs, CheckUsering and changing usernames. Devoting less time to these areas was something I considered when I put myself forward. I tend to close RFAs rather speedily after the time that they are meant to be closed, but the times when I have been unable to, one of the other bureaucrats has done so. What is important to note is that there are many active bureaucrats who do not perform adminship promotions as regularly as me. Should I find myself unable to close as many RFAs, it is clear to me that there are many other bureaucrats to perform that duty, and others can be elected through the RFB process should a backlog exist. I would say that Secretlondon performs the most renames, and again there are plenty of other bureaucrats available to handle CHU requests. Checkuser would suffer were I to become less active, but I do not plan to reduce my activity at all to this area. I have decided which areas can most easily cope without me being as active anymore, and WP:RFCU was not one of the areas that I decided could cope very easily. For reference, the areas I decided that could cope without me easiest are OTRS and Mediation.
 * 5) Under what conditions should non-arbitrators be granted access to the arbcom mailing list? Former members, checkusers/oversights who have never been on the committee, board members, others?
 * 6) *According to the Arbitration Committee page, there is only one subscriber to the arbcom mailing list that has never been an arbitrator, and that is Jimbo Wales. Jimbo's list membership is obvious; he assembled the first arbitration committee, and he has final decision on who is appointed to the committee. He also reserves the right to veto the committee and bans are appealed to him, so it makes perfect sense for him to have list members. To cite a vague criteria, I would say that list access should only for committee members past and present, unless they have lost "communitty support". Exactly how someone can lose community support is obvious in most cases. I can try to be more specific if you wish.
 * 7) Can you show an example or two of a normal case (ie, accepted via committee vote on WP:RFAR, not dismissed without remedies) where you largely disagree with the final decision? Please explain why you disagree with the outcome, and say what you would've supported instead (or, alternately, why the case shouldn't have been accepted).
 * 8) *I must say that I cannot think of any remedies where I have disagreed with the committee's findings. I sometimes disagree with proposed remedies that do not pass, such as the "Clowns" and "Desysop Cyde" ones that were proposed by Fred Bauder.
 * 9) Please list the total number of alternate accounts you have used, and please list the usernames of as many as you feel comfortable making public.
 * 10) *I have used 3.
 * 11) **User:DeskanaTest
 * 12) **User:Deskbanana
 * 13) **I also use one which I do not choose the disclose the username of. It has all of about twenty edits, and I promise that it has never been used in any manner which is prohibited by the policy on sockpuppetry, nor has it been used in violation of the community's standards on multiple accounts.
 * 14) Under what circumstances should a case be heard completely via email, as opposed to onwiki? Under what conditions should the committee block a user without making public the full extent of the reasoning (for example, this user)?
 * 15) *Cases should only be heard privately totally privately in extremely specific circumstances, such as where the case involves evidence that could be extremely damaging if released privately. The remedies may be voted on by arbitrators, but arbitration remains a community guided process. The Nathanrdotcom case jumps to mind as an example of a case that was conducted privately. I choose not to comment specifically on Melsaran as I was involved in the matter as a checkuser, but I personally believe that it is suitable in almost all cases to disclose all evidence relating to a user's block. Of course, this is not always possible, and such blocks should be done with utmost discretion.
 * 16) What do you think of Jimmy Wales desysop of a few days ago? (see Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/My desysop of Zscout370‎)? What should he have done differently, if anything? What role should the committee have had in this?
 * 17) *I believe it was unnecessary to desysop Zscout370. That said, Jimbo does retain a de facto ability to do whatever he thinks is best, which was proven by the fact that no other steward felt the need to undo Jimbo's actions and remove his priviledges. That said, Jimbo swiftly restored Zscout370's access and I don't really think any harm was done, and I'd prefer Jimbo did not do something like that in the future.
 * 18) Under what circumstances should the committee implement an indefinite ban on a user? Under what conditions should probation/supervised editing be instituted instead of a ban of any duration?
 * 19) *The committee very rarely indefinitely bans editors completely from editing (mostly bans are fixed duration then extended to indefinite by the community), although topic bans are sometimes indefinite, and even then they're open to review by the committee at a later date. Probations and supervised editing should be implimented if it is reasonable to assume that they will resolve the problem in question. If it is not reasonable to assume this, a ban is better. Even then, a complete ban from editing should only be implimented when topic bans would not be effective at preventing disruption; if a user is editing disruptively in a certain topic range, but is editing appropriately elsewhere, a topic ban or probation would be more appropriate. Whether a ban or a probation is chosen again depends on the circumstances.
 * 20) What constitutes a wheel war? Was the Requests for arbitration/BJAODN situation a wheel war? How about Requests for arbitration/Sadi Carnot and Requests for arbitration/Alkivar? Thanks for your time, Picaroon (t) 02:18, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * 21) *A wheel war is administrators constantly overturning each others actions without sufficient discussion of the matter. I'm personally not fond of the term as it's not specific enough, and is subjective depending on your opinion. In my opinion and using the definition I gave, BJAODN was not a wheel war. The Sadi Carnot involved wheel warring because of this. Alkivar has (again, in my opinion) wheel warred, as he has repeatedly undone the actions of other administrators without discussing them when it was inappropriate. For reference, undoing another administrators actions without discussion is not always wheel warring, and is sometimes appropriate. For instance, I extended a block on an IP because the blocking administrator was unaware that some diffs had been oversighted, and those diffs merited a block extension.

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) 02:23, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't have a philosophy on how to deal with edit warriors. Each "edit warrior" is a person, and there are different ways to deal with different people. As I said above, I believe sanctions lesser than bans should be used if it can be reasonably assumed that such a sanction would be effective. The main factor that should be considered is "Is this user here to disrupt?". If someone is clearly here to disrupt, banning them from editing for a set period of time would be more appropriate than specific topic bans. If someone is editing productively elsewhere but having problems in specific areas, then sanctions should be more specific.
 * WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA are policies. As above, if it is reasonable to assume that a civility parole would be useful and effective over an outright ban, especially if it is evident that the user is trying to avoid conflict, then paroles should be used over bans.
 * Again, as above, temporary adminship suspensions should be used when it is reasonable to believe that a suspension will make a user realise that their behaviour was unacceptable. Jeffrey O. Gustafson is a good example of this. The temporary suspension of his adminship rights caused him to miss them, and he has since improved his behaviour significantly. For greater abuse, permenant removal should be implimented. But only when other options have been exhausted, or when it is not reasonable to assume that lesser sanctions would be effective.
 * If the community is unable to reach a decision, then it would be appropriate to review a community ban. The user appealing needs to show that they are capable of editing appropriately, such that the ban is now superflouous. That is very difficult to accomplish, normally.
 * Inactivity is the main problem with the cases you have cited above, and obviously I am not planning on being inactive. If the committee is truly divided and cannot reach a decision, then the decision will have to come from the community, or perhaps from Jimbo Wales himself; bans are appealed to Jimbo so it makes sense to let him reach the decision if both the community and the committee cannot reach a decision. I'd just like to note that I don't really see this happening, as I think the committee can reach a decision on almost any case (excluding cases that are unduly extended due to arbitrator inactivity).

Questions from east718
Thanks, east. 718 at 02:31, 11/2/2007
 * 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?
 * There were a few cases recently that took too long to decide. In general, I do not think that cases take too long to close, but I do think they could be closed quicker. I don't think arbcom misses important details. As a single arbitrator, there is only so much I can do to combat inactivity of the whole committee. I do intend to be very active on the committee, and if everyone else is, then we have no problem :-)
 * What have you taken away from your experiences with mediation, OTRS, and for lack of a better word, bureaucratic duties? What sort of history do you have in using your position to resolve disputes?
 * My problem solving skills have been greatly improved by OTRS, as well as my ability to think outside the box. I wouldn't say my duties as a bureaucrat or mediator would help me arbitrate at all. Mediation is a fundamentally different process to arbitration. To list a few differences, mediation is voluntary and unenforcable, where as arbitration is not required to be voluntary to the subject of a case, and is enforcable against the wishes of the subject (otherwise all bans could be cancelled by the subject stating they do not wish to be banned, making arbitration a totally pointless process :-)). As a bureaucrat, renaming users, flagging bots are not remotely related to arbitration. Interpreting community input on Requests for Adminship is vaguely related, as arbitration is a community process and the committee needs to reach solutions that the community is happy with, but to state the obvious, you do not need to be a bureacurat to be good at reading community input.

Questions from I
i (talk) 02:44, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) What, if anything, do you believe is wrong with the current arbitration process, and/or the committee? This includes anything related to the committee and its actions. If appointed, what do you intend to do to resolve these issues?
 * Please see my answer to the Q5 from Heimstern, in the above sections. This documents my thoughts on this matter exactly.
 * 1) You have rapidly gone from administrator to administrator, bureaucrat, oversight and checkuser all within the past 5 months. Should you be appointed, you would add arbitrator to this list (becoming only the third to do so). What is your opinion on this kind of concentration of power in one user? Also, what about such a quick elevation in power?
 * It is important to note that if I did not have checkuser and oversight permissions currently, I would most likely gain them should I be elected. I was first elected to serve as a bureaucrat. I understand how people percieve this as a powerful position, but I don't see it that way. It's certainly not one you can afford to give to every administrator, as many would most likely inappropriately promote administrators (through being misguided I think, rather than through malice). Similarly, I do not view checkuser or oversight as powerful positions. Again, they are trusted positions, as you have access to potentially non-public data which if released inappropriately, could create legal problems. Accordingly, the foundation has copies of my passport verifying my identity. I study Computer Science, so checkuser was an obvious one for me. When I requested the checkuser permission, I assume it was granted because of my technical knowledge (I am a Computer Science and Mathematics student) and because I was already a bureaucrat so I enjoyed community support. I do not have any problem with trusted people holding all possible flags (Administrator Bureaucrat Checkuser Oversight), but I also think it might be a good idea to give single permissions out to other people, so that it doesn't end up that all the checkuser also have many other things to do.
 * 1) As I noted with Raul, you have many (5 &mdash; the above listed plus mediation committee) "jobs" on en wiki. I do not feel you have neglected any of the four duties (I dont watch medcom, so I don't know) since July. However, should you be appointed, do you believe you can actively continue your work in all five of these areas, in addition to doing your part to expedite the arbcom process and be an active arbitrator, a major issue in this election?
 * I have documented my thoughts on this matter as an answer to Q1 from Picaroon, in quite some detail. Should you feel I have not totally answered your question, feel free to ask a more specific one.
 * 1) I'm not aware of established conduct for this situation, if there is any, so excuse me if this is an obvious question. Do you intend to continue your work as a mediator at the Mediation Committee if appointed?
 * My work on the medation committee consists almost entirely of consultation. When I was elected, I subscribed to the mediation committee mailing list, and I can consult both other members and the chair on their cases, and whether or not to accept cases. I can also advise users on their cases, and provide information on how to file cases, and contact their mediatiors for them should they require it. I would probably stop providing as many consultations as I do, but I do not think it is inappropriate for members of the arbitration committee to recommend that certain cases are accepted, given that the final decision is ultimately done by someone else.

Questions from Lar

 * 1) A perennial issue with ArbCom is the increasing caseload. What do you personally think of the idea of splitting the caseload somehow so that not all active arbitrators participate in every case? Possible ways are self selected per case, split the arbcom into two parts semi permanently and assign randomly or round robin or by current case load (some cases are more work than others), split cases by jurisdiction (subject area or nature of case, perhaps) or other ways (which did I miss?). Please discuss the technical issues, pros and cons of this idea as a way to gain insight into your thinking about the Arbitration Committee in general. Thank you! ++Lar: t/c 17:36, 1 November 2007 (UTC) (Note:Generic question for all candidates, other candidates are WELCOME to copy this question in to their subpages)
 * I personally do not support splitting the case load explicitly. I have considered this in the past. Splitting the case load creates the potential for inconsistently applied remedies. Even if this is never actually a problem, it allows users banned by one group of arbitrators to claim that the other group would not have banned them, creating problems. Of course the benefits of the previous system are obvious. If cases are taking too long to be completed, there are several ways to solve this problem.
 * Elect new arbitrators that are active, and remove old ones that are not. Exactly how this would work I did not consider. Jimbo could directly appoint candidates based on the previous elections, perhaps, as he has done in the past for people resigning.
 * Create another tranche. More arbitrators increases the number of active arbitrators (note I say NUMBER, not %), meaning that when large groups of arbitrators are inactive, this can be picked up by others.
 * Shorten arbitration terms to two year, or one year. This means people won't just lose interest with the arbitration process, meaning there are less inactive arbitrators, increasing the speed at which the cases are dealt with.
 * Note that these are simply my hypothetical thoughts on ways to increase case throughput. I have not thought about how we would decide whether or not to impliment them, or if some of them are even feasable. These are just my thoughts, which is what you requested.
 * 1) "WP is not a democracy", "WP is not an experiment in governance or social justice", "WP is not (intended to be) fair", "There is an inherent right to edit WP by all", "Some people may act in good faith but are nevertheless not suited to working on this project, despite best intent". Which of these statements do you agree or disagree with? Why or why not?  Thank you! ++Lar: t/c 17:36, 1 November 2007 (UTC) (Note:Generic question for all candidates, other candidates are WELCOME to copy this question in to their subpages, thanks for the idea Xaosflux!)
 * 2) *I agree that Wikipedia is not a democracy. Everything is based on group agreement, rather than voting.
 * 3) *I also agree that Wikipedia is not an experiment in governance and social justice, as in an ideal world, all users are equal, but some simply posses more technical abilities than others.
 * 4) *Wikipedia is not intended to be fair. Wikipedia is intended to be a project to create an encyclopedia. If that means being unfair to some users, then that's unfortunate, but necessary. Obviously we must try to be fair all the time, but sometimes we may need to be "unfair". Unfair can be viewed different ways. A user would percieve a ban on them as unfair if they do not think they are being disruptive. But if it is the consensus that they are, we need to be unfair to them.
 * I would just like to note that this answer is only in the context of treatment of users. In the context of articles, Wikipedia is intended to be fair. This is what neutral point of view is for. I apologise to anyone who read this and thought I meant that I was saying our articles should not be fair. This is obviously not true due to WP:NPOV.
 * 1) *"There is an inherent right to edit Wikipedia by all". This is a tricky one. I'd go for "neither agree nor disagree" (to borrow from annoying questionnaires that my university makes me fill in occasionally). Editing Wikipedia is not a right, it is a priviledge. It is, however, a priviledge that we should extend to everyone unless we have reason to not extend it. Were editing Wikipedia a right, we would be unable to ban people, making the encyclopedia be taken over by trolls, and make the project totally worthless.
 * 2) *"Some people may act in good faith but are nevertheless not suited to working on this project, despite best intent". Agree totally. It would be unfortunate if someone needed to have their editing restricted even if they were acting in good faith. But I propose that if they were truly acting in good faith, they would accept that any restriction they were suffering (even if they personally believe it is misguided) was also made in good faith, and should abide by it.

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 03:23, 2 November 2007 (UTC) (Note:Generic question for all candidates, other candidates are WELCOME to copy this question in to their subpages)
 * 2) Oversight is available to any arbitrator that is 18 or over. Similarly, checkuser is available to any arbitrator that is 18 or over who has the technical knowledge to be able to use the tool correctly. I have no problem with this. Anyone who is elected to the arbitration committee is obviously a trusted member of the community. I personally believe there should be more non-arbcom checkusers. If we have, say, 5 administrator-checkusers to staff RFCU, then the arbcom checkusers can be called to RFCU as needed. This would reduce the workload on arbitrators. It's also good to have a few non-arbcom checkusers to review the checkuser actions of the arbitration committee privately. Checkuser does need to be given out sporadically though. If checkuser incorrectly, there can be legal repercussions. This is less of a problem with oversight, though the users still need to be trusted since there is non-public data involved in oversight as well. I also support having a few non-arbitration committee oversight users, but typically oversight requests are quick to handle so that's more for review than it is to help with workload.

Questions from Daniel
1: The use of IRC evidence in arbitration cases has flared up in certain cases. A few questions on this:-
 * a) Do you believe that IRC conversations in Wikipedia channels (ie. #wikipedia, #wikipedia-en, #wikipedia-en-admins) should be admissible in arbitration cases where it is directly relevant to the dispute at hand?
 * It may be hard to verify that people aren't changing the logs. It'd be very easy for me to forward a fake log to the arbitration committee. If it's considered privately, nobody might ever know it's fake. In general, I would say yes. If the channel logs are directly relevant and it can be verified that they are correct logs, then they should be considered as evidence.
 * b) Do you believe the Arbitration Committee has the jurisdiction to sanction users in these channels when it relates to Wikipedia disruption? If not, should it?
 * No, they don't. The IRC channels are not part of Wikipedia, they are part of the Freenode IRC network. I don't think it's necessary for the committee to sanction people on IRC. The chanops do a good enough job.
 * c) If so, what are your thoughts on possibly creating an official Arbitration Committee IRC logging account in these channels for the purpose of providing corrupt-free logs when required for deliberation?
 * Is this really necessary? Were this created, people would likely say things in PM rather than in the admins channel. Although I say above that IRC logs could be considered, I'm not sure any sort of official logging bot is a good idea.

2: Can emails and IRC logs, etc., be published on Wikipedia? Why or why not? Should they, or shouldn't they?
 * They shouldn't really, unless you have the permission of the person who sent the mail, or the permission of every user in the log. That's just common courtesy.

3: Are Wikipedians, in particular administrators, required to answer to the Committee for their activites outside English Wikipedia (ie. on other Wikimedia Foundation projects, Wikipedia-related websites including The Wikipedia Review, conduct linked to Wikipedia etc.). Should they be? If so, should the Arbitration Committee have intervened in the case of Requests for adminship/Gracenotes, and do you believe this was the correct decision?
 * It would nice if we could impliment a "Only what you do on Wikipedia matters" rule, but in practicality it wouldn't work in all cases. In about 95% of cases, we can ignore offwiki behaviour. But there are some cases where offwiki behaviour is relevant. Lets remember that editing Wikipedia is a privildge, not a right. If someone is harrassing people offwiki and making their lives hell, why should we let them edit? That is an insult to the Wikipedian that is being harrassed. This is my view on this matter. I do not believe the committee should have interviened in the Gracenotes RFA, irrespective of what was said before. Requests for Adminship is a community guided process, would it be fair for the arbitration committee to influence this? I do not think so. I do not know the full background on the Everyking situation. If content is deleted because it contains personally identifying information, releasing that information is grounds for desysopping. This seems sensible to me.

4: Theoretical situation: an OTRS respondent blanks a section of an article on a living person, clearly stating that it is an OTRS action based on a semi-credible legal threat in the edit summary. The respondent then protects the article and leaves a note on the talk page asking for the section to be rebuilt, citing OTRS again. An administrator comes along and unprotects it 15mins later and reverts to the old version. A series of administrative and editorial reversions take place, with protection and unprotection (with content reversions) occurring three times in quick succession before both administrators are emergency-desysopped.

The article is then reprotected by a third administrator, and a case brought before the Arbitration Committee. Upon reviewing the OTRS ticket privately on the mailing list, it contains a semi-credible legal threat which is now being dealt with by legal counsel. With regards to the three administrators, what sanctions do you 'support' applying to each of the three?
 * Who is the third administrator? One is the OTRS respondent, the other is the unprotector, is the third someone who reprotected or reunprotected? I would prefer to know this before answering this question.
 * The third is an uninvolved administrator who came across the situation and protected the article independant of the other two, totally uninvolved, and after both had been desysopped, with the sole intention of stabilizing the situation.  Daniel  00:42, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I apologise I have taken so long to respond to this- I have had two coursework deadlines, as well as being busy doing other stuff, as well as having forgotten. I promise I will respond to this ASAP :-) --Deskana (talk) 02:07, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

5: What is your (emphasis heavily intended) definition of a wheel war?
 * I define a wheel war as where administrators and continually doing and undoing each others actions without sufficient discussion. The above question describes a wheel war in my opinion. An administrator can also wheel war on their own, if they are undoing single actions systematically. Continualling undoing other administrators decisions without adequate discussion, even if it's undoing many decisions rather than just one, is still wheel warring. That said, you don't need to wheel war to undo another administrator's actions without sufficient discussion.

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?
 * As an administrator, I made sure I was capable of performing all administrative abilities. I know when it is appropriate to protect, block and delete. I also made sure that I understood range blocks (something that wasn't that hard to me, given my technical background), and I made sure I understood history merges and selective revision deletion. I like to know how to do everything, and I think this will help me as an arbitrator. My diligence and dedication. I can also remain calm and civil at almost all times which is important for an arbitrator (I say almost because nobody is perfect and I do admit I have my bad days when I unnecessarily snap at people. These are the days I edit less).
 * 1) Do you have any experience in real life that could relate to activities arbitrators have to deal with?
 * In my old part time job, I was a Team Leader. This taught me more than leadership (which doesn't really apply to arbitration). I learned problem solving skills, and how to think outside the box. This is important for arbitration, you need to be able to think of inventive ways of solving problems (in the form of sanctions). You also need to know how to deal with angry people, and I dealt with a lot of angry customers in my old job. Last year for one of my courses, we worked as a team and we adopted a consensus based model, and did not have a team leader. This is similar to how the arbitraiton committee works, as there is no chair and it is a team of peers. Our team was very effective and we reached a consensus on all issues.

Thanks for your time.  Majorly  (talk) 08:30, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Question from Addhoc
Are there any subject areas that you would recuse yourself from? Thanks! Addhoc 14:02, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * No, I do not believe there are. Of course, should there be a conflict of interest or percieved conflict of interest, I will of course recuse. --Deskana (talk) 16:24, 2 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 14:56, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It would be easy for me to say "fairness" or something similar, but the role of an arbitrator is so complex it cannot possibly be summed up in a word... or perhaps even in a paragraph. Arbitrators are clueful people whom the community have decided can make difficult decisions for them, with their utmost confidence. They must be fair, respected and know the community's standards on behaviour and conduct.

Question from Bloodpack
How would you described the present condition/status of the Wikipedia community in general from your own POV? †B lo o d p ac k† 20:57, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia works. This is what's important. Perhaps we're not doing things the most efficent way. Perhaps we're wasting time doing certain things. But overall, Wikipedia works. Every student in my university knows Wikipedia, and a fair few of my lecturers love it. One nearly had a fit when I told him I was an administrator. The community on the whole is sensible, respectful, and helpful. It can also be observed from watching the way that Requests for Adminship works that they community is cautious but trusting- most administrators that are promoted work hard to benefit the community, and the community trusts them to do so. This is my opinion.

Question from Nishkid64
Could you explain why you have essentially stopped editing the mainspace? I see 2,000 edits since September, but around 60-70 on the mainspace. I ask this question, because I am curious regarding your priorities on Wikipedia. Thanks, Nishkid64 (talk) 21:36, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Everything else is secondary. This I recognise. Typically, when I log onto Wikipedia, I check my e-mails. Frequently I have one or two private requests which I need to deal with, as well as responding to mail on the checkuser and medcom lists. This takes a significant amount of time. Normally the private requests I get via e-mail are other administrators requiring consultation, or new users that are confused and require significant help. I then check my watchlist. I read my messages on my talk page. I respond to these. I then check to see if there are any outstanding Requests for Adminship that need closing. Then I either check to see if there are any renames or usurpations to perform, or check the Requests for Checkuser page. I can spend a good one or two hours doing all of this. This leaves me very little time to contribute to mainspace. Add into the equation that my specialist subjects (Computer Science and Mathematics) are very well documented on Wikipedia, and that I can rarely add anything useful into these articles. I contribute indirectly by dealing with other duties that do not require mainspace editing. I prioritise these because there are only 20 or so bureaucrat/checkusers. I regret that I cannot spend more time editing articles, since that is the entire point of the Wikipedia project. But I like to think I do my bit.
 * Fair answer, but I strongly disagree with your comments regarding Computer Science and Mathematics articles. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of articles in those fields that still need to be written. Also, there are many that need to be worked to ensure accuracy and proper subject coverage. There's thousands of articles to select from. Nishkid64 (talk) 04:27, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * My main area of expertise is the Java programming language, and that is very well covered. I hope that as I learn more indepth and complicated techniques, I will find it easier to contribute to those articles. For now I just have my other duties :) --Deskana (talk) 12:17, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Further to the above suggestion, I have been keeping my eye out for a list of articles in my subject area which I think I can improve. Today I attempted to do some research on "Integration" in the context of Software Engineering and discovered a few articles which could use some substantial improvement, and noted them at User:Deskana/Notes. I plan to improve these, as the nature of my research means I am now (supposedly) an expert on them. :-) --Deskana (talk) 23:01, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Question from User:Veesicle

 * Will you keep your crat powers should you be elected? Do you agree with the separation of powers? User:Veesicle 22:05, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I will. I note that User:Raul654 and User:UninvitedCompany are bureaucrats, and they are currently members of the arbitration committee. If me holding the bureaucrat permission was a conflict of interest, I would absolutely resign as a bureaucrat to serve on the committee. However, renaming users and flagging bots are fairly non-controversial tasks, and promoting administrators does not have any direct relation to the arbitration process. I think the separation of powers is a good model to use in a government. But Wikipedia is not a government. I also do not believe that bureaucrat/checkuser/oversight rights are powers. They are tools, checkuser and oversight especially. Checkuser is a tool that lets me see the IPs of editors. There is no power in this. Of course, the ability to accounts without having to cite evidence could be viewed as power, but all checks are logged and my actions will be frequently reviewed, so it becomes immidiately obvious if I have acted inappropriately. I hope this answer sufficently explains my viewpoint.


 * What are your opinions of secret evidence being given privately to ArbCom? To what extent is this acceptable? User:Veesicle 00:50, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Please read the answer to Picaroon's fifth question. I will format them as a numbered list for your convenience. --Deskana (talk) 13:51, 12 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) 23:38, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * There is only so much one arbitrator can do. I cannot, for example, ensure that the whole committee is active, which is what is required. All I can do is promise that I will devote a fair amount of my time to the arbitraiton process to be sure that the committee is never waiting on me to respond to cases. This I promise, and this is all I can realistically promise to speed up caseload. I also plan to review each case thoroughly (which is a given of the process), and when I feel confident enough to do so, propose my own sanctions and remedies to ensure the committee works as efficently as possible.

Question from Anonymous Dissident
By submitting a candidacy for the December 2007 Arbitration Committee Elections, you are indicating your commitment to Wikipedia, and your belief in its continuance and worth as a project. What do you personally see for the future, both near and distant, of Wikipedia as a collaborative effort to bring free knowledge to the planet, and what are your feelings in regards to the Arbitration Committees relation to the successful endurance of the quality and credibility, among other aspects, of Wikipedia, and of Wikipedia itself? -- Anonymous Dissident  Talk 02:40, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Without getting overly sentimental, Wikipedia is the future. I am very proud of my involvement in Wikipedia. All my friends know I am heavily involved in the project. Perhaps I talk about it a bit too much to them. I would be even more proud should the community decide they wish me to arbitrate for them. My personal belief is that we need to impliment Stable Revisions. This may not work in practicality, and indeed, Veropedia is an extremely viable alternative to Stable Revisions. I regret I cannot contribute to Veropedia due to my lack of time (I try to maintain a student life as well as a "Wikipedia life", as it were). I think Wikipedia will go far into the future. Perhaps not as Wikipedia. Perhaps Citizdenium will take all the good parts of Wikipedia and eliminte the bad, as it wishes to do so. If they accomplish that, then I will applaud them. This is the spirit of Wikipedia. I see Wikipedia going on far into the future. There is no signs that we will collapse and the project will fail. And even if it does, it will live on through projects like Citizendium and Veropedia. The arbitration committee is an important part of the project. They help Wikipedia carry on with its everyday business- giving the world access to the sum of all human knowledge- by removing disruption from the project. This is an indirect contribution, but a very important one. If the arbitration committee succeeds in removing disruption, then the articles will be better written, and Wikipedia will continue to thrive. This is very important. The committee handles sensetive and confusing matters for the community. Arbitration is important to let Wikipedia thrive. (So maybe it was a bit sentimental =])

Question from The Geogre
Several times over the past twelve months, ArbCom and the Administrators noticeboards have come face to face with the practice and consequences of "back channel communications" between users (communication by private means or non-Wikipedia means). Do you believe that administrators and users "need" to have private conversations? If they do not need them, do you think that media that cannot be transported over to Wikipedia (IRC, instant messageners) have a proper use? Do you think that media that should not be ported over to Wikipedia (e-mail) because of the expectation of privacy inherent in them have a proper use for non-Arbitration purposes? Geogre 21:11, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Do I think there is a definite need? That depends on how you define your question. If you include closed mailing lists like arbcom-l and checkuser-l, then yes, there is a need. The Arbitration Committeee needs to be able to discuss sensetive matters privately in some cases. The same is true for checkusers. If a checkuser performed a check and didn't totally understand the results (this is possible but I can't really say why: WP:BEANS) and they were not allowed to post about it offwiki, they would either have to publish the direct results of the query (violating the privacy policy) or say he doesn't know, which isn't a very useful response. In this case, it's useful to have an area where checkusers can post non-public data, so that other checkusers can help in. Infact, checkuser-l is perfect, since people from other projects can help you too, and it's great for cross-wiki co-ordination. However, if you exclude mailing lists, I do not think there is a need for private communication, but it's certainly useful in some circumstances. For instance, if someone were to message me on IRC privately reminding me that there is an RFA to close, then that's a good use. Were they to send the same message and attempt to influence me, then that is not good. Offwiki decisions should not be made on IRC, or in any other private media. Firstly, Wikipedia is supposed to be an open project. Secondly (and more practically), how are people that aren't involved in the private discussion supposed to enforce the decision if they don't know what happened in the discussion. I also answered your second question here, that IRC does have a proper use. If someone says my name on IRC then I'll see it straight away. If someone leaves me a message on my talk page, then I will not read it straight away unless I'm actively browsing Wikipedia. For your third question, I think e-mail shouldn't be totally private. Yes, there is a certain expectation of privacy. But, for example, if someone were to e-mail an admin saying "I'm going to vandalise using open proxies and there's nothing you can do!", then it makes sense to publish the jist of this e-mail on the Administrators Noticeboard so that something can be done about it. Of course, unnecessarily publishing private e-mails isn't a good practice anywhere, including on Wikipedia. I hope this answers your questions.

Question from U.S.A.U.S.A.U.S.A.
What kind of temperment and judgement do you think you have as a user and a person? Please forgive me if you don't understand the question.--U.S.A.U.S.A.U.S.A. 18:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * As a person, I'm very tolerant. I respect people's views and beliefs, and focus on common ground, not on differences. So many people will get along much more amicably when they realise what common ground they share, rather than debating the differences. I'm forgiving, but not the point where I let people walk all over me. I also like to think I'm friendly and fairly easy to get along with. I believe in both giving and recieving constructive criticism, as its the only way you can learn, whereas baseless and angry criticism won't do anything other than work both parties up. As a user and administrator, I believe in tough love in certain cases. I use Qst as an example here. I think banning him was the right thing to do, and I believe he's changed, so I think we can give him a second chance. This is tough love, I think. I can think of novel solutions to problems that keep everyone happy. Does this sufficently answer your question?
 * Yes, thank you.--U.S.A.U.S.A.U.S.A. 15:30, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Questions from User:Secret

 * What do you think about self-admitted alternative accounts, see User:MOASPN, and User:Privatemusings as an example? This is a Secret account 01:37, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
 * People are permitted to own multiple accounts and use them, provided they do not disrupt Wikipedia or violate WP:SOCK. This is fine by me. I do not approve of accounts to avoid scrutiny for your actions, and neither do our policies ("Good hand, bad hand" accounts). If someone creates an alternate account such as User:Throwawayarb, then they can expect suspicion and investigation, since there is no way of verifying that they actually are an editor who retired, since they could just as easily be a banned user on a proxy.
 * What do you think of Wikipedia Review? This is a Secret account 01:37, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It's a good concept. I have an account on Wikipedia Review under this name (Deskana). There are very reasonable users on there. One thread that interested me was something like "What would you do if you met Jimbo Wales?". If I recall correctly, quite a few people said they would be nice to him, not rant and rave. Some users of that site acknowledge that Wikipedia is a valuable resource, even though they may only think this is true for areas that are not likely to be controversial. I would think the average user on Wikipedia Review is someone with a genuine complaint about the way Wikipedia works, who is willing to admit that we do have our good sides, and of course our bad sides, just as the average user of Wikipedia is someone who contributes every now and again and is totally oblivious to the whole meta side of things. Unfortunately, there are lot of banned users there who seem to just want to troll Wikipedia, and since they can't evade their blocks, decide to do it there since there are a lot of Wikipedians there. I suppose I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Wikipedia Review. All too often I see threads started that look like they might end up being interesting and honest criticism of Wikipedia, but they turn into mudslinging matches or rants about people that blocked them.

Questions from Coren

 * Part of the Wikipedia philosophy is that, in theory, even the worse vandals can be coaxed and tutored into becoming valuable editors. Is there a point at which you will judge someone to be "beyond redemption"?  That is, where it no longer appears reasonable to expend further efforts towards reform and exclusion becomes unavoidable? &mdash; Coren (talk) 04:05, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
 * No. That said, that does not mean that I think bans should not be implimented. I think a ban can be quite an effective way of making someone reform. I view my "No" to mean that we should be willing to review bans and indefinite bans if there is evidence they may no longer be necessary, I do not mean that since I think nobody is beyond redemption that we shouldn't ban them and let them walk all over the encyclopedia doing whatever they want. As I say above, Qst is my example. I think that banning him was a good decision, as was unbanning him. I think he might even agree that the ban was worthwhile, as it changed the way he thinks about his behaviour, allowing him to contribute better (which is what he wants).
 * The principal mandate of the Arbitration committee is to interpret the policies, guidelines and community consensus. There are cases, however, when individuals or the community will turn to the arbitrators to make policy, or draw the line in the sand in gray areas.  How do you feel about those cases, and where do you feel the responsibilities and authority of the committee fall?  &mdash; Coren (talk) 04:05, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I wonder whether you intentionally worded that the way you did. Turning to arbitrators to make policy and draw the line in the sand is fine by me. Arbitrators are experience editors (by definition) and have clue. Arbitrators can help form policies based on their experience, not based on their role as arbitrator. On the other hand, turning to the committee to make policy and draw lines in the sand is more of a problem. As you say, the mandate of the committee is to interpret policies, guidelines and community consensus. Which leads me to a question. Did you mean to say arbitrators, or do you wish to me respond as if you asked me if the committee as a whole should undertake this action?
 * Sorry if I (quite accidentally, I assure you) mislead you; I did mean arbitrators as a group (i.e.: the committee). &mdash; Coren (talk) 21:27, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Either question is fine, of course, it's just the two have totally different answers for me so I wanted to be sure that I was responding correctly :-). So, my answer. I do not really think it is appropriate for the committee to make policies. This is not what they were elected for. Drawing lines in the sand, perhaps, but this would really depend on the case, and should be evaluated on a case by case basis. If you wish to further quiz me, feel free to provide a hypothetical scenario.

Question from Ragesoss
In the Wikipedia context, what is the difference (if any) between NPOV and SPOV (scientific point of view)?--ragesoss 03:11, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:SPOV is an old proposal that suggested we adopt a Scientific Point of View rather than a Neutral Point of View. On non-scientific articles, or non-controversial scientific articles (something like carrier sense multiple access with collision detection, which I was reading before I answered these questions), there is no difference between SPOV and NPOV. As you start to approach topics like Evolution, Fundamentalism and Intelligent design, SPOV starts to vary considerably from NPOV. SPOV would basically call for us to say (at some point) in the Fundamentalism article that intelligent design is not what happened, and that we did infact evolve. This can cause major problems. It is better for us to be neutral than it is for us to say "It's wrong because it's not scientific". I think NPOV can more effectively convey the truth than SPOV. NPOV says "Here, this is what some people think, and this is what some other people think. Make your own mind up". If we portray this from a NPOV standpoint and it's totally baseless, it becomes quickly obvious that it's baseless because we can't find any supporting evidence to provide, which in my opinion, is much more convincing than a SPOV which basically attempts to just say "It's not scientific. It's wrong". It's important to note that NPOV does not mean we are obligated to present all view points, just major view points. We're not supposed to give undue weight to minority view points. NPOV does not mean we have to minority viewpoints like Flat earth as being possible. The round earth theory is now widely accepted as truth, so we can say as such. Similarly, we can give more weight to sources like scientific journals with many references and bibliographies, as opposed to opinion pieces or popular paperbacks. Banning all non-scientific sources is totally over the top, but sometimes it's better if they're given more weight on science articles.

Question from Cla68
Have you been the primary editor on any articles that have been successfully nominated for Featured or Good article status? Cla68 06:23, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * No. I used to be heavily involved on the talk page of Jesus two years ago, which was promoted to Good Article afterwards (December 2005, which is about when I stopped editing the talk page I think... this was a long time ago). I acted as more of a mediator there. Nowadays, I regret that I simply cannot find the time to try to improve articles in my specialist subject (Computer Science and Mathematics). If you wish for a more detailed reason as to why, see my summary of my typical day as an answer to Nishkid's question above.

Questions from jd2718

 * 1) I have seen it written that to be a good Arbitrator a WPian should first be a good editor. Do you agree? How would you describe your editing?
 * I have already answered above. See the question directly above this, and if you wish to see the breakdown of my usual day, look at the answer to Nishkid's question. For example, if you look at WP:RFCU, nearly all the cases there were closed by me. Also of interest may be WP:CRATSTATS (the column labelled 'Des'). If you feel my others answers are sufficient, please feel free to ask another question.
 * 1) I have read your statement several times, and your answers to the questions so far. I am missing something. Why do you want to do this? Is it more than trying to collect every hat?
 * I want to arbitrate because several people have told me that I would be an asset to the committee, and that quite a lot of people suggested I run (for a subset of the set of people that suggested I run: User:Daniel, User:WJBscribe, User:Alison, User:FT2). I have no interest in "collecting every hat". I help where I can. If I did not think I was capable of arbitrating, I would not put myself forward.
 * 1) I share the concern, raised in several questions above, about the number of "trusted" positions you hold / will hold. Is it possible for a trusted member of the community to hold too many permissions, to have too much access to lists, discussions, archives... (n other words, information?) Jd2718 05:37, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Please read my answer to Veesicle's question, above. I also notice that you have not asked this question to Raul, who holds the same technical rights as me, as well as being a current member of the committee. I am happy to take specific questions that relate to why I am not suitable to hold other rights as well as being an arbitrator. But for the most part I have addressed this above. I also note that candidates that are elected to the committee can take on checkuser or oversight rights if they wish, so I ask people to consider whether there is any practical difference to that as compared to me already holding them before I am appointed (if I am appointed).

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 23:29, 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?
 * This is a similar issue to the removal of adminship problem which has continually discussed. No consensus has ever been made that a removal process is needed. I believe the same sort of situation applies here. In order to successfully arbitrate, it is sometimes possible that one must propose remedies where a subset of the community (perhaps a subset with a common interest) will find unpopular. Indeed if the subset is large enough it may be possible to vote off the entire committee. So I do not think that giving the community a direct way of removing arbitrators is a good idea. That said, I do think that there should be some way to remove arbitrators. I'm thinking mainly of inactive ones here, though other situations may be considered. As I considered this more, I ended up describing an arbitration case. I was thinking that a vote could be held by the committee, with all members of the community allowed to submit their own evidence. The committee decides who has checkuser and oversight, and decides cases all the time, I think it is logical that they also decide when removing people would be appropriate. Of course, as with arbitration, other avenues must have been tried and failed first. Please bear in mind I am only thinking out loud here. These are not proposals, just my thoughts on what you said.
 * 1) 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?
 * I believe this is appropriate, yes. I cannot promise that this will be implimented if I am elected (since other committee members would have to agree with me), but I support removal of access from people who have not used the tool recently. It should be no big deal if someone has their access revoked for inactivity, and similarly should they come back and subsequently ask for it back, there should be no big deal about giving them their access back either. Things like the Data Protection Act (although not law in Florida, where the servers are hosted) should be followed in spirit, meaning we must undertake reasonable efforts to keep people's data safeguarded. This includes removal of access for inactivity. But like I say, giving it back if they want to be active again is no big deal either. Please note I do not think this applies to administrator or bureaucrat priviledges. The only reason it applies to checkuser and oversight is due to the fact they are governed by the access to non-public data policy. As administrators and bureaucrats do not have access to non-public data, I see no need to remove their rights simply for inactivity.
 * 1) 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?
 * Please read the answer to Coren's third question above, as your questions were largely identical. If you feel this answer does not answer your question to a satisfactory level, please tell me.

Question from Warlordjohncarter
One basic question. I noted in your responses to Lar above that you would oppose formally splitting the arbitration committee into multiple subcommittees, and agree with you on that. However, I wonder what your opinion of the idea of perhaps increasing the number of members of the committee, or possibly decreasing the required quorum, to the point that it would be more easily able to "break up" into smaller groups who would be able to take on a greater number of concurrent cases, and with luck speed some of the processes. These groups would not necessarily all have the same members every time, but would hopefully include those members of the committee who have a particular interest in or knowledge of the subject or point of contention. Would you favor or oppose such a development, and why? John Carter 00:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * An interesting concept, but this still has the problem where the committee isn't acting as a whole and people could possibly contest the results of cases by arguing that were there different arbitrators that were active on the case, the result would have been different. I strongly believe that every arbitrator should be involved in every case (of course accounting for recusals and periods of inactivity). Of course, it's not possible to force every arbitrator to participate in every case, nor should we. This is my personal belief.

Question from xDanielx
What is your opinion on the distinction between private (i.e., consensus through arbcom elist) and public (i.e., WP:RFAR) ArbCom decisions? Should both be regarded as equally authoritative? Does the ArbCom have an obligation to make the former publicly accessible upon reasonable request (assuming no privacy issues are involved)?
 * I'm not quite sure what you mean by "the distinction" between the two. The distinction is that one is performed privately, and one is performed publically, which you stated in the question. Perhaps you can reword this so I can answer it properly? Both decisions are equally authorative, since the committee has approved both. As far as I'm aware, the committee has no obligation to make private decisions public. That said, if someone asks to see the discussion and there are no reasons to decline the request (such as privacy concerns, or other concerns) then I see no reason not to let them see it.

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  16:23, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I think it's important to remember that the Arbitration Committee, although important, is not a legal team. The foundation has people like Mike Godwin to handle legal matters, and Cary Bass is very involved in these sorts of things too. The committee can help the legal team, but it's important to remember that the committee isn't a legal team itself. As Florence said herself on the mailing list, there's no need for these matters to ever get escalated to the legal level, and it's not hard to avoid it getting that far by removing libellous claims. The French lawsuit was a landmark though. Generally the Foundation is regarded as a hosting provider, and as a hosting provider is not responsible for anything which is hosted on their servers, as long as we remove illegal content as soon as we are notified of its presence. As long as we do not host content which is illegal in Florida, and remove anything possibly libellous as soon as we are notified, then there is very little legal danger.

Question from Jossi
What is your opinion on the use of multiple accounts in Wikipedia, as it relates to the recent discussions on the subject? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:21, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I have already answered this question. Please see my answer to User:Secret's question, above. --Deskana (talk) 23:50, 11 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?
 * I personally believe this, yes. This is something I will try to do, myself.
 * 1) If the arbitrator is active, should he be expected to comment in workshop / arbcom discussion pages?
 * It is expected that they at least read them, yes. They should only comment if they feel they have something to add, or wish to comment on a proposal, which they often do not.
 * 1) 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?
 * We should be more forgiving to newcomers, yes. Many may be unfamiliar with our policies (as fundamental as being civil may be, the benefit of the doubt does not hurt). It's clear the community holds administrators to higher standards and expects them to be model Wikipedians, but I prefer not to answer a question like this too specificly as civility needs to be handled on a case by case basis.
 * 1) How can WP:CIV and similar issues be enforced? Should they be enforced as efficient as 3RR?
 * Again, I would prefer not to generalise. However, civility is policy. Obviously we cannot let people be persistantly uncivil, as it disrupts the working environment of Wikipedia. I would prefer to leave actual implimentation to specific cases.

Questions from User:David Shankbone
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.
 * 1) Do you think this is a positive development?
 * 2) 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  18:24, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I must say I've not really noticed much of a change in terms of the way that articles are structed, if you compare to two years ago. Do you have more specific examples of this happening? --Deskana (talk) 20:40, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I prefer not to give specific example because it bogs the question down in that example; if you have not noticed anything then that answers my question. -- David  Shankbone  22:45, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * If you have a specific example of how an article has changed since a few years ago that proves me wrong, I'd like to see it, if possible. I hate to think I've been mistakenly viewing Wikipedia for so long. --Deskana (talk) 22:51, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I might assit: David mentioned articles on contentious issues, and the candidate said he didn't notice any substantive change on article structure. But more than structure, Deskana is probably referring to the fact that, in contentious articles, the problems mentioned by David did not surface in the last 2 years. They are quite older than that, and in fact even deeper: if the topic is polemic enough, often you have not only 2, but multiple sides to the issue, and also quite often, none of those sides will be developing their proposal in appropriate manners. What we see is multiple instances of POV-pushing that can easily deteriorate into edit wars, inappropriate discussions and other less-than-desirable consequences. And also curiously enough, the biggest problems don't usually concern topics pertaining to the US (David mentioned American society and its tradition of 2 points to each story), but rahter, they are normally regarding politically charged topics from Europe, Asia or Africa. Deskana's point that this hasn't changed in substance is valid. It hasn't. It has only changed in dimension: we now have a lot more people involved with the project, and inevitably, more POV-pushing. But perhaps David wanted to know what the candidate's approach to this situation is (or would be, if elected)? I'm not saying that this is what David was asking exactly though, I do not presume to be able to read minds ;). But if he can confirm it, the candidate will be able to address the question more readily.  I hope that this was of some help.  Redux (talk) 17:45, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That might be a reasonable assessment. I honestly don't have an answer and I myself insert "notable views" on articles.  The vast majority of my edits are not contentious, but I do monitor contentious articles and I have noticed more and more the Robert Novak says this, Frank Rich says that, Maureen Dowd says this, William Kristol says that.  Perhaps its the proliferation of the spin on events that I'm asking about, and whether the candidates feel it serves a useful purpose or not.  Sometimes I think it does; however, sometimes I think it just serves as a flag for readers to look for code names or spin to tell them what to think.  I don't know if the goals of our project are advanced by this or not....  Since many arbitration issues are born from these sorts of disputes, though, I think it's 1) something arbitrators should be familiar with; and 2) they should have a reasoned philosophy about "POVS of Notables" in articles.  These notables are used to validate POVs of editors.  It's also become extraordinarily easy to find someone deemed "notable" who has advanced almost any sort of viewpoint imaginable.  Again, I'm split on how I feel, but it's something that is cropping up more and more, especially since we now have notables editing our site themselves.  -- David  Shankbone  17:53, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification, David. I think it's good that we're tying exactly what was said to who says it. As I mentioned above (when talking about scientific points of view), we do not give undue weight to relatively minor viewpoints. I don't think that the "flags or codenames to tell them what to think" bit it is the case. I support tying quotes to who said them, in general. --Deskana (talk) 19:37, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Question from xDanielx
Under what conditions should ArbCom members who leave the committee through regular means (i.e. term expiration or retirement) remain on, or remove themselves from, the ArbCom e-list? Should they remove themselves regardless of circumstances, or upon reasonable request from anyone likely to be acting in good faith (without scrutinizing the merits of the request), or only when compelling reasons are offered?
 * This principle is something I have encountered before as a bureaucrat. In general, users who voluntarily resign their adminship status can have it reinstated at any time without reconfirmation through requests for adminship. However, if we implimented this as a hard and fast rule, people could technically game the system by performing abusive actions for which they may be desysopped and then resigning, so that in a few months they can have their rights back. So, that's why we say in general. Implimenting a hard and fast rule would be unnecessary, and make the situation more complicated rather than simpler. So, I would say that in general former arbitrators should continue to have list access. Things like this should be handled on a case by case basis, rather than by attempting to impose some complicated rule to handle every situation. To provide an example, Dmcdevit resigned from the committee, and still has mailing list access. This does not bother me in the slightest, since we'd basically be cutting our noses off to spite our face if we removed his access to the mailing list just because he resigned, since he's an asset to the project.

Question from AniMate
Arbitration is the last step in dispute resolution. However, first and foremost, we are here to work on an encyclopedia. Editing and adding to the project should be everyone's first priority. Can you point out some of your recent mainspace contributions that you are most proud of? AniMate 11:59, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Please read the answer to Nishkid's question above. --Deskana (talk) 12:02, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Question from Sumoeagle179
Arbcom is obviously demanding and time consuming. How do you see this affecting your bcat and checkuser duties and time? Sumoeagle179 (talk) 20:24, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * With respect to bureaucrat duties, I imagine a large decrease in the amount of WP:CHU requests I can handle, and a decrease (of unknown magintude) to WP:RFA. I do not plan to abandon RFA, nor CHU, but I imagine I will be acting more as part of a system of checks and balances, as oppose to being particularly active. I do not think this is an issue, because there are plenty of bureaucrats around to do renames and RFAs... and we're currently discussing a new bureaucrat, WJBscribe, and it looks likely to pass at this stage.
 * With respect to checkuser, my checkuser duties will simply take a different focus. I have only consulted the committee once or twice on checkuser cases they've been handling, as we mostly just leave each other to it (I handle more community requests, they handle more arbitration requests). I imagine I'll have substantially less time to handle RFCU. Again, this is not a problem, especially given Alison has just received the rights, and she is without a doubt more technically adept than I. I imagine she will be getting stuck in on RFCU and largely replacing my input there.
 * Of course if I have some spare wiki-time I'll be looking at these areas, but working on the committee is hard work, and I can make no promises either way about my activity, should I be elected.
 * I also note you have not asked this question to Raul654, who is another candidate who holds exactly the same technical rights as I (Deskana, Raul654). Perhaps you were not aware of this fact. If not, you may wish to ask him this question. :-) --Deskana (talk) 20:42, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, I did know about Raul654, plus he's the FA director and an PhD candidate. I'm asking now.Sumoeagle179 (talk) 22:31, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, I understand why you might have chosen to ask me and not him, anyway :-) --Deskana (talk) 22:35, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * See my question to him.Sumoeagle179 (talk) 22:38, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Just added a 3rd question to him. He has not answered several, that does not make me happy. Sumoeagle179 (talk) 22:41, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Additional Question from Cla68
So that it won't look like I'm targeting anyone in particular, I'm asking this question of all the candidates. Were you a recipient on the email list used by Durova to distribute her evidence used to wrongfully block !! as detailed in this ArbCom case? Cla68 (talk) 00:44, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * No. I did not even know the lists existed until a few days ago. --Deskana (talk) 00:52, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Questions from Rschen7754
Thank you. --Rschen7754 (T C) 06:58, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) What are your views regarding debates such as WP:RFAR/HWY and WP:SRNC? (In terms of dispute resolution).
 * As you have participated heavily in the Arbitration case, I would prefer not to answer a question as open ended as this. People will no doubt be voting on arbitrators based on their viewpoints in certain matters, as opposed to whether or not they trust them to Arbitrate. I'm not saying that's what you're doing, but I would prefer to apply this standard to all questions asked of me, if possible. If you wish to ask a more specific question relating to this Arbitration case, I would be happy to consider answering. I am curious as to why you are asking me these questions, as they seem to specifically relate to things you've been involved in? :-)
 * 1) a) What is the purpose of a WikiProject? Do you believe that WikiProjects b) own articles or c) can enforce standards (such as article layout) on articles?
 * 2) *A Wikiproject is a co-ordination effort to improve articles relating to a specific subject area.
 * 3) *WP:OWN is the relevant policy. Wikiprojects do not own articles. No one person does. On a purely idealistic level (as opposed to a view from a legal of copyright standpoint), articles are owned by the whole community, or to get even more idealistic, owned by every person on the planet.
 * 4) *Wikiprojects are collaborative efforts to improve articles. They can write style guides for their own articles but at the end of the day, articles are expected to uphold the manual of style. On a more practical viewpoint, how exactly can a project enforce a style guide? Blocking editors? This would surely be inappropriate.
 * 5) Do you believe that parent WikiProjects have the right to impose standards (such as article layout) on sibling WikiProjects? (Case in point: WP:USRD and its state highway projects)
 * 6) *This question is answered above, in the answer to your last question.
 * 7) a) What is your definition of canvassing? b) Does it include project newsletters or IRC?
 * 8) *Canvassing is the relevant behavioural guideline. As an Arbitrator I am expected to enforce policies and guidelines, not my own opinions.
 * 9) *Your question is too broad to be answered appropriately. Whether or not a newsletter is canvassing depends entirely on the content of the newsletter. Again, the same is true of IRC. The content of the messages determines whether or not it is canvassing.
 * 10) a) In terms of vandalism and good faith but horrible edits, where do you draw the line? (scenario: an editor makes a mess of articles that cannot easily be fixed). b) Should blocks, protects, and / or rollbacks be in order?
 * 11) *Ultimately, a block is a measure to prevent damage to Wikipedia. This damage normally takes the form of disruptive edits. However, if people are ruining Wikipedia via good faith edits, then obviously that is not appropriate either. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying we block someone for making useless edits. But ultimately, that may be necessary. Talking to someone nicely and explaining what they're doing wrong must be done first. I would ask that people reading this question consider my past blocks. I have never blocked inappropriately, I do not think.

I did make a mistake on question 3 - it should read as follows. Apologies. --Rschen7754 (T C) 02:14, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Do you believe that parent WikiProjects have the right to impose standards (such as article layout) on child WikiProjects? (Case in point: WP:USRD and its state highway projects)
 * Wikiprojects can't enforce anything. So, no.

Question from Risker
There is currently a proposal at the Village Pump (Policy) that policies be protected from free editing. Amongst the reasons for this suggestion is to prevent parties from revising policy in a way that favours their point of view, to prevent edit wars on active policies, and to maintain a stable policy base so that users can rest assured that they are staying within policy. Do you believe that this is a good course of action for the encyclopedia? Please respond from your perspective as a prospective member of Arbcom who would be responsible for interpreting policy (but feel free to add your opinion as an editor as well). I will be asking this question of all candidates. Thank you. Risker (talk) 01:29, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
 * On an idealistic level, I'd say that since policy is descriptive rather than prescriptive, it doesn't matter. But that's not really true, since people do need to read policies sometimes. I have no opinion either way on the matter, which is why I have not commented on the proposal as it stands. I see the merits of the proposal (stability etc.), and also the drawbacks (against the "wiki-way").

Question from Blue Tie
1. Can/should Arbcom create wikipedia policy? Or develop a proposed policy for community vote?

2. Do you intend to help create or propose wikipedia policy as an Arbcom member? --Blue Tie 13:13, 30 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Please read the answers to Coren's questions. Those questions were, for the most part, identical to yours. Please do ask further questions if my answers there were not sufficient. --Deskana (talk) 13:31, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Question from SilkTork
How would you vote on this proposed principle: "While anyone may edit Wikipedia without the need to register, that meta-editing activities such as voting in an ArbCom Election are best protected by registering than by sleuthing".  SilkTork  * SilkyTalk 17:34, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I cannot answer this question. The scenario is too hypothetical to say either way. Do you mean to say that it's better that we force people to register accounts to vote? I agree with this sentiment. Though it's good to keep things open, allowing anyone to edit could cause large problems, where it may be difficult to determine if vote stacking has occured. The same is true of RFA, for instance. --Deskana (talk) 01:45, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Questions from Irpen
The questions below refer to the issues of ArbCom's integrity and transparency that needs to be maintained despite the universally accepted view that certain things should remain private. Arbitrator's private mailing list, known as Arbcom-l and the arbitrators only IRC channel may obviously include information that cannot be made public under any circumstances. Additionally, being aware of the intra-ArbCom communication may give case parties an obvious advantage over their opponents. Who do you think should have access to such a list besides current arbitrators whose community trust has been confirmed in election that took place within the last 3 years? Should it include users that where never voted on? Should it include users who were voted 4, 5 or more years ago? Should users who are parties of the case, comment on the case, present evidence on the case, be allowed to have read access to the list where the case is discussed by the decision makers? What is your opinion about the parties of the case (or anyone) contacting arbitrators privately about the case? This is not an hypothetical issue and it  has been brought up in past cases. The obvious drawback is that if charges are brought secretly, the accused cannot see them and respond. Would you support an amendment of the arbitration policy that would prohibit parties from writing to arbitrators privately in relation to the cases? Giving evidence that has to be private due to its sensitive nature would of course be exempted but should this be the only exception? Arbitrators who are parties of the case or have an involvement with the case parties that can reasonably be considered to affect their impartiality are expected to recuse. What involvement constitutes the ground for a recusal has traditionally been left to the arbitrators' own discretion, except for obvious cases when arbitrators themselves are case parties. While recused arbitrators, especially the case parties, are allowed to take an active part in cases, collect, present and discuss evidence at the case pages, the same way as ordinary parties, they retain the opportunity to read the thoughts of other arbitrators at Arbcom-L and respond to those privately. It is technically difficult to exclude arbitrators from communication on a case they are involved. But would you support a prohibition for such arbitrators to discuss the case with other arbitrators through the private communication channels, except when submitting evidence whose nature warrants non-publicity? Policies are written by the community and not by the ArbCom. However, at some point the ArbCom made it clear that the arbitration policy is exceptional in this respect and that the ArbCom intends to control the main policy that governs its own action rather than be governed by the policy written by the community. Would you support returning the control of the ArbCom policy back to the community or should the ArbCom write its policy itself?
 * Mailing list
 * My feelings on regarding current/former Arbitrators are in my answer to Picaroon's second question and XDanielx's second question. I would say as a loose rule that it should not include users never voted on. Two exceptions I can think of at this time are: an Arbitrator appointed by Jimbo Wales with a vote, and Jimbo Wales himself. Given my previous definition, this would mean that parties to cases should be unable to read the list. Users that are both Arbitrators can parties should refrain from commenting.
 * Secret evidence and secret communication of arbitrators with non-arbitrators
 * In general, I would support this idea. I cannot think of any exceptions to the principle at this time.
 * Recusals
 * This should be a rule, yes. Recusal essentially means "I am not an Arbitrator on this case", but since it is technically difficult to hide posts from certain Arbitrators, they should simply not reply to said e-mails.
 * Community oversight over the arbitration policy
 * I think that the Committee should control the policy as a safety measure. There has been a lot of instability with policies recently, with them being protected due to edit warring. The Arbitration Policy cannot suffer such instability, as it is critical to the project. That said, the Committee should seriously consider any consensus in the community to change the policy, but should retain a veto as a safeguard.

Question from Haukur
I'm asking the following of the current top 10 frontrunners in the race.

ArbCom has the power to overrule any decision made by Jimbo in what he refers to as his "traditional capacity within Wikipedia". Under what circumstances would you overturn a decision made by Jimbo? This isn't meant as a trick question - I would be perfectly happy with a simple answer like "I'd consider overruling a decision he made if I thought it was a bad one". But if you'd like to go into more depth or consider some past Jimbo decisions as examples then I'm fine with that too. Haukur 16:35, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Were a case to be brought before us that involved Jimbo, there'd have to be extenuating circumstances for us to undo his actions. De facto, he still has a traditional role here. This was proved by his recent desysopping: the desysopping was performed out of the bounds of normal desysopping, but no steward or bureaucrat (myself included) was willing to undo the desysopping. This alone proves he still has a special role. As a hypothetical example, I'd consider undoing an action of his if it was later found out that the action was performed based on faulty evidence. But in this scenario, I would imagine Jimbo would undo his own actions. I can't forsee any circumstance where Jimbo would do something that would require Arbitration to sort out, but as he says, it remains an option.

Questions from Mrs.EasterBunny
QUESTION UNANSWERWED FOR OVER 4 DAYS. Being rephrased in case it could not be understood. Mrs.EasterBunny (talk) 00:32, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

As a member of ArbCom, would you place more emphasis on content or behavior? For example, in the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/SevenOfDiamonds case, there is voluminous discussion on whether SevenofDiamonds is really NuclearUmpf, but no discussion on what got NuclearUmpf banned in the first place. If SevenofDiamonds=NuclearUmpf, then this is a behavioral problem but doesn't have to be a content problem. If SevenofDiamonds edit was reasonable (I have not researched it) would it make a difference?

The above may not be the best example but I can't remember the parties involved in similar cases that illustrate the point better. On occasion, I have seen what looks like an editing admin block someone unjustly, perhaps because of a dispute in editing an article that both of them are editing but that the blocked editor was not editing an extreme POV (so the admin is using sysop powers to to block and win an edit dispute). The blocked editor then probably feels the block is unjustified and creates a sock. Many times, people running for WP office will cite a clear cut case of someone with bad editing and bad behavior. However, what if there is good editing and improper block (which would point to admin misconduct about content), followed by sock creation justified because the block was improper (which would point to editor misconduct about behavior)? Does the first misconduct excuse the second? Or is the second one misconduct (socks) much more serious and punishable? (This is not an easy answer because excusing admin actions would tend to increase the workload of ArbCom because it allows admin to act on whim. However, excusing the second misconduct might seem to encourage socks). In the SevenofDiamonds case, there doesn't seem to be any ArbCom determination of the merits of his/her edits. If they were entirely reasonable, would you have advocated a lesser punishment or no punishment?

The above issue has some similarities with the Durova / !! case where some say that !! was doing no disruption. Please note that I am not asking your opinion about the Durova case because it involves a 2nd issue (e-mail). This may be another "content vs. behavior - what should be ArbCom's priority"

2. Question 2 (similar question) is "What would you recommend if you were an ArbCom member and saw a situation where a school IP was blocked and productive editors were being blocked by an overzealous admin as being a sock of a vandal?" The school vandals and the productive students have the same IP. I saw that once where it seemed like several students were being indefinitely blocked on the excuse that they are a sock of a vandal. Other than behavior, it would be impossible for the students to prove they are not socks. Is then behavior-only a valid reason for near automatic unblock or must they go through a lengthy ArbCom process? Mrs.EasterBunny (talk) 17:54, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

3. Picaroon asked a question about wheel wars. Would you accept all wheel war cases for ArbCom consideration? Mrs.EasterBunny (talk) 18:00, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Additional question from Irpen
I am asking this question to top ten candidates as of 02:20, 7 December 2007 (UTC). The final results of elections may or may not fully reflect the community support expressed by the vote tally but are subjected to Jimbo's approval, that is he makes the decision taking the community's opinion expressed during the election only "under advisement". Although it may seem a surprise to many, Jimbo is free to not follow the tallies and he may not necessarily appoint the top slice of the candidates according to their approval percentage. The historical precedents suggest that he may again appoint not strictly according to votes, that is skip the candidate with higher percentage of support in favor of the candidates with less approval rating but more to his liking (or if you want to be less cynical, the candidate on who community is making a "mistake that Jimbo would correct.")
 * Jimbo's decisions vs the community support

If this happens again in this election and, hypothetically, you would be the candidate promoted over the head of another candidate who got the higher support, would you accept such promotion? Also, would you accept the election result in general if the candidates that are switched are both below your level of support that is such switch would not affect your own promotion? --Irpen 02:27, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * When I put myself forward, I knew that Jimbo retains final decision. If he decides to appoint someone with a lower percentage than me and not appoint me, then that's fine. Going in, I knew this was the way the process works. Similarly, the reverse is true. If I were appointed and someone with a higher percentage was not, I would hope they would be fine with it.

Question from wbfergus
In a somewhat similar line to Risker's question above, what is your position on the following? wbfergus undefinedTalk 15:18, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * A policy page has had a very active discussion for many months. All sides (loosely termed 'pro-change', 'anti-change' and 'issue-specific') of proposed changes have made their cases back and forth numerous times. The 'pro-change' group is mainly users, with a few Admins. The 'anti-change' group is mainly Admins (including those who helped write the policy over the years) and a few users. The 'issue-specific' group is a mixed collection of users and Admins, but mainly users. All three groups constitute around 40-50 people total, per announcements on the Village Pump and related policies, to garner more widespread community involvement either way.
 * 1) After numerous discussions, and comments over a span of several days to several weeks on specific issues, what should constitute a consensus? 60%, 75%, 90%, or unanimous approval?
 * 2) If around 75% agree to a change, is it appropriate for Admins (especially those who helped write the policy) to revert changes and protect the page from further edits against their approval?
 * 3) Is it appropriate for 6 or 7 Admins to more or less block changes to a policy through protection and reverts, when very active discussions have been ongoing and the majority of those participating constructively (not just saying "No" or "Oppose" without constructive comments) agree to changes?
 * 4) Would it be appropriate for such a policy page which does clearly have a disputed section to have a tag in that section stating that section is under dispute and to participate on the talk page?
 * 5) Should policies solely dictate acceptable and unacceptable content, behaviour, etc., or should they also define Wikipedia-specific terms and definitions (without stating so) that conflict with usage in different disciplines, or should such terms and definitions be more appropriately suited in a guideline linked to and from the policy?
 * 6) Do you agree that policies are meant for enforcement or 'enforceable actions', while guidelines are meant to give guidance?


 * For the record, I feel that I need to close my questions to all candidates, as one of the editors in the above 'subject' has filed an ArbCom request. As such, it could be interpreted as unseemly or whatever for these issues to be addressed in this forum. I was in the process of cancelling my questions and replying in an RfC and the related ArbCom request when I had to leave to take my wife to a Dr. appointment, so pardon the delay in cancelling this. wbfergus undefinedTalk 20:50, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Question from Pinkville
Wikipedia is a community that produces and maintains a (still-nascent) encyclopaedia. This community has particular social and political structures that define it and that, presumably, affect the character, quality, and depth of its encyclopaedic output. Can you briefly summarise some political and social aspects of the Wikipedia community that you consider important or noteworthy, that perhaps need to be challenged or developed? How does the structure of Wikipedia encourage or inhibit access to decision-making and issues of power/control? Or does any of that matter? And what are the implications for the Arbitration Committee and its members? Pinkville (talk) 22:03, 12 December 2007 (UTC)