Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2007/Candidate statements/Physchim62

Physchim62
On 2005-05-01, I took advantage of a public holiday to read the Wikipedia tutorial, and started editing. At the end of October 2005, I took advantage of a week's holiday to read up on Wikipedia policies and answer the Community's questions, and I was granted admin status on 2005-11-06. Since then, Wikipedia has become much larger and much more complicated...

With more users, more admins and many more policies, it is understandable that there are more differences of opinion as to how those policies should be implemented. It is the role of the Arbitration Committee to provide concrete solutions for concrete problems which arise from these differences of opinion. It does not "legislate", or make policy itself—that role is reserved for the Community or, in some cases, the Board. It's role is to provide a forum, and the services of respected members of the Community, to decide that one interpretation gives better results than another. This role is valuable: it allows us to move on from our disputes and return to the important business of creating a free encyclopedia.

The Arbitration Committee can only operate with the confidence of the Community. It is not fifteen arbitrators (or thirty, or however many) who enforce the remedies: it is the Community as a whole. Arbitrators present or prospective should remember this in their actions.

Many criticisms of the Arbitration Committee are not the subjet of these elections. No candidate can promise faster case resolution, nor more arbitrators, nor shorter term lengths for those arbitrators: these are questions for the Community as a whole to address. Myself, I can only promise to respond to disputes which are brought before the Committee with an analysis of the evidence, and of Wikipedia policies and principles, leavened with a dose of common sense. Physchim62 (talk) 12:35, 6 November 2007 (UTC)


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