Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2009/Candidate statements/Example/Questions for the candidate

=General questions=
 * General Questions submitted by the users indicated. For more information, please see the guidelines posted here.

Arbitrators' skills
(1) Thank you for running, and good luck with your candidacy. What do you find to be the most important characteristic of a successful arbitrator on Wikipedia? This can be either a historic trait seen in one or more of the 53 arbitrators who have served since 2004, or an ideal trait that you would like to see in future arbitrators. (UltraExactZZ)
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(2) Please provide evidence of your ability to write concise, clear English. You may wish to refer to your ability to detect ambiguities and unintended consequences in text such as principles, remedies and injunctions. (Tony1)
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Challenges of being an arbitrator
(3) As an arbitrator you will find that most of your work is done away from enwiki, either on mailing lists or on the private Arbitration wiki. How will you cope with the tension between the community desire for openness and the need for confidentiality for personal information about parties to arbitration decisions? (Sam Blacketer)
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(4) Sociologists have spotted that individual members of groups of people sometimes suppress independent and dissenting thoughts which they think may be unpopular with the other group members. As the Arbitration Committee depends on the cohesion of its members, and has to take controversial decisions, do you believe that there is a need to take steps to avoid this approach of 'groupthink'? If so, what steps would you take? (Sam Blacketer)
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(5) I've noticed that many arbitrators, both former and sitting, have tended to migrate away from mainspace editing as they become involved in the project's more political aspects. Do you feel it is important to maintain some level of contributions to articles even as an admin, bureaucrat, and of course, arbitrator? (Juliancolton)
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(7) Arbitrators will have access to at least the following mailing lists: Functionaries-en, checkuser-l, oversight-l, clerks-l, and arbcom-l. How much traffic to you anticipate on each? How much of that traffic will you read? How much of that traffic will you actually read? (Tznkai)
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ArbCom and admins
(8) Should the process of (a) reviewing admin actions that may have breached policy, and (b) desysopping, remain solely with the Committee (and Jimbo), or would you prefer that a community-based process also perform these roles? (LessHeard vanU)
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(9) Over the last year Arbcom has desysopped a number of admins. Generally do you think Arbcom have (a) not desysopped enough (b) got it about right (c) desysopped too much over this period? Why? (Davewild)
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(10) Why do you think the committee chose to desysop Jennavecia but not Jayron32 (the motion to desysop Jennavecia was passing with all arbitrators having voted when Jennavecia resigned, the motion to desysop Jayron32 had been and was rejected; see the previous link)? How would you have voted? (Jake Wartenberg)
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(11) Thank you in advance for your candidacy and for your thoughtful answers. Previous questions deal with the removal of administrator privileges. However, on a slightly different topic, do you believe that the rights of the community are best upheld by ensuring that the community-directed RfA structure is the only forum for acquiring or reacquiring administrator privileges? That is: do you support or oppose the recent Committee practice of bypassing RfA by directly re-granting previously revoked administrative privileges without community comment or approval? (Finn Casey)
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(12) Would you consider taking a case where it is clear, for example, that an admin has lost community trust, but has had no RfC, attempts at resolving the issue etc? (Majorly)
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(13) Under what circumstances would you consider desysopping an administrator without a prior ArbCom case? Be specific. (NuclearWarfare)
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(14) If it's discovered that some admin (call him/her Example) is, in fact, a sock of a banned user, and that some users (including, but not only, admins) who had voted in Example's RFA knew this at the time, what measures should be taken against those voters? (Od Mishehu)
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ArbCom's role and structure
(15) Over the last year Arbcom has made a few change in how it runs, such as introducing the Ban Appeals Subcommittee and establishing the Arbitration Committee noticeboard. What changes (if any) would you make in how the Arbitration Committee works? (Davewild) 19:29, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
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(16) In last years election one of the successful candidates said in answer to a question "ArbCom should not be in the position of forming new policies, or otherwise creating, abolishing or amending policy. ArbCom should rule on the underlying principles of the rules. If there is an area of the rules that leaves something confused, overly vague, or seemingly contrary to common good practice, then the issue should be pointed out to the community. A discussion and the normal wiki process should generall be allowed to resolve the matter" Do you agree, or disagree, and why? (Davewild)
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(17) ArbCom cases sometimes become huge, divisive messes, diverting vast amounts of editor time and goodwill into pointless arguments, oppressing and even driving away constructive editors who get caught up in them (the description 'Kafka-esque' seems to arise quite a lot), and leading to nothing except "remedies" that are really just retributive punishments (often ill-targeted) that fail to remedy any real problems. How far do you agree with this, and what would you do about it?Do you believe that restrictions placed on editors should be punitive or preventive? If the latter, then what steps will you take as a member of ArbCom to ensure that restrictions are not applied unless the findings of fact explicitly indicate that there is ongoing disruptive behaviour to be prevented? (Kotniski)
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(18) Not all Wikimedia Projects have an Arbitration Committee, and some that did have a committee no longer do so. Do you accept or reject the view that the English Wikipedia benefits from having an Arbitration Committee? Why? (Camaron)
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(19) A number editors in the community have expressed concern that the Arbitration Committee is becoming too powerful and expansive in response to some committee actions including the creation of the Advisory Council on Project Development and BLP special enforcement. Do you agree with them? How will you deal with such concerns if you are successfully elected to the committee? (Camaron)
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(20) Conduct/content: ArbCom has historically not made any direct content rulings, i.e., how an article should read in the event of a dispute. To what extent can ArbCom aid in content disputes? Should it sanction users for repeated content policy violations, even if there is no record of repeated conduct policy violations? Can the committee establish procedures by which the community can achieve binding content dispute resolution in the event of long-term content disputes that the community has been unable to resolve? (Heimstern)
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(21) Nationalist and ethnic edit wars: In my opinion and many others', the worst problem to plague Wikipedia. Do you have any thoughts on how to solve this problem? For example, should the Arbcom be more willing to issue sanctions, such as bans, topic restrictions and revert restrictions (and if possible, maybe comment on when different types of sanctions are appropriate)? Should the community, particularly administrators, take on more of the responsibility for this problem? If so, how? (Heimstern)
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(22) Civility: How and when to enforce civility restrictions remains controversial. How admins should enforce it is largely outside the scope of this election, so I ask you this: To what extent and how should ArbCom enforce civility? Is incivility grounds for desysopping? Banning? Are civility restrictions a good idea? To what extent is incivility mitigated by circumstances such as baiting or repeated content abuses (POV pushing, original research etc.) by others? (Heimstern)
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(23) How will you attempt to improve ArbCom's efficiency and ensure that cases do not drag on for months? (Offliner)
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(24) In your opinion, how important is the dispute resolution process? (Majorly)
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(25) Do you feel that it is important the community tries to resolve issues before arbcom step in? (Majorly)
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(26) What do you think of the Arbitration Committee's decision to set up Advisory Council on Project Development earlier this summer? If you were one of the founding members of the advisory council, please explain why you accepted the invitation to join the committee. (NuclearWarfare)
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(27) As of May 2009, only 5 of the 16 Arbitrators had made more than 500 edits to the mainspace in the past calendar year. Several arbitrators' past 500 edits stretched back over 12 months. Considering this, do you feel that the Arbitration Committee is qualified to judge conduct disputes that overlap heavily with content disputes? Please elaborate. (NuclearWarfare)
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Specific past examples of ArbCom's decision-making
(28) Do you agree with the committee's decision to reban the_undertow/Law (see motion here)? Would you have handled the situation differently? (Jake Wartenberg)
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(29) Iridescent and MZMcBride have both publcally admitted that they knew that Law was the_undertow at the time of Law's RfA. While MZMcBride did not vote in Law's RfA, Iridescent did. Noting that Iridescent is currently a user who has the ability to request the admin bit back at WP:BN at any time and that MZMcBride is currently a sysop, what do you think, if anything, should the Arbitration Committee have done? (Jake Wartenberg)
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(30) Out of all the cases handled by the Arbitration Committee in 2009, which one(s) do you think the committee as a whole handled (a) the most successfully, and (b) the least successfully? Please explain your choice(s). (Camaron)
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For the purpose of the following seven questions, please assume the principles in question are directly relevant to the facts of the case that you are deciding as an arbitrator. Would you support or oppose these principles as written should they be proposed in a case you are deciding, and why? (Daniel)

(31) "Private correspondence", July 2007
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(32) "Responsibility", December 2007
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(33) "Bad Blood", February 2008
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(34) "Perceived legal threats", September 2008
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(35) "Privileged nature of mediation", December 2008
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(36) "System administrators", June 2009
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(37) "Outing", June 2009
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Other issues
(38) Originally RfARs were named in the style of Party X v. Party Y in line with the idea of two groups in opposition to each other (eg. User:Guanaco versus User:Lir). Later it was changed to naming an individual user (eg. Husnock). Now cases get random names like Highways 2. What naming convention do you believe is the appropriate one for ArbCom to use in designating case names? under what circumstances should a case name be changed after opening, such as in ? (MBisanz)
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(39) Do you feel that the English Wikipedia's current BLP approach is correct in all aspects? Why or why not? If not, what needs changing? (NuclearWarfare)
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(40) Would you please list all of your accounts, active at any time, and any IP addresses that you have made substantive edits from? (Hipocrite}
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=Individual questions=
 * Questions asked individually to each candidate may be placed here.