Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Candidates/HJ Mitchell/Questions

General questions

 * 1) Skills/interests: Which of the following tasks will you be prepared and qualified to perform regularly as an arbitrator? Your responses should indicate how your professional/educational background makes you suitable to the tasks.
 * 2) *(a) reviewing cases, carefully weighing up the evidence, and voting and commenting on proposed decisions;
 * 3) *(b) drafting proposed decisions for consideration by other arbitrators;
 * 4) *(c) voting on new requests for arbitration (on the requests page) and motions for the clarification or modification of prior decisions;
 * 5) *(d) considering appeals from banned or long-term-blocked users, such as by serving on the Ban Appeals Subcommittee or considering the Subcommittee's recommendations;
 * 6) *(e) overseeing the allocation and use of checkuser and oversight permissions, including the vetting and community consultation of candidates for them, and/or serving on the Audit Subcommittee or reviewing its recommendations;
 * 7) *(f) running checkuser checks (arbitrators generally are given access to CU if they request it) in connection with arbitration cases or other appropriate requests;
 * 8) *(g) carrying out oversight or edit suppression requests (arbitrators are generally also given OS privileges);
 * 9) *(h) drafting responses to inquiries and concerns forwarded to the Committee by editors;
 * 10) *(i) interacting with the community on public pages such as arbitration and other talk pages;
 * 11) *(j) performing internal tasks such as coordinating the sometimes-overwhelming arbcom-l mailing list traffic.
 * A:
 * 1) Stress: How will you be able to cope with the stress of being an arbitrator, potentially including on- and off-wiki threats and abuse, and attempts to embarrass you by the public "outing" of personal information?
 * A:
 * 1) Principles: Assume the four principles linked to below are directly relevant to the facts of a new case. Would you support or oppose each should it be proposed in a case you are deciding, and why? A one- or two-sentence answer is sufficient for each. Please regard them ''in isolation rather than in the context of their original cases.
 * 2) *(a) "Private correspondence"
 * A:
 * 1) *(b) "Responsibility"
 * A:
 * 1) *(c) "Perceived legal threats"
 * A:
 * 1) *(d) "Outing"
 * A:
 * 1) Strict versus lenient: Although every case is different and must be evaluated on its own merits, would you side more with those who tend to believe in second chances and lighter sanctions, or with those who support a greater number of bans and desysoppings? What factors might generally influence you? Under what circumstances would you consider desysopping an admin without a prior ArbCom case?
 * A:
 * 1) ArbCom and policies: Do you agree or disagree with this statement: "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". Please give reasons.
 * A:
 * 1) Conduct/content: ArbCom has historically not made direct content rulings, e.g., how a disputed article should read. To what extent can ArbCom aid in content disputes? Can, and should, 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?
 * A:
 * 1) Success in handling cases: Nominate the cases from 2010 you think ArbCom handled more successfully, and those you think it handled less successfully? Please give your reasons.
 * A:
 * 1) Proposals for change? What changes, if any, in how ArbCom works would you propose as an arbitrator, and how would you work within the Committee towards bringing these changes about?
 * A:

Individual questions
This section is for individual questions asked to this specific candidate. Each eligible voter may ask a limit of one "individual" question by posting it below. The question should:
 * be clearly worded and brief, with a limit of 75 words in display mode;
 * be specific to this candidate (the same individual question should not be posted en masse onto candidates' pages);
 * not duplicate other questions (editors are encouraged to discuss the merging of similar questions);

Election coordinators will either remove questions that are inconsistent with the guidelines or will contact the editor to ask for an amendment. Editors are, of course, welcome to post questions to candidates' user talk pages at any time.

Please add the question under the line below using the following format: -
 * 1) Question:
 * A:
 * 1) Question: Is your questions talk page open for additional questions? NW ( Talk ) 22:09, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A: HJ Mitchell &#124; Penny for your thoughts?   00:39, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Question: It's not surprising that hotly contested content areas (such as Israel-Palestine) generate ArbCom incidents. You mention that ArbCom can remind people of policy on a topic area to reign in truly fringe editors and resolve the dispute. What about areas where policy negotiations have failed? Should ArbCom ever apply a remedy that creates a community-run dispute resolution mechanism to find agreement on even a few principles for that topic? Shooterwalker (talk) 00:36, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A: HJ Mitchell  &#124; Penny for your thoughts?   00:51, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Just for clarification... it sounds like you're supportive of ArbCom at least trying to encourage a new round of community-led dispute resolution, if the situation calls for it. Are you suggesting that ArbCom creates an RFC with a smaller negotiating table, or an RFC with an enumerated list of smaller issues that might allow even one or two areas of agreement to emerge? Or both/neither? Shooterwalker (talk) 01:00, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Both, but probably in a much more ad-hoc format than an RfC. Perhaps a dedicated page in the WT namespace where a relatively small number of editors from each side try to hash out some kind of compromise on smaller slices of the pie rather than a free for all scrap over the entire pie. HJ Mitchell &#124; Penny for your thoughts?   01:26, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Very clear now. Good luck! Shooterwalker (talk) 02:10, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Question: As recently as August you reacted to criticism of your admin actions by making an involved block on the on the other party. Your reasoning of "legal threat" was resoundingly rejected at ANI and your block was quickly overturned.  If you react this poorly to criticism why should we think you'd react better with an even increased level of criticism?--Cube lurker (talk) 06:07, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A: HJ Mitchell &#124; Penny for your thoughts?   14:19, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The link to the incident in question along with further comment can be found at WT:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Candidates/HJ Mitchell.--Cube lurker (talk) 15:35, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Question: According to this tool, you have at the time made 4 edits to Arbitration/Requests/Case. How familiar are you with the arbitration process? Why do you think you would handle the arbitrator post well? Hey  Mid  (contributions) 09:36, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A: HJ Mitchell &#124; Penny for your thoughts?   14:19, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * So you mean that you usually keep a good eye at Arbitration/Requests/Case (and other ArbCom-related pages), but not making any statements/edits there so often? Also, you've made 8 edits at the enforcement page. I don't know whether most (or all) of those edits were related to one case only. Hey  Mid  (contributions) 14:34, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I keep an eye on them, but tend not to get actively involved. I've made a few actions from WP:AE, but I've also issued a lot of warnings relating to ArbCom sanctions and imposed a few 1RRs, particularly a few months ago in the I/P dispute. HJ Mitchell &#124; Penny for your thoughts?   14:51, 23 November 2010 (UTC)