Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Candidates/Shell Kinney/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: Other than the Audit Subcommittee, I've actually ended up doing everything on that list.  I initially served on the Ban Appeals Subcommittee and after my three months were up, have coordinated for the rest of the year.  I'm an administrator on the mailing list and also coordinate responses to incoming mail.  I do the occasional checkuser when a case requires, for banned user appeals and if SPI backs up a bit.  I've oversighted material brought to my attention, though do less from the oversight list itself since it moved to OTRS.  I've drafted or co-drafted for some of the cases this year and proposed motions in some of the amendments.  I probably spend more time than most interacting on case pages, my talk page or even email from time to time. As far as personally and professionally, I worked for more than 15 years as a project manager and management consultant with a techie background.  I understand how to get things organized, keep things moving and mediate tough issues.  I also come from a long line of geeks where the family PC was a UNIX workstation for many years.  When it comes to looking at checkuser data, I've got a bit of a leg up there and can explain those details in ways that others can understand.  And finally, I own a lot of cats; when it comes to getting 18 folks moving in the same direction whether it's on a case or making a decision about mail responses, it is an awful lot like herding cats at times. :-) Shell   babelfish 14:40, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 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: On-wiki stuff is all about knowing when to take a mental health break, generally in the form of a walk, cup of tea or a bubble bath (but not all at the same time mind you). It turns out the little X button in the corner of the browser is a life-saver; at the end of the day, volunteering for the project is just like working anywhere - you won't always get along with or agree with everyone, but that's not why you're doing things anyways.  Working in customer service during college, I quickly learned that people tend to direct their frustration in all the wrong places, but when you really get down to it, they have a problem that needs addressed some how. Off-wiki, I tend to be a bit more bullet-proof.  I'm quite open about who I am and what I do with the project.  Michelle Kinney is my real name (and you're welcome to call me Shell, everyone else does) and I have no problem answering questions about other bits of my life if asked.  I've not had any in-person attempts at contact (though I'd be happy to introduce people to my Rotties) and the few phone calls to my home and office have been met with varying degrees of hilarity.  I'm lucky to have family and friends that support all of my volunteer work (not just for Wikipedia). Shell   babelfish 14:57, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 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.
 * A: Ah, but context is the difference between "Well, that makes sense." and "Whoa, what are you thinking?".
 * 1) *(a) "Private correspondence"
 * A: I can't imagine a reason not to support that; not only is copyright a concern, but common courtesy. I think at this point, it's generally known that emails of concern can be forwarded to ArbCom rather than posted.
 * 1) *(b) "Responsibility"
 * A: For the most part - being responsible for one's own actions is rather common sense. I think I might have clarified the bit about "This does not apply..." - even in cases where someone can't give the details, they still need to be willing to respond to queries even if it's only to explain why they can't explain further.  It's important that everyone have someone who can review their actions - we all make mistakes.
 * 1) *(c) "Perceived legal threats"
 * A: I might have copyedited that one a bit, but I think it's a good point in general. Strident remarks accusing other editors of defamation or libel can have a chilling effect.  There are ways to say "Hey, I'm concerned about this bit of editing you did" in a manner that's less threatening and various noticeboards available if you've got an immediate concern.
 * 1) *(d) "Outing"
 * A: Probably not. I think I understand the point they were getting at - sometimes people who are open with their real life may claim they're being outed when someone they don't agree with uses that same information.  On the other hand, someone who's mentioned their information once shouldn't have to deal with it being constantly brought up as a bludgeon against them in a dispute.  It's not an area where I'd be comfortable with a hard and fast rule; it takes looking at each case to see what's really going on. Shell   babelfish 15:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 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: I usually find myself on the more lenient side of things, but there are a few things that would lead me to feel stricter sanctions are necessary. Behavior during the case itself can be a big factor. Editors who continue to argue and attack each other on case pages remind me of someone who can't help but steal, even with a uniformed police officer standing in front of them.  It's usually an indication that they either don't realize what they're doing or don't care; in either case, sometimes a break from that area or that stressor is the best thing for them.  Awareness is probably a big factor for me - someone's much more likely to address a problem if they know it's there. As much as we want to welcome everyone, some people just don't find the project a good fit.  It requires a high degree of collaboration and, maybe even more difficult, the ability to swallow our pride at times and drop an issue that others disagree with.  We tend to give folks a lot of chances to acclimate themselves and go with the idea of least disruption (i.e. can we take away a small set of articles or a topic) first, but occasionally despite our (and I'm referring to the community here, rather than ArbCom) best attempts, editors are just unable to work within our structures and may cause significant disruption for those editors who can. So I guess that while I'm likely to try creative things and would rather be able to help people back into a better spot, I recognize that there are times the rose-colored glasses need to come off. Shell   babelfish 15:40, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 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: I'd agree with that. ArbCom isn't government; we can compare things against community norms and mention it if the community norms are confusing or contradictory but we can't dictate what those community norms should be. Shell   babelfish 15:56, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 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: ArbCom can help sort out the behavior side of content disputes, which can sometimes calm down and area and allow productive discussion to happen.  In rare cases, ArbCom has sanctioned editors who were clearly disrupting content norms, such as misrepresenting sources on a regular basis or repeatedly inserting original research despite many discussions. ArbCom has stepped in an set up a process for community discussion in a handful of cases where constant behavior problems were a result of the dispute.  I think it's important though that they then left the discussion and the management of it, to the community.  In some of these intractable disputes, I think it would be great if the community could initiate more of these project-wide discussions in an attempt to finally resolve perennial content concerns one way or the other. Shell   babelfish 16:06, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 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: I think most of the cases this year went fairly well, if we judge by a lack of continuing problems. In the larger cases, like Transcendental Meditation movement or Climate Change, I think they made an impact but didn't fully resolve either situation.  With the first, the behavioral problems are subtle and not necessarily sanction worthy.  The topic area desperately needs more involvement from other editors (especially those without a dog in the fight) to help resolve remaining issues - so while it's frustrating to see problems re-occur, it's likely that ArbCom isn't in a position to help with those things.  With Climate Change, I think we ran in to a number of problems, especially the sheer volume of evidence and comments during the case and the push to close it quickly once it had gone on for far too long.  Between those issues and others, I'm not certain that we really were as effective there as we could have been.  Editors have since pointed out that there were others who likely needed topic bans and we're still seeing some battling in a variety of places from editors who haven't been able to let things go. Shell   babelfish 16:46, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 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: I think we can improve more on case management, though things have improved some this year.  Part of that means changing the expectations of behavior at cases, part of it is encouraging clerks to stop discussions that become unproductive battles and part is pitching in ourselves to keep things on track and up-to-date.  Getting things changed can be difficult at times (see herding cats above), but a willingness to stick with things, encourage new ideas and give those new ideas a try will go a long way.  I'd also like to see more willingness to follow up on cases we've heard that didn't fully resolve the problem; when we keep seeing the same people and issues, it's an indication that what we tried didn't work and needs a bit of review. Shell   babelfish 17:22, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Individual questions
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 * 1) Question: Your recent comments about plagiarism and FAC worry me. Please discuss your values regarding personal responsibility and the duties and/or limitations of Wikipedia systems like FAC. Do all Wikipedia systems (including ArbCom) have responsibility to curtail bad or unethical behavior, or should this be governed by individual editors? --Moni3 (talk) 16:19, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A: I think there's two different types of responsibility there; editors are responsible to ensure that their editing meets Wikipedia standards and as a community, we're responsible for ensuring that our processes and procedures do the same. Sometimes that means we (either individually or as a community) need to review the way we do things and make changes where appropriate.  As an example, and since I've worked there a bit, our views on copyright cleanup have evolved significantly over the years.  What started out as rather basic processes for reviewing articles or images pasted from elsewhere on the web is now a thriving area where many types of review take place (huge props to Moonriddengirl, the queen of copyright).  When a new problem or idea is expressed, it sometimes results in new processes or changes to existing processes.  Now ideas like plagiarism, close paraphrasing and similar issues are reviewed alongside more clear-cut copyright problems.  For instance, when editors realized that we sometimes had problems where editors were found to have caused copyright issues in more than one place, the community worked together to develop a process that's now known as contributor copyright investigations.  In another case, an editor realized that while we often deleted articles that were always a copyright problem, we didn't consistently delete problematic revisions if there was good history.  This led to the development of a template that non-admins can use when cleaning up articles to ask for revision deletion. I think we've got another case here that's an opportunity for growth. As we've recently discovered, there doesn't seem to be a point in our current article review processes where copyright issues are checked.  Whether that's something that might be best as part of the reviews themselves (Good Articles, Peer Review, Featured Articles) or better as a separate process, is something that needs discussion.  Whatever the case, I think it's clear that, as a community, we've missed the boat a bit here and need to make some changes to address this concern.  In addition to any process changes, eduction is going to be a big part of resolving the problem to make sure that everyone who's editing is aware of these concerns and can help these kinds of things from creeping in from the ground up. Shell   babelfish 17:56, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Question: In this permalinked thread, a long term editor in good standing asked you for clarification on two diffs which were included in his finding . Both of these were on the proposed decision talk page, and both appeared to be good faith comments on the case, on a case talk page. Can you please explain how presenting good faith, civil arguments on a case page during a case constitutes battleground behavior, and do you believe it is appropriate in general to sanction an editor for civil arguments made during a case? ATren (talk) 05:08, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A: It would be unfair to look at just two diffs from an editor's history which were uncivil and come to the conclusion that the editor must always be uncivil. They could easily have had a bad day, been responding to personal attacks or it could just be completely out of character.  In the same way, it's unfair to look at two diffs given as examples in an ArbCom finding and decide the finding is inappropriate.  Especially in this case, there was significantly more that went into the individual findings than a review of a handful diffs.    Those particular diffs were not provided because they were incivil, but because they were part of an overall pattern.  They were one of a large number of complaints about the same issues, between the same editors as part of an approach to disputes in the topic area that was overly personalized.  One of the reasons Climate Change reached arbitration was because the editors in the topic area were having difficulty working collaboratively and the community hadn't had much luck making sense of the claims and counter-claims that persistently permeated the area.  Personally I spent about 10 hours per participant during the early stages of the case reviewing months of their interactions and other edits in the topic area.  At that time I was not involved in drafting the case and did not save diffs in my notes that might have been better than those eventually used in the finding.  However, whether or not we were able to pick the best examples, the underlying principle still remains the same.
 * 1) Question: why were you the first to endorse the claim that these diffs "were not civil"? Please explain to us how any of them are uncivil.  Would you make the same decision again in similar circumstances? Do you understand the concept that justice must be seen to be done, and that decision making should be transparent? --Michael C. Price talk 16:34, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A: Well, I was the first because I copied the finding to the page. As for why those were incivil, they called the actions of other editors "highly questionable", "bullying", "highly inappropriate", "quite suspect", "spiteful", "biased" etc.  They were also not isolated cases, but many were repeated to the same editors and all in reference to what the sanctioned editor considered to be the other "side" of the dispute.  While I don't think that the Climate Change case was completely successful, I'm comfortable with this particular finding and my decision there has been reinforced by this editor's actions after the case, mostly by repeats of the same inability to drop an issue, increasingly strident remarks and insistence that their viewpoint of a situation is the only correct one.,  Those kinds of behaviors aren't conducive to collaborative editing and certainly not helpful to an already contentious area. I'm not certain what you're referring to when you say that the decision making wasn't transparent.  The case you're asking about had the most discussion between participants and arbiters ever.  When the participants expressed concerns that the first draft of the proposed decision didn't appropriately address the problem, the discussion led to a number of additional findings and remedies. More than ten archives of discussion were created during the proposed decision phase alone.  If you do have some suggestions for improving transparency during cases in general, I'm always interested in hearing new ideas.
 * Further discussion has been relocated to the talk page.
 * 1) Question: You noted that "ArbCom has stepped in an set up a process for community discussion in a handful of cases where constant behavior problems were a result of the (content) dispute". When ArbCom sets such a process, what kinds of parameters should ArbCom set to ensure success where ordinary content RFCs or policy RFCs have failed? Every dispute is different, so feel free to brainstorm. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:59, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A:I think that the Macedonia RfC was a good example of how this should work. One of the things that impressed me the most was that after ArbCom set up the structure, they kept their hands out of the pot. There's a few things that I think are going to be common in cases like these: a) The need for a community-wide discussion - If it's gotten to the point of needing intervention, then it's unlikely that the usual participants in the discussion will get over their stalemate.  It's also important that the final decision represents the community as a whole and we feel comfortable putting that decision away for a while. b) Some kind of referees; trusted members of the community, without a dog in the fight, who can keep the discussion on track, remove any ugliness and determine whether we've reached a consensus at the end. and c) A clear description of what questions needs answering.
 * Very clear answer. Thanks and good luck! Shooterwalker (talk) 17:12, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Question: [Regarding this edit]: ... What exactly are you planning to do in future to protect Arbs from criticism and prevent Arbs being held to the same standards as other editors? We have seen that you are prepared to descend to personal attack, insult and ridicule in order to protect other Arbs, will you be maintaining this stance or furthering it? Finally, should Arbs be long standing editors who know right from wrong before standing?  Giacomo   08:40, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * This question was edited down to 75 words. The original full text and further discussion is located on the talk page.
 * A:Even though copyright cleanup has expanded significantly since I started working in the area in 2005, there's still a lot of confusion about how the nuances apply to images and article writing in general. I have a great deal of respect for Mlauba, Moonriddengirl and the other members of the project who rather quickly got together some essays and an article for the Signpost to reach and educate a larger portion of the community.  I encourage anyone who'd like to learn more about the various copyright issues we deal with on a regular basis or pitch in a bit to help with the backlog to check out the project.
 * 1) Question: Do you have any regrets about the way the climate change arbitration or the fallout from it was handled? Would you do anything differently if you had to do it over again? Do you think any other members of the committee should have done anything differently? ScienceApologist (talk) 20:16, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A: Thank you for your patience during the holidays. I often look back at cases, especially when the dispute continues to appear frequently at AE or elsewhere and wonder if we could have done something differently. In this case, both the complexity of the issues involved and real life interruptions caused long delays that were certainly frustrating for everyone participating.  I was a bit surprised that the first draft of the proposed decision didn't contain any editor-specific findings or remedies; since the community had been unsuccessful in sorting out the area, a change of venue via discretionary sanctions seemed unlikely to resolve the issues.  After the initial delays, there was a push to wrap-up the case  - I'm not certain that the individual findings were as well rounded as they could have been.  In general, I wonder if our usual process for handling cases really scales well to the larger cases we're seeing more often. Shell   babelfish 06:06, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Question: A major criticism of the current arbitration (and governance) system is that it focuses too much on conduct at the expense of content, which is, arguably, the goal of the whole enterprise. This is summarised nicely in essay on the Arbitration Committee|Heimstern's essay. Do you agree there is a problem? What needs and can be done about it, if anything? Can ArbCom do anything in particular. - BorisG (talk) 03:39, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A: I would agree that ArbCom sticks closely to dealing with issues of conduct, though at times the cases can have a direct impact on content. Though the cases are rather rare, some cases have dealt with misrepresenting sources or persistent original research.  However, if someone's content issues don't reach the level of a behavioral problem, there's little in our current system that deals with those problems.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure there's a place for ArbCom to do anything unless a community-wide discussion reaches the conclusion that ArbCom should step in to arbitrate additional areas.  Shell   babelfish 06:06, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Question from Offliner. During the WP:EEML arbitration, veteran editor and clerk User:Manning Bartlett banned you from the case pages. Soon afterwards, Manning Bartlett retired from the project, citing "truly hurtful and frankly outrageous accusations of bias" made to him offline. How would you describe your involvement in this incident? Are you responsible for writing offline criticism of this user? Offliner (talk) 15:22, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A: Any discussion I had about the issue was done on-wiki. I actually went offline for the evening and when I returned the next day, the decision had been overturned by the Committee. Shell   babelfish 06:06, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Question: In your candidate statement, you mention your service on and co-ordination of BASC. Could you expand on this and say how well you think BASC functioned this year and what changes (if any) are needed? You also mention "drafting a case and [...] a few motions", which case and motions did you draft and how successful do you think they were? Carcharoth (talk) 03:47, 1 December 2010 (UTC) As disclosed here, this is part of a set of discussions on 'previous service record' that I am initiating with all current and former arbitrators about their candidacies.
 * A: When I started working with ArbCom last year, I volunteered for BASC because, since we can all deal with unblocks as administrators, I could jump right in and help out. During my 3 months there, Roger had suggested the idea of delegating coordinators to different areas of ArbCom management to help keep things on track and I've done that for BASC the reminder of this year.  Most of the work I do is administrative - checking emails for appeals, triaging those emails, coordinating any information requests to the appellant, the blocking admin or checkusers, running checkusers on appellants with a history of socking and sometimes even tracking down the discussions/SPIs/reports that led to the ban.  I had posted some statistics to the ArbCom noticeboard about the appeals we handled for the first few months (we average 20-30 requests a month), but since there seemed to be little interest, stopped in about April(I believe). One thing I noticed about BASC (and the committee in general) over the year is that the enthusiasm that starts the year out productively wanes a bit as the year goes on.  About the time summer vacation hit, I had a more difficult time getting volunteers for the subcommittee and we haven't been operating on the formal structure since about that time.  Since working on more of an ad-hoc basis actually sped up our response time for the majority of the cases and allows us to get more input since the entire committee sees the discussion on-list, I think that this less formal structure may be an improvement.  Currently we're still working on the basis of a proposal and three supporting votes, with no opposes, in everything but the most obvious of cases (examples of obvious cases being a 24 hour block that would expire before we'd get an answer together or a banned user still actively using sockpuppets).  If this continues to be a viable solution, I'm hoping that, by allowing everyone to pitch in when they can, it will keep the appeals moving well throughout the year and avoid that mid-year loss of momentum. I drafted the Russavia-Biophys case and ended up adding a number of proposals in the Climate Change case toward the end.  As far as the motions, I'd really have to go back and look - since those are usually in reference to a case where we need something formal or have some disagreement and need a vote, they really could be archived just about anywhere.  The first case I drafted was more about disputes within a particular topic area than those particular editors. I ended up proposing some slightly different topic bans than the usual; rather than try to assign a weight to an editor's behavior to determine a topic ban length (which I found to be difficult and somewhat arbitrary), I went with the idea of indefinite bans.  Similar to an indefinite block, they're meant to be a preventative measure that can be removed when there's evidence that the problem is resolved (rather than being forever).  As of yet we haven't removed any of those bans, so it's difficult to say if the indefinite rather than length is going to be useful, but the topic area itself does seem to have gone back to normal editing so at least I think we correctly identified the underlying problems. I'm not quite as optimistic about the Climate Change case.  It was significantly more involved and the problems had spread much further.  While I think the individual sanctions were a necessary improvement, I'm not certain we really hit the heart of the issue here.  I also would have liked to clone about two more of me during those last few weeks since I'm not confident that individual sanctions were as well-rounded as they could have been.  There were some cases pointed out on the proposed decision talk page (unfortunately very late in the process) that certainly fell within the behavior we were sanctioning.  One of the other things that really stuck out for me was the way some editors were dreadfully treated over their participation in the topic area - there were many personal attacks and insinuations; some editors could expect friction (or worse) for every action they took or comment they made.  I think this added significantly to the problems in the area and was so far out of line with expectations that it deserved at least a finding; however, since the idea didn't get traction when I mentioned it on the list, I left it out of the bits I added.  I also worry about some of the incidents since the close of the case.  At one extreme, if topic-banned editors continue to engage in the same disputes, we haven't resolved the problem, we've moved it elsewhere.  On the other extreme, we're prohibiting editors from engaging in normal community discussions for fear they might mention the topic area and drama will start (this ties in with the hounding and poor treatment I mentioned).  In this case, I think we may have gone too far towards that second extreme. Shell   babelfish 08:58, 1 December 2010 (UTC)