Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Candidates/Stephen Bain/Statement

Stephen Bain
Hello, I'm Stephen Bain, I'm a history PhD student from Australia. You can see a selected list of my mainspace contributions here. I was previously a member of the Committee in 2008 and 2009, having been appointed following the 2007 election to a one year term (see my 2007 candidate statement, questions page and voting page) which was extended to two years partway through 2008.

The immediate impetus for my decision to stand for election again is the relative lack of candidates this year, but underlying that decision is my feeling that I have the capability to further contribute to the work of the Committee and to bring my experience to bear on helping improve its operation.

You may wish to judge me on my prior work as an arbitrator. For that please see the case archives for my voting record, and also the relevant statistics pages (2008, 2009). I drafted a number of cases while on the Committee (including Cold fusion, Geogre-William M. Connolley, Tango and ADHD) and substantially contributed to the drafting of a number of others (including Eastern European mailing list).

I think there are a number of areas in which the operation of the Committee, particularly with regards to cases, can be improved, most notably in the management and use of evidence pages. Such pages are regularly inundated with comment and argument, and become impenetrable to uninvolved users, hindering the effectiveness of the arbitration process. If elected I would pursue greater management of evidence pages, while still respecting the rights of users to advance their position in a case, to reduce redundancy and the admixture of evidence and comment. Moreover, I would endeavour to attain greater arbitrator involvement in cases during the evidence phase, perhaps even a more inquisitorial role (through increased use of questions to the parties or otherwise) so as to better guide the process.

I should acknowledge that I have largely been inactive on wiki since leaving the Committee at the beginning of the year; I have devoted my attention to other interests, though I have kept up with current affairs on the various mailing lists. If elected, I would however be more than capable of devoting the necessary time and attention to arbitration work.

My account was formerly named thebainer, and I have a doppelganger account bainer; other than that I have not used any other accounts.

Thank you.