Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Candidates/Torinir/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: I can perform most actions required of Arbitrators, and those I cannot, I can learn how to do so. While never in an official function on this site, as a former competition director for a gaming league, I have had to review matches for misconduct (or decline review if the request was unwarranted), consider appeals, monitor potential ban evasions, interact with the gaming community, and coordinate a team of admins for match spectating. I've also performed case review and responded to inquiry frequently as a technical support representative and debt collector.
 * 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: I'm no stranger to stress, having worked as a debt collector and technical support representative. It comes with the territory.
 * 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:Totally agree with the principle. Private correspondence shouldn't be made public if the people involved don't agree with it. There's far too much potential damage involved.
 * 1) *(b) "Responsibility"
 * A:Agreed. If you aren't willing to take responsibility for your actions, don't commit to those actions.
 * 1) *(c) "Perceived legal threats"
 * A:Agreed. Legal threats, whether real or perceived, can have a real chilling effect on users, as well as being a source of potential risk for the project itself.
 * 1) *(d) "Outing"
 * A:Half and half: I agree that once you put your real info online, you can't claim to have been outed. Redaction by the user won't guarantee that the info isn't still available online. There's enough internet archive sites that it would prove challenging to have personal info removed from the internet once it's there.
 * 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 don't have a preference one way or the other. I firmly believe in tailoring the penalty to the offense. Users with a history of violations would naturally get hit harder than a first-time offender unless that user asserts they would continue the behaviour during or after a restriction. As far as summary desysopping... a case would have to be an emergency. For case-based desysopping, a clear pattern of abuse and a refusal to conform with administrator conduct rules would be key points for a desysop ruling even on a first time case.
 * 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:Agree. The community is more than capable of creating and modifying the rules as need be, without ArbCom being involved as a group, however, individual Arbitrators should become involved in policy discussions when issues such as confusion, vagueness or conflict arises (since the Arbitrators are still part of the community). ArbCom is simply there enforce the rules when required.
 * 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:Sanctions on individual editors, articles and entire categories are the major tools for resolution of long term issues with over conduct on content disputes. As always, however, Arbitration involvement should be the last point in the dispute resolution process, which would indicate that current policies and procedures for dispute resolution have been proven fruitless. I don't believe adding to the already wide range of dispute resolution avenues would more benefit, just more instruction creep.
 * 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:Successful: Have to say Stevertigo 2, quick resolution and hits every point on the head. Unsuccessful: Climate Change, hands down. That case was mired in poor editor behaviour throughout the process, and subsequently took far longer to resolve than it could have or should have.
 * 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:Strike fast and hard on disruption on ArbCom cases. The whole CC case might have been resolved a lot sooner if it wasn't teeming with poor editor conduct.

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: