Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2011/Candidates/Coren/Questions

Candidates are advised to answer each of these questions completely but concisely. Candidates may refuse to answer any questions that they do not wish to, with the understanding, however, that not answering a question may be perceived negatively by the community.

Note that disclosure of your account history, pursuant to the ArbCom selection and appointment policy, must be made in your opening statement, and is not an optional question.

General questions




Individual questions
Please ask your individual questions here. While there is no limit on the number of questions that may be asked, please try to keep questions relevant. Try to be as clear and concise as possible, and avoid duplicating questions that have already been asked.

Add your questions below the line using the following markup:

Don't worry about the pretty formatting I use for readability; I'll tweak around as needed.

Questions from Rschen7754
I use the answers to these questions to write my election guide; thus, not answering specific questions will affect my recommendation. Also, I may be asking about specific things outside the scope of ArbCom; your answers would be appreciated regardless.

The questions are similar to those I asked in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010; if you've already answered them, feel free to borrow from those. Please note that question 3 has drastically changed from what it was in past years, though.

The first 9 questions are short answer questions. The last question is a bit open-ended.

 Thank you. Rschen7754 23:59, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Question from Alpha Quadrant


Questions from NuclearWarfare

 * Note to readers and respondents:
 * These questions are partially my own and partially derived from a set of questions Lar asked in the 2009 and the 2010 Arbitration Committee elections.
 * The Arbitration Committee may not ever be required to directly rule on some of these matters. Nevertheless, I believe that they should impact the Committee's thinking significantly and am interested in the candidates' thoughts. The responses will likely influence significantly my voting guide for this year.
 * To those who have answered these questions in the past, please feel free to reuse old answers. I would however appreciate a comment about how and why your views have or have not changed in the past few years.
 * Candidates: I would request that you please make an attempt to answer the core questions at the least. If you have the inclination to answer the additional questions, please go ahead.


 * Core questions


 * Additional questions



Question from Tony1: Professional mediation and indemnification
Restraining aggrieved parties in emotionally charged scenarios is central to the Committee’s role, and arbitrators are in principle exposed to legal action by those parties in a real-world jurisdiction. It matters little whether an action is launched or merely threatened, and whether it is quite unreasonable: the costs for an individual arb to forestall a default judgment in a foreign court would be considerable (and I believe it’s not hard to transfer an order to the courts in one’s local jurisdiction). The risk is greater because as volunteers we can’t be expected to provide professional mediation as an intermediary between wiki and real-world judicial processes—mediation that might head off litigation in the first place.

Given the WMF's annual income of some $20M, what is your view on whether the Foundation should:

 Tony  (talk)   00:55, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Questions from Sven Manguard
Looking over ArbCom cases from the past few years, it is clear to me that many times, editors involved in the dispute being heard in a particular case use the Workshop page as a platform to continue their disputes. These Workshop posts tend to take the form of 'finding of facts that the people on the other side of the dispute have committed heinous acts, heavy sanctions for the people on the other side of the dispute, and people on my side of the dispute get off without even a warning' (it's usually less transparent than that, but barely).



Questions from Russavia
There is a still open RfC at Arbitration/Requests/Clarification. As evidenced at this request, there are numerous admins and editors who have serious doubts over the Committee's unblocking of what is suspected, with a high level of good faith and WP:DUCK evidence, to be a banned disruptive sockpuppet. Do you think it is appropriate that after nearly a month and a half:



The last question is especially important as there are numerous uninvolved admins and admins who have previously dealt with the user in question, who are too "afraid" of going over the Committee's head, even in the face of evidence; if one assumes ownership of a problem as the current Committee has, then surely the current Committee must also assume ownership of their actual ownership of the problem possibly being part of said problem. If one looks at the answers thus far given at the request from arbiters closely, one can see that there seems to be a theme amongst arbs to suggest that the Community block the editor for other current issues; all the while the Committee avoids answering Community concerns at the actual clarification request. However, the other issues have only strengthened the opinion of sockpuppetry amongst other members of the Community.

As an arbiter who is seeking re-election, I would also request a response to the following:



Questions from Cool Hand Luke
I preface my questions with this: these are sincere questions based upon real concerns. I do not know how you will answer.

 Thanks in advance. Cool Hand Luke 05:22, 24 November 2011 (UTC)



Thanks again. Cool Hand Luke 20:20, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

 Thanks again; you have fairly answered some of my concerns. Others linger, but readers should be able to make that judgment. Cool Hand Luke 23:43, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Question from TYelliot
 Thank you for your cooperation. TYelliot &#124;  Talk  &#124;  Contribs  14:10, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Questions from Thryduulf (talk)


Questions from Joe Gazz84
I would like to apologize for the late questions, I've only just gotten the time to write them. If you see a question that you've already answered or one that is similar, please proceed to answer it, you may think of a new way to explain your idea/answer. Please answer all of these questions, they will weigh in heavily when I vote.

 Thank you,  JoeGazz  ♂ 22:06, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Questions from Gimmetoo
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Question from Martinevans123
</ol>
 * I may well have a specific case in mind, but I don't want to get bogged down in specific cases. Your response gives me a very good idea of your stance. But perhaps I could post another general case for your consideration? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:40, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
 * That is what this page is for. :-)  &mdash; Coren (talk) 22:50, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

</ol>
 * I see. That seems very reasonable. And would it make any difference if one of those "two" editors, was an administrator? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk)
 * Not in substance, though it would pretty much guarantee that a checkuser would pass the buck to the Committee. &mdash; Coren (talk) 00:46, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a very honest answer. Thanks for the discussion. You are a very worthy candidate. Martinevans123 (talk) 00:56, 10 December 2011 (UTC)