Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2012/Candidates/Count Iblis/Statement

Count Iblis
I'm Count Iblis and I'm running together with YOLO Swag on behalf of the ArbCom Reform party. If my statement, my answers to the questions, and the ArbCom Reform Party's platform appeals to you, please vote for YOLO Swag and me.

Of all the candidates, I'm the most experienced Wikipedian, as I've been editing here since 2004. This is the only account I have ever had. While I've always opposed to identifying to the WMF, I'll make an exception should I be elected. It is a stupid policy anyway, because only physically presenting yourself to a WMF official, identifying yourself and demonstrating that you have control over your account would amount to a meaningful identification.

The problem with ArbCom is its flawed structure, not that the Arbs are so bad. If elected, I would push for a number of changes, the most important ones are:


 * Only a few Arbs should hear cases. Most cases can be handled by 3 or 4 Arbs. They can divide up the task of looking at all the evidence and come to a consensus view on a way forward to make the topic area healthy again. Compared to the present system, the decisions are then made by those Arbs who have actually looked at all of the evidence in detail. The Arbs that look at a case will have been selected based on their availability, so this would speed things up. This also frees up manpower, allowing a few cases to be handled simultaneously.


 * After accepting a case, the Arbs will first determine if the content issues have been dealt with sufficiently. If not, then ArbCom will refer the case to compulsory mediation. If that mediation fails, then the case will come back at ArbCom. It is then a lot easier for ArbCom to determine the proper remedies. A good example where this would have helped a lot is the climate change case. While the ArbCom Reform party calls for more radical changes (e.g. a jury system), these two changes can be directly implemented.

Final remark. Parties will not cause factional behavior in ArbCom. There are already "hidden parties", this just makes things more explicit and one can then have more effective community discussions. If this idea were so bad that we shouldn't use it here on Wikipedia, then why on Earth do we have political parties in the real world where far more important decisions have to be made?