Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2012/Candidates/Pgallert/Statement

Pgallert

 * I am contributing since 2008, my activity on Wikipedia is steady. Even though my edit count is just about to reach five digits, I am usually online for at least an hour a day, and when I'm not editing I spend that time reading, from time to time also teh dramah boards. I have pondered for a while whether and in which way I would like to take on more responsibility on Wikipedia. I believe that as an odd-one-out member of ArbCom my contribution could both be challenging for myself, and valuable to the community.


 * I am fully aware that no one has ever been elected into this body who did not have prior administrator status. This is not necessarily bad for ArbCom; prevalence of the admin bit and experience on Wikipedia correlate significantly. But I do think that this situation is not ideal for how the community and the rest of the world perceive how things work on Wikipedia. And true or not, these perceptions can damage our project.


 * If elected to ArbCom, I will neither seek nor accept administrator rights for the duration of my term. The CheckUser and Oversight permissions I will accept, though. The monitoring of their use is one of the Committee's functions, and it seems that most Arbs at some point in time join the Audit Subcommittee. I pledge to hand these privileges back once my term ends.


 * The most important right of an editor is to make edits, and ArbCom can take this right away for a considerable period. ArbCom is in an uncomfortable situation where arbitration is what it should do by virtue of its name, but a Supreme Court is what it really is. It also performs executive tasks in that it polices the use of advanced permissions. This is a lot of power in the hands of 15 people.


 * I wish to introduce a new view of arbitration to the Committee. I wish ArbCom's decisions to be more logical, and to be better explained. I also wish ArbCom to be a little less Supreme Court, and a little more Arbitration Committee, and I will do my best to popularise these views. 400 words limit mean that I cannot go into further detail at this point, but I am happy to clarify on the last two paragraphs on the Questions for the candidate page.


 * is my only account on Wikipedia. I occasionally make a few IP edits for demonstration purposes in my lectures. I will create an account for public networks if elected. I fulfill the age restriction of the criteria for access to non-public data, and I will identify to the Foundation.