Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Candidates/Courcelles/Statement

Courcelles

 * Coordinator's note: This candidate has [ expressed] their wish to withdraw from the election; their name will not feature on the ballot.

Sorry that this is coming in so late. I was pretty much totally off the internet from 3 November until this Monday the 18th.

The interesting thing about ArbCom is that as we grow as a community, we tend to need the Committee less and less frequently. The case load has shrunk to the point where significant periods of time can pass without any open, yet the cases that do come up are by and large the worst of the intractable disputes. We throw our arbs into the deep end on day one, and it isn't fun, but it needs to be done, and so, if I'm wanted, I'm willing to serve another term on the committee.

ArbCom has its flaws. We all know that. It does too much business off-wiki, something I've pointed out, ironically, on the mailing list more than once. It makes decisions than are not all that great; I think every arb has an idea of a few things they wish they could go back and vote differently on. I know I do. At our core, though, ArbCom is 13 people who love this project and are trying to do the best they can. We learn, we grow, and we try our best to get better.

Which we can do. We need to find ways to move more discussion of cases off the mailing lists onto the wiki. We need to be willing to try more innovative solutions (of which I think this was a good example). I think it is time to give a long, hard look at the way functionaries and the Audit Subcommittee are appointed; ideally I'd love to see the selection of the community half of AUSC out of ArbCom's hands.

The job of an arbitrator, at the core, is to vote on every matter how you think is best for the encyclopaedia. That's all I've really ever tried to do. I'm willing to do it for another term, or not. Thanks for reading. (I also seem to have brought home a nice fun head cold from my trip. If answering the questions takes me a few days, that is why.)

''As a sitting arbitrator, I am over 18 and already identified to the Foundation. I have a travelling account User:Courcelles is travelling a bot account I've registered User:Courcelles Bot but have never used, a test account, User:Courcelles (ACIP test) and a doppelganger, User:CourcelIes is travelling. This account was once renamed by a bureaucrat, but I've never used any other account than these.''