Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates/LFaraone/Statement

LFaraone

 * Hello, I'm Luke Faraone. I've been a Wikipedia editor for over 10 years, an administrator since 2008, and a member of the CheckUser and Oversight teams since 2013. I am currently serving a two-year term on the Arbitration Committee, and am presenting myself for community consideration.

The past year has been a testing year for the committee, and the next year won’t be any easier. With a majority of seats up for election as well as several resignations and retirements, retaining the committee’s institutional memory is important.

The role of the Arbitration Committee has changed considerably since it was founded. It now has a wide range of unrelated responsibilities. These need cutting right back so that it can concentrate on its core role of resolving disputes. For those tasks that the committee retains, we need to focus on consensus-building; in recent times we have too often been a committee divided. Part of this may involve moving more slowly, with a clear understanding of the rare circumstance in which swift action is required. When I first joined the committee in 2014, there were discussions about reworking the way we handle private communications. This stalled, in part because of a lack of a clear owner for the process and in part because of other concerns taking attention away from it. While I agree that the Arbitration Committee should strive to be as transparent as possible, there are many matters which cannot be discussed publicly. This is an undeniable fact, explicitly acknowledged by the Arbitration Policy. I intend to invest a good deal of effort in early 2016 towards revitalising work on process management, and will stress that such processes need to be discussed and decided upon with the community's input. I will continue to comply with the criteria for access to non-public data; I am identified to the Foundation per roles as a functionary, volunteer response team participant, and arbitrator. I used the username Firefoxman prior to a rename in 2008. User:LFaraone_(usurped) is the account that was previously under my current name.