Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2019/Candidates/Bradv/Statement

Bradv
Hi everyone, I'm Bradv and I am currently a clerk for the Arbitration Committee, an OTRS volunteer, and an administrator.

I am volunteering for this role because I believe in Arbcom as a necessary part of the Wikipedia ecosystem. It helps to safeguard the content-writing process from those who would only seek to subvert our processes or undermine our core policies. It is currently our only means of holding editors with advanced privileges to account. And it is the body responsible for the discretionary sanctions system, which provides administrators with greater latitude to resolve issues promptly, and in many cases, preemptively.

That said, Arbcom is by no means perfect. The decision-making process is often too opaque, yet at other times the desire for transparency limits the committee's ability to do the right thing, particularly when it's unpopular. I believe in increasing communication and transparency whenever possible, so that in the rare case something must be done privately the community can trust that the committee is doing the right thing.

I also believe that Arbcom needs to assert its role with respect to the Wikimedia Foundation. The Trust & Safety department has an important role in issues such as child protection and paid editing, but concerns about regular editors need to handled within the editing community. This principle must be strongly held by the committee, particularly with an Arbcom that is not afraid to take a stance on issues even when such decisions are difficult.

My hope for this election is that the committee will be made up of both experienced arbitrators with strong institutional memories and some fresh faces with new ideas. I would hope to fit into the latter category, even though my experience means that I am intimately familiar with many of the inner workings of the committee, as well as most of the issues that face the committee now and in the past year.

As a clerk, I am aware of the burnout that arbitrators experience, and have had to clerk more retirements in the past year than I would have liked. If elected, I will make every effort to remain engaged in regular editing, as it is essential for arbitrators to be well connected to the rest of the community. I also enjoy serving as a clerk, and would be happy to continue in this role if I am not chosen to be part of the committee.

I meet the eligibility criteria, including compliance with the criteria for access to non-public data. I have two alternate accounts, BradV (one edit in 2007, now a doppelgänger), and ArbClerkBot.