Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2020/Candidates/SMcCandlish/Statement

SMcCandlish


I've been rather active for most of my 15 years here. The pandemic is giving me more available time than usual. Serving the community in this capacity for a term would be a good use of a lot of it.

This solid though unusually small candidate roster (plus the Arbs not yet up for re-election) show me the time is now. This last ArbCom has been the most constructive I've seen in years, and many candidates share key concerns and goals. While competitors for seats, they're people I'd love to work with to improve ArbCom. And ArbCom works best without an Arb shortage.

I want to help ArbCom be more consistent, more transparent, less bureaucratic, less reluctant to amend. Our dispute-resolution systems exist to settle disruptive conflicts quickly, toward productivity. This hasn't consistently happened. Incivility and PoV-pushing are increasing, editor retention drops, discretionary sanctions has obvious problems. Sometimes-problematic editors should be separated from areas where they're disruptive, but too often just get lengthy blocks. Such issues can be rectified, and I have the time, patience, and experience to help.

I've long been involved in Wikipedia policy, RfCs, and advanced-permissions janitorialism (TemplateEditor, PageMover, etc.), but I work on content and am here as an encyclopedia editor, not an admin. Adminship often leads to permanent drift away from a content focus, so I decline RfA nomination offers. I've been concerned that most Arbs have been admins; that doesn't fully represent the community.

I'm not afraid to plainly address the facts, policies, and principles at issue, even if it makes some people unhappy. I'm also already steeped in time-consuming, thankless work that cannot possibly please everyone but which produces results the community doesn't just live with but depends on. It's unusually good training for ArbCom, even if different from the more typical admin route.

Boilerplate: I signed the WMF confidentiality agreement years ago, and will do so again if the wording's changed. [Update: It has, so I will need to sign it again.] My user page lists my doppelganger accounts. I had one occasionally used alt ID, disclosed to ArbCom but not listed for privacy reasons (and no longer used).