Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2021/Candidates/Opabinia regalis/Statement

Opabinia regalis
Well, as the deadline gets closer, I've decided to toss my hat in. Here's hoping it's one of many last-minute entries! I've served two terms before, 2016-17 and 2018-19 (ACE2015, ACE2017). I wasn't perfect but I like to think I wasn't terrible at it. I tend to take a practical, empirical-minded approach, and I usually fall on the "more lenient" side of the sanctions spectrum, especially for conflicts mostly taking place in our "back office" without directly affecting reader-facing content. On the other hand, given the events of the last two years, I've lost a little more of my already-low stockpile of patience for misinformation, POV-pushing, and disruptive behavior that affects mainspace.

After the end of my second term I planned to take a break to wrap up some real-life projects and then get back to article work, but as it happened I was inactive for most of 2020 because *waves hands at the state of the world in general in 2020*. Since I began editing again I've focused almost entirely on mainspace, mostly writing articles about coronavirus proteins. In real life I'm a scientist doing R&D work in biotech.

I was not planning to run this year. I fully intended to spend this election cycle sitting on my couch with a bowl of popcorn. But I convinced myself I'd step up if we got to the last day of the nomination period and there weren't enough women running. Between the various changes going on at the WMF and throughout the community - new CEO, new board, UCoC, whatever the "movement charter" is about - and the fact that pandemic life has in many ways had a disproportionate impact on women, I felt it was important that women's perspectives be well represented on arbcom.

Required stuff: I'm still there on the NDA board, but happy to sign an updated one if needed. I have three alt accounts: User:Opabinia externa (phone account), User:Opabinia robotus (old account intended for a bot I never got around to), and User:🐱 (a test of emoji usernames).