Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Candidate statements/Kylehamilton

If I am voted to Arbcom, i'll do everything in my power to speed things along. I am against banning users unless they are a repeat offender or have defaced a page. I belive that has a general rule of thumb we should not ban someone for a first offense unless its an extreme situation.

The Way the Arbitration Committee should work by Kyle Hamilton
There should be a body of 48 people when arbitration is requested a group of 3/5/7/9 arbitrators should go and preside over the case. --Kylehamilton 05:50, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Questions from -Ril-

 * Do you hold any strong political or religious opinions (e.g. concerning George Bush, Islam, or on which end you should break a boiled egg)? If so, would you recuse yourself from cases centred on these?


 * How willing are you to contest the decisions of other arbitrators rather than just "go with the flow"?


 * Do you view all requests to re-address cases, particularly requests made by those most penalised, as being automatically without merit?


 * In the case against Yuber, it was decided by the arbitration committee that it is the duty of arbitrators to investigate, and rule on the behaviour of not only one party involved, but all of them. Do you support this decision?

--Victim of signature fascism 17:36, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Answers to -Ril- questions
1. I don't hold any what I would call strong political or religious I do belive in gay marraige and that the war in Iraq was wrong, but I also look at the war and see the good that were trying to do and if our mission there helps bring Demorcay to there people then I guess our soilders lifes and our money were not spent in vain. I can and Will put aside my views on things and stay neutral.

2. If a ruleing looks unjust to me I would talk to other arbitrators and look into re-addressing that case,

3. Nope as of now I don't view all requests to re-address cases but if I am elected I will read more of them aka all.

4. Yes if people help someone deface articles or edit where they have been told not to then all people involved should be broght up

If there are any other questions please feel free to ask

Another question
What are your views of the proposed Arbitration Committee Code of Conduct and User Bill of Rights?

-- HK  00:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Awnsers to "Another question'

 * The Bill or rights and Arbitration Comitee code of conduct both look like good ideas, I think that there just common sence. --Kylehamilton 13:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality question and Censuring questions from -Ril-
(Being asked of all candidates)

Do you believe that regardless of Jimbo Wales' own views on the matter, the community should be able to strip arbitrators of their position under certain circumstances, and if so, what circumstances?

As a corollory:Do you believe, regardless of Jimbo Wales' view on the matter, that a large number of signatories (e.g. 150 requesting censure against 50 supporting the arbitrator) to an RFC against an arbitrator is enough that the arbitrator should be judged as having been rejected by the community in light of their actions, and consequently for them to be forcibly stripped of their post?

''wikipedia has a policy of NPOV. Excepting straw men, have you ever introduced a substantial opinion or fact that contradicts your own political or religious viewpoint into an article on a topic of which you have strong opinions, and if you have, how frequently do you do so compared to your other substatial edits to articles?''

--Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 02:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Awnsers to Neutrality question and Censuring questions from -Ril-
Do you believe that regardless of Jimbo Wales' own views on the matter, the community should be able to strip arbitrators of their position under certain circumstances, and if so, what circumstances?
 *  in the spirt of the wiki I belive that there should be some sort of check on Admin and members of the ArbCom I dont know how it would work or how to do it thats something for the people of this wiki to deside not myself ideas like this of made by people much smarter then I :-) 

As a corollary:Do you believe, regardless of Jimbo Wales' view on the matter, that a large number of signatories (e.g. 150 requesting censure against 50 supporting the arbitrator) to an RFC against an arbitrator is enough that the arbitrator should be judged as having been rejected by the community in light of their actions, and consequently for them to be forcibly stripped of their post?
 * '''I belive that if a large number of active members are unhappy *aka no puppets* with a member of the ArbCom then there should be some sort of action taken this is something that we should sit down and figure out as I said above I dont know how this would be done but there should be checks on admins and members of the ArbCom

wikipedia has a policy of NPOV. Excepting straw men, have you ever introduced a substantial opinion or fact that contradicts your own political or religious viewpoint into an article on a topic of which you have strong opinions, and if you have, how frequently do you do so compared to your other substatial edits to articles?
 * For the most part im a fairly Nutral person, I have never edited a article that has forced me to change something that I feel strongly for most noteable because when I edit things I try to edit only what ive been trained to do *aka only subjects im well versed in* and that happens to be Cinema, I just added the Director Jenni Olson I dont liker her movies I saw one at sundance and thought she was a brainless hippie who talks about how her friend commited suicide off the golden gatge for 30mins * I still want my money back*, but she wasnt on the wiki and I added her and kept a NPOV juse because I didnt like her movie doesnt mean that she shouldnt be here.

--Kylehamilton 06:04, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Recusal, Code of Conduct, Expansion
I am asking these questions of all candidates:

1. Do you pledge to abide by the proposed recusal guidelines at Arbitration Committee Code of Conduct?

2. Are there any parts of Arbitration Committee Code of Conduct that you do not agree with? If so, please describe in detail how you would improve them.

3. Will you please pledge to support expanding the number of seats on the Arbitration Committee? If not, how would you propose alleviating the present arbitration backlog?

4. Have you voted over at Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Proposed modifications to rules? If not, why not? If so, please summarize your votes.

Thank you for your kind consideration of and answers to these questions. &mdash;James S. 06:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Awnsers to "Recusal, Code of Conduct, Expansion"
1. Do you pledge to abide by the proposed recusal guidelines at Arbitration Committee Code of Conduct?
 * Yes the Code of Conduct is full of common sence, and the part about "Recusal" makes sence to me I would Recusal myself from any Arbitration that fell under thoses rules, funny side story a friend of mine from High School called me when her mom saw that I was running for Arbitration Committee small world isnt it?

2. Are there any parts of Arbitration Committee Code of Conduct that you do not agree with? If so, please describe in detail how you would improve them.
 * As stated in your first question all of the rules are pure simple common sence.

3. Will you please pledge to support expanding the number of seats on the Arbitration Committee? If not, how would you propose alleviating the present arbitration backlog?
 * I stated in the Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Proposed modifications to rules that I think we should add up to 48 new people to the arbitrtion committee to help speed up arbitration, I also think we should have a circuit system.

4. Have you voted over at Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Proposed modifications to rules? If not, why not? If so, please summarize your votes.
 * Here are my votes in the the Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Proposed modifications to rules


 * 1) Proposal 1: Must be an admin to run for ArbCom : Very Stron Oppose Adminship and Arbitration are differnt and should stay so ones abilty to resolve conflict should not be based on edits. --Kylehamilton 00:23, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Proposal 2: Block voting : Nutral
 * 3) Proposal 3: Midyear elections : Support haveing a large grouping of people for article arbitration is helpful --Kylehamilton 00:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Proposal 4: Expansion to 24 seats : Strong Support We should look into adding ever more seats, the most commen complaints im hearing about Arbitration is that it takes months to have your case heard we should look into adding a addisional 20 people on top of the proposed 24
 * 5) Proposal 5: Run-off election : Nutral
 * 6) Proposal 6: Alternates to fill vacanciesThis one kind of depends on what happens with Proposal 4. If we have a pool of 24 arbiters (as suggested in P4) then having the committee reduced by three or four (or even six or seven) over the course of the year isn't going to be a disaster.  This is an excellent idea if the committee isn't enlarged. SIDENOTE: Pureblade and I agreed with TenOfAllTrades he wrote this not myself I just agreed to it
 * 7) Proposal 7: Expansion to 30 seats Weak Support This is a simple concept that would only help speed up the Arbitration process, I like the idea of letting memebers of the arbitration committee sit on more then one case we should also look to adding up to 48 new members to the committee--Kylehamilton 00:31, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
 * 8) Proposal 8: Condorcet voting Nutral
 * 9) Proposal 9: Three year terms for all Nutral
 * 10) Proposal 10: Nulify all sockpuppet and puppetmaster votes  Support this is simpley common sense, good luck trying to enforce this.--Kylehamilton 00:34, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
 * 11) Proposal 11: Two year terms for all Nutral
 * 12) Proposal 12: Stay with 12 seats, with optional panels of 3 Strong Oppose there should be around 48 members of the committee and only 3/5/7/9 should view cases, if it has to go to the full committee for some reson it better be good --Kylehamilton 01:06, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
 * 13) Proposal 13: Votes to accept include panel size 5/7/9 # Support I would like to see it as a 3/5/7/9 but this works --Kylehamilton 00:35, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Concerns over personal attack templates
User:Improv, who is also a candidate for the arbitration committee, has placed the following statement on Village pump (policy):


 * I am concerned about |recent templates surviving AfD that appear to contrast with established policy. In particular, I feel that these templates are Poisoning the well when it comes for how we treat our fellow wikipedians. There are circumstances where knowing too much about one's neighbours politicises how one deals with them. This is, to an extent, unavoidable in society, but wearing signs of hate as badges on our shoulders takes what is a small problem that we can usually deal with into the realm of being damaging to the community. Already, there have been signs of people refusing to help each other because they are on different ends of a political spectrum -- this seems likely to get worse if this trend continues. Some people cry that this is an attack on their first amendment rights (if they're American, anyhow), but that doesn't apply here because Wikipedia is not the U.S. government -- it is a community that has always self-regulated, and more importantly it is an encyclopedia with a goal of producing encyclopedic content. We have a tradition of respecting a certain amount of autonomy on userpages, but never absolute autonomy. We might imagine, for example, templates with little swastikas saying "this user hates jews". I am not saying that such a thing would be morally equivalent to this template against scientology, but rather that we should aim to minimise that aspect of ourselves, at least on Wikipedia, so we can make a better encyclopedia. The spirit of NPOV does not mean that we cannot have strong views and still be wikipedians, but rather that we should not wear signs of our views like badges, strive not to have our views be immediately obvious in what we edit and how we argue, and fully express ourselves in other places (Myspace? Personal webpage?) where it is more appropriate and less divisive.

I am inviting all candidates, including Improv, to expand on this theme on their questions pages. Do you agree that this is a cause for concern as we move into 2006? How do you see the role of the arbitration committee in interpreting the interpretation of Wikipedia policy in the light of this concern? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:47, 12 January 2006 (UTC)