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

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

--  HK   16:37, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee Code of Conduct
The arbcom Code of conduct seems fair and balanced. It seems to require arbitrators in a dispute to exert proper fairness, objectivity, restraint and detachment, and to avoid getting involved in cases where their objectiveness might be overcome, taxed, or seriously questioned. given their job, this seems best, although, as one not personnally acquainted to this side of Wikipedia (never having served, and having avoided involvement in major disputes yet), I might feel more at ease knowing exactly how some of those rules are to be applied, but I expect to see that in short order if called to office. Some of the guidelines for what is grounds for having to recuse oneself from a case, in particular, seem somewhat obscure.

I also notice that special care is taken to insist on the fact thar admins and arbcom members are not above ordinary wikipedians, and will be judged by the same standards, and receive no special allowances due to their status. While I fully understand that people assuming administrative functions should not receive special privileges as to their control of encyclopedia contents, beside those naturally afforded by expertise in a subjects, and should not play with other contributors or think they have become little tin gods, I also feel some safeguards should be taken to ensure they are not unfairly attacked and picked upon by disgruntled contributors, given the rather thankless and hostility generating nature of their job.

As for the "anything is fair game" alternate proposal, I tend to agree with it, in moderation. editing talk or user paged should be done only with the greatest restraint, removing only material that is not only patently useless, but also gratuitously and purely offensive, false, libelous and the like, and by preference only if it can be shown such defacement has been done in bad faith and with no intent of advancing the encyclopedic content, or with intent to offend or defame the user whose page was altered in the first place.. But if it happens certain cases show necessity for unusual measures, it is better the powers that be be theoretically empowered to take them, than that necessary acts be blocked by respect for the letter of the rules, or thatadmins should be elected with certain powers, and then be found parjuring themselves by changing the rules they were supposedly bound by.

User Bill of Rights
This version seems laudable, just remember, administrators and other "officials" are there to help, and they do not gain by serving... so if respect for this bill of rights should actually end up putting them lower than the common user, and preventing them from properly effecting their function, steps may have to be taken that not everybody will like.

Fairness, yes. Abuse, no. But we have a job to do, don't get in the way.--Svartalf 21:55, 7 January 2006 (UTC) --Svartalf 21:55, 7 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 21:07, 12 January 2006 (UTC)