Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Special/2006-12/Withdrawn

Below are candidate profiles and interviews of former candidates for the December 2006 Arbitration Committee elections. All users on this page have withdrawn from the elections; their responses have been archived here for reference. : ArbCom candidate profiles:   A-F  |  G-K  |  L-R  |  S-Z  |  All  |  (Withdrawn)

Avraham
Candidacy statement:

The Arbitration Committee is an integral part of the smooth running of the wikipedia community. I have always done my absolute best to be fair and accurate, both while editing, in discourse with other editors, and in performance of my administrative duties. I understand that we all have a point-of-view, and that is one of the main elements that makes wikipedia so special. The other element, however, is the agreement we all make with each other to function within the policies and guidelines of wikipedia, as fluid or rigid as they may be. One of the main purposes of ArbCom is to act as the arbitors of last resort (barring Jimbo, of course) who handle cases which have exhausted all prior mediation means, while maintaining a professional view of the situation—personal views notwithstanding. It is a difficult, and often thankless, position but one without which our community and encyclopædia would crash and burn in an inferno of flamewars and trolling. Applying a measured sense of reason, a desire to be fair and equitable to all participants, and a liberal smattering of humor, I feel that my background, temperament, wikiediting history, and administrative activities, together with some deep-breathing exercises, would allow me to contribute to the community as a whole in this fashion, and it would be an honor and a privilege to continue to give back to the community and the project in this way.

What positions do you hold (adminship, mediation, etc.)?

I am an administrator here in English Wikipedia.

'''Have you been involved in any arbitration cases? In what capacity?'''

No, not directly, having neither been called, nor requested arbitration, although I have commented in an arbitration case workshop.

Why are you running for the Arbitration Committee?

ArbCom combines elements of interpersonal mediation with policy and guideline interpretation and application. It is a challenging position, and as I say in my statement, by applying a measured sense of reason, a desire to be fair and equitable to all participants, and a liberal smattering of humor, I feel that my background, temperament, wikiediting history, and administrative activities, together with some deep-breathing exercises, would allow me to contribute to the community as a whole in this fashion.

crazytales56297
Candidacy statement:

I've been around since May 2005. In that timespan, I've made around 3100 edits, and I believe I've upheld civility and NPA. I try to look at both sides of a dispute. I feel I was pretty civil, for example, in the Esperanza MfD, where I saw civility lacking. I try also to be polite in my discussions. I feel that it would be a great privilege to give back to Wikipedia in this capacity and server in the best interest of the community.

What positions do you hold (adminship, mediation, etc.)?

Nothing beyond usership. I have been a user about 18 months now.

'''Have you been involved in any arbitration cases? In what capacity?'''

Nope, never been involved in an arbcom case.

Why are you running for the Arbitration Committee?

To make a difference. I believe I'm a pretty down-to-earth user, and not of any special importance like admins or bureaucrats. I'm also interested in reforming admin abuses.

Doc glasgow
Candidacy statement:

Aged 30-40, I joined Wikipedia in April 2005, Admin since September 2005, my number of edits……''seriously folks? Who cares about this crap?''

I’m offering you only my time and my (fallible) common sense. If you think arbcom needs it, vote for me. If you think ‘hell no,’ then vote for the other guy.

I believe arbcom’s task is to create an environment where users can productively write, edit, sort illustrate, and take out the trash – and our encyclopaedia can improve. To allow productive users to do this, we need to be willing to show timewasters the door quickly, and to patiently and fairly deal with occasional disputes between valued participants. We need just enough due process to give good people confidence of fair treatment, but not enough to allow fools to waste our time screaming about their ‘rights’.

My experience? I’ve written a few articles. And since my chosen field is/was religion, I’ve battled with POV pushers, trolls and nutters of all creeds and none. I’ve experienced the exasperation that drives good people off the wiki. More recently, I’ve been serving on the OTRS team, specialising in WP:LIVING issues. This again gives me experience of the underside of the wiki – libels, copyvios, agenda pushers – and problem users. It is also a place where you see innocent people getting crushed when we do wiki badly. Despite all that, I believe in Wikipedia – and in the general good faith of our community.

FWIW, I’ve a rusty legal training, and a modest record of writing wikipolicies. Whilst arbcom isn’t a judiciary, nor a place to create policy, I’m confident that I’d be of use writing proposed decisions.

What positions do you hold (adminship, mediation, etc.)?

I've been an admin since September 2005, and more recently part of the WP:OTRS team.

'''Have you been involved in any arbitration cases? In what capacity?'''

Yes, many. I've rarely been a direct party - I prefer not to let disputes get to that stage. But I have helped to defend, I've researched diffs, I've presented cases and suggested findings. In more than one case, I've been instrumental in steering arbs from poor decisions.

Why are you running for the Arbitration Committee?

I think we need a more robust arbcom, driven by common sense creating a healthy atmosphere for good users. Arbcom needs to have willingness to show the door to people who drive away useful users byt their problem editing. We need flexibility, and fewer delays. I believe I've enough common sense, experience, and versatility (and humility) to help here. I write well, so I'd be useful in constructing decisions - fred shouldn't have all the fun.

freakofnurture
Candidacy statement:

I'm about as apolitical a Wikipedian as most of you will ever meet. I'm not an expert on any topic, nor am I affiliated with any person or organization that is the subject of a Wikipedia article.

In terms of potential conflicts of interest, I'm going to put things quite simply: I don't have any.

In case you're about to ask, I've never written a featured article, nor do I currently have any aspirations of doing so.

Despite these factors, and despite having never successfully getting AWB to run on my machine, I've somehow managed to accrue over 33,000 edits. I'm also older than I give myself credit for, having been an administrator since December 2005. I've tallied about 11,500 blocks (2nd to the legendary User:Curps), 7000 deletions, and several hundred page protections.

If elected, I pledge to thoroughly familiarize myself all sides of every issue. If time does not permit me to fully understand the dynamics of all open cases, I may limit the number of cases I participate in, rather than spreading myself thinly, taking shots in the dark, or risking an eeny, meeny, miny, moe charade.

Our contributors deserve better. If they weren't acting in good faith at least part of the time, the dispute would never have come to arbcom's attention, right?

I will seek the decisions that I feel, based on the available evidence, will most benefit (or least harm) the project as a whole, without regard to precedent, reputation, popular opinion, or article content.

It's not a complex strategy. It's not a complex process either. It doesn't involve making rules, or enforcing them, just determining whether or not existing ones have been broken, and whether the project has suffered as a result of said infractions. If both of these conditions aren't met, there's probably no case to be heard.

Use common sense. Weigh the pros and cons and do what's best overall. There's no manual to read, and maybe that's why it doesn't come easy to some people.

But then, I'm a pretty simple guy.

What positions do you hold (adminship, mediation, etc.)?

I've been an administrator since December 2005. I was a member of the (cough, cough) Esperanza Advisory Council from May to August of 2006. I have been a member of the bot-approvals group since its inception in March 2006.

'''Have you been involved in any arbitration cases? In what capacity?'''

Yes, upon reviewing my contributions, it appears I've participated in several arbitration cases (maybe I forgot some): Boothy443 (evidence, workshop); Copperchair (enforcement); Dyslexic Agnostic (logging of indefinite block on T-Man); Giano (commented against unreasonable proposals); Highways (involved party); Israeli apartheid (commented on precedents); Konstable (made proposals at workshop, ongoing); Pedophilia userbox wheel war (evidence, workshop); Protecting children's privacy (workshop); Saladin1970 appeal (enforcement)

Why are you running for the Arbitration Committee?

I'm running for the arbitration committee because I see a shortage of promising candidates, and because I have a gut feeling the more suitable nominees don't stand a chance in hell.

JzG
Candidacy statement:

Registered as in 2004, active since September 2005, changed my account to  to make my sig shorter in talk pages, sysop since January 2006. The handle dates back a long ways, real name and contact details are no secret and never have been. I am a 42-year-old Englishman, married, kids, electrical engineering degree, working as a sysadmin for a Fortune 500 company. In other words, I'm a geek but not a teenager. I try to spend time every week actually building the encyclopaedia, but often fail due to the distractions of adminship.

I have two favourite quotes: from H. L. Mencken, "for every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, neat and wrong"; and from Bertrand Russell, "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves, and wiser men so full of doubts." I am constantly plagued by doubts and the question I most often ask myself is "what if I'm wrong?"

This is an encyclopaedia. Everything should be traceable back to core policy and justified by benefit to the encyclopaedia. My inclusion standards are pretty high and biased towards actual research and subjects outside of popular culture; it seems to me that the benefit of all this hard work should be to provide verifiable information which a thirty-second Google search will not reveal.

I support community-based solutions to problems of disruptive editing, but wish more of the community were involved in those discussions. As a top ten site, we are now the number one target for people promoting an agenda. ArbCom is our final line of defence, and by the time ArbCom deliberates (which it must, to ensure fairness) we may have had months of disruption and wasted editor effort. I like temporary injunctions, but these should of course not give an advantage to one side in a good-faith dispute.

I put in a fair bit of effort on Wikipedia, and I do my best to be fair, open to criticism, and to explain my actions and the thoughts which underly them. I am not perfect, and certainly not always right, but I do my best.

What positions do you hold (adminship, mediation, etc.)?

I am an admin.

'''Have you been involved in any arbitration cases? In what capacity?'''

Several as witness and as bystander, such as Requests for arbitration/Jason Gastrich, Requests for arbitration/Ackoz, Requests for arbitration/WebEx and Min Zhu, some still in process.

Why are you running for the Arbitration Committee?

Because I am a glutton for punishment :-) Actually it's because I seem to have more time to spare for Wikipedia than most, and ArbCom seems to me to need more arbs with time to spare, to keep the process moving along.  The Clerks have helped, of course, but ArbCom does not scale well - I'm not suggesting that less deliberation be given to issues, only that more active arbs will allow cases to move along that bit quicker.  Also because I think I could do a reasonable job, although I'm pleased to see that there are some candidates who I would support without hesitation, so maybe I'll not be needed after all. Also as an admin there is a certain pressure towards immediatism, which makes me uncomfortable at times.  Wikipedia is better suited to the long game, and I'd like to spend more time doing that sort of work.  Perhaps I should register a sock and edit some articles instead...

MONGO
Candidacy statement:

After being involved in having arbitration being brought up against me and my involvement in two other arbitration cases, as well as enforcement of past decisions, I know I am well versed in the process and procedures of arbitration. My biggest concern is a desire to see an improvement in the decision making timeline. I don't see anything as broken with the system, but will always be open to changes suggested by anyone, and will be more than happy to forward all reasonable requests to fellow arbitrators and the foundation. I have over 20,000 edits with 11,000 or so of those in wiki article space, four featured articles I either started or assisted on as well as another 200 plus other article starts. I am a strong defender of precedent and policy, demand heavily on the use of reliable sources and oppose attempts to misuse Wikipedia as a platform for advocacy. I will always recuse myself in cases I have a conflict of interest in, will be completely open to recall/review and demonstrate complete transparency in my edits, as I always have. Most of all, I want to ensure that those editors and issues which are problematic to ensuring we create the world's most reliable encyclopedic source are dealt with swiftly and fairly. Thank you for your time.

What positions do you hold (adminship, mediation, etc.)?

I have been an adminstrator since November 2005 and have held no other elected position.

'''Have you been involved in any arbitration cases? In what capacity?'''

I was most recently party in the Requests for arbitration/MONGO case. I also was a party in the Requests for arbitration/Beckjord case and have commented in Workshop, proposed decisions and in the initial case statements of several other cases.

Why are you running for the Arbitration Committee?

Though not always the case, the arbitration process is sometimes too slow. I would like to see most cases resolved within 30 days of being accepted. One way to achieve this goal is to have more arbitrators and another might be to have an informal guideline which encourages a 30 day resolution. Since Wikipedia is getting larger by the day, the need for dispute resolution is growing all the time, so I believe that one natural part of that evolution is to make arbcom bigger. My contributions as a arbitrator would be to demand plenty of evidence, not hesitate to ask questions, be open to community suggestions and to ensure a fair but firm resolution. Many a fine editor is sidetracked by those whose primary purpose on Wikipedia is disruption and I would like to have more involvement in putting a stop to that.

Voice of All
Candidacy statement:

I have been following several important ArbCom cases and I believe that I could help move things along if elected. One thing I noticed is that only a few of the same arbitrators usually make the proposed decisions, mainly Fred Bauder. After learning the ropes and being on the committee for a while, I'd like help in that aspect of Arbitration, along with final voting. I am a member of the OTRS team and well aware of WP:LIVING/OTRS issues while maintaining WP:PP. I clerk for WP:RFCU and do Open Proxy checking of IPs. I am readily contactable via email and AIM, and often at IRC. While ArbCom often looks intimidating, I think I have enough experience to offer useful service to the community there.

My views of ArbCom:
 * The most important consideration about a possible case is not how "major" the scope of the issues are, but whether it can be resolved without ArbCom. On the other hand, if a rush of such cases are imminent, for the sake of expediency, such cases may be taken and considered so as to set a precedence to avoid the need for such future cases.
 * Decisions, while they have precedence in that future cases will likely end in similar result, are pragmatic and focus on resolving a dispute, not on interpreting the "wiki-constitution". It is not a "supreme court"
 * Mass probations that hurt many unrelated users are harmful if prolonged, such things should be kept to a minimum.
 * Arbcom is elected to act as a last-resort dispute resolution committee, and that is its main purpose. Other, special purposes, like rights assignments, should be done carefully and consider the will of the community. Nevertheless, until a new system is created, then ArbCom has the right to determine who is trusted enough for a special right.

Things I'd bring to ArbCom:
 * More proposed decisions, allowing for rulings that perhaps better fit the situation
 * More expedience in rejecting/accepting cases
 * Possible methods for dealing with Shared IP/AOL socks (see User:VoABot II)

What positions do you hold (adminship, mediation, etc.)?

Response not submitted.

'''Have you been involved in any arbitration cases? In what capacity?'''

Response not submitted.

Why are you running for the Arbitration Committee?

Response not submitted.