Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2009/Candidate statements/Fred Bauder/Questions for the candidate

Evasive responses to General Questions
I find some of the candidate's answers vague, tangential or evasive. Even short responses could succeed better than these examples, in which the questions are left dangling:
 * I agree. However they are general questions that would require a great deal of research to answer in detail. I may try to improve on them, or not. However, you can see numerous examples of my work, good, bad, and indifferent in most of the arbitration cases decided before 2008. Fred Talk 04:23, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

(2) Please provide evidence of your ability to write concise, clear English. You may wish to refer to your ability to detect ambiguities and unintended consequences in text such as principles, remedies and injunctions.

A:My work is on view in most of the earlier arbitration cases. Taken too literally, a few decisions have been subject to misinterpretation. This is usually associated with too metaphorical language. Plain language is usually better. ''[No diffs of good examples? Are the second and third statements self-criticism? Are there diffs to illustrate what the candidate means?]''

(9) Should the process of (a) reviewing admin actions that may have breached policy, and (b) desysopping, remain solely with the Committee (and Jimbo), or would you prefer that a community-based process also perform these roles?

A: If an administrator can be made by the community they can be unmade. Occasionally confidential material may be involved, but in most other cases community input could serve. [This is vague.]

10) Over the past year Arbcom has desysopped a number of admins. Generally do you think Arbcom has (a) not desysopped enough (b) got it about right (c) desysopped too much over this period? Why?

A: Things have to be pretty bad before Arbcom takes a hand. Low grade nasty behavior won't ordinarily come to Arbcom's attention. [So, a, b or c? Why?]

(13) Under what circumstances would you consider desysopping an administrator without a prior ArbCom case? Be specific.

A: Serious abuse of their tools. Blanking the main page, for example. [A single, extreme example is offered, where the questioner was clearly seeking a broader set of circumstances.]

Tony  (talk)  02:54, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, Fred drafted most of the decisions during the much of the time he was on the committee. It should be easy to find a wide variety of examples. Number 9 doesn't seem vague; the answer is evidently the second choice (although the question is somewhat vague itself in that the two choices presented aren't phrased as opposites). The responses to numbers 10 and 13 don't seem to substantially address the issue raised. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:57, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I guess what I'm saying in 10 and 13 is that arbitration will not serve to effect a general improvement in administrator behavior. We deal only with egregious cases. We do not monitor performance in a systematic way and reward or sanction administrators based on the quality of their work. Desysopping is a crude tool. Fred Talk 04:32, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
 * On that point, it's up to the candidate to present diffs/links of examples, not for voters to go hunting for them. Tony   (talk)  10:06, 20 November 2009 (UTC)