Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Candidates/Sandstein/Questions

Questions from Sven Manguard
I decided to ask these questions after reflecting on an hour long conversation over the IRC with an editor that I hold in very high regard. I intermixed her concerns with my own concerns to form this short list of general questions. Please answer them truthfully, and draw upon whatever experiences or knowledge you possess. I apologize in advance for all the questions being compound questions. Thanks in advance, sincerely, Sven Manguard  Talk
 * 1) What is the greatest threat to the long term survivability or viability of Wikipedia? If the threat is currently affecting Wikipedia, what actions can be done to limit it? If the the threat is not yet affecting the project, what actions can be taken to keep it that way? What is the overall health of the project today?
 * A.
 * 1) What are the greatest strengths and greatest weaknesses of the project? What processes do we do well, and what processes fail? What content areas do we excel at and where do we need to improve?
 * A.
 * 1) What is your view on the current level of participation in Wikipedia? Does Wikipedia have enough active contributors today? Does it have too many?
 * A.
 * 1) Does Wikipedia do a good job at retaining its active contributors? What strengths and weaknesses within the project can you point to that affect retention? Are recent high profile burnouts indicative of a problem within the project or are they unfortunate but isolated events?
 * A.
 * 1) Do you believe that the project should prioritize on improving existing content or creating new content. Is there an ideal ratio of creation:improvement? For the purposes of this question, assume that you have complete control over where the community as a whole focuses their efforts. This is, of course, a hypothetical situation.
 * A.
 * 1) Do you believe that Wikipedia should allow people to contribute without making accounts?
 * A.
 * 1) If you could make one change to Wikipedia, what would it be, and why?
 * A.

Sorry for collapsing your questions, but I would prefer to adhere to the default system of "one set of community-developed general questions and one additional question per editor", which I presume has been put in place precisely to avoid the distribution of dozens of long prepared lists of questions... Regards,  Sandstein   07:12, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Arbcom election questions from Rschen7754
Due to the changed format of this year's election questioning, I have removed all the questions that are covered by the general election questions (but please be sure to answer those thoroughly!) If you wouldn't mind answering the following brief questions that evaluate areas not covered by the general questions, that would be great!


 * 1) What are your views on a) WP:COMPETENCE  b) WP:NOTTHERAPY?
 * 2) Do a group of editors focusing on a specific style guideline or convention have the ability and/or right to impose on other groups of editors their particular interpretation of the style guideline, or their own standardized convention, even if there is significant opposition?

Thank you. Rschen7754 07:08, 15 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi. I know that I said above that I won't answer mass-copied lists of questions, but yours is short, so:
 * Yes, competence is required and Wikipedia is not therapy. Good faith contributors who are, for one reason or another, unable to make useful contributions or to adhere to our community standards, may need to be restricted from editing – in a friendly but firm manner – if the problems they cause clearly outweigh any useful contributions they may make.
 * No. What matters for resolving disagreements is the consensus of the editors who are discussing a particular issue and the consensus of the community at large (as usually documented in policies and guidelines), but not the consensus among any particular group of editors. See WP:CONLIMITED.  Sandstein   18:26, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Follow-up question by Jmh649

 * Moved here from the questions page by Sandstein.

However we here editing Wikipedia content are also exposed to libel similar to that experienced by Simon Singh. As another example we have interests in copyright law with changes potentially affecting this project. Do you feel we should express no opinions in these matter either? A Wiki Israel group for example has lobbied their government to allow some government material to be released under a license suitable for Wikipedia. Would you have been against these activities? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:10, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, our policies prohibit advocacy on Wikipedia for issues unrelated to Wikipedia. Lobbying a government to release free content is related to Wikipedia and probably does not happen through messages on Wikipedia user pages. I'm not sure that I follow you with respect to libel and copyright law, but at any rate a dispute between a British author and a group of medical practitioners doesn't seem to have much to do with writing an encyclopedia. I believe that our editors should be free to champion whatever cause they feel is worthy, but they shouldn't necessarily use Wikipedia for it.  Sandstein   22:07, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Question from Offliner
Do you believe the nationalities of Wikipedia's editors are fairly represented in the current ArbCom? Could you please reveal your own nationality? If you do not wish to reveal your exact nationality, could you at least state whether you are from an anglophone country? Offliner (talk) 18:09, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I assume - most do not reveal their nationality on their user page - that most current arbitrators come from the US or another large anglophone country, because that's where most of our editors also come from. In view of the international nature of our project and our goals, I think that the nationality of arbitrators is of little, if any, importance compared to other qualities I value in all Wikipedians, such as writing and research skills and experience, and the ability to work well with others. As to myself, I am not from an anglophone country.  Sandstein   22:37, 30 November 2010 (UTC)