Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Questions/General/Archive 1

Note: This set of questions began as a draft at User:Tony1/ArbCom general questions draft, and the discussion in the following section was initial feedback on the draft that took place in the user talk space, before the draft was incorporated in the election pages.

Draft discussion
Just a couple of thoughts. Q11 is a bit partisan; "some say foo" generally endorses foo. Is there a way to make that more neutral? Q10 is better; is that a quote from somewhere? If so, where? Happy ‑ melon 17:57, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, H-M. Q10 was linked last year to a quote from Vassyana as a candidate in the 2008 election. I've added the link, which voters can follow if they wish to identify the author. Does this address the issue? Q11 was from User:Kotniski last year, and the text was his own. I've removed it, since the last question, now Q13, invites candidates to make proposals for changing the way ArbCom works. I thought of transferring such "perceptions" to the last question, but it's hard to do without implying partisanship there, too.
 * BTW, last year's 2326 words (36 questions, average of 65 words per question) are here down to 799 words (13 questions, average of 61 words per question). Tony   (talk)  05:50, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed, a very good start. I'll take a swing at it later this afternoon. Thanks for the notice. UltraExactZZ Said~ Did 15:02, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Tony, many thanks for putting this together. Some initial thoughts:
 * 1) Accounts This goes far beyond the alternate accounts policy and even the proposed arbitration policy. I imagine many candidates would balk at revealing potentially identifying IP information or secondary accounts used for privacy concerns.
 * 2) As well as arbitration skills/interests, it might be worthwile asking the candidates to give a brief description of how their professional/educational etc. background makes them suitable for a position.
 * 3) Principles; these are good, perhaps ought to be amended to whatever emerge as the hot issues of Dec 2010.
 * 4) Confidentiality; not a huge fan of this one – seems weighted towards oversighters/OTRS agents.
 * 5) Conflict of interest; perhaps small fry for its own question? Maybe work in the topic of recusal to make it more relevant.
 * 6) Strict vs. lenient; something of a kitchen sink question – rather too broad to be able to give a concise answer. Considering that desysopping mentioned here is given its own question shortly after, perhaps a different distribution of topics across the two question could be struck.
 * 7) Policy, content; I am a partisan of the "ArbCom not GovCom" philosophy, but I think if these are to be general questions, they should be rephrased as a general principle on where ArbCom's role ends rather than an invitation to endorse or critique Vassyana. Three questions within one seems excessive also; let the candidate decide what to address.  Skomorokh   21:45, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
 * 8) Cases; good question – I'd reprhase to make choosing multiple cases mandatory so as not to let candidates off picking the easy option.
 * 9) Proposals for change; good question, yes.

Perhaps invite comment from the arbitrators? Skomorokh  21:45, 1 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Skomorosh, thanks so much for this. I've numbered your points consecutively so I can respond to them.


 * 1) Accounts: this was included last year. I'd have thought it was fine to expect the highest standards of openness so we can be assured of the record of the candidate. But I don't know enough about the protocol. Can we have further input on this, please?
 * 2) Skills/interests: Maybe; it does say "add brief comments where appropriate about your skills for each". Perhaps this could be strengthened?
 * 3) Principles: I suggest they not even be the hot issues of October 2010, but more stable set of questions that might be slightly updated each year if necessary. The "hot issues" sound political, and you might consider that they be the subject of Individual questions, or better still questions asked on candidates' user talk pages.
 * 4) Confidentiality: I do think it's an issue for all arbs, not just OS, CU and other functionaries. Is the question likely to generate useful answers, though?
 * 5) Conflict of interest: Unsure.
 * 6) Strict vs. lenient: It would expose predilections, though. Perhaps we could take a look at the responses to this last year.
 * 7) Policy, content (Q 10 and 11 currently): 11 needs rationalisation, I agree. I would prefer not to quote Vassanya, actually, but to put one or two questions without attribution.
 * 8) Cases: They're asked to comment on at least two at the moment. Are you suggesting that there be specified a greater number of "best" and "worst" handlings? What is "the easy option" in this context? Tony   (talk)  06:50, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * 9) Proposals for change: The open-ended question! Glad you like it.

I'll ask for comments from Arbs, but I do note that this is explicitly a community-run process. Tony  (talk)  06:50, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee Tony   (talk)  08:07, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Two quickies...
Otherwise, sounds good in principle. &mdash; Coren (talk) 11:06, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Q4 says "five principles" but there are four.  :-)
 * 2) Q10; you link to a specific answer of a past candidate.  Is this wise?

Question 10
It's unclear to me why the response of one specific candidate is being quoted here, to the exclusion of the responses to the same question by any other candidate; doing so implies that the quote is the "accepted" interpretation of policy and is inherently correct. Given the good minds working on these proposed questions, I'm pretty sure that you can come up with a neutrally worded, open-ended question on this topic area that does not depend on quoting one person's opinion. I'd also like to thank everyone working on this for attempting to streamline the Q&A process. Last year was an improvement over the year before (I had to answer about 140 questions, last year I believe the most was 50). On the other hand, I confess that the repetitive nature of many of the questions posed to me during my candidacy did give me a bit of an inkling of one of the more tedious aspects of arbitrator-hood: having to repeatedly explain the same principle or concept. I'll continue to look on in interest. Please also feel free to mine this old essay of mine for any usable points. Risker (talk) 15:52, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Risker. I've removed the source of the quotation; I agree this would be better. My concern about the repetitive and voluminous questioning process is for voters as well! Tony   (talk)  16:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Skills/Interests
I don't think question 3 is all too useful. You actually mentioned that you wished to avoid side-stepping and predictable/safe answers, and I think this is where you'll see alot of easy answers. I like Skomorokh's idea of having a candidate state how his/her professional background will effect their work.  ~DC  We Can Work It Out 18:35, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

two sets of questions
I think there should be two sets of questions: background and applied.

Basic facts about the candidate, where there is very little room for interpretation, allow readers to quickly build a visual skeleton of a person in our mind. We may not verify the answers, however act of 'publishing' the answers onto Wikipedia means anyone who lies is going to be in a world of pain if/when they are identified. Also, there are always a few hot button issues where any unqualified responses about direction are desired by large segments of the community. For these, it would be nice to include them as questions that require 'yes/no' commitments, but allowing people without firm views on each issue to not answer. As an example, 'Do you support pending changes' is likely to be a common question this year, and I know a lot of the community will be seeking a one word answer. These are not questions that speak to ones arbitrating skills, but often we want to know that we are voting for 'leaders' with similar principles as our own.

On this skeleton we can build a more detailed understanding of the person by considering their answers to questions which demonstrate their applied knowledge of the task of managing English Wikipedia.

Also, the basic facts about a person are easy to answer. I quite liked the first 13 questions User:MBisanz/ACE2008/Guide, especially as responses to them were submitted long before the formal Q&A stage. This time in 2008, over the next three weeks we had answers to these questions from eight candidates, half of which ended up elected onto the committee. (three on Oct 15, two on Oct 16; and three more in Oct: 19th, 21st and the 28th) These questions for potential candidates to start grappling with whether or not they are comfortable disclosing such information, and everyone engaging in 'discussion' about which candidates were suitable. We had a large crop of interesting candidates that year, and I think MBisanz had a lot to do with that. John Vandenberg (chat) 08:04, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Time to move
May be time to move this to a subpage of Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010

Last-minute changes to the text: feedback before it's moved?
Please check out the changes and give feedback soon, since there is pressure from a number of quarters to get this thing rolling.
 * I've removed the opening question ("Please list all of your accounts, active at any time, and any IP addresses you have recorded substantive edits from."), since the new ArbCom policy will require candidates to "Disclose in their election statements all prior and alternate accounts." This can always be re-added if the referendum on the new policy does not ratify it.
 * The big "Skills/interest" question (previously No. 3, now No. 1). Wording rationalised and Skomorokh's suggestion added (second sentence):
 * Skills/interests: Which of the following tasks will you be prepared and qualified to perform regularly as an arbitrator? You may wish to express these roles in order of your interest in each and your ability to perform it, and add brief comments where appropriate about your skills for each. Your responses should show how your professional/educational background makes you suitable to be an arbitrator.


 * Removed: Confidentiality: Do you have demonstrated experience in coping with the tension between the community desire for openness and the need for the confidentiality of personal information?" I take the point above that this may be undesirably weighted towards functionaries and exisiting arbs.
 * Removed "Conflict of interest" question, given Skomorokh's point that it's "small fry". I doubt whether it would provide voters with useful information, and yes, it would be too easy to answer as a functionary or existing arb.
 * Removed the question, "Do you believe that, over the past year, Arbcom has desysopped too many, too few, or about the right number of the administrators who have come before it? Under what circumstances would you consider desysopping an admin without a prior ArbCom case?" and put the last sentence into the "Strict vs lenient" question, following the suggestion above.
 * Removed "Should it sanction users for repeated content policy violations, even if there is no record of repeated conduct policy violations?", which seems to be a no-brainer.
 * Success in handling cases:
 * OLD: Of the cases handled by ArbCom in 2010, which one(s) as a whole do you think it handled (a) the most successfully, and (b) the least successfully? Please give your reasons.
 * NEW: Of this year's cases, nominate those you think ArbCom handled more successfully, and those it handled less successfully? Please give your reasons.


 * Removed the civility question, because it contained no-brainers and the responses are likely to be obvious or pre-packaged, and not to be helpful to voters. Do you agree?
 * NW's personal-info question: tweaked wording.

Here's the diff. Tony  (talk)  02:39, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Leave till tomorrow I may want to do so further trimming of questions that won't be of general interest.©Geni 03:10, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I've moved this to a draft subpage of the elections /Questions page. Still free to be edited mercilessly (we're not "live" until the first announcement).  Skomorokh   09:58, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE DISCUSSION ABOVE OCCURRED BEFORE RELOCATION TO THIS PAGE. Tony   (talk)  14:45, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Question 8
Qu.8 currently reads "Proposals for change? What changes, if any, would you make in how ArbCom works (apart from any other proposals you have made above)? " May I suggest adding "What methods will you use to try to bring about these changes, while working in the committee structure?" It can be remarkably frustrating for some newer arbitrators to find that their (sometimes excellent) ideas aren't shared by enough other members for them to go forward, and others may feel they've not achieved their goals if they believe they were elected on a specific platform. Risker (talk) 17:17, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * This is a good point, and will remind voters of the limits of candidates' platforms ("If elected class president I will eliminate teachers and double playtime!"). Perhaps,
 * Proposals for change? What changes, if any, in how ArbCom works would you propose as an arbitrator, and how would you work within the Committee towards bringing these changes about?
 * Skomorokh  17:31, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I like it, thanks for working it out. Risker (talk) 17:40, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * No problem, thanks for your feedback; I've updated the question accordingly.  Skomorokh   05:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

IP addresses
I must confess I kind of missed the portion of the question asking candidates to reveal IP addresses from which they have made significant edits, as well as the prior accounts. Given that IP addresses can be extremely revealing (I am aware of some IP addresses that can be resolved right down to a room in a building), as well as the fact that many people will make occasional logged out edits which according to current policy are eligible for suppression, I wonder if we can rethink this part. Can we leave IPs out entirely, or alternately ask if they have intentionally done significant editing as an IP without asking them to reveal what the IP is? Risker (talk) 19:34, 21 October 2010 (UTC)


 * This question is superfluous as things stand. Following from WP:ARBPOLDRAFT, candidates are required to disclose previous accounts in their nomination statement. As for IP addresses, I agree that asking for them crosses the privacy line, and I doubt very much if IP editing has much significance to a candidacy in the grand scheme of things.  Skomorokh   21:22, 21 October 2010 (UTC)


 * It's fine with me if such a thing were removed. As far as the personal information question, to my knowledge, they have been asked as part of the individual questions to every candidate for the past some elections. If we know that people will mass-ask them, should we not just ask it here? NW ( Talk ) 21:41, 21 October 2010 (UTC)


 * If they should be asked, they should be asked here, but doing so merely because "someone will do it anyway" is a recipe for dysfunction. In any case, mass-asking is expressly prohibited this year, after widespread dissatisfaction with the questions free-for-all in previous years. Personally, I'd be prepared to support something along the lines of "please briefly describe your off-wiki personal background and particulars", which we could lump in with the educational/professional bit, but I find asking outright people's gender and age to be rather obnoxious.  Skomorokh   21:49, 21 October 2010 (UTC)


 * That's what I was going for anyway. I would be fine with something like that. NW ( Talk ) 00:57, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Great; does anyone care to try their hand at drafting such a question?  Skomorokh   05:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

←Skomorokh, while encouraging personal openness myself, I agree that asking candidates outright to reveal gender and age (and even general location) is quite inappropriate. Users are welcome to ask for such revelations in their individual and user-talk-page questions, but candidates will not be obliged to respond to those. By contrast, they are expected to respond to each of the general questions, and might feel "trapped" here, even if the question were explicitly optional. Successful candidates do have to reveal their details to the Foundation, which I believe should be enough to satisfy the community of their bona fides on that count. I don't doubt the good intentions of editors in this thread (transparency, etc), but it bothers me that age, gender, and/or location might influence a voter in unpredictable ways. (Should we mix into the pot what might be surmised about a candidate's racial or linguistic origin on top of their purely arb-related abilities? And doesn't a candidate's on-wiki track record, rather than their age in years, attest to their maturity? I would like more women on arbcom, but I'm don't want to take gender into consideration in my vote). Editors usually disclose what they're comfortable with on their user pages. If there really is a clear consensus to include such a general question, I would be inclined to (1) seek advice from the Election Administrators, (2) position it towards the end, and (3) couch it in very non-obligatory terms. Tony  (talk)  12:48, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Suggestions
I was reading the questions (which are good) and had a few suggestions. Apologies if they've been mentioned before. What I've suggested may make the questions too bloated, but the suggestions are there if people want to discuss them before the upcoming elections. Carcharoth (talk) 00:48, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * (A) Under 'Skills/interests', I would also add tasks such as liaising with others such as ArbCom clerks and checkusers and oversighters. Not so much as a role, but more as something to consider in the overall committee workload. I would also add a need for outward facing arbs willing to interact with the community on public pages (not all arbs have time to do this, but some should always be around to do this). Examples include answering (and asking) questions on case talk pages and workshops, on arbitration talk pages in general, and the arbitration noticeboard talk page in particular.
 * (B) Under question 2, about "stress" I would expand the question to cover general workload and the need to each arbitrator to develop an individual strategy to deal with overload and to inform colleagues about wikibreaks and to take breaks when needed. It's not the same as how to deal with direct harassment, if that should occur, but workload can also lead to stress. As can disagreements within the committee - asking people how they would deal with that sort of thing could be covered here as well.
 * (C) If possible, it would be good for there to be a general question covering issues such as arbitrator recusal and arbitrator recall, as there are invariably as many different stances on this as there are candidates.
 * Carcharoth, thank you for these suggestions. On (A), good point on the public interactions. I've boldly adjusted the wording of Q1 to include "interacting with the community on public pages such as arbitration and other talk pages", expecting this will be uncontroversial. To pay for the additional words, I've taken the liberty of removing "reminding colleagues of internal deadlines", which might be important in the day-to-day running of the Committee, but I think is unlikely elicit responses the voters will find useful in the overall context of this already rather long question. On (B) above, I think this is already a challenging question that will yield a variety of responses from candidates. On (C), yes, we did originally have a question on conflict of interest, but there were complaints that it would have been too easy to provide stock answers unless it presented a few specific "on the edge" scenarios to force the issue on candidates' values and insights. But even if an elaborate question were inserted, I think candidates would simply provide "safe" answers, given the policy on CoI. I look forward to further comments on this if people have opinions. Tony   (talk)  13:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I missed this discussion, I am trying to come up to speed now. My first concern was about alt accounts, but I see that that is being covered elsewhere. My next request would be for more information about a candidate's past participation in arbitration proceedings. For my own vote, I tend to give less weight to what a candidate promises to do, and more to an examination of the positions that they have stated in the past. So if I were to add a question, it would be something like, "Please provide a few links to where you have either been a party to arbitration cases in past, or offered statements or comments. If you have never participated in an arbitration case, please provide links to some other locations where you have participated in dispute resolution." Or is that question covered elsewhere already? --Elonka 18:36, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, no replies, so if there are no objections, I'll go ahead and add such a question to the page? --Elonka 14:41, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Elonka, thanks for raising this. Your proposed addition is "Please provide a few links to where you have either been a party to arbitration cases in past, or offered statements or comments. If you have never participated in an arbitration case, please provide links to some other locations where you have participated in dispute resolution." There are a few problems here, I think. First, it's quite a different matter for voters to assess links to statements concerning a candidate's participation in a past arb case or to participation in dispute resolution. These are very different roles, are they not? Second, the question leaves open just what kind of example a candidate might link to in an arb case (there is potential to game the system, or give a flat response, too); how are voters to judge this? Third, formal experience at dispute resolution has been discussed before in relation to arb skills, and was not a popular prerequisite. Question 1 already gives candidates to the opportunity to indicate how their professional/educational background makes them suitable to "interacting with the community on public pages such as arbitration and other talk pages", and "reviewing cases, carefully weighing up the evidence, and voting and commenting on proposed decisions". Here, and in response to other questions, it will be interesting to see which candidates take the opportunity to argue that they have skill/experience in dispute resolution. I believe that forcing the issue in a separate question will not smoke out those who are not good at dispute resolution. Tony   (talk)  11:07, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not really interested in expanding the question to include all possible permutations of how it could be gamed or interpreted. My impression is that we were trying to keep things brief. As for the wording of the question, feel free to change things. My desire is that there should be something, somewhere, in the questions, that allows for the candidate to provide diffs to past actions, specifically in things arb-related. If some other editors don't find that information of value, that's fine -- Personally, I tend to ignore a lot of the answers on political stances.  I'm of the "fewer words, more diffs" school. Less interested in what someone says they're going to do, and more interested in what they've actually done. If no one else thinks that a question about past actions is worth including though, I won't push the matter, I'll just do my own research, and/or ask candidates directly. --Elonka 17:45, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Late to the party
I suppose I should have looked around for this page quite some time ago, but it's a big wiki... I've reviewed the questions being proposed and I think there is not a lot of overlap with the questions I asked several years running.... the latest version can be found User:Lar/ACE2009/Questions. Are you willing to incorporate any of the broad themes these raise? ++Lar: t/c 20:31, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Lar, I like all of your questions, because they raise interesting issues that are worthy of community debate. You are right, there's a lot of overlap between them and the existing general questions. But many editors would agree, I think, that overtly political and technical views are either irrelevant or peripheral to determining whether a candidate's skills are a good match for the role of arb. Perhaps examples of these are your queries about flagged revisions, semi-protection, whether en.WP has outgrown itself, SecurePoll, what the WMF should be doing about stalking, the Wikipedia Review (and what their favourite colour is, but that's a joke, yes?). Your Q7 came closest, for me, to probing the relevant skill and experience of a candidate. Tony   (talk)  11:21, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I think his question 9 is also excellent, but would rephrase it:
 * How would you, as a member of the Arbitration Committee, balance the needs of Vested Contributors, specifically administrators, with those of the the rest of the community and the encyclopedia as a whole. Looking back at occurrences as the Rich Farmbrough bot editing debate of October 2010 and the Rlevse copyvio incident, and assuming that such incidents eventually wound up in ArbCom jurisdiction, at what point would impose sanctions on generally constructive editors where there is both a history of valuable or even critical contributions, but also a history of controversial or even disruptive incidents.
 * What do you think? Sven Manguard  Talk  20:28, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It is inappropriate to name specific editors in what is intended to be a general question; at least that is what was decided in years past. Neither of the editors you mention above are currently under sanction (although one has elected to exercise RTV), and such questions create an impossible situation for a candidate where they are analysing the actions of another specific editor. I'd venture to say that asking 30 people to write a paragraph on what they think User ??? did is tantamount to creating an attack page on User ???. As well, if they answer the question, *and* the matter subsequently comes before Arbcom, they would likely have to recuse because they had "pre-judged" the case. Incidentally, you're also telegraphing your preferred answer in the question. Risker (talk) 00:05, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Risker's points. I see a point in adding a question that touches on plagiarism, which has been a recurring issue this year, and the "VestedContribuors" concept may be a good way of viewing it, but this question isn't the best way to address it.   Will Beback    talk    00:31, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree with Risker. Will, how plagiarism is defined and dealt with on WP is best worked through on WP:Plagiarism and the talk page; and IMO, it needs serious community discussion, soon. Arbs (and candidates) are entitled to participate in that process as community members, but as arbs are more likely to be put in a position solely of resolving behavioural disputes in relation to that guideline. While the interpretation of a guideline might come within the ambit of ArbCom, that would indicate that the guideline itself had not been thought through or expressed with sufficient clarity. It would be unusual for ArbCom itself to be making up actual guidelines or policy on the run. Tony   (talk)  09:00, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the question would be addressed more at the candidate's qualifications and editing history than the dispute resolution process once on the committee. Recent questions have been raised about whether DYKs and FAs are valued too highly in the selection of senior functionaries, which in turn adds incentives to cut corners in the process. At the same time, people running for the ArbCom are likely to have been on Wikipedia a relatively long time and they may have written articles back when the standards were looser or they were still ignorant of some issues. So there may be some things they'd be embarrassed to look at. Perhaps the question should be put into the innocuous form typical of interviews. "What's the worst article you've ever written? Are there any that you don't think are up to current standards?"   Will Beback    talk    11:05, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If we're allowed to ask questions again this year then I can just make that my question.   Will Beback    talk    11:18, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh my. I certainly didn't want to create an attack page or do anything of the sort. These were just examples of issues, and I used the names because the situations seemed to complicated to summarize in a short question. Sven Manguard  Talk  01:38, 13 November 2010 (UTC)