Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2012/Candidates/Beeblebrox/Questions

Moved comments from #Questions from User:My very best wishes
Your request for bureaucratship was not approved. Do you think that at least some criticism was reasonable? If so, what exactly did you learn and would like to improve? My very best wishes (talk) 15:07, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
 * As I mentioned in my candiddate statement, I actually got some very good feedback from some of the opposers there. It was made clear to me that large portions of the community are less concerned about a record of good judgement and decisive action and more concerned that crats follow "the letter of the law" not only when taking crat actions, but all the time. They want them to do exactly what is required of them by policy or consensus and nothing more. In the end I have to agree that I am not suited for that role, that's just not my style and I do not intend to run at RFB again.
 * Thank you. If I understand correctly, you think there is nothing here to challenge your record of good judgement, which is obviously the most important quality of an arbitrator. My very best wishes (talk) 18:44, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
 * There were, and probably still are, some users who were very upset about the way I chose to close the Ivory Coast move request. I do think I could have phrased the closing statement better, it caused no end of confusion and misinterpretation. In retrospect I wish I said less in the closing, limiting my remarks to the fact that it had been fairly conclusively demonstrated that "Ivory Coast" is the term most used by English language journalistic sources and therefore the term most English speakers would be more familiar with. I would note that the move was challenged at WP:MR and ultimately upheld. The real shame of it from my perspective was that the discussion I closed was not he discussion that should have been had in the first place. It should have been a general discussion of what to do with all articles related to that country.
 * I see. However your decision to stand up to bullies on Meta (quote above by Jayen466) was a good judgement call because it helped to get rid from an abusive administrator, and this is something you would be able to do here as an arbitrator? Indeed, I think your comment on Meta was commendable. You believe there is a serious problem, and you are telling about it out loud. This is right thing to do. My very best wishes (talk) 14:56, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * TLDR version:Luckily for all of us this is not Meta.
 * Longer version: I know some accuse the admins here of "circling the wagons" and I have seen it myself once or twice, but in cases of clear cut abuse of admin tools the admin corps here is willing and able to step in and stop the abusive behavior before it gets carried away. I admit it, I deliberately baited that admin into blocking me. I never imaged he would be so foolish as to go for a permablock without talk page or even email access, but that's what he did, and even then the other admins there just blinked at it.. Then he asked to be desysopped and the other admins tried to talk him out of it. It was only after he publicly threatened to go on a cross-wiki vandalism spree that they finally yanked his tools. A few days after being unblocked I posted a "helpme" request on my talk page The only response I got was to be trolled by another admin there and berated for the terrible crime of asking for help requesting translation of a page so that we could get input from non-English speakers., When I asked on the admin noticeboard what to do about it I was told by yet another  admin told me it was my fault that another admin was openly trolling my talk page. My fault that the response to a politely worded request for help with a technical issue I did not understand was an insult, not help with the issue. They didn't even ask him to just leave me alone. Yes, we have problems here, but we don't put up with that level of abuse. I acted in ways I would not act over here because I wouldn't need to. Baiting that abusive sysop into revealing his own overblown sense of infallibility was the only way that community was ever going to deal with him.  Here, ArbCom would probably have emergency desysopped him and a case would have been opened or a motion made., The matter would not just be ignored as so many things are at meta. That is why I wrote the "ignore meta" essay. Their systemic problems are severe, but most of what goes on in the so-called "community" over there has literally no impact on this project, so I feel it best to just ignore that community. That does not mean ignoring the other important things that do go on over there. The Steward areas of Meta are a whole other experience, separate from the platoons of banned en.wp users that make up meta's internal community. I feel bad for those small wikis who are told to turn to that den of miscreants for help in resolving disputes, help they almost never actually get.

Moved comments from #Questions from Cunard

 * 1) Are you aware of Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure? If you are interested in helping the community assess the consensus at RfCs and other discussions, please consider watchlisting it. If not, then no worries.
 * As a matter of fact I closed three items listed there just today. I am assuming this is a generic question you are asking of all candidates as you have repeatedly thanked me for the many closes I have done there.
 * Yes, and thank you for the difficult closes you made today (especially your close of the messy discussion Talk:Seafood). I'm sorry about forgetting to remove this from your list of questions. Cunard (talk) 05:02, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Moved comments from #Question from Begoon
I posted most of this to the discussion on the failed motion to "suspend" Elen, and if you find it phrased oddly as a question, that's why - the page was archived almost immediately afterwards. It occurs to me that maybe some voters might be interested in candidates' reactions to a question like this, so I'm asking it of each of you. It's a very open question, so feel free to ignore it or to comment on it in any way at all.

Is it an arbitration body we want? Do you think that's what we have? It doesn't seem to arbitrate at all, most of the time, it sits in judgement and hands down sanctions from on high. That's not the same thing at all. Do you think, instead, we've ended up with GOVCOM, complete with all the lovely political trimmings that brings along. If you think that's true - how did we get here, and is this where we want to be?


 * Well, if it was a full-on GovCom it would be making new policies as well. Luckily that is not the case. It would be nice if ArbCom could get everyone to sit down and play nice, and to agree to some voluntary compromise to resolve whatever issue brought to them our highest level of dispute resolution, but that is so often not the case because most disputes that end up getting a full case involve at least one party who is not acting reasonably and is unwilling or unable to curb the behavior that is contributing the problem. When voluntary agreement is not possible, sanctions are the only tool we have left. OS imposing them fun? No. Is preventing users from contributing something we want more of? Of course not. But sometimes it has to be done. I believe my record as an admin shows that I am not overly zealous in blocking users but that I am unwilling to call a spade a spade when clear evidence is presented.


 * Thanks. Maybe I should have said COURTCOM . A court doesn't generally pass or amend legislation either, but nor does it really arbitrate, as I understand it. It's the quasi-judicial role, as opposed to arbitration I was driving at, but probably I worded it badly. You addressed most of that anyway.
 * Did you have any thoughts about the "political" aspect of it - given the unseemly in-fighting we've just seen/are seeing? Is there a way to avoid that? I don't have an answer to that myself, and it seems to me it may be important to consider. Begoon &thinsp; talk  01:44, 30 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I only know what the involved parties have chosen to reveal, and I am sorry to say I count myself among those who do not believe the two arbs involved have been completely honest in their comments about this incident. If what the other arbs are saying is true, that the mailing list was used to attempt to intimidate current members and discourage them from running for re-election I must say that is completely disgraceful  behavior and if I were to be elected I would make it a priority to clarify what is and is not appropriate business for the mailing list. We sometimes get a little off-topic on the functionaries list, but never anything like that, more in the realm of silliness.  The leaking is simply unacceptable and I do not buy the revisionist argument that it was some sort of whistleblowing action or I would be fully supportive of it. Frankly I feel like both of them should step aside, whether they personally believe they did anything wrong or not their continued presence on the committee is harmful.


 * Anytime an arb is speaking in their official capacity they should treat everyone with respect, even while they are telling them they are banned or whatever. Arbs should be held to a much higher standard of public behavior than the rank and file. I know they aren't paid any more than the rest of us, but they did volunteer for the position. If they don't treat their position with respect, how can they expect the same in return? The "trust deficit" just got a little wider because of this incident, to the detriment of all. I hope that whoever is on the committee come January they make closing that gap a priority.

Moved comment from #Questions from GabeMc
Questions: 1) Do you think it's appropriate for an admin to close an RfC/RfM when said admin had previously participated in an AN/I report discussion, supporting the resulting indef-block for a highly vocal party to the mediation from which the RfC originated? 2) Assuming that a) this has in fact happened, and b) you indeed think it's inappropriate, what then would you suggest as a remedy? GabeMc (talk 00:55, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * A:I get the feeling this is not a hypothetical scenario, but I have no idea what actual incident it is in reference to. The question basically revolves around WP:INVOLVED. Did the admins previous comments about one of the particpants make them involved in the content dispute? Without knowing the specifics it is hard to say. It is then equally hard to say what, if anything, is an appropriate remedy. I would note that the community has usually upheld the notion that if a completely uninvolved admin could reasonably have come to the same conclusion there is not a serious problem. On the pther hand it is also important to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest in such matters. Somewhere in between os the answer to your question. I take a   "case-by-case"  kind of approach most of the time and would want to be more fully aware of the time frame involved, the severity of the previous disagreement, etc, before even considering any sort of corrective action.
 * Yeah, my wording is likely not the best. Say editors "A" are in a heated content dispute with editors "B". An editor "B" is subsequently indeffed by the eventual closer of the related RfM, which was also closed in favour of editors "A". Is that any clearer? Also, the indeffed editor was perhaps the most vocal and effective member of editors "B", thus their block from participation in the mediation certainly changed the course of the mediation. The time frame is: editor "B" was blocked on 30 July, and the RfM closed mid-November. As far as: "the severity of the previous disagreement", epic. Per: "if a completely uninvolved admin could reasonably have come to the same conclusion there is not a serious problem", the conclusion directly contradicted the mediators to the dispute. GabeMc  (talk 01:50, 2 December 2012 (UTC)