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

Moved comments from #Question from User:Casliber
I've written some notes here on arbitration. My question is about the next time the committee gets a complex dispute such as Abortion or Climate Change, where arguments extend to misuse of sources as well as problematic behaviour. Do you see the role as strictly examining problematic behaviour or do you see the need to examine how antagonists are working within our content policies. If you don't see a role of examining how contributors are abiding by our content policies, how do you propose they do get examined? Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:33, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for writing those notes, Casliber. Some interesting thoughts there. Resurrecting the Core Contest was an excellent idea and it's been great watching that develop. You are right that Wikipedia is at a crossroads. You may be interested in a user talk page comment I noticed the other day here. That talks about breadth and depth of coverage. Attaining deeper, more reliable coverage of certain topics is difficult and may ultimately not scale. Turning back to your question, I agree entirely with what you say about the need to focus on content-related editorial conduct. It has always been within the remit of the editorial community and ArbCom to sanction editors who abuse the content policies. Those who misrepresent sources, or who show basic incompetencies to edit, and don't change their ways or improve their editing, absolutely should be topic- or site-banned where needed. The difficulty has always been to lay out the evidence for such misconduct in a clear and unambiguous way (sometimes such misconduct is very subtle and hard to identify). Where that can be done, it should be done and the appropriate sanctions applied. It should, by and large, be laid out by fellow editors and assessed by the community (I believe that was done in the Jagged 85 matter), but if that does not resolve matters it should be escalated through the stages of dispute resolution until, if needed, it is brought to ArbCom. Being able to access and check obscure sources that are in dispute would be a great help for some cases, less needed for others. This would be done to identify editors that misuse sources. Any actual clean-up work would need to be done by the editorial community (obviously), but there is nothing wrong with ArbCom saying "this area is a mess, it needs a new (or reduced) set of editors to clean it up". Going back to your userspace notes, I agree with you that the RfC process (the user conduct side of things anyway) needs reform (one idea would be for those involved to work together to produce an RfC they are happy with before people start commenting), and that consistent arbitration enforcement, with support from ArbCom, is vital. I also agree that follow-ups to cases are needed. Take the Socionics case as an example. How would you have addressed the post-case content issues there? A prompt for a 'Review of articles' to take place was voted through as part of the final decision, but I saw no signs that this was ever done. Some areas get too much activity, others get too little. Those are some of my thoughts; I hope you will find the time to develop some of your thoughts further. Please ask if you have any follow-up questions. Carcharoth (talk) 00:09, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * It's certainly alot easier on broader subjects such as abortion and climate change or consensus names of the West Bank than on esoteric articles that receive little attention such as that. I can understand reluctance to have any findings based on source use with that case. Ideally we'd have folks interested in reviewing but we often don't. I must say I get more taken aback when broader case lack source-use related findings and are restricted solely to behaviour. I don't think that is tenable in the long term. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:33, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree that long-term it is not tenable, but there is also the question of scale. Broad areas with deep-seated content-related conduct issues that are intractable, deadlocked, and acrimonious, and that the editorial community are unable to handle, should eventually find their way to arbitration (though mediation is another prior step), but the editorial community does need to find a way of sorting some of these situations at a level below arbitration. Not being on the committee after the end of this year, hopefully you may have a chance to make progress on that, either before such situations reach arbitration, or in helping to manage the issues following an arbitration case. Carcharoth (talk) 12:20, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Moved comment from #Question from Bishonen
Hi, Carcharoth, nice to see you stand again. One case the committee dealt with during your 2009—2010 tenure was "Jimbo Wales' block of Bishonen", a case I filed. This aftermath is of particular interest IMO; I link to it because it's rather hard to find. Could you please let me know your present thoughts about how my request was handled, and especially about your own role? It wouldn't be technically correct to call you the "drafting arb", since the request was dealt with by motion without a full case being opened, but you certainly seemed willing to take a leading role. Is there anything (anything important) that you would do differently if a comparable request (=a request involving Jimbo Wales) came up today?

Naturally, if a person might dream, I'd like to also learn your full and frank view of the part Jimbo played in the proceedings and of the constitutional crisis with respect to Jimbo's role which you acknowledged here. But I realize this may not be the time and place.

I want to stress that this is a bona fide question; it's not meant to be a preamble to a debate or political disquisition. It's just something I'd like to know in order to know how to vote. I'll certainly respect your right to keep the content of your head private, and will silently accept whatever you're willing to tell me about your present views. In the unlikely event that I feel a need to respond to your response, I'll do so on the talk page. Bishonen &#124; talk 19:07, 22 November 2012 (UTC).


 * Hi Bishonen. Thanks for the questions. As I said to Cunard above, I am working my way through the remaining questions and should get down to these ones some time at the weekend, as I'm not around Friday evening. Briefly for now, the 'aftermath' you link to was moved to another page, and can be seen here. That is within a collapse box, but can be seen by clicking the box open. Carcharoth (talk) 20:05, 22 November 2012 (UTC)


 * A: OK, I've now re-read (skimming in some places) that very long thread from 2009, and the 'aftermath' bit where we talked on that userspace page of mine. My present thoughts on how your request was handled back then are that, quite frankly, it was a mess and it could have been handled a lot better. For that I apologise unreservedly. My own role, it appears, was to say far too much, though I see a lot of other people said a lot back then as well. What I would do differently today, if a similar request came up, would be to be more concise, to keep discussion on-wiki, and to not use the mailing list in the way it was used back then. My view of the part Jimmy played in the proceedings are that he did cross a line several times that he should not have done, but this is (or should be) old history now. The constitutional crisis died with a whimper, despite efforts on my part and by others to move the issue forward again (I mention this in the aftermath bit). It is possible that the arbitration policy that was eventually voted on (some years later I think) included some formal changes along these lines with respect to the relationship between Jimmy and ArbCom. It is possible that the Timid Guy ban appeal case (held earlier this year) saw other changes. As for the relationship between Jimmy and Wikipedia as a whole, that is not a matter for ArbCom, though I see the issue is topical once more if you look at his comments made here after being notified of the Electoral Commission set up for these elections. See also what was said here by Jimmy in his partial endorsement at the RfC for that Electoral Commission. I hope all this answers your questions. Carcharoth (talk) 00:46, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, it answers them very satisfactorily. Thank you. Bishonen &#124; talk 15:34, 27 November 2012 (UTC).