User:MBisanz/ACE2008/Guide/Rlevse

This is part of a voter guide I am making, feel free to keep adding relevant questions to it, particularly with regard to older arbcom cases. If you are running in the 2008 Arbcom Elections, feel free to begin filling out the survey whenever you wish. Just fill out the box below and create a subpage for your answers. Thanks. MBisanz ^talk 17:17, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Hello, below are some optional questions to help the voters at the 2008 Arbitration Committee elections get to know you, the candidate, better.

How long have you been an editor of Wikipedia?
3 years, since Nov 2005
How many total edits do you have on Wikipedia? What is your % of edits to the article space?
Over 62,000, 31.64% mainspace
Are you an administrator? If so, how long have you been one?
Yes, since Feb 2007
Do you hold any other userrights or positions at the English Wikipedia? (crat, medcom, WPPJ, etc)
Checkuser and bureaucrat, work with the ScoutingWikiProject, arbitration committee clerk
Do you hold any userrights or other positions of trust at other WMF projects? Which ones?
Admin on WikiCommmons
Have you ever been named as a participant of a Request for Arbitration? If so, please link case(s).
No
Have you ever been blocked or subject to restrictions such as WP:RESTRICT, WP:BLPLOG, WP:AER, or WP:SANCTION? If so, please link to the relevant issue.
No
Have you ever been blocked or formally sanctioned at another WMF project? If so, please describe.
No
What is your best work at Wikipedia? (an article, list, image or content template)
I think my best work is with featured content. I have 12 successful Featured Article nominations and significantly contributed to an additional 3 for a total of 15; 1 successful Featured Portal nomination; and also been a significant contributor to one successful Featured List. I was a significant contributor to all 17 of these items.
If elected, would you request the Checkuser and/or Oversight userrights?
I have CU already and yes I'd request oversight as arbs deal with those types of issues frequently.
Please list any disclosed or undisclosed alternate or prior accounts you have had.
None.
What methods of off-wiki communication do you use to discuss Wikipedia related matters? (IRC, Skype, WR, Mailing Lists, blogs, etc) Please link to any publicly available forums you use.
IRC, email - including lists, and occassionaly Skype.
Do you have OTRS access? If so, which queues?
No OTRS access.
How do you resolve the apparent inconsistency between RFAR/MONGO and RFAR/Jim62sch as to off-site activities by users?
Both MONGO and Jim62sch do deal with harassment and off-wiki activity and on a cursory look they could be seen as contradictory but look closer and you will see that they aren’t. Jim62sch was decided 14.5 months after MONGO and in my view is a clarification/amplificiation/tweaking of the MONGO ruling. The linked MONGO ruling, principle #8, Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/MONGO#Karma simply says that users who participate in off-wiki sites that are hypercritical of wiki can expect their activities on and off wiki to be closely monitored. The linked Jim62sch ruling, principle #4, Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jim62sch#Conduct_outside_Wikipedia, does not say their activities can not be monitored, it says their off wiki activities are “generally not subject to Wikipedia policies or sanction”, which is not the same thing as the MONGO ruling. It goes on to say that in “extraordinary circumstances”, such as egregious disruption or real life or work harassment, they may be subject to Wikipedia sanctions.
What is your opinion on the new closed motions process?
Since I'm the one that created it, I naturally think it's great. I created that page as prior to its existence, there was no consistent place to archive RFAR clarifications that did not have an associated arb case.
Besides compromised accounts, under what circumstances would you support or initiate an emergency request for desysopping?
In addition to "compromised accounts", I would support emergency desyssopings in cases such as:
egregious abuse of admin actions and violation of the community trust placed in admins, such as the Robdurbar incident and CSCWEM incident: see this and this

extreme wheel warring, such as when the admin was told to stop and hasn’t

"an admin wheel warring over blocks or userrights, which has a more lasting and chilling effect than protections or deletions".
Currently, only Jimbo Wales and the Arbitration Committee are authorized to perform/request involuntarily desysop an administrator whose account has not been compromised. What is your view of community-based desysopping decisions?
One of the problems with arbcom is that they are usually overworked. The community entrusted crats to +sysop someone so I feel that crats can be entrusted to desysop someone in addition to arbcom retaining the power to do so. However, I would not support allowing one crat alone to do this. It should be at least 3 crats agreeing or a majority of those currently active (left side of WP:CRAT. This would free up arbcom to focus more on its core, arb cases. I donʼt think the community at large should handle desysops as too often good admins take heat because they work in difficult areas. Any admin that tries to enforce policy is bound to have some enemies. In the case of crat desysops, user should have the right to appeal to Jimbo/arbcom.
If you owned Wikipedia as the WMF currently does, what would you do to fix the BLP problem?
WP:BLP is historically one of the most problematic areas of Wikipedia. The special BLP enforcement policy that grew out of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Footnoted quotes has only been invoked twice and the first instance resulted in a wheel war and another arbcase that should soon close. Views on BLP range from "include anything with a reliable source" to the strictest interpretations of the "do no harm" policy. To solve this, one has to look at the community consensus of where to fall within that spectrum given the trend in the Footnoted quotes case and Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff, it is clear at least which direction this should take. Common decency needs to be considered here. I won't mention the article, but recently a female singer with a urinary problem urinated on stage and someone put it in the article because it had a reliable source. It was quickly removed per BLP, which I totally agree with. We have to keep in mind that we are dealing with real living people here, not some avatar on the Internet.
In 2004, the Arbitration Committee referred issues to the Mediation Committee. However, as of recent, the Arbitration Committee has not referred issues to the Mediation Committee. Would you refer more content-based disputes to MedCom or continue the current practice?
Wikipedia is very different now compared to 2004. Medcom handles content disputes, which is not arbcom's purview in the first place. Recently arbcom hasn't referred RFAR applicants directly to medcom but they often refer them to the whole dispute resolution process, of which medcom is a part. I also think if medcom gets an case that is ready for RFAR and likely to be accepted, it can refer the case to RFAR, akin to the behavior issues that led to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters 2
In the past the Arbitration Committee has taken a checkered view of wheel wars, desysopping in some cases and not desysopping in others. What do you believe constitutes a wheel war which would result in a desysopping?
WP:WHEELWAR defines wheel warring as "A wheel war is a struggle between two or more administrators in which they undo one another's administrative actions — specifically, unblocking and reblocking a user; undeleting and redeleting; or unprotecting and reprotecting a page." It goes on to advise "Do not repeat an administrative action when you know that another administrator opposes it. Do not continue a chain of administrative reversals without discussion." I feel there are two causes of wheel warring: 1) admins who reverse the action of another without obtaining consensus first and 2) varying arbcom remedies in wheel wars. Admins will continue to wheel war as long as they know they in all liklihood will not be desyssoped by arbcom. While not all cases will necessitate a desysop, arbcom needs to be swifter and firmer in this regard.
How involved must an administrator be to be unable to enforce policy on a user? Given that it is expected that all admins understand policy when they pass RFA, under what circumstances would you not desysop an administrator who was clearly involved with a user they blocked or an article they deleted/protected?
Not using your bit in a case you are involved in is a core principle of adminship. I always try to be very careful of not using my bit in disputes I'm involved in. I can not think of a case where a block by an involved in admin would be justified. I can think of removal of clear and obvious vandalism would be acceptable, such as when the other party inserts blatant profanity into an article and the involved admin removes it. When in doubt, the admin should err on the side of caution and maintaining their integrity and seek the assistance of neutral admins through the appropriate means. Only being involved in a situation does not make one "involved" as an editor. Admins who are involved as an editor should avoid administrative action in regard to it.
Besides the technical capabilities administrators have, the Arbitration Committee has granted administrators the rights to enforce certain general sanctions with regards to specific editors and articles. What is your view on these new non-technical privileges being considered part of the "administrative" function for purposes such as RfC, Recall, and RfAR?
Users are made admins because the community has placed their trust in them. This does mean it’s limited to use of a technical capability such as blocking someone. It includes sanctions such as topic bans. Use of these non technical powers is subject to the same standards of behavior and scrutiny as technical admin powers.
Current checkuser policy at the English Wikipedia prohibits checkusers from fulfilling "fishing" requests. However, global privacy policy does not prohibit such requests from being fulfilled, so long as personal information is not disclosed. Would you support the alteration of the en.wp policy to permit fishing requests?
I would agree to fishing in checkuser cases if there were sufficient grounds to expect a reasonable expectation of abusive behavior being found—sometimes ones instinct is all you have but there isn’t enough public evidence to prove it. However, it should be used with due discretion and a “fishing usage of checkuser” should have a second CU agree it should be run.
In 2006 the Arbitration Committee asked the community to address the issue of protecting children's privacy on Wikipedia. To this day there is still no policy on how to handle children's privacy on Wikipedia. What steps would you take to ensure children's privacy is protected under policy?
Children are our most precious resource and we are morally and legally bound to protect them. Users self-identifying as children may actually be children, pedophiles looking for children, or law enforcement personnel testing our policies. Whichever of those is in fact true, we should remove that private info, explain to the user why, and do so in a calm, rational manner. I think our admin and oversight policies are sufficient to handle these matters and this should be done so with discretion and in a non-antagonistic manner. Some education on the matter to the general community may be beneficial. I would also support attempting to make Wikipedia:Protecting children's privacy a guide or {{infopage}}.
How do you resolve the apparent inconsistency between RFAR/LevelCheck and RFAR/Durova as to what may be considered justification for blocks of educated new users?
The LevelCheck case found that user to be very disruptive whereas in the Durova case found that there was insufficient cause for a block, off wiki evidence was never made public and review had to be made through arbcom though they had not endorsed the block. In my view, the cases are very different and not inconsistent at all. A new user being educated about wiki is only one of the many factors that justify a block for socking. While it is certainly possible such a user is a sock, it is also possible they utilize another WMF site, such as Commons, or another mediawiki (non-WMF) site such as Intellipedia. Such knowledge may well justify scrutiny but other evidence should be gathered and evaluated before blocking. Mere suspicion does not justify a block. SSP and the evidence of socking should be as public and transparent as privacy concerns allow.
Originally RfARs were named in the style of Party X v. Party Y in line with the idea of two groups in opposition to each other (eg. User:Guanaco versus User:Lir). Later it was changed to naming an individual user (eg. Husnock). Now cases get random names like Highways 2. What naming convention do you believe is the appropriate one for ArbCom to use in designating case names? under what circumstances should a case name be changed after opening, such as in RFAR/Zeraeph?
Having been an arbcom clerk for some time and the actual case clerk for Zeraeph, I have a familiarity with this topic. The whole purpose of not using the “A v. B” format is to reduce the adversarial and confrontational atmosphere around arb cases and I strongly support that. “A and B” is better, but “Article name edit war” is even better. The name must fit the case by being descriptive and be as neutral as possible. Zeraeph was renamed upon closing, not during the case, because the other main party was found not at fault and Zeraeph was banned for a year. A case name should certainly be neutral, non confrontational, not make judgements, and cause as little drama as possible.
A case is presented between two administrators who have repeatedly undone each other's administrative actions with regard to the deletion of an article. The basis for the deleting administrator's action was an OTRS ticket showing the article to be a copyright violation. In performing the deletion, the administrator clearly referenced the OTRS ticket number. Assuming the undeleting administrator did not have OTRS access, do you penalize him more or less for wheel warring? Do you penalize the deleting administrator for wheel warring?
Undeleting something that was clearly deleted because of an OTRS ticket is a serious matter fraught with legal perils not only for the undeleting admin but even more so for the Foundation. Not having OTRS access is no excuse. Both admins in this case are guilty of wheel warring. A post to WP:AN would be the first logical step here. The undeleting admin should most probably be desyssoped swiftly and the deleting admin admonished or desyssoped for perpetuating a wheel war.
To what extent do you believe policy on Wikipedia is or should be binding?
Policy should be binding, especially where legal issues, privacy, and copyright are involved. Policy cannot foresee every circumstance—this is one area where common sense comes into play. Policy should be modified by obtaining consensus, not by ignoring it. It should be applied fairly and equally to all users. One of the major problems with policy is that users, understandably, have differeing views on things such as what is or isn’t civil and what is or isn’t fair use. In such cases the policy should be clarified as much as possible and consensus reached in discussion about specific applications of that policy.