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Previous guides: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011
Standard disclaimer: This represents my views and opinions, especially on Wikipedia philosophy. I encourage you to do your own research.
A bit about myself: editor since 2005, admin since 2005, OTRS agent since 2012. I am a contributor to the U.S. Roads project and have two FAs and 16 GAs. I have been following virtually all the 2012 ArbCom cases, and have been an official party to three: Highways (2006), Highways 2 (2008), and Racepacket (2011). I have also commented on quite a few others: Ottava Rima restrictions and Civility enforcement come to mind; I have also filed a few declined requests (another Racepacket one, one on the Featured articles process, and one on Youreallycan).
In regards to User talk:Jclemens#Please_resign, as a guide writer I publicly state that at no time did I receive any confidential material, directly or indirectly, from Elen of the Roads. --Rschen7754 08:41, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
How this guide works
editI read the answers to the questions that I've asked and score them as to how the candidate's views align with mine. I also score experience. I give out the final numbers after that. Towards the voting time I give out what my recommendations are (it's relative to the final scores; think of grading on a curve). Note that I reserve the right to deviate from the score this year.
Questions
editA copy of the questions can be found at User:Rschen7754/Arbcom2012.
Scoring
editQuestion 1: Delay (10%)
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Question 1: 3 points What is your view on the length of time that it took for the case Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Tree shaping?
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Question 2: Role of WikiProjects (10%)
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What is the role of a WikiProject? This question got really screwed up in my rephrasing this year. It was only worth 10% though so I didn't toss it entirely, and in some cases it worked.
Elen's response was in between 1 and 2. |
Questions 3-4: Current issues (10%)
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Question 3: Does the English Wikipedia have a problem with "vested contributors"? Why or why not? If there is a problem, what is to be done about it?
Question 4: Under what circumstances would you resign from the Committee, if elected? The answer I was looking for was along the lines of "if the community has lost my trust." Anything less than that got 2 points or in one case, 1 point. Inactivity / IRL business is another important reason but that wasn't what I wanted to know. |
Questions 5-7: Dispute resolution (20%)
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Note: Question 5 was a great question last year, but the wording was flawed and didn't quite yield the information I wanted. I rephrased it this year, but I reserve the right to play with the rubric if I don't like how it turned out again. I'm not exactly sure where I want to go with question 6, and I also reserve the right to tweak the rubric until the final scores are done. Question 5: 10 points Part A: 6 points Do you believe that "it takes two to tango" in some circumstances? In every circumstance?
Part B: 4 points Would you consider mitigating the sanctions on one user given the actions of another? Eliminating them entirely?
Question 6: 5 points ZOMG ADMIN ABUSE!!!!!!! a) How do you determine if abuse of the tools actually took place? Is there the possibility of a "gray area" in the interpretation of the policies? (cap of 3 points) b) When do you believe that it is appropriate for ArbCom to act on a case of admin abuse, without having the scenario brought to ArbCom by another editor? (cap of 2 points) Note: reserve the right to deviate from this, as I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking for here yet.
Part B:
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Questions 8-9: Essential checks (10%)
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8. What are your thoughts as to what happened to Mat Honan, since you are applying to be an arbitrator, one of the most visible positions on one of the top 10 sites on the Internet?
9. If elected to ArbCom, do you plan on being active for the majority of your term?
Total: 10 * 1 = 10% |
Experience (40%)
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FA/GA: 2 points
Tenure: 3 points Have you been a Wikipedia editor for a decent length of time and made a proportionate amount of edits during that time?
Edit count: 5 points The edit count divided by 20,000, capping at 5 points (100,000 edits). Administrator: 4 points Are you an administrator? How long have you been an administrator?
Experience: 4 points Have you participated in a formal committee that will give you experience in ArbCom?
Statement: 2 points Was your statement well thought out (why are they running)? Was it reasonable and not a "let's go sack ArbCom" statement?
Civility: 4 points
Total: 24 * 1.67 = 40% |
Results
editI will list editors in alphabetical order. Any initial comments are simply that; if you wow me with your answers to the questions, that can make a huge difference. All arbitrators with expiring terms are listed below, marked with *.
Recommendations are solely for suitability in a possible role as an arbitrator. Please don't take this personally!
| Editor | Thoughts | Questions score /60 | Experience score /40 | Total score | Verdict |
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| Beeblebrox (talk · contribs) Questions |
Admin, oversighter. On the fence about this one - greatest strength is greatest weakness. Doesn't put up with BS, to be blunt - and that's a big plus in my book. We need more arbs like that. The problem is that sometimes he doesn't handle frustration well (issues at Meta earlier this year and IGNOREMETA, for example). Re-evaluating the meta thing, apparently the Meta admins are pretty bad, from what I've been told, but the whole thing was really controversial. If he becomes an arb, he needs to be careful what he says, and how he says it; we all saw what happened when an arb didn't this last year. Going to go out on a limb and support - overall would be a net positive; but Beeblebrox, if you're reading this, please be careful. | 52.00 | 28.45 | 80.46 |  Support
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| Carcharoth (talk · contribs) Questions |
Ex-arb. I think his term fell within the time when I wasn't paying attention to the committee. Oppose in 2008, but the questions were a lot different than they are now. But from those and taking a quick peek at Ottava Rima restrictions case, seems to be lenient. The question answers were very good, except for a total flop on the admin and offwiki questions. Both of the answers to those bother me a bit, and that's why this support isn't strong despite the high number. | 54.00 | 33.56 | 87.56 | Support
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| Count Iblis (talk · contribs) Questions |
Part of the ArbCom Reform Party. I doubt this will be anything but a strong oppose, but awaiting answers before making it official. Strong oppose (basically see Yolo Swag). Read answers to questions, weren't as bad as I had feared, but shows little knowledge of how ArbCom actually operates or of the issues at play. | 28.00 | 7.37 | 35.38 |  Strong oppose
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| Coren (talk · contribs) Questions |
Support in 2008, 2009, 2011. Good arbitrator and was disappointed he didn't win last year. However it's been really good to have a year off to be recharged; apparently arb is a tiring job, and he seems more enthusiastic now. Good answers to questions. WikiProject question was off, but it's been off for a lot of candidates this year. No reservations with supporting. | 55.00 | 28.17 | 83.17 |  Strong support
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| David Fuchs (talk · contribs) Questions |
He got a FA recently. But other than that... nothing really sticks out to me, good or bad. He hasn't really taken any particular stances other than piling onto other opinions, at least from what I've seen. Oppose in 2010, but the system was all screwed up due to the stupid "no spamming questions" thing. Going to support. Wish he'd take a more visible role other than apparent pile-on, and at least explain rationales when voting, but I will note that there's a lot of Arb work we don't see; if memory serves me right he's been on AUSC almost an entire year and is on BASC. But there's two primary reasons for this: 1) Looking at the candidate pool, there's relatively few major content contributors; I think it's good to have a few of those on the committee - with Casliber departing and Keilana being borderline especially. 2) Flexibility is good, especially in a divided committee, and it seems that he's reasonable. | 49.00 | 34.38 | 83.38 | Support
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| Elen of the Roads (talk · contribs) Questions |
Moving to very strong oppose. Being reminded about a block is one strike, leaking emails from arbcom-l is one strike, being dishonest about it is the third. It's implied that the only reason she's still on ArbCom is because too many arbs were recused as candidates for the election. Also, voting to support shutting down ArbCom until January 1 is a clear violation of the recusal policy, as it is an alternative to the motion to remove her CU/OS/arbcom-l/whatever access. She will still not resign despite strong pressure from the community. | 28.06 | Very strong oppose
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| Guerillero (talk · contribs) Questions |
Admin for less than a year. ArbCom clerk. I'm waiting on this one, but from what I can see this is probably going to be a neutral. WikiProject question is quite off. The vested contributor question shows a tendency towards leniency, and it's not how the question is worded, it's something I've noticed. There were a few nitpicks on the others. The other issue is a lack of experience. He has many hats, for lack of a better word, but not a whole lot of time in some of them. That being said, I don't think this is enough to strongly oppose. | 45.33 | 24.38 | 69.71 |  Neutral
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| Jc37 (talk · contribs) Questions |
Hmm. Prominent administrator, and shows initiative. OTOH, a bit concerned about lack of article writing experience. I typically don't bring this up for candidates, as I realize that article writing isn't everyone's strength (it certainly wasn't mine for my first few years). But when one makes comments indicating that they want to MFD the entire FA process at a public arbitration request, that's concerning; it shows little understanding of the good and featured content processes. Kurtis also reminded me about the Bishonen-Penyulap debacle; I'm not endorsing Bishonen's position either, but a lot of the replies from Jc37 came off like "sour grapes". That is, if they weren't tl;dr; arbs need to be able to write statements that are understood. Answers to questions were not well written and way too short; we expect arbs to be clear, and I'm not sure if he spent a whole lot of time on them. All of this is enough for me to oppose. | 30.67 | 24.93 | 55.59 | Strong oppose
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| Jclemens (talk · contribs) Questions |
"not a Wikipedian" comment a concerning issue, but behavior afterwards made it even worse. Also concerned about attempts to legislate from the bench with some of the recent declined arb requests; it seems like he's trying to set precedent. Neutral in 2010, oppose in 2011. ... so he is running. At least he prepared a FAQ showing that he at least is somewhat in touch with the community. But is it too little too late? Read the questions... my gut feeling is to oppose. The answers to the questions were alright, better than in past years admittedly. The applying for commons admin to see deleted evidence isn't great. However, I can't support in good conscience. My comments still stand, except for the part that related to info I didn't know. If he had apologized right away, I wouldn't be opposing (likely), but now it's really too late—the big issue for me is that he still doesn't seem to understand the gravity of what he did. Sure, he did finally backpedal at the election time, but that was really the only way out for him to maintain any chance of electability. I really think we need to solve this vested contributor issue, as is evident from my questions I asked to each candidate in 2009, 2010, 2011, and now 2012, and I agree that this civility thing is important too, even for so-called vested contributors. I also think that Jclemens' "credibility on the topic is busted" (to quote Casliber in his situation with socking a few years back), and while I agree that everyone should be held to the ideals of Wikipedia, including civility, I think his effectiveness in this area and on ArbCom in general has been greatly reduced by this incident, and an apparent recurring pattern of slightly edgy comments. Finally, there's the concern that should he get re-elected, there might be another incident like this one; it was providential that this one was so close to the end of his term. It is clear that he would be reluctant to resign if the community indicated that it had lost trust in him, and it is also clear that ArbCom would be reluctant to vote him out, so we would be stuck with him for up to 1 or 2 years. While I'd like to think that this would never happen again and that he's learned his lesson, so to speak, the possibility that he hasn't is too real to ignore here. To be blunt, he was my inspiration for the new question on resigning. I'm reluctant to vehemently oppose someone who has clearly given a lot to this site in good faith, but I see it as the only option here. Addendum: he was basically told to knock it off on arbcom-l? Oh dear. It's implied that the only reason he's still on ArbCom is because too many arbs were recused as candidates for the election. | 42.67 | 26.34 | 69.01 | Very strong oppose
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| Keilana (talk · contribs) Questions |
Admin, OTRS, MedCom, SPI clerk trainee. FA writer. So we're already talking about someone fairly experienced. Had an informal medcabal case request a long time ago with her (2007) but for the life of me, I can't recall anything about it. My one gripe is that she seems to be part of the QAI cabal/FAC faction and didn't seem to take a hard enough stance on the Br'er Rabbit socking incident a few weeks back. Not a deal-breaker especially considering experience and the fact that she'd have to recuse from anything related to those editors anyway, but concerns about letting friends get off easy still (basically a lot like previous guide writers have complained about Casliber) doesn't sit well with me (noting vote opposing Br'er Rabbit's community ban, a fellow member of WP:QAI, and not even making a comment condemning the socking). Questions done, need to take a look. Overall, I'm going to support and I think overall she's a good candidate. She goofed on the offwiki question, but the rest of the answers were at least clueful. Have reservations about the whole cabal thing, but hopefully that won't come into play. Addendum: also noticed her commentary on the Racepacket motion, a motion which was quite obscure, so that shows some attentiveness. Addendum x2: Basically, SandyGeorgia's guide User:SandyGeorgia/ArbVotes2012#Keilana says my concern better than I did above. It does bother me, I won't deny that. However, I didn't override my support since Keilana would have to recuse from any cases involving such a conflict of interest. Moving to hold - the numbers say support but I've felt really uneasy about this one. Going to weak support again, especially in the last few hours, there's candidates that we do not want on ArbCom period. And I apologize about the indecisiveness. | 49.00 | 34.10 | 83.10 | Weak support |
| Ks0stm (talk · contribs) Questions |
Disclosure: editor is a fellow member of USRD and I did talk about his candidacy with him. It's going to be difficult for me to be neutral with this one, so keep that in mind. New administrator. Tends to stay out of drama-related areas. No issues with admin actions that I've seen so far, and seems clueful. Borderline with this one; this falls within the discretionary range. I agree with his views overall, and admin work overall, but I'd have to agree that the candidate might not be too familiar with the arbitration process. Also lower amount of experience than usual. But then again I don't find anything strong enough to oppose and would rather have a candidate with good views and not enough experience than a candidate with bad views. I will probably bumping up to Support though, depending on the candidate pool. Bumping up to weak support, though I don't think many other guides will. |
51.67 | 22.57 | 74.24 | Weak support
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| Kww (talk · contribs) Questions |
Long-term admin, but I'm concerned since he did not do well on the questions last year (by a lot). Statement is very short. Particularly offended by "it really is hard for a teenager to understand that everything passes, that they will look back at their current infatuation with Demi Lovato/Selena Gomez/Lady Gaga/Adele/whoever with a sigh and a chuckle someday, and that nothing that happens on Wikipedia is really of grave importance." I edited Wikipedia as a teenager and was an admin for most of that time, and I still don't have an idea of who Demi Lovato is. I also got my first FA at the age of 18, and started a WikiProject that has created 46 FAs at the age of 15, so I feel stereotyped by that. Sounds incredibly ageist to me; the same sentiment could have been said in a much less insulting way (to be clear, I have written plenty an essay ranting against teenage editors that are immature). Rule #1 of ArbCom elections: don't insult the electorate. Not to mention that a lot of the answers to the questions were way off, and just... vague, and possibly even sarcastic on the Honan question. Amended comments, but the cat's out of the bag already; as an arb, you can't just take your comments back (as I think we're all aware by now). |
33.67 | 21.65 | 53.97 | Strong oppose
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| Newyorkbrad (talk · contribs) Questions |
Still a great arbitrator, but this would put him at seven years on the committee. Support in 2007 and 2010. Awaiting answers to questions, but I think an additional term would be a net positive, if he thinks he can do the job. Going to support; overall good answers to the questions. I disagreed with the answer to the vested contributions question, but he does tend to be a lenient arbitrator, and I'm not overly surprised. The answer to the resign question was off, but I'm going to assume that was a goof, and I'm pretty sure Newyorkbrad would resign if he did something really bad (but it's hard to imagine him doing that), and I won't take too much off. Feel comfortable supporting. Update: he did indicate that he would resign if the community lost trust, but I'm not going to change the points since it's already a support. | 51.67 | 29.31 | 80.98 | Support
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| NuclearWarfare (talk · contribs) Questions |
A lot of experience as a clerk. Figured this would be a support before seeing the question answers. I feel comfortable supporting off the bat after seeing the question answers. WikiProject question a little weak. Tango question was a pretty good response. Got the grey area, but the second part was lacking; yet I can't explain why until more people have answered the questions. 89.74% is very high. | 53.00 | 36.74 | 89.74 | Strong support
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| Pgallert (talk · contribs) Questions |
Not a huge fan of non-admin candidates, but we'll see where this goes. Not available on weekends? This seems like the most reasonable of the non-admin candidates that I've ever seen. Looked at the questions, and they weren't as bad as the typical non-admin candidate, but I'm concerned that the candidate doesn't know what is expected of them at ArbCom, and is not familiar with the Wikipedia dispute resolution process. I would suggest becoming an ArbCom clerk, or hanging around ANI a bit more to get a feel for what causes these serious disputes that need to go to arbitration. Or maybe even run for adminship. The non-admin part isn't an absolute deal-breaker for me, but a non-admin candidate needs to be able to get the experience that one would have by being an admin from somewhere else. So this is an oppose for now, but definitely an oppose without prejudice. | 40.34 | 15.84 | 56.17 |  Oppose
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| RegentsPark (talk · contribs) Questions |
Seems to be part of the Wikipedians who aren't Wikipedians protest category, or whatever it's called. That category along with the answers to some of the questions don't give me a good impression, to be honest. It makes it sound like he would favor so-called vested contributors and being more lenient with them, which is definitely something that I don't stand for. That was reflected in the answers to the questions. | 46.67 | 21.43 | 68.10 | Oppose
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| Richwales (talk · contribs) Questions |
Fluctuating edit counts per month. I've read the answers to the questions. Some of them were really good (tango), but some were way off the mark (WMF question and vested - the answer to vested is all true, but not what I was getting at). But nothing that merits an oppose right off the bat. Agree with clerical issues, but you might be able to do this as a clerk as well. Bit concerned that the candidate isn't familiar enough with some of the meta-issues facing the site. Waiting to see the candidate pool, but I anticipate a neutral looking at the numbers. | 49.00 | 22.60 | 71.60 | Neutral
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| Salvio giuliano (talk · contribs) Questions |
AUSC member. Fairly good impression, though I haven't interacted that much with him. Going to support; the answers to the questions were good and AUSC is good experience for the job, as well as being a former clerk. | 55.00 | 26.15 | 81.15 | Support
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| Timotheus Canens (talk · contribs) Questions |
Long-time AE patroller. Inclined to support. Going to weakly support, for two reasons: not as experienced as some of the other candidates, and I don't quite agree with the answer to the tango question. However, it would be good to have a former AE patroller on ArbCom, though the candidate has strong feelings about AE. | 51.00 | 22.67 | 73.68 | Weak support
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| Worm That Turned (talk · contribs) Questions |
Just missed the committee last year. Concerns about leniency. Became a clerk, but quit one or two months in due to the bureaucracy... okay, suppose I can see that. Support in 2011. Did about the same as he did last year, and that resulted in a support. Did really well on the questions. Claims he would be more of a "strict" arb. Seems like a substantial paradigm change... but considering that he knows he's tended to lean towards the lenient side as an admin, and besides, having some on both the lenient/strict scale is necessary, I anticipate supporting, of course waiting to see the rest of the candidate pool. Bumping to support. | 58.00 | 26.21 | 84.21 | Support
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| YOLO Swag (talk · contribs) Questions |
Ran as NWA.Rep last year and got a whopping 35% on my guide and 16.04% support overall. It seems all this editor wants to do is run for ArbCom and then tear it down; almost no mainspace editing, and long wikibreaks during non-ArbCom election times. Got into a serious fight on the ArbCom election RFC and almost got blocked. I suppose I have to look at the questions, but pretty sure where this one is going.... looked at the questions. Even worse than last year. Do I need to explain? If his CU/OS-flagged account got hacked, he'd just throw it away and start a new one? was the most ridiculous. I get that we tolerate critics, but I'd support an indefinite block at this point on grounds of disruption and trolling. (And watch my talkpage light up in a few minutes...) | 13.00 | 7.06 | 20.06 | Strong oppose
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The actual scores
editI've got a feeling as to what the final scale will be, but I'm still waiting a few days to finalize. I've started doing "Strong support" and "Strong oppose" this year; the "strong" designation is at my discretion only and is not directly related to the numbers, though the numbers strongly relate to my gut feeling.
The average was 70.06%. Over 74% was a Support, over 69.5% was a Neutral, and below was an Oppose.
In past years I took into account normalizing the results so that the average would be around 90%, and then supported everyone over 90%. It's still too early to be sure, but so far that's not producing a useful metric this year. I have candidates with well over 100% if you do this, and I have others sitting in the 70s, with nobody in the 80s. So in other words, candidates are either doing really well or really poorly; there's no in between. With such a bizarre distribution, I don't want to do it this way this year.
I now have more than 8 supports, but there's a lot of good candidates this year...
