User:Carrite/ACE2024

Perfunctory introductory

This is my first voters guide since the 2019 election — I got busy with book projects that reduced my Wikipedia time pretty massively. But hey, free time is mine these days so I'll sink an hour or two into this effort. I'm no newcomer to these guides, having done six in a row before that, I believe. I also published a voter's guide to the October 2024 Administrator election on Wikipediocracy, which I hope was helpful to overwhelmed voters in their winnowing of the herd. (As an aside, I think that herd got winnowed a little too much, but that's okay — near-miss candidates should be back soon.)

Many of you may know me from my prolific participation on the Wikipediocracy message board, where I'm one of the top 3 most active posters, writing as Randy from Boise. I'm a bitter critic of the bureaucratization of Wikipedia and the usurpation of En-WP's autonomy by the WMF, which in my opinion is an unquenchable six-foot remora attached to the belly of a five-foot shark. WMF expropriates the social capital generated the good works of tens of thousands of volunteer editors from around the world so as to shake loose tens of millions more dollars than they actually need from WP's readers each year. WMF is not our boss, they maintain the site for us, the autonomous communities of volunteer editors. Arbcom, as the highest elected institution of the En-WP Community, needs to be alert to the danger.

In addition to my status (or infamy) as a core supporter of WPO, I am also, let there be no mistake, a dead-serious and totally committed Wikipedian — sitting at #995 on the Most Edits list, with a clean block log and all that good stuff. This year, 2024, is already my most active editing year ever. I am engaged.

What you will be getting from me here is a set of opinions about candidates, lending support to those with the courage of their convictions, even if I may not totally agree with them on this issue or that. I am also highly adverse to drama mongers and those seeking to start or perpetuate wars between thin-skinned "civility" extremists and those who engage in off-Wiki discussion.

Okay, my perspective is duly identified. Value or devalue my recommendations as you will. Thanks for your time.

—Tim Davenport, Corvallis, OR ////// Carrite on WP ////// Randy from Boise on WPO

P.S. I have added the responses to the uniform question I asked of all candidates.

Strongest Recommendation

• Just Step Sideways — Formerly known by the better screen name Beeblebrox, Beebs got done dirty by Arbcom a year ago, who took a little whoopty-whoopty and made a big whoopty-whoopty out of it largely as a means of spanking him for talking out of turn during his last month of tenure as an Arb Com member. I'm sure the details will be hashed and rehashed during this campaign period... The bottom line is that Beebs believed himself to be behaving honorably and was behaving honorably, and he was treated dishonorably, probably as a pretext to send a message about Arb participation at Wikipediocracy. This dude is 100% honest and on my short list of Wikipedians I would like to meet in real life and have a beer with. He's not afraid to say what needs to be said and to do what needs to be done. He has the best interests of Wikipedia at heart.

Addendum: Here is Beebs' explanation of the Gitz Affair in case his Q&A section is a bit tl;dr for you:

"Gitz6666 was blocked from another WMF wiki, and then globally locked, on the pretense that he had done something extremely out of line, but he wasn't told what this reason actually was. For some weird reason, someone told him to appeal to the en.wp ArbCom, which he did. In the course of the committee talking with the stewards, trying to figure out what exactly was going on, a steward explained what the accusation was to the committee. Gitz posted quite a number of times at WPO about his situation, and while I was skeptical at first and told him as much, I gradually began to feel the situation was manifestly unfair.

"After questioning why this action had been taken against him for some time, he guessed the correct reason for the block/lock. I made a post saying it was too bad I couldn't tell him if that was exactly the right reason, because I couldn't say anything. I was obviously being sarcastic and deliberately telegraphing that he had indeed gotten it right. So, I made a choice to help someone, whom I did not know in any capacity prior to this, and who was caught in a bureaucratic nightmare. People throw around the word "Kafkaesque" but this is literally the entire plot of Kafka's only full novel, The Trial. * * *

"Further to that, the matter with Gitz, which seems to be what most of the committee was most bothered by, was for me a matter of ethical behavior -vs- adherence to the rules. Here was this person who had been trying to figure out why he had been blocked and then globally locked. If he had in fact done what he was accused of, he would've deserved it, but they wouldn't tell him what the accusation even was. Once he knew what it was, he was quickly able to appeal and get the unjustified lock lifted, and the steward who misbehaved here was later removed by the community. That is, as far as I am concerned, the correct outcome. If this had remained a little secret between the committee and the stewards, he might still be unjustly globally locked right now, through no fault of his own. However, the committee didn't see it that way and made it abundantly clear, in an astonishingly fast decision for them, that they believe there are absolutely no exceptions, ever. So that's now my understanding of it as well, whether I happen to agree or not."

What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community?
This is clearly an issue that needs some clarification, and if elected, and even if not, I will endeavor to get the committee to do so. "Secret" evidence is usually not secret at all, it is usually entirely public, but on some other website, and the outing policy hamstrings what can and cannot be publicly posted on-wiki. That is a matter the community may want to address as the committee can't modify policy.
As to when the committee should accept a case, if there is a case request based entirely on private evidence, it should be handled privately, although some sort of tactful public notice that the case is underway may be in order. It does appear that in the still-pending case request, the committee dropped the ball by not adequetly replying when the evidence was first sent to them several months ago, That is an ongoing issue with the committee, but one that seems to be more acute this past year. If someone sends private evidence, that should be treated as a de facto request for a private case. The submitting user should get a yes-or-no answer as they eventually do with an on-wiki case request.
In this past year we saw a hybrid case where some evidence was public and some was not, and I would imagine that is possible more often than not and probably a good model to follow. The committee often has to weigh the individual right to privacy, which on Wikipedia, extends far further than most other websites, and the right of the broader community to know about things like canvassing and harassment.

• KrakatoaKatie — There are many arbs who have disappointed over the years, but my recollection of Katie is that she did a very solid job. She and Liz will get an enormous number of votes and I'm not gonna spend a lot of words on the matter. Of course, she will get an enormous number of votes... She should!

What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community?
Up there where Kevin asked about failures? This is one of them. IIRC, we wanted to outline a procedure for private evidence in 2020 but didn't for whatever reason – probably it got buried under the deluge of stuff that comes in unexpectedly. I wish we had. It's a difficult question you've asked, because everybody has rights in a case. On one hand we need to protect the privacy of someone who genuinely feels they need it, and on the other hand we don't want to have things disappear into a star chamber-like process.
So let's say, off the top of my very simplistic head here, that we've got a dispute between Editor A, who wants a private case, and Editor B. In my mind, we start with reviewing the private evidence of Editor A, discussing it, and as a body come to an agreement that a private case is or is not warranted. If it's rejected, Editor A has to be allowed the choice of backing out or taking it the normal route to file. If it's accepted as a private case, then Editor B has to be allowed to see that evidence. How can Editor B pull in diffs and support from Editors C and D – how do we allow C and D to be approached? Does Arbcom do it? Does B do it? And how do we get all these people to agree to confidentiality? Do we get a simple agreement? Do we have them sign the ANPDP and put it under that umbrella? Do we have to bake it into the ToU or the UCoC, something like 'if you're a party to a private case and you disclose private evidence, it's a one-way ticket to Indef Block Land'?
Now, having said all that, I don't know what the current procedures are since I left the group at the end of 2021. That's all behind the curtain to me now, so I don't want to throw the current arbs under my magic privacy bus. Like I said, it's hard, but I think answering these questions is a place to start.

• Liz — A reliable voice of reason on-Wiki. Liz is the sort of Wikipedian we all wish we had the temperament to be. Not sure if she or Katie will get the most net votes in this election, but both are slam-dunks to be among the top vote-getters. Righteously.

What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community?
This is the most challenging question posed to me so far. First, I'm not sure what the standard should be because I don't know what the current standard is right now, so it's hard to evaluate what aspects I would propose changes to or accept as appropriate. The existing standard could be more transparent to the community, I think, without any harm to any individual. But it very might be that ARBCOM decides whether to take a case based on private evidence on a case-by-case basis and has no "standard" to judge this which I find disconcerting.
I think it should be possible to have a case based on private evidence especially when it involves harrassment but it does pose a thorny question on how to divulge information to the accused in order to allow them to defend themselves. I think I'm more concerned about the fairness of this process than how much of the prodeedings to reveal to the community. The Arbitration Committee often keeps information from the community, much to their frustration, so that is nothing new. But the accused needs to know what the accusations are in order to offer their own explanations or defend themselves. I don't see how it is possible to provide details about misconduct allegations without it being obvious about the identity of the filer so perhaps the accused could be asked to keep such information private which would require their agreement and cooperation. I don't think we can take that reaction as a given.
So, to shorten what could be a long, exploration into the nature of privacy and arbitration deliberations (I can be very wordy), I'd have to say that I don't have an easy-to-sum up solution to the problem that you are validly pointing out and, if elected, I'd need to see how these cases are handled before advocating changes. But you have put your finger on a sensitive question which needs to be spelled out better by the committee to the community and I hope you will continue to pursue transparency here no matter who is elected.

• Worm That Turned — Spinning back to my 2019 guide, I reminded myself that Dave/WTT was one of two Arbcommers who really tried to get it right in the Fram case, exemplifying hard work and due diligence in the middle of a difficult and controversial case resulting from WMF overreach. He has a great deal of experience as a member of the committee and invariably lands on the side of reason and common-sense. I'd trust him with the keys to my car and I really like my car.

What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community?
The standard should be "we shouldn't do it unless absolutely necessary". I don't like secret evidence cases, they're not visible to the community who are our backstop - and so there needs to be a very good reason for one. As for the rest - the accused should have the right to respond to evidence against them, though depending on the scenarios, they may not have a right to "face the accuser" - we're not a court - but equally, I find it hard to picture scenarios where it's got to Arbcom and the accused cannot know who has made the accusation.
The one scenario I can think of was WP:FRAM - but that was Arbcom trying to fix a mess of how it was handled, rebuild a fractured community and deal with the underlying issue, all with our hands tied on what we could see and what we could say. I'd rather not go through that again.

Support

• Daniel — A former Arbcom clerk, I understand, which speaks to an enduring interest in Arbcom despite understanding of what a time-consuming shit-job being an Arb actually is. As an Ozzie, chances are he'll be in position now and again to add a little outsider perspective.

What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community?
Simply put, I think cases need to be extraordinary to be conducted based predominantly or entirely off private evidence — whether that be extraordinary alleged behaviour, extraordinary divisiveness within the community, or extraordinary risk to the project for not taking action. This 'extraordinary' threshold would be higher than the standard threshold to accept a 'normal', public case. In short, the Committee really should have no choice but to take it, if we're taking a private case (as private evidence is something that should be resisted generally). To extend that principle further, everything possible should be made public, whether in full or summarised. I think for a private case, it should be voted on in public at every stage (acceptance at RfAR, proposed decision etc.). Finally, if the private evidence cannot be shared in a form close to completeness with the 'accused' (to use your term) to offer a response, in my opinion it shouldn't be allowed to be relied upon as justification for a decision. Natural justice is incredibly important to me, and I believe these statements reflect this position.

• Guerillero — I've long considered Guerillero as someone who registered at account at WPO just to read the stuff hidden from the search engines, but who is basically opposed to the site and its mission. Because I am a moron, I probably have conflated him to some extent with Gamaliel, who certainly fits the aforementioned description, presuming he has an account at WPO at all. In sifting the early edits to see exactly what it is that got my backhair up about Tom in the first place, I was surprised to learn he came on board at WP about when I did (2009) with early edits to straight-edge punk rock-related topics. That's a +1 on my scoring system. He took a sensible line on the November drama at Arbcom, before he was bullied off the proposed case with more or less specious conflict-of-interest charges because he voted not to accept and some people wanted their righteous two-month food fight... I'm actually not seeing much in the case files of Arbcom out of step with the sensible approach, actually. So, yeah, re-elect.

What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community?
A problem that the community can not solve should be explored by arbcom. As for safeguards, it depends on the exact evidence and if all of the parties know what is going on.

• ScottishFinnishRadish — A recently-minted Class of 2020 Wikipedian. It may be the source of some hilarity and mirth to regular WPO readers that I encourage a vote for The Radish here, after having taken a pound and a half out of his hindquarters on Wikipediocracy for perceived infidelity to that site's participants and potential duplicity. I was overwrought, admittedly. I watched his actions fairly closely during the November melodrama in which a few people were attempting to whip up another installment of BADSITES at Arbcom. My worst fears were assuaged, I am happy to report. Giving it to you straight: this is an intelligent, steady person with an interest in the administration of rules and order on-Wiki, and whose judgment I believe to be generally reliable. We may not see eye-to-eye on this or that, or much or anything at all, really, but I don't believe he will be one to throw gasoline on small fires or throw marginally-involved bystanders onto large ones. Would I trust him throwing punches next to me in a street fight? No, I would not. Do I trust him to do the right thing on Arbcom? Yes, I do.

What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community?
I've started writing a reply to this several times, and have probably deleted hundreds of words so far trying to wrangle a clear answer out of an incredibly complicated question. It's made even more complicated due to the broad strokes when accepting a case based on secret evidence should be considered based on the specific circumstances. Here I am trying again, so we'll see if I can clearly get my thoughts down about this.
What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? I think the simple answer to this is that Arbcom should accept a case based on secret evidence when revealing the evidence could revictimize, out, or otherwise harm or reveal private information about editors or living people. There are a lot of situations where the evidence in a case, even just the basic facts, could cause harm or reveal private information about someone. The answers get more complicated when you have an actual situation in front of you, and you have to weigh transparency against what might be revealed by making evidence public, and you take into account the definition of outing that we use on en.wiki. As connecting an account on Wikipedia to an account on another platform meets the threshold a lot of evidence, especially when dealing with off-wiki collaboration issues, will fall under the umbrella of secrecy. If you have some scenarios you'd like me to opine on feel free to ask. Obviously I would strive to maintain the maximum possible transparency^{I bet you say that to all the boys}, but I've also provided private evidence to Arbcom in the past so I understand that it can be necessary.
Using the example of the current case request I'd say that anything connecting en.wiki accounts to undisclosed off-wiki accounts has to be private by policy.
What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community? This is really the meat and potatoes of the problem. Arbcom should be providing secret evidence against editors whenever possible, redacted if necessary. When dealing with coordination it's easier, though you still have to be careful around outing. Providing an editor with evidence that someone with their username was coordinating with someone else with the same name as another Wikipedia editor risks violating the outing policy by linking an on-wiki account with off-wiki account to a third party. Because of that, care must be taken in how the evidence is redacted and provided. For the community, a statement that evidence was presented that editors X and Y were colluding off-site and the general strength of the evidence would most likely be safe to release.
It becomes significantly more hairy when dealing with harassment or outing. As an example, if private evidence is received that an account believed to be an editor has outed another editor off-wiki providing that evidence to the editor could lead to spreading the personal information. In the case that the editor was not the one who outed someone else, they may have received a way to locate that personal information. The same goes with harassment, you don't want to draw further attention to the harassment and if there is a chance that the editor in question wasn't responsible for the harassment you'd be leading them to the harassment. What, if anything, could be provided to the accused editor depends on exactly what the situation is. Arbcom should strive to provide as much detail to the accused as possible while still preventing drawing further attention to harassment or personal information. In these situations it's even more difficult to provide information to the community but what can be, even if in the vaguest terms, should be. In the situation where the harassment is of a BLP via Wikipedia editing it's also dicey because when someone ends up Arbcom blocked it is likely that their contributions will be examined, and any statements from Arbcom could provide clues to harassment, and living people should enjoy the same protections as editors.
Again, this is a lot easier to answer with specific scenarios, but the short answer is Arbcom should be providing as much as possible while avoiding revictimizing people and protecting personal information.

• Theleekycauldron — Leeky is a comparative youngster at WP, coming on board as part of the Covid Class of 2020. I see her name here and there when I occasionally skim the drama boards to see who's acting like a buffoon this week... It seems pretty clear that she's a problem-solver rather than a provocateur, which is good. We need problem solvers. I had a good rationale for a NOTYET here, but we need to fill 9 slots and this is one of the top 9 candidates, so there you go.

What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community?
Thanks for the question, Carrite :) I don't think the secrecy of the evidence should determine whether ArbCom decides to take action or not. ArbCom should address cases based on the strength of the evidence and the underlying allegation.
But I do think ArbCom should commit to being as transparent as possible, in a way it hasn't always. Episodes like Just Step Sideways' warning being concealed from the community and Bishonen not being told why they weren't granted COIVRT suggest that ArbCom is still more opaque as an institution than the community wants. And in JSS's case, when ArbCom actually released its private warning of JSS, it had to amend its public summary of said warning in its suspension motion. I don't think the Committee deliberately misconstrued its warning, of course, but it's still troubling that increased transparency led ArbCom to revise its actions.

Will Work in a Pinch

• Elli — Elli, née Eliot321, has been on WP since 2014, which is a decade after the first surge and a decade before today. Plenty of time to have learned the ropes, although she only became an Administrator in June of this year, so the timing of this run is a bit puzzling at first glance.

What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community?
As I mentioned in response to q2, private proceedings can be frustrating for those involved. They also deprive the community of the ability to provide useful input while a case is ongoing, and of clarity for why decisions have been made. I'd like to minimize fully-private cases, limiting them only to situations where no other type of case would be able to address important issues while maintaining safety for those involved. Hybrid cases such as Historical elections are an interesting approach and something I'd like the committee to work on improving as an alternative to private cases, as they allow for more community input. For all cases—private, public, or hybrid—the accused should be given as much access to the evidence against them as is possible without compromising the safety of others.

• Simonm223 — An old hand that doesn't seem to really want the job, which indicates he'd probably be one of the best suited.

What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community?
I'm generally not fond of private evidence and believe it should only be used when there is an extremely compelling reason for making said evidence private. Otherwise I believe arbitration proceedings should be as transparent as possible. It's supposed to be a method of resolving public disputes - not a private court system. I think I know precisely which arbitration case this is kind of asking about as I was quite vocal about that issue and what I'd say is that the handling of that issue - a public accusation built around private evidence - was the worst of both worlds. It was non-transparent, provided insufficient opportunities for the accused parties to meaningfully respond, and simultaneously potentially stained the perception of comportment of editors who may have done nothing wrong. My opinion is that a private arbitration case for which a compelling requirement for in-camera response exists should be private start to finish and should include private contact of involved parties to get their responses to any evidence against them.

Just Say No

• CaptainEek — From the candidate statement: "I believe in transparency, and advocating for the Community." Uh, yeah, not so much... Let's just say the November effort to drum up a secret case against Wikipediocracy for the Star Chamber, drawing upon the whispiest vapors, caused me to do some very close reading of Arbiters opinions on the matter. I feel secure in saying that CaptainEek was chomping to start a brawl where one clearly needn't to have been launched, doubtlessly to the glory of "a harmonious and welcoming community." I do not have confidence in the judgment of this individual, plainly put. Now I will shut my mouth.

What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community?
As both the recent request by BilledMammal, and the WPO case request showed, we do not have an adequate system designed to handle in camera cases based on private evidence. We've done such cases on an ad-hoc basis in the past, and have often been helped by cases having mixed on and off wiki evidence. But with more such requests coming in, we clearly need to build a process. One of my priorities after handling PIA5 will be making sure we design, in consultation with the community, a standard and improved way to hear private evidence. We need to ensure that parties are given notice of the evidence against them (such as by emailing them evidence in a standard manner and with a deadline) and an opportunity to be heard. I also want to ensure that there is at least some public component of this, so that ArbCom decisions don't come out of the blue, and that the community gets a chance to comment when possible.
As for when to take private evidence cases, that comes down to what is private evidence and why. Its not like this evidence is actually top-secret. Its just that we don't allow certain kinds of content on Wikipedia because it doxxes the identity of real people. That has come to encompass most off-wiki evidence for the simple fact that its hard to tell what off-wiki evidence does or doesn't doxx someone. Because we don't want the whole community seeing private evidence, ArbCom is the body explicitly entrusted with handling it. If there weren't private matters to consider, there wouldn't be much need for ArbCom. At the end of the day though, our enforcement is limited to Wikipedia, and rightly so. Our goal is to ensure that this encyclopedia runs smoothly, so that the we can present the sum of all human knowledge. But in this ever changing world, there are an increasing number of off-wiki forces who would like to manipulate us. When that begins to affect the activities occurring on Wikipedia, in that it is affecting the editing or safety of editors, that's where we can step in. Investigating off-wiki coordination, and blocking or sanctioning responsible users, alongside implementing Contentious Topic restrictions, are absolutely something we can based on private evidence. For example, the WikiProject Tropical Cyclones case, in which we took action based on Discord conversations, and laid out recommended practice for off-wiki chat platforms.

• Primefac — Top vote-getter in the 2022 Arbcom election. He was actually a party in the Nihonjoe affair, having laid an ill-considered block on Fram that drew the scrutiny of the committee. As we shuffle some on, we shuffle some off. Thank you for your service.

What do you feel should be the standard for Arbcom accepting a case based upon secret evidence? What measures should Arbcom take in such a case to ensure the community is informed of the outlines of the accusation and to defend the rights of the accused to respond to their accuser and to supply contrary evidence in their defense from the community?
I know this is a bit of a cop-out answer, but the standard should be the same for a case request based on public evidence: we should be reasonably convinced that the preliminary statement is enough to demonstrate that a case is needed. We have handled a number of cases with private evidence involved in them in the near past; I was going to list them but the historical elections case has a motion stating basically what my answer would be: if private evidence is collected, the editor(s) to which that evidence relates will be informed of what it is so they can have a chance to explain or otherwise reply to that evidence.