User:Jclemens/ACE2013

My participation

Given the quality of candidates, I almost considered running again, but thought better of it. The community did not disappoint, with several reasonably good last-minute candidates stepping in to make that unnecessary.

I neither have the time nor the desire to serve on the arbitration committee... but would gladly do so to keep some of the candidates currently on the ballot OFF of the committee. I have no particular personal experiences with or insight into most of the candidates, and so render no opinion on them. As such, it is not presented as a comprehensive voter's guide--any voter would do well to look at other guides. Of the ones I've reviewed, I endorse User:SirFozzie/ACE2013 which is, as of the time I write this, the only comprehensive guide written by an arbitrator who served a full term.

One thing to disclose up front: I do have access to every single email sent to the Arbitration Committee mailing list from its inception until December, 2012, as well as relevant other email correspondence. No content of any privileged communications will be discussed or disclosed in this guide (or anywhere else for that matter) but it should be clear to all that my access to off-wiki correspondence has influenced my perception of a number of these candidates. If you don't want any part of a guide that admits off-wiki influence, feel free to stop here, because I won't even disclose which candidates that off-wiki correspondence might have involved, save my formerly fellow arbitrators for whom such off-wiki correspondence is public knowledge.

My recommendations

Note that these are in rank order, nor alphabetical order, most recommended first.

Support

• Roger Davies I'm sure this will come as a surprise to him, but I think Roger is the single best candidate on the ballot, hands down since Courcelles has withdrawn (which I don't begrudge him, by the way). Roger will make time to chat up individual arbitrators on Skype, building consensus in unrecorded and deniable manner. He does very little on-wiki in comparison to the iceberg of work he does behind the scenes trying to broker back-room deals. I don't know how hard he worked to clean up the mess in election season a year ago, but I suspect it was pretty darn hard. Roger really doesn't have much of an ego in the game--as far as I experienced, he really does do his best to make arbitration work well for the benefit of Wikipedia. Unqualified endorsement.

• AGK Unlike Roger, AGK really does do a lot of work on-wiki, but it's too bad most of it is of such low quality. In my experience, he tends to reason emotionally with very little thought to the larger implications of his statements. He has the shame of being listed with Kirill as the co-drafter of Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Manning naming dispute/Proposed decision, which proposed to draft hate speech guidelines and then subject various editors to them after the fact. Still, I weakly support AGK's reelection, because he is unlikely to do any large amount of damage, and the same cannot be said of other candidates standing for election.

Oppose

• Kww I differ with him on philosophical grounds about a number of things, but I am convinced he would do his best to implement his vision for a Wikipedia as he believes it should be. Having said that, I don't think his vision is correct.

• The Devil's Advocate Not temperamentally suited to be an arbitrator, at least in as far as anything I've ever seen from him.

NO WAY

• David Gerard Conduct in the Manning case was inappropriate, inflammatory, and divisive: exactly the wrong qualities in an arbitrator.

• Floquenbeam While those familiar with Floquenbeam's block of me last year are probably not surprised by this, I actually think he is the worst candidate on the ballot, and many of the other guide writers are not picking up on it. Elonka noted the problems with his blocking me last year, and Rschen7754 (who strongly opposed my candidacy last year) noted that he subsequently full-protected his talk page and has gone on to make other controversial unblocks.

But that's not the worst part. If you look at his response to my pointed questions on the topic, I see three separate deficiencies with his current view of what happened a year ago:

1) No excuse for block-and-protect-your-own-talk-page. That's a fundamental violation of WP:ADMINACCT, and only one guide writer has called him on it so far. Blocking a sitting arb for making an inappropriate statement does indeed take courage, chutzpah, or show a fundamental lack or respect for the process (which was already reacting very negatively to my statement). If he'd stayed around and taken his lumps for a controversial stand, that would have pointed towards one of the two former adjectives; the fact that he did not shows the latter.

2) He less than a month later volunteered to serve as an electoral commissioner when I was a candidate. Despite his protestation that he would have recused himself in any matter involving me, that demonstrates a fundamental lack of comprehension of the appearance of bias. Nothing in any statement I've seen him make indicates that he's learned that lesson. This speaks exceptionally poorly of his ability to recuse when appropriate to do so, and his answer to my question is strangely silent regarding his understanding of WP:INVOLVED.

3) His statement neither justifies nor apologizes for his own actions, but calls them "dramaqueen-ish". Drama for drama's sake is the exact wrong thing for the committee, and I can speak from personal experience: I very, very much regret that my statements directly resulted in pointless drama last year, and yet he won't even apologize for the intent to create drama, but excuses it as a once-a-decade entitlement. As Rschen7754 noted, the block was more than 24 hours after the statement I made, well after I was being lambasted for it from pretty much everyone, so it's somewhat comforting that he doesn't even try to defend the indefensible.

The only positive thing about Floquenbeam's candidacy is that given his past track record of resigning from adminship (again, see Rschen7754's guide), he is unlikely to serve a full term.

Should have run or stayed running

• Risker I understand why she's leaving, but even given her duplicitous conduct regarding the leaked email dispute in 2012, I support her continued presence on the committee: she really does try to put Wikipedia first, and casting me in the worst possible light was clearly what she thought was necessary. Like Roger, an exceptionally hard-working arb who does a lot behind the scenes. She was the de facto administrative secretary of the committee--not in any sort of a demeaning or subservient way, but just based on her willingness to get the thankless tasks of running functionary and committee elections and administering mailing lists done.

• Courcelles A loss to have him withdraw, Courcelles has made some fascinatingly insightful statements over the time I served with him.