User:MBisanz/ACE2008/Guide/Cool Hand Luke

Hello, thanks for perusing my voter guide! Cool Hand Luke 22:30, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Cool Hand Luke voter guide

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

1. How long have you been an editor of Wikipedia?

• A. Since 7 February 2004. My first edit.

2. How many total edits do you have on Wikipedia? What is your % of edits to the article space?

• A. 11,300-ish. About 37%.

3. Are you an administrator? If so, how long have you been one?

• A. Yes, I've been an administrator four years.

4. Do you hold any other userrights or positions at the English Wikipedia? (crat, medcom, WPPJ, etc)

• A. No.

5. Do you hold any userrights or other positions of trust at other WMF projects? Which ones?

• A. No.

6. Have you ever been named as a participant of a Request for Arbitration? If so, please link case(s).

• A. Yes, I was named in the Dr Zen ArbCom (March 2005), although no one produced evidence against me, and no finding mentioned me. I'm probably better remembered from the Mantanmoreland case, where I was not a party, but produced evidence.

7. 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.

• A. No, see for example, my block log.

8. Have you ever been blocked or formally sanctioned at another WMF project? If so, please describe.

• A. No.

9. What is your best work at Wikipedia? (an article, list, image or content template)

• A. My best article is probably Liberal Party (Utah). I wrote many articles from scratch, and a friend of mine successfully nominated it for FA in early 2005. It's been un-featured for some time now—it was written in an era before inline citations, and I no longer have easy access to the material at the University of Utah to provide them. Lately, I do mostly administrative work.
• I'm proud of the fact-checking at Stephen Barrett, where I researched a troubled litigation section, making it more neutral and drafting detailed footnotes. Though it's a contentious article, my contributions have endured.
• I think my best dispute resolution work was at Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. The title of this article was a long-running dispute listed at WP:LAME. I first encountered the dispute on a related template edit war from RFPP. The article had gone through several move attempts in previous months; the debate was between those who wanted the title to be clear that the award is not really a Nobel Prize, favoring the full "Sveriges Riksbank (or Bank of Sweden) Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel," and those who argued that "Nobel Prize in Economics" is the most common label. User:Panda suggested the current name, and I helped push for it because some partisans on both sides agreed they could live with it. Compromise is sometimes a work in progress, but most editors can live with this name, allowing content to take priority.
• My best IAR use of the tools was at Essjay controversy. I think IAR acts are only appropriate when they are uncontroversial. In this case, I didn't encounter the Essjay articles or deletion debates until it had been deleted. News stories stacked up on the topic as it moldered on DRV. A non-admin called User:Ned Scott re-opened the AfD, which normally would seem inappropriate. I looked at the DRV and agreed that it had to be overturned, so I did him a favor by unprotecting and restoring it. Nobody complained or even noticed.
• My best work analyzing evidence is at the Mantanmoreland ArbCom.

10. If elected, would you request the Checkuser and/or Oversight userrights?

• A. I would certainly request Checkuser; I hope to detect gaming on the project and put an end to it. I don't have the continual access required to effectively respond to oversight requests, and I promise to never actually oversight revisions myself. See campaign promises. However, I will request oversight access for the exclusive purposes of independently evaluating evidence and reviewing the conduct of users with oversight.

11. Please list any disclosed or undisclosed alternate or prior accounts you have had.

• A. I've used some accounts used for one or two-off edits, often when editing from public computers I didn't know to be secure, sometimes just random gibberish; I don't remember most of these. I have no other account with more than ten edits.

12. 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.

• A. I don't use IRC or private mailing lists; I think those discussions are better served in open environments. I've sometimes posted to the WikiEN-l mailing list. Also, the Mantanmoreland case would not have been intelligible without WR.

13. Do you have OTRS access? If so, which queues?

• A. No.

14. How do you resolve the apparent inconsistency between RFAR/MONGO and RFAR/Jim62sch as to off-site activities by users?

• A. Off-site activity is irrelevant except in the case of harassment.
• The language of the two findings doesn't actually draw this distinction, and some could argue that the findings are consistent because RFAR/Jim62sch doesn't say that users shouldn't closely monitor off-site activity. However, I think the facts are very important to ArbCom decisions, and RFAR/MONGO involved interactions with harassing websites whereas RFAR/Jim62sch was mostly email harassment. Emails, postings, and the like, are not normally relevant or closely monitored. (Jim62sch.) Harassment, on the other hand, is and should be relevant wherever it occurs. (MONGO/Jim62sch.)
• When a user harasses or intimidates a Wikipedian in order to gain an upper hand in a dispute, our site's integrity has been compromised. Such harassment should be closely monitored and deterred. Benign off-site activities—like opinions on the conditions of articles, Wikipedia policies, and so forth—is irrelevant. We sometimes do a bad job of sorting this out. We turn a blind eye to a lot of off-site harassment. Meanwhile, some users are tarred by association, or for their views on policies. Both are errors, and I'll be mindful of the distinction as an Arbitrator.

15. What is your opinion on the new closed motions process?

• A. Insofar that such motions are to clarify the prior ruling as it relates to the prior dispute, they're great time savers and help reduce site drama. Insofar that these motions are used to issue rulings without a controversy, I think they amount to a form of illegitimate policy writing, and would want all clarifications to be tried to an actual case or controversy. ArbCom should not have legislative power.
• The current Arbs have done a good job of deflecting policy debates to policy pages, while swiftly clarifying outside issues; it's a good thing.

16. Besides compromised accounts, under what circumstances would you support or initiate an emergency request for desysopping?

• A. I think that these should be more common. For example, wheel warring should usually result in desysop (see 20).

17. 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?

• A. There should be an alternate way to desysop individuals that do not have community support. That said, a process that's open to "the community" is open for gaming. Our vote processes draw people who have self-selected to weigh in on a matter. A truly representative desysop process would probably involve drawing a sample of active users as a kind of jury. This is beyond the ArbCom's authority to enact, but I would support new paths toward desysoping. In my view, the community is the ultimate source of such authority, and has the right to develop a new process.

18. If you owned Wikipedia as the WMF currently does, what would you do to fix the BLP problem?

• A. I would push the projects toward BLP semi-protection, and flagged revisions on living people. The Foundation must be neutral on content to retain their immunity under Section 230, but I think it's appropriate for the foundation to set timetables for measures likely to reduce damage to living people. No measures WMF takes could entirely fix the problem (short of shutting down Wikipedia)—Wikipedia is open to such abuse, but we can help clamp down on it.
• We, the community, should do much more.

19. 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?

• A. The ArbCom is not supposed to take content disputes at all. Early on, this precedent was not established, but now it is and there's no reason to take disputes just to give them away. Arbitrators can suggest mediation, but until the community devises a system of resolving content disputes (which they should do), ArbCom should not try to force any content mediation mechanism.

20. 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?

• A. Wheel warring is a single admin using the same administrative function on the same subject more than once to reverse a contrary administrator. It is not reversing a long-standing status (like unprotecting a long-dormant page). As a rule, anyone wheel warring should be desysoped.
• Most wheel warring is unjustified. Except for truly compelling circumstances (like wheel waring in order to prevent a hacked admin account from committing clear vandalism before a steward can emergency desysop the hacked account), desysopping would be made permanent—that is, such users would have to reapply for adminship.
• I would push to clearly announce such a rule in a future wheel warring case. It would be an unfair ex post facto law to mete out this penalty without warning, so the first case might not result in permanent desysop. Once established as the rule, we should stick to it. There's rarely a good excuse to wheel war. If other admins agree with a controversial administrative act, they're free to follow it (and they will not be considered wheel warriors), but no admin should single-handedly fight the acts of multiple others. Admins are supposed to be constrained by community decision making, and wheel warring openly disregards the views of others.

21. 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?

• A. Very few circumstances justify involved blocks. They undermine the perceived impartiality of the encyclopedia. All involved blocks should result in desysop, unless the merits of block were crystal clear, and the need for block was urgent (i.e. vandalism spree—but actual vandalism as defined at WP:VAND which is a narrower definition than most believe). Protections and deletions are more likely justified. It's often the case that only an involved admin is monitoring an article closely enough to notice edit-warring. It's legitimate for other admins to scrutinize involved article functions. If the involved admins is judged by other admins to have erred, they will simply be reversed.

22. 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?

• A. This is a device out of convenience; there's no other criterion ArbCom can refer to as a proxy for "generally established and respected users." It's an imperfect proxy, but a convenient one.

23. 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?

• A. Yes—but only for public CU requests. I think it's wasteful to reject those requests when they don't have "enough" evidence. On the other hand, fishing should not be allowed from email, nor for the checkuser's own curiosity; these requests should be publicly posted so that all parties know the origin of them.

24. 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?

• A. I believe general awareness of administrative and oversight capabilities takes care of this problem. Children's privacy issues should be handled with discreetly and with discretion. Other approaches would be too over- and under-inclusive.

25. 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?

• A. Learned newbies should be carefully scrutinized when they appear to be up to mischief. Frankly, it's unlikely that ArbCom could tell users to ignore their common sense—suspiciously familiar accounts are often blocked later on. However, they're blocked when their malicious intent is proved. That's the point of RFAR/Durova. Although precociousness might raise enough suspicion to warrant careful scrutiny, suspicious wisdom is not enough to block them outright.

26. 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?

• A. First, "Highways 2" is not a random title; a random name might be "rose-calendarfun_DAWG" or "WI92hHd." I am strongly opposed to random names. ArbCom's practice is to name the case broadly enough to capture the dispute. In the case of Highways 2, it's the second ArbCom related to the U.S. Roads project's alleged ownership. The title is eminently descriptive, and any _ v. _ form would fail to capture the whole dispute.
• Second, _ v. _ was a very bad practice. I was active back in 2004, and it seemed to me that the naming convention actually encouraged users to be public prosecutors. I think that's a bad thing. This project needs contributors, not attorneys general. If there's anything wrong with how we name cases, injecting artificial adversariality is even worse.
• Third, case names should be no big deal. It might be necessary to broaden the name to incorporate more users, or substitute an incident for named parties, but I would not narrow titles during a case. That is, if the case started out as "Jack and Jill," ArbCom should not eliminate one of the names, even if we decide early on that Jill's conduct is blameless and not worth investigating further. Judgments should be reserved for the findings, not the name. After the case is closed, it would be appropriate to rename. It's just an unhelpful drama magnet in the middle of a case.

27. 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?

• A. Both should probably be sanctioned, and the undeleting admin ought to be desysopped for wheel warring. It's no defense that one doesn't have OTRS access; Wikipedia should respect copyrights, and there's nothing so urgent that it can't be discussed first. Meanwhile, OTRS admins can refer cases to each other for checking and further action—and they should when a user challenges them. There's no reason for the same admin to twice delete. Again, see my answer to #20.
• Fortunately, Wikiepdia's admins are rarely so bad behaved. There's plenty of communication here, for example, where different articles were deleted. But wheel warring without an explanation? That's is inexcusable under any pretext. rev'd 18:27, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

28. To what extent do you believe policy on Wikipedia is or should be binding?

• A. Until it interferes with writing an encyclopedia. Policy can change, but it should be binding insofar that it helps building an encyclopedia. No double standards.

29. Do you believe that former arbitrators should be on the Arb Comm mailing list? Why or why not?

• A: It is my understanding that there is a second mailing list for current arbitrators only. I believe this should be the primary list and intend to use it as such. There's no problem with a mailing list of both current and former arbitrators, but it should not be the mailing list. The balance should shift: current arbitrators should have to ask first. If former arbitrators can spontaneously weigh in on every private deliberation, then they behave more like lobbyists than advisers.