User:MBisanz/ACE2008/Guide/Fish and karate

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?
A Hello! I've been an editor with an account since March 2005, so over three and a half years. My First Edit: [1]
How many total edits do you have on Wikipedia? What is your % of edits to the article space?
A Just over 27,000. According to Wikichecker, my percentage of edits to the article space is 38%.
Are you an administrator? If so, how long have you been one?
A I am, yes. Here's my RFA. I've been an administrator since April 2006, so over two and a half years, now.
Do you hold any other userrights or positions at the English Wikipedia? (crat, medcom, WPPJ, etc)
A No.
Do you hold any userrights or other positions of trust at other WMF projects? Which ones?
A No.
Have you ever been named as a participant of a Request for Arbitration? If so, please link case(s).
A I have never been named as a participant, 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.
A I have been blocked once, for deleting some of my own images. The block was undone after 41 minutes by the same admin who made it, and who subsequently described it as "overly harsh and unnecessary".
Have you ever been blocked or formally sanctioned at another WMF project? If so, please describe.
A No.
What is your best work at Wikipedia? (an article, list, image or content template)
A Edward Low; an article I created, and took to featured status. Not only am I proud, it's also a darn good read if I say so myself. Shoe polish is another one. I'm also pleased with the number of new articles I have taken through Did you know? recently.
If elected, would you request the Checkuser and/or Oversight userrights?
A Oversight yes, Checkuser no. I do not have the technical knowledge of IP addresses needed to use Checkuser in an appropriate and capable manner, nor do I have the interest in learning to do so. Oversight is a necessary tool for Arbcom members, I believe - even if one never oversights something personally, the ability to view oversighted information may be required to fully understand a contentious case.
Please list any disclosed or undisclosed alternate or prior accounts you have had.
A User:Proto is my clearly disclosed gnome account. I have no other accounts. Before my present username, my main account was also known as User:Neil, and before that, User:Proto.
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 have an account on Wikipedia Review, a discussion forum (as do many sitting and former arbitrators, administrators, bureaucrats, etc). An alternate perspective is often useful, and I've improved a number of articles (including this, this, this, and this) due to discussions on WR bringing them to my attention. I do not use IRC, nor do I plan to use IRC. I would prefer to keep all my Arbitration discussions on-Wiki where possible, and if privacy prevents this, on the mailing list. I read WikiEN-l, and WikimediaUK-l but do not subscribe.
Do you have OTRS access? If so, which queues?
A No.
How do you resolve the apparent inconsistency between RFAR/MONGO and RFAR/Jim62sch as to off-site activities by users?
A Let's explain the apparent discrepancy first. The two cases are fifteen months apart. Not only had thinking relating to external activity greatly matured in that time (for the better), but the composition of the Arbitration Committee itself changed. The second principle you give (Jim62sch) is not really, though, at odds with the MONGO principle; it's a more targetted, smarter version of the initial principle. It still acknowledges that the use of external sites to carry out particularly offensive or disruptive acts may incur sanctions, whilst rightly removing the inappropriately Kafkaesque "Any user who is suspected of association with sites that are hypercritical of Wikipedia can expect their activities to be closely monitored". That was ludicrous at the time, and it is even more so now. The ArbCom are not the Thought Police; I am gladdened that normal service was restored by the more considered Jim62sch principle. Participation in external discussion sites is not a sin in itself; even those that are also participated in by editors opposed to many of the goals of Wikipedia.
What is your opinion on the new closed motions process?
A It's not really a process, as such. It's a repository for the occasions when Arbcom has, correctly, not seen a need for the full requirements of an Arbitration case, due to things being straightforward, and the findings are broadly uncontentious. I believe this is sensible.
Besides compromised accounts, under what circumstances would you support or initiate an emergency request for desysopping?
A There aren't many. If an administrator went clearly loopy, and started deleting and blocking left right and centre, then a temporary emergency desysop might be called for until they could explain themselves.
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 Do I want to see Wikipedia:Requests for desysopping turn blue? No, I do not. I believe that, for better or for worse, adminship has come to be viewed as something of a prestige, and many people are heavily invested in that concept, either in attaining adminship, or in retaining it. I don't, personally, consider it to be that important, and would contribute to Wikipedia just as happily without my admin bit; I recognise many feel differently. The enforced removal of the sysop flag from an account is, therefore, deemed to be a Big Deal. It's contentious, whether we like it or not. Because it's a contentious issue, it is better for such potentially fractious decisions to be made formally, thoughtfully, and soberly; this is the sort of decision the Arbitration Committee does well.
If you owned Wikipedia as the WMF currently does, what would you do to fix the BLP problem?
A Firstly, apply the rules that are already there more stringently. If there's something contentious in a biography, and it's not referenced, it should be removed. If someone restores it without providing appropriate and reliable sourcing, they should be warned once - we can assume good faith, while ensuring they are now aware of our collective responsibility for biographical articles to be rigorously sourced - and blocked subsequently. In addition, biographical articles going through AFD should require a higher threshold than a typical article - a "no consensus" should default to delete, rather than keep.
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 Formally referring cases, no. Where a case does not meet the threshold for an Arbitration hearing, typically if it's a content issue rather than a conduct issue, recommending mediation would be a good, sensible step.
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 Using the admin tools to repeatedly reverse the admin actions of another user or users. Administrators should be setting an example to other users; we expect discussion, rather than edit-warring from all users, and it is the same when it comes to administrative actions. There isn't a precise definition of what is or is not wheel-warring, and this is right; it's a matter of judgement as to whether the actions taken were appropriate or not. I would always want the first occasion of wheel-warring, if not especially damaging or egregious, to be met with a firm and final warning, rather than a desysopping.
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 If there's a clear conflict of interest, or the administrator has a clear stake in the issue, then one warning, then desysopping without prejudice.
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 They should be considered in exactly the same manner as any of the technical privileges; misuse may lead to desysopping.
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 Checkusers are smart enough to make a determination of whether a check is appropriate. "Fishing" means, loosely, to make a check when no evidence of abusive behaviour exists. There are no checkusers who would make such a check, nor should they. I would not alter the en.Wikipedia policy to allow this.
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 A formal policy is not really required; we have a standard practice of removing any identifiable information posted by minors; this is appropriate, and it's all a formal policy should say, anyway.
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 There is no apparent inconsistency. Even - again - noting the cases are over two years apart, and thinking would have evolved and matured in this time, the two findings are not mutually exclusive. I would not have supported such a speculative, unevidenced finding as the LevelCheck one - and I very much doubt these days any arbitrator would have done so - LevelCheck was indefinitely blocked, and based on his actions, this was appropriate; whether it was for abusive sockpuppetry or abject trolling is pretty much moot. The Durova case, however, featured no evidence of poor behaviour of any kind by User:!! - as none existed. Evidence of abusive behaviour was apparent and obvious in one case, and not in the other; they are, therefore, not inconsistent.
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 Using "versus" in the name of an arbitration case makes the whole thing seem like a court case, and presupposes that one party will "win", and one party will "lose". Frequently, both parties are partially to blame for the escalation of events around an issue. I would like to see case names continue to be as neutral and de-escalating as possible while continuing to be descriptive and relevant to the topic at hand.
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 While this is an unlikely scenario, I would expect any administrator seeing an OTRS action carried out to refrain from immediately undoing said action. I would similarly expect the deleting administrator to inform the restoring administrator of the issues, and not to immediately redelete the article without ensuring the restoring administrator was aware of why the article needed to be deleted, and while listening to the restoring administrator's reasons for restoring the article. However, any administrator who is daft enough to repeatedly and knowingly undelete an OTRS-linked copyright violation without discussion to provide an outstanding reason for doing so is probably looking at a desysopping. The moral of this tale is communicate first, act second.
To what extent do you believe policy on Wikipedia is or should be binding?
A It's binding as long as it makes sense for it to be binding. If circumstances show a policy is no longer enabling behaviour that helps make Wikipedia a better encyclopedia, the community should reconsider the policy.
Do you believe that former arbitrators should be on the Arb Comm mailing list? Why or why not?
A There are two lists; one for current Arbs only, and one for current and former Arbs in good standing. The current-Arbs-only lists should be the primary list, and anything sensitive, or pursuant to identifying information should be discussed there. I personally would like to see just one list, and with it restricted to current Arbitrators and Jimbo, but this is not my decision to make, and I doubt it would ever happen.

If you're reading this, thanks - and if you've got any further questions you can ask me on the talk page of this page, or on my talk page. You may find my thoughts on Arbitration reform interesting - see here, here, and here. fish&karate 11:06, 28 October 2008 (UTC)