User:MBisanz/ACE2008/Guide/Hemlock Martinis

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. My first edits were in April 2006, although I didn't become an active editor until that October.

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

• A. I'll do a bit of rounding, since I'm terrible at math. 8,000 of my 13,000 total edits are in article space. Another 2,000 are in category space as part of my work in diffusing categories and creating new ones.

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

• A. Yes, I've been an administrator since April 13, 2007.

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

• A. Nope.

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

• A. No, I only participate on the English Wikipedia.

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

• A. No, I have never been a participant.

• 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, I have never been blocked.

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

• A. No, I do not contribute to the other projects.

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

• A. Although my greatest pride is the thousands of articles I've categorized and the category structures I've refined and established, the single best achievement to point to would be when I raised Sinestro Corps War to FA status. Comics-related subjects are always notoriously difficult to adequately source and research, and the work I put into this article over two months was incredibly satisfying. It has since become the standard to which all comics storyline articles are compared.

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

• A. Yes to both. Over the summer I became fond of Grawp-hunting. Checkuser would assist greatly in expediting that process. I would also be willing to assist in any Oversight issues the community needs help with.

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

• A. I only have one alternate account, User:The Doctor, which I created for public computers or non-secure locations so as not to risk compromising my admin tools.

• 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 regularly contribute to IRC, including the #wikipedia-en-admins channel. That is my only forum of commuication off-wiki that relates to on-wiki matters. I don't have an account at Wikipedia Review, but I do read it from time to time.

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

• A. I do not have OTRS access.

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

• A. The MONGO resolution is outdated. The case is two years old, the circumstances were different and the ArbCom makeup has changed considerably for the better. I agree moreso with the Jim62sch resolution since it allows us a little more flexibility. There are many many shades as to editor participation in external sites, and we need to not only be able to distinguish between the shades but also to recognize that the shades exist.

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

• A. As long as its used sparingly and without excessive interference beyond ArbCom's regular purview, I have no problems with it.

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

• A. Only in emergency situations, in which the editors' possession of administrative tools represented a clear and present danger to the encyclopedia and/or the community. Even then, it would still be subject to review and approval by the full Committee in a proper case hearing.

• 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. I'm hesitant towards them. Editors too frequently rally to the aid or opposition of others, rightfully or not, without weighing the merits of such proposals in other areas of the community. I don't want the same partisanship hanging over administrators' heads when making controversial or unpopular decisions. I'm also concerned about the possibility for knee-jerk reactions (in which editors gang up on an administrator for a big mistake despite no prior history) and ignorant bliss (in which low-level abuse is carried on for months or years but doesn't register enough to allow a desysop to succeed). I would prefer it remain where it is for the time being.

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

• A. I think we're getting as close as we can get to a good BLP policy that doesn't cause hordes of lawyers to descend upon us.

• 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. MedCom's lack of enforcement makes it, to me, an undesirable alternative to ArbCom. Instead, I would like to see a separate Committee set up for content-related disputes. I proposed one earlier this year and discussed its merits at length there, and I urge you to see my thoughts on it there.

• 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. Malice would be one factor. If I wheel-warred with Jimbo (assuming I survived) over a simple block and we both acted in good faith towards what we believed was best, then I would expect ArbCom to reprimand and move on. On the other hand, if I went about unblocking all of Jimbo's blocks then that would imply that I wasn't acting in good faith and thus my desysopping would be up for consideration. Another factor would be prior record. If I had only wheel-warred with Jimbo once and otherwise had a clean record of administrative actions, then I wouldn't warrant a desysop. On the other hand, if I'd been abusing my tools on a regular basis and the wheel war was just the latest example of it, then certainly a desysop might be in order. While wheel wars can be incredibly disruptive, we must also realize that there are human beings on the other sides of those administrator tags and must assess their judgment and approach, as well as intent and prior record, in deciding whether or not they should lose their powers for it.

• 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. I would tolerate a moderate level of activity. We appoint administrators not saints, and we can't expect them to avoid every part of the encyclopedia because of possible abuse. We also need to recognize that they may simply be first-responders: perhaps as part of their regular patrol of articles of a certain topic, they come across a 3RR edit war and block both participants for 24 hours. At the same time, we also need to take into account that the administrators' noticeboard is but a few mouse clicks away, and that they are more than welcome to call for backup and/or a second opinion if facing a controversial decision. Prior history and intent are also factors I would consider when weighing a desysop, and depending upon those two I would either be more willing or less willing to support them.

• 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. I'm in favor of general sanctions. I think they allow us a certain amount of broadness and flexibility, and also allow us to address root problems that prior to implementation of general sanctions had been shrugged off as "content disputes".

• 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. I would in theory, but I'd have to see the written policy before signing on completely. There would have to be appropriate guidelines in place as to when it is appropriate to "fish" and when it's not.

• 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. There's really very little we can realistically do. The community opposed that policy because they thought Wikipedia's role was not one of a day care center, and they're kind of right. We can't proactively prevent minors from editing Wikipedia. Reactively blocking or banning minor has received stiff opposition from the community. Now, we certainly can block people seeking minors because that's most certainly disruptive. Children should fall under our standard privacy policy because it's almost impossible to make enforceable, community consensus-based policies to protect them individually.

• 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. The important thing to note is the year discrepancy between the two cases. The LevelCheck case took place two and a half years prior to Durova's case. Over that time we've grown to accept that some editors have contributed anonymously before making accounts, and that knowledge of Wikipedia's policies alone doesn't constitute sockpuppetry. There's also the extenuating factor of an intensely negative backlash to Durova for what the community perceived as her handling of the case, as well as the discovery of a secret mailing list on which Durova's ban of !! was discussed. Personally, I would be hesitant to immediately block educated new editors without more substantial evidence that they're following patterns of previously banned editors.

• 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. I don't think a specific naming convention is necessary. Whereas the U.S. Supreme Court's adversarial system means their cases need only be called Batman v. Robin, etc., our system is designed so that cases could come from a variety of sources. The flexibility mirrors ArbCom's flexibility, and thus no standards are needed. Names should match the case and shouldn't be changed after their opening; rather, arbitrators should agree to a name as soon as the case opens and stick to it, barring changes in the basic nature of the case (addition of more parties, removal of some parties, change of focus, etc.) Here's my rubric:

• If a bunch of editors war over cupcakes, then the case should be "Requests for arbitration/Cupcakes".
• If a single editor (say it was me) is causing trouble or is the locus of the dispute, then the case should be called "Requests for arbitration/Hemlock Martinis".
• If two editors and their actions forms the locus of the dispute (we'll call them Winston Churchill and [[Joseph Stalin), then the case should be "Requests for arbitration/Churchill-Stalin".

• Note the use of last names only. Brevity is key.
• Two-person cases should always feature the case initiator's name first; if a third party brought it, then alphabetical order. This is to avoid bias or fears of preference.

• 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. The deleting administrator should not be sanctioned, although he should've called for backup instead of wheel warring. That said, the undeleting administrator would still be held to the same standards I set out in Q#20. Repeated undeletion in the face of a clear OTRS request would possibly constitute a loose version of malice, or at the very least, willful ignorance (which can be just as problematic). While I would not intrinsically punish the undeleting admin moreso than any other wheel warrior, his actions would be more likely to fail the malice test than the average wheel warrior. The result (a desysop) would be the same, but the approach to get there would be different.

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

• A. Insofar as its reasonably enforceable. Some policies like no legal threats and vandalism are pretty easy to enforce, but things like WP:CIVILITY and WP:BLP draw heavy fire even in obvious situations. It's best to leave policy in a binding/non-binding gray area where we aren't restricted in how we approach cases.

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

• A: No, especially since I've seen some of them become parties to ArbCom cases after their retirement from the Committee.