Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Candidate statements/Jtkiefer

Hello, I'm Jtkiefer, a registered user since June 2005, and an anonymous editor for a long time before that. I've been an administrator since late August 2005, and I'm now active in the Welcoming Committee and the Stub Sorting WikiProject.

The arbitration process needs to be streamlined; this is widely agreed upon by the Wikipedia community. The arbitration case duration has been reduced without compromising diligence, but I feel that this can be improved even more. Good members who become involved as arbitrators are often alienated by the process; their experience is lost when they resign or leave the project, and I feel that this problem too must be given serious attention.

I believe that bans must be treated as a last resort when dealing with problem users. Either all other possible solutions must have been tried and have demonstrably failed, or there must be good evidence that all other solutions would have absolutely no chance of succeeding. Probation, selective bans on certain articles, and mentorship are ways of dealing with problematic behaviour which I consider should be integrated into the process, because they keep the user on the path to improvement. I also feel that the Arbitration Committee should be flexible, and should focus more on the spirit of the existing rules rather than the enforcing the exact letter of them. Jtkiefer ^{T | @ | C} ----- 02:50, 5 October 2005 (UTC)