Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2009/Candidate statements

2009 Arbitration Committee Election status

General questions were submitted and available for candidates to answer.
Nominations are closed.
Voting closed at 23:59 UTC on 14 December 2009.
Results have been published, 18th Dec.
Feedback on the elections is solicited from participants.

This is the candidate statements page, where editors wishing to run in the 2009 Arbitration Committee elections may present themselves and their nomination statement.

Criteria for running

Editors must have 1,000 mainspace edits as of 00:00 UTC on 10 November 2009. For the purposes of this requirement, deleted edits may be counted.

Editors must be either 18 years of age or older, or of majority age in their place of residence, whichever is higher.

Editors will be required (per this thread) to identify to the Wikimedia Foundation before taking their seats. (See also, WT:ACE2007#Ruling on age limit.)

Candidacy statements

Statements may not exceed 400 words, although you are free to link to a longer statement if you wish. You should submit your statement using the below section ("To run for this year's elections"). Statements are formatted using the {{Arbitration Committee Elections statement}} template. Statements may be submitted at any point after 00:00 on 10 November 2009 and before 23:59 24 November 2009 (all times are UTC). Any statements submitted out of this period will not be accepted (and may be removed by any editor).

To run for this year's elections

Candidacies are entered into the election using the below inputbox. Append your username to "Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2009/Candidate statements/", ensuring that you keep all of that text (including the "/"):

Further instructions will be given once you click "create a statement." You will be reminded of this when submitting your statement, but do note that you will need to transclude your statement, once it is saved, at #Standing candidates using the following code:

{{Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2009/Candidate statements/Your username}}

Standing candidates

Chutznik

I have edited Wikipedia for the last four years (first edits [1] [2]; prior accounts [3]). I have created more than 300 new articles on chemistry, chess, Judaism and Israel. I brought endgame tablebase to GA in 2007; and in 2008-09 I reviewed ten GA applications (examples: optical properties of carbon nanotubes, Port of Albany-Rensselaer). I have participated in virtually every facet of project maintenance, including "sockpuppet investigations" (example: Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Evrik (2nd)) and providing evidence on ArbCom case pages (example: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/C68-FM-SV/Evidence#Evidence presented by Shalom).

I propose the following changes to ArbCom policy and procedure:

When in doubt, desysop an administrator. If doubt exists whether an admin retains the community's trust, the default should be to desysop and refer back to the community. I see no distinction between "desysop" and "require a reconfirmation vote."
When in doubt, do not ban users, and unban those who sincerely request it. If we are serious that "anyone can edit" this encyclopedia, we must stop handing out bans like candy. ArbCom has trended toward topic-bans instead of site-bans where possible, but it can go further. Durova's Wikipedia:Standard offer would guide my approach. If a user can and wants to improve the encyclopedia, we should grant them a legitimate return.
Eliminate the peanut gallery. Uninvolved users routinely make statements at arbitration requests, but we should ask them to stop. ArbCom does not need fifty wasted pontifications to establish facts. Wikipedia:Requests for comment can still be used to solicit community opinion. ArbCom should work more like the Mediation Committee: if you have no business stepping into a dispute, stay away and let us handle it ourselves. Establish reasonable criteria for who belongs in a discussion, and ask everyone else to reserve their comments for talk pages.
Stick to the facts. I will not vote for any principle or finding of fact that I don't understand and agree with.
Resolve content disputes. ArbCom should establish a voting process when discussion deadlocks and mediation fails to resolve the issue, as with the recent vote on Ireland article names. Punishing bad behavior without resolving the underlying content dispute may encourage renewed bad behavior until we solve the root problem.

I reluctantly offer to take on part of the Committee's load. I hope more qualified candidates will step forward, but if not, I will do the job.

Fritzpoll

What have I done on Wikipedia? I have written an FA, contributed to another, helped establish the Article Incubator and have edited various other articles, guidelines and policies.

What have I done that is relevant to this role? I have been involved in trying to resolve disputes of various types from shouting matches at certain project pages, increasingly heated disputes between users and other problems I occasionally encounter during my wanderings through Wikipedia. I was appointed as one of three referees in the recent Macedonia naming dispute and the resolution that we produced has resulted in greater stability for the editors in that part of Wikipedia.

What do I think the point of arbitration is? Arbitration should try to resolve issues to the benefit of the encyclopaedia - it is not about punishment, but should instead typically be about restoring a collegial collaborative environment so that editors can focus less on disputes and more on the production of encyclopaedic content. This will often involve sanctioning individual editors, and administrators should in particular be scrutinised if there is evidence of impropriety, but sanctions in of themselves are not a goal of arbitration. As an arbitrator, I would not hesitate to impose sanctions, but they must improve the collaborative environment that we strive to create on Wikipedia.

What would I do differently? I think some cases in the past have lacked focus – reams of evidence were produced to speak generally to the charge that some editor is “bad” or “good” and new areas of behaviour to be examined are introduced at random points throughout the arbitration process, requiring yet more evidence to be produced by the other parties. I would like to see a clear scope explicitly defined for all cases when they are accepted. Clerks would be empowered to remove evidence that does not speak directly to the scope of the case, and the scope could be expanded if necessary. This would require consent of the entire group, but it is something that I will push for to improve efficiency and accessibility, as well as removing obfuscation. I will be engaging in “active” arbitration by asking direct questions, requesting specific diffs and making sure that relevant points in a case come to light so that the Committee can determine the facts of a case rather than relying on interpretations and slants imposed on evidence by the various sides of a dispute.

Kmweber

The so-called "Arbitration Committee" has zero legitimacy. Wikipedia is a community project, which means that only institutions created by the Wikipedia community--and not by one man--have any legitimate authority. The Arbitration Committee's history makes it impossible for any action taken by it to be legitimate or worthy of being taken seriously. That many people do deal with it as if it were legitimate is no indication of its legitimacy, any more than handing over one's wallet to a mugger to avoid being beaten is an endorsement of the legitimacy of mugging.

I am running to counter this harmful influence. If elected, I would, quite simply, vote to decline any and all cases presented before the Arbitration Committee, instead referring them to community institutions and processes that actually have legitimacy and the moral authority to enforce a final decision.

Withdrawn candidates

Candidates who withdrew prior to voting.

<poem> Chutznik, Chutznik (talk · contribs). Withdrew on 13:54, November 24, 2009.

Candidates who withdrew during the voting period.

Secret, Secret (talk · contribs). Withdrew on 13:19, December 7, 2009.