Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2017/Candidates/Premeditated Chaos/Questions

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Question from Gerda Arendt

Thank you for standing! Can you agree with Opabinia regalis here? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:32, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
For the most part, I do, particularly with her thoughts on templating people for incivility. Opabinia regalis is perfectly correct in saying that civility templating a user who knows what they're doing is, itself, pretty fucking rude. It reads as impersonal, passive-aggressive, and smug, even when it's not meant to, and it's guaranteed to escalate the situation. On top of that, when you're involved in a dispute with someone, it can look like an attempt to score good-behavior points. Overall it's something I think should be avoided.
I feel that many instances of incivility on WP are not worth getting worked up over. We are all human. We say things that come across as more curt than intended, or make jokes that fall flat. Some of us, myself very much included, use swear words for emphasis. Sometimes we get frustrated and cranky and have bad days. We read things wrong or misunderstand each other, or make assumptions. We will never be perfect, and slapping a template on someone does nothing to resolve any of those problems. OR is right to say that sometimes, you just need to take a deep breath and fix the underlying issue, regardless of how rude the delivery was. In many instances it's better to just shrug and go do something else entirely than it is to get entrenched in a fight over someone's tone or use swear words. It's a big project.
That being said, we as a community need to do more to call out our friends and peers who are displaying uncivil behavior on a regular basis. Most times someone is called out for incivility, it's from someone opposing them in a debate, making it easy for the person to ignore it. But if someone they know and respect reaches out (via talk page, or email, or whatever the case) and says "hey, cool it" I honestly think it would go a long way toward getting them to realize that the community, and their peers, not just their "opponent", disapproves of their behavior.

Questions from Collect

Should the existence of a "case" imply that the committee should inevitably impose "sanctions"?
I don't think that every case should "inevitably" impose sanctions, inflexibly. In a better world, there would be occasions where the parties agreed to come to some compromise, although in the real world that's vanishingly rare. In reality though, if the committee is doing their job in accepting only the cases that the community is unable to resolve effectively on their own, by definition they are accepting the cases most likely to require sanctions in order to resolve the situation, meaning that almost all ArbCom cases will "inevitably" impose sanctions on one or more parties.
If an administrator has openly stated a strong aversion to an editor's article edits on that editor's talk page, is that sufficient to indicate that the administrator is no longer impartial concerning that editor?
Unless that editor is strictly a troll or spammer that anyone would block on sight, yes, absolutely. Publicly stating on someone's talk page that you strongly dislike their edits is where you cross the line from acting in an administrative role to actively being in a conflict with that person, putting you squarely under the definition of WP:INVOLVED.
a. In cases where the person involved in a case is actually out of the country during that case, ought there be a delay to give that editor sufficient time to address "new evidence"?
b. Where multiple editors present evidence against such a person, ought space and time for rebuttal be given?
c. Where evidence is added at the last minute, should the clock be stopped to allow actual time to rebut the last-minute evidence?
d. Under what circumstance, if any, should arbitrators be allowed to present evidence in the proposed decision which was not previously presented by anyone else?
a. Yes. Ultimately this is a volunteer project and I'm of the opinion that real-life concerns should come before Wikipedia. We should allow some leeway for things like travel or real-life emergencies.
b. Yes, I think allowances should be made for extra space in that case.
c. Obviously it would depend on the situation, but I think an extra 24 hours to allow parties to respond could be warranted, depending on the nature of the evidence and just how last-minute it was.
d. If an Arb comes across evidence that would fundamentally change the outcome of the case that for some bizarre reason no one else has found or presented, I think they have a duty to bring it to the other arbitrators, and then recuse themselves from the case. The other arbs can then decide what to do with the new evidence.

Question from Nick

Pick three Arbitration cases from the last six years, explain in detail what aspects of the committee you agree with, what aspects you disagree with, and what you would attempt to do differently. Where you disagree with the previous outcomes and where you would do things differently, indicate how you would attempt to gain consensus and support from the other committee members.
1. Arthur Rubin
I think the final decision in this case was handled well, and makes a good example of ArbCom issuing a fair judgement that carried out the community's will. It was reasonable of ArbCom to de-sysop Arthur Rubin, given his behavior. I also think it was reasonable of them to stop there and not sanction him further: his issues were with poor use of the tools and a lack of community trust in him that came as a result of his actions, not with his other editing.
I do object to the extreme length of time it took to get started and then settled. While I understand that at the time of the case request, WikiMania was going on and taking up a lot of peoples' time, I think a note to that effect somewhere on the page might have cut down on the number of complaints about lack of responsiveness to the case request. It's not hard to put up a little template that says "Opinions may be slower in coming this week as many of us are at WikiMania until Thursday" or something. A little communicativeness goes a long way, which is something I'd like to encourage for ArbCom if elected.
The other thing I disagree with is that the scope of the case was opened to "Whether The Rambling Man has conducted themselves in alignment with community expectations and policies when interacting with Arthur Rubin," and yet there was no finding of fact at all with regards to that question. I think if the Committee is going to adjust the scope of a case to explicitly put someone under scrutiny, out of respect they should make sure they actually address it in the final decision. Whether that finding is "yes, TRM's behavior was reasonable," "no, it was unreasonable," or even "not enough evidence was submitted to allow a finding to be made on this part of the scope," the loose end should have been resolved rather than left dangling.
2. GamerGate
This nightmare clusterfuck of a case is an excellent example of ArbCom producing a solid decision that removed problem parties and allowed the community to get back to editing. Although the case took two months to resolve, in this instance that was clearly a product of the absurd volume of evidence (362k!) and related discussion, and the large number of people involved. I don't know that I would have done much differently. I'm just impressed with the work, frankly.
3. Magioladitis
This answer touches a little on my answer to Banedon, below, about taking all of someone's past contributions into account when crafting sanctions. The Magioladitis case is an instance where I feel too much leeway was given to an established editor who, while he has a history of being extremely useful and dedicated, also had a documented history of doing basically as he pleased without consulting the community and creating huge timesinks as a result.
Obviously I have the benefit of being an armchair quarterback with full hindsight, but it seems clear now that the remedies made at the time were far too narrow to prevent disruption, given that another case was required in November to further remedy the situation. I would have pressed for stronger sanctions to begin with, in order to significantly reduce the amount of disruption going on.

Questions from InsaneHacker

The arbitration policy states that arbitrators are expected to recuse themselves from proceedings if they have a conflict of interest. What do you consider conflicts of interest? Are there any situations that may be considered COI "grey areas" that you have an opinion on?
A conflict of interest is any instance where the community (including the other arbitrators) might reasonably perceive that an arbitrator's opinions on a case would not be neutral to begin with, either as a result of their personal editorial involvement in the topic area, or from their personal interactions with any of the involved parties (personal as opposed to purely administrative actions like closing discussions or relisting things). I think there are very few grey areas in this regard: you can either judge something neutrally, or you cannot. If there is even the impression that an arbitrator might be over the line of "involved," they should recuse. Because so much of what ArbCom does has long-lasting effects on the community, whether via editing sanctions, blocks, bans or de-sysoppings, even the possibility or appearance of arbitrator bias should be avoided in order to ensure that the community can trust ArbCom's decisions.
For myself, COI areas that I would automatically recuse from would include anything to do with MfD or its regular contributors since I am one of the most active closers there, deletion of drafts since I have been a heavy participant in discussions on the topic, the orphan backlog or any participants at WP:ORPHANAGE, and of course any case involving any editor who I have either strong negative or positive feelings towards.
There is currently no requirement that ArbCom members have to be administrators, but historically every arbitrator has also been an admin. Do you see any value in having non-administrators on the commitee, why/why not? (I'm especially interested in answers from non-admin nominees)
I see the value in having multiple perspectives on the committee. It can be easy for admins to forget how different editing and participating can be when you don't have the bit. Admins have the final say on a lot of things, often in circumstances where part of the situation is not visible to regular editors, and sometimes the reasoning can appear impenetrable from the outside even when it feels clear from inside the admin-sphere. Having an experienced editor who isn't an admin on the committee could help bridge the culture gap.
Do you think that administrators or users in good standing who generally contribute to the project in a constructive manner should be given more leeway when it comes to sanctions against them (also referred to as the Super Mario problem)? If not, do you think this happens currently, and if so, what can be done to prevent it?
I think it depends on the severity of the actual behavior, and how much it tips the scales on the person's "net effect" on the encyclopedia and the community at large. There are things that anyone should be indeffed for, such as abusive or deceptive sockpuppeting, going on a pure vandalism spree, or deliberately abusing a position of trust for personal gain, just for a few non-exhaustive examples. No matter how positive of a contributor they were otherwise, the overall negative effect on the community is just too great to give leeway.
On the other hand, there are editors who, while hugely constructive in most areas, find themselves incapable of editing calmly on a certain topic or when interacting with a certain editor. Whether due to strong personal beliefs, personality clashes, previous disputes...whatever the case, there's something there that just sends them off the rails. Whenever possible, the community and ArbCom should attempt to resolve disputes (including setting sanctions) in such a way to encourage such editors to refocus and continue their positive contributions elsewhere while preventing them from causing problems in the area of concern. Of course, that isn't possible in every case - some people will (and have) simply aimed their frustrations elsewhere, and there ought to be serious consequences for that - but I think in the first instance there's value in attempting to reduce drama while still retaining useful editors.

Question from Banedon

Follow-up question to the above, since it feels to me like the question wasn't answered. Should administrators or users in good standing who generally contribute to the project in a constructive manner be given more leeway when it comes to sanctions against them, or should they not? That is, in the case of behaviour not amounting to instant indef, will you take the editor's past contributions into account before deciding on a sanction?
I think we should take someone's past contributions, to mainspace and to discussion spaces, good and bad alike, into account when deciding on sanctions. If someone has been an effective and trusted contributor with little drama, and then suddenly goes off the rails in some dispute, I think they deserve some consideration of that, and at least an effort to figure out what went wrong and whether or not we can rein them in without resorting to a block or ban. On the whole, I would prefer to craft sanctions that help cut down on drama while maximizing retention of useful and dedicated editors.
Conversely, the more problematic someone has been in the past, the less leeway we should extend to them in the future, no matter how useful they're being on the sideline. If people can't collaborate or cooperate with others, and repeatedly get into arguments that waste other editors' valuable time, they need to be shown the door until they can contribute without causing a timesink.
So, if you want to call the first part leeway, then I guess I want to give people leeway when their history suggests we should. But it goes both ways: we ought to give a lot less in the reverse situation.
You write in response to the above question that "I would prefer to craft sanctions that help cut down on drama while maximizing retention of useful and dedicated editors". Earlier this year we had a case after which one of the participants, Keysanger, retired from Wikipedia. This happened in spite of the current committee's attempts to retain Keysanger as a valued contributor (see Euryalus's comments here: "The reason we are spending so long discussing the PD is that we are broadly seeking to retain both of you as valued contributors to this and related topics.") What would you have done instead to achieve the goal you describe?
Having had a look at the case and its history, I don't see that much more could have been done to remedy that situation in a way that Keysanger would have accepted. As Euryalus noted on the talk page you linked to, it was a long-running dispute that spanned numerous articles across eight years. The sheer amount of discussions and alternate remedies on the Proposed Decision page shows that a great deal of effort was invested in coming up with a reasonable set of least-restrictive remedies that would separate the disputants from one another and yet permit them both to remain on-wiki editing in their area of preference. The Committee specifically avoided issuing a topic ban on Keysanger, which they quite reasonably could have done under the circumstances. Nobody was blocked, no rights were changed, no one got stuck with a 1RR restriction. Honestly, it's a pretty good example of the kind of remedy I was thinking of as ideal: it's minimally restrictive, written to be as even-handed as possible, yet was still set up with a view to reducing the personal conflict in order to allow the content issues to be settled.
The fact that Keysanger opted to retire because he disagreed with those fairly reasonable remedies was beyond the committee's control. The committee worked hard to make a judgement that was non-punitive and fair to everyone, and Keysanger chose not to accept it. I think it's a shame to lose a productive editor in any circumstances, but ultimately people make their own choices.
Thanks for the answer. Just curious: you write that Arbcom could reasonably have topic banned Keysanger. Would you have supported such a proposed remedy? What about a 1RR restriction (on Keysanger or MarshalN20)?
No, I agree with their decision not to topic ban him; specifically DGG's stated interest in avoiding a one-sided restriction. I don't feel a TBAN was an out of line proposal, and had they chosen to go with it I could definitely understand why, but I feel the case was more even-handed without it. A two-way interaction ban was a better way to go about trying to separate the parties without making one feel unduly sanctioned. Since there was no evidence of routine edit warring between the two, 1RR was not needed for either party.

Questions from DGG

Officially, Arbcom is supposed to deal primarily with conduct disputes, not content, and to interpret and apply policy, not make it. But it has always seemed to me that most conduct disputes have their origin in disagreements over content, and that Arb Com has in fact been most successful when actually dealing with content concerns, as in the pseudoscience and nationalism related cases, even though it may have to word it indirectly. And it has also always seemed to me that the necessary interpretation of policy can in effect amount to making policy, as with the cases involving BLP. What do you think? DGG ( talk ) 04:08, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you regarding your thoughts about conduct disputes: they are often rooted in content issues where people get stuck on things that are controversial or meaningful to them in the "real world". I think ArbCom's strength as a neutral arbiter in those cases is that their function has never been to attempt to settle or rule on the content issues themselves, rather, their job is to make rulings that excise problematic elements, which in turn allows the community to discuss them with less fighting and more productivity. The development of discretionary sanctions is particularly useful, as it gives a clear framework for uninvolved admins to jump in and cool things down. I don't know that I think this is in effect "making policy". I think ArbCom's rulings can and have set precedents that the community has used as best practice, but if the consensus among the community were to change about those things, they aren't set in stone.
There have been very few actual arb com cases in the last few years, which might indicate that the community is doing better with its problems, and that the basic rules are becoming well understood. It seems to me that most of the business at arb com has been dealing with ban appeals, which is done on the mailing list, and often involves considerations of privacy. I'm not sure we do very well at this. What do you think about this? DGG ( talk ) 04:08, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think your question is bit hard to answer without having access to the mailing list, but I'll give it a go. While there has been lots of discussion about the number of emails ArbCom gets, and how there are far fewer than there used to be, there hasn't been much said about the length or content of those emails. Without knowing what kind of emails are coming in (ie, are they useless single sentence requests like "plz unban me i love wikpedia", or are they longer, more considered requests that merit a similarly considered response? are users sending duplicate requests?), and what kind of responses are being given, it's hard to say from the outside whether ArbCom is "doing well" at responding to them.
That being said, I do think ArbCom could be more communicative about the mailing list. Sir Joseph's suggestion for a monthly stats report about the mailing list could be a good way to increase transparency and ensure the community knows that ArbCom is keeping up the back-end as well. Something along the lines of a summary like "of 250 emails received this month, 150 were duplicates and were dismissed, 70 did not provide enough context to make a decision, 20 were responded to and declined, 5 were unblocked and 5 are still under consideration" would provide enough information to the community to give an idea, while not being detailed enough to cross privacy lines. How technically feasible that is, however, I don't know.
When I joined arb com 3 years ago, most arbs thought that the terms of use were not necessarily enforceable policy at the English Wikipedia, and that arb com has no role in its enforcement. I strongly disagreed at the time--I think they are inherently policy to the extent they are applicable, and arb com has the same jurisdiction as for other behavioral policy. (Of course, we may want or need to interpret it further--and certainly can extend it.) To some degree, I think it possible that the prevailing opinion may have been changing a little towards the position I hold. Where do you stand? DGG ( talk ) 04:08, 21 November 2017 (UTC))[reply]
I think it's fairly clear that the TOU are policy, and as such, are enforceable here.
As I see it, most arbs are of the opinion that the requirement that editors avoid outing applied equally to good faith and bad faith editors. I however think that it ought to be interpreted to apply with much less rigor to those who appear to be editing in bad faith or deliberately against the terms of use. (I recognize the difficulty in deciding initially who is editing in bad faith) Where do you stand? DGG ( talk ) 04:08, 21 November 2017 (UTC))[reply]
I think that given the difficulty that exists with separating someone "editing in bad faith" as opposed to someone being stupid, being incorrect, or having an opposing viewpoint, we should avoid outing. I see nothing wrong with asking someone "are you X" or "do you represent X", and seeing what they say, but I strongly disagree with publicly posting information without someone's consent. There's just far too much room for errors that can lead to real-world consequences.

Question from Biblioworm

On this page, I have drafted some detailed proposals (already written as formal motions) which would reform ArbCom's policies and procedures. As an arbitrator, would you propose and/or vote for these motions? If you only support some of the proposals, please name the ones that you support and the ones that you do not support. If you do not support a particular proposal, please elaborate as to what, if anything, would make the proposal acceptable to you.
1. I can't agree with any part of this. I have significant doubts that the WMF would ever agree to take on this responsibility. Even if they did, the cultural dissonance between the enwiki community and the WMF is such that we cannot trust that the WMF would enact the will of the community on such matters in a way that we want, like, or expect. As for community election of CU/OS functionaries, those positions are (unlike other trusted roles like admin) strictly controlled for a reason. Who would you suggest to handle such nominations, in the place of ArbCom?
2.1 I don't support this, for the same reason I wouldn't support handing over the responsibilities in point 1 to the WMF.
2.2 I support defining a scope beforehand, as long as it can be amended if anything arises.
2.3 These phases were separated for a reason, in order to ensure that proposals are based on the whole of the evidence. I recognize the desire to make cases a little quicker, but I don't think that's the way to go about it.
2.4 & 2.5 Why on earth would we want to reduce the amount of information arbitrators have to work with in making decisions? I can't see the value in such restrictive word limits; as it is, people often run up against the 500 word limit in complex cases.
3. Seems to introduce a lot of finicky bureaucracy to something that can already be finicky. If we can't trust an uninvolved admin to issue appropriate responses at AE without insisting on a 24-hour wait, why do we trust them with AE at all? I would feel differently if we appeared to have a systematic problem with bad judgment at AE, but I've seen no indication that that's the case.
4. I'm not opposed to this in principle, because in principle I like the idea of a public forum where people can propose motions without having to track down an Arb and convincing them to propose a motion. However, in practice, I think this would attract a lot of spurious or unlikely motions (as such forums tend to do). I feel like that would increase arbitrator workload quite a bit without significant benefit.

Question from SilkTork

Hi. Thanks for stepping forward. I am asking this same question to all candidates. What can the committee do that the rest of the community cannot? SilkTork (talk) 06:34, 23 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
ArbCom is the mechanism by which the community formally resolves a dispute that it is incapable of resolving with its usual informal consensus-based processes.
Decisions made by the community (RfCs, ANI discussions, etc) are neither binding nor final in a formal sense. They are based on consensus, rather than any one authority. There is no limit on the community's ability to have another discussion and potentially change its mind about a matter. In practice the community will usually refuse to rehash an issue that's been recently settled, but that is informal rather than as a result of any one decision being taken as formally binding. Most of the time this is sufficient to get things done: we agree on what we'll do, and then we do it.
Sometimes this process breaks down and the community cannot resolve the problem: consensus is deadlocked, discussions have stalled without resolution, the situation is complex or sensitive, editors refuse to accept the consensus, etc. That is the point where ArbCom, the designated "end of the line" decision-making process, comes in. Unlike the community, the committee's decisions are binding and final, providing an impartial resolution that allows the community to move forward. That is what ArbCom, as an elected committee of trusted and impartial arbiters, does that the community cannot: provide finality.

Question from Carrite

Hi PMC. In digging through past iterations of your user page in association with this election, I spotted something you wrote on Sept. 21, 2006 that intrigued me. You wrote; "I miss RickK and Redwolf24 - they were excellent editors, and were definitely my idols as administrators. We need more people like them - willing to go beyond established procedures when necessary, but always knowing when to stop. I'd eat moldy cheese to see them back with us." LINK

What exactly do you mean by "going beyond established procedures when necessary?" Shouldn't Wikipedia be governed by regularized standards of behavior and predictable consequences for misbehavior both for regular editors and administrators alike? Doesn't this seem like advocacy of a rather lawless, "Wild West" system of governance rather than a measured, steady, and reliable rule-based system? Should administrators be granted special permission to bend the rules? And if so, how do you square this with your desire to serve on a body with exclusive purview over administrative misconduct? Even though the statement is a decade old, some clarity on your current thinking on such matters would be appreciated. thanks, -tim /// Carrite (talk) 16:58, 24 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Those are the words of an 18-year-old reflecting on Wikipedia as experienced by a 16-year-old. Bearing in mind that it has been over a decade since I wrote those words and even longer since I interacted with those editors: at the time that I wrote them I was an impatient teenager. I had a teenager's disregard for process and authority and wanted things to be done now, now, now, no matter what. Both of the named editors had a reputation for being "cowboy" types who shot from the hip when blocking and deleting, and at the time, I was immature enough to see that uncritically as a positive. I also admit there was an element of teenage envy there - I admired them because I lacked self-confidence, and I saw their devil-may-care attitude as impressive, something to aspire to. I thought that was what confidence looked like and I wished I had it.
I am no longer that teenager. In the decade since then, I have grown and changed enough as a person that I suspect the girl who named herself "Premeditated Chaos" wouldn't even recognize me if we could somehow speak. My life experience has taught me a great deal of respect for being patient and doing things by process and procedure. Having a pre-determined way of doing things helps ensure that outcomes are consistent and fair, much more so than if you just have a bunch of people running around doing as they please.
Now that I have grown up and developed the self-confidence I lacked then, I can see that that devil-may-care I-do-what-I-want cowboy attitude is not something to envy. It's detrimental to the community. It damages our ability to cooperate and work together to actually achieve the goal of building the encyclopedia. It wastes the time of other editors who have to discuss after the fact if what the cowboy did was acceptable, and then clean up the mess if it wasn't. It reduces the community's trust in admins as a whole. I don't look up to those people anymore. The editors I admire most these days are the people who work to improve our policies and procedures so they run smoothly, not the cowboys who run roughshod over them with no regard for consequences.

Question from Smallbones

I’m asking all candidates this question and will use the answers to make a voter guide. Please state whether you will enforce the Terms of Use section on ‘’’paid editing’’’. Should all undeclared paid editors be blocked (after one warning)? Are administrators allowed to accept payment for using their tools for a non-Wiki employer? Can admins do any paid editing and still maintain the neutrality needed to do their work? (Note that only one admin AFAIK has declared as a paid editor since the ToU change). Do you consider the work done at WP:COIN to be useful, or is it just another “drama board”? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:07, 25 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I believe we should enforce the ToU on undeclared paid editing. I admit I'm not particularly active in the area of COI investigations but I have CSD'd paid spam and blocked spammers, and would have no problem doing so again. If paid editors can't play by our rules, particularly after a warning, then we need to block them in order to prevent WP from being overrun by paid spam.
I don't think there is a community consensus yet on admin tools and declared paid editing (that discussion is still ongoing in lots of places), but my personal opinion is that it's a terrible idea for admins to edit for pay. The only way I could hypothetically see it working without compromising the community's ability to trust someone would be for them to use a separate account exclusively for paid edits so they could be scrutinized easily, and then to only ever suggest changes on the talk pages of the articles in question using the requested edit system, never to actually make any edits themself. But even if that were adhered to perfectly in every instance (which, since this is an imperfect world, it won't be), I have extreme doubts that that kind of restricted system would ever work and I think that admins editing for pay or other personal gain is best avoided altogether. The community needs to be certain that admins are performing their functions for the benefit of the community, not themselves, and even the appearance of behind-the-scenes conflicts of interests hampers that.
Although as noted above I am not hugely active in the realm of COI investigations, I have a great deal of respect for the people who are COIN regulars, patiently tracking and exposing spammers. It would be arrogant beyond belief to dismiss their work as "just another drama board."

Questions from Nuro Dragonfly

Hello, my question is simple; how will you correct the arbitrary removal of musical/band articles by specific types of 'editors' who claim a lack of 'notoriety' due to not being able to find some link to another website as somehow being the only standard WikiPedia excepts? I personally barely, if at all in my original works, will cite a website, with some exceptions. The arbitrary attitudes of these types of 'editors' is the reason that the Wiki has a serious lack of editors, who have the time and energy to correctly and with good faith write articles, to fill those missing ones, are falling by the way side. To be specific the individual attitudes of Admin Editors who have very little care for the efforts of others, regardless of some attempt at a non-biased and neutral Wiki adherence. I consider the complete body of works by musicians and bands to be the goal, not some mistaken interpretation on 'notoriety' on a specific album/song, and therefore it to be omitted. How will you deal with this matter in the Wiki Admin sphere post haste?Nürö ^{G'DÄŸ MÄTË} 01:59, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The Arbitration Committee does not rule on content issues, including the notability or lack thereof of a given topic.
I'm sorry that you feel that our notability guidelines are arbitrary, however I strongly disagree. They exist to ensure that we can verify the information we present to our readers, and to prevent us from becoming simply an indiscriminate list of information. They are not perfect, but they are necessary.

Question from Berean Hunter

Viewpoint 1: Policy should be interpreted as it is written and enforced as such. If the goals are not being met then the policy should be reviewed and perhaps changed but in the meantime this is the status quo. Viewpoint 2: Policy should be interpreted for its intent over the wording. Where conflict arises between wording and intent, either do not enforce or possibly customize enforcement to try to achieve the intent per IAR. How would you describe your own viewpoint relative to the two opposing views above?
— Berean Hunter (talk) 02:56, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I skew more closely to Viewpoint 1 as an admin, because it produces more consistent (and therefore usually more fair) outcomes - editors reading the policy know what to expect, and admins can point to the wording of the policy to say what they're doing and why. In the best-written policy, wording should reflect intent as much as possible, so worries about unclear intent should be less of a problem the more care we take when writing policies and guidelines. Unclear policies should be clarified by the community whenever possible.
The problem with Viewpoint 2 is that what one person sees as the obvious unwritten intent of a given policy may not be the same as what the community as a whole sees. When that editor deploys IAR to customize their enforcement to line up with their perception, they may be producing an outcome that is out of line with what the community wants or expects. This is not to say that customization is never beneficial - no situation is 100% like another even if they are broadly similar - but admins should be careful to explain their reasoning in detail in those cases. They should be willing to take reasonable community feedback and adjust their decisions to reflect the community's wishes.

Question from Darkfrog24

You are one of two candidates who've said they have professional real-world experience in mediation or conflict resolution. If you feel comfortable doing so, please go into further detail. How do you believe you could apply your expertise to your Committee duties as they pertain to Wikipedia's disciplinary system, our toxic environment issues, or both? Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:52, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
With apologies, I don't feel comfortable disclosing exactly what I do for a living on Wikipedia, so I won't go into too many specifics. To clear up any misconception, I am not formally a mediator. However, what I do involves conflicts between frustrated or uncooperative parties, often requiring significant diplomacy on my part to achieve a solution that works for them. Whenever the situation permits, I try to craft compromises that result in issues being handled before getting to a formal intervention stage, which can save time and hassle for everyone involved. I often have to remain professional in the face of abuse. Some of the conflicts I have to deal with involve issues that can come off as unimportat to uninvolved people, but part of my job is knowing that everything is subjective - what seems unimportant to one person can be very significant to the next. My professional environment involves a large team of people who may have different views about what we're doing and how we're going to do it, resulting in occasional inter-team conflict that needs to be worked out professionally in order to ensure the job gets done.
These are all skills that I see as applicable to what ArbCom does. Diplomacy is necessary to de-escalate conflict and convince people to work with you, not against you. The ability to both create a compromise and accept someone else's, within one's team and with the parties the team is dealing with, is essential in getting anything done. Arbitrators should be able to keep a clear head in the face of parties who are frustrated and in conflict, and should remain professional no matter what the issue is that's brought to them. On the whole I think my professional skillset would be an asset if I were to be elected to serve on the Committee.