Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2020/Candidates/Maxim/Questions

v t e Arbitration Committee Election 2020 candidate: Maxim Candidate statement Questions for the candidate Discuss this candidate

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 Note: Per WP:ACERFC2020, starting this year there is a limit of two questions per editor for each candidate. You may also ask a reasonable number of follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked.

Question from Gerda

2. In 2013, we had WP:ARBINFOBOX. In 2018, Voceditenore commented this. Would you agree?

   The infobox dispute seems to ebb and flow. A second infoboxes case was held and wrapped up six months prior to that comment, so it's entirely possible that the dispute had significantly simmered down at the time that comment was made. A few months ago we heard a clarification request that was related to the overall topic area but if we're to look at the situation now, nothing appears be bubbling, at least not via the usual channels (administrator noticeboards, arbitration ecosystem, and similar).

Question from George Ho

2. The WMF has proposed the Universal Code of Conduct for a long while. What is your feedback on the UCoC?

   It strikes me as a solution to some existing problems, albeit a very imperfect solution. A lot of WMF projects simply don't have the kind of established policy framework, particularly to do with conduct, that we have on the English Wikipedia. The lack of such a framework on those projects makes it much more difficult to resolve conduct issues, and to me the intent of the UCoC is in particular (but not only) to handle such projects.

   That said, it doesn't appear possible for a project to opt out of a part of the terms of use. One of my fears for the long-term is a loss of institutional memory, particularly on the WMF side. Perhaps the big-picture goal of the UCoC would get fuzzy over time, and we could see another attempt to enforce an office action on a project that has a robust community-driven system for dealing with conduct issues that could handled the underlying matter.

4. The ArbCom cases have been emotion-driven and all, especially to the community. You guys have duties and responsibilities as part of the ArbCom during your tenure. Furthermore, ArbCom has received mixed, if not positive and negative, receptions for the way it handled cases, especially this year unless I stand corrected. I'm unsure about which question to ask you about your line of work, but here goes. How do you think has the ArbCom been compared to the past years: better, more of the same, worse, or what else?

   That is actually a very pertinent question. Serving on the Committee appears to have been much more stressful historically, at least in comparison with the past few years (Fram incident aside—more on that later). This is based on my own observations and discussions with former arbitrators, and it's also a very subjective opinion that frankly doesn't lend itself to clear evidence. :-)

   To paraphrase the comments of an experienced arbitrator in one of introduction email threads from this year: the moment that your name is in the green or blue in the election results, there will be plenty of people who think your intelligence has irredeemably plummeted. Another common theme that seems to repeat itself year-after-year, particularly in the first few months of the year, is how the committee last year was so much better. I have no reason to take any of that personally; this kind of sentiment is to be expected when the main job is to resolve disputes that the community could not.

   On a last note, as a rule of thumb, this year's committee, as well as the committee in the latter half of 2019, has seen an unprecedented amount of goodwill. This is likely a function of Trust and Safety being the new "evil organization" in town, but I would imagine this will subside as time goes on, given the last-resort nature of what the committee handles.

Question from Calidum

2. The recent anti-harassment RFC was closed with several findings related to "unblockable" users. Do you agree with those findings and how would you address them?

   There was an entire discussion point/question on unblockables (Q7), and one of the salient points in the close was that "opinions were highly variable". The prevalent suggestions, as far as they relate to arbcom and unblockables, seem to converge on more frequently (a) giving out final warnings/admonishments, and (b) looking at revolving-door ANI cases/users with lengthy block logs. Perhaps the committee should be considering a model of giving an admonishment/final warning in borderline cases first ("suspended ban"), and if we're back again for a round 2, then we're looking at issuing a ban. Personally speaking, I am squeamish about elaborate civility-related sanctions on individual users, as they seem very difficult to enforce. While a model along the lines of "suspended ban/actual ban" might not avoid the inevitable egging on of someone who, let's say charitably has been known to be uncivil-of-centre, we might avoid the circus that can occur by pushing enforcement to AE.

Questions from Tryptofish

2. You were one of the Drafting Arbitrators in the recent case on Medicine (Drug Pricing). ArbCom tried some experiments in that case, eliminating word limits, for example. What have been your take-aways from those experiments?

   There were multiple lines of reasoning behind eliminating word limits. On one hand, 500 words may not be enough in many cases, particularly with many diffs to explain, and forcing a submission into 500 words may make it less legible than something a bit longer (but let's say roughly with the same number of diffs). In other cases, the dispute is complex enough that we'd grant word extensions anyway. (At the current Elements case request, we've granted two extensions so far, while we're trying to avoid the walls of the text that were characteristic at other venues.) Personally speaking, when we eliminated the word limits for that case, I thought, maybe we'd get a 3,000 word submission instead of a 1,000 word one, and that's not quite what happened. Having tried no word limits, perhaps we need something between 500 words and 15,000 words; at the upper end of that range, either signal-to-noise ratio gets poor or the receiver gets saturated.

   There was also a few novel remedies suggested in the proposed decision. The topic moratorium, for example, wasn't IMO poorly received at the workshop but was seen less favourably at proposed decision stage. Despite the word "arbitration" being half of the committee's title, we tend to optimize for a solution based on the best interests of the project as a whole, instead of optimizing for the parties' interests. At the same time, we're not in the business of forcing down a solution that (a) requires active participation from parties and (b) the parties are not interested in.

   If you want me to elaborate on these points, or address something else from the Medicine case you were hoping I'd discuss, let me know!

4. I hope this follow-up isn't a matter of WP:The Last Word, but Last Word was actually very much on my mind with respect to the lack of word limits. Did you, too, see that as a concern?

   The Last Word can also apply to the workshop and the proposed decision talk page. The clerks can help out at the workshop and PD talk, and a word limit can help for the evidence.

Questions from Kudpung

I'm asking all candidates the same questions.

2. The Arbitration Committee is not a court of law, but it has often been suggested that it is 'judge, jury, and executioner'. I'm not asking you to comment on that, but my related question is: Should the Committee base its Findings of Fact and Proposed Remedy(ies) purely on the prima facie evidence presented by the complainant(s), or should its members have a duty to thoroughly investigate the validity, accuracy, and/or veracity of those complaints? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:06, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

   Analyzing evidence is an important part of hearing an arbitration case. (A possible caveat is that given the size of a typical arbitration case, it is critical for a drafting arbitrator to do a thorough analysis, at least in comparison to a non-drafting arbitrator.) This analysis may include, but is not only limited to, following up on diffs presented in the evidence, asking questions of parties as needed, going through our internal wiki or mailing lists, and as necessary, doing one's own research to establish context for a given matter.

4. Wikipedia's drama board at WP:ANI is open to comment by any and all users. This could possibly affect the judgement of the closing administrator or even reveal a consensus that might not always be the most equitable. On Arbcom cases participation (sometimes throw-away comments) from uninvolved users who do not proffer additional evidence might also colour the objectivity of members of the Committee and their decision to decline or accept a case or evaluate the Findings of Fact. My question is: In your opinion, how valid is such participation? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:06, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

   Our editing model is that "anyone can edit", and this has always applied to the drama boards as well. Regardless of who comments, there still exists a duty to carefully analyze the various statements made, whether at the evidence part of the case, or when deciding whether to accept or decline a case.

Maxim: Thank you for your answers. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:37, 19 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Question from MJL

2. Having taken a look at the proposed decision for Medicine, I see that you didn't once explain any of your votes. You were the only arbitrator to avoid doing this. What insight do you feel you have brought to that case as a drafting arbitration? –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 02:20, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

   I will preface my answer by saying that I'm not going to pretend that I haven't read either your guide about me or the talk page. :-) (And for the purpose of clarity, the main comment I am referencing is this one.)

   I haven't really previously paid particular notice to not explaining my votes. The most likely explanation is that the explanation and discussion does happens, just not in the voting column. In terms of comments visible on-wiki, there are some on remedies 1) and 1a) and FoF 5). There is also plenty of mailing list discussion and arbitration wiki discussion that goes on (I'm glad that David Fuchs, Worm That Turned, and SoWhy have given me a glowing reference that yes, I sent plenty of emails to the list).

   To refocus a bit on what I contributed to the case as a drafter (while of course not discounting that it very much is a collaborative effort, both with the other drafters and the committee as a whole), the big contributions would be the first three findings of facts as well as the topic moratorium proposal. FoF 1) (locus of dispute) is a more-or-less verbatim amalgam of my original locus proposal with a principle that I had written from scratch. FoFs 2 and 3 were first drafted by myself and the final versions are the products of reworking by other arbitrators. The topic moratorium proposal is something I started up on arbitration wiki before being next proposed at the workshop and then at the proposed decision (I reflected on this proposal in reply to Tryptofish above). Perhaps after extensive discussion on the mailing list, arbitration wiki, along with making and editing proposal, I don't have much else to add in votes? Or as one could say, I can let the proposals speak for themselves.

   To go a bit beyond your direct question, you ask in your guide in general what "insight [I am] set to bring to the table]". The tricky thing about being on a committee yet facing an election from time to time is to balance the group and individual aspects of the role. To elaborate, it's important to keep to some sense of solidarity within the group, that is not being the arb who takes all the credit for the positives and throws all his colleagues under the bus when something negative occurs. At the same time, the necessity of elections means that asking what insight I bring as individual is an eminently fair question! Aside from helping to draft the medicine case, I was a drafter for the RHaworth case, where my significant contribution was to do a thorough analysis of the evidence and draft findings of fact. I took the lead on the Bbb23 investigation. I also took the lead on another complaint to do with the CU tool (the matter was closed without further action). Most unblock appeals that come to the Committee likely go through me at some point, whether via the paperwork part (acknowledgements/replies/internal notes) or the analysis. And as noted by David Fuchs, Worm That Turned, and SoWhy, yes, I'm quite active on other matters on the mailing list.

   You've noted how "Maxim is a man of few words"—you're not first to say this, either on- or off-wiki. (Although this long-winded answer must be so uncharacteristic for me!) I don't have a fancy platform like someone of my fellow candidates have. Maybe it's because I'm in my 10th year of being a bureaucrat, and this user group has a reputation for being the most boring admins ever. But at the same time, there is indeed a decent amount of unglamorous but critical work that needs doing behind the scenes. This kind of work is what I've done the most of in the past year, and I'm running again because I'm willing and able to keep doing it for another term.

Question from Newslinger

2. Under what circumstances would a dispute over the use of unreliable sources be considered a conduct dispute?

   I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that in the context of sources, there exists sort of a spectrum between what's a content dispute (e.g. determining whether a source is reliable or not) and what's conduct issue (e.g. clear personal attacks, edit warring and the like). Such a model leaves in the middle disputes that contain both content and conduct matters, which often but maybe not always can include various forms of tendentious editing.

Questions from A7V2

I am asking the same questions to all candidates.

2. How do you feel about this statement from the WMF, in particular the line "On these issues, there is no neutral stance"? Should there be topics on Wikipedia which are except from WP:NPOV? A7V2 (talk) 06:18, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

   Considering the broader context of that statement, I don't see it as a reference, intentional or not, to WP:NPOV.

4. There is at least a perception of left-wing bias on Wikipedia, both regarding content and internally (for context see [1]. One of the examples given is that for matters relating to Donald Trump, the 2016 US election and Brett Kavanaugh, editors making broadly "pro-Trump" edits were disciplined 6 times more than those making broadly "anti-Trump" edits, but this is not to say this was or wasn't justified). Do you believe this perception to be true, and whether you believe it is true or not, what, if anything, should be done to address it? A7V2 (talk) 06:18, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

   The concept of The Wrong Version at least somewhat applies to such cases. In subjects that are politically charged, one will invariably have observers, who have their own bias, seeing an opposing bias in articles. This type of complaint is one I've heard and read on many occasions for as long as I've known Wikipedia.

Questions from AmandaNP

2. Each and every year issues of systemic oppression become louder and louder in society. In 3 major countries that our contributors come from have been dealing with increasing public pressure to address such issues. (US: [2], UK: [3], Canada: [4] [5]) Given this and the increased political attention this is getting, it's bound to be a dispute that spills into many different sectors of Wikipedia (race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, etc.). I would argue that cases where these issues could pop-up already have been litigated through previous committees (AMPOL 2, MoS through ATC, and Gender through GamerGate) and will continue to do so. My question is, as an Arbitrator, do you think you have a role in preventing systemic oppression from happening on Wikipedia, and what would that role look like?

   Arbcom has a fairly limited scope, namely (a) as a venue of last resort to resolve conduct disputes and (b) to handle certain confidential matters. While point (b) generally refers to actions involving CU/OS access, or granting/revoking thereof, a variety of other issues are considered too. Editors who were around during the 2008–10 time period (or so—the date range isn't really meant to be precise) can recall, for example, the "ArbCom not GovCom" slogan or even the ill-fated advisory council on project development. The purpose of historical reminder is that traditionally, a top-down approach from Arbcom has been poorly received, and so it stands to reason, especially given the significantly reduced case load over the past 10 years, that major changes ought to come from the community. The role for the arbitration committee is to be well in tune with community expectations as it handles its work, whether on formal cases, or on confidential matters. Inevitably, this means that the approaches used by the committee will evolve with time, in order to better fulfill its mandate.

4. The role of CheckUser and Oversight are given to every arbitrator on request. CheckUser regularly requires experience to interpret results. Given you have a vote in how proceedings involving the overturning of checkuser blocks, the enforcement of the CU/OS policies including the privacy policy, and the appointment of new functionaries, how does your experience show that you can place independent thought into such decisions? I'm not asking about how you defer to others as that is not showing independent discretion and thought. (Cases relevant: {{checkuserblock-account}} blocks where the behavior doesn't match but technical evidence does, accusations of violations of the privacy policies by two former functionaries, and the lack of appropriate staffing of venues - OTRS oversight, checkuser and paid editing queues, ACC CheckUser queue, and IRC Checkuser and oversight requests)

   Over the past year, I have been very involved in reviewing block appeals to the committee. As most of these appeals involves checkuser blocks, I must myself retrace the steps taken to reach a conclusion, which requires handling cases whose technical and behavioural complexity can be highly variable. Additionally, as I mentioned in my answer to MJL's question, I took the lead on the Bbb23 investigation, as well as another investigation to do with the use of the CU tool.

   To directly answer your question as to how my "experience [shows] that [I] can place independent thought into such decisions": my record speaks for itself.

Question from IP user 2600:1004:*

2. A7V2's question above linked to this article, and asked whether ArbCom candidates agree with the perception that Arbitration Enforcement has a left-wing bias. Expanding upon that question, another argument made by the article is that when a controversial topic comes to be dominated by editors with single viewpoint, this creates a situation where violations of BLP policy or other content policies may be overlooked for months or years if the violations are favorable to the dominant viewpoint, because editors are less likely to fix policy violations that support a viewpoint they agree with. (See the section of the article titled, "How administrative bias affects articles".) Do you consider this tendency to be a problem, and if so, what role (if any) should ArbCom have in addressing it?

   A hypothetical situation such as described above would likely come to light via a venue such as ANI, and I don't think it likely it would reach a formal arbitration case. The loci of the cases heard by the committee can be grouped as (a) administrator conduct, (b) advocacy, either of diverging points of view on content or style, and (c) one or more editors treating other poorly outside the context of advocacy. Over the past decade, the number of accepted cases has dramatically decreased, and the advocacy-type cases that do get accepted seem to involve long-term power users whose standing in the community make it difficult for ANI to deal with the issue. For a hypothetical situation such as described, it would seem that nowadays it'd probably be resolved at the community level.

Questions from Atsme

2. Adminstrators who oversee DS-AE in highly controversial areas are authorized by ArbCom to act unilaterally using their sole discretion, and that has raised some justifiable concerns because indef t-bans have been imposed in an ambush-style action at a single admin's sole discretion at the start of a case, be it ARCA or ANI. AE actions cannot be overturned by another admin; therefore, doing so at the start of a case denies the accused the opportunity to defend themselves, but assures the acting admin (who may or may not knowingly be prejudiced) that the editor will be indef t-banned without risking a lesser action being imposed by the community at ANI, or by arbitrators at ARCA. Such an action actually gives a single admin more authority than ArbCom itself which must act as a committee. Do you consider such an AE action under those circumstances I described to be an out-of-process action worthy of desysopping, or simply unconventional but worthy of your continued support if you became an arbitrator?

   There exist ways to appeal an arbitration enforcement action, whether through community or arbitration venues. Furthermore, arbitration enforcement actions must be justifiable; even though it takes one administrator to place an enforcement action, such an action will invariably be scrutinized by other users, administrators, or even arbitrators, particularly if a formal appeal is lodged. As always, each case has its own unique circumstances, and the sum of these circumstances must be considered when making an interpretation of a given case.

4. There have been some issues involving long term surveillance/analysis of veteran editors by the same few admins who oversee controversial topic areas. Some concern has also been expressed regarding the modification of DS by a single administrator to custom-fit the surveilled/analyzed behaviors of targeted editors. Do you think such activity makes the admin involved and possibly even prejudiced against the targeted editor(s)?

   The community's long-standing interpretation of what constitutes an involved administrator has the caveat, that an administrator who has previously been involved in a purely administrative role is not considered involved in the given dispute. If a change to that rule is to be made, that should be coming from the community rewriting that section of the administrator policy. As of my answering this question, we have 1,123 administrators, but a very small minority of these are active in arbitration enforcement. Ideally we'd have more administrators active at AE, but it's often a thankless and stressful job, and we can't compel volunteers to do it.

Question from Nosebagbear

2. In a number of edge de-sysop cases, intermediate sanctions (e.g. TBANs, rate limits) have been proposed, but are usually declined on the basis that any admin who receives a significant sanction (that is, more than an admonishment) has lost too much trust and should lose the bit. Desysop cases are therefore usually rather all or nothing. The Medicine case was a significant exception to this. Where do you stand on this somewhat ideological split - can admins receive significant sanctions but retain the bit? Would that be normally considered in edge cases or only in the most nuanced of scenarios?

   Such situations must be considered on a case-by-case basis, but in general, it really depends on the sanctions levied against the administrator. For clarity, I'm assuming we're considering desysops not the in context of misuse of tools but in the context of broader behavioural concerns that may or may not be incompatible with a position of trust.

Questions from StraussInTheHouse

While retention of productive editors and administrators is rightly considered important for the continuation of the project, the conduct of all editors, especially trusted users such as administrators is also rightly considered important for the retention of other users. I consider these two issues which are, unfortunately, often intertwined to be the most pressing types of issues to the project which ArbCom tends to deal with. I am therefore asking all of the candidates the same questions irrespective of whether they are a former Arbitrator. Many thanks and all the best with the election! SITH (talk) 11:30, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

2. In the first three months of this year, three administrators were desysopped following three separate cases (1, 2, 3). Did ArbCom decide each of these cases correctly and why?

   I voted as an arbitrator in all of these cases (and drafted RHaworth); you can see my votes and commenets on the respective proposed decisions. In some cases I agreed with the majority, and in others I did not. That said, once the Committee has reached a decision as a whole, it would be unseemly for me, as a member of the Committee that had reached this decision, to risk making it look like I'm having a go at my colleagues, whether by omission, implication, or otherwise.

4. Last year, there was a substantial dispute regarding the WMF ban of Fram. When, if at all, should a conduct issue (aside from emergencies, legal threats, child protection etc.) be dealt with by the WMF and was ArbCom's response to the WMF reasonable?

   The message I placed on my userpage during this dispute holds true today. While there is a role for the WMF to deal with issues like emergencies, physical threats, legal threads, and child protection, conduct issues that pertain to the English Wikipedia must be addressed by our governance processes. Stepping on each other's feet undermines both the WMF and Arbcom.

• Hi Maxim, thanks for your responses. With regards to Q1, I understand your position as a current member, so no follow-ups are needed SITH (talk) 00:11, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Fæ

Question from Mrwoogi010

2. Since Wikipedia's policies and guidelines can sometimes be seen as pretty confusing, especially for new members, how do you plan on approaching problems in which a new editor is involved in a case with the Arbitration Committee? _Mrwoogi010^✉ 20:56, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

   That's an excellent question, Mrwoogi010. My initial assumption was that we don't get new editors at arbitration given that we are a last resort for conduct disputes, but out of curiosity, I ended up looking through the arbitration cases for the past few years to see how often we get newer editors. It turns out that you're much more likely to see someone with >100,000 edits as a named party than someone with <5,000 edits, and when the latter happens, although it's quite rare, it's usually part of a broader content-related dispute, and in some cases it's debatable if this editor should have even been a party given little to no mention in the evidence or proposed decision. Interestingly enough, in the one case I was an arbitrator for and there was a less experienced editor as party, I had no idea about it until now—there was no strong sign that this editor's contributions were indicative of a newer user.

   To give you perhaps a more succinct answer: a truly inexperienced user is very unlikely to end up as a (major) party to case, and those users with low edit counts that do end up as parties tend to have very strongly focused on one (controversial!!) topic, so they also tend to have picked up on our norms despite the low number of edits.

Questions from The Land

2. D you support the proposed statement in m:Universal Code of Conduct/Draft review of Respect the way that contributors name and describe themselves [...] People who identify with a certain sexual orientation or gender identity using distinct names or pronouns? Regards, The Land (talk) 21:42, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

   That statement is given as an example, within a subsection entitled Mutual respect. The concept of respect for fellow editors shouldn't be novel; it has been around from the early days of the project. Something like Don't be a jerk has existed in one form or another since 2005, and the civility policy dates to 2004.

2. Thank you for answering a question from George Ho about regarding the WMF's Draft Universal Code of Conduct. Do you believe the WMF has followed an appropriate process to develop this document? If this or something similar is adopted by the WMF, then what do you believe will need to change in terms of English Wikipedia policies and the role of ARBCOM? Regards, The Land (talk) 21:44, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

   As I mentioned in my answer to George Ho, there are many WMF projects without a strong policy framework on conduct such as we have on the English Wikipedia. To build on what I said in the answer right above, the contents of this draft UCoC shouldn't be novel, and in large parts, the draft is similar to what we have on civility, no personal attacks, parts of the administrator policy, and the vandalism policy. I don't think the intent of the UCoC is impose top-down a different way of doing things on the English Wikipedia; however, it would wise to watch out to not step on each others' toes as to not undermine each other.

Questions from Epiphyllumlover

2. Is ArbCom more equivalent to the Supreme Court, or a jury?--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 22:37, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

   ArbCom is a sui generis body that shares some characteristics with these institutions, with the degree of similarity depending on which country those institutions belong to.

4. On ArbCom, will you write up argument maps and publish them with your decisions? (or delegate this to another member)--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 01:08, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

   Unlikely. An arbitration case is written up in the consistent form of principles, findings of fact, and remedies (and technically enforcement provisions but those have been standardized for a while). I am unaware of any considerable support whether from previous committees or the community to deviate from the existing format.

Question from Instant Comma

2. What is the biggest challenge or problem facing Wikipedia? Instant Comma (talk) 23:38, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

   There are many big problems facing Wikipedia—it would be difficult to single out just one as the biggest. For example, we have issues with bad actors pushing mis- or disinformation; we have issues with commercially motivated editors pushing content of dubious value; we have issues with editor recruitment and retention. Such big-picture problems also have an unwelcome yet entirely predictable tendency to be ever-changing and ever-evolving, so if one asks the same question in a few years, there will be a few similar answers, but also a few different answers.

• Thank you! Instant Comma (talk) 20:02, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Genericusername57

2. The proposed Universal Code of Conduct states Respect the way that contributors name and describe themselves [...] As a sign of respect, use these terms when communicating with or about these people. Should this principle extend to religious names, titles, and honorifics?

   I'm assuming the question refers to editors and not article subjects. As I mention in my reply to The Land, the idea of mutual respect isn't particularly novel to Wikipedia, and if someone, for example, uses such titles in a username or signature, it's not unreasonable to assume that the editor in question wishes to be referred as such.

Question from Grillofrances

2. What have you already learned as an ArbCom member? How do you want to use this knowledge to become even better in this job?

   I found that despite having a general idea of what serving on the Committee entailed, there was very much a steep learning curve at the beginning. I had to familiarize myself with a variety of matters, such as arbcom procedure, use of the checkuser tool, how to effectively write a case, and so on; with many arbitration matters, there's often more than meets the eye. The take-away is perhaps that no matter how long one serves on the committee, there will likely be something new to learn.

Questions from Robert McClenon

Being asked of all candidates

2. Sometimes when a dispute is described either in a Request for Arbitration or in a report to WP:ANI, an arbitrator or administrator says that it appears to be a content dispute. Many cases that are dealt with by ArbCom are fundamentally content disputes, except that conduct interferes with orderly resolution of the content issue. How would you assess when a dispute requires arbitration due to conduct issues? Robert McClenon (talk) 16:36, 4 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

   As a rule of thumb, a content dispute is no longer just a content dispute if we also have sustained conduct issues, particularly those that the community is unable to address. There exists a variety of such disputes, whether low-grade disputes where insufficient prior attempts at resolution have been attempted, or perhaps where a newish user hasn't gotten his preferred version of an article. The big caveat here is that every case has its own set of circumstances so there isn't a bright line to be drawn to distinguish content vs conduct disputes.

4. Another type of case that is sometimes heard by ArbCom that is not a content dispute may be a case about an editor who has a long block log, but who is also a content creator, and another editor requests arbitration because they state that the subject editor is a net negative to the encyclopedia. (Such a situation will almost always involve an editor who has a combination of positive and negative contributions, because a difficult editor who is not also a content creator will be indeffed as not here constructively). Do you have views on when ArbCom should accept cases involving difficult editors? Robert McClenon (talk) 16:36, 4 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

   While again reiterating that every case has its own circumstances, broadly speaking, if a case is presented about such a user, where the community's attempts to resolve the matter have been exhausted, it would be in the Arbitration Committee's remit to accept this case, as it is the last resort venue to resolve such disputes.

Questions from David Tornheim

2. Do you believe there should be a deadline for ArbCom to rule on appeals filed at WP:ARCA per these ([7], [8]) ArbCom policies? Do you feel it would be beneficial to have more process deadlines for ArbCom action in cases where there currently are none? --David Tornheim (talk) 11:38, 5 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

4. According to our article, Encyclopædia Britannica has a "critical reputation for general excellence". (See reputation). If so, can you explain why Britannica's article on acupuncture bears almost no resemblance to our article on acupuncture? Britannica suggests that it is useful alleviating pain. Our article casts a negative cloud, describing it as a pseudoscience, leaving the impression there is little reason to believe it is effective for treating even pain. --David Tornheim (talk) 11:38, 5 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Egroeg5

2. Obviously we should keep UNDUE WEIGHT and BALANCE in mind while editing, but do you think Wikipedia should move more towards an attitude of "as long as you're adding content accompanied by a source, any source, we won't delete it"? Egroeg5 (talk) 08:55, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

4. I hope David Tornheim doesn't mind my asking one of his questions for another candidate. Egroeg5 (talk) 08:55, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It is often asserted that ArbCom cannot rule on content. I assume that means it will not decide specifically what should be in an article. But what if part of a dispute has to do with allegations that an editor(s) is lying about content in a source(s), using contradictory or double-standards as to what qualifies as WP:RS in the topic area, preferring inferior sources over superior sources, preferring outdated sources to current sources, dismissing high quality sources that articulate views the editor(s) does not want in the article, and other behavior that create bias in an article in violation of WP:NPOV. Do you believe ArbCom could handle such an issue? How about this case? Would you as an Arb be willing to look at a source’s content to verify whether an editor was or was not lying or misrepresenting the source’s content? --David Tornheim (talk) 11:49, 5 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]