Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2017/Candidates/SMcCandlish

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SMcCandlish

This is the talk page for discussing a candidate for election to the Arbitration Committee.


Non-admin arbitrators

@Beyond My Ken and SMcCandlish: With respect to Beyond My Ken's question, I believe the most recent RfC regarding whether non-admin arbitrators receive admin tools was at Wikipedia:Non-administrator Arbitrators RfC (I remember it because I closed the discussion). There was actually a consensus there against granting administrator tools to non-administrators upon appointment to the Arbitration Committee. However, an ArbCom election is, per this WMF statement, considered an "RFA-like process" and therefore makes you legally eligible to view deleted revisions, the rights for which are actually included as part of the checkuser and oversight groups, which a non-admin arbitrator would be eligible to receive. In other words, although you wouldn't have administrator tools, you would have checkuser and/or oversight, which do allow you the ability to view deleted revisions. Mz7 (talk) 07:19, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for that clarification, I'll do my best to remember it when the question comes up again next year. <g> Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:26, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yep. That sounds right to me, and I can't find anything newer about it. I was conflating in my memory the WMF statement about an RfA-equivalent process for legal purposes, with the actual-tools discussion on en.wp.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  07:59, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Beyond My Ken and SMcCandlish: I posted at BN asking for 'crats to give their opinion on the topic. The reading by Nihonjoe and Xaosflux seems to confirm that they view the situation as described above: [1]. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:59, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    @TonyBallioni: Thanks for looking into that. The answer is certainly consistent with what I would have expected.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  12:49, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Strong support

  • Highly capable all-rounder. Brilliant campaign statement. sirlanz 23:58, 3 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I know SMcCandlish as a talented, rational, and knowledgeable contributor to Wikipedia, who is willing to think outside the box. With his fine skills and personality, he will provide a great service to the Wikipedia community as an arbitration committee member. gidonb (talk) 01:55, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Oppose

  • I just had the dubious pleasure of re-reading the circular and at times frustrating discussion between myself and this editor at Godsy's RfA. It reminded me that he is wildly unqualified for any position of power, least of all at ArbCom. I have serious concerns that the candidate may misuse his role to settle personal grievances, and for that reason, he has my strong opposition. AlexEng(TALK) 08:13, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    How would that be possible, when Arbs are required to recuse when they have a conflict of interest, and any such CoI would be immediately pointed out if one did not recuse?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  00:35, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

    PS: Please see also related answer at the "Questions for candidate" page.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  01:42, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • My recent interation with him leads me to have doubts about his suitability in this area. In a "To-do list" on his home page he had written "RM The Open Championship to Open Championship (golf) after Talk:The Players Championship#Requested move 23 November 2017 concludes (same with The Amateur Championship)" leading me to think that he prejudged the result of the requested move. This seems to be exactly the opposite of the attributes that someone involved with arbitration needs. Furthermore, the underhand way that he modified Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters during the requested move process, to strengthen his position, leads to think that he is generally unsuitable for such positions. Nigej (talk) 10:45, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    Obviously, if the first such RM does not conclude in a direction compatible with the latter two, then the latter would not proceed. I've never seen a need to write in great long-form detail for others in a compressed reminder list for myself about maintenance stuff to eventually get around to if the line-item in question is still applicable (some things in that list won't be, and I'll remove them when I find that out). PS, on the MOS:CAPS matter: Our guidelines should not contain disputed material that was added by someone without consensus; at bare minimum it should be flagged for discussion, which it is in this case. I.e., someone who disagrees with the guideline should not modify it to strengthen their "I want an exception" position, and can expected to be challenged or WP:BRDed on it if they do so.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  01:42, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

    Update: RM closed in favor of retaining the leading "The" despite WP:THE, so I've struck that to-do item as moot.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  20:12, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

    • I spent a day recently improving 1954 World Professional Match-play Championship (the World Championship) which was in a very poor state, with several matches not even mentioned. Now, I'm not expecting thanks for it but I now find that SMcCandlish has removed a perfectly innocuous map with the remark "Rm. unencyclopedic map. This is not helpful in any way. No one needs to get there, no one needs to compare distances or latitudes, it not important where one is in N–S or E–W relation to the other, etc., etc.". This is just a rant. What about something like "Thanks for what you've done but personally I'm not keen on the map"? Left me quite demotivated with the thought that he'd taken it out on me because of my opposition to the RM noted above. Nigej (talk) 08:47, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      It's unclear to me why you would prefer a subjective opinion about whether I like something, rather than a clear rationale for why it is not encyclopedic and should not be included. I think most editors would expect the opposite of what you expected, in any WP:BRD revert's edit summary, regardless of the topic.

      If you'd prefer a full-on BRD discussion, I've opened one at Talk:1954 World Professional Match-play Championship#Map, giving the rationales in less clipped form, since it's not limited to the shorter-than-a-Tweet length of an edit summary. Please consider that any edit summary can seem curt or insufficiently explanatory; we're advised to avoid WP:REVTALK and take it to a full talk-page discussion if one is thought necessary.
       — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  01:14, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

      You've missed my point. It's not important to me whether there's a map on this page; I would prefer one but it's not a big deal. Would I "prefer a full-on BRD discussion" - I don't even know what it means. My point is that are many many times in life where it's best to bite your lip, especially where the issue is quite unimportant (like this one). My worry is that, by your over-zealous pursuit of this self-written bureaucracy, you are driving well-meaning editors away from Wikipedia. See WP:DONTKILLTHEGOOSETHATLAYSTHEGOLDENEGG. Nigej (talk) 09:56, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      Sorry you feel that way, but I had nothing to do with the writing of WP:BRD, and most editors do not consider it bureacracy, but standard and best practice.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  01:08, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • This users refactors talk pages, and moves articles around against consensus names. He is very pushy. Re Nigej's "you are driving well-meaning editors away from Wikipedia" - yes. He and Dicklyon supported by some others run through pages to get their way through, claiming things that are not true.
    1. Talk:Northeast_India#Requested_move_7_November_2017
    2. Talk:Harbin_railway_station#Requested_move_9_November_2017
    3. Talk:Dzau_District#Requested_move_11_November_2017 [2] - no districts outside India are named "X district", user ignores that
    4. Talk:Imam_Khomeini_station#Requested_move_13_November_2017
    5. Talk:IRT_Lexington_Avenue_Line#Requested_move_17_November_2017
    6. Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#RfC:_Russian_railway_line_article_titles - search for "untrue" in that section, including the parts hidden behind boxes having names starting with "Collapsing". 92.231.183.209 (talk) 05:25, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    7. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Anthony_Appleyard&diff=814529094&oldid=814527200 - libel — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.227.85.102 (talk) 07:03, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    This anon is a WP:SOCKing disruptive editor, headed for a block; see here for a summary of the details. An RfC about the titles of the articles in question is a total WP:SNOWBALL against the anon's position. [3].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  15:13, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Very Worrisome

This candidate applying for the arbitration committee is quite worrisome to me, and I would oppose unless convinced otherwise. I'm not sure he's suited to the tasks that will befall him. In 2013 I awoke to find I had been brought to Arbitration by editor SMcCandlish for no reason whatsoever. None. I had replied to one item on a talk page and bam! he brought me up for administrative punishment. The link is at the following archive. I felt I was being intimidated and bullied by this editor. He finally withdrew the arbitration but not before damage was done. The panel exonerated me as it was a frivolous case and boomeranged it back on editor SMcCandlish for a 1 month topic ban. He appealed it and it was denied. I worry about his judgement if he is granted this position. Now it was back in 2013 and perhaps he has learned since then, but at the end of the arbitration he said things such as "since no one thinks the recent evidence is actionable, and the other evidence is seen as too old to be useful", and "I have rescinded this request because the AE admin respondents have concluded that the case is weak", and "Happening to be on the "losing" side of an AE request is not grounds for punitive sanctioning." Those types of statements are not ones that express sorrow for making a gigantic blunder against me. He still didn't think he was completely wrong, just that the evidence wasn't quite strong enough. That was shown to be incorrect with the boomerang ban imposed on him.

I really haven't had any problems with him since, so he may very well have changed his ways since then. Others could better judge that than I can. I've seen him responding to some of the same RfC's as I have where we sometimes agree and sometimes disagree, and I would work with him as an editor with no qualms at all. But this is a serious upgrade to wikipedia privileges that he's vying for, and I saw his judgement firsthand from 4 years ago. If I could ask one question of editor SMcCandlish it would be, if you were judging that same frivolous arbitration today, what type of punishment would you give yourself? Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:16, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The boomerang received appears to have been effective; I did in fact radically change my approach to you, and to the topical locus of the dispute, and to AE, all at once, as a result of that AE. For reasonable editors, short-term topic bans usually are effective; if it requires an escalating series of blocks, then there's a problem that is likely not going to be rectified, though there have been some exceptions.

The purpose of AE (and ANI, and other noticeboards) is to raise concerns and see if they're shared and should be addressed. If they're not, it can reflect badly on the reporter (especially at AE), and that was the case that time. But editors should not fear to use our dispute resolution mechanisms because another party might still be angry about it over four years later, even after a retraction and an apology. I'm not sure we'd be able to resolve any disputes at all if that were the usual case. I had thought User talk:Fyunck(click)/Archive 6#An apology had resolved the issues between us (and recall none since then); I'm sad it doesn't seem to be so. I am sorry that I misjudged what you were posting and its intent; if reiterating this periodically helps, then I'm glad to do so.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  01:02, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I accepted your apology if I recall, and I have no issues with you today. But I have to vote on whether your judgement in a situation like that warrants your ascension to Arbitration Committee. Like my local politician who I call to try and fix my streetlight or traffic issues... I work with them with no problems, but I wouldn't vote for them because of other judgement issues I don't agree with. The same thing here. The only big issue we had was a very bad experience, and I have no way of knowing whether you've had any big issues since then, and if corrections have been made. I will strike through my oppose but I am conflicted and still worried of what happens if you face something similar. I hmmed and hawed about whether to post anything here, but for all I knew there were dozens of others with the same experience that were afraid to say something. Maybe all Arbitration members have that type of thing in their past... it was 4 years ago but I just couldn't in good conscience sit back and be mute when you could be handed the reins to impose binding solutions in disputes between editors, to impose site bans, topic bans, and editing restrictions. I'm not sure what I'll do in the voting dept here... Fyunck(click) (talk) 01:46, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I completely understand. And we do have many fine candidates. :-) The good thing about ArbCom is it doesn't do anything based on a single person's views.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  06:17, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • User:Fyunck(click) - thanks for your texts here. No, I don't think he changed much. He is very pushy and uses increasingly aggressive means to get his point through. Moscow Metro lines have been named "X Line" since 2005, despite that he moves articles containing the line name "Kalininsko-Solntsevskaya Line", whilst knowing that the moves are controversial. [4]. 92.231.183.209 (talk) 05:45, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    As noted above: this anon is a WP:SOCKing disruptive editor, headed for a block; see here for a summary of the details. The RfC about the titles of the articles in question is a total WP:SNOWBALL against the anon's position. [5].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  15:13, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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