Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2020/Candidates/Scottywong

Scottywong

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Arbitration Committee Election 2020 candidate: Scottywong

Punching down

I understand the need to allow people to learn, grow, and recover from being uninformed or wrong. I don't want to hold people's past cluelessness about gender (see Moneytrees' Question 2) against them if they've educated themselves. I was uneducated and clueless myself about gender issues for quite a large % of my life. But I'm concerned, not about the lack of knowledge, but about the smug contempt he obviously held for someone who was part of a hated, marginalized group. Not just being wrong, but casually cruel. "What if they say they're dogs? What if they change their gender every day?" hahaha. hilarious) Punching down. This is not a one-off. It is similar to the smug contempt shown against Eric Corbett during last year's denouement: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive312#Further attempts to bait Eric Corbett. I'm not going to go into Eric's status of saint or sinner, as he is not running for ArbCom. But he and Scottywong were at loggerheads for a long time, and when Eric was down and struggling, Scottywong could have chosen to not get involved. Instead, he inserted himself into a discussion to get one last free kick in. Punching down.

These don't seem like mistakes, but seem to me to be a character flaw. I will not be voting for Scottywong, no matter how many people end up running. Punching down will be even easier from an ArbCom seat. If we end up with very few candidates, I hope others will consider the possibility that "empty seat" is a perfectly acceptable alternative. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:40, 16 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, I always had the exact opposite view about Scotty ever since I first met them around 2009. Mainly Scotty contributed with unglamorous but helpful edits & tech work. When he did get involved in drama he'd seemed to argue mostly just against big name editors or groups, always as he saw it as an important issue, not as he enjoyed scrapping like some. I had strong feelings about us treating Chelsea right, and was on her article immediately after she made the announcement back on 21 Aug 2013. But never bothered to engage with Scotty once it went to the Arbs as it was clear his example was just a word picture motivated by wanting to defend the integrity of language & logic. Dozens of editors were arguing against Chelsea's wishes for similar good faith encyclopaedic reasons. Folk might forget this as nowadays it may seem that only a bigot could want to use deadnames, but when this all began the vast majority of the media were using her deadname, they only switched a few days after Wikipedia led the way by renaming her article to her correct name. When Scotty begain feuding with Eric, if he thought of it in these terms at all, it would have seemed like he was punching up. Scotty was just a newish admin who never bothered with social games and had little clout here. Where as Eric was one of our very most admired content editors, often seen as one of the 'unblockables' due to his legions of fans and influential friends (even if Eric himself would never have seen it that way.) That said, this has made me think twice about voting for Scotty. Arbs should have a half decent social antenna, not just good character. Scotty's got better at that over the years, but the jab at Eric was only a year ago and he should have seen that at that point in time, it was indeed a case of punching down. But hope to see Scotty apply again in a few more years if he doesn't win on this ticket. FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:54, 19 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators have made or caused far greater indiscretions - even 'punching down' and hitting below the belt. Scotty may not have been the most visible of editors or admins so it's understandable to ignore the enormous impact some of his work has had to the development of new systems and policies - an involvement which has provided him with more than the necessary insight for arbitration. Corbett may have been a content editor par excellence, but his social intercourse on the project has certainly not been without extreme controversy. I never had anything to do with him directly but as a proponent for RfA reform I was occasionally a target of his jibes and taunts and I fully understand how easily one can be led into thinking it would be harmless to respond or react in the same or similar manner. Scotty's comment may have been amiss but it was totally harmless. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:09, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not my place to try to dissuade you, or even to disagree, but I do think the first paragraph of their answer to that question is a good (if brief) example of how to say "I was wrong." ~ Amory (u • t • c) 02:25, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Unsure if suitable at moment

Feel Scottywong's heart is in right place but may not have the knack of getting a good outcome. In closure of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Code page 875 offered a compromise which while reasonable was only going to result in a car crash with a shedload of information ending up in hades .... Well perhaps in an obscure transwiki archive Plagiarized to an unwitting third party (actually another arbcom candidate) without their consent. I'd note in talk discussions wasn't prepared to deal with functionaries so I could avoid outing personal information if I wanted to request longer than a month. Recent talk page indicates may not be able to identify discretionary sanctions 1RR correctly and couldn't quite figure the laying of a Ds/alert as nomination included reference to politics of United States. Heart in right place though. Djm-leighpark (talk) 06:14, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please be aware Scottywong has good faith challenged my comment regarding the Ds/Alert here on their talk page as a misrepresentation. That is obviously a matter for debate. In the light of that perhaps I should say the above is my good faith opinion and other may judge it as they see fit; and many will possibly see my comment here as inappropriate. Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 11:32, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Djm-leighpark: I'm competing for an ArbCom seat with Scottywong, and I don't at all see this {{Ds/alert}} stuff as any kind of deal-breaker, and am quite happy to say so. The candidate clearly understands that the purpose of a Ds/alert is simply to ensure awareness that DS applies to a particular topic area, and does not constitute a threat, accusation, warning, questioning of propriety, etc. And he says explicitly that he knows anyone may leave a Ds/alert for anyone else, at will, even if the intent of the template is to ensure awareness on the part of those directly participating recently in the applicable AC/DS-affected topic. He simply and calmly inquired as to why you thought he needed to receive that particular one, which is a reasonable thing to ask. I found your tone in your responses to him there unnecessarily combative, twice: "Nope, you've got that wrong. I am triggered by ..." (something that should not have triggered anyone or anything), and "That misrepresentation is for others to judge if necessary" (when there is no misinterpretation of anything by Scottywong demonstrated by what he wrote). Your accusation above that he challenged whether you were acting in good faith is a false accusation by you and should be retracted. (Unless I'm missing some "smoking gun" interaction about this, to which you have not linked.) If he had in fact reacted to the notice as if it were a threat or attack, one might argue that it's effectively an automatic disqualifier for an ArbCom candidate, given that Arbs have to understand everything about DS. But nothing like that actually happened, and it's alarming to me that you are blowing this accusatory smoke. I definitely "see [your] comment here as inappropriate", at least in that part. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:59, 21 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@SMcCandlish: The concern here area more centers in the warning of 3RR editing of the squabble pair at User talk:Scottywong/Persistent Vandalism where as far as I judge (possibly incorrectly) Abhira tribe (not templated for Ds) is within the scope of DS topic ipa and one participant was under a Ds/alert(ipa) warning, and I'd applied a Ds/alert to the other after end of hostilities whihc places the partipants under 1RR on that article if I understand the whole DS thing fully which I may not. Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 10:22, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have difficulty parsing what you're writing, and that thing you linked is red. From what I can make out of what you're getting at, none of this appears to relate to you making an accusation, above, that Scottywong treated you in a bad- or questionable-faith manner, nor that he reacted inappropriately, or with any "misinterpretation ... for others to judge", when you used the Ds/alert. So I stand by what I said above. He simply asked for your reasoning in leaving him that particular template (without objecting to your doing so, and with clear confirmation that it was permissible to do so). It was a reasonable thing to ask (e.g., he might have been wondering, with him a candidate here and you a potential voter, whether you thought he had done something inappropriate in that topic area that he needed to address, or that you might have questions about whether he was sufficiently aware of the disruption the topic area is prone to, or ...). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 17:25, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's all just a misunderstanding. I was confused as to why someone would send me a ds/alert because of a brief comment about US politics that I made in an ArbCom election nomination statement, while I've not actively edited any US politics articles recently. Djm-leighpark may have misunderstood my response as an indication of a lack of understanding about discretionary sanctions in general. I don't dispute the fact that I don't deal with DS often, because handing out discretionary sanctions is not something I gravitate towards as an administrator. Either way, I think we might be making a mountain out of a molehill here. ‑Scottywong | [gab] || 17:50, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Dutchy85 unblock and reblock

I just reblocked Dutchy85 for copyright violations. The almost 10k edits they've made since the unblock will have to be added to their CCI (Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Dutchy85, which is just page one), making an already large one even bigger. This is exactly what I feared would happen when they were unblocked, and what I was trying to get at in my first question. I don't know what to say other than that I'm annoyed that me and others will have to spend several more hours cleaning up a mess that could have been prevented. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk🌴Help out at CCI!} 05:25, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]