Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Candidates/Jclemens/Questions

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

Please note that while candidates are expected to respond to all of the general questions and are encouraged to engage with voters elsewhere on their candidature, they should by no means feel obliged to open their candidate talk page to an extension, as it were, of the individual questioning process. This matter is entirely at the discretion of each candidate.

Questions from Lar

Note to readers
This is a copy of User:Lar/ACE2010/Questions. These questions were taken from last year and the year before and modified to fit changes in circumstance.
Notes to respondents
  • In some cases I am asking about things that are outside ArbCom's remit to do anything about. I am interested in your thoughts even so.
  • Note also that in many cases I ask a multi part question with a certain phrasing, and with a certain ordering/structure for a reason, and if you answer a 6 part question with a single generalized essay that doesn't actually cover all the points, I (and others) may not consider that you actually answered the question very well at all.
  • It is also Not Helpful to answer "yes, yes, no, yes" (because you are expecting people to count on their fingers which answers go with which questions...) go ahead and intersperse your answers. We'll know it was you. No need to sign each part unless you want us to know which parts you answered when.
  • For those of you that ran last year (or the year before, etc.), feel free to cut and paste a previous year's answers if you still feel the same way, but some of the questions have changed a bit or expanded so watch out for that.
  • Where a question overlaps one of the standard questions I have tried to note that and explain what elaboration is desired.
The questions
  1. Is the English Wikipedia's current BLP approach correct in all aspects? Why or why not? If not, what needs changing? In particular, how do you feel about the following suggestions:
    a) "Opt Out" - Marginally notable individuals can opt out, or opt in, at their request. If it's a tossup, the individual's wishes prevail, either way. George W. Bush clearly does not get to opt out, too notable. I (Lar) clearly do not get to opt in, not notable enough.
    b) "Default to Delete" - If a BLP AfD or DRv discussion ends up as "no consensus" the default is to delete. A clear consensus to KEEP is required, else the article is removed.
    c) "Liberal semi protection" - The notion that if a BLP is subject to persistent vandalism from anons it should get semi protection for a long time (see User:Lar/Liberal Semi ... we were handing out 3 months on the first occurance and 1 year for repeats)
    d) "WP:Flagged Protection" - a trial, which ended up being called WP:Pending changes instead. Please comment on the trial results as they specifically relate to the BLP problem. (there is another question about revisions generally) Would you do anything different in the actual implementation?
    e) "WP:Flagged Revisions" - the actual real deal, which would (presumably) be liberally applied.
    Note: It's taking me longer than any other question to answer this particular one. As I've already garnered two (and a half) opposes from candidate guide authors on the basis of my BLP views, I think it appropriate to invest the most time in this section. In short: yes, there are all sorts of problems with BLP as currently instituted, which I will be addressing in detail. I note that Polargeo 2 has branded me a sheep for failing to articulate any change. I suspect he, and the premature opposers, may want to revisit this section once completed later today. Jclemens (talk) 18:08, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Note 2: I am going to craft an entire section to reply to this question, rather than trying to format it to fit here. See #BLP Issues, below. Jclemens (talk) 23:38, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Given that it is said that the English Wikipedia ArbCom does not set policy, only enforce the community's will, and that ArbCom does not decide content questions:
    a) Is question 1 a question of content or of policy?
    b) ArbCom in the past has taken some actions with respect to BLP that some viewed as mandating policy. Do you agree or disagree? Did they go far enough? Too far? Just right?
    c) If you answered question 1 to the effect that you did not agree in every respect with the BLP approach, how would you go about changing the approach? Take your answers to 2a and 2b into account.
    Note: this question has some overlap with #5 and #6 in the general set but goes farther. Feel free to reference your answers there as appropriate.
    Actually, I'm going to dispute the assumption underlying the question. Feel free to post a follow-up question if this doesn't cover the substance of the sub-questions and nuances.
    ArbCom has a dual responsibility: to the community, as you indicate, which does not invest the committee with any policy-making or content-deciding powers. At the same time, the committee is also incapable of overriding Wikimedia Foundation decisions, and the BLP issue is an excellent example of why this level of control necessarily exists.
    When an issue has foundation attention, such as BLP has, the ability of ArbCom to be responsible to community input is limited to that portion which does not conflict with the Foundation's dictates. The Foundation is the entity which raises the money, pays for the servers, and which may be sued. The Foundation exists to support the community, but governance of the foundation is through a board, which is self-perpetuating. To the extent that the community has an ability to influence the board, it is through the board's own election process which includes multiple seats elected by the community.
    The Foundation's ability to mandate policy or content is not limited like ArbCom's, but ArbCom (just like all editors in good standing) are expected to abide by Federation decrees. Thus, in cases such as BLP, ArbCom must regard such decrees as more binding on its decisions than whatever existing community-enacted policies might conflict with those decrees.
    While it might seem that that would make ArbCom little more than puppets of the Federation, historical example demonstrates that the Foundation limits its intervention to issues key to the continued existence of Wikipedia. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if someone sues the Federation successfully for defamation and wins an award so big that the Foundation can't pay Wikipedia's ISP bills, Wikipedia as we know it ceases to exist. The Federation employs legal counsel; ArbCom does not.
    ArbCom must evaluate its cases within its remit using both the community-enacted and Federation-mandated policies and content decisions. In this process, it is given the dirty work of crafting remedies that may derive from Foundation mandates--“making policy” in some editor's minds. As the Foundation's input is occasional, ArbCom's role in (for example) shepherding BLPs is obviously more visible.
    The only real choice for ArbCom, then, is how expansively to interpret the Foundation's mandates: too narrowly, failing to forestall future problems, risks additional Foundation intervention and perhaps more direct governance. Too broadly, and the community will rightly balk at being governed by a committee they elected as a dispute-resolution body. This is a fine line to walk, and I will not criticize past ArbCom directions in this area since I was not privy to the Federation's input to the ArbCom.
  3. It has been said that the English Wikipedia has outgrown itself, that the consensus based approach doesn't scale this big. Do you agree or disagree, and why? If you agree, what should be done about it? Can the project be moved to a different model (other wikis, for example, use much more explicit voting mechanisms)? Should it be? Consider the controversy around some election provisions... we had an RfC on the topic early this year, but by the election we still didn't have closure on some open questions. Does the recent adoption of Secure Poll for some uses change your answer?
    Note: there may possibly be some overlap with #7 and #8 in the general set but it's really a different tack. Feel free to reference your answers there as appropriate.
    As any group grows, it is difficult to find a single topic on which all agree. Wikipedia has reached the point where there are many groups of editors who hold incompatible points of view on a lot of issues—Fiction and news coverage are two that I've had direct experience with. These aren't issues of people trying to make Wikipedia something that it's not, but rather groups of people who have different, slightly diverging views of what Wikipedia says it should be. There are a number of ways we can handle this, but the way Wikipedia seems to have evolved seems reasonable to me.
    The primary difference seems to be toleration of larger minorities who “lose” in a “vote”. We may not call it that, but that's what many RfCs boil down to. If you look at the edit histories of WP:CONSENSUS vs. WP:VOTE, it's clear that the past-deprecated idea of voting is simply not as unpopular as it once was. The downsides of voting are clear and many, but the key upside is that it scales very well: Voting has a Big O of at most sqrt(N), while an N-way discussion may approach N^2—voting is simple and fast, even for large groups. This seems to have been mostly tacitly accepted by the community, in that I rarely see someone on the numerically inferior side protesting that the majority doesn't have a mandate because consensus has not been achieved.
    On the other hand, I have also seen some astoundingly good RfC closes, where a single community member has taken a grand mess of content with dozens of authors, often with multiple threads covering entirely different facets of an issue, and synthesized a closing statement that addresses concern, highlighting both points of agreement and contention. On the other hand, I have seen some less-than-stellar closes, along with RfCs that are simply allowed to expire where no formal conclusion is ever documented. I think the community should commend the editors who take the time and thought to do RfCs well, in a way that highlights the community's common values, while still answering the question put to the community in the form of the RfC.
    One advantage of the size of ArbCom is that with limited membership and the ability to restrict which cases it sees, it has the ability to allow full, N-way discussions. In doing so, it emulates the dialogue and decision-making processes of the United States Supreme Court, rather than Congress (though it obviously differs in mission from each). I like the idea of ArbCom maintaining consensus-seeking commensurate with Wikipedia's historical approach.
    Finally, on the topic of SecurePoll, when something is an out-and-out up/down election, there's no need for anything besides a secret vote. If something must be a vote, then it should be a secret ballot.
  4. Please discuss your personal views on Sighted/Flagged revisions/Pending Changes. What did you think of the trial? Should we ultimately implement some form of this? What form? Do you think the community has irretrievably failed to come to a decision about this? Why? What is the role, if any, of ArbCom in this matter? What is the reason or reasons for the delay in implementing?
    The trial worked, although the interface was still deficient last time I looked at it, and it seemed painfully slow—I would balk at calling it outright successful. I am in favor of continuing on with the idea, polishing and developing this process as the least disruptive way to forestall vandalism. The pain and annoyance are worthwhile sacrifices for the ability to deny vandals recognition for their efforts. It's not the only possible solution to BLP defamation issues, but the least disruptive, in my mind, to the principle “anyone can edit”, and I will make additional comments in that my responses to question 1. I have no personal knowledge of the reason for delay, but I strongly suspect it's because the software was simply not ready to handle en.wiki's load. (Note that these questions are essentially being answered in reverse chronological order)
  5. Wikipedia was founded on the principle that anonymity, or at least pseudonymity, is OK. You do not need to disclose your real identity, if you do not wish to, to edit here. You are not forbidden from doing so if you wish.
    a) Do you support this principle? Why or why not?
    Yes. I think our pseudonymous informal reputation system provides the best balance between accessibility to all editors. In a world where most sites that accept input from users have adopted at least nominal legal identity standards, Wikipedia retains the crown for the combination of openness and popularity.
    b) If you do not support it, is there a way to change it at this late date? How? Should it be (even if you do not support it, you may think it should not be changed)?
    I think there has been a gradual deprecation of IP editing on Wikipedia, just as there has been in Anonymous Coward editing on Slashdot: people using reputationless input methods maliciously or inconsiderately have increased the signal-to-noise ratio. (For comparison's sake, I never established a username on Slashdot, but have edited under this account since my first edit to Wikipedia.) 5 years ago, I could occasionally get an Anonymous Coward post moderated to +5 Insightful or Informative when I had relevant knowledge. Now, I not only haven't accomplished that in years, I don't see it happening to anyone else. Thus, while pseudonymity remains, anonymity is gradually being deprecated by the prevalence of reputation-based systems: Wikipedia doesn't care who you really are, not even to be an administrator, but it does care what your prior edits looked like. That, I think, is a reasonable and realistic compromise.
    c) With anonymity comes outing. Lately there has been some controversy about what is outing and what is not... if someone has previously disclosed their real identity and now wishes to change that decision, how far should the project go to honor that? Should oversight be used? Deletion? Editing away data? Nothing?
    think q:John Gilmore said it best “The net treats censorship as damage and routes around it.” There is no taking back information disclosed on the Internet, and for the most part any Wikipedia effort to suppress information posted elsewhere is useless and a waste of effort.
    Does that mean I disagree with oversight? Not in the least, but if a particular piece of information has already been mirrored to multiple sites, there's no reasonable expectation that oversighting will do anything to suppress it. For various things like IP addresses from not-logged-in-users or minors deciding to post their entire personal history on a user page, quick admin or oversight action can be helpful, but for detailed disclosures that have existed for weeks, months, or longer, there is no undoing a disclosure.
    d) If someone has their real identity disclosed elsewhere in a way that clearly correlates to their Wikipedia identity, is it outing to report or reveal that link? Why or why not?
    The outing policy, as written, depends on the intent of the “outer” rather than the accuracy of the outing. However, when personal data has been clearly disclosed on- or off-wiki by the victim him or herself, such that someone can latch onto the real identity with nothing more complicated than Facebook or Google searches, it is hard to call merely connecting-the-dots “outing”. Privacy expectation is unrealistic absent privacy-preserving conduct.
    e) Do you openly acknowledge your real identity? Should all Arbitrators openly acknowledge their real identity? Why or why not? If you are currently pseudonymous, do you plan to disclose it if elected? (this is somewhat different than Thatcher's 1C from 2008 in that it's more extensive)
    My real identity is discernable, but not explicitly declared. That suits me fine for now. I expect all arbitrators to disclose their real identities to each other, and will not hesitate to do so. I expect arbitrators will have the same or less level of anonymity as other functionaries.
    f) Does the WMF make it clear enough that pseudonymity is a goal but not a guarantee? What should the WMF be doing, in your opinion, if anything, about loss of pseudonymity? What should ArbCom be doing, in your opinion, if anything, about loss of pseudonymity?
    I really don't know. I've been working on the assumption that everything I say or do on Wikipedia may eventually be traced to me for 4+ years now, so I don't have strong feelings about this topic. When people ask my opinion on online anonymity, I tell them that there is no such thing—just degrees of difficulty in unearthing an identity, and that the higher profile one becomes, the more people who might be motivated to breach one's privacy. Millions of users sleep soundly with worse computer security than that defeated in the Sarah Palin email hack, because no one really cares (c.f. Proverbs 13:8) about the contents of their inboxes.
    g) If an editor clearly and deliberately outs someone who does not wish to be outed, what is the appropriate sanction, if any? Does the question differ if the outing occurs on wiki vs off-wiki? (this is somewhat similar but different from Thatcher's 1D from 2008)
    Outing, including attempted outing, is undoubtedly inappropriate and will continue to be dealt with sternly by the community. Like WP:NLT, WP:OUTING is a strong response to a problem that, if unchecked, will stifle free contribution and participation. The only problem with punishing off-wiki outing is the difficulty in verifying that the editor who appears to have done the outing was actually in control of the off-wiki account used in the outing attempt. WP:BEANS dictates I conclude my response.
    Note: this ties in with #3(d) in the general set but drills in a lot farther. Feel free to reference your answers there as appropriate but I expect just referencing it with no further elaboration won't be sufficient.
  6. Stalking is a problem, both in real life and in the Wikipedia context.
    By “stalking” I am interpreting this to mean efforts to pursue real-life contact with a victim, for the purpose of committing a crime, ranging from harassment to murder, against the victim. This seems incongruent with subquestion e), however.
    a) Should the WMF be highlighting (disclaiming) the possible hazards of editing a high visibility website such as Wikipedia? Should some other body do so?
    Given Wikipedia's inherent pseudonymity and the ability to edit without registering, I think the growing social awareness about online data sharing is more protective than any specific disclaimer. I would be interested in seeing evidence of issues, but my guess would be that Wikipedia's real-life rate of issues per active user and average severity per issue is less than that of contemporary social networking sites.
    In real life, most disclaimers are written by lawyers to avoid lawsuits. The toilets at my school have placards above them which say (in part) “do not drink this water”, as if that were some informative and helpful warning. I never want to see us getting that pedantic, but an appropriately delivered cautionary message is appropriate. If the foundation mandates that we have such a lawyer-written warning, the issue is removed from our hands. Failing that, then the community should maintain appropriate disclaimers that focus on user education and behavior change, not liability reduction.
    b) What responsibility, if any, does WMF have to try to prevent real life stalking? What aid, if any, should the WMF give to someone victimised. Balance your answer against the provisions of the privacy policy.
    The optimal response from an editor who anticipates real-life harm is to cease editing Wikipedia while such a threat exists. The WMF should cooperate fully with duly served supboenae or electronic search warrants which compel it to provide evidence in a court proceeding.
    c) If someone has previously been stalked in real life, what allowances or special provisions should be made, if any?
    None. With respect to Wikipedia, a stalking victim should never use an identifying username or email address, never edit from an IP known to a stalker, and never divulge any real-world identifying information. No special action from Wikipedia functionaries is necessary for our default pseudonymity to be sufficient in the case of a well-behaved victim, and no special action would mitigate the danger in the case of a poorly-behaved victim. Any editor who believes he or she is at risk of harm from editing Wikipedia should immediately stop: it's a great hobby, but nothing to risk life or limb over.
    d) What special provisions should be made, if any, to deal with stalkers who are using Wikipedia to harass victims? Consider the case where the stalkee is a real life person and the harassment is done by manipulating their article, as well as the case where the stalkee is an editor here.
    In the case of victims with articles, the associated page(s) should be monitored actively and appropriate technical countermeasures employed—the level of scrutiny and protection we expect of any BLP. Editors who stalk other editors should be shown the door rapidly.
    e) Where is the line between stalking or harassing an editor and reviewing the contributions of a problematic editor to see if there are other problems not yet revealed?
    Departing from the issue of real-life stalking, the acceptability of following the edits of an editor into other realms (Wikistalking) really depends on two items: the deficiency of the original edit, and the reasonableness of the edits made in response. Edits that appear to be retaliatory or unrelated to the original problem may be deemed by the community to be inappropriate.
    f) Are there editors who overplay the stalking card? What's to be done about that?
    Probably. Since I advocate that editors at a perceived risk of harm cease editing, crying wolf in this area should be a self-correcting problem. Editors who overplay the wikistalking card will generally just be ignored after making repeated unsubstantiated accusations.
    Note: this also ties in with #3(d) in the general set but drills in a lot farther. Feel free to reference your answers there as appropriate but I expect just referencing it with no further elaboration won't be sufficient.
  7. A certain editor has been characterized as "remarkably unwelcome" here, and the "revert all edits" principle has been invoked, to remove all their edits when discovered. In the case of very unwelcome and problematic editors, do you support that? What about for more run of the mill problem editors? What about in the case of someone making a large number of good edits merely to test this principle? Do you think blanket unreverting removed edits is appropriate or would you suggest that each edit be replaced with a specific summary standing behind it, or some other variant?
    The community has repeatedly reinforced the decision that formally banned editors are to be reverted on sight, including in a DRV that I closed just last week. As I said there, any non-banned editor is welcome to proxy edits by a banned user, accepting responsibility for the edits as if they were the non-banned editor's own work. If a banned editor wants to contribute to Wikipedia after a ban has been enacted, the standard offer is their best ticket back. As far as reversions of material added in defiance of a ban, I favor an appropriate edit summary, as also noted in my DRV close, since we have a plethora of tools that can do such an edit summary without creating too much work for the editors enforcing the ban. This state of affairs has had long-standing consensus, and I have seen no way in which it has been unworkable or inappropriate, so I support it by default.
  8. What is the appropriate role of outside criticism:
    a) Should all discussion of Wikipedia remain ON Wikipedia, or is it acceptable that some occur off Wikipedia?
    I prefer to keep my discussions of Wikipedia ON Wikipedia. To the best of my recollection, I have shared my personal email address with only four editors to date, two fellow administrators and two content collaborators. I've only recently enabled "email this user" for myself, as I consider it an unavoidable downside of agreeing to accept off-Wikipedia input.
    At the same time, Wikipedia contributors are free to discuss Wikipedia wherever they want. I would expect any editor holding or desiring a position of responsibility to conduct him or herself off-wiki in a way that would be appropriate on-wiki.
    b) Do you have a blog or other vehicle for making outside comments about Wikipedia? If so what is the link, or why do you choose not to disclose it? Why do you have (or not have) such an individual vehicle?
    I do not have such a blog. I use my user talk page for individual comments and perspectives about Wikipedia, which are usually made in the context of constructive discussions with other editors.
    c) Please state your opinion of Wikipedia Review and of the notion of participating there. Describe your ideal outside criticism site, (if any)?
    I have never contributed to Wikipedia Review or discussed Wikipedia in any other public forum, online or off, although I freely admit looking up what people have said about me at Wikipedia Review. From what little I've seen, there tends to be quite a bit of nastiness there, and I avoid sites with a negative tone.
    A properly open community has nothing to fear from a “loyal opposition”. My ideal outside criticism site would focus on a few positive questions, such as “Is Wikipedia's mission still relevant?” and “Is Wikipedia living up to its mission?” in its goal to prompt Wikipedia to improve itself, rather than just being a forum for griping. I'm comfortable working within Wikipedia despite what I perceive to be its faults, though I respect that others may not be, and believe that the community needs to be able to accept and respond to outside criticism. My personal preference is that such sites be conducted appropriately professionally. I have worked with lawyers and appreciate the nuanced language by which an attorney can tell the court that an opponent's position is without merit in an eminently polite manner. That's really an almost inevitable outcome of well-focused criticism: if it's focused on the problems, then politeness is relatively easy to maintain, even when the problem is one individual's conduct.
    d) Do you think it appropriate or inappropriate for an editor to participate in an outside criticism site? For an admin? For an Arbitrator? Why or why not (in each case)?
    Editors who hold or seek positions of responsibility on Wikipedia should be answerable for all their Wikipedia-relevant contributions, at whatever site and under whatever name. If an editor has participated with appropriate courtesy in outside criticism sites, that should be considered a demonstration of his or her maturity, not a mark against them. It is the community's right to ask questions about criticism site participation from all candidates for positions of responsibility, candidates' obligations to answer such questions truthfully and completely or not at all, and the community's right to review and express its opinion of such interactions (or the failure to disclose such) through the appropriate mechanisms (e.g., RfA).
    e) Do you have an account at an outside criticism site? If it is not obvious already, will you be disclosing it if elected? Conversely, is it acceptable to have an anonymous or pseudonymous account at such a site? Why or why not? Assuming an arbitrator has one, some folk may try to discover and "out" it. Is that something that should be sanctioned on wiki? (that is, is it actually a form of outing as addressed in question 5? )
    I do not have such an account, and do not plan on creating one. If I changed my mind, I would both disclose my change of mind and account name on Wikipedia and use an easily identifiable name (Jclemens, if not already taken) on such an outside site. The best defense against accusations of astroturfing or impropriety is openness.
    f) How has this (the view of outside criticism) changed in the last year? Has it changed for the better or for the worse?
    It really hasn't changed.
  9. Does the English Wikipedia have a problem with vested contributors? Why or why not? What is to be done about it (if there is a problem)?
    Yes. As noted on the linked page, any community will eventually develop such an issue. I've seen it happen in online games, real-life volunteer organizations, and it most assuredly exists on Wikipedia. The solution is twofold:
    1) Don't haze the newbies
    2) Don't tolerate misbehavior from the regulars
    The common thread in both remedies is mission-focus. On the topic of newbies, we need to make sure that our anti-vandalism efforts have an acceptably low false positive rate. This is easier said than done. because many of our most enthusiastic recent changes patrollers are themselves somewhat new. On the topic of regulars, we need to make sure we continue to reinforce a shared culture that values new contributors, helps guide them into productivity, and makes our expectations straightforward.
    Beyond that, anecdotally I would add a third:
    3) admins are no-one special as content contributors
    Since becoming an administrator, I've never had a problem with a content evaluation process. While I might attribute that in some part to my own familiarity with the system, my last DYK was pretty sloppy. I nominated an interesting article, which was renamed coming out of the AfD, then the DYK hook was rewritten for me, and then I was allowed to rewrite the list introduction text to achieve minimum length, at which point it was immediately whisked into a queue. Would any newbie or non-admin have been given that much help along the process? I sincerely wonder whether my status as an administrator and long-term contributor didn't somehow play into that transaction. Do we do favors for each other out of anticipatory quid pro quo? I would hope not. While collegial editing is always a good thing, deferring to administrators in content questions is inappropriate.
  10. Does the English Wikipedia have a problem with factionalism? Why or why not? What is to be done about it (if there is a problem)?
    Rather, we have a number of problems with factionalism. When one person mounts a crusade against consensus, it typically ends soon and badly for them, often with an SPI. When multiple people on each side of an issue engage in tag-teaming, we have the seeds of an eventual ArbCom case. Nationalistic and ideological (to include political) topics seem to attract the most ardent factionalists, but no topic area is immune. If I could change one thing about Wikipedia editors, I would wave my magic wand and impart a broad willingness to write from the other's perspective rather than POV-pushing. While there are tons of specific issue problems that affect particular parts or processes of Wikipedia, this really goes to the heart of the pillars--if we can't get volunteers to help write an NPOV encyclopedia because they each want to POV-push in a particular area, we've got a foundational and systemic problem. Jclemens (talk) 00:06, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  11. What is your favorite color? :) Why? :) :) If you answered this question last year, has your answer changed? :) :) :) If so, why? :) :): ): :)
    Purple. That hasn't changed; I don't recall ever having changed my favorite color, although my wardrobe tends to be heavier into blues than purples, the skin on my MacBook Pro is purple. Jclemens (talk) 18:55, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Submitted 18:46, 22 November 2010 (UTC) by ++Lar: t/c

Note that as these are extensive, detailed, and worthy questions, it may take me a day or two to get through them. I don't particularly need to make up my mind on any of them, but I'm going to make sure I answer them completely and accurately, just like I would do were I considering the topics in an arbitration case. Jclemens (talk) 18:55, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was very impressed by the thoroughness of your answers. Thank you for taking the time. I think voters will now have a much better understanding of your views now that you did. Much appreciated. ++Lar: t/c 23:56, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

BUT... I have a followup question (you may have noticed you're my last undecided)... Here you go:

12. Tell me about A Nobody. Give me your view of that editors contributions, how the community handled them and how he handled the feedback he got. What could have been done differently, if anything, and why? Give your view of the cases filed and the resolutions by ArbCom. Would you have resolved things that way? If not, what way, and why or why not? Then tell me about the WP:ARS. Thanks. ++Lar: t/c 23:56, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So, this, too is going to take me a while to respond to, as while you haven't put sub-lettering in, I count no less than seven facets to this question.
  • The Article Rescue Squad is a pretty straightforward question, though. I have consistently maintained that it's poorly named: Article Rescue is not a "wikiproject" nor a "team", but the general obligation of every editor, just like expressing a third opinion. This is probably the closest I've come to a unified position statement on the topic, but I've repeated parts of it on a number of occasions. I'm on record as saying Rescue is not always possible or worthwhile. I've been consistently frustrated by those who either use it as canvassing, or those who only see it as canvassing. I wrote a userbox about rescue, and display my successes on my user page. One of these days, I'm going to get around to finishing a "Midas" award, an idea User:TonyTheTiger and I came up with at WT:FOUR. The point of all this is, of course, that rescued content which stays lousy is no real benefit to the encyclopedia at all. My favorite rescue was Yellow Star (book), which looked like this when it was nominated for deletion. Rather than griping about deletionists, I saw potential in it, Googled it, and immediately knew the topic was worth a good article... so I made it one. While I still usually tag things for rescue before I work on them during AfD, I generally end up doing most or all of the work (rewriting and adding sources) myself. Working in this manner draws retractions and compliments from "deletionists", such as here, and my success in this area comes not from dissing notability, but by embracing them and meeting WP:HEY whenever reasonable. A successful rescue is one where I can rewrite an article with great sourcing such that I can get the nominator to change his or her !vote--when you can get your "opponent" to change his or her mind, you've not won a tactical battle, you've convinced someone else that the article now belongs in the encyclopedia. That is how article rescue should be done.
Bravo. That article you exampled is a gem, truly. If only that's how ARS worked most of the time... ++Lar: t/c 18:26, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • To refresh myself on User:A Nobody, I reviewed the RFC/U and Arbitration case. While I've contributed to many of the same AfDs as he did, I was not a participant in either action. My assessment of the crash-and-burning of A Nobody is as follows:
1) He was definitely a partisan inclusionist, who took and end-justifies-the-means view of article retention. He oozed WP:BATTLEFIELD mentality, pulling a number of egregious stunts to game the system, and generally being unpleasant to those who opposed him. The litany of things that could be said about him is quite long, and essentially unrebutted, because he's tended to run away rather than speak in his own defense. If he ever took any feedback, it only appears to have been to shift from tactics that weren't working to things that had not yet been tried.
2) At the same time, he did not exist in a vacuum. Others, such as User:A Man In Black (who was eventually desysop'ed after an altercation with Ikip), repeatedly clashed with him. Who knows what better Wikipedia we might have crafted if so much time had not been drained in pointless inclusionist/deletionist wars? Thus, while A Nobody was certainly not the only partisan, he was one of the best known handful at the time.
3) Much like Gavin.collins, the ultimate problem with A Nobody was never his editing philosophy, but his inability to honor notability guidelines as they exist rather than as he would have liked them to be, work with those he disagreed with, find common ground, or learn from his mistakes. Ultimately, he failed to assume good faith and took himself and his self-selected mission far too seriously.
4) He is blocked indefinitely, and that is entirely appropriate. He had an ArbCom case hanging over his head, came back without addressing it when he had been notified that the committee had required him to do so, and was properly blocked for it. It's a shameful and ignoble end to an editing career during which even his opponents praised his efforts to source things.
5) Without a much longer review of ANI, various AfDs, and whatnot, I'm not sure that I can accurately express all that A Nobody could have done differently; there are certainly plenty of misdeeds that should have gone undone. It's simpler for me to articulate what I do differently: work on articles that actually need saving (note how few of my "Saves" are fiction), one at a time, assume good faith, spend more time sourcing the article than replying to AfD opponents, build common ground, and don't take yourself too seriously. As far as ArbCom in that case, that's among the simplest of cases to solve: complaint is brought, subject of the complaint vanishes claiming medical issues, subject is required to appear, he edits without doing so, and is blocked. I don't really see anything ArbCom could or should have done different. The committee is still waiting for him to answer charges, should he ever decide to show up and face the music.
(Note that I've been working with Flatscan, who filed the ArbCom case against A Nobody, to draft a CSD-related RfC here, if anyone cares)
It'd be nice if you finished these before the end of the election but you're doing such high quality work answering it's hard to carp about the speed. ++Lar: t/c 18:26, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, I think I've said almost everything that I really have time to dig into during the course of the election, but here goes a final section:
If I were King of Wikipedia, I think one expectation that I would make explicit, which may have helped previously in such cases, is that administrators who identify with a particular faction in any divide should be primarily responsible for policing their fellow partisans. I'm reminded of a friend of mine, also a volunteer firefighter at the time, who was selected as our department's "officer of the year". At the awards banquet he was praised by the chief for successfully making the difficult transition from a peer to manager, despite his relative youth. In any realm authority necessarily comes with responsibility, and the responsibility of administrators who have a political or philosophical affinity with one side of a divide is to police their own.
In a gross overview of the group vs. group conflicts that have reached ArbCom, the involved administrators are generally judged to have done too little or the wrong thing. I posit a contrapositive relationship: if the administrators had not failed to manage the situation, the case would not have reached ArbCom. Thus, the collegiality and mutual respect presumed of administrators is vital: If two administrators are on opposite sides of a debate, it is that much more incumbent upon them to role model civility. Rather than being "no big deal", administrators have evolved into users that are sought after by newer users, who set the tone and pace whether they realize it or not.
The practical upshot of this is that in addition to impeccable personal behavior, administrators should generally seek to counsel, warn, or block editors on the same side of any identifiable distinction. While this is personally costly, my anecdotal observation is that it tends to reduce the drama.
Had this been done aggressively to A Nobody, by "inclusionist" administrators repudiating his behavior and not tolerating his end-justifies-the-means approach to AfD, things would probably have been resolved sooner--maybe with him shaping up and participating forthrightly in the community and its decision-making processes, maybe not. If "friendly" admins had been in charge of his initial reprimands, it would have prevented his portrayal as a martyr to his cause, persecuted unfairly by evil deletionist admins. Of course, eventually the rest of the community sees through the charade and no one but the hard-core partisans will support such an editor, but the middle step, when the community is divided over the misconduct along group lines. That middle phase, when an editor becomes a lightning rod and a focus of partisan bickering, is (in my opinion) the phase where the editor's misconduct does the most damage to the community.

Polargeo clarifies the sheep analogy

@Jclemens To explain my sheep analogy which you highlight in your answers here. I am trying to make a point about your voting style not you. Whenever possible I am trying to judge the election based on past actions and not these questions, or current actions taken under a spotlight. When I find an editor saying words to the effect of "I respect these other editors therefore I will support/oppose as they do" on more than an isolated occasion that says sheep like voting to me. Therefore your answers to these questions are unlikely to sway me. However, I will review all candidates again in two to three days. As to your views on how BLP should be transformed, I might be unusual here but I am more interested in arbs arbitrating and would prefer them to stay away from transforming BLP policy.Polargeo (talk) 21:17, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Sven Manguard

I decided to ask these questions after reflecting on an hour long conversation over the IRC with an editor that I hold in very high regard. I intermixed her concerns with my own concerns to form this short list of general questions. Please answer them truthfully, and draw upon whatever experiences or knowledge you possess. I apologize in advance for all the questions being compound questions. Thanks in advance, sincerely, Sven Manguard Talk

Done. Feel free to ask follow-ups if you think I've skimmed over any of the important sub-questions.
  1. What is the greatest threat to the long term survivability or viability of Wikipedia? If the threat is currently affecting Wikipedia, what actions can be done to limit it? If the the threat is not yet affecting the project, what actions can be taken to keep it that way? What is the overall health of the project today?
    A. A bureaucracy that strangles new content contribution and discourages new editors such that we eventually become an insular community of gnomes maintaining a project that has been passed by the Next Big Thing. To repeat a response from above, "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing". We need to continually focus on the culture of content creation, where the editors who do that work well are accorded the highest social status in Wikipedia. If you figure out any sure-fire ways to do that, be sure to let me know, will you? Wikipedia is a mature project. We no longer need to worry about driving dad's car too fast, we now need to worry about our waistline, diet, and exercise to ensure a healthy future now that the enthusiasm and energy of youth have attenuated somewhat.
  2. What are the greatest strengths and greatest weaknesses of the project? What processes do we do well, and what processes fail? What content areas do we excel at and where do we need to improve?
    A. Wikipedia's biggest strength is its breadth; there's a niche for everyone here. Our biggest challenge is the natural human desire for consistency. I've seen any number of fights over minutae that probably never needed to be standardized, such as date (de)linking. How does one choose the color to paint a house when there are thousands of voices wanting to be heard? Moreover, how does one do it when the community is intentionally engineered to be made up of self-directed BOLD volunteers?
  3. What is your view on the current level of participation in Wikipedia? Does Wikipedia have enough active contributors today? Does it have too many?
    A. I would like to see more editors contributing to basic knowledge areas. I would like to find a way to coax people out of WP space and into editing and improving mainspace articles. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and our policies should just serve to set the framework. A tug of war over a virtual encyclopedia is neither any prettier nor less destructive than one over a physical book, I fear. If everyone who worked on Wikipedia just took a week and only worked in mainspace, and only on articles in which they had no strong existing opinions, we'd be able to get a lot done.
  4. Does Wikipedia do a good job at retaining its active contributors? What strengths and weaknesses within the project can you point to that affect retention? Are recent high profile burnouts indicative of a problem within the project or are they unfortunate but isolated events?
    A. I really don't know. I've seen many come, and many go, but I have no feel for how the lifecycle of a Wikipedia editor is running these days. Wikibreaks are preferable to burnouts, and simply changing editing habits is preferable to a wikibreak, but every volunteer organization is faced with good, solid contributors moving on in life to do something else.
  5. Do you believe that the project should prioritize on improving existing content or creating new content. Is there an ideal ratio of creation:improvement? For the purposes of this question, assume that you have complete control over where the community as a whole focuses their efforts. This is, of course, a hypothetical situation.
    A. As a trained programmer, I well know that programmers like to create their own new code rather than maintain someone else's code. I think we see some similar and natural aversion to maintenance programming--that, and currently there are a large number of people working on sourcing unsourced BLPs that would otherwise be doing a broader set of maintenance activities. I don't know that I can specify percentages, but it's clear that as Wikipedia ages, the needed amount of new content creation will stay steady or decline, while the amount of content updating, improvement, and polishing continues to expand at a larger rate.
  6. Do you believe that Wikipedia should allow people to contribute without making accounts?
    A. Per my answer to Lar's 5b, I believe such should be allowed, but that for many reasons the community is gradually deprecating such contributions. I see good IP edits to articles on my watchlist every day... but they're almost always small, gnomish fixes--never a grand rewrite, a sourced addition once in a blue moon, often a grammar fix, but most commonly a typo or spelling correction. I think what we're seeing is that based on the suspicion accorded to major IP address edits, the vast majority of IP editors who want to invest substantial time and effort in Wikipedia have created accounts, or simply stopped contributing; I have no way to know which group is larger.
  7. If you could make one change to Wikipedia, what would it be, and why?
    A. For a technical change, I'd make cross-project navigation much more seamless. While I get the license, mission, and target audience distinctions of "the sister projects", the net effect is less than optimal. I fear we're making many stovepipes for content. I've contributed to commons, species, and quote before, but their communities have never drawn me in, probably because my own topic and editing interests are so eclectic.

Arbcom election questions from Rschen7754

Due to the changed format of this year's election questioning, I have removed all the questions that are covered by the general election questions (but please be sure to answer those thoroughly!) If you wouldn't mind answering the following brief questions that evaluate areas not covered by the general questions, that would be great!

  1. What are your views on a) WP:COMPETENCE b) WP:NOTTHERAPY?
    Earlier today I referenced COMPETENCE in my block of User:Colonel Warden (currently at WP:ANI#Colonel Warden blocked). To (mal-?) adapt Clarke's third law, any sufficiently ongoing carelessness is impossible to distinguish from intentional disruption. That's a diagnosis of exclusion, however. Likewise, I saw it invoked in the community ban of User:Gavin.collins as well, although the intransigence in that case was quite a bit longer and had well and truly exhausted the community's patience.
    Regarding THERAPY, I know people who do a variety of things for their own sense of balance and mental health. I have not and would not ever recommend Wikipedia as such for two reasons: 1) it's an encyclopedia-in-progress, and 2) someone else might just be using it for therapy, too. :-) In all seriousness, if an editor is contributing in line with community expectations, no one can ever tell if such contributions are "therapy" or not.
    Without sitting in judgment on any other editor's reasons for or ability to edit Wikipedia, I think it appropriate that people have realistic expectations. The community owes it to editors to make its conduct expectations clear before taking action against any editor on the basis of either essay, and consensus should strongly support any corrective action before it is taken.
  2. Do a group of editors focusing on a specific style guideline or convention have the ability and/or right to impose on other groups of editors their particular interpretation of the style guideline, or their own standardized convention, even if there is significant opposition?
    No, not without an objectively compelling reason--and if the reason was sufficiently compelling, there wouldn't be significant opposition. A few months back I tried to propose a style standardization, which was shot down. Even though it made perfect sense to me, roughly half the respondents didn't see it that way. In retrospect, I am becoming less of a fan of imposed standardization; we really have to decide as a community what are the truly important matters over which we're willing to shed good contributors who disagree strongly enough to leave the project over it. Those compelling matters should be few and far between.

Thank you. Rschen7754 07:08, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Questions/comments from Ncmvocalist and responses from Jclemens

If it's not inconvenient for you, I'd like it if you could respond directly under each question/comment. Thank you in advance. Ncmvocalist (talk)

Administrators

Q1. In your opinion, are unblocks more harmful than blocks? Why? Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:00, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A: It depends on the circumstances of each; I can certainly see many scenarios where the block is more harmful than the unblock, and likewise many scenarios where an unblock is more detrimental than the original block. If you'd care to present a specific scenario, I can comment on it.

Q 2-3 relate to the following scenario: A request for arbitration is submitted concerning an administrator who: (1) is territorial over their admin actions - refusing to permit their peers to modify their actions in any way, (2) has a history of threatening their peers with arbitration requests, and (3) appears to generally view their role on the project as a combination of cop, prosecutor, and jury (in favour of convictions via blocks) rather than the actual role that many Wikipedians expect of admins. The admin in question spends a lot of time in AE, praising and defending AC, as well as statements that you have made as an arbitrator. This request is filed at a time where AC is still the only body capable of desysopping an admin. Assume that a request for comment on user conduct has resulted in mixed responses, but the admin in question has refused to heed any requests to change his approach.

Q2. How would you deal with or respond to this situation? Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:00, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A: If arbcom has taken the case, then the administrator in question should probably be desysop'ed. Administrators who view their role as "cop, prosecutor, and jury" should take time off from their administrative responsibilities and go back to being content creators. If they've failed to heed an RFC and have arrived at ArbCom, they're ripe for an enforced vacation. No admin is indispensible; we should each take breaks and work on building the encyclopedia as often as it takes to keep our perspectives. Iridescent took a year off, hung up the bit and everything, to focus on content creation--it's a model more administrators should emulate, although I think much shorter admin-breaks may serve just as well to remind long-time admins what it's like to not have the tools.

Q3. {placeholder}

BLP Issues

Nutshell: We need to refocus our efforts on real BLP problems, treat them more seriously, distinguish between concerns of notability and harm, fight the problems wherever they show up, and do all this without alienating occasional editors.

1. Definitions Saying “BLP” on Wikipedia is akin to saying “level” in Dungeons & Dragons: it means multiple things in multiple contexts. I consider the significant meanings to include...

1A. Distinctions based on type of problematic content:
1A1. Negative material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced, straight from WP:BLP, this material is critical to exclude from Wikipedia. The current wording actually says “contentious”, rather than negative, but that's not correct: no one will sue the Foundation and put Wikipedia's existence in doubt because we said something too positive about anyone. Negative material is that which will cause harm to a person if printed, regardless of whether or not it is true. Harm, in short, is anything over which an affected person could reasonably be expected to sue the Foundation, which is intentionally an expansive definition. Considerations like keeping a balanced perspective on biographies remain important, but are not equivalent in priority. Material about minors which may have foreseeable negative consequences in the future is rightfully included here. My previous thoughts on the primacy of this particular subset of issues are at WP:COREBLP.
1A2. Excessively Promotional material about living persons We don't talk about this much, but it is the other half of “contentious” in the current wording: material which inappropriately paints a person in an overly favorable light. It may be unsourced or not, but is not NPOV. Individuals, their employees, agents, or fans have been known to insert 1A2 material into Wikipedia, where its recognition and removal have not been overly controversial. The community clearly views 1A2 material as less bad than 1A1 material.
1A3. Routine unsourced material about living persons. This material poses little to no risk of lawsuit, and has no obvious NPOV problems, but still isn't up to Wikipedia's content expectations. It's a lower priority than 1A1 and 1A2, but still higher priority than unsourced material not about living persons.
1B. Distinctions based on location of content.
1B1. Articles about a particular living person, such as Mel Gibson. While such articles tend to be the locus of BLP debate, they are not the only location of 1A material.
1B2. Lists, non-biographical (e.g., event) articles, and categories which may include 1A content, but are not themselves 1B1 biographical articles. This is an important distinction, because many “solutions” focus inordinately on 1B1-located material.

2. Problems with BLP status quo

2A. Inappropriately broad applicability of exceptional BLP tools. Exceptional BLP tools include permission to delete material on sight (WP:BLPDEL) and the BLP exception within WP:3RR. The proper limit on exceptional BLP tools is 1A1 material only. That is, their use is (or at least, should be) predicated on the avoidance of harm to living persons. When there's no harm to a living person, and consequently no real risk of a successful lawsuit, then community-based processes should be used. Others differ, preferring to include 1A2 or 1A3 material in the list of appropriate uses for exceptional BLP tools. In general, I think this is because most folks supporting this interpretation haven't thought through the matter. There are some, obviously, who think that deleting every 1B1 article with 1A3 content would be a good idea. Without impugning their good faith, this is a terrible answer for a number of reasons, as I outlined in the BLP RFC phase I.
2B. Inappropriate focus on sourcing vs. harm. As I outlined in WP:COREBLP it's possible to cause harm even with sourcing, and a lack of sourcing can exist without causing harm. Efforts the focus on reducing the number of unsourced BLPs are laudable cleanup actions, but the users who have been conducting such efforts have found only a very small percentage actually have harmful, unsourced statements. Unfortunately, it's relatively straightforward to see if an article has a source or not; it's much more time consuming to actually go through an article (1B1 or 1B2), look for allegations that might harm a living person, check that an appropriate citation exists, and verify that the citation supports the allegation.
2C. Inappropriate focus on “articles” (1B1) 1A1 material can occur anywhere in Wikipedia, and I've seen extensive BLP issues on event articles that I've edited, such as Murder of Robert Eric Wone. Likewise, organizational articles like NARTH have attracted sensational material about individuals associated with the organization. But would anyone expect GMT Games and Stargate fandom to be targets for perpetual issues? Had I not fought it myself, I would not.
2D. Inappropriate lack of distinction between notability and harm. There are two entirely separate reasons to not have articles on individuals:
2D1. Spotlight on a low-profile individual The sole focus of WP:BLP1E is to prevent harm to living people who've been thrust into the spotlight, rather than sought it out. Star Wars Kid is probably the best known application of this doctrine, but there are plenty of others, some of which are staggeringly inaccurate. Debrahlee Lorenzana is a current example; in a 2003[1] Discovery Health segment on plastic surgery (Video), she went on national television. In June 2010, her allegation that she was fired for being too attractive made front page news in Village Voice, and was picked up by many other media. Earlier this month, her case is still referenced by mainstream media coverage of similar cases. This is just one case, but far from the only one. Any number of battles have been fought on the applicability of BLP1E throughout the 2008 election season, such that I wrote WP:WI1E and WP:WIALPI to try and clarify things.
2D2. Simple non-notability This is really the focus of WP:BIO1E, where people who've been thrust into the news for only one notable event should really be covered in an article on the event itself. Most people don't differentiate between this and 2D1/BLP1E, and the wording of BIO1E isn't particularly helpful in this respect.

3. Solutions. As I've said in my candidate statement, “the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing”, and I cannot think of an area where Wikipedia needs this more than our current approach to BLP issues. It is entirely possible to “solve” BLP issues in a manner which undermines the future of Wikipedia. Our largest asset is our wide base of contributors who write a little, occasionally, and write positive content using their own common sense and desire to help out, rather than a nuanced understanding of Wikipedia's intricate policies and guidelines.

3A. Implement systemic changes Both main potential approaches to addressing BLP concerns have serious drawbacks, and doing either one partway is going to be less effective... but how “effective” can BLP solutions be without destroying the fundamental nature of Wikipedia? Thus, I consider two potential yet problematic approaches before proposing a third way:
3A1. Flagged Revisions Everywhere, with no option for any non-logged-in-user to see anything done by an unproven user until it has been reviewed and approved by a trusted user. This is a fundamental departure from what Wikipedia has been and will result in unnecessary delays to productive edits by the majority of Wikipedia contributors who drop in occasional, beneficial contributions. Draconian yet effective, I expect that if it were enacted, the number such drive-by positive edits may decrease, but I could be wrong. Maybe enough of the contributors will be OK with their anonymous edits being reviewed before display.
3A2. Anyone can edit, but shoot on sight. The prior status quo, abandoning the promise of flagged revisions, where we promote scrutiny of all changes, issue blocks and page protections liberally, and maintain and advertise an active OTRS team to deal with anything that slips through the cracks. This may be slightly more realistic and achievable, but is much more tolerant of 1A1 than 3A1 is. The fundamental question on this approach is the Wikimedia Foundation counsel's advice on whether a rapid, effective response to identified problems is sufficient. I am unaware if that question has been actually asked, or if we would be able to get a good answer until we have a permanent replacement for Mike Godwin.
3A3. A combination approach If I were king of Wikipedia, I would prefer a combined approach to preventing new problems from entering. This approach tries to balance the two to give a pragmatic, workable approach which will actually reduce risk.
3A3a: For 1B1 articles that have high pageviews and high edits, use flagged revisions.
3A3b: For 1B1 articles that have infrequent edits or views, use indefinite semi-protection. Unless vast improvements are made in flagged revisions, it's simply too slow and cumbersome to use everywhere. Semi-protection is a reasonable alternative, even if it turns the promise “anyone can edit” into “anyone who's willing to create an account and edit in non-controversial areas for a while first can edit”.
3A3c: For 1B2 material that has previously been or is newly identified as having BLP implications, place it under restrictions per 3A3a and b.
3A3d: No tolerance for 1A1 insertion: block (users indef, IP addresses anonblock) on first offense, unblock only on agreement to BLP policy.
3A3e: No acceptance of 1A2 or 1A3 material: Continue to BLPPROD new unsourced BLPs, G11 resumes and CV's, and encourage new page patrollers to be more aggressive in undoing unsourced edits to 1B1 or 1B2 content, along with enhancing warning templates and instructions for new editors.
3B. Refocus exceptional BLP tools use (2A) on 1A1 material. What I've termed the “nuclear option” should be reserved for cases where actual harm or a meritorious lawsuit is a reasonably foreseeable outcome. We don't need shotguns to kill flies, and the assertion that exceptional BLP tools apply to 1A2 or 1A3 material can itself be disruptive and stifle discussion, as I outlined in WP:CRYBLP.
3C. Continue work on unsourced BLP elimination While many 1A3 1B1 content is harmless, the proponents of this effort do have a point: tackling this shows Wikipedia's resolve to solve the problem. It is a bit of security theater, in that the effort expended is disproportionate to the risks mitigated, but should continue to the extent that this drive doesn't keep editors from more important BLP work.

4. Other comments. Most other issues with respect to BLP issues raised in Lar's questions can be dealt with by applying our core content policies appropriately.

4A. No opt out, no opt in Subjects of an encyclopedia article should not be given any voice in their notability or inclusion. They can absolutely point out issues with their own articles, and we should act on those promptly and thoroughly, but if we're doing our BLP job right, there is no good reason subjects should have any input at all. If we're writing NPOV, using high-quality RS (read: no tabloid or sensationalist) to meet V for anything important or controversial and N for the entire article, then there should be no reasonable justification for objecting to one's own Wikipedia article. Some people may not like the way they appear in RS'es, but that is not Wikipedia's concern: by relying on good secondary sources, we avoid OR. OR is mostly thought of in terms of inappropriate inclusion, but what is it called when otherwise inclusion-worthy content is excluded? If Wikipedia errs at the moment, it is by allowing BLP subjects to WP:CENSOR content.
4B. No default to delete. For much the same reason as 4A: if we live up to our own standards and write 1B1 content with appropriate care, nothing can be gained. Moreover, since much 1A content is contained in 1B2 material, the “default to delete” only provides limited, and hence inconsistent, protection.
4C. Our biographies aren't. This is often overlooked in discussion, but is relevant to the entire issue. Our 1B1 “biographies” generally do not cover what a paper biography would. Paper biographies rely heavily on primary sources, and unless we're heavily relying on one or more paper biographies, our coverage as a tertiary source depends on the often-inconsistent and unbalanced coverage available through our secondary sources. As such, NPOV and UNDUE may be very difficult to attain, or may yield unbalanced results: if someone has been covered primarily in a negative light, then if Wikipedia “fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint”, then it may be WP:UNDUE to present significant positive information about the subject.

5. Concluding thoughts. Dealing with BLP material is the tightrope Wikipedia as a whole must walk most carefully. It's possible to be too cavalier and lose the project to lawsuits; it's likewise possible to ratchet controls down so much that we drive away the contributors who keep Wikipedia running.
I've discussed real harm and meritorious lawsuits almost synonymously throughout this treatise. That's not accidental: avoiding harm is an ethical obligation, avoiding lawsuits is a practical obligation, and conducting ourselves with integrity is a unified way to minimize both risks. I intentionally avoid giving any credence to “harm” that might not result in a lawsuit. No one has the right to not have their feelings hurt, and if we're using good sources accurately, Wikipedia will never say anything “hurtful” unless it has already been said by a reputable source. NPOV demands that we write dispassionately about all topics, regardless of our personal views on them.
So if you've read thus far, you have my thanks—and a request: You tell me, am I “soft” on BLP issues, as some have alleged? Or am I, in fact, appropriately focused on not letting corrections to the issue, which I agree is real and important, undermine the future viability of Wikipedia?

Question from Offliner

Do you believe the nationalities of Wikipedia's editors are fairly represented in the current ArbCom? Could you please reveal your own nationality? If you do not wish to reveal your exact nationality, could you at least state whether you are from an anglophone country? Offliner (talk) 18:07, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A: I haven't examined the nationalities of the currently serving arbitrators. Right now, arbitrators are elected by en.wiki at large, to fulfill ArbCom duties for en.wiki at large. Since no representation expectations have been established, it's hard to call any current distribution "unfair". While other non-profit boards I've served on had carefully delineated representation, Wikipedia does not. I have no strong feelings about whether ArbCom should be so-delineated or not, but if there is going to be an allocation of seats by any particular criterion, I'm not sure nationality would be the strongest contender.
At any rate, I am a US citizen (I intended that be inferrable from my userbox selection) and I live on the West Coast. While I've had formal education or informal training in five additional languages, English is the only one in which I am entirely fluent.

Carcharoth's questions

While only #12 was posed to me directly, Carcharoth has invited each of us to answer as many more as we like. I'll be answering as many as I have time to, but probably won't start for at least 16 hours due to real-life commitments.

1. Parties to cases post repeatedly to your talk page, and/or e-mail you and/or the mailing list
I guide them to the right input methods, politely at first, then with increasing firmness, making it clear that inappropriately provided input will not be considered.
2. Real life intervenes while you are halfway through voting on a case and you don't know when you will be able to continue
I handle real life, letting at least one other Arb know about it, and keeping others appraised as I can. If necessary, I recuse.
3. An e-mail arrives at the mailing list requiring an 'emergency' response and you are the only arbitrator around
I handle it using the resources at my disposal, taking whatever actions are necessary to stop the threat until such time as others can be consulted.
4. You fall out with a fellow arbitrator and have a big argument on the mailing list
No, I don't. Arguments between two people take place in private. In public, someone can't change a position or say "sorry" without losing face.
5. Parties to a case you are drafting prove to be incapable of submitting adequate evidence
This is one good reason for pre-ArbCom remedies like RFC/U being required before the committee considers a case--prior evidence collection and presentation. Since Wikipedia relies essentially on adversarial, self-directed evidence presentation (i.e., you point out what the other guy did that you don't like), poor evidence means that party is not likely to see its preferred outcome. Ideally, neutral observers should present evidence that might cover the shortfall, but that may or may not happen effectively. I'm now idly wondering if there might be a call for some sort of peer case preparation help...
6. Parties (or potential parties) to a case fail to make a statement and/or retire
What, like A Nobody? Case is suspended, the absent party is directed to answer the case upon his or her return, and failure to do so results in a block.
7. You disagree with an action taken by a clerk and tensions rise as a result
This really depends on the views of the committee and the expectations communicated to the clerk. If most of the committee agrees with the action, I just live with it and try and change their position. If the committee agrees with me that the action was improper, but the clerk had never been instructed regarding that expectation (and provided the action wasn't egregiously out of line...), then it's an opportunity for corrective feedback. If the clerk has lost the confidence of the committee through repeated or egregious errors, or the inability to accept corrective feedback, then it's probably time for the clerk to take a break and go find some other way to contribute to Wikipedia.
8. Parties to a case make strident and repeated calls for your recusal
There are three separate considerations here: 1) What do I think of the merit of their call, 2) what does the rest of ArbCom think, and 3) what does the uninterested community think? If neither myself, my peers on the committee, nor uninvolved administrators or senior editors whose opinions I trust thought there was a legitimate reason to recuse, I likely would not. If any of the three parties I named has an issue or can see the point of the party calling for recusal, recusal is probably the best option.
9. Poorly assembled ban appeals arrive at the mailing list and will require work to sort out
Ultimately, the ban appeal is for the benefit of the bannee, so it's in their own best interest to do the job right. Constructive feedback may be appropriate, but the burden of effort does not fall to the committee, but the individual(s) seeking reinstatement.
10. Banned sockmaster consistently denies socking and refuses to take no for an answer
Well, given that there's always some small chance that we're incorrect (technical evidence is not perfect), I'd give a conditional apology ("Look, on the off chance that we've gotten this wrong, I'm sorry, but the preponderance of evidence leads to this result.") and close the case appropriately.
11. You sense you are very tired/ill or not fully alert, but voting needs to be done
I sleep, letting at least one other Arb know why, and vote when I'm alert and rested.
12. Voting on a remedy to ban someone is deadlocked and you have the casting vote
This question was assigned to me and is answered on my main questions page.
13. Parties to a case are squabbling on the case pages and no clerks are around
Honestly, I'd probably just issue a reminder to all parties to be civil, and if that didn't work, fully protect the page for a while to get all parties to knock it off. This is not a question I've had to deal with before.
14. You are last to vote on a case and want to copyedit and/or rewrite parts of the proposed decision
Shame on me for not reviewing it earlier. The only justification I can see for holding up things is if I were casting some sort of a tiebreaker. In any other case, I can just vote my conscience and note my proposed changes to copyediting in own comments. I don't see it as productive to hold up a case as a latecomer just to tweak wording.
15. You are trying to do some work on articles and someone pesters you about arbitration matters
I set aside the article work as appropriate. I already do this when needed, but obviously arbs are more in demand than random admins.
16. After several months of intense arbitration work, you begin to hallucinate that you are God
Which god: Om, Thor, or Arioch?

Thanks for answering the question I posed, and thanks also for answering more of them above. My fuller reply to your reply to question 12 is: "The deadlocked matters tend to arise when a broad range of sanctions are proposed for an individual editor (ranging from a warning to a topic ban to desysopping and/or banning), and voting leaves it unclear which one of those remedies has passed (deadlock can also arise when the committee push the boat out on a new or ground-breaking principle that may not be obviously related to existing policy). If you want to give further thoughts on that here, please do so. The examples I was thinking of are from 2009, and sometimes only seen in the proposed decision (where an alternative was discussed and voted through instead). Examples are remedies 3.1, 6.1 and 6.2 in the Abd-William M. Connolley case, and several of the proposals in the Mattisse case, and also in the A Man In Black case (where I didn't vote). Also, the 'Stalemate resolution' principle and the Future Perfect at Sunrise remedy proposals in the Macedonia 2 case show some more examples deadlock and how it was resolved." Carcharoth (talk) 14:35, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One follow-up on your answer to question 2 - what do you consider to be the difference between recusing and going inactive on a case and would you amend your answer in light of this? Also, how would you suggest your existing votes be dealt with in this hypothetical scenario? Left alone, struck-out, removed, indented? An arbitrator commencing voting, but not finishing voting, has actually happened at least twice that I am aware of, so the answer is out there, but the actions taken may not have been consistent. Carcharoth (talk) 14:41, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Inactive (for my time) vs. recusal (for a real or perceived conflict of interest) would be more accurate; you're right, my initial answer didn't differentiate between the two. I'm OK with whatever the rest of the committee decides in such an event. If there was some clean manner of partial voting (e.g., voting on reaffirmation of principles and findings of fact, but not on remedies), I would be OK with leaving the partial votes intact, but also OK with striking all contributions, since I can also see a good reason why an Arb should vote through-and-through, or not at all. Jclemens (talk) 21:56, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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