Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2019/Candidates/Newyorkbrad/Questions

Individual questions[edit]

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Question from Lingzhi2[edit]

Let's assume, and quite reasonably so, that there are some policies and guidelines that WP:IAR could never trump under any circumstances. WP:BLP immediately comes to mind, as well as other situations with real-world consequences, such as harassment etc. What policies or guidelines might WP:IAR trump? Specifically, for example, could it trump WP:CONSENSUS? How would you deal with a situation in which you felt the consensus was meaningfully wrong?
The question of whether IAR was correctly invoked has come up in a couple of recent arbitration cases. As I pointed out at the time, it is impossible to write a policy or guideline governing when IAR applies or not, because by definition, it is intended for use in dealing with unanticipated or exceptional situations. I would not ordinarily use IAR to "trump consensus," but I can imagine a situation in which WP:CONSENSUS is perceived to conflict with another important policy (such as BLP) and someone finds it necessary to choose between them. Often, when a consensus appears to be "wrong" (rather than just debatable) it is because the consensus has been obtained from too small a group or after too short a discussion, or the consensus has been misjudged, which is why we have review forums such as DRV or MR.

Question from Gerda[edit]

I commented in the Fram case, decision talk, like this. If you had been an arb then, what might you have replied, and which of the remedies under 2 would you have supported?
As a community member, I tried to help resolve the Fram situation by contributing to the initial discussion with the Foundation here and by submitting workshop proposals in the later arbitration case here. My approach to the matter as an arbitrator would probably have been along the same lines as these two sets of proposals, subject to any additional insights I might have gained from the non-public information that was provided to the Committee.
Would you perhaps have responded to the section a bit later, LouisAlain?
I don't think it would be very nice to LouisAlain to get into a discussion here about his editing from a year ago. However, one of my proposed principles in the workshop I mentioned above, which was adopted by the arbitrators in the final decision, is this one. It emphasizes that an administrator who sees ongoing problems with a good-faith editor's contributions may wish to bring others into the process of addressing the problem, rather than deal with it all himself or herself. As long as other admins and experienced editors are willing to pitch in and help, this can have multiple benefits, including verifying whether the admin's opinion of the editing is shared by others, and showing the editor having trouble that more than one person perceives a problem. If this practice had been followed here, the result might have been better for everyone.
We are not here discussing LA's contribs, but his name came up on meta, as an area of complaints against Fram's interactions with him, - complaints that I - and not only I - found not supported by evidence. Just explaining. (To everyone reading: there is a corner where problematic articles are listed, in the hope that merciful souls can help, - and many were rescued already, and hundreds were not problematic at all. A few were problematic only because the Wikipedias from which they were translated have different referencing systems, different from the inline citations required here.) - Finally: can you imagine to have supported remedy 2a.
For readers' convenience, remedy 2a read The Committee decides that the removal of Fram's sysop userright was not needed, and therefore returns it to him. My workshop proposal on this subject was The removal of Fram's adminship is not sufficiently supported by the evidence posted on-wiki on August 19, 2019. Thus, if the evidence presented publicly in the arbitration case as of that date is all the important evidence there was, I would have supported remedy 2a or the equivalent. (Also, please note the comments I made on the talkpage at the time, here.) The actual final decision suggests that some of the arbitrators found other bases for concern about Fram's conduct as an administrator. I was not persuaded at the time that there was cause for desysopping, but I did and do give the arbs who voted to desysop credit for standing by their strongly held views about the evidence, at a time when the far easier path for them would have been to accept much of the community's desire for a more complete push-back against the WMF's action.

Thank you, works for me. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:38, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Newslinger[edit]

When, if ever, would discretionary sanctions be an appropriate countermeasure against paid editing?
Discretionary sanctions are available only when they are authorized for a specific topic-area, either in an arbitration decision or a community discussion. Thus far, there has been no ArbCom or community decision to authorize discretionary sanctions to address the general issue of undisclosed or biased paid editing. However, discretionary sanctions still might apply in a situation where improper paid editing is affecting an article or topic-area that is already subject to discretionary sanctions. Significantly, that would include all biographies of living persons, where improper paid editing is leading to violations of the BLP policy. If the question is whether discretionary sanctions should be authorized against paid editing, I might consider voting for that in an appropriate case, but I'd want to see evidence that they would helpfully enhance the enforcement methods we already have.
To what extent, if any, should the Arbitration Committee endorse the adoption of two-factor authentication on Wikipedia?
The Arbitration Committee should continue to strongly "endorse" and encourage the use of good online security practices, of which 2FA is one example, by editors and especially by administrators and advanced permission-holders. I don't believe the Committee is in a position to require the use of 2FA, however.

Question from Nosebagbear[edit]

Once the new ARBCOM is in we'll be seeing an "RfC [with] focus on how harassment and private complaints should be handled in the future.". Personally, what particular questions/aspects would you want to see discussed? Along with that, many candidates note a balance to be drawn, but where would you actually draw a line if given the choice?
There are basically four possible mechanisms for addressing allegations of harassment: on-wiki by the community (such as in an ANI thread), on-wiki by ArbCom, off-wiki (in whole or part) by ArbCom, or the WMF Office a/k/a T&S. One group of questions is what circumstances justify using one or another of these methods, and who decides. A second group of questions might resolve around whether there is any better way than we have developed thus far to distinguish following an editor's contributions because they are legitimately problematic, versus following an editor's contributions to annoy or torment that editor—when is the former justified, and what do we do if the follower believes he or she has a good-faith reason for the following, but the followed doesn't experience it the same way? A third group of questions would identify best practices for dealing with harassment allegations founded in part upon off-site evidence, especially where the off-site evidence suddenly becomes relevant to an important on-site discussion (as happened last week in an ANI thread that reminded me of the Qworty fiasco). Let me add that while this RfC will be important and I'll encourage wide participation in it, there are limits to how much can be achieved in this generic type of discussion. The harassment and alleged harassment situations I've seen have spanned a wide variety of scenarios, not all of which can be anticipated in advance, and there can be no rule-based substitute for discretion, empathy, and good judgment in dealing with any of them.

Question from Peacemaker67[edit]

What do you think about the decision to accept Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/German war effort? In particular, considering the lack of prior dispute resolution attempts or attempt to use ANI to deal with the behavioural issues. Why or why not?
I was on the ArbCom in 2018 when that case was heard and decided. I had mixed feelings about accepting it. The argument for taking the case was that it involved serious allegations in a highly sensitive topic-area, and several of the arbitrators felt we might be in a position to help out. In addition, although some steps in formal dispute resolution had not been attempted, there had been communications between the disputing parties and it seemed unlikely that an ANI discussion or the like would get to the heart of the dispute. The counterarguments against ArbCom taking the case included that dispute resolution had not been fully explored and that many of the underlying disagreements were in the nature of content disputes, which ArbCom doesn't resolve (although it can look at user conduct allegations such as misuse of sources, etc.). Ultimately, the Committee took the case and banned one editor who was found to have engaged in harassment, but otherwise was able to provide only general guidance on editing in the topic-area going forward. As I've mentioned before, unfortunately there is no systematic way in which we track progress in areas that were the subject of cases after the case is over, other than when there are ARCA or AE requests, so I'd be interested to learn whether the editing environment on the topic has improved in the past year and whether having the case was helpful at all.

I would say that the banning was a walk-up-start and should have been handled at ANI, but the rest has had little effect on either side of what was basically a content dispute. It was a huge time sink and the benefits were minimal because it was almost entirely about content, not conduct, and ArbCom isn't here to look at content. It has also been weaponised against good-faith editors, with a recent attempt to re-litigate it. I hope ArbCom will steer clear of these sorts of cases in the future, unless behavioural problems have proved intractable and unable to be dealt with at ANI. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 03:26, 14 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question from SQL[edit]

Which recent unblock discussion (anywhere, AN/ANI/CAT:RFU/UTRS/etc) are you most proud of your contribution to, and why?
Some of my first participation in the administrative side of the site was in addressing unblock requests, and this is an interest that continued into my ArbCom years. I also used to patrol CAT:RFU regularly, but I haven't done that for awhile. Your question reminds me that it's important for admins to watch that category, as we promise blocked editors a reasonably prompt independent review of unblock requests, and we should keep that promise. (Curiously, a quick scan of the category table just now reflects that most of the blocks supposedly expired "49 years ago," which I assume is an artifact of the software's arbitrary assumption that certain undated events occurred in 1970.) Some of my most successful advocacy for unblocking has occurred on the ArbCom mailing list, where it isn't visible to editors and hence won't be very persuasive here, and other instances of success have been when I've avoid having to block someone at all, but that doesn't respond directly to your question. In the meantime, I've just checked my talkpage archives and found two instances in the past couple of years in which I was praised for an unblock, but one of those two editors was subsequently indeffed again so that's probably nothing to brag about, while the other unblock was based on a checkuser run and I shouldn't draw further attention to it. So rather than point to a specific incident, I'll say I hope that in arbitration decisions and elsewhere I've reminded admins to be cautious with blocking of good-faith editors, to avoid using where a lesser measure might suffice, to be prepared to unblock when the editor's comments make clear that misconduct won't likely be repeated—but also not to be so fearful of blocking that one problematic editor's behavior drives other good editors away. P.S. Reading another candidate's answer reminds me that I recently also started the "Lift Fram's ban now?" thread here.

Questions from Carrite[edit]

What's the biggest problem with Arbcom? Is it fixable or inherent?
I've thought about this question for a couple of days and I could address it on a broad philosophical level, but I'm going to go with a more practical response. Over the entire history of the ArbCom, one of the major problems has been delays in addressing issues and deciding cases. This is inherent to some extent for two reasons: first, by definition the disputes that come before ArbCom can be the most complicated, difficult, and long-standing disputes on the project, so it can take a long time to review all the statements and evidence and appreciate the issues; and second, ArbCom's response to any issue needs to be coordinated, in an electronic rather than in-person or even telephonic environment, by a dozen or more people with a variety of schedules. Despite these commitments, every ArbCom candidate ever has promised to do his or her best to set reasonable timetables and keep to them, and despite the complications, it behooves the arbitrators to do their best to do that.
How the hell do you know so much about British politics?
My knowledge is fairly superficial, actually. I was first drawn to following the House of Commons in the 1990s when they started broadcasting PMQs on C-SPAN. I also have a longstanding interest in parliamentary procedure, including U.S. congressional procedure, and the procedures and formalities of the original Parliament as well. Over time this broadened into keeping an eye on what was happening in the Commons, and the ongoing Brexit debates were particularly interesting from both a procedural as well as a substantive point of view. I am not sure whether anything learned there relates to work on the ArbCom, though, unless we want to discuss the number of arbs this past year who have taken the Chiltern Hundreds.

Dunno, there may well be a majourity of Brits on the committee, so it might have a lot to do with making small talk with your peers... Thanks for your 1.1 answers. Carrite (talk) 18:28, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question from WereSpielChequers[edit]

Are there any circumstances where you would think it acceptable to give an editor a fixed term block without telling them why or what you expect them to desist from when they return? (Yes, this is a Fram related question).
Since one of the main purposes of a fixed-term block is to encourage the editor to improve his or her behavior after the block expires, it would seem pointless to impose a block without telling the editor what he or she needs to correct. Ideally this would be with some degree of specificity, but even general guidance would be better than none at all.

Thanks, I'm very happy with that answer Ϣere SpielChequers 04:56, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Collect[edit]

Ought Arbitrators who have been personally involved in any way concerning the facts of a case recuse themselves from any related cases?
An arbitrator should recuse from a case where he or she has been significantly involved in the dispute that is being arbitrated, or where for any other reason, his or her impartiality could reasonably be questioned. The words "in any way" make your question very broad, and a mere fleeting or tangential contact with a dispute might not rise to the level of warranting recusal, but personally I have erred on the side of recusing in borderline situations.
Ought the persons named in a case be given sufficient time to answer charges made by others, rather than have each be given the same time limits?
The parties to a case must be given a reasonable time to respond to allegations and present evidence and proposals. Deadlines within a case are established to help the case move toward a conclusion on an acceptable schedule, but they need to be enforced in a fair and sensible way; for example, if lengthy evidence against an editor is presented an hour before the evidence deadline, a request by that editor for a reasonable extension of his or her time to respond should be granted.
When an arbitrator proffers specific evidence on their own, ought the accused be permitted to actually reply to such "new evidence" as though it were timely presented, with the same time allowed for such a response?
Normally it is the parties or other interested editors rather than the arbitrators who present evidence. However, in reviewing the evidence, it's certainly possible than an arbitrator will come across diffs or comments by one of the parties that he or she finds concerning and which the arbitrator thinks might affect how the case should be decided. If that happens, then the "accused" should certainly be advised about the arb's concern and given a reasonable time to respond.

Question from Praxidicae[edit]

What are your thoughts about functionaries and other advanced permission holders discussing Wikipedia and other Wikimedians (in otherwise good standing) with WMF banned editors, specifically those who have a history of doxing and harassment?
I do not discuss individual Wikipedians with banned editors or on outside forums, nor would I ever make reference to any form of confidential information in either an on-wiki or an off-site discussion. I have occasionally participated in an offsite critical website where I have answered reasonable questions, corrected misconceptions, and responded to legitimate criticisms. I have consistently urged the proprietors of that forum and its predecessor to disallow the practice of revealing Wikipedia editors' undisclosed personal information ("doxing" or "outing"), because this information does not contribute to legitimate criticism of Wikipedia, except perhaps in rare and exceptional cases. I am particularly sensitive to this problem, as in 2008 my own identity was surreptitiously obtained and pointlessly published after I posted to a (no-longer-active) criticism site. I will publicly urge again that the more rational critical forums and their members should stop doing this sort of thing.

Question from SN54129[edit]

How would you contextualise Peacemaker67's question on the 2018 GWE arbitration case with the more recent suggestion by one sitting arbitrator, who advised Peacemaker...Be careful that MILHIST doesn't become a place where that groupthink crowds out those who genuinely disagree, and another that MILHIST was counsel[ed]...to bear in mind that it does risk becoming a walled garden?
I have read the discussion but I'm not sure I understand your specific question. My apologies, but would you mind rephrasing it? Thank you.

Question from Piotrus[edit]

Two years ago I did a study of ArbCom, available at [1]. in which I concldued that "A practical recommendation for Wikipedia in particular, and for other communities with collegiate courts in general, is that when electing members to their dispute resolution bodies, those communities would do well to pay attention to how much time the prospective future judges can devote to this volunteering task." In other words, may Arbitrators become inactive due to real world reasons (family, job) and this is not an exception but a rule, repeated time and again throughout ArbCom history. Do you think there is any practical way to deal with this, such as, for example, asking Arbitrators to obligatorily describe, in their election process, how they plan to ensure they have sufficient free time to devote to this activity?
It is appropriate to ask candidates whether they anticipate having enough time to serve as arbitrators in the upcoming two years. We can also look over their editing histories to get a general sense of their past activity levels, given that the past is often the best predictor of the future. Candidates may also voluntarily choose to disclose other background information that may bear on their availability, but it is not consistent with the norms of Wikipedia to ask overly intrusive questions about editors' off-wiki lives or personal circumstances.

Question from Leaky caldron[edit]

There have been occasional, some might say frequent instances, of a perceived bias in the way that prolific content creators are treated compared to members of the community who support the en-WP in other ways. Is this something you recognise? When these contributors end up at AC - how should they be treated?
Creating good-quality content is a very important contribution to Wikipedia, but there are also other ways of contributing, and all good-faith editors should be valued. In assessing an editor's conduct (at ArbCom or elsewhere), it is appropriate to take the editor's history of participation into account in assessing, for example, whether an instance of misconduct was typical of the person's behavior or an isolated incident. However, that does not mean that anyone is entitled to a "free pass" for repeated or severe misconduct.

Thanks. Along with several other candidates you have swerved the specific question "bias.... do you recognise it"? I don't expect or require a politically correct or cleverly nuanced answer. In fact yes or no would likely be good enough.

I thought my view was fairly clear from the answer, but to respond very directly, yes, it has historically been true that some "prolific content contributors" have been treated more leniently than others who engaged in similar misconduct but didn't have a strong record of content contributions. I don't think many people could deny that; the interesting question is to what extent, if any, such disparate treatment can ever be justifiable and to what extent.

I found your initial response obfuscatory. Maybe I'm just thick!

Question from Gadfium[edit]

In User:Risker/Thoughts for Arbitration Committee Candidates, she says "Know what you'll do if you don't win a seat. This is an important test. Will you continue participating in the building of the encyclopedia? In what areas do you plan on working? Some people have considerable difficulty resuming normal editing life after an unsuccessful run." What will you do if you're not elected?
I would continue participating in other aspects of the project, as I did when I was off the Committee in 2015-2016 and this year.

Question from Volunteer Marek[edit]

Apologies for late question. There has always been a lot of complaints about lack of communication and transparency with regards to the committee. While this issue is not new, it has never really been adequately addressed, aside from the ever presented hackneyed promises during election time. The complaints have been particularly vociferous recently. Please see this proposal and express your opinion on it. Would you support something like it (even if not exactly in this form) when on ArbCom?
Good communication between the Committee and the general community is always important. The Arbitration Committee noticeboard and its talkpage were created for this purpose. The type of report you suggest is an interesting idea, although I'm not sure whether it would wind up being able to reveal lots more information than is currently available on-wiki from looking at the various arbitration pages, or simply compiling the existing information in one place with the occasional update. A concern I do have with the idea is whether, after the spokesperson drafts the biweekly/monthly report, and presumably circulates it to the other arbitrators for review and comment, the wordsmithing of the report by 15 people itself becomes a time-consuming project. There would have to be a time-limited process for making sure the spokesperson truly speaks for the Committee as a whole, without all the downsides of writing by committee.

That's a good point, but that's why the committee would have to appoint a reliable (experienced) person for the job. That way they can trust that they'll handle the job well. It's what normal committees do. Volunteer Marek 00:49, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question from WBG[edit]

Over this page, all of the arbitrators (sans PMC, who responded a single time) refused to engage a multitude of queries and concerns from multiple longstanding members of the community, despite the case being entirely situated on public evidence. I note this ATCN thread, as well.
Do you feel that the displayed behavior abides by general community expectations of arbitrator conduct? Some have since stated that the concurrently running FRAMGATE meant that they had to be less devoted to this case; in such a situation, how would you have tackled this case (if anything different, at all)?
It would have been better if the arbitrators had addressed the talkpage input in that case more directly. The proposed decision talkpage of a case, like the workshop if the arbitrators post proposals there, can provide useful feedback on both the factual accuracy and the subjective desirability of proposals from both parties and non-parties. When I have been an arbitrator I have always monitored that page and considered the comments there, and replied from time to time when I thought it would be helpful. Hopefully there will never be another "Fram" type situation, but the expansion of the Committee should help make it possible to address more than one major case at a time, when needed.

Your fellow candidate, Gadfium writes:- Arbs should be highly responsive to community concerns on the talk pages of cases and that anyone who expresses an honest and constructive opinion should be taken seriously. Do you agree with the premises of these statements? Comment.
Following up on the prior answer, the talkpage input can be an important source of information and "reality check" on the progress of a case and its proposed decision. Certainly it should be taken seriously. In evaluating the comments, the arbitrators should bear in mind that the editors who choose to comment on a particular case may have biases or may not be a true cross-section of the community, so widespread disagreement with a proposal does not necessarily mean the proposal is wrong, but the merits of the points made by the commenters should be thoughtfully considered.

Thanks, in advance, for your answers. ∯WBG^converse 08:58, 17 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Atsme[edit]

My one and only question - do you really have the time necessary to devote to ArbCom? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 00:31, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I believe I will have the time I need to devote to ArbCom business if I am elected, as I generally have in the past. That doesn't mean I won't occasionally be busy with something else in my life, but I think that would be true of most arbitrators or candidates.

Question from Jehochman[edit]

How do you feel about the right of reply and do you think this principle should be applied to Wikipedia biographies and/or Wikipedia dispute resolution, and if so, how?
With respect to Wikipedia dispute resolution, all editors involved in the dispute already have ample right to be heard. With respect to BLPs, we have processes for article subjects to comment on their articles, either on-wiki or via OTRS. Whether to expand article subjects' rights is a policy question, not something to be decided by ArbCom. My own view is that article subjects' comments should be given respectful attention and consideration, although the subject cannot be the final arbiter of what is contained in the article.

Questions from Robert McClenon[edit]

Some of the most important decisions by arbitrators are whether to accept or decline cases. What principles will you follow on voting on whether to accept cases that may be within the scope of arbitration, as opposed to declining the cases and leaving them for the community?
My policy was generally to vote to accept a case where there was a serious or recurring dispute or problem, the community was unable to resolve the dispute or problem without arbitration, and there was a reasonable chance that an arbitration decision could be helpful in resolving it.
Do you think that the initial T&S action in banning Fram was a valid exercise of responsibility by Trust and Safety, a completely unjustified overreach by T&S, or something in between, such as an over-reaction by T&S to an existing weakness in the English Wikipedia's sanctions regime?
There is a broad, though not unanimous, consensus within the community that the WMF Office should not have involved itself in EnWP governance in the way it did, and I agree with that. The only caveat to that answer is that I haven't seen the non-public information and submissions on which T&S relied—although I gather that they were based on on-wiki diffs, which we all can review. To the extent people at T&S believed the community or ArbCom had been unduly lenient regarding allegedly poor conduct by a particular editor, the answer was not to take a unilateral Office action.
In recent years the ArbCom has almost always been significantly late in issuing proposed decisions. The current PIA4 case is an example. Can you as an Arb comment on the causes of the delays? Do you propose any action to reduce these delays, such as either shortening the delay between closing of the workshop and posting of the proposed decision, or providing a longer target date?
I agree this is a concern, as per my answer to Carrite's question above. In the past, many arbitrators and candidates have promised to address the problem of delays. When I and some other newcomers first joined the Committee back in 2008, we made progress in reducing the duration of routine arbitration cases. But that hasn't carried forward to today because ArbCom doesn't take routine cases any more—routine disputes get resolved in other ways, and ArbCom gets only the most complicated and intractable disputes. Delays can be caused by a combination of delays by the parties in providing evidence (though that is often the least of the issues), unanticipated arbitrator unavailability or limited availability, and the case's turning out to be more difficult or voluminous than projected. If elected, I will work to propose realistic schedules, neither longer or shorter than appropriate, tailored to the anticipated complexity of each accepted case. The community-decided expansion of the Committee back to 15 members should also be helpful in this regard.

Question from Pharaoh of the Wizards[edit]

What is your position on undisclosed paid editing and what do you see as arbcom's role in enforcement of the WP:TOU?
The WMF terms of use and the EnWP community both take a very negative view of undisclosed paid editing. ArbCom's role is to help enforce our norms and expectations in this area, using a reasonable interpretation of the polices. Many ArbCom members are also active as checkusers, and work as part of the checkuser team that helps Wikipedia identify and hopefully thwart the most abusive paid-editing enterprises. It should be remembered, though, that there can be degrees and borderline cases of undisclosed paid editing, which needs to be reflected in what enforcement methods are used. I previously discussed some aspects of this problem in my separate statement here.

Question from Grillofrances[edit]

What is the single thing you'd like to improve the most in ArbCom?
Timeliness. See my answers above to Carrite's first question and Robert McClenon's third question. If I had to add a second thing, it might be simplifying some of the ArbCom-related rules and policies that have become overly rigid or complicated.