2014 Arbcom Election Guide

Personal background

My name is Tim Davenport, I'm 53 years old and live in Corvallis, Oregon (USA) and have been a Wikipedian since December 2008. I am a content writer, not a copy editor, vandal fighter, or site structural worker. My particular area of expertise is late 19th and early 20th Century labor history and radical politics. My page patrolling consists of autopassing 5 day old articles which are clear GNG keeps. I am an active participant at Articles for Deletion and Requests for Administration and chime in regularly during Arbcom proceedings.

I am committed to the cause of Wikipedia reform and am a regular at Wikipediocracy as "Randy from Boise" (Note: WP User "Randy from Boise" is not me). I am a frequent critic of the Wikimedia Foundation and its agenda and in the big scrum between San Francisco professionals and the volunteer community, I am a consistent supporter of the latter over the designs and machinations of the former.

My preferences are thus skewed towards dedicated, committed volunteers with moxy, a commitment toward community decision-making and the rule of law, and an eye towards making Wikipedia work better.

—Tim Davenport /// Carrite (talk) 16:53, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

The Guide

We will be electing NINE new members of Arbcom this time around, 8 for two year terms and 1 for a one year term. This will represent a strong majority of the 15 member committee. Of additional concern, the committee will be losing a couple of its best members, including Dave Craven/Worm That Turned and Ira Brad Matetsky/New York Brad, while Salvio giuliano is up for re-election. Elections are always overhyped as being "the most important ever," but I think it can be truly said that this particular Arbcom election is pivotal.

To make things simple, I am going to endorse a set of candidates (not to exceed the 9 seats open) and tell you why I support each.

Strongest Possible Support (3 names, ranked)

Candidate	Comments
Stanistani	William Burns/Stanistani/"Zoloft" from Wikipediocracy is a hard-working, kind, and insightful hardline reformer — a Californian of about my age, or a few years older. He has experience dealing with disruptive participants and the temperament to calm troubled waters rather than to exacerbate problems. Although we have never met in person, I trust him absolutely, having interacted with him extensively at WPO. I am certain he would do an outstanding job if elected. There will be some who attempt to pin the craziest excesses of WPO on him; trust me when I say that he is largely the reason that WPO doesn't go completely off the maliciously anti-Wikipedia deep end... 100% solid, unwavering support here.
Salvio giuliano	Anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to Arbcom over the last couple years realizes that there are but a handful of Arbs who consistently "get it right." Salvio is one of these. He is not only highly capable but has the courage to be a minority of one should the situation require it.
DGG	His role in the Kohs/WikiConUSA2014 fiasco and lack of self-criticism notwithstanding, David Goodman/DGG is a no-nonsense content person that would be invaluable on the committee as they bounce along the road from one set of tendentious POV pushers to another. Although more closely connected to the WMF establishment than I would prefer, I nevertheless retain full confidence in both his capability and his commitment to Wikipedia.

Support (6 names, alphabetical)

Candidate	Comments
Courcelles	A past Arbcom member whose statement and question responses both indicate a willingness to address the problems of Arbcom as an institution, which to me include its glacial pace and tendency to create unsolvable evidence mountains out of behavioral molehills. The other persistent problem is a lack of transparency in deliberations, which no candidate seems to be willing to address. Still, if change is going to happen in terms of expediting and making effective the case process, it is going to take a number of experienced Arbs advancing ideas for modification internally. Worth a role of the dice, methinks...
DeltaQuad	A background in Sockpuppet Investigations would no doubt be of great value for a member of Arbcom, which deals with the process of banning, ban appeal, and weighing the cases of those who edit around restrictions. Touting an IRC nick and seemingly working mostly in "project" space, this smacks of being a WP insider rather than someone apt to work for reform of Arbcom where it needs to be fixed (transparency and speed), but answers to questions were reasonable and this seems to me to be a "Top 9" candidate.
Euryalus	One of my questions asked candidates to give a letter grade to the past year of Arbcom. It seems a pretty clever question, actually, a mechanism to identify gushing friends of the status quo as well as its (over-)motivated enemies. I didn't anticipate how many of them would take the politician's easy out: "Oh, I could never grade them, blah blah blah..." Euryalus didn't flinch from opining "B+," and serious credit for that. A set of very sane and sensible answers to additional questions indicates to me that this is likely to a stable and rational voice on the committee. Small demerit for not seeing the marathon 6 week case process as something less than optimum, not to say dysfunctional. The perceptive Dave Craven/WTT is on his train, another good sign.
Kraxler	It is rather sinful to waste a content writer on Arbcom. On the other hand, it is damned well time that we stop pretending that only Administrators are somehow uniquely qualified to sit on the committee, that long-term content people are somehow second class citizens. Past Arbcoms have included damned few content people flying Administrative flags — they tend to be politicians. As Arbcom deals extensively with dishonest editing in the form of POV pushing, adding at least one serious content person to the committee's ranks makes perfect sense to me. This German editor ran for Arbcom in 2013 and got crushed by Nuke votes but this may well have been explainable by Administrators voting "Nyet" as a caste... I'm not sure if Kraxler deciding to make another run for office is a positive or a negative thing, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Thryduulf	I am really getting a positive vibe from this 34-year old British Wikipedian's answers to questions, particularly his take on civility (not a problem in general) and his refusal to see the vaunted "Five Pillars" as more than they are — which is, in my opinion, a quick, easy, colorful summary of WP's principles for complete newcomers to the project. Chris McKenna/Thryduulf offers very solid answers up and down the page, oozing with candor and commitment. I feel fairly secure that this will prove to be a very good Arbcom member, despite being a Commons participant (yuck).
Yunshui	A nice set of answers to questions posed indicates a level-headed personality. I'm not entirely convinced that this individual is feisty enough to send disruptionists packing or tuned in to the arbitration process well enough to see its flaws and have a perspective on their correction. Still, not every Arb needs to be an inside baseball junkie. This strikes me as a person who can make honest determinations based upon the evidence at hand. The support of Dave Craven/Worm That Turned for this candidate was also influential.

Closing comments

I am satisfied that this is a good slate of candidates. Every year it seems like there won't be enough until the final rush of self-nominations and lo and behold, there are. To all candidates: thank you for running. To those elected: please, for the love of god, make this process faster by combining the evidence and workshop phases, get the proposed decision out in the community's eye rapidly, and then debate the evidence and outcomes in public on the talk page. Crack the whip on the deadline for final decision. Instead of six weeks PLUS, get the process down to four.

A more radical reform idea would be splitting the committee into two subcommittees and dividing the simple cases among these, with only the two or three "big" cases a year decided by the full committee of 15.

You don't need community approval for any of these things, Arbcom runs itself by its own rules: JUST DO IT. —Tim Davenport //// Carrite (talk) 14:00, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Personal Messages (responses welcome)

@ DGG - The correct answer I was looking for to my first question of you was actually quite simple: "We fucked up, I'm sorry, it won't happen again." Yet you dodged and defended the indefensible. It was a simple error in judgment caused by a committee in a tizzy that snowballed. Greg Kohs is not and never has been the boogeyman... Carrite (talk) 16:05, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

@ PhilKnight - Entering the race at the 11th hour and then completely blowing off questions for 3.5 days (or more) of a 5 day due diligence and debate period either indicates a lack of time for the committee or a calculated or callous disregard for the electoral process. It is not as if past Arbcoms have been so spectacularly effective that past association is any sort of a credit. Only a minority of those who served deserve laurels instead of lemons. Carrite (talk) 16:05, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

@ Guerillero - As I said to PhilKnight, blowing off questions during the extremely limited time voters have for candidate assessment would seem to indicate one of two things, neither good: a lack of time for the committee or a contempt for the electoral process. Carrite (talk) 16:24, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
- I have answered most of the questions today. This is the first staturday that has happened this election season. --Guerillero | My Talk 01:01, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

So it's a time thing... Carrite (talk) 13:32, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, real life commitments meant I wasn't able to have sufficient time to answer the questions. In this context, I'm withdrawing from the election. PhilKnight (talk) 08:01, 26 November 2014 (UTC)