User:Rschen7754/ACE2015

Previous guides: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

This will be my final arbitration committee election guide. This year it will be quite different: there will not be any candidates listed. So what's the point of this guide then?

Every year I find myself saying the same platitudes, with different candidate names inserted here and there. And with my time decreasing, I thought that I would teach you, the voter, how to evaluate these candidates for yourselves, highlighting the common themes that I find in past guides.

Most of my experience is listed on my userpage, but in short, I've been around for over 10 years as an editor. I've been involved in content creation, admin work, and functionary work across Wikimedia, including serving as a Wikimedia steward.

2016 update: I may continue to update this guide with a few additional thoughts as time goes by. I generally have found the points I wanted to raise have been raised by other guide writers, especially those from functionaries and former arbitrators. If there's ever a point where I feel a need to speak out about a particular candidate, I may do so, but I would prefer to spend my time on the CU/OS/steward elections instead, and on content work.

The "functionary" talk

Just about every guide from an ex-arbitrator has this, as well as the standard CUOS application, but every year people apply without understanding what they are getting into. Having been in the "functionary" world, I have heard many of these accounts of offwiki harassment and more. The stories I have heard, combined with the dark underbelly of the projects that functionaries get exposed to, have often caused me to question the notion of "the inherent goodness of all people". All of this for solely being an arbitrator on one of the top 10 sites on the Internet.

I'm talking about both of these types of harassment:

New user accounts titled User:(your user name) (crude reference to sex organs) (racial slur) that then go and edit your page here, and then after being blocked here, go to Meta, Commons, Wikidata, and every other language Wikipedia and bug you there
Posts on so-called "Wikipedia watchdog" sites that list your real name, address, phone number, employer, employer's phone number in public and ask people to call them and get you fired from your job and harass your family

It's usually the more outspoken ones who get the most harassment, though. But as far as that, I can only repeat NuclearWarfare's advice emphatically:

However, there are cases where an Arbitrator suggested that the Committee avoid taking a particular action and look for all possible avenues to avoid it in order to appear politically neutral and for ArbCom to retain institutional credibility. ArbCom only loses institutional credibility when Arbitrators fail to take action that they otherwise would because of fear of political payback. Vote as if you only want to serve on the Committee for one term, and then if you want to run again in two years, that's on you. The Committee is not a place you go to earn power; it is where you go to do what you feel is best for resolving issues the English Wikipedia community has. If you aren't willing to do that first and foremost you shouldn't be on the Committee.

You do a great disservice to Wikipedia by taking the most popular opinion that will make people happy. ArbCom is for making the hard decisions that are unpopular, but sadly necessary. If it doesn't, then the whole thing is a sham and should be dismantled as a waste of time. If you are not prepared to do this (including if you feel uncomfortable with related harassment on- and off-wiki), you should not run.

Common themes

So with the rest of this guide, I will look at common themes that indicate how an editor will be as an arbitrator.

Article experience

That's the whole point of Wikipedia, after all. Is the editor here for the right reasons? Do they know how content disputes work? (because they're the source of many ArbCom cases once conduct has entered the picture) Do they know how to add reliably sourced content to articles?

That's not to say that every good arbitrator in the past has had a good article or featured article. But those that don't have had other experience to make up for that. In the past, I've seen some odd comments from arbitrators who have had little experience in this area; but there have been some who have still done quite well, buoyed by their colleagues who have more experience in this area.

Functionary stuff

There are 8 active mailing lists for arbitrators: arbcom-l, arbcom-en-b, arbcom-en-c, checkuser-l, oversight-l, functionaries-en, accounts-enwiki-l, and clerks-l. There are two private wikis: the arbcom wiki and the CU wiki (OTRS wiki is now only for those who are also OTRS members, which many are). There are templates, requests pages and procedures galore. Will the candidate be able to handle this, or will they break under pressure? Now, I know that ArbCom members aren't required to use CU or OS, but when they decline to take up the tools, or are completely unfamiliar with their operation and don't defer to others who are more familiar with their operation, it has caused issues.

Past functionary or (ArbCom/SPI) clerk experience is helpful here, but many arbitrators do fine without it.

I also realize that editors screw up; I myself was sanctioned in one ArbCom case, and I still did all right as a steward, even though I chose not to run for a second term. But there are two things that will cause me to oppose any bid for a functionary (or even administrator) role, even years afterwards: 1) sockpuppetry or any dishonesty towards the community 2) anything related to privacy or harassment. Because blocks can be undone, but once something private is revealed, it cannot be undone.

Answering questions

Candidates that don't have the time to finish answering the questions maybe ignoring the stragglers that come in after voting begins obviously won't have the time to do the work of being an arbitrator. The only successful candidate (since 2010) who didn't answer the set of questions I used to ask also didn't finish their term.

Non-admin candidates

Contrary to what one would think after looking through my guides, I would support the right non-admin candidate for ArbCom.

However, editors of that type are very well-grounded in policy and what this site is all about, and would probably pass RFA, but generally haven't run for admin or ArbCom because they don't want to.

Crosswiki

ArbCom work sometimes requires cooperation with other Wikimedia sites: CU and OS are granted through Meta, sometimes emergency desysops go there, CU work often is crosswiki, and sometimes the same problem editors visit multiple sites. Some of the points in User:Rschen7754/You represent the English Wikipedia! might be worth considering to see how they operate crosswiki. In the past, arbitrators have caused a faux pas on other wikis, which destroys this ability to work with others crosswiki for the entire team.

I also find crosswiki contributions to be a useful snapshot of an editor's temperament, without going through their thousands of contributions on enwiki. Special:CentralAuth/username is a good place to start.

Collaboration

A good Arbitration Committee needs people of both the "lenient" and "strict" viewpoint, to have a more moderate approach overall.

Which results in a more moderate approach overall, but which naturally does lead to some disagreement. How do they handle it? Are they willing to compromise? Or is it "my way or the highway", leading to filibustering, grandstanding, and political tactics? Think about this in both the realms of policy and content, because policy is the one that is often overlooked here, and usually taps into the more emotional side of an editor (right and wrong / personal ethics).

Temperament

See my comments for "Collaboration" above.

But also: people (sometimes not even logging in) will repeatedly show up at an arb's talk page trying to provoke them into doing something or saying something one shouldn't. Or think about situations where multiple admins have behaved badly, and something must be done urgently. How will they respond with their finger on the "desysop" button? Will their actions and words calm matters down or pour more fuel on the fire? Or even, were they one of the "admins who have behaved badly" with cowboy (un)blocks?

Also, were they involved (as in, did they contribute proposals or insightful commentary) in past ArbCom cases? If they were, I usually found this information to be insightful, for better or worse, because you can see how they would perform... in the ArbCom environment.

Finally, do they know when to recuse? On one side, you don't want the arbitrator who recuses from everything, but on the other, it negatively affects the perception of a case outcome if an arbitrator is widely perceived biased, even if they are not, in fact, biased.

Pet projects

There are quite a few questions about drawing attention to pet projects or proposals, or are from questioners trying to get revenge for past ArbCom cases in which they were sanctioned, or trying to get leverage to get those sanctions amended. They are best ignored.

Third term?

While I'm not firmly opposed to third-term candidates, I can't think of an example where any third-term arbitrator has performed better than they had during their past two terms. How much their performance degrades is variable.

Pitchforks

Sometimes candidates run with a statement slamming the current Committee or the idea of it entirely. Sometimes their candidacies are well-founded with well-reasoned criticisms, and they do all right as an arbitrator (or even great). Other times, they were obviously sanctioned in previous cases, or were de-sysopped, de-CU/OSed, or sanctioned by ArbCom. Voting for these candidates is not only stupid, it is dangerous (think privacy violation, with their access to the arbcom-l archives and real-life identities of many editors).

Warning: you could be desysopped or banned for running

Added in early 2020

Over the last 6 ArbCom elections, 5 of them have had at least one candidate (who ran a serious candidacy) who has both:

Not only lost the election, but gotten one of the lowest support percentages among all the candidates
Gone on to be desysopped and/or banned due to an Arbitration case against them within the next 12 months after that election

Clearly their self-perception is a bit off, to say the least. In fact, it could be argued that their candidacy drew the attention of editors who realized that this candidate not only should not be elected, but should have less influence in the community.

Is this you? What do other editors think about your running? Are you asking just your "wikifriends" who can't bear to call you out on your bad behavior?