User:Sven Manguard/2012 ArbCom Voter Guide

Introduction

There are two things that I want to communicate before we get started.

First, there is a tendency for people to, at the end of the elections, decide which guide was "right" based on how closely each guide matched the results of the election. The point of a voter guide is not for a guide author to predict who is going to win, but for a guide author to offer their subjective judgement on each individual candidate, as it pertains to the election. A good guide does this using levelheaded analysis, backed where possible with evidence. A bad guide does this based on old grudges. Either way, users should be aware that each guide writer, however respected they are, and however well written their guide happens to be, is pushing an agenda, and one that might not readily be apparent. All guides should be looked at with a critical eye. You are doing a disservice to yourself, and to the community, if you don't.

Second, I will be making my judgements in part based on non-public communications with a number of users, some of whom may be sharing with me information that is itself also non-public. I will not reveal my sources, and I will not reveal details about the communications if I feel that in doing so I would be risking revealing my sources. Ultimately people reading this guide will have to make a value judgement as to whether or not they trust me, and trust that I am accurately reflecting these communications.

Summary

Strong Support	Support	Weak Support	No Vote	Oppose	Strong Oppose
Keilana NuclearWarfare	Elen of the Roads Guerillero Newyorkbrad Worm That Turned	Timotheus Canens Salvio giuliano	Carcharoth David Fuchs Jc37 Kww Pgallert RegentsPark Richwales	Beeblebrox Coren Ks0stm	Count Iblis Jclemens YOLO Swag

Note: "Provisional" means I have not yet made a full analysis, and that my position may change. If a candidate has (provisional) next to their name at the start of voting, it is safe to assume I am voting neutral for them.

Analysis

Beeblebrox

While I am not especially convinced that he would do a bad job as an Arb, I do think that Beeblebrox is controversial and carries with him too much existing drama already, and that's something that I most definitely do not want to see in an Arb. I happen to agree with him that the admin corp on Meta tends to make situations worse and not better on a regular basis, but by his own admission he went out of his way to piss them off, or at least one of them off, and then used the whole incident to rail against Meta admins. This is not a sane or productive way of dealing with a problem. Considering the messes that Jclemens has created over his tenure as an Arb, I am very reluctant to put any trust in someone that communicates with people he doesn't like by insulting them. In short, there is a reasonable enough possibility that Beeblebrox will inject himself into situations in which he becomes part of the problem that I am comfortable with nothing except for an oppose vote.

For this reason, I oppose Beeblebrox.

Coren

Coren was a mediocre to decent arb that I opposed last time around because of a rather significant lack of mainspace contributions. At the time of this writing, Coren has made 4 article edits in all of 2012. Additionally, he's had four months with zero edits and one month with 1 edit in 2012. When he was asked in the questions section about this, he mentioned that different people have different strengths, that many different jobs on the project are important, and that many different jobs should be represented on the committee. I agree with that. I don't believe, though, that someone with very low levels of activity, and almost no activity in the article namespace, is the person who should be doing the representing. My concern last time around is that Coren is out of touch with the project, and that his level of commitment to spending time on Wikipedia isn't where it needs to be in an Arb. A year's time has made this feeling worse, not better.

For this reason, I oppose Coren.

Count Iblis

Count Iblis purports to run a political party on Wikipedia with the platform that ArbCom is broken and that the members of said party are going to fix it. Aside from that the political party has failed to make a case for itself, I'm not convinced that political parties on Wikipedia is a healthy idea to begin with. What really puts it beyond discussion, however, is that the members of that party that are running this election are Count Iblis and YOLO Swag. YOLO Swag is, in my opinion, a nutcase, and deciding to run a reform campaign with him shows a troubling lack of judgement on Count Iblis's part. I cannot take either Count Iblis or the party seriously at this point, and believe that this foolishness would be detrimental to the project if it were somehow legitimized.

For this reason, I strongly oppose Count Iblis.

David Fuchs

There are worse people to serve on the committee than David Fuchs.

Wizardman, in his guide, put it best by saying "I completely forgot David has been an arb for two years. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing." Ultimately, his low ArbCom participation level, combined with his low Wikipedia activity level in general (most edits in a month in 2012 was 106 edits), are not positive signs. At the same time though, David hasn't done anything alarming that I can remember, and his answers to the questions have been pretty decent. I suppose it would be best to say that I really don't want David on the committee again because I think it would be better served with a more active user, but at the same time there's nothing to make me specify not want him on the committee again, save that if he were re-elected, he'd be taking away a spot from another, likely more active, person. Because of this I'd probably oppose him if Jclemens decided not to run, but purely for tactical reasons I'm using my opposes sparingly this election.

For this reason, I am neutral on David Fuchs.

Elen of the Roads

In the spirit of open communication/disclosure, it should be noted that I spent a good deal of time on Google chat prodding this candidate into re-running.

It is difficult for me to explain why exactly I support Elen, which is the reason that it took me this long to get around to writing this. Elen's biggest strength and biggest weakness is her proactiveness. I can't think of the cases themselves, but I do remember discussions on AN/I about blocks that Elen made, blocks that were good but that most admins would have shied away from making. Elen isn't afraid to wade into difficult areas and make difficult decisions, and I think that that's a good thing, at least most of the time. As important, when Elen wades into difficult areas, she doesn't do so haphazardly.

Another major plus is that Elen is the only current Arb that I can remember seeing pop into SPI more than once. Elen isn't a regular over at sockpuppet investigations, but she does appear and leave input often enough that it gets noticed. I think it's important that there is at least some ArbCom presence at SPI, because we do end up dealing with the same problem users (from different angles) often enough.

Ordinarily I'd be disappointed with how few questions the candidate has answered this late in, however I understand that there is something else of importance occupying the candidate's time, and she was kind enough to post a message on her candidacy page indicating this. Therefore I'll work with what I've got. The only item of note that I saw was her answer to Rschen7754's addendum question. I think that Elen's response was terrific, and quite illustrative of why, even though she can sometimes be viewed as the 'itchy trigger finger admin' type, still is worthy of community trust and respect. I've seen enough apologies/admissions of fault over the years to be able to tell when they're phoned in and when they're genuine, and it's good to see that even when she's... well essentially publicly chastised over a mistake, she has the grounding to realize that she was at fault, and genuinely state her acceptance of that. Not something I see very often on this project.

For these reasons, I support Elen of the Roads.

Guerillero

I consider Guerillero to be a Wikipedia friend (which is like a regular friend, except that he doesn't know me very well at all in real life). That obviously colors my judgement, however at the same time I try my hardest to only make friends with people that I trust and respect, I think that Guerillero fits that bill, so yes I'm more likely to support him, but for the reasons I'd be likely to support any candidate.

I was honestly surprised to see Guerillero run, just as I was surprised to see him join up as an ArbCom clerk, because my experience with Guerillero is that he really isn't all that terribly interested in being around or involved in drama. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing for an ArbCom candidate to have a near-aversion to drama, but I'd rather have someone on the committee that's drama-averse than having someone on the committee that becomes part of the drama, and let's face it, that's happened more than once this past term.

There is one rather significant black mark against Guerillero though, and it's what's keeping me out of Strong Support territory. Guerillero was part of the initial small circle of people behind the Wikimedia United States Federation debacle. He, along with Pharos of WMNY and Harej of WMDC and a few other people decided that they wanted a Wikimedia United States Federation, and kind of just dropped it in on everyone else during a monthly IRC meeting of US Wikipedians. I think the whole thing was handled poorly, and it'll be a while before I let that mess stop affecting the way I look at the people behind that proposal. All that being said, Guerillero was the one that handled the debacle the best among that group; he was the first to recognize that the Wikimedia United States Federation idea couldn't be pushed through in light of the opposition we were getting, and was much more ammenable than some at bringing the community in and making changes, even though it slowed down the process. I think it was a mess he never should have been involved in, but one that he handled very well.

For these reasons, I support Guerillero.

Jclemens

During the 2011 election, several voter guides opposed Jclemens for his tendency to take positions that are off the deep end, and for his general harshness. Comments like this, which NuclearWarfare cited in his opposition to Jclemens, illustrate perfectly both Jclemens' tendency to be more aggressive that a situation calls for, and his apparent disdain/lack of respect for people who disagree with him.

Jclemens could have used his narrow re-election as a wake up call, toned it down, at least pretended to treat other people with respect. Instead, he has elevated making absurd, overblown comments to an artform. Jclemens' conduct at the most recent Malleus mess, during which Jclemens said that "Malleus has never been a Wikipedian", was the loudest, and most drama fueling, that I could find.

ArbCom has a credibility issue as it is, and is a drama magnet as it is. A person who fuels drama unnecessarily and acts with open hostility towards those they disagree with, isn't someone that should be involved with ArbCom, unless of course, they are the one whose fate is being adjudicated.

Additionally, Jclemens' statements indicate to me that, should Malleus be even tangentially connected to any future ArbCom cases, Jclemens would move to ban Malleus irregardless of the facts of the case. While I'm not necessarily against banning Malleus at this point, I am very much against Arbs deciding what they want to do with an editor before they even have a case in front of them. That's simply not what I'd want to see in a judge.

For these reasons, I strongly oppose Jclemens.

Keilana

If there's one thing that makes me reluctant to support Keilana, it's that there is a longstanding and relatively consistent pattern of people being elected to ArbCom and having near immediate, often sharp drop in mainspace contributions. That's Keilana's strength, and it'd be a shame to lose that. That being said, I do believe that Keilana is qualified for the job. As has been pointed out by other guide writers, the Muhammad images RfC close was handled very well, and it's certainly not one that I'd want to approach with a ten foot pole, let alone close.

Additionally, my personal experience with SPI is that it's a boring, thankless task that relies heavily on investigative skills and a deep knowledge of how Wikipedia works, and how it can be exploited by other people that know how it works. That Keilana has managed to clerk there successfully for a prolonged period of time alleviates my fear that Keilana might burn out from ArbCom duty, and goes a good deal towards convincing me that Keilana is a good candidate.

Finally, I very much like the answers to the questions that I care about this year. The line "Motions should never be used when a dispute is complex." in general question 3, section c, subsection 2 is brilliant in its simplicity, and spot on. I also am given great comfort by the line in the same answer "If the community can't decide on an issue, but no member of the community chooses to bring it to ArbCom, I don't believe ArbCom has a mandate to begin a motion.". Her handling of the "Private information" series of questions was also very good, especially subection iii, the one I care about most. Her answer to subsection v of that question raised an eyebrow, but I suppose I can't really question it. All and all, I think that this is a very good candidate.

For these reasons, I strongly support Keilana.

Ks0stm

At the very least, the timing of this election, right on the heels of Ks0stm's baiting of a blocked user, doesn't bode well for the candidacy. The incident was minor enough that I might be willing to overlook it if the candidate was otherwise stellar, however in this case, I can't say that. Ks0stm's activity level isn't very high to begin with, but he's got a three month span (June, July, August) this year where it's dropped off almost entirely. Neither of these incidents are enough, alone, make or break a candidacy. Taken together, I just can't bring myself to feeling comfortable with Ks0stm having a seat on ArbCom.

For these reasons, I oppose Ks0stm.

NewYorkBrad

In the spirit of open communication/disclosure, it should be noted that I spent a good deal of time on Google chat prodding this candidate into re-running.

That NYB has served on the committee for so long really doesn't factor into my decision that much, except that he's demonstrated during his tenure that he does a good job on ArbCom. I do believe that the community would not be well served if ArbCom were stagnant, but one (or two, counting Risker) long time Arb(s) does not stagnation make.

Giving the guide readers something more tangible to work with, I rather like NYB's response to the "Strict versus lenient decisions" question. I also like that he has an on-wiki "blog" (which I'll link to when I find it) where he explains a lot of things about ArbCom that we generally don't see/think about.

One rather large sticking point, in my opinion, is NYB's answer to Rschen7754 question 3, where he qualifies the correct statement that all editors should be treated the same (with some space for newbies) with the very poor qualified "but that in deciding how to sanction a given editor for poor conduct, it is inevitable that some consideration will be given to the overall contribution that he or she has made to the project". I don't see it as inevitable, and I don't think that that kind of qualifier should be made, at least not without being followed by a statement indicating that ArbCom shouldn't fall into that trap. However while I don't like his answer, I do think that it doesn't outweigh NYB's other contributions, and so

For these reasons, I support NewYorkBrad.

NuclearWarfare

Chances are that NuclearWarfare is going to be the only candidate that I am giving the "Strong Support" level of support to this year. It certainly doesn't hurt that I consider him a Wikipedia friend, but as I said in my above statement of support for Guerillero, I make friends with people that I trust and respect, the same basic criteria that I'd want to see in Arbs.

As I said in the introduction to this guide, I do rely on off-Wiki communication when making my judgements, and this is definitely a case where that comes into play. NuclearWarfare is a member of the group of about half a dozen people whom I turn to whenever I need advice about something Wikipedia related. His advice, when I have cause to seek it, is consistently levelheaded, well thought out, and shows an almost eerie predictive power that comes from an equally almost eerie understanding of the social maelstrom that is the Wikipedia community. There are also few users that I trust at the level I trust NuclearWarfare, and none I trust more than him. This is something that is relatively well documented.

However chances are you want something substantive to work with. In that case I'll say that he's got a very good track record of closing difficult Request for Comment threads. Principle among these was the SOPA and PIPA blackout RfC, which even if you don't agree with, you have to admit was closed well, and was possibly the hardest RfC to close in Wikipedia's history. He also closed the RfC that detached filemover from the admin rights suite. That one holds a special place in my heart because I'm the one that proposed it. Much less controversial that the blackout, but still a complex close with large implications.

His answers to the questions are also good. The Devil's Advocate asked a number of transparently pointed questions, which NW took (mostly) in stride, and his answer to The Devil's Advocate questions 5 and 6 were especially good. His answer to General question 3, section d, subsection iii was also very good. Although I have little faith that anything will change in that area, that he is one of several candidates with much the same line of thought on that matter is a good thing. Finally, his collection of ArbCom quotes at User:NuclearWarfare/ACE2011 shows me that he's got a good sense of what an Arb should be/do.

For these reasons, I strongly support NuclearWarfare.

Salvio giuliano

I felt that I should have at least eight people in the support columns, and Salvio giuliano is the eighth. While that's not the strongest of endorsements, you can bet that I wouldn't endorse him at all if I wasn't comfortable with him being an Arb. The issue is that I just really haven't had any meaningful interaction with him, and there are no major events that I can point to and say "this is why I support Salvio giuliano".

Salvio giuliano's biggest plus is that he's already doing Arb work as a member of the audit subcommittee. He also holds most of the advanced rights the project has. While Hahc21 refers to "Bad choices as an admin" in voting neutral on Salvio, it's not backed up with specific incidents, so I'm nor sure how to take that. Kiefer.Wolfowitz's analysis is thoughtful and worth considering, but I believe that Kiefer.Wolfowitz and I view ArbCom from different prospective, and that his is more negative than mine is. He says that "On a bad committee, Salvio might help implement bad decisions.", but I can't say that the sentiment persuades me. Ultimately, I feel that I should trust that Salvio's large amount of reliant experience would prepare him for the role. With no objective reason to be concerned, I'm going to take the chance and vote in support.

Finally, the questions do help. Salvio's answer to Rschen7754's vested contributors question is one of the best, if not the best, that I've seen. That being said, his comments in Cunard's "Civility case clarification request" question series were kind of everywhere at once. It's great that Salvio can make a solid statement on vested contributors, but I'm worried that when it comes to practice, he might not be a very strong voice. Perhaps Kiefer.Wolfowitz has a point after all. That being said, I'm still going to support. Just weakly.

For these reasons, I weakly support Salvio giuliano

Timotheus Canens

I would put Timotheus Canens in the "Wikipedia friend" category that I have Guerillero and NuclearWarfare in, but every time I try and chat him up over IRC, he's in a raid on World of Warcraft. That being said, I still do occasionally use him as a sounding board, and find him to be a generally sane and helpful person. Believe me, that's a rare combination on IRC.

I do believe in leaning on other guides when they make good points, and to that end I would point you to Casliber's statement of support. Casliber's point about the importance of Arbitration Enforcement, and Timotheus Canens' experience in that area, is well made and should, I believe, be given a good deal of credence.

There is a rather large black mark, however, that makes my support pretty weak. I very much dislike the candidate's answer to the "Private information" question (section d, subsection iii), and thing that the candidacy has been announced far enough ago that there isn't really an excuse for how many questions still haven't been answered. I don't expect any of the remaining answers to be bombshells, but my enthusiasm for Timotheus Canens isn't very high. Still going to support him, though.

For these reasons, I weakly support Timotheus Canens.

Worm That Turned

I summarized my support of this candidate last year by saying that "The candidate is what I describe as a "realistic optimist". It's a trait that's sorely needed on the committee. While Worm That Turned has a lower edit count than I'd like, and lower participation in dispute resolution boards than I'd like, but all of that is more than made up for by the amount of mentoring that the candidate does, which demonstrates that the candidate has much the same experience in pertinent areas as would be gained from working on the formal boards." I've seen nothing to make me change that view, and thus am still inclined towards supporting him.

Moreover, I've found the answers to the general questions excellent. His response to general question 3, item d, subsection iii was brave, and while I think it'll never happen, is still heartening to hear. His answer to general question 3, item c, subsection iii also stood out as a positive. His answer to Rschen7754 question 3 was the only one I found troubling, in fact I strongly disagree with every sentence in the second paragraph of his response. However it's unrealistic to expect to agree with other editors on all points, and I think WTT's judgement is superb in the vast majority of cases.

For these reasons, I support Worm That Turned.

YOLO Swag

As far as I can tell, YOLO Swag (formerly User:NWA.Rep, formerly User:Certified.Gangsta) exists solely to troll ArbCom elections and create inappropriate userpages. His statements since he returned this year, including several railing against me personally, and a few with grossly inappropriate edit summaries, do nothing to endear me to his candidacy.

For these reasons, I strongly oppose YOLO Swag.

Carcharoth, Jc37, Kww, Pgallert, RegentsPark, and Richwales

At this time I have nothing significant one way or the other to say about these candidates, and intend on voting neutral for each.

If neutral were not an option, I would likely support Carcharoth and RegentsPark, and likely oppose the rest. That being said, for tactical reasons I'm using my opposes sparingly this election.