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

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< Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2019‎ | Candidates‎ | SoWhy

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Collect (talk | contribs) at 15:30, 13 November 2019 (→‎Individual questions: +). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Individual questions

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Question from Gerda

  2. I commented in the Fram case, decision talk, like this. If you had been an arb then, what might you have replied, and/or which of the remedies under 2 would you have supported?
    I probably would have agreed with you. If we want to argue that the Foundation cannot interfere in matters that should be the purview of ArbCom, any interference that happens should be reversed for procedural reasons alone (with no prejudice for or against whether the removal would be or have been warranted after an ArbCom case). Regards SoWhy 11:38, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you, satisfied. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:29, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Carrite

  2. What's the biggest problem with Arbcom? Is it fixable or inherent?
    Every body that is designed to adjudicate over difficult problems as the highest level of jurisdiction has to contend with the fact that most difficult problems have no clear solution that everyone will accept. Human nature, as Thryduulf also alluded to in his answer, requires an instance of dispute resolution whose rulings are final. ArbCom, like all such bodies, is inherently flawed because there is no way (I can think of) to design such a body in a way that makes everyone happy. I believe, however, that if the Committee works in a transparent and open way, gives all parties opportunity to present their case and consists of a good mix of Arbitrators from different backgrounds and philosophies, it can at least try to find solutions that are as good as possible and are thus accepted by as many people as possible, even if they disagree with it. Regards SoWhy 13:25, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Carrite (talk) 00:13, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question from WereSpielChequers

  2. 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).
    Short answer: Generally no. Longish answer: Blocks are by design preventative, not punitive, so there might be cases where blocking an editor without telling them might be required; maybe if there is a compromised account where you don't want the person in control to know that you are onto them for example. But since time-limited blocks are usually applied to stop a certain disruption but where one expects that the disruption will not be repeated, the person blocked needs to be aware why they were blocked (so they know what not to repeat). Of course, if an editor knows exactly whey they were blocked, telling them again would not strictly be necessary, although I'd tell them again, just to be safe. Regards SoWhy 13:32, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, I'm happy with that answer. ϢereSpielChequers 08:54, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question from 54129

  2. How useful do you believe qualities such as a rigid adherence to written policy over common sense from a candidate whose intentional disruption of the deletion queues and hassling of any admins who fail to follow his WP:CCSI literalist interpretation of policy is very much ongoing is going to be in any iteration of the committee?
    (for those not aware, SN 54129 is quoting comments made by Iridescent at my second RFB)
    I am aware that I have been criticized for disregarding common sense in favor of slavishly following written policy and I have and will admit that I did make mistakes in this regard. As I have previously stated, I found RFB #2 a very helpful discussion and while it failed, it provided me with a lot of valuable feedback on my editing. I think I have demonstrated that I have grown as an editor and admin when it comes to these problem areas but it's ultimately for the community to judge whether they are satisfied with my progress. As with RFB #2, I'm grateful for everyone voicing criticism that I can use to improve. Regards SoWhy 15:20, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  4. 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'm not sure what you are referring to. Generally speaking, walled gardens are rarely a positive development, be it articles or groups of people, seeing as it usually stifles innovation and carries the risk of creating an environment impervious even to necessary changes. Regards SoWhy 20:29, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Praxidicae

  2. 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?
    Hard to answer generally. Functionaries and other editors with advanced permissions are still people with a private life and not barred from discussing Wikipedia and its editors on other platforms. Those doing so should always remember though that their actions will reflect back on their work on the project and exercise restraint, especially when their comments might possibly be construed as being in favor of the kind of behavior you mention. And for ArbCom members, voters can always take such information into consideration after all. Regards SoWhy 16:26, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question from SQL

  2. Which recent unblock discussion (anywhere, AN/ANI/CAT:RFU/UTRS/etc) are you most proud of your contribution to, and why?
    I don't think I have participated in any unblock discussion recently. My editing in the last few months was mostly focused on article writing, especially the FAC for Adele Spitzeder with some deletion tasks. Regards SoWhy 16:16, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Leaky caldron

  2. 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?
    I think this is certainly something that appears to happen sometimes, although I'm not aware of any hard data. Just like some people will expect adminship candidates to be content creators despite not everyone being equally skilled at all tasks (something I have remarked upon in the past). I believe every contributor ending up at Arbitration should be treated the same because any preconceived notions (be it "content creator", "admin", "crat" etc.) are a problem when the goal is to get to the bottom of things and (possibly) sanction the offending party. After all, what good is 1 FA-creator, when they have bitten so many newbies that the project lost 10 potential FA-creators? Regards SoWhy 16:32, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Rschen7754

  2. Your candidacy for oversight was not successful in 2017. Was there any reason presented to you as to why it was not and/or do you think that it has any bearing on this election? --Rschen7754 19:48, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Paraphrasing the reply I got, the Committee was concerned that the at that time recent RFB #2 displayed a lack of community trust and support, especially concerns over strict applications of policy when OS need to be able to make judgment calls in gray areas. Also, the Committee saw no high demand for new oversighters and thus preferred to appoint only those with stronger internal support. As for bearing on this election, I certainly wouldn't have run for ArbCom two years ago but as I said above, I think I have had some success addressing the concerns raised in RFB #2 and since this is the first year multiple people with different philosophies independently asked me to run, I am optimistic that this is the case. Ultimately, it is for the community to decide. Regards SoWhy 10:29, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Newslinger

  2. When, if ever, would discretionary sanctions be an appropriate countermeasure against paid editing?
    Paid editing is generally allowed by the current policy if the conflict of interest is disclosed like the policy requires editors to. Undisclosed paid editing violates the Terms of Use and the paid editing policy. Editors who refuse to declare their conflict of interest and name their masters even after being notified about it are deliberately breaching policy and should be dealt with like everyone else who deliberately breaks policies. DS can apply to these editors if their editing is covered by a case that already authorizes DS. As for whether authorizing DS should be a potential remedy in a future case about paid editing, I'm skeptical there is any need but I might be open to supporting it.
  4. To what extent, if any, should the Arbitration Committee endorse the adoption of two-factor authentication on Wikipedia?
    It's not ArbCom's duty to tell people to secure their online presence but individual Arbitrators can and of course should adopt such practices and urge other editors to do the same.

Question from Peacemaker67

  2. 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?
    Hard to answer without knowing the internal details. In his answer to your question, Newyorkbrad - who was involved in that decision - mentions that previous attempts of dispute resolution demonstrated that ANI or other venues would have been fruitless anyway, i.e. going through the motions solely for the sake of going through the motions. Also, the filing user indicated that private evidence would have to be presented which of course would have precluded any public discussion. I have no idea whether this was the case and if it was necessary to do so. Accepting the Case to focus on behavioral problems alone (since ArbCom does and should not do content decisions) appears to have been a justifiable decision in this case as far as I can tell. Generally, I subscribe to the idea of ArbCom as the last step in dispute resolution and that all other venues should be tried first, simply because in most cases it works as intended and ArbCom should not override consensus based decision making if not necessary. Regards SoWhy 11:37, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Banedon

  2. Were there any votes in the last few years which you would have voted against what turned out to be the majority decision? If so, which, and why?
    While I certainly have disagreed with previous decisions, I cannot remember any off the top of my head. If I remember something, I'll add it later. Mistakes made in the past have no bearing on how I would evaluate a future request, even in the same area. Each case request is different and needs individual evaluation. Regards SoWhy 12:27, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  4. If the answer to the above is no, how would you have voted on certain remedies that split the current committee? Feel free to pick your own remedies; otherwise you can also choose from these: [1], [2], [3]. (Feel free to answer this question as well even if the answer to the above is "yes", although it likely won't be necessary.)
    I'm not commenting on Rama's case since I was vocally in favor of desysopping. I also don't think I can answer the question with regards to the Fram case because it involved confidential evidence and thus I cannot evaluate all the necessary facts. I would probably have voted in favor of the remedy in the GWE case since it was backed by FoF #9. Regards SoWhy 12:27, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question from WBG

  2. 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.
    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)?
    The task in any Arbitration case is to evaluate the evidence and reach a (hopefully correct) conclusion after reviewing everything related. This includes taking into account comments made on talk pages but the process would break down if Arbs had to answer every question individually. Listening to concerns voiced by members of the community does not require answering each query made and concern raised. It just requires that these concerns are taken into account, reviewed and the proposed conclusions (Evidence, FoF, Remedies) corrected if there is a need for correction. I cannot speak to the time restraints because of the Fram case because I have no idea how much time it took the Committee. Regards SoWhy 13:50, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  4. 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?
    See the answer above. I don't think Gadfium meant "highly responsive" to mean "responding to everything" but if they did, I would disagree with that for the aforementioned reasons. Rehards SoWhy 13:50, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Can you provide one diff of a well reasoned argument where you disagreed with the majority and took an unpopular view? The more recent, the more unpopular, the better.
    If it were well reasoned, one would assume the majority were to have agreed with me, no? I think I raised a few good points wrt stricter resysop procedures which was apparently pretty unpopular (I argued among other things against requiring process for the sake of process when there is no evidence to suggest a problem). Regards SoWhy 13:50, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Nearly every case, that are being brought before the committee, involves skirting of the civility policy in some way or the other, that may not be always bright-line violations on a per se basis. The only mechanisms, that current arbitrators are using to combat with the issue, are interaction bans, topic bans, and site bans. Have you thought/devised of any new but more optimal way to solve this issue?
    If the problem is with how somebody acts, all a Committee on this project can do is to limit the possibility of this person to act in a certain way. Unlike in the real world, where you can force someone to pay a fine or attend an anger management class, there are no viable such options on a website. All ideas I had (like using an edit filter to prevent certain comments) are usually impractical and/or merely a variation of these mechanisms. I'm always open to do things better and if I come up with something, I will suggest it but for now it appears we are stuck with what we have. Regards SoWhy 13:50, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, in advance, for your answers. ∯WBGconverse 09:46, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Collect

  2. Ought Arbitrators who have been personally involved in any way concerning the facts of a case recuse themselves from any related cases?
  4. 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?
  6. 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?
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