Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2023/Candidates/HJ Mitchell/Questions

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2. Thank you for standing :) ArbCom makes a lot of tough decisions in user conduct cases, often with potential for community blowback. What's the toughest (or, one of the toughest) decisions you've made with the admin tools? Preferably a situation related to user-conduct, although anything'll do. Talk about the way you approached the situation, the weighed factors, how you came to a decision, any fallout that came as a result, and if you would have done anything differently. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 00:12, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

   These decisions are always difficult. Sanctioning good-faith editors is not something anyone should take any pleasure from and severe sanctions should be a last resort (ie after other options have been tried or look unlikely to be effective). I've done a lot of work at arbitration enforcement and some of the decisions that have to be made there can be unpopular. One of the most recent is actually a block you made. That editor is subject to a topic ban from the Arab-Israeli conflict and although the topic ban was imposed (by me, for full disclosure) a long time ago, it was imposed because the editor couldn't (or wouldn't) edit the topic area neutrally to the point that it was considered tendentious. While that editor does a lot of good work elsewhere, they had repeatedly violated their topic ban and had been sanctioned multiple times for doing so, including several months-long blocks. In the subsequent discussion and appeal, I endorsed your decision to block indefinitely because the editor had a long history of failing or refusing to abide by restrictions and the disruption caused by allowing them to continue to push the limits would have outweighed the benefits of their other contributions to the encyclopaedia. It was a painful decision and reasonable minds can differ and editors I hold in high esteem, including some you would expect to be opponents, felt that the block was unjust or that indef was excessive but that's where I came down on it as an uninvolved admin.
   Back in April, I closed an AE request and enacted a one-year siteban on a long-term editor for their conduct at the intersection of at least three designated contentious topics. They were very polite in their response though some of their friends (I assume they were watching their talk page) were upset by the decision and the blocked editor was confused about which of the three CTOPs I decided to log it under. I wouldn't call that significant blowback, but the decision was obviously not going to curry favour with editors who were friendly with the blocked editor. I don't begrudge their loyalty for a moment but the role of an uninvolved admin (or an arb) is to take a wider, impartial view. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:00, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

4. This year's committee has had trouble maintaining a healthy quorum of active arbitrators. What experience do you have, particularly on Wikipedia, with doing work you've agreed to do even when that becomes hard? Thanks, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:44, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

   That will always be a challenge with a committee made up of volunteers who have families and jobs and other pressures on their time. My activity levels have peaks and troughs but I've been fairly consistently active for approaching 15 years as an editor and 14 as an admin. I'm better when I have something I know I need to be around for; for example, shepherding an article through FAC often takes a month or two, as does a typical arbitration case (if there is such a thing as "typical"). I've closed a few messy RfCs after having volunteered to do so before they were fully mature (for example, the LUGSTUBS RfC). I'm also good at maintaining consistent low-level activity when I don't have a particular project on the go, so even if I'm not particularly active on the wiki, I can be reachable and participate in email discussions. If something comes up that requires a more detailed look, it might take me a couple of days but I can usually make myself available. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:00, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

   Thanks for your answer. My comment, which I'll say in the form of a question to not get in trouble is, "How does that fit with an Arb's life where beyond volunteering to be draft a case you don't get to decide when your workload is higher or lower unlike closing an RFC or taking an article through FAC where you can decide when to do it?" Barkeep49 (talk) 19:02, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

   You can decide when to submit an FAC, but how long it takes to complete is dependent on a lot of variables. :) I keep a close eye on my emails and can normally send a brief or initial reply (eg voting on a motion) for something urgent even when I'm pressed for time. I own various processes in my real-life job so I get the importance of making sure certain things are done, no matter what else you're dealing with. In a previous job, one of them was legal compliance with immediate safety implications for my staff and the public. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:57, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

6. Would there, in your opinion, be any specific reason or something you would do if you got voted into the ArbCom? ThatOneWolf ^{(talk contribs)} 04:04, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

   In a word, no. I'm not running with an agenda to change any one thing. That's not a slight to people who are or do, but a committee of 15 people all determined to put their own stamp on things could get messy! If you'd asked me ten or even five years ago, I would have said I wanted ArbCom to shed a lot of its responsibilities where other bodies (the community, the WMF, functionaries) were capable of taking them but it has largely done so as those bodies (particularly the WMF's Trust and Safety team, which is a lot newer than it feels) have matured. I'd like to see ban appeals handled more transparently and ideally turned over to the community when possible—not all can be, but the community handles ban appeals much better than the incidents that lead to bans in my experience. Finally, I'm a big fan of the recent decision to consider functionary applications on an ad-hoc basis rather than only once a year; this is something I advocated for on the functionaries' mailing list and I'm pleased to see the arbs who suggested it managed to convince the rest of the committee. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:00, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

8. Do you think ArbCom should be more transparent about the outcomes of private inquiries, especially regarding admins and functionaries? This question is motivated by the admin meatpuppetry situation in September, but it's up to you whether to discuss that situation in particular. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 06:26, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

   In general, yes, more transparency is good but we should avoid the appearance of publicly humiliating people. This particular case makes me sad because it involved two editors who obviously cared about Wikipedia and I think were trying to do what they thought was the right thing. The ultimate solution was a good one in my opinion but it took too long to arrive at it. The ideal resolution in my opinion would have been that ArbCom pointed the two editors to the relevant policy subsection and they made the required disclosures and complied with the policy of their own accord and we could treat them as one person when applicable. I can see arguments both for and against ArbCom announcing its involvement but I probably come down in favour because it makes it easier for concerned editors to follow up if the restriction is abided by. It just would have been nice to resolve the matter with less drama and ill feeling. There are many things that cross ArbCom's desk that can't be made public, but when possible the presumption should be in favour of transparency. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:57, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

10. A large part of being an Arb is checking the evidence that is presented to you against the facts and the context, and adjusting your position based on what may be added later on which may contradict or shift the original image. At the recent Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive356#RFA oppose votes, you seemed completely unwilling to accept that an error had been made by an arbitrator even after it had been pointed out repeatedly by multiple editors, and you continued to badger and ridicule opposing viewpoints while at the same time insisting that it was all rather irrelevant. Why should we believe that someone who is not willing to accept evidence when it contradicts their position, will make a fair Arb? Fram (talk) 15:47, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

    I see I made 10 comments in thread, which in hindsight is probably about 12 too many. I don't see any of them as ridiculing, except to point out that the discussion would not result in any benefit to the reader—RfA is already at least two steps removed from the encyclopaedia, so a noticeboard discussion about an RfA is at least another step removed, and the outcome of the RfA wouldn't change regardless of the result of the discussion so it felt a lot like an argument for its own sake. Reasonable minds can differ on Acalamari's decision and I'm always open to changing my mind if new evidence is presented but there was no evidence in that thread, only opinions. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:57, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

12. The majority of ArbCom's workload is in handling private matters, not public ones such as cases. Can you please elaborate on how you will handle the large volume of private work the Committee receives? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 17:52, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

    I've been an oversighter for about eight years so I have some idea of the issues that cross ArbCom's desk from the functionaries' and oversight mailing lists. I try to chime in on those discussions when I have something substantive to add but not comment just for the sake of it. I keep a close eye on my emails, which I segregate into folders, and I'm used to dealing with large volumes of email (and even larger volumes of WhatsApp messages!) from previous jobs. At various times I've been one of our most active oversighters (when Primefac doesn't beat me to it!) but, much like ArbCom's private work, there's little on-wiki paper trail and the ideal suppression goes almost completely unnoticed. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:57, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

14. In one case this year, ArbCom themselves served as the "filing party", accepting a case that had not immediately been brought to them. What are your thoughts on ArbCom taking actions via full cases when they don't have a request from the community to do so? --Tryptofish (talk) 01:03, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

    ArbCom were between a rock and a hard place there and I'm not entirely sure where I would have come down. Probably in favour on the grounds that the committee retains jurisdiction over matters it has heard previously. To do nothing was to risk being accused of not taking the issues seriously or actively suppressing criticism; to do anything was to risk being accused of bowing to external pressure. Hard cases make bad law. But in general, the people involved in the dispute and who have tried to resolve it are better placed to decide what the issues are and who the parties should be (and when or if to request a case) than the committee acting on its own initiative. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:28, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

16. Arbcom seems to limit itself to a very narrow range of responses to admins, with nothing in the gap between admonition and desysopping. What sort of things should it do when admonition isn't enough but a desysop is too much?ϢereSpielChequers 10:03, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

    There is a school of thought within the community that an admin who needs anything more than slap on the wrist shouldn't be an admin. I don't entirely disagree but I can imagine a case of an admin who does outstanding work in one area (say, anti-vandalism) but has problems in another (for example hasty or out-of-process speedy deletions). In that case it might be possible to restrict them from problem area, but that brings us back to does the community want an admin who can't restrict themselves voluntarily? If not, that leaves us with admonish or desysop. I would like it if a desysopped editor could repair their reputation and gain the tools again but it hasn't happened yet. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:49, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

18. There has been tension between the volunteer community and the WMF in the past, and there may be more with the universal code of conduct now in force. Tension on the talkpage of the Elbonian civil war has spilled out into an acrimonious RFA for one of the protagonists, and the press have reported demonstrations about this article in the capital town of Elbonia and in several villages during the current visit of the US president to Elbonia. Cases being filed with Arbcom include: You should desysop the longstanding admin who briefly fully protected the talkpage for the Elbonian civil war, we have already desysopped him on the Elbonian Wikipedia for senility; Your new admin is too young to write about rape in the Elbonian civil war and should stay away from such topics until she is at least a teenager; Many of the voters in that RFA only otherwise vote "Keep" or "delete" in various Elbonian related deletion discussions, they may be admins on the Elbonian Wikipedia but several lack sufficient English to participate here, especially when they write entries on talkpages that consists of nothing more than rows of squares. Which bits of the Universal Code of Conduct have been breached in this kerfuffle and what if anything should Arbcom do about it? ϢereSpielChequers 10:03, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

    How much there is for ArbCom to do depends to a certain extent on how much can't be handled elsewhere. Most enwiki policies go beyond the minimum baseline set by the UCoC though there may be edge cases that the UCoC catches that our policies don't, and it may be applicable to cross-wiki situations such as this or to situations on smaller wikis as the Elbonian Wikipedia presumably is. As for what ArbCom could do (I'm not necessarily saying that it should do all of these things):

    • "Senility" is arguably a personal attack, but could also just be clumsy shorthand for "lost touch with community norms", which is a concern we've had with some our admins. This would need evaluating but if the admin is participating here regularly and has kept up with policy and culture changes, there should be sanctions for the accuser. ArbCom should also inform the WMF so the T&S team can look into goings-on on the Elbonian Wikipedia in case the desysop there was politically motivated.
    • "Too young" is similarly a potential personal attack. It's highly unlikely that an editor so young would be able to establish the track record and demonstrate the maturity necessary to pass RfA, but if they did, their age would be suppressible. An editor pretending to be a child or somebody attempting to dox the admin (correctly or otherwise) would be different problems. All could be handled by oversighters within existing mechanisms. An oversight block is a likely result and these are subject to peer review on the oversight team's mailing list. ArbCom could intervene, but it's more likely to be an individual arb in their capacity as an oversighter, and discussion of any further action would take place off-wiki. As an aside, is anyone old enough to be exposed to such horrors?
    • RfA is a well-trafficked forum so an influx of partisan votes might not cause a major problem, or the community and bureaucrats might be able to handle it without the need for ArbCom intervention. If they can't, ArbCom could consider issuing a motion that asks the 'crats to reconsider the consensus in light of new information; they could potentially desysop the new admin and instruct that they redo the RfA if they want to regain the tools.
    • If the community is unable to handle the matter, a contentious topics designation for the Elbonian Civil War might be helpful, either by motion of after hearing a full case.

    —HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:57, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

20. I love to sing the music of Mozart and Pärt, Requiem and Da pacem Domine. What does the RfC about an infobox for Mozart tell you regarding WP:CT infoboxes, and can you offer ideas towards peace? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:22, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

    I think it's unfortunate that infoboxes are so controversial. They are clearly helpful on some articles but I can see the argument that they're useless on others. I don't think it's healthy or constructive to have roving bands of editors who turn up in every infobox discussion. But the CTOPs designation simply recognises that the subject is controversial and provides a mechanism for admins to address disruption if necessary. As for peace, I don't think we'll get that short of a sitewide consensus determining the criteria for an article to have an infobox. And even then... HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:34, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

22. Thanks for standing as a candidate for the ArbCom. You maybe be familiar with a recent Law and Social Inquiry article titled "Canceling Disputes: How Social Capital Affects the Arbitration of Disputes on Wikipedia" that was the subject of the current article on the Signpost. In addition, a previous paper from 2017 in International Sociology also examined similar trends from the ArbCom. In short, these papers argue about the existence of external factors influencing ArbCom decisions such as editor tenure, and raise concerns about canvasing among others. Are you concerned about the issues presented in the articles, or do you have any other concerns about the structure or operations of the ArbCom?

    Pre-emptive followup if you do have concerns: If selected as a member of the ArbCom, would you (and if so, how) use your term on the ArbCom to assuage any concerns that other editors may have in dealing with active cases before the committee? Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. — microbiologyMarcus ^{(petri dish•growths)} 16:56, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

    There have been attempts to argue that ArbCom decisions have been unfair, unjust, or just plain wrong for as long as ArbCom has been making decisions that affect controversial topics. They usually fail to realise that ArbCom is not a court serving the concept of judgement but a body of experienced Wikipedians trying to do what is best for the encyclopaedia. That may, unfortunately, result in a decision that is (or at least feels) unjust. Milder sanctions, such as a topic ban, may be appropriate for long-term editors with varying interests who have lost perspective or have a blind spot when it comes to one topic; whereas an editor who joined Wikipedia to pursue an agenda and has little interest in editing other topics is likely to get a site ban. That said, ArbCom should evaluate each case on its merits and avoid the urge to decide things a certain way to conform to a pattern and should always be prepared to do what is necessary to prevent disruption. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:34, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

24. Could you please explain why you would like to see most ban appeals turned over to the community. (No need to explain your caveat regarding cases involving private information; that is self-explanatory). voorts (talk/contributions) 18:39, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

    In my opinion, the community handles issues that lead to topic and site bans of experienced editors very poorly. The discussions are unmoderated and tend to sprawl out of control, possibly because emotions are high, possibly because there are a variety of possible outcomes. But the community actually handles appeals of these bans quite well. We're quite good at deciding who we want back and on what terms once they've been away for long enough to let the dust settle. On the principle that ArbCom should only handle what the community can not (or will not), it would be nice if credible appeals could be decided by the community when the reason for the block can be made public. There are details to be worked out and it's not something that could happen overnight but it's a worthy aspiration, I feel. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:34, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

26. Following up on Fram's question, you made this comment in the discussion cited: Contrary to popular opinion, not every decision you disagree with is open to endless challenges. Go and write an article instead of wasting time with meaningless drama. Do you believe that your tone in that comment was appropriate? voorts (talk/contributions) 18:38, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

    Would I hold it up as a shining example of how Wikipedians should conduct themselves in internal discussions? No. Do I feel it was a legitimate expression of frustration that a discussion about a vote that would have no direct effect on the encyclopaedia was continuing—and deteriorating into analogies that bordered on personal attacks—even after the bureaucrat in question had politely and thoughtfully explained himself? Yes. The readers don't care about our internal politics and it's the readers we're here to serve. I'm happy that actions can be challenged, it's an important part of our processes, but if reviews become too frequent and too long, we would never get anything done. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:34, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

28. In your platform you express a desire for the committee to devolve more appeals to the community. Can you explain more about your thinking and whether this would involve any duplication of editor time (as I think editor time is one of our most precious commodities at this point)? Thanks, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:01, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

    I would go further and say that editor time is our only meaningfully finite resource and the main impediment to achieving whatever we wan to achieve. My rough thinking—and it is only rough at this point; the details would have to be worked by the committee and the community to make sure the community was happy to take on the work and that the committee wasn't overwhelming them with appeals—is that the committee (or a subcommittee if Wug gets their way and BASC is spun out again) would vet appeals sent to it to make sure they weren't vexatious, time wasting, or unsuitable for public discussion, then open a discussion at whichever venue everyone is happy with and invite the community to discuss it instead of 15 people evaluating every appeal. By only passing on credible appeals, we avoid wasting the community's time; by allowing the community to do the legwork, we avoid overwhelming one small group of editors. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:34, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

30. In your opinion, what is the single worst remedy or finding-of-fact that the Arbitration Committee has voted in support of during a case or motion that was resolved in 2022 or 2023? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:08, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

    I'm not sure there's any one decision that I thought was completely bonkers. "Administrators encourage" raised an eyebrow as an AE admin—most of the instruments admins have at their disposal are blunt ones, and sometimes a warning is given where a blunt instrument would be excessive but no finer one is available. I see the point about considering (potential) recidivism, but sometimes you need to give an editor a little rope. AE has the advantage of not needing a lengthy discussion if an editor runs out of rope, so the bureaucratic overhead of giving a final "final" warning that goes unheeded is minimal; the conclusion is the same, it just takes a little longer to arrive at. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:27, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

32. In your opinion, what is the single most important thing that the Arbitration Committee has needed to improve upon throughout 2022 and 2023, and how will you improve upon it when you are elected to the committee? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:08, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

    I don't think there's any one thing that ArbCom is failing in, which is not to say that it get everything right all the time. It seems one of the biggest challenges, as is common in volunteer communities, is peaks and troughs in availability of committee members. If elected, I'd love to work with other committee members on streamlining the workload so that at least the time demands are more predictable and arbs can use more of their time on substantive issues and less on typing/searching/tracking/"where do we keep the widgets". It looks like some of this is already under discussion and more technical minds than mine are working on software solutions, which is pleasing. Let's use software for what software is good at and hopefully let the humans do more thinking and less repetitive processing. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:57, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

34. what is the most important type of editor? ltbdl (talk) 07:01, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

    I'm busy today (seeing my mother for the first time in nearly a year) but I'll answer this one because it's easy. All editors who are working in good faith towards the improvement or maintenance of the encyclopaedia are equally important. Writers can't write if they're too busy reverting vandalism. Our template coders take a significant burden off of others. Our abuse filter managers make the patrollers' work easier. Our new page patrollers keep the encyclopaedia free of copyright violations, spam, and other problems. And while our internal politics should always serve the encyclopaedia, discussion is essential to Wikipedia and a certain amount of disagreement is inevitable. Some editors are skilled at keeping these discussions on track or extracting consensus from a messy thread. We need all these skills to keep Wikipedia functioning and improving. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 10:18, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

36. do you support mandatory registration for wikipedia editing? why or why not? ltbdl (talk) 07:01, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

    This is an interesting question to ponder. My position has changed over the years. I was asked this in my second RfA and at the time I felt that registration should be required. These days I think I'm in favour of anonymous editing (in the literal sense of a-nonymous, having no name, not the synonym for private or unknown). From a counter-abuse standpoint, compulsory registration makes sense—it creates a barrier that makes it just slightly more difficult to make a disruptive edit, and we can respond to abuse much more effectively from an account than we can from a dynamic IP address. On the other hand, no matter how easy we make registration, I don't think I would bother if I had to register just to fix a typo, and that shuts off a potential in-road to a new editor and the typo goes unfixed. It also leaves us open to abuse, but our anti-abuse mechanisms have got much more sophisticated as the project has matured. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:11, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

38. Would you care if an article for a kids tv show got vandalized with false information? Scoophole2021 (talk). 07:19, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

    Yes, absolutely. Unfortunately, articles on children's TV (especially the older or more obscure shows) are plagued with unhelpful edits and attract some of our more obsessive long-term abuse cases so I commend the editors who try to keep those articles clean. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:11, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

40. In response to this ANI thread, you blocked EEng for a week, adding "I strongly oppose any early unblock (to the point that I would have made the block a discretionary sanction if it weren't for the techinicality of alerts), and will seriously consider filing a request for arbitration against any admin who does so without a very clear consensus.". The block was overturned by another admin; a further admin commented, "The consensus to unblock was clear, but even if it was debatable, a blocking admin does not get to issue preemptive threats that their blocks are not to be overturned by a community consensus, as read by an uninvolved admin, unless the consensus meets their own standard for being "clear" enough. Hell no. Shocking, chilling, authoritarian, borderline abusive conduct coming from HJ, who we all know knows better." How do you feel about that block now? Is there anything you would have done differently or do you feel your actions were about right, as other editors did support the block? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:24, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

    I have no ill will towards EEng. I seem to recall having a positive interaction with him a while ago, or at least opposing sanctions against him. His brand of humour is not my cup of tea but generally I'm content to just ignore it. On this occasion, I felt that his conduct crossed the line from "possibly annoying but ignorable" into disruptive. Just how disruptive was a bone of contention at ANI and I'm not sure I judged that correctly. Why I decided on a sitewide block and not a partial block is lost in the mists of time (perhaps because pblocks were still new then?), but a partial block is probably where I would start these days on the principle that we can escalate later if it becomes necessary. As for my remarks about discretionary sanctions, I didn't intend them to be a reflection on EEng specifically. One of our great difficulties, and part of the reason that AE blocks come with such strictures, is that blocks of good editors who sometimes cause disruption are often rapidly overturned or commuted to "time served" before they can have any meaningful impact. Blocks are one of the few ways we have of dealing with problematic conduct, and if a blocking admin has made a prima facie case that the block is necessary or justified and it's not clearly a mistake/abusive/out of process, I feel we should wait for more input—or ideally some reassurance from the blocked editor that they see the problem with their edits—before unblocking or considering next steps. The quid pro quo, of course, is that admins should only impose such blocks rarely and after sufficient consideration, and that the block should be well explained. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:32, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

42. Consider the hypothetical where the English Wikipedia community comes to a consensus under WP:IAR that violates WP:CONEXCEPT. The English Wikipedia community attempts to enforce that consensus but the WMF pushes back, resulting in wheel and edit warring. If an ARBCOM case was opened on this matter would you sanction editors attempting to enforce the consensus, and would you support the English Wikipedia's right to come to that consensus? BilledMammal (talk) 11:48, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

    It's always better to discuss these things before they get out of hand. ArbCom can be a good mouthpiece for the community to the WMF for times when the community needs to speak with a single voice. At the end of the day, it's their website; it runs on their servers maintained by their staff. The content is ours, and we have the right to fork, but we would then be subject to somebody else's rules because someone needs to be legally responsible. But I think the WMF and the community have learnt from Framgate and the superprotect debacle and are hopefully more aware when dealing with explosive situations. Ultimately, if an admin or interface admin reinstated an action that had been reversed by the WMF (and clearly indicated as an office action), I would need an extremely compelling reason to vote to reinstate the tools that the WMF would almost certainly remove. I would just hope that cooler heads would prevail before we got there. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:32, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

44. The roles of checkusers and oversighters are currently managed at the pleasure of the sitting arbitration committee. What, if any, conditions would be necessary for you to support divorcing checkuser and oversight functions from the arbitration committee, making these roles managed by the community instead? — xaosflux ^Talk 18:42, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

    I think the current system works well. Access to these tools should not be decided based on popularity. We need functionaries who are willing to stick their heads above the parapet and make a tough decision sometimes, even if it doesn't play well to the crowd. The current system gives the community a chance to vet the candidates and raise any issues with ArbCom, because the community generally knows who it trusts and who it doesn't. ArbCom then makes the final decision and decides whether any concerns raised are disqualifying, because ArbCom knows the functionaries and knows the workload. I'm not convinced that elections or an RfA-style appointments process as other wikis have would increase the quantity or quality of successful applicants. In fact, evidence from the last time elections were used suggests the opposite. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:32, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

46. Could technically competent user please fix crazy numbering of questions? bishzilla _ROARR!! pocket 14:44, 26 November 2023 (UTC).

    It seemsTamzin is that technically competent user. I'm surprised Bishzilla couldn't frighten them into line! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:05, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

    Thank you young Harry. [Bishzilla sticks the little Tamzin in her pocket for rest and relaxation after clever fix.] bishzilla _ROARR!! pocket 23:05, 26 November 2023 (UTC).