User talk:Collect/ACE2012

Accidental substitution

I think you put my answer to the factionalism question in Carc's section by accident. Just sayin'. — Coren ^(talk) 14:44, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Mea maxima culpa! Collect (talk) 14:58, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

What does "Ostrich question" mean, by the way?  :-) — Coren ^(talk) 17:18, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Head in the sand? Incidentally, I was thrown by the 'not limited to BLPs' part of the question. I read that as referring to biographies of dead people (that comes from working on too many articles of people who are no longer living). I see the term 'biographical article' as referring to the field of encyclopedic biographical writing, of which writing about living people is actually a very small and specialised subset - I don't actually think it is possible to write truly encyclopedic articles on living people (for the simple reason that their story is not yet finished and history has not yet rendered its verdict). On reflection, the 'not limited to BLPs' bit may have been referring to BLP problems in non-biographical articles. Oh well, back to answering the other questions! Carcharoth (talk) 22:08, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I consider anyone who says "factions do not exist" is being like the ostrich in the proverb <g>. And I was referring to the tendency of some editors to make edits which affect living people in a very wide range of articles. Cheers. Collect (talk) 22:35, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I could see disputing how much of a problem factionalism is, but does anyone seriously contend that there are no factions vying over control of topics on Wikipedia? — Coren ^(talk) 23:32, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Category

I added your guide to Category:Wikipedia Arbitration Committee Elections 2012 voter guides, as it is already in the template, hope you don't mind. Monty₈₄₅ 19:01, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

BLP and Factionalism questions

Collect, I thought I should leave a note here to let you know that after seeing your response to the note I left above and realising that I had indeed misread the question, I changed my answer to general question 3a iii (the 'BLP question'). There is also a link to the initial answer so people can see both. I'm not sure whether you saw that, as the quote you have on your summary page is still from the initial one. Also, the factionalism quote you give for me appears to be from my answer to a different question? Carcharoth (talk) 22:52, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the update and the user talk page note. Carcharoth (talk) 23:43, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Timely fashion

I'm curious what your benchmark is for that. - jc37 23:12, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

As I can update at will <g>, the initial benchmark was after the filind deadline (figuring that candidates were well apprised of the questions before their filing and could have pencilled in their answers. As you will note, I am more than open to changes in responses being considered. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:19, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Nod.

As for me, I somehow managed to finish on the 20th : )

(though I have spotted typos and places for clarification, and such, since then : )

Thanks for taking the time to look over my responses. - jc37 23:44, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Ah, in which case, I might mention that I did finish mine in a timely fashion (knowing I would be away for part of the nominations period was one of the reason I filed so early). Just the factionalism question, I did give an answer. Worm^TT(talk) 08:48, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

And main page updated. I am still concerned that your views would allow U-turns by ArbCom and insufficiently stress the imposrtance of WP:BLP however. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:14, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

I can accept that. Thanks for updating the guide. Worm^TT(talk) 13:34, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Good idea

I think this is certainly a good idea that every candidate must answer all key questions (some of them did not), and their answers tell a lot. I quickly looked through answers to "factionalism" question and found that all current and former arbcom members have a much better understanding of this subject than any new candidates. Which is probably not surprising. My very best wishes (talk) 05:15, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Speaking one's mind

Being open about one's opinions is a great ideal to stand for. However, when this is done in combination with a tendency to not hold oneself to the same lofty standards one sets for others, to speak in a manner that would lead the speaker to condemn others for conduct unbecoming, to refuse to take in any criticism at all or do any self-examination, to not conform to the community norms about responsiveness expected from an administrator (since there is actually no explicit statement that arbitrators should be held to a higher standard that even administrators); when these conditions are met I don't think the benefits of openness outweigh all the other negatives. Your mileage may vary of course, but I feel one of your strong supports are way off. MLauba ^(Talk) 23:18, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

You may well feel so. I would suggest, however, that recent events show the problems inherent with "groupthink" or playground ethos. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:25, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, there is a rather explicit statement of high standard for arbitrators. — Coren ^(talk) 23:38, 26 November 2012 (UTC)