Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates/Discussion

2015 Arbitration Committee Elections

Status

• The December 2015 Arbitration Committee Election results have been posted.
• Please offer your feedback on the election process.

This page collects the discussion pages for each of the candidates for the Arbitration Committee elections of December 2015. To read Candidate Statements and their Q&As during the Nomination process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates. To discuss the elections in general, see Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015.

Please endeavor to remain calm and respectful at all times, even when dealing with people you disagree with or candidates you do not support.

Candidates

Callanecc

2 questions re Statement

Hi @Callanecc: Really like your upbeat tone, thanks for that, as well as your service.

1. Re Having been an arbitration clerk for so long I've got a fairly good idea at the internal machinations of the Committee (although some still drive me nuts) - What are your Top 5 nut drivers, and wotchagonnado?
2. Re I've also developed some ideas on what I don't think it working and what I could do to change them. - Share please?

Thanks; LeoRomero (talk) 01:13, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi LeoRomero, thanks.

1. Things which drive me nuts:
   • This one came up very recently. The procedure on withdrawn case requests, I believe, is overly bureaucratic and prevents arbitrators and clerks from taking the most appropriate action. In this request, for example, it was blatantly obvious that it should be sent to AE but it had to sit there for 24+ hours to meet the requirement. I'd get rid of it and replace it with an internal clerk procedure to bring withdrawn requests to the attention of the Committee on the mailing list and ask what to do.
   • This is one I've discussed with a couple arbs before but didn't end up going anywhere. Remedies which have been superseded are struck out on the main case page and the replacement it put down the bottom of the page. Instead I'd collapse the superseded remedy and put it's replacement right below it (with a header which identifies it as an amendment).
   • Another one I've discussed with a couple arbs before but didn't end up going anywhere. Currently the scope of cases is sometimes quite difficult to work out. I'd like to create a section for editors to propose brief statements of scope in the case request and when the case is opened the drafter(s) either pick one or write their own and put it on the main case page and in the notice that goes out to people who comment.
   • The Audit Subcommittee, (note I am/was a community appointee) see this (long) comment I made about it in September. "wotchagonnado": see this - assign a couple arbs to investigate reports and hand their findings to the Committee for action if necessary.
   • That's all I can think of at the moment.
2. Primarily see the above, let me know if you want more detail. I should say though, that the fact that I've got them here doesn't necessarily mean that I will or will be able to do anything about them if I am elected (there are 14 other people, new responsibilities to get used to and heaps of stuff to get done). Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 05:15, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks @Callanecc: I went a little cross-eyed over your insider terms, and did read the internal clerk procedure you recommended, so now my eyes are permanently crossed. I don't know which will serve Wikipedia better, your expertise or your commitment to service, but I'm betting on both. - LeoRomero (talk) 18:15, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

---

I'm pleased to see Callanecc running. He/she seems to have his/her head screwed on. Deb (talk) 13:37, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

key success factors of the linux community, what to take for wikipedia

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm not really familiar at all with the linux community however after having a brief look it appears that there are a few important factors to consider. The linux community primarily relies on subject matter experts and really only includes them, whereas Wikipedia relies on crowdsourcing, really mass crowdsourcing, ("anyone can edit") which brings in a huge range of other issues. And they are issues which have a massive effect, consider, for example, the problems we continually have to deal with around POV pushing alone, which isn't as much of a problem for linux. Another big difference is that the people working on the linux kernel are experts whereas Wikipedia and the WMF encourage new editors, a bunch of whom are not experts in the content or in the operation of a crowdsourced encyclopedia or on MediaWiki. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:11, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Good answer but is there any reason for you and nearly every other candidate responding so far, bar one, didn't follow the instructions and move this duplicated question from their talk pages to their question pages? @Casliber:@GorillaWarfare:@Hawkeye7:@Hullaballoo Wolfowitz:@Kelapstick:@MarkBernstein:@Opabinia regalis:@Wildthing61476: Yes, responsiblity time! --Riverstogo (talk) 03:40, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

beats me. Not enough pie for someone. MarkBernstein (talk) 03:53, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

That would be it. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:11, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Because there was no need to move it (where is that instruction, by the way) as it doesn't really matter where it gets asked if there'll be an answer anyway (and WP:NOTBURO)? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 04:00, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Casliber

key success factors of the linux community

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:25, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I am not very familiar with the Linux story - on a bigger picture wikipedia has been developing and strengthening links with various educational institutions around the world. It is in its early stages, but not sure how this could link to governance, but it might in the future have something to do with some form of content review board or something. Certainly the more active contributors means more ideas, which is a Good Thing. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:51, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure the Linux community's experience is as informative to ENWP as it would be to another community of coders (say, SourceForge). What encourages me about Cas Liber is his background in psychiatry. The value of considerable experience helping people overcome dysfunctional behavior to arbitration in general and to Wikipedia arbitration specifically ought to be great. loupgarous (talk) 23:08, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Broader role for ArbCom

Sorry for the long post, but you touched a nerve.

"If we restrict arb cases to socking, edit-warring and incivility we are leaving wikipedia wide open to organised assaults by parties seeking to influence content (i.e. we're screwed)." You've got my vote because of this. I agree that ArbCom needs to focus more on big-picture issues that give guidance, set precedents, and work out the gray areas, accepting cases based on their potential impact across all of WP, not just the experience of a few editors, or a small set of articles. Right now it seems that the editor with the most time to spare and who shouts the loudest determines our content, and ArbCom can never keep up with that. We need better guidance on the ground, and we need to have a culture of following that guidance. Right now there is an acronym to support any viewpoint anyone wants to push, and anyone who ventures into editing articles of a new subject can find a hostile reception if they are not already indoctrinated into the absurdly different cultures we have for editing different article types by different standards. There is nothing systematic about the way we go about creating and expanding articles, or like you alluded to, how we use sources.

When ArbCom finds someone has been edit warring and sanctions them, how does that help the rest of us? We already know we shouldn't edit war and that we might face sanctions if we do. Yeah, we need arbitration and an enforcement mechanism, but if ArbCom determines a certain kind of behavior shouldn't be considered edit warring, or that another kind should be, that's much more important. That affects all of us. In the American legal system, appellate courts don't address findings of fact, only findings of law. (Juries find facts.) In ArbCom terms, how do policies apply in this type of case? Are policies being applied fairly? Are current policies adequate? Is the system of disseminating policies to editors adequate? What chance does the average editor have of understanding fundamental policies and therefore noticing policy violations by parties seeking to influence our content for their gain? It's madly inconsistent at the ground level. (e.g., In disaster articles, the source with the highest death toll seems to be the one we go with.)

But how would you make that work? The alleged sockpuppets and edit warriors need their fair hearing. It would seem to mean either restructuring ANI or adding another level of binding dispute resolution between ANI & ArbCom. Dcs002 (talk) 07:20, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Yeah...good points. My thinking was that like Wikipedia:Manual of Style, gradually more content would have consensus segments and articles, with RfCs etc. Hopefully establishing a sensible consensus in more areas as time goes on. Luckily, many people are sensible and alot of intuitive consensus materal has been established. There are tricky areas though, and these are important to get consensus based on high-quality sourcing. RfC is an existing policy that can be used more broadly and bindingly than it is currently. Rules for socking and edit-warring need to be as easy to understand and unambiguous as possible. As far as arbcom sanctioning editors that break rules, when I was on arbcom we tried to be as internally consistent as possible - i.e. consistent remedies for equivalent behaviours. I can't speak for the current arbs and haven't examined recent cases to offer an opinion on these. (more later) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:02, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, and thanks for being one of only a few candidates who still seems to be talking to us voters at this point. A number of candidates seem to have left the arena :/ Dcs002 (talk) 04:19, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Drmies

key success factors of the linux community

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:25, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Gamaliel

Serious concerns

Direct experience has shown Gamaliel doesn't have the temperament, discipline, competence, or fair mindedness for such an important post, and it's alarming that he's this close to getting it. It's bad enough that he allows his strong political opinions to color his editing in inappropriate ways, but more importantly he's abused his admin status, he's cited dubious policy rationales that at best betray a misunderstanding, and at times his behavior has been downright trollish. Just last year he was involved in an extended content/edit war on the America: Imagine the World Without Her movie board.

Edit warring: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13],

The community ultimately rejected his argument in this dispute in multiple RFCs. During this dispute, in which he was undeniably heavily involved, he at least once used his admin powers to erase an opposing editor's edit summary (August 19, 2014 17:11 [14]; not discovered until weeks later, when he admitted it under questioning by another editor in the discussion linked below). He also sometimes replied to serious, on topic posts with large, sophomoric pictures (e.g. scroll to bottom - [15], [16], [17]) or linked to a youtube video as his edit summary ([18]), which did nothing but enhance disruption in an already contentious dispute. Here's a sample of the personal invective he spewed on the talk page in this discussion:

[19]

"You people are ridiculous."

"It has an odious reputation amongst everyone not in the wingnut bubble"

"You have consistently and perhaps purposefully missed the point."

"For added hilarity and accuracy, I imagined you saying this stamping your feet."

"I'm going to start calling you Scarecrow because you love the straw man so much. My primary argument is "unconvincing" because you have no idea what it is. I have to keep repeating it for you so much I should just create a template for it."

"This shit is exactly why dealing with you is so unpleasant, because any attempt to collaborate or engage with you is met with a punch in the dick….. Instead I'm on the receiving end of months-long harangues about someone's low traffic blog and a partisan shit sewer. Fuck this noise, go argue with your mirror."

"I'm beginning to think you are some sort of performance art project."

"Why are you acting like a jackass?"

"It's been a very long edit conflict here, and we all have had moments where we've been less than perfect, but you are the only one standing in a pile of your own bullshit and insisting that you smell absolutely delicious."

"The SPA who is the chief proponent of including Brietbart"

"This SPA should have been topic banned months ago. It's long past time to bring this to ANI."

[20]

"And despite your repeated farcical lie that I haven't identified what is in dispute,"

"It's clear this temper tantrum is a deliberate strategy of yours to obfuscate that issue."

"Is something wrong with your brain?"

(sic)

Despite our personal, extended, adversarial involvement just months earlier, this past September Gamaliel was the first admin to reply to a malformed, tit for tat DS report against me by an editor I had just reported to the edit warring board, one that contained not a single evidence diff of any of my posts or edits or even a coherent accusation against me. It was a report that should have been immediately deleted, but instead he kept it alive, prodded the accuser to provide evidence (she never did), and in subsequent comments proceeded to both ignore evidence I posted against her (for which multiple posters corrected him, not that he acknowledged it) and even hinted that some action against me might be warranted for alleged POV editing, despite not a single diff of my editing having been presented. At that point I was forced to ask him to recuse himself, generously only providing some broad outlines of our past interaction (and a later offer to delete it all if he would delete his comments about me). He did recuse himself, claiming he hadn't previously recognized my screenname, but did so with a lengthy, snarky, and venomous paragraph full of personal attacks like I "should not be editing any Wikipedia article at all, much less one of our most important ones, nor should he be allowed to use a computer without adult supervision", "belligerent SPA", and accused me of "deceptiveness", among other things. [21] Another editor called his recusal "one of the pettiest actions I have seen by an "un-involved" admin", but he never deleted or even struck through it. Despite that poisoned well, after he recused himself ultimately no action was taken against me in the DS case.

The attacks by Gamaliel against me and other editors through all this were invariably false (the easily debunkable "SPA" charge was especially egregious, as that tag basically exists to imply that someone is a paid or COI editor on a particular topic, and the "Who not to tag (SPA tagging guidelines)" make it clear I'm not even close to an SPA, so he was apparently just bitter and trolling in a failed to attempt to marginalize and discredit an editor with whom he disagreed), but since none of us are running for office it's not worth getting into those details.

Gamaliel's behavior has been reprehensible and isn't that of someone who is fit to be entrusted with Arbcom power. Everyone makes mistakes, and Gamaliel vaguely alluded to past blemishes on his own record in his statement, but I've seen no evidence that he sees anything wrong with his specific actions laid out here, nor that they wouldn't continue. I've seen long time admins/Arbcom members who are unfailingly polite, reasonable, and generally avoid controversies, especially political ones. Gamaliel is the opposite of that. I'll be happy to engage in a civil conversation with him about this if he wants, but right now I see no reason why I or anyone else should have confidence that he would be a fair judge of other editors. VictorD7 (talk) 01:33, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

I cannot imagine the patience and restraint Gamaliel has shown with you in the past. Your post here is a better campaign poster than any other I can imagine. You are not unique, and I think a lot of us can relate. We know what it is to be ground down by someone who is persistent and absolutely convinced they are right, who argues with the straw man, who describes in extreme terms the moderate actions and opinions of others who disagree, who writes a wall of words and will likely never understand why those words (and dozens of diffs) were not enough to persuade others. This will only backfire, and you will probably never understand why. Dcs002 (talk) 09:58, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Personally attacking me is no defense of the comments and actions documented above, and blind ideological/personal solidarity isn't as mysterious a motive as you apparently feel it is. Honest, open minded people won't see edit warring, POV pushing, abuse of admin power, trolling, or endless streams of personal attacks as points in an Arbcom candidate's favor. VictorD7 (talk)

Gotta admit I'm really enjoying this dramafest. I've seen the archives, the difs, and within a span of a single half-hour I've come to the conclusion that "whoa Gam really doesn't want to be wrong here." Nobody has talked about the argument Vic is bringing up, waving it away with "strawman" but never explain how it's a strawman. What is the argument that Vic made up as a strawman compared with what the actual argument Gam is trying to make, then? Why is there so much hand-waving and insult throwing coming from both sides? Yea, Vic, you're kinda heated in some parts as well, but I've seen far more evidence that you give to support why you make this argument and virtually nothing from Gam's side but "nuh uh, you're wrong." He made blatant contradictions right there in the freakin' evidence, FFS. Anyways, everyone calm down and talk about evidence and not the people behind them. Sethyre (talk) 19:31, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

I have spent a few hours with these claims, and my previous comment stands. I would not have had the patience. Dcs002 (talk) 05:07, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for actually taking the time to read and understand something of the dispute's substance, Sethyre. Though, even substance aside, the edit warring diffs and disruptive quotes I bolded and spaced out for the convenience of those with an aversion to reading should be enough to give serious pause to anyone considering putting that person on Arbcom. Surely there are many better candidates. The hope is that most voters don't see edit warring, POV pushing, abusing admin power, trollish attacks, and the general pettiness displayed as behavior they want in an Arbcom member. Otherwise, it doesn't really matter who sits on Arbcom. It would just be a kabuki dance around a cesspool. VictorD7 (talk) 21:30, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

This candidate is radical and unfit for duty.200.48.32.157 (talk) 11:00, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

key success factors of the linux community

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:25, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare

Hello. Your experience and priorities seem valuable and I would likely vote for you. However, there is something to be said about your ID name. It does not inspire the image of an objective mediator and it brings about images of an edit warrior and despotism. My 2 cents. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 16:59, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Forgive me for being so direct, but your position is utterly ridiculous, and your message sounds like that of a troll.--DawnDusk (talk) 17:44, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

3 Questions

Hi @GorillaWarfare: Just 3 questions

1. Are you, in fact, a Gorilla?
2. I agree with @BatteryIncluded: What's a warrior doing in Arbitration? More, I'm uncomfortable with your casual use and propagation of War as a conceptual metaphor. As a Veteran, and a father of Veterans who lost their closest friends fighting for the people of America and Afghanistan, [insert pompous statement here]. In what ways does working on Wikipedia approximate being in war?
3. Re I have not been an uncontroversial arbitrator in the past two years. I certainly have made some mistakes during my tenure; I personally think my biggest shortcoming was my timidness to speak my mind when I thought something was wrong when I first took the position. - What were your Top 3/5/10 biggest mistakes and how did/will you fix them?

Thanks; LeoRomero (talk) 02:10, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

@LeoRomero: Any reason these are here and not on my questions page? Any objection to moving them, or me doing so? GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:22, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare: I just did for you what I did for the rest: clicked on Edit Source, which opened another screen, then followed instructions. (Unless yours was the one missing the Edit Source link, which I fixed, I think). I'd rather you not move stuff, if you don't mind too much. For one thing, it's much easier for voters (me, anyway) to read one page, than to click and click and click and click into the individual question pages, which I didn't even know existed. I'm just a regular voter, not an expert like you all. - LeoRomero (talk) 02:39, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I'll answer here if you prefer.

> Thanks @GorillaWarfare: I informed organizers via the election feedback page that some confusion may have been caused by procedural changes between the nomination process and the general release of the notice to vote. I think it's good that you now appear on this main discussion page, and suggest you abstract here the conversations on your questions page, which I encourage all voters to read. I especially admired how you handled inappropriate personal questions, choosing honesty over the privacy you deserve.

1. No, I am in fact not a gorilla.
   1. Bummer. Now I'm gonna have to reconsider my vote.
2. To me, my username says less that I'm a warrior and more that I enjoy silly plays on words. Working on Wikipedia in no way approximates being in war.
   1. Intelligent wordplay. Vote resecured.
3. As I said, I think timidness to speak my mind was a big one. I have gotten better about that, though I think that kind of confidence really only comes with time and experience. I also have mentioned elsewhere that I struggled sometimes with when it was necessary for me to recuse; I've recused when I shouldn't have, and failed to recuse when I should. I've also proposed and supported elements in proposed decisions that in hindsight were poorly thought-out. Again, I think that can only be remedied by hard work and experience, as well as guidance from and discussion with other arbitrators. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:00, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
   1. .... and the Community you represent, of course. :)

Thanks again; LeoRomero (talk) 17:35, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

@LeoRomero: The fact that GorillaWarfare has a strong sense of humor (witness her username, an obvious pun on the term Guerilla Warfare) counts in her favor. I'd prefer to have as many ARBCOM members with senses of humor as possible sitting on a case where allegations of bullying or "microaggression" are involved. I didn't see her choice of a username as indicating an unduly combative nature where such would be an impediment to her serving ENWP well on ARBCOM.

By the way, some of the most effective Secretaries of State the United States of America has had were veterans of combat in the US military before becoming responsible for our nation's diplomacy. I come from a family of citizen soldiers, myself (we lost a son in Iraq in 2006) and don't view a mild irreverence to war in general as being a fatal flaw in an arbitrator. Some of the most devastatingly funny jokes about the military came from men and women who stood in harm's way for the rest of us. (Thank you and your family for your and their service, by the way.) loupgarous (talk) 00:40, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

A medal for one battle in The Edit Wars

Dear loupgarous, our service cannot compare to yours. Your family's loss of a young child, who tried to make this world a better place, who would have done even more had he lived - to us, that's a daily nightmare, but not our daily life. I'd like to know more about your son, my kids will too. Please email me if you like. - Hugs; LeoRomero (talk) 17:45, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Our humor kept us alive (and yes, it was very, very, dark). I like that GorillaWelfare has a sense of it. Arbcom needs humor (not the dark kind though). Everyone in our arbitration coliseums could use a little lightening up. All Wikipedians oughta have fun. We are so GD serious, like any of our violent debates will ever matter, ever. What I blame for that? This whole "Wikipedia is War" metaphor that we migrated into WP from our extra-wiki lives. Edit Warring?! That's what War means around here? May I have a body count please? We celebrate Edit Wars. We honor Veterans of Edit Wars. We even hand out medals (see image on right). So sad, ya gotta laugh.

Satanic Bible

On your page, you link to the article for The Satanic Bible, the LeVayan Satanist text. I understand that you consider it an example of a "Good article", but I think you'll agree that it's a rather controversial choice. Do you endorse the group and its beliefs, and if so, how can people expect you to be neutral in arbitrations of a religious nature when you belong (or at least are openly sympathetic) to what is essentially a parody religion founded by and consisting of Atheists that have been known to use Satanic imagery and other means to intentionally mock those who believe in a higher power? -TBustah (talk) 17:53, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

It's marked as a good article because it was reviewed and determined to meet the criteria. I am not a LaVeyan Satanist, nor am I religious at all. I work on articles on a wide range of topics; I've worked relatively recently on mandated reporter and feral cat, and I am also not either of those. GorillaWarfare (talk) 18:49, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you TBusth - I think you have just convinced me to give her my vote.Sgerbic (talk) 02:25, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Me too, TBustah/Sgerbic. Cheers! Shir-El too 19:34, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Controversial articles which meet our standards for reliable sourcing and WP:NPOV are better than usual candidates for Good Article status specifically because they met those standards despite attracting editors who may have wished to use the article to grind their personal axes. loupgarous (talk) 00:08, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

key success factors of the linux community

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:26, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I use Linux as one of my primary operating systems, but that's about where my knowledge stops. I'm not involved in the Linux development community, so I really don't have enough knowledge to answer this question. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:35, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Bravo! Shir-El too 19:30, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Hawkeye7

Concerns

Unfortunately I cannot support this candidate for four reasons. The candidate was previously desysopped back in February 2012. At good articles on the instructions page it states, "an impartial reviewer to assess" but when I went to look at one of the good articles listed on the candidates user page, I noticed the GA nomination was reviewed by a fellow member of the Military History WikiProject. At present, they are both Coordinators at the Military History WikiProject. I assumed this to be a one off incident but quickly discovered another GA listed on the user page of the candidate whereby another Military History Coordinator reviewed their nomination and approved the article to GA. While I don't necessarily doubt both articles are GA worthy, I do not agree with this practice to which the candidate is a willing participant.

In regards to the question I asked of the candidate, I specifically to asked "for their interpretation", and they provided me with a summary of the history and opinions of others without stating their own. I expect members of the Arbitration Committee to be direct and articulate their opinions in the first person and clearly when asked. I do assume that by leaving out certain parts of the discussion they indirectly stated their support for a position but by leaving things open to loose interpretations and guessing, it isn't a strong quality for a candidate. Lastly, I do acknowledge that I have personal reasons for opposing. The accusations by the candidate, stated indirectly by giving it weight in their statement and choosing to outline their answer in the third person, that voting stacking was committed by the party that brought up the concern is unsubstantiated. I expect Arbitrators to carefully weight both sides and work in good faith which is seemingly lacking and absent in the very least in assessing that conversation. I understand their allegiances to their group but I would further expect them to otherwise recuse themselves as they were involved if they did not want to explain their personal opinions. I have the upmost respect for this candidates tenure as a seasoned and skilled writer and organizer, so I still wish them well in the election, but I fundamentally do not think they have the experience to arbitrate cases. Mkdw^talk 04:01, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Your second example is an A class review, not a GA. This is a process of review by the MilHist Project, so all the reviewers are part of the project. On checking however, I find that its GA was reviewed by a MilHist Project member. Normally when a GA is listed under "military", it is likely that it will be reviewed by someone with an interest in military history. Similarly, the articles on scientists will usually attract someone with an interest in science and so on. This does not mean that the reviews were not conducted impartially or correctly. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:27, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

GA requires an impartial reviewer to assess a nomination.

Current Military History Coordinators: Hawkeye7, Sturmvogel 66, AustralianRupert, Anotherclown, and Peacemaker67

• William Sterling Parsons was nominated by Hawkeye7 and reviewed and promoted to GA by Sturmvogel 66
• Sydney Rowell was nominated for A class by Hawkeye7 and reviewed and promoted to A class by Sturmvogel 66. The article was seemingly nominated by no one and then reviewed and promoted by Sturmvogel 66.
• Battle of Goodenough Island was nominated by Hawkeye7 and reviewed and promoted to GA by AustralianRupert.
• Kenneth Nichols was nominated by Hawkeye7 and reviewed and promoted to GA by Anotherclown
• Rupert Downes was nominated by no one and reviewed and promoted to GA by AustralianRupert but the review was also edited by Hawkeye7
• Douglas MacArthur's escape from the Philippines was nominated by Hawkeye7 and then reviewed and promoted to GA by AustralianRupert
• Leslie Morshead was nominated by Hawkeye7 and treviewed and promoted to GA by Sturmvogel 66
• Norris Bradbury was nominated by Hawkeye7 and reviewed and promoted to GA by Sturmvogel 66
• George Kistiakowsky was nominated by Hawkeye7 and reviewed and promoted to GA by Peacemaker67
• Ennis Whitehead was nominated by Hawkeye7 and reviewed and promoted to GA by Abraham, B.S.

I pulled these articles off a section of your user page and did not go further into this culture of behaviour. Perhaps you're right and there's no impropriety but you can understand my concerns when WikiProjects are specifically not allowed to internally review GA unlike A quality articles because of the need to be impartial, and then a small close group at the same project review and promote articles from the same group. I noticed in going through some of the entries, you had reviewers that were not coordinators whereby the GA reviews were consistently more extensive and required more work to achieve GA. In fact most of the above reviews required no additional work and received straight check marks. It stuck out as odd to me that the GA nomination went by so swimmingly compared to others when they were exclusively reviewed internally. Nonetheless, concerns I had. Mkdw^talk 20:54, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

I do appreciate your concerns. I note that all of the articles listed also went through the more stringent A-class or FAC. At one point I sent a set of A-class articles to GA for the purpose of construction a Good Topic (which is now a Featured Topic); Sydney Rowell was one of those. My recollection is that the issue has been discussed before. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:15, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

key success factors of the linux community, what to take for wikipedia

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

What happened is that once Linux was adopted and became part of corporate platforms, developers working for those companies began contributing. That's one possible way forward for Wikipedia: to have GLAMs assume stewardship of the articles. It appears that this is still some distance off. HOPAU has been very successful as a APC-UQ-WMAU partnership, but we are still short of convincing the APC or UQ that it is vital to their organisation. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:16, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

62,000 Edits

In your statement you claim to have made a huge number of edits in about 1 year. This over 150 edits per day, obviously due to some automation. How many non-trivial edits have you performed? neffk (talk)

No, I said I have been a Wikipedia editor for over ten years, with over 62,000 edits. So it's over ten years, not one, which amounts to 62,000 / 3,650 ≈ 17 edits per diem on average. If you look at my contributions page, you'll see the pattern: large edits with a number of smaller ones between. I periodically save my work to prevent loss or logout, then tweak the words and punctuation. The Bot scripts don't do mass edits; they run each day and perform a long series of complicated steps to handle A-class, FAC, FAR and FLC administration. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:40, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Hullaballoo Wolfowitz

I stopped editing on Wikipedia because of this person. He is corrupt. He deletes anything that goes against his personal values. It's ironic that he should be eligible for this committee. It's like nobody can touch him. I refuse to be a part of Wikipedia ever again because of him and people like him. Have a look at his record and it becomes very obvious what he's all about. He's great at pulling the wool over people's eyes, but he remains an example of the kind of corruption that the founder of Wikipedia was complaining about in the media a few months ago. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.89.182.143 (talk) 14:22, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

• 197.89.182.143, why are you posting anonymous comments and making unsubstantiated accusations? If you have a valid point - make it openly and nicely rather than hiding behind an IP address. If you don't have valid point - then please don't try to ruin Hullaballoo Wolfowitz's candidature by posting such messages. Such acts are very discouraging for a candidate. He is a very experienced user and for sure has contributed much more (positively) than someone who does not even have the courtesy to come forward and be open to what another experienced editor has to say. Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 14:55, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
• The anonymity doesn't concern me, but at least give some evidence (e.g. in the form of diffs). Otherwise it is, per Arun, unsubstantiated. De Guerre (talk) 22:39, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Repeating what I said in response to another candidate discussion below: "[...] for the benefit of uninvolved electors, accusations of this kind should be sourced, preferably in the form of diffs. Unsubstantiated scuttlebutt can and will be ignored." De Guerre (talk) 02:38, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

The bias and uncompromising nature of the candidate is obvious to anyone who has interacted with him. He refuses to accept any sourcing for articles on subjects he dislikes, yet contributes to unsourced articles on other subjects. His incivility has driven off many contributors. Those who have left Wikipedia due to editors like this are not going to do your work for you. The candidate's history is all there. Look now, or learn later. 2600:1012:B12D:7826:E8B3:3950:8A20:2CBB (talk) 00:53, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

• The idea that this candidate here would be suitable to approriately deal with "personal attacks and other abusive behavior directed at fellow editors" or "bullying and harassment" in a "Level headed" manner, based on his editing actions so far here on Wikipedia, is, at best (and to ironically quote the candidate himself), Orwellian. Also, not that this matters at all, the Bob Dole incident referred to in this candidate's statement actually occurred in the 1988 election cycle.  ;) Guy1890 (talk) 06:36, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Corrupt, eh? Hey, if I vote for you @Hullaballoo Wolfowitz: what kind of—erm... connections are you offering? --Monochrome_Monitor 00:08, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

mmm . . . doughnuts? The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 01:07, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

You've got yourself a vote, my good man! --Monochrome_Monitor 02:12, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

So far the only bad thing I'm hearing is "The truth is out there." That was a fun premise for a 90s TV series, but not a very informative argument against a candidacy. Dcs002 (talk) 10:18, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose. I am posting anonymously because of fear HW will retaliate as I have seen him do. Listing diffs to articles would let him make life miserable for people. Articles would suffer also. Please read:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Hullaballoo_Wolfowitz&oldid=400628625
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Hullaballoo_Wolfowitz&oldid=398337167

The criticisms can not ALL be wrong. And I can say he did not change as a result of the rfc. Incivility is only the beginning. Righteous bullying behavior is the OPPOSITE of what the job needs. 46.102.239.191 (talk) 19:31, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for actually sourcing your criticisms. It still needs to be evaluated critically, which we can all do for ourselves, but some justification is better than no justification. De Guerre (talk) 22:35, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo), I am concerned by these issues. I did not see a response from you on these pages though, and they are five years old. Would you please comment? These are issues that concern me greatly. Allegations of retribution against an editor who posted an agreement to an opinion against you need to be addressed. Allegations that you do not respond to requests for explanations for numerous deletions and edits trouble me too. Your statement was very impressive - the best I read - but these concerns trouble me. If this is your history, will you be responsive as an arbitrator? Did you do all the things that were alleged? Have you changed? Dcs002 (talk) 04:54, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I didn't respond at the RFC because, as one admin noted, it was never validly certified. I responded at some length when the complainant raised similar issues at ANI ([22]), and, yes, I was really pissed off there, because the complainant had (for the second time!) failed to place an appropriate notification of the discussion on my talk page. The bottom line, for me, was that the complainant was trying to deter editors from !voting against their AFD nominations by demanding discussion of each individual !vote, fairly clear WP:BADGERing. The claims of retaliation were never supported by legitimate evidence, because there wasn't any. I was systematically removing NFCC violations and promotional sourcing from Japanese porn BLPs; an editor complained about it, then insisted that when I continued to make similar edits after the complaint, I was retaliating against him by not skipping over articles to which he'd contributed. That's simply not a legitimate complaint. Perhaps it's just coincidence that this complaint was placed here shortly after I removed another batch of NFCC violations from Japanese porn bios, perhaps not. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 20:00, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. That was helpful. De Guerre (talk) 03:03, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for the response. It was helpful, and sorry I took so long. Dcs002 (talk) 09:05, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

3 Questions

Hi @Hullaballoo Wolfowitz:

1. Re Arbcom is inefficient and ineffective. It needs to resolve disputes more rapidly and more clearly, rather than trotting out a standard list of fossilized bromides. - Which ones will you keep in the stable?
2. Re It has adopted procedures which incorporate time- and effort-wasting elements of the legal process without adopting procedures which promote efficiency, fairness, and good decision making. - Which ones are on your Top 10 (or Top 5) make/break/fix list?
3. Re If elected to Arbcom, I will immediately propose, as a first step, that when a case is accepted, the Committee provide a clear statement of which matters it intends to address in that case. That will do much to eliminate the absurd waste of community time and effort when amorphous cases turn into free-fire zones and timesinks, both in evidence and workshop pages. I also believe far more discussion should take place in public. - Cool. What are your Steps 2-10 (or 5)?

Thanks; LeoRomero (talk) 01:00, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

key success factors of the linux community, what to take for wikipedia

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm not familiar enough with the matter to make a really informed comment, but my cursory impression is that the linux community has established a de facto level of technical competence for contributors, avoiding the social networking aspects of many online communities, and has been admirably resistant to attempts to inject external issues. Here, the first is contrary to the WMF's commitment that anyone can edit; the second is a battle lost long ago; and the third is probably the community's greatest failure, at least on en-wiki. To the extent that I can take anything away from the linux community experience, it's that Wikipedia needs to foster an editing environment that encourages skilled editors with expertise to edit effectively, and that the WMF's recent heavy concentration on things like the Visual Editor, encouraging participation by editors at the opposite end of the relevant skill set, is misguided. It reminds me of the general UseNet experience, which deteriorated steadily as the ease of access was increased. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 20:22, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Keilana

1 question re Statement

Hi @Keilana: Thanks for your work on diversity, systemic bias, STEAM and NIOSH.

Re ArbCom has become less and less effective in actually solving the problems faced by Wikipedia’s regular editors, and I think that my experience in facilitating collaboration and my problem solving skills can help make the arbitration process both more effective and more useful to the community.

What are the top obstacles to ArbCom doing its job well, and what will you do about them?

Thanks; LeoRomero (talk) 01:31, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

@LeoRomero: Hi Leo! I think the main obstacles are inertia and bureaucracy-creep. I think that the process could be streamlined in general, and several other candidates have put forth ideas I really like. My experience with collaboration will be useful in resolving intra-committee disagreements, which I think is another obstacle to ArbCom being successful. I'm good at brokering compromises and finding satisfactory solutions, and keeping things from escalating. All the best, Keilana (talk) 16:15, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks @Keilana: I think Wikipedia will get better thanks to you and your talents (esp as EMT, if only you could administer remotely). Browsed your Q&A, liked how you ran it. Suggest you post an abstract on this main discussion page. - TYA; LeoRomero (talk) 19:00, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

How you could perform Arbitration in best manner?

Hi,Keilana, I want to ask you how you would best perform for this task, what are your intentions and strategies. best wihses--

File:Animalibrí.gif

Jogi 007 (talk) 07:35, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

key success factors of the linux community, what to take for wikipedia

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Kelapstick

key success factors of the linux community, what to take for wikipedia

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

The knowledge I have about the Linux kernel, and it's associated mailing list could be written on a grain of rice, thus I do not have any opinion of its success factors, or how they shall be brought into my work on Wikipedia. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 02:47, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Kevin Gorman

key success factors of the linux community, what to take for wikipedia

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Facebook attack

I was disturbed by the candidate User:Kevin Gorman using the Wikipedia:Wikipedia Weekly facebook group to attack user:Roger Davies about his position on Overight of gender. For future reference, the link was https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/921760971205068/ . That link now shows "This post has been removed or could not be loaded." John Vandenberg ^(chat) 22:22, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• I considered it a diff significant enough that I didn't desire it to be lost in the haze of an arbcom election. I have it privately saved and if nothing else, will probably use it to argue for WMF to formally train arbs, or to encourage another body to conduct an outside review of our practices. I posted it at 5am, and deleted it pretty promptly after waking up and further considering it. It also wasn't much more of an attack beyond saying what I've said on-wiki - which is that I think it's really disturbing that Roger views oversighting PII as a "seismic shift" in ENWP practices. Ironically, if this had been a post by Roger, he'd probably accuse you of having a laissez-faire attitude about outing that makes you unfit to hold any advanced privileges (I don't care.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:10, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• That's not accurate. The discussion is about whether gender personal pronouns, when the person hasn't disclosed their gender, should be automatically oversightable. Your insistence, by repeated reference to EFF's 87%, is that it is. The thin edge of the wedge argument, I guess. I don't agree and think it's much more nuanced than that.  Roger Davies ^talk 19:35, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
• User:Kevin Gorman, I find your last sentence to be another attack, without merit as best I can tell. Roger would not post what you did, and I've never seen him on any Wikimedia forum off-wiki, except for functionary related private email lists. I don't know his facebook account, if he even has one. OTOH, you are continuing an onwiki dispute on Facebook, using a Facebook account which you've previously linked to your Wikipedia account. How on earth could I be outing you? Off-wiki attacks are often discussed on Wikipedia, and is covered in policies like WP:NPA. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 05:50, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Candidate Status?

Now that our respected editor has passed on, is he still considered a candidate? 29 November 2016 MVD 13:47, 29 November 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by MichaelVernonDavis (talk • contribs)

Kirill Lokshin

key success factors of the linux community, what to take for wikipedia

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Kudpung

Candidate performance during election

This [23], this [24], this [25], this [26] and this [27] are recent examples of the candidate being disgruntled since launching his campaign only a week ago. In particular accusations of attempting to derail a candidate’s election seem very wide of the mark.

If this level of “complaining about one’s lot” was in front of the community in an RfA or RfB the candidate could be considered by some as regretting the transclusion. A candidate for the most senior elected position has to be more enthusiastic. We are not election Mr Speaker who has to be dragged to the chair. Complaining about questions, questioners and discussing withdrawing at the drop of a hat before or even after the event does not demonstrate commitment.

Candidate questions

Our own article on the subject of stonewalling is neutral in describing such behaviour as neither good or bad - simply a strategy to present a selection of information a person is willing to give or withhold in order to protect one's image. However, when there is a detailed process to assist in a large scale elections, failing to answer questions carries an obvious risk. Also, simply referring to a nomination statement for answers when the NS is devoid of comment on the matter requested is, to say the least, unhelpful.

“If you have read my nomination statement, I'm sure you will understand and will be able to rest assured that as an Arbcom member, I would press for the severest sanctions for anyone who comes to a page with blatant lies, innuendo, veiled PA, and issues taken deliberately out of context to discredit a fellow editor or admin.” has been cut & pasted 7 times in response to a series of questions.

For disclosure, there is enmity between us stemming from a simple query I raised on his TP 4 years ago which was met with unnecessary hostility for which Kudpung apologised. Things have not improved and we have disputed a couple of RfA matters. Leaky Caldron 20:32, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

3 questions re Statement

Hi @Kudpung: Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia in so many ways. Could you please clarify what you mean by:

1. being an Arbcom member is definitely 'no big deal'

- It's very hard work and time consuming for absolutely no reward whatsoever (a bit like being an admin only much, much worse), and it takes one away from the very reason one joined Wikipedia for.

1. Over the years I've made some enemies - it comes with the job - How many is some, rounded to the nearest 10, more or less? When I think "enemies", I think terrorists blowing up kids in malls. The thought of people making "enemies" in Wikimedia - esp as part of a job ... cringe. What can you do such that, at worst, you'd have "adversaries" instead of "enemies"?

- Less than 10. You'll probably discover them on the question page.

1. if they were truly honest with themselves they know that I am fair without being lenient, and firm without being possessed of power - you say your "enemies" are dishonest, at least to themselves. Did you really mean what you said?

- Yes, of course I did.

Thanks; LeoRomero (talk) 00:35, 24 November 2015 (UTC

- is there any reason you didn['t follow the instructions and put these questions on the question page? --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:44, 25 November 2015 (UTC))

ANI incident

The only time I came in contact with this person was at ANI, and got a bad first impression. For whatever reason Kudpung decided it was okay to bring up my age when it came to editing. [28] To find this one out he had to have gone all the way back in time to the start of my talk-page, I had removed this bit of info as I thought it was too revealing. The point is my opinion didn't matter on material I might or might not have wanted to keep to myself. I had pretty much put the matter behind me until I saw Kudpung's name pop up as a candidate for arbcom. What I hope for this candidate is that they think more before bringing up things editors may or may not want known rather than just assuming it is perfectly okay. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:55, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

At least people can put your behaviour down to age-related immaturity and assume that you would have grown out of it. I think my comment and my research were perfectly appropriate under the circumstances. La plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:35, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง, that seems like a rather thin excuse for dismissing the editor's defense even partly based on age and your assessment of maturity instead of supporting your comment in a more substantive way. I know it can be difficult to avoid name-calling when you get tired of seeing repeated problems, feeling "ground down in the end", but your name-calling in that edit is not something I want to see in ArbCom. ArbCom is essentially our Supreme Court, and our arbitrators need to be above all that. I think arbitrators need to be exceptionally level-headed, especially when dealing with people you find difficult or provocative. Arbitrators cannot be merely reasonable. ArbCom needs to get it right every time, and for the right reasons. You are asking to be elected to a position of great power, where you will be required to exercise very thoughtful and dispassionate judgement. ArbCom's decisions need to based exclusively on the issues and evidence under consideration, not on attempts to embarrass or humiliate someone, no matter how egregious or frequent the offense.

IMO, making mistakes like this is not a bar to anything. We have all seen far, far worse. We all make mistakes (I have made some big ones), and we learn. Do you still believe what you said and did was not a mistake? Or if it was a mistake, what are your intentions? I would not carry on like this if I had already decided to vote against you. But the price for my vote is reassessing those comments (beyond the short shrift above), evaluating them thoughtfully, and then acting accordingly. (There is no right answer, IMO.) Dcs002 (talk) 10:18, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Knowledgekid is classical of the editors who bear a grudge when they have had to be admonished. Remember, I was a school teacher and a professor at a teacher training faculty for a very, very long time. We all know how kids hate those teachers who were only doing their job. Admins suffer a huge amount of abuse - you wouldn't want to know what they get in their mail - and I am actually one admin who throws around least with my block hammer. Its a very lonely job, we get slagged, slandered, pilloried and pissed off and have no support and are not allowed per WP:INVOLVED to defend ourselves - just take a look at the stuff in the question pages here. I sometimes do not mince my words, but I'm no bully. The great difference between admin work and Arbcom work is that the arbcom is a team. Whether they get on with each other or not is another thing, but unless they act out of process with their admin tools - as some have done in the past - it's rare that they would do something egregious. Apart from giving some deserved short schrift occasionally, I've never abused my power here and I think that's exactly what annoys some people, and I'm not likely to abuse it from within the confines of the Committee if I were to be elected. You are welcome to vote how you like, if you don't want me on the Committee , that's fine,but as I 'm sure you've guessed, because Wikipedia is voluntary work, and Arbcom will demand a lot of dedication, I'm hardly likely to kiss the floor in front of people I have had to warn in the past just to get one more vote to the 1,500 that have been cast already by people that none of us know, and who probably have even less idea about what Arbcom is than you or Knowledgkid. The world won't end for me if I don't get elected, but like leopards, at my age I'm hardly likely to change my spots. For the editors who deserve it, I will continue to show my classic avuncuar empathy, and those who don't, if it's not me remonstrating with them, it will be another admin to be sure. Let's not forget that we are supposed to be here to build an encyclopedia, not harass and bully each other.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:08, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

(Sorry for the long post. Brevity is a serious problem I have.) Thank you for your response. Yeah, that's kind of an arrogant way for me to phrase my question as the price of my vote. And I absolutely appreciate what an awful job it must be to be an admin, and an arbitrator. I don't see myself ever asking for either role. (I was a professor too, btw, though not long enough to get to tenure - "Ass-P" only. Yeah, there were those constant complainers who tried their hardest to get under my skin and wear me down and threaten me, and administration already knew who they were. The challenge is assuring them they are getting a fair hearing every time, and bending over backwards to make sure they actually get one.) I think ArbCom needs to work that way (and from what I've seen, it does). I think all editors deserve similar presumptions of good faith, and that's not related to the mathematical question of whether they detract more than they contribute. (I'm reading about that more and more, and it disturbs me. It's often presented s a subjective question disguised as an objective one.)

But back to the substance of my original concern - can you give some sort of assurance that you will stick to the arguments and evidence of the cases presented, and not dismiss anybody's arguments based on your opinion of their maturity, or whether you consider them a nuisance (and avoid giving the impression of doing so)? Immature people can still contribute, and what's more, they can improve as they mature. I think we also need the occasional nuisance to make sure we are still on track with out goals. (Students who constantly argued about each exam question occasionally pointed out questions with more than one plausibly correct response, and in their arguments, they showed knowledge of the substance of those questions.) It's the substance of the case that should determine what constitutes good work and what is disruptive, I think. Are we on the same page here?

If repeat problem editors show up in arbitration, particularly those with whom you've had previous difficulties, I just want to make sure they get an absolutely fair and impartial hearing, with no sign of partiality, no comments on their character or motives, and that findings are evidence-based. Can you wipe the slate clean or recuse yourself if you find that a problem? (Either is fine with me.) WP:INVOLVED, by my reading, only applies to admins, not arbitrators. Is that right? (Admins who are doing admin action, and defending yourself is not acting as an admin, is it?) Thanks again for reading my long post. (You should have seen the first draft! I'm glad I had good co-authors and editors when I wrote up my research manuscripts :P ) Dcs002 (talk) 20:01, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Gosh, Dcs002, with over 1,500 2,500 votes cast already due to the mass mailing they did this year, you are certainly making me work hard for just one more vote now that it's all over bar the shouting! But I'd rather answer you than some of the people on the question page and those who have just gone there and to this page to do a hatchet job.

I have never had previous difficulties with anyone. They might have had problems accepting my sanctions or me pointing out where they were clearly wrong, but that was their problem - I was only doing my job like the magistrate who bans a drunken driver for six months because that's what the law recommends he does,even if the driver can no longer use his car for work - yes, its a tough old world. That said, as I have said time and time again, of the 777 blocks I've meted out, (which is a lot less than most front line admins who in fact like Drmies, one of our best 'field-officers', for example, are few and far between) more than 700 of them were procedural, and of the rest, none have ever been overturned. As I said to someone who all but accused me of being a misogynist just because I don't go on the streets for womens' rights: I'm not running in this election for a joke - even if some others, like those who ask leading/loaded questions giving me no option but to identify myself as either a crank, a tyrannical schoolmaster, or a pederast, have turned this year's process into a farce. The joke is that I have never done anything whatsoever to harm or insult those people other than to campaign for years for better admins which ironically is what they are yelling for. But they love to shoot the messengers. They stalk my edits (as you have seen) and don't let an opportunity pass to take something out of context and pillory me for it, believe me, it's extremely hard in the face of some vile behaviour not to overstep the mark, and with some people who have used the question page here as a platform for their anti-admin or anti-male politics I come as close as I dare without stooping to their level.

If such people come before Arbcom for similar behaviour towards other editors or for disrupting due process, I will naturally see no need to recuse myself; I wouldn't be involved in whatever they had done to be accused of. I know how to read rhe evidence, I've been around Wikipedia long enough to know the general barometer of sanctions and I would not press for any harder sanctions than my colleagues on the Committee. If other Committee members have commented on on their character or motives, I may well concur and have to vote my agreement. What some people don't/won't understand s that the Committee is the CID, the CPS, the jury, and the judge all rolled into one. But if I have to constantly recuse myself for every case where I have a thorough dislike for the accused, then I might as well withdraw my candidacy right now because there are a quite a few editors who constantly keep getting dragged before the court.

Being on the Committee is no big deal (well, not for me), I'm only running because I was badgered into it by many well-meaning supporters last year (I did not run) and again this year. If I don't get elected I'm not going to cry into my soup, but I might no longer be quite the lenient admin I was behind my gruff exterior, and I would probably start doing my job a bit more firmly with vandals, bullies, and those who can't keep a civil tongue in their heads, and also look into ways of reforming the Committee and its election process from outside it. I wouldn't belittle your support for a moment but it's now a bit late in the day, so as we now have yet another two weeks to go and after 40 hours of answering questions already, I think it's time for us all to relax and wait for the results. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:30, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. (I am commenting now about my questions, no need to reply.) I just want to clarify something about why I asked all those questions. When I ask questions of you in a public forum like this, I don't assume you would answer them simply to get my one vote (despite my unfortunate choice of wording when I first posted here). Answering voter questions is always an opportunity to promote your candidacy. If a voter challenges something you said or did in a question, it's an opportunity to set the record straight, or close the matter however you wish. I really do take my vote seriously, even though it is just one in several thousand, and having a public forum like this is really helpful for someone like me who knew nothing about any of the candidates going into this. I assume there are a lot of us who are voting for the first time, and some of us would prefer to get to know you candidates. I assume your responses to my questions will be read by people other than me. It might even be true that, if the mass mailing is new this year, there might still be a lot of us who haven't voted yet - swing voters? It's a very long process to read everyone's statements, and question and comment pages, then wait for responses, comments, and follow-ups.

My thanks to you and everyone else who steps up and volunteers to do an ugly, time-consuming, and thankless job that I would never want. Campaigns are never fun, and the job you are asking for is probably even less so. Dcs002 (talk) 00:20, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

The outlook is bleak indeed Abandon hope all ye who enter here

Having fully assessed everything you have said, the subtle and not so subtle indications you vent together with your highly influencing senior pedagogic background, you treat WP like some global, virtual Dotheboys Hall. If that is your schtick, good look, we'll need it. Someone point me to the retired banner. Thanks by the way for removing your absured public accusation that I had been blocked 12 times. "Your ability to do accurate research must improve. D- on your school report." Leaky Caldron 13:16, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

key success factors of the linux community, what to take for wikipedia

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

• ThurnerRupert, 1) This question belongs on the question page, please do not abuse the election process. 2) This question has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on this election 3) In any case I am not in the slightst interested in your topic area and you cannot insist that Arbcom candidates have such knowledge or wish to comment. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:07, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Question from Dcs002

I have moved this comment here from Kudpung's Questions page as the sections on such pages are reserved for the specific user asking questions and the candidate answering them. THEowner of a l l 20:56, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

• @Dcs002. Another type of drama board exists. These are pages where Kudpung hangs out or inserts himself into user talk pages and whines, complains and generally denigrates anyone with the temerity to challenge his authority, ask him awkward questions and where he disparages sections of WP with epithets which would, in a underclass user, be considered personal attacks. He was recently seen jumping up and down on his sofa pretending that some of those question posers are under it. Which makes a change from suggesting that he would throw his beer at some people if he were to meet them! These are the pages of seriously influential editors. They meet up. They know each other. They support each other through thick and thin. To paraphrase "We petty men walk under their huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonourable graves." Kudpung is now at the top table - where he plainly deserves to be. There are some very astute questions on this page but I'll be turning my light out in a couple of weeks. Leaky Caldron 17:37, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Comment: I understand why moving the above comment here was appropriate, but I want to state clearly that, although my name is used in this subsection heading, I do not wish to be associated with that comment, in fact or in spirit. I do not endorse such sarcastic personal attacks, regardless of whether I intend to vote for the candidate. Dcs002 (talk) 23:49, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, tradition has it Dcs002, on Wikipedia that election time appears to be the one occasion where users can be as spiteful as possible and candidates are not allowed much scope to defend themselves. The problem is that here just like at RfA, younger or more naive voters might believe it all. This is one of the reasons why we don't get many candidates for adminship or the Arbitration committee. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:17, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

LFaraone

key success factors of the linux community, what to take for wikipedia

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Mahensingha

key success factors of the linux community, what to take for wikipedia

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

In the mentioned period even the wikipedia has gone popular by multiple times and the technological advancements have certainly well supported the tasks being undertaken. Being open platform Linux really did well. At present I do not have any experience of mailing lists. But, dealing with any of the jobs I handle I will certainly accomodate the technology in my work.--MahenSingha (Talk) 09:35, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

MarkBernstein

Mark Bernstein attempted to get me banned from Wikipedia because of my behavior. I vote against his adminship. 2602:306:8B40:CC20:6466:4F15:BFBB:ADCA (talk) 21:45, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

So are you banned? Why edit as an IP then? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:30, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

It's not an RfA, it's an Arbcom election. You will need to vote using the voting system, which requires that you use a registered account, of a certain age and with a certain number of edits. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:20, 22 November 2015 (UTC).

I think this user should be banned from Wikipedia for his leftist, SJW and anti-free speech mindset. He is a fanger to Wikipedia and unfit for any arbcom or even admin tasks. He is a frequent pain in the rear for editors who want to add sourced material and a user who often tries to keep articles such as gamergate completely NOT npov. Banning him from Wikipedia has already been done, yet he keeps coming back because of his leftist SJW friends. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.90.245.209 (talk) 16:57, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

But what about the pie? Why don’t you tell us what you really think -- and who you really are? MarkBernstein (talk) 19:44, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't object to anonymity. IPs are people too. However, for the benefit of uninvolved electors, accusations of this kind should be sourced, preferably in the form of diffs. Unsubstantiated scuttlebutt can and will be ignored. De Guerre (talk) 01:31, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

STRONG SUPPORT: I strongly endorse Mark Bernstein's candidacy for ArbCom. He is a deep thinker is deeply knowledgeable about hypertextuality. He is a hard worker, and is fair and principled. Pleasantville (talk) 01:41, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

ENDORSE: I voted for you, Mark. Even though I am sympathetic to the GamerGators and generally loathe SJWs, I know that there should be balance on ArbCom. That means that there will be leftists. If we need to have leftist SJWs I would rather have you than someone totally irrational or high-strung. You are not irrational, you are not high-strung. I'm just happy that you're willing to be on ArbCom, as we could have a lot worse than you. I am not being sarcastic. I did vote for you. Thank you for your service in general. --FeralOink (talk) 03:57, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Comments/questions As far as I can tell, this candidate seems to be driven by one very important issue. But that's just one issue. What if that issue doesn't come up in any ArbCom cases during the next term? Has he pre-judged any cases that are pending? He has a rather elaborate and hmm... I'll say floral writing style that makes me not really want to read. Does this candidate work well with those of opposing views, or will he muck things up with endless, righteous, stubborn argument? We need strong voices on this one issue, but I have seen no sign of neutrality before the evidence. All I see is advocacy. We need that on this issue, but how will that make ArbCom a fair and open body? It's like WP's Supreme Court. I don't want Johnny Cochrane on the bench. I want him on the other side of the bench, arguing the cases.

If I sound like I'm just being critical, I am, but critical in the academic sense. I really want to understand this candidate, and if my comments are misguided, I would like to learn why. I would not be here wasting my time if I weren't interested. Dcs002 (talk) 07:50, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Where were you in the questions period? Can we still do questions? These are better than all the inside baseball!

You worry that my writing is florid. My ArbCom writing has been florid because (a) ArbCom’s silly pseudo-judicial trappings, and the mock-heroic style so many affect on the drama boards, invite it, and (b) a lad’s got to have some amusement when dealing with this nonsense. I don’t usually write that way: see my book if you like, or my research papers. I promise not to write extended passages of alliterative verse and to keep Milton out of it. Malt (and pie!) do more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.

I work very well indeed with people who hold a variety of opposing views. The questions that are my central concern here are harassment and extortion. I probably won’t collaborate effectively with people who believe that Wikipedia ought to threaten to maim software developers, or to tell their families that they’ll shortly be murdered. If people advocate using Wikipedia to commit extortion, then yes, I'm very likely to muck things up with stubborn argument if that’s the best way to stop it. If you want to encourage harassment and extortion on Wikipedia, or think we should be neutral about harassment and extortion, then you have many better choices. You don’t need a voter guide: the incumbents have been doing a fine job. If you want someone who will try to stop harassment and extortion, I’m your guy.

No, I've not prejudged any cases. If no case that involves harassment or extortion comes up in the next two years, I'd be delighted. But what odds are you giving? MarkBernstein (talk) 15:14, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I did not post this in the question section because I thought maybe some of your supporters might want to weigh in (I still hope they do), and I did not want to pose questions that appear to be thinly-veiled criticisms of a candidate. I also think a talk page like this allows you more room as a candidate to offer more than a sound bite that has to be general enough to be relevant to most people, and therefore possibly limited in substance.

I am just learning about the harassment that happened, and I've now read a fair bit about it, including your off-site essays. (I have to tell you, I have a suspicion that there is some amount of spin in those essays. Of course I might be wrong, and of course the truth of such crimes needs to be made known.) Such crimes need to be met with absolute intolerance, if everything I have read is true, and I get the impression that more happened than I have read. But I have a few follow-up questions for you: Did you have access to private information at the time? If so, did you use that access to look up identifying information about the person committing these crimes? Did you or anybody else contact any law enforcement agency? If not, then why not? What you describe is a series of felonies where I live. If a person was put in fear of her life, shouldn't ArbCom or WMF or any user who knew about these crimes have taken steps to protect her, other than advocating for administrative action on WP?

I will post a question, maybe more, on your question page. Thanks again for your reply. Dcs002 (talk) 23:35, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

You may think my essays were “spin,” but they have been widely read and widely cited. If your opinions differ, by all means write and publish them.

Yes, I have had private communication about Gamergate with Gamergate targets, with harassers, with journalists, with many of the leading scholars of social media and Web Science, with state, federal, and international legislators, and many other people. I am not a law enforcement official, and so I have not personally investigated the identities of harasserrs. As you will have see in media reports, many law enforcement agencies in the US and elsewhere have indeed been contacted. You and I agree that ArbCom could and should have done more to protect the targets of Gamergate harassment, as well as those who sought to uphold Wikipedia policy in the face of the assault. MarkBernstein (talk) 15:13, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

STRONG SUPPORT AND MY VOTE, DESPITE NOT BEING AS MIFFED AT PR: I strongly support Mark, however I'm not as miffed as he is about PR agencies on Wiki. I have nothing to do with them, but frankly, I think they add a lot of value to Wiki. For example, I'm the main creator of the List of Music Software Article, and I actually enjoy when agencies and shills add links to new software. It keeps us more Amazon like, and gives researchers options and choices, buyer beware or not. In fact, I even like Amazon links to books as much as ISBNs that you have to wade through. I know this is a much different view than Mark's and in fact most other editors, and I wanted to strongly voice my support despite this major difference of opinion. I respect his strong views on care about living persons also, even though some of his edits have a fine enough sorting algorithm to exclude some possibly worthy academics. Trade off acceptable for the good it does. All these candidates have trade offs, but Mark and Callanecc have the experience needed to fix Arb, and anyone burned by it after working their butts off on articles knows it NEEDS fixing. So, after all that, I happily show my hand: Mark is thumbs up because he knows how much this needs fixing, and has the experience, objectivity and passion to make it happen. Pdecalculus (talk) 14:43, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. I should emphasize that I completely agree with that public relations agencies and principals can often edit productively in contexts, like lists of music software, where they readily can provide useful, reliable, and verifiable information. MarkBernstein (talk) 15:13, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

CAUTIOUSLY SUPPORT: Definitely passionate about the subjects he edits. Major plus for ArbCom, but it is prone to forgoing any alternates to come forward. If Mark is willing to keep his sarcastic writing style and humor + doesn't get into fights with other ArbCom editors then he's got my non-existent vote. (sorry, m8, I don't edit much so I'm not eligible, but I'd like to give my two cents for those who want it.) Sethyre (talk) 19:39, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

I disagree in part; ArbCom needs more wit, not less. ArbCom has covered itself in preposterous pseudo-judicial trappings. These may have had some utility when ArbCom faced different sorts of challenges, but today they cause trouble a lot of the time and invite ridicule all of the time.

The sarcasm, on the other hand, you can keep. As an outsider, I've found it necessary to shout in order to be heard, and to be very bitterly sarcastic in order not to be patronized. I do agree that wouldn't be helpful from an arbitrator. But pie -- well, sometimes, pie is what we need. MarkBernstein (talk) 20:37, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Hm, not sure if I didn't properly articulate what I wanted to say? I really enjoy your writings, and I wouldn't dare dream of telling people with wit to not utilize their weapon of choice. That said, I'm looking forward to the Wiki-pie-dia of 2016. Also yes; I can only do dad jokes. Blame my dad. Sethyre (talk) 00:27, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

key success factors of the linux community, what to take for wikipedia

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

This isn't really the time or place for a disquisition into the nature of open source, the transformation of IBM from hardware to consulting, the differing personalities of Torvalds and Stallman, or the perplexities of the Gnu Public License. Those interested in the confluence of open source and Wiki might begin by reading The Wiki Way by the originator of the Wiki, Ward Cunningham. MarkBernstein (talk) 15:37, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

this means nothing to learn from there concerning conflict resolution? that is a strong statement already :) --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:39, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't know how you made that leap; it's certainly now what I wrote. It's also not entirely clear to me that the open source community has been faced by organized harassment and extortion that confront Wikipedia, or indeed that its record on sexual harassment is entirely satisfactory. We might draw many lessons from Open Source and from other historical precedents. I pointed to one great source that's explicitly relevant to Wikipedia but which is, I suspect, not as well known here as it should be. That might not be your cathedral, but in our bazaar there are many shops. MarkBernstein (talk) 15:47, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Yay! Yay! Cathedral and bazaar metaphor! I love IBM, and mourn its transformation from hardware to consulting. Did I mention that I voted for you for ArbCom, Mark ;o) Here's a nice article about open source that you and ThurnerRupert might enjoy: A Generation Lost in the Bazaar (Quality happens only when someone is responsible for it) via ACM Queue.--FeralOink (talk) 17:38, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

NE Ent

What, no comments yet?

I have harshly criticized NE Ent once or twice. NE Ent is a fine, calm person who does not return fire. NE Ent would make a good arbitrator. Jehochman ^Talk 14:07, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

He does show signs of frustration from time to time, however. (I suppose that is because he is human!?) IHTS (talk) 01:05, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

He *does* return fire, he just does it subtly and insidiously so that it slips under the radar. He shows clear favoritism towards certain editors. MaxBrowne (talk) 02:19, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

"Moderate UK insult"

This edit suggests a bias in favour of a certain editor, and against proper enforcement of the civility policy. It's true that the "heinously misogynistic" (note hyperbolic language) US usage is not prevalent in the UK and Australia and New Zealand, however the "moderate UK insult" is actually very strong and will probably get your teeth knocked out if you use it on a random person in the pub. It's probably the only word you still can't say on TV in these countries (I've heard "fuck" plenty of times on BBC programs). I suspect Ent knows all this, but for whatever reason is biased either in favour of Eric or against enforcement of normal decorum and civility. (For the record I have no personal beef with Eric and would happily collaborate with him on an article, however we tend not to edit in the same areas).

Also of concern is the preoccupation with other people's drama at the expense of encyclopedia building... no non-admin should have more edits to ANI than to main space. When not posting at various ANI threads, he's writing essays about civility, patronisingly telling people that "life is not fair" or trying to invent his own wikipedia memes. MaxBrowne (talk) 10:53, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

I've said the same thing. However, upon reflection I realize that different people will be fascinated by different things. If NE Ent is interested in how to improve online interaction between people, that's what he's going to work on. Whether or not somebody is an admin should make no difference to how they try to help. A fair number of people around here respect NE Ent's opinions, more so than the opinions of some admins. Jehochman ^Talk 16:19, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Not a fan of WP:NOJUSTICE, either. But NE Ent might be the "Socrates of Wikipedia". (And what if Socrates had gotten "a real job"?) IHTS (talk) 01:12, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

When formulating my evidence section for AE2, I was repeatedly struck by the absurdity of having to justify an insult. In Wikipedia-as-it-should-be, it would not matter which (UK/US) connotation was meant. But in a world where anger, aggression, vehemence, disparagement, snark, sarcasm, snideness, harassment, demeaning, name calling, profanity, punishment, revenge, payback, keeping score, arrogance, put downs, AGF is not a suicide pact, Facepalm , seriously? derision, sigh, troll, wtf, ffs, narcissist, fuck off is common, it actually becomes important, depressingly, to distinguish between run of the mill insult and outlier insult. NE Ent 13:39, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

I understand the offensiveness, and, during the original 2011 episode, with Eric's consent redacted the usage. As I said at the time It'll either blow over (achieving nothing) or blow up (causing lots of churn and angst and in the end achieve nothing) If Wikipedia was truly focused on dispute resolution, rather than punishment, it could have ended there, instead of still churning over it four years later. NE Ent 13:39, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

This isn't so much about NE Ent's candidacy. It's a point for optimism: We do have good dispute resolution available. Does anyone go through mediation anymore? Or is it right to ANI? I see the Mediation Cabal is no more, but the DRN looks like a great alternative. Maybe less fire and glitter and forcefulness, but maybe more substance too because it's voluntary. I've gone to mediation twice, and both times it was a positive experience, especially the second time, when the mediator declined the mediation case because through the process of seeking mediation, we had begun resolving our problems ourselves. If people like working on dispute resolution, that's a great place to go. Dcs002 (talk) 10:19, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

My Q/A

As is obvious from the history of NE Ent's talk page, as well as my own Q&A page, I'm trying to finalize the candidates I want to support. I was earlier asked about the idea of a non-admin becoming an arbitrator, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. So I asked NE (among a number of other candidates) a question that I considered fairly important in who I personally want to vote for. After I asked it, I realized I had posed a question that someone without previous functionary experience wouldn't have the full context or backstory to answer, so I posted a quite non-argumentative request for clarification - I didn't want to ask the same question to some people who were literally involved in the email thread that triggered the question while also asking it of people who weren't in a position to understand the full context or backstory. NE removed my request for clarification; I initially attempted to remove my entire question (as has been done on several candidates' pages) because I thought it not quite right to leave the question up when it wasn't a question he had the full backstory or context to. I removed my name and sig from the question afterwards in an effort to basically indicate that I thought I had fucked up in asking a question that I didn't provide enough context to to someone who didn't have the context from their past experience, particularly because NE's lack of previous functionary experience is explicitly one of the reasons why I have been considering voting for him. I think it's a bit silly that OID restored my signature when all its replacement really did was indicate that I thought I had fucked up, and not anything bad about NE.

I consider it kind of silly for the initial request for clarification to have been reverted by NE, and really silly that someone who wasn't NE reverted my own attempt to explain that I thought I had fucked up by asking a question to someone without the full context of why I was asking it, but I'll let NE decide what to do whenever he's around next. I fucked up by looking for a non-admin candidate and then asking them a question that required previous functionary experience to understand why I was posing the question, and think it's especially silly that anyone other than NE reverted my own attempt to explain in as few words as possible in small type that I thought I had fucked up in how I asked my own question in a way that was unfair to NE. Further explanation is on both my own Q&A page, and NE's usertalk page. Kevin Gorman (talk) 09:31, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I restored your signature because your attempt to distance yourself from something that doesnt paint you in a good light is clearly self-serving. You asked a rather stupidly formulated question and got an answer that you didnt like. Then you tried to backpedal, followed by an attempt to disassociate yourself from it by not having it overtly linked to yourself. Now you are harping on about his 'lack of experience not enabling him to understand your question' etc etc. The reality is he did understand your question, gave you an answer which clearly illustrates why your question was silly, and you still wont drop it. As far as I am concerned, the person who lacks experience and understanding here is not NE. I suggest you voluntarily restrict yourself to your own QA page instead of engaging in pointless bickery regarding other candidates. You will be elected (or not) on your merits. Not on how much you can disprove others. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:57, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Providing clarification about the specific scenario (which to be clear was before arbcom and the OS team this year) in an attempt to give more context to a question to someone who lacked it is 'backpedalling'? Kevin Gorman (talk) 12:25, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

A question was asked. It was based a rather thin premise -- that the impact of three things is indicative of one of those things. I took the time to look at the study quoted, and explain why the reasoning wasn't compelling. In reply to my query on my talk page, Kevin then synthesized that Oversight wouldn't suppress the information that provides the majority of the localization, date of birth and zip code, based on his interpretation of an email he received [29], which struck me as implausible. The policy states "Removal of non-public personal information, such as phone numbers, home addresses, workplaces or identities" (emphasis mine) so I was pretty sure date of birth or zip code would quality. As has been pointed out, I'm not even an admin, let alone an oversighter ... so I asked an Oversighter, and received the expected, common sense answer that dates of birth and zip codes have always be suppressed in her experience. I don't mind the question, so much. But honestly, the innuendo that the Oversight team isn't doing their job kinda pisses me off, which I try not to let happen in my wiki-life. Now, if the question is, do I think unwanted speculation about an editor's gender should at least be rev-deleted, I would say yes, not because any geolocate-by-gender argument but because simply it's no one's business if the editor doesn't want to specify. NE Ent 02:18, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

• NE: I don't want to quote from an arbitrator's email without his own explicit permission, and I appreciate your answering this in greater detail here, but I want to be clear that this was not something I synthesized out of thin air. Since Roger Davies has had no qualms in sharing the gist of the contents of my emails with him but not their exact contents, I don't feel like I need to have any qualms about returning the favor. I like a lot of our oversighters - some of them I count among my best friends - and think that left to their own devices they do a pretty damn good job exercising discretion. Earlier this year, Roger, acting on behalf of arb and OS (and arb does have great significance interpreting WP:OS,) sent me an email that stated that the undisclosed gender of an editor was categorically not something that could be oversighted. He didn't try to make a contextual case, but made a flat out statement that since gender was not explicitly listed in OS#1, it was categorically unoversightable, even in a situation that put an editor at potential real-life risk. Kevin Gorman (talk)

Did you contact WMF? NE Ent 10:42, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Not sure I want to step into this but here goes... Gender is considered non-public information by policy when associated with someone's account, right? I don't want more details about this case, just - have I got that right? Is this question of oversight about which policies are covered by this specific oversight process, or is this about whether gender is actually protected information?

(I first posted this as a follow-up on the Q&A page and quickly realized that section is reserved for the questioner.) Dcs002 (talk) 08:55, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't think so; copy-pasting the referenced section (emphasis mine):

Information you provide us or information we collect from you that could be used to personally identify you. To be clear, while we do not necessarily collect all of the following types of information, we consider at least the following to be “personal information” if it is otherwise nonpublic and can be used to identify you:

   (a) your real name, address, phone number, email address, password, identification number on government-issued ID, IP address, user-agent information, credit card number;
   (b) when associated with one of the items in subsection (a), any sensitive data such as date of birth, gender, sexual orientation, racial or ethnic origins, marital or familial status, medical conditions or disabilities, political affiliation, and religion; and
   (c) any of the items in subsections (a) or (b) when associated with your user account.

given the qualifiers "and can be used to identify you:" and "when associated with one of the items in subsection," my personal interpretation would gender is not necessarily oversightable. I claim to be neither an expert on WMF policy nor a lawyer, but my basic WP:AGF would be that oversight did the right thing lacking evidence to the contrary. In any event, if someone has a problem with actions of Roger Davies, they should discuss with Roger, and if they feel either a) WMF policies are being violated or b) someone is being put in danger, they should contact WMF. WMF does take community concerns seriously: there was a recent AN discussion involving apparent retention of checkuser beyond WMF guidelines, as written at the time, so I emailed WMF about it and they clarified the guidelines [30]. NE Ent 10:42, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

• Gender is explicitly covered under WMF's privacy policy, but, as confirmed by legal, but the WMF privacy policy applies to CU but not OS (also confirmed by legal.) Gender is not explicitly listed as an example of PII in WP:OS, but OS#1 authorizes the use of the tool for the suppression of PII and then gives a non-exclusive list of types of PII. So, gender isn't explicitly listed, but it's not meant to be an inclusive list, either - hence the room for how arbs choose to interpret a policy that they are primarily responsible for enforcing. Roger made a categorical statement that because gender was not an explicitly listed criterion, it was categorically not-oversightable. I'm find with arguments that discretion should be involved and context is important, I just refuse to vote for an arb who would make a statement directly to the effect that PII such as gender is categorically not oversightable. I have had conversations with WMf about it, but because it involved a situation where the editor was, luckily, not immediately in direct danger they declined to intervene. Bluntly, although if you are elected I'd be happy to fill you in on the context of the case, I asked the question both because it was based on an incident that did occur, and because I wanted to judge the rigidity of candidates in terms of interpreting policies that they will be primarily responsible for interpreting.

  Basically, even without knowing the specifics of the situation, the answer you pretty much just gave - that gender is not necessarily oversightable, but that it depends on context (and can be oversightable in certain circumstances) was pretty much the sort of answer I was looking for. Kevin Gorman (talk) 16:49, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Roger made a categorical statement that because gender was not an explicitly listed criterion, it was categorically not-oversightable. I've not said that.  Roger Davies ^talk 19:26, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. Dcs002 (talk) 04:52, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Opabinia regalis

Sounds good to me

Knows what an 'emacs virgin' is. Correctly calls out its misuse. Can identify difference between STEM and non-STEM barriers to participation. Support. --DHeyward (talk) 05:41, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks DHeyward :)

For those who don't recognize this particular bit of cultural flotsam, "emacs virgins" refers to an incident in which Richard Stallman made a joke about women who have never used emacs.* Opabinia regalis (talk) 01:20, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

*That's because they all used vi instead.**

**Hey! No flame wars at arbcom!

1 Question re Statement

This a serious process. Jokes are inappropriate. Skidding, jokes are appropriate always and everywhere, esp at funerals.

Re it's important that arbcom tasks be structured to make effective use of available volunteer time. Where work can be given back to the community, we all win: perceived power is decentralized, decisions can be made more transparently, and arbcom can concentrate on its core functions.

How will you structure tasks, reassign work to the community, and make decisions more transparent?

Thanks; LeoRomero (talk) 01:42, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, it's hard to be specific in advance, without knowing in detail how the workflow is currently structured or which tasks are the most time-consuming. I would have said that BASC reform was a priority, considering the apparent consensus among arbs posting on-wiki about it that it was a low-yield effort that required a lot of time; however, the current arbs went ahead and did it themselves :) So it remains to be seen what the appeals workload will look like in the new system.

The obvious workflow-management problem is all the email. In real life I do a lot of coordinating among a geographically dispersed group, and email alone really is a slow, inefficient way to do it. Frankly the current mailing list system for communicating with arbcom as a group, and communicating amongst arbs, is antiquated. I understand there has been prior discussion about moving to a CRM system for managing communications and workflow, and I'm not sure exactly why no progress has been made, but this seems like an obvious win if the kinks can be worked out. More efficient internal communications would not only save time but also improve apparent responsiveness to the community and prevent low-priority tasks from falling through the cracks. (All those issues that are low priority to arbs as a group are high priority to the individual user who raised them, after all.)

Overseeing functionary appointments is another peripheral task, and AUSC is still in limbo. I don't have any immediate suggestions on those issues because I'm not a functionary, and I'm not sure how much time investment appointments have historically required. But my general philosophy is that responsibilities like this, which arbcom has taken up more or less through lack of any better ideas on where to put them, should be given a proper place instead of being shoved under the arbcom umbrella. Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:48, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks @Opabinia regalis: Your answers here and in your Nominations Q&A, are impressive. Maybe your relative inexperience with Arb will indeed be the boon that you predict it to be. That you are a Franklin among Watsons, also. And then there's that indisputable fact that women, as a species, are better than men. - TYA; LeoRomero (talk) 21:37, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

key success factors of the linux community

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, an old version of my userpage featured a long blockquote from Linus on kernel management style, and the current version links to a blog post by a woman who recently stopped contributing to kernel development due to the unpleasantness of working in the developer community, so it's safe to say I'm of (at least) two minds on the subject. I think the histories of both Linux and Wikipedia conclusively demonstrate the success of the open model (and I'm pleased that this has entered scientific publishing as well, with open-access journals seeing huge advances over the last decade). Linux and Wikipedia have taken different paths in that Linus continues to function as a sort of benevolent dictator for life - a common pattern in open-source software - while Jimbo has assumed more of a constitutional-monarch role.

The success of the Linux community is undoubtedly a major achievement, but the range of skill sets needed to write and maintain a reference work with a broad scope and a broad audience is very different, and much harder to objectively evaluate, than the range of skills needed for a fundamentally technical role. Another key difference is the role volunteer contributions play in career paths - very few Wikipedians (legitimately) use their contributions here as leverage in their real-life careers, and most are contributing in areas where they have no specific real-world expertise, while many Linux developers are professionals and can use their contributions as evidence of their technical skill. I don't think either community has really found an effective approach for managing productive but polarizing people, or for maintaining a healthy community environment that encourages diversity. The trouble with applying this attitude to Wikipedia is that the diversity of our community really is reflected in our actual product. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:15, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

ha, many thanks! did not know Linus on kernel management style, but i find it funny, and i was in a number of situations where i could have used various parts of it. --ThurnerRupert (talk) 19:38, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Quick endorsement

We have a lot of really thoughtful and capable candidates to choose from, but your Q & A page and discussion page responses really stand out. I hope your real-life life allows you enough opportunity to use and share the skills you are offering to share with us. You better win! Dcs002 (talk) 05:12, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough

Checking evidence

I posted a number of problems I saw with the recent mainspace creations (redirects and articles) by Rich Farmbrough, after which a back and forth followed and more problems arose (see Question from User:Fram). My conclusion was (and is) that "If you can't accurately judge evidence presented in cases, you can not be a useful ArbCom member". Further discussion about my points and his replies by uninvolved, more objective editors may be welcome, but perhaps belongs here more than on the questions page (although you are welcome there as well!). Fram (talk) 08:45, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

I seem to remember that you and Rich have seen most things differently for as long as I am active on Wikipedia, which is now some 8 years. Personally, I have found myself mostly in agreement with Rich. Debresser (talk) 20:14, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Over those 8 years or in this specific discussion? Fram (talk) 07:33, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't know either of you, but I've gone through the question pages for most of the candidates now while voting and your back and forth with Rich Farmbrough is by far the largest 'question' I've seen. While the vast majority of questions asked of candidates seem to be neutral (with many of them duplicated to several candidates) your thread seems more like you have a grudge against this candidate, and it seems to be about trivial issues. While I would never suggest myself for candidacy, I certainly do not have the ability to maintain civility that Rich Farmbrough displayed when responding to your interrogation. ― Padenton|✉   22:01, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Oh, my question definitely wasan't neutral, it was about serious continuing problems with his editing I perceived, including violations of his editing restrictions resulting in more invented "pseudonyms" never used before he created them. The question didn't come out of the blue but were based on years of experience with the user. His replies may have been civil, but they were dishonest (he checked 500 article creations, and only one was unsourced?), which is much worse. I'ld rather have an ArbCom member who occasionally tells people to fuck off than one you can't trust (neither trust to adequately check evidence, nor trust to be honest). But to each his or her own of course. Fram (talk) 07:51, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough from what I have seen, and I have probably seen his activity since I first began here while I started at Stony Brook University, and his contributions always seemed to be a contribution to the nest. I don't know what the issues between you and Rich may be but your pursuit of Rich Farmbrough seems to be inordinately dedicated - almost predatorial, certainly adversarial. As I've said, I've never seen Farmbrough's edits warrant that kind of pursuit, and my recall of them is that they were not generally destructive in nature, as a number of others on Wikipedia do in fact practice, nor do I remember him as overzealous or a deletionist per se, which I find largely counterproductive to Wikipedia's aims. If anything the opposition that you elicit to his participation seems a bit over the top... Just saying... I don't know you nor Mr. Farmbrough but I have seen his edits and recognize him to be an active and contributing and non-hostile participant on Wikipedia...Stevenmitchell (talk) 02:24, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Often active, contributing, and non-hostile, that's true, but way too often wrong, and not interested in changing this (basically not even recognising this). This was a major problem when he was a bot operator, and is still a problem now that he has been forced to slow down his editing. There are more ways to damage Wikipedia than just being a deletionist (or an inclusionist), being a productive sloppy editor for years also causes lots of damage, but this is less obvious. Fram (talk) 13:42, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Note The below two questions were moved here from Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates/Rich Farmbrough/Questions by @Mike V: without any indication of this on either page. While the move is understandable, some indication of this would have been helpful. I have added notes on both pages. Fram (talk) 07:58, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Question from Bzuk

Let me just say that this defense was given and debunked by others than me at the discussion about this block. You can see at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Archive 3A#Against the 25 March 2013 block of Rich Farmbrough that uninvolved editors like @Guy Macon: and @Resolute: have looked at what happened, and that the above explanation doesn't match what really happened. When you are editing a page manually, you don't change ‘Madhubala’ to Madhubala’ , ‘Madhubala’ to Madhubala’ (again), ‘Sunday’ to Sunday’ , ‘Eurek(h)a’ to Eurek(h)a’ , ‘Eureka’ to Eureka’ , ‘I got it’ to I got it’ , ‘Shooting Straight’ to Shooting Straight’ , ‘Rekha Strikes Back’ to Rekha Strikes Back’. You can miss one or two, but not eight in a row (while eight times removing the first one). That the draft became an article has no relevance to this block of course. I could just as well (and equally irrelevant) use the fact that the other article edit I mentioned at the AE request, one to List of Other Backward Classes, was to an article that was afterwards removed through AfD. Your editing restrictions and blocks have nothing to do with the fate of the articles involved, but more with things like incorrectly bot editing the Main Page and so on. The latest block was long but didn't come out of the blue. Fram (talk) 07:45, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Question from User:Fram

• "Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents was to be created becasue an external site links to the article through that address." but that wasn't the redirect I asked about, I mentioned the improbably named Creating Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents. Wrong.
• The problem with the Swimming at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London was not where it was used, but that you redirected it to Swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics, which made it (like I claimed) an incorrect redirect. You rightly thank Thryduulf for his correction of your error, but your statement "(thanks to User:Thryduulf for his fix on the actual issue here)." makes it sound as if my remark was not about the actual issue. Wrong.
• Zerby Denby: that's a completely vacuous argument you present. Where does the "incorrect name used of her" come from? I couldn't find a single instance where this version of her name is used. Is it something you made up, or something you got from a source I can't find?
• Calcium chlooide dihydrate: any evidence for this? Again, I couldn't find a single instance of this being used anywhere.

• Margaretta Morris: you could have searched for it of course. Google Books, ""Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia" first woman" gives you multiple good sources for Lucy Say, who became a member in 1841. The fact that she was the first was already mentioned in her article here on Wikipedia as well. Sources include "The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science", the "Minutes and Correspondence of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 1812-1924" by Venia Phillips, and "Encyclopedia of Women in American History: Civil War, western expansion, and industrialization, 1820-1900" (Sharpe Reference, 2002).
• Queen's Award: "I wonder how much more content we have lost due to those premature deletions." Um, these pages were completely empty, so nothing was lost or was "premature". The creation of these pages was premature though. And you ignore that these are still at a very strange title of your own invention, as was pointed out years ago.
• As for completely unsourced creations, you may not have noticed Eighteen Chefs, which you created in September 2015[31]: completely unsourced and with a blatant BLP violation to boot. Other editors added a source two days later, but that's not to your credit, so your claim that "I checked my last 500 creations in article space, this is the only un-sourced article" may be literally true but gives a totally wrong impression (or did you include the hundreds of redirects in those "500 creations"? Then again, you would be making an impressive claim that turns out to be not so impressive). By the way, you got the name of the founder wrong when creating the article, an error that persists until now.
• Oh, and whatever spin you would like to give to your "I checked my last 500 creations in article space, this is the only un-sourced article" claim, it is on looking just a bit further flat out and blatantly wrong. Ambassadors of Mexico to Colombia from 14 October 2015? Facet joint arthrosis from 12 October 2015? The Pilgrims (Canterbury Tales) from 10 October 2015? Northumberland Strategic Partnership from 3 October 2015, which I already specifically mentioned above as unsourced as well? These are all from your last 500 creations redirects included, probably among your last 25 or 30 creations if you exclude redirects (I haven't counted, just estimating).

is this the level of scrutiny you will bring to the evidence in cases brought to you as an ArbCom member? You are way too often wrong in what you write in articles, and you are more worryingly still seemingly incapable of looking at evidence or checking claims with any level of reliability. Basically, your answer to my remarks has made it totally clear that you are absolutely unsuited for a role as an ArbCom member, where half the job is checking evidence and dissecting claims. If you are either unable to check even your own contributions, or can't be trusted to give an honest answer and just make up stuff to defend yourself, then you can never be a trustworthy, good arbitrator (or admin for that matter). And that's not even going into the matter of your automated redirect generation, which you don't address. Don't bother, I guess things are more than clear now for anyone willing to see. Fram (talk) 21:26, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your response, though I'm not sure this in meant to be an interview. You started your first TLDR with the claim that I "may gain adminship through this election" - clearly false. You claimed that the redirects you listed were "random" - also clearly false. And so forth. I assume these were mistakes, which we all make. You prefer to see deception if you disagree with what I say. That's your prerogative I suppose. The fact is you went looking for errors, and found a couple of typos. You then (as you have before) implied that I am lying - about Zerby Denby and Calcium chlooide dihydrate and probably other things, despite the fact that I treated your issues in good faith. I'm not surprised to see this WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality continuing after your Wikibreak, though I am disappointed. If you wish to discuss any of these content matters on my talk page, civilly, you will be most welcome, as I have told you many times before.

I'm glad that the RfC seems to be heading to a "no-admin-through-arbcom" result, that's one worry less. As for your other points: I did not claim that the redirects were random, I claimed that they were "Incorrect or rather random and useless redirects". None of those I have listed have been shown to be anything else: one was definitely wrong (corrected by Thryduulf, as you have acknowledged), for one you may have had a good reason (the Calcium one, although we only have your word for it), and the other two are just wrong and your defense of them sorely lacking in hard facts (e.g. there is no evidence whatsoever that "Zerby Denby" is "an incorrect name used of her", like you claim, and for the Colbert one you argued about the wrong redirect, not the one I mentioned). So no, these were not mistakes on my part, just mistakes or dodges on your part.

"The fact is you went looking for errors, and found a couple of typos." Getting a year of birth wrong three times in one article is "a typo"? Saying someone is the "first female member" of an Academy, when she isn't, is "a typo"? Putting an article at the wrong name is "a typo"? Saying a ward was created in 2002, when in reality it existed decades earlier, is "a typo"? If I had wanted to list typos, I would have done so, but I restricted myself to actual errors, the ones I could easily spot in a cursory check.

I notice that you have "corrected" the Margaretta Morris article[32], maintaining the claim that she was the first female member, with an unsourced note rejecting the claim of Lucy Say which basically contradicts the sources I gave earlier (and, speaking of typos, which has a typo to boot). It looks as if, in response to someone pointing out an error and providing multiple good sources to back this up, you just rejected these sources and added an incorrect unsourced note to defend your position. I guess you have mixed up her standard membership of the Academy with her status as a Corresponding Member of the Entomological Society of Philadelphia, which is a different beast alltogether. (See e.g. [33] page 11 of 44, which mentions both these memberships separately) Please don't make things worse in your futile attempts to defend yourself.

Further, you have ignored your blatantly incorrect claim about unsourced articles (like you ignored the claim about your restriction violation through the redirect generator earlier). Things like this make me indeed question whether you are incompetent or dishonest (which aren't mutually exclusive). If you have a better explanation, feel free to provide it. But so far, all your comments here have done is reinforce that image: the near-complete lack of straightforward and correct answers in all of this is not a very good track record.

Finally, why didn't I discuss this at your talk page? You are up for ArbCom, scrutiny of your suitability for the position and discussion with you about problematic issues should happen here, not on your talk page, even though you obviously would prefer that (now why would that be?). Again, if you are not capable of checking the evidence provided to you here and make error after error in your judgment of it (most blatantly in the "no unsourced articles bar one" claim, and in the Morris article, but basically in all your replies here), then why should anyone trust you to suddenly be capable of it when you need to do it in an ArbCom case? This is not some tangential issue about your editing, this is very relevant to your ArbCom candidacy and speaks volumes about your qualifications for it. If you can't accurately judge evidence presented in cases, you can not be a useful ArbCom member. Fram (talk) 07:58, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your extremely long response. Since I have been around the block with you on previous occasions, I am aware that you are capable of keeping this discussion going for many years. Therefore I will address three of your remaining claims here, simply to establish that a significant proportion of them are wrong. After that I will address no more claims about content here, only substantive questions, that are not thinly veiled, or unveiled, attacks. The invitation to discuss content and indeed any other concerns on my talk page remains open.  · The status of Say's and Morris's membership is documented in the membership lists of the Academy. As you say above "you could have searched for it of course", so I am surprised to see you complain.  · Here is photographic evidence for Zerby Denby. Text showing putative birth name of Kim Darby  · And here is photographic evidence for Calcium chlooide dihydrate. A detail from packaging showing a misspelled chemical name. Now, presumably before writing your first screed you were extremely careful to ensure that all your facts were straight. Yet a good proportion were wrong, either because you were assuming bad faith, or for other reasons. When you list of "errors" is full of errors itself (there are plenty more) it is not convincing evidence of anything - except that we all make mistakes - even you. As far as qualification for the role, I think I have listened to what you have to say, have responded calmly and neutrally, despite your history, and exhibited extreme patience, which I understand is a helpful quality in an Arbitrator.

You have demonstrated patience, but that's about it. I notice that you have now removed your note from Margaretta Morris[34] and changed her to the first "resident member", without providing any evidence here or there for that change. You have not given any source that indicates that Say was a different kind of member than Morris. You seem to be incapable of admitting error, and prefer to bury your head in the sand. "The status of Say's and Morris's membership is documented in the membership lists of the Academy. As you say above "you could have searched for it of course", so I am surprised to see you complain." I have searched for it, what's more I have provided multiple sources with evidence for my claim. You have not provided any evidence for your claim that Say was only a corresponding member, you just deduced this from the fact that she didn't live in Philadelphia but at the East Coast (as if these are so far apart of course). For the Calcium one, I said in my previous post that it might have been correct, but that I didn't have any evidence for it. Your Zerby Denby image, so someone made an error once in 1977, no one since has repeated it, useful.

Now why would I be assuming bad faith (apart from years of previous experience)? Because of your actions at Margaretta Morris, or your completely false claim above: "I checked my last 500 creations in article space, this is the only un-sourced article", when there were quite a few of those in the last 30 or so articles you created. You didn't address the redirect generator and the use you made of it to create redirects (some of them completely bogus), since that was a clear violation, this year, of your own editing restriction. How can you with a straight face decide on restrictions or bans for others if you can't even follow your own restrictions, check sources, or be honest about your own creations? If your only defense then is "but two of the redirects you complained about were based on an obscure error I found", then good for you for busting these two, but it is hardly a crushing rebuttal of the general problem with your editing and with your replies here. You are not trustworthy. Fram (talk) 22:58, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

For the Zenby Derby one: I notice that the picture you provided had her year of birth wrong as well, which was struck through and corrected. The redirect you created was also struck through as incorrect. That seems to be the right course of action here. Is the remainder of that source equally error-ridden or was this a particularly bad entry? Fram (talk) 06:31, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Quality of edits

For those of you still believing that Rich Farmbrough is a good, conscientious content editor, let me present his edits for Portal:Trinidad and Tobago/On this day from the last few days.

• Portal:Trinidad and Tobago/On this day/December 2: empty page created
• Portal:Trinidad and Tobago/On this day/November 14: page created with incorrect entry (which I removed), now empty
• Portal:Trinidad and Tobago/On this day/May 5: correct
• Portal:Trinidad and Tobago/On this day/April 28: correct
• Portal:Trinidad and Tobago/On this day/October 13: page created with incorrect entry (which I removed), now empty
• Portal:Trinidad and Tobago/On this day/October 29: listed a birth which was actually a death
• Portal:Trinidad and Tobago/On this day/March 3: listed a birth which was actually a death. The year of birth doesn't match our Wikipedia article on the same person, but both years appear in reliable sources anyway.
• Portal:Trinidad and Tobago/On this day/September 30: listed a birth with the wrong year of birth
• Portal:Trinidad and Tobago/On this day/November 20: correct

These were all one line entries: of the 9 creations, 1 is empty, 3 were correct, 3 had errors and 2 were completely wrong (resulting in again empty pages). That's a quite dismal result.

Mind you, this is not just one bad day. Before this batch of creations, his latest was Portal:Trinidad and Tobago/On this day/May 21 from early September. You guessed it, it was incorrect as well, the one entry on it had the wrong year of birth. Should people filling Wikipedia with wrong information in so many of their edits (and which such a chequered history in general) really become the ones that are the ultimate authority on Wikipedia disputes? If you are so sloppy in what is the core business of Wikipedia (providing correct information), then how are you supposed to be correct in checking evidence and claims people make in disputes? Never mind the question what you are actually doing editing Wikipedia in the first place. Fram (talk) 08:45, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Question from User:Pldx1

Dear User:Fram. I have noticed that you are presenting the creation of Creating Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents as a shameful misdeed, that will tarnish the reputation of any Candidate to an Arbcom seat. Could you elaborate further ? Pldx1 (talk) 18:44, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

No, I am presenting it as one tiny element in the general argument that his editing, contrary to what some people believe, is way too often problematic and mindless, the same issues that lead to his edit restrictions in the first place (but due to the heavily reduced edit rate, the amount of problems is seriously reduced as well). A pattern of problems often consists of many relatively small issues that together are concerning. Note that of the four redirects I noted, two have since been deleted (together with some others I didn't include in my question), one has been corrected, and one has been left alone. Problematic editing was an issue (e.g. his violations of his editing restriction, which he didn't reply to at all), problematic responses made it even worse (from small things like defending Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents when the question was about Creating Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents to major things like categorically claiming that he checked 500 creations and only one was unsourced, when in reality at least 5 of his last 30 creations were unsourced). Note e.g. also how he had an error in Margaretta Morris, but instead of looking into it when presented with evidence of his error, he continued to invent reasons why he was right and I was wrong, without ever presenting any evidence of his claims. An ArbCom member must be able to impartially check and judge evidence, which is a quality I find sorely lacking in this candidate. But again, that opinion is not based on one redirect, as your rather loaded question suggests. Fram (talk) 07:52, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

key success factors of the linux community

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi Rupert, there is an interesting question about the success of Linux - it's free, why isn't it everywhere? And there is a question about the success of English Wikipedia, why isn't that success accelerating, and why is it reproduced only in a couple of handfuls of languages, and a relatively small number of projects?

And one answer to both questions is lack of design. Where I have been able I have injected design into my work. Invariably someone wants to change the design, without quite understanding it. This is natural - if it's a good design, those who do understand it won't want to change it.

It is noticeable also in the matter of redirects, people fail to consider the design aspects that make redirects more than just "plausible search terms".

We need to educate our editors in these sorts of matters, which, I am convinced, more of the editors of ten years ago understood.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:30, 3 December 2015 (UTC).

Thryduulf

Allowing subsets of (e.g. 7) arbs to hear a case

This is a positive step, if (as is so often claimed) arbs are overworked. Indeed I suggested something similar. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 03:04, 14 November 2015 (UTC).

key success factors of the linux community

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Wildthing61476

key success factors of the linux community

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:27, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

That's a rather interesting question you posed here. I will first say I'm not very familiar with the Linux community, so I can't say with full certainty how their community fully operates. However, the growth in Linux is based on a few factors, one more and more people looking to build their own systems, and having an open source OS to do so, secondly the rise of mobile devices using Linux-based technology (after all Android is based of a Linux shell I believe). Growth is part of this from a number of avenues, and community input is used in that growth, much like with Wikipedia. Wikipedia as a whole is only going to grow as the community here allows it. This will require collaboration from all editors, and a way to settle differences quickly, and in the best way possible. Wildthing61476 (talk) 15:05, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

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