Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2019/Candidates/DGG

I've been at Wikipedia for the last twelve years as editor and administrator. Over this time I've worked with new articles and drafts, trying to keep improvable ones from being deleted--and removing the others, while trying to give realistic advice to new editors and dealing with questions about reliable sources. I was a member of Arb Com for 2015-2018. My goal then was to bring the committee to a more active approach in dealing with the actual problems on Wikipedia, rather than making the narrowest possible decisions—to judge by the merits rather than the technicalities. The committee has come some way towards this, partly by responding gradually to my continuing private and sometimes public dissents during discussions. This is now sometimes the case. I advocated increased openness in discussions and public votes on motions, and these too are a little more frequent. I have learned that takes many years of repeated effort to change Wikipedia, and we need to continue; improvements here do not often come when they are first suggested. For example, when I suggested this at the beginning of my first term, that the committee should accept some responsibility for dealing with violations of the terms of use about undeclared paid editors, no one else supported it; by now, procedures are in place. I respect all the continuing arbitrators—it will not be a situation with sharply divided positions. Arbcom is not the Supreme Court, it's not the Congress, but a group of people who try very hard to work together, and usually succeeed. There are many other good candidates with similar views, candidates with backgrounds working on the actual content of Wikipedia, candidates who will help those interested in the quality of the encyclopedia. I urge you to vote for them, and for me also. The many positions open this year give an unusual opportunity.

My real name and my background are on my user page; I am identified to the Foundation, I've signed the necessary agreements. and alternate accounts used in editing instruction have been previously disclosed.

• DGG (talk · contribs · count · logs · target logs · block log · lu · rfas · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · checkuser · socks · rights · blocks · protects · deletions · moves)

v t e Arbitration Committee Election 2019 candidate: DGG Candidate statement Questions for the candidate Discuss this candidate

Add your questions below the line using the following markup:

#{{ACE Question
|Q=Your question
|A=}}

2. I commented in the Fram case, decision talk, like this. If you had been an arb then, what might you have replied, and which of the remedies under 2 would you have supported?

   At a slightly earlier case involving Fram (started in 2018 carried over into 2019) Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GiantSnowman, I was one of the two admins who supported a proposed remedy that "Fram is reminded to conduct themselves appropriately when communicating with other editors." But in the context of the later Fram case, the actions of the WMF had contaminated the possibilities of considering any sanctions. It was necessary to make it unambiguously clear that such fundamentally unfair ways of proceeding were never acceptable, so desysop should not have been considered. Personally, I would anticipate Fram would themself demonstrate how very wrong the WMF action would have been.

   Thank you, satisfied. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:57, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2. What's the biggest problem with Arbcom? Is it fixable or inherent?

   Arbcom at the beginning dealt with relatively straight-forward problems, and basic definitions of policy; cases in the future will mostly deal with the most difficult situations and policy ambiguities, and will not always have satisfactory solutions in the usual sense.

Thank you. Carrite (talk) 12:37, 14 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2. What, objectively, is the problem with undisclosed paid editing (by it's nature a content issue) that brings it within Arbcom's remit? Thryduulf (talk) 00:06, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

   The widespread presence of promotional content is a content issue, and that is the responsibility of the community to remove. Editing by undeclared paid COI editors is a conduct issue--it is editing in bad faith, in a manner which tried to evade having the community properly evaluate the content problems. It's inextricably linked with sockpuppettry, the basic form of bad faith editing, which also usually produced bad content. Removing the bad content is the job of the community; removing the bad faith contributors is the job of the administrators backed up by CU and ArbCom. Arb com generally need not directly act on routine UPE any more than on routine sockpuppettry, but the seriousness with which ArbCom see the problem, lets the admins and CUs deal with it. I recall a view on arb com (I obviously can't quote or attribute it more specifically) that the committee would not backup admins who blocked for UPE, and might even consider it abuse of their admin rights..

2. Which recent unblock discussion (anywhere, AN/ANI/CAT:RFU/UTRS/etc) are you most proud of your contribution to, and why?

   In the committee and elsewhere, a decision to unblock requires a determination of the honesty and candidness of the applicant. There is no fair way of doing this by text communications on wiki or by email. We have been judging too much by the individual's willingness to admit what they did wrong, and this is in effect an encouragement for hypocrisy. The only practical approach is to give people a chance to show their improvement, and monitor closely, for those where the prior conduct does not make this too great a risk. I can therefore not say I am proud of anything we have done; if the right decision is made, it is by chance.

2. What do you think about the decision to accept Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/German war effort? In particular, considering the lack of prior dispute resolution attempts or attempt to use ANI to deal with the behavioural issues. Why or why not?

   The issue was so potentially disruptive and the implications so serious that we could not have avoided it. It was a reasonable assumption that no other process would have been sufficient. The role of the committee is not to resolve conflicts; the role is to prevent or at least discourage continuing disruption.

I would say that the banning was a walk-up start and should have been handled at ANI, but the rest has had little effect on either side of what was basically a content dispute. It was a huge time sink and the benefits were minimal because it was almost entirely about content, not conduct, and ArbCom isn't here to look at content. It has also been weaponised against good-faith editors, with a recent attempt to re-litigate it. I hope ArbCom will steer clear of these sorts of cases in the future, unless behavioural problems have proved intractable and unable to be dealt with at ANI. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 03:35, 14 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The matter initially presented as a contents dispute proved out to feature the continuing harassment of the principal editor on one side of a dispute, and the attempts to coordinate action against one's opponents by the use of a Wikiproject as a cabal. I think the conclusion will have a positive benefit on the future behavior of such projects, and would be even more helpful if a stronger statement had been made, as I commented in in the decision. DGG ( talk ) 01:47, 17 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2. When, if ever, would discretionary sanctions be an appropriate countermeasure against paid editing?

   .I assume you are asking about undeclared paid editing , "UPE". (declared paid editing� is permitted, and it is only necessary to check that the rules for disclosure are followed) Dealing with UPE is not an appropriate use of DS: DSs should not be thought of more strict or more formal types of sanction; rather, the distinctive purpose of DS is stability of sanctions where opinion is divided;, which is not the case here. Ordinary blocks quickly and firmly applied , together with careful sockpuppet investigations and range blocks when applicable are the way to go here. More generally, I have previously when on arb com expressed doubts about the way Discretionary Sanctions are used in general, and I more recently commented on this further at the Arb Com talk page

4. To what extent, if any, should the Arbitration Committee endorse the adoption of two-factor authentication on Wikipedia?

   It would be a very good idea if it worked more smoothly. But this is up to the WMF, and our role would be in not letting it be forced upon us until they get it better.

2. Are there any circumstances where you would think it acceptable to give an editor a fixed term block without telling them why or what you expect them to desist from when they return? (Yes, this is a Fram related question).

   No, and not just in relation to Fram.

   Thanks. I'm very happy with that answer. ϢereSpielChequers 13:39, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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

   There are various degrees of involvement. I can recall only one instance where some of the arbs thought privately that a particular arb should recuse, but he declined to do so. We have procedures for forcing this, but nobody felt it was so serious as to require it. . What is much more common is arbs recusing themselves even when there is no real need to. I can give an exact example, for it concerned me. A named party thought I was prejudiced against him in the gneral area and asked me to recuse; I replied that I could judge matters hings fairly, but would recuse if he inisted, and I warned him that I would then be able to instead give evidence, and the overall situation would not necessarily be for his befit. He replied that he understood, but still wanted me to recuse. I did. In the end he would indeed have been better off had I not recused, for I would have supported a lighter sanction than the one the rest of the committee decided to apply, and I might have been able to influence them.

4. Ought the persons named in a case be given sufficient time to answer charges made by others, rather than have each be given the same time limits?

   This needs to be adjusted to the circumstances; lately, he arb com does not do this direct, but relies upon the judgment of the clerks.

6. When an arbitrator proffers specific evidence on their own, ought the accused be permitted to actually reply to such "new evidence" as though it were timely presented, with the same time allowed for such a response?

   It is difficult to specify the possible range of situations in detail, but of course people need an opportunity to reply. In general, though, an arb who has important evidence should recuse, and offer it in the normal way. Much more important, the wording of this question implies there is an "accused". The purpose of arb com is not to try accusations and issue punishments, but to try to prevent further disruption.. This necessarily requires some formal court-like procedure for discerning the facts of a situation, but the need for formal procedures should not dominate the proceedings.

2. Two years ago I did a study of ArbCom, available at [1]. in which I concldued that "A practical recommendation for Wikipedia in particular, and for other communities with collegiate courts in general, is that when electing members to their dispute resolution bodies, those communities would do well to pay attention to how much time the prospective future judges can devote to this volunteering task." In other words, may Arbitrators become inactive due to real world reasons (family, job) and this is not an exception but a rule, repeated time and again throughout ArbCom history. Do you think there is any practical way to deal with this, such as, for example, asking Arbitrators to obligatorily describe, in their election process, how they plan to ensure they have sufficient free time to devote to this activity?

   I have limits: for the years I was an arb, I averaged 42 edits a day, down from 55 overall. Since leaving Arbcom, I've great expanded my activity in Draft space; if elected, I would cut back, as there are others who can now do this equally well. I'm on the Board of WM-NYC, and I was very active organizing editathons--we now do more than1 a week, and others now know how just as well.

4. I am rather puzzled about [2]. What do you mean by this, particularly in light of "wrong editor banned"? Who do you think shouldn't have been banned, who should have been banned, and why?

   The sentence you quoted was part of a paragraph. The rest of the paragraph said "It's the standard technique of people insulting each other until one of them is goaded to step over a line. Whoever can deal with this sort of Machiavellian operation most cleverly wins. I recognize .. is taking a risk in being forthright in recalling attention to the underlying problem., but we should not be penalizing honesty, althoug it seems that we sometimes have done so"

I am sorry, but this hardly clarifies things. I am still concerned that your cited diff means that you think the editor who was indef banned for off wiki harassment was blocked unfairly, and instead you'd have preferred to banned one of the editors who were the victim of said harassment. If this is incorrect, I ask again: which editor, specifically, do you think was banned incorrectly, and who should have been banned? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:09, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2. If you were involved in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism in Poland, would you have objected to any decisions that passed there, and proposed anything that would be significantly different from what was passed?

   I might have tried to have the guidance on reliable sources cover more than the current 4.15, which discusses only use of foreign language sources. In WP:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus back in 2007, the wording of a similar decisions was "Determining the reliability of sources is a matter of sound editorial judgment informed by expertise." I would at least have repeated it, and added something about the need to use them in context. Possibly it would have repeated the laguage quoted in finding 13 " Only high quality sources may be used, specifically peer-reviewed scholarly journals and academically focused books by reputable publishers". Various similar suggestions weremade in the discussion, but arb com chose to go with the minimum.

4. Further, since in the diff above you mention Haaretz article (for which I was interviewed), which claims (if any) presented in it do you think are worth investigating further? What merits, if any, do you see in it? For further context, please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-10-31/In the media which links my reply to Haaretz as well as an essay on this issue by retired user Poeticbent. Does having read the three linked pieces (Signpost, my reply, Poeticbent's reply) change your views on this incident in any way? In your view, which party makes a better argument here? And do you think there is anything in this series of incident that remains unresolved, or resolved improperly, and merits future action by ArbCom?

   Anything involving competing nationalism causes problems here; the only way to resolve them is to have them written by people for whom the topic has no such implications, but even they tend to line up with one side or another. I sometimes think we might do better to fork some topics like this, rather than try ourselves as amateurs to write a single consistent narrative.

}}

2. There have been occasional, some might say frequent instances, of a perceived bias in the way that prolific content creators are treated compared to members of the community who support the en-WP in other ways. Is this something you recognise? When these contributors end up at AC - how should they be treated?

   The declared purpose pf this project is to produce an encyclopedia, but it's real importance is in demonstrating the effectiveness of open cooperative work. It's impossible or even a single individual to create content in a vacuum; there needs to be a supporting structure. To some extent, everyone should try to do both: if you rely on a behind-the-scenes community for support, you need to show you understand their importance by joining in at least occasionally; if you're mainly supporting the work of others, you need to do some of that work yourself to see how support needs to contribute.< br/ In a sense the demands for behavior are greater for content contributors--they are likely to care deeply about their subjects, they are likely to work in controversial areas. Most behavior conflicts in WP have their root in discussions of content. Arbs and admins need to give active contributors room to work, but they equally need to insist the contributors make room for their colleagues. Good contributors will disagree; good contributors will get angry at each other; it's the nature of the project. Our role as arbs (etc) to provide a way for them to resolve their differences. I actually believe in the community-- I have just this evening dealt with a escalating debate over the acceptability by saying, as I usually do, let the community decide. Not a single person, as a reviewer or as an admin. The key role of arbcom is not in opposition to the community ,or judging the community, but in representing it, in providing a structured definitive way to find practical solutions.

You really don't need to mansplain to me, I'm not as stupid as my user name suggests and I've been around longer than you. Just not with so any hats. The question is a simple one - do you recognise bias or not?

I was trying to say the difference is not as sharp as you seem to suppose, nor is there the sort of bias you seem to imagine. There certainly is bias, but not between content creators and others.. There is bias depending upon the importance of the work to the community, regardless of the type of work.. We are very reluctant to ban people who have made major contributions to articles, or major work on our infrastructure, and there are examples of both. There is a similar reluctance to topic ban, when we are topic-banning someone who is critically contributing to the major work in any specific content area, or behind the scenes specialty. There has been a reluctance to de-admin administrators who have multiple very important positive contributions in their roles, but have made errors or been antagonistic. This is as it should be. We are not here to judge punishments for crimes, or decide the eternal fate of sinners. . We are here to enable the functioning of the encyclopedia. We seek solutions that will benefit the encyclopedia. We remove those whose net effects are toxic, but the degree of negative toxicity we tolerate is balanced to some extent by the extent of positive contributions.

But there are some misdemeanors that are considered worthy of extreme action regardless of the circumstances, such as wheel-warring for administrators. or external harassment by anyone. Here the purpose of the sanction is not really to prevent the further disruption of the encyclopedia , but to serve as our strongest possible deterrent. I have not seen that in such cases we make exceptions for people whose contributions we will really miss. However, we also apply this sanction to sock-puppettry, and I consider this excessive in many cases--it should be an option, not a default. It's the usual end point of escalating a conflict until someone gets removed, and then making the removal permanent when they get sufficiently frustrated. DGG ( talk ) 02:00, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thankfully a small number of your fellow candidates have answered the same question more straightforwardly and with much greater clarity. I asked you not to mansplain - you literally just doubled down. Leaky caldron (talk) 09:07, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You want the simplest direct answer: No, there is not prejudice in favor of content contributors. There is however tolerance of both highly active content contributors and other highly active editors. DGG ( talk ) 01:28, 17 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2. What are your thoughts about functionaries and other advanced permission holders discussing Wikipedia and other Wikimedians (in otherwise good standing) with WMF banned editors, specifically those who have a history of doxing and harassment?

   I imagine you are talking about the role of some criticism web sites; I read, but do not participate. These sites have an important function as an outside view of WP. They would be so much more effective if they had firmer standards about letting people repeat confidential information and make wild accusations. Anyone with private knowledge about issues or people needs to be very careful..

2. In User:Risker/Thoughts for Arbitration Committee Candidates, she says "Know what you'll do if you don't win a seat. This is an important test. Will you continue participating in the building of the encyclopedia? In what areas do you plan on working? Some people have considerable difficulty resuming normal editing life after an unsuccessful run." What will you do if you're not elected?

   I lost re-election in Dec. 2018; my edit count fell in half for 3 months, and then recovered. Besides continuing what I do in evaluating articles and helping fill gaps, I will probably pay more attention to ANI and AE.

2. Over this page, all of the arbitrators (sans PMC, who responded a single time) refused to engage a multitude of queries and concerns from multiple longstanding members of the community, despite the case being entirely situated on public evidence. I note this ATCN thread, as well.
   Do you feel that the displayed behavior abides by general community expectations of arbitrator conduct? Some have since stated that the concurrently running FRAMGATE meant that they had to be less devoted to this case; in such a situation, how would you have tackled this case (if anything different, at all)?

   Considering Framgate, it might have been wise to postpone the case for a month, leaving the preliminary injunction in place.

4. Your fellow candidate, Gadfium writes:- Arbs should be highly responsive to community concerns on the talk pages of cases and that anyone who expresses an honest and constructive opinion should be taken seriously. Do you agree with the premises of these statements? Comment.

   Looking at that page, both sides were giving additional instances, wanting a decision that would more clearly support them. Given arb com's usual preference to avoid discussion of the underlying realities, and make a decision noncommittal, bland, and minimal, It seems to me that further discussion would not have really helped. To discuss the real issues behind the case would involve discussing the content of the article and the real-world facts, both in the past and the present. It would have meant saying which of the parties is closer to the general world-wide consensus on the topic. Arb com claims not to do this, but it has effectually done just that on the various FRINGE decisions; it would be very much harder to do this on a political issue, let alone an ethnic political issue going back several centuries and renewed each generation. I am not sure why arb com members did not simply say so.

Thanks, in advance, for your answers. ∯WBG^converse 09:04, 17 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2. How much do you think you put weight to WP:BEFORE , WP:IAR before nominating a new article for deletion through AfC/NPR ?

   How much effort to put into BEFORE depends on the likelihood of finding anything usable. IAR rarely applies to deletion except if an article is known to be the sort that people will !vote to keep regardless of formal rules. The details are complicated for all aspects of deletion, and there's a good deal of judgment involved. The most critically important thing is to make sure everything gets looked at--we still regularly get childish and even malicious vandalism.

2. Some of the most important decisions by arbitrators are whether to accept or decline cases. What principles will you follow on voting on whether to accept cases that may be within the scope of arbitration, as opposed to declining the cases and leaving them for the community?

   If the matter is within the potential scope of arbcom, and the community is a deadlock, arb com is the only way to resolve it.

4. Do you think that the initial T&S action in banning Fram was a valid exercise of responsibility by Trust and Safety, a completely unjustified overreach by T&S, or something in between, such as an over-reaction by T&S to an existing weakness in the English Wikipedia's sanctions regime?

   It was a completely unjustified over-reaction to a real weakness in enWP's practices in deal with long term low level abuse. It shouldn't have taken this to make us treat the problem more seriously. (And if the purpose was to get us to treat the problem more seriously, T&S had many opportunities to do this without using outrageously unjust process on an individual WPedian--they showed themselves capable of acting as unfairly and abusively as any group of WPedians.

6. In recent years the ArbCom has almost always been significantly late in issuing proposed decisions. The current PIA4 case is an example. Can you comment on the reasons for the delays? Do you propose any action to reduce these delays, such as either shortening the delay between closing of the workshop and posting of the proposed decision, or providing a longer target date?

   Considering the difficulty of many of the cases that now reach arb com, some delays are unavoidable: when I was on arb com, the reason was usually the difficulty of finding and properly wording an adequate solution--it can sometimes be difficult to predict this in advance. Sometimes, it was an attempt to continue discussion until there would be a majority on some solution; it can also often be impossible to predict this in advance. And once or twice, it was the disgraceful difficulty of trying to get enough of the less active arbs to join the discussion; this is ultimately the responsibility of the community to elect arbs who will remain active.

2. What is your position on undisclosed paid editing and what do you see as arbcom's role in enforcement of the WP:TOU? Best Wishes DGG my support is always assured to you.

   Sometimes arb com leads the community; this time the community is leading arb com. By now, the community is dealing with it very much more actively than in the past. I expect Arb com will have a role at the boundary between the need for privacy and the requirement for disclosure; it will presumably continue to be the group authorized to deal with confidential material. DGG ( talk ) 06:15, 28 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2. In the proposed decision of the Michael Hardy case, you wrote that "We can sanction non-parties". A concern expressed on the talk page was that the parties being considered for sanction hadn't been informed of this prior to the proposed decision and therefore had no opportunity to present evidence concerning their behavior. In spite of your opinion you opposed the remedy because "its not productive to [sanction them] here". Do you still believe non-parties to a case can be sanctioned? If so, can they be sanctioned with no opportunity to give a statement or evidence?

   What I actually said was a single statement " We can sanction non-parties, but it's not productive to do so here." My view that it was possible to sanction nonparties seems to have been the majority viewpoint, 3 arbs: . voted to actually sanction, 2 others said as I did, that it was possible, but that this was not the place to do it. That makes 6 out of 11. I could more accurately have said that in some exceptional cases it is possible, and that this would require giving them the opportunity to comment, but normally, if something arose in the consideration requiring this, it would be more appropriate to add them as parties. The actual context was that quite a few people, named and unnamed were in the same position of having inflamed the dispute, and it would have been better to mention this without specific names of specific sanctions.
   

But I as well as others have I think learned better from later occurrences. The proper procedure would be to add as a party, even if it means reopening or splitting a case or otherwise modifying it. Basic fairness is more important than details of procedure. DGG ( talk ) 08:37, 28 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your response. kcowolf (talk) 20:26, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2. You wrote in your statement "Arbcom is not the Supreme Court, it's not the Congress, but a group of people who try very hard to work together, and usually succeeed" Could you explain that? Members of the Supreme Court and the Congress very often work hard and they can also succeed (it depends on country and period). Especially, I'd like to know the difference between Arbcom and the Supreme Court.

   /1. The US supreme court is in a position to reinterpret the most basic issues including the Ultimate source of US authority, the Constitution and its Amendments, regardless ofthe public or legislative consensus. On WP,. the fundamental policy of WP is beyond its reach--some of it is ultimately set by the WMF., some by the principles behind the existence of WP. It cannot and has not ever challenged our fundamental rules, and had always considered itself bound by the consensus on enWP /2. The US Supreme Court,becuase of its far-reachig power, consists of justices with have life-time appointments, intended deliberately to insulate it from current political influence; the members of arb com are renewed every year, which serves to insulate them frorm the temporary fads that are the bane of the administrative noticeboards, but not from the general view of the community. /3 The USSC can deal with the substance of legislative enactments , as well as the modes in which they are applied; arb com deliberately lacks the ability from directly deciding of specific content. . 3/ The USSC is composed of peopel with extensive experience in the tradition of legal procedures . Arb com can consist of whomever the community wishes, and had aways had at least a few people (such as myself) , not much involved in dispute resolution, but representative of the general body of contributors DGG ( talk ) 09:08, 1 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]