I've been rather active for most of my 15 years here. The pandemic is giving me more available time than usual. Serving the community in this capacity for a term would be a good use of a lot of it.
This solid though unusually small candidate roster (plus the Arbs not yet up for re-election) show me the time is now. This last ArbCom has been the most constructive I've seen in years, and many candidates share key concerns and goals. While competitors for seats, they're people I'd love to work with to improve ArbCom. And ArbCom works best without an Arb shortage.
I want to help ArbCom be more consistent, more transparent, less bureaucratic, less reluctant to amend. Our dispute-resolution systems exist to settle disruptive conflicts quickly, toward productivity. This hasn't consistently happened. Incivility and PoV-pushing are increasing, editor retention drops, discretionary sanctions has obvious problems. Sometimes-problematic editors should be separated from areas where they're disruptive, but too often just get lengthy blocks. Such issues can be rectified, and I have the time, patience, and experience to help.
I've long been involved in Wikipedia policy, RfCs, and advanced-permissions janitorialism (TemplateEditor, PageMover, etc.), but I work on content and am here as an encyclopedia editor, not an admin. Adminship often leads to permanent drift away from a content focus, so I decline RfA nomination offers. I've been concerned that most Arbs have been admins; that doesn't fully represent the community.
I'm not afraid to plainly address the facts, policies, and principles at issue, even if it makes some people unhappy. I'm also already steeped in time-consuming, thankless work that cannot possibly please everyone but which produces results the community doesn't just live with but depends on. It's unusually good training for ArbCom, even if different from the more typical admin route.
Boilerplate: I signed the WMF confidentiality agreement years ago, and will do so again if the wording's changed. [Update: It has, so I will need to sign it again.] My user page lists my doppelganger accounts. I had one occasionally used alt ID, disclosed to ArbCom but not listed for privacy reasons (and no longer used).
![]() | Arbitration Committee Election 2020 candidate: SMcCandlish
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Note: Per WP:ACERFC2020, starting this year there is a limit of two questions per editor for each candidate. You may also ask a reasonable number of follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked.
Overall, I think the sanctions have done their job (and ARBINFOBOX2 may actually have had more impact despite its more limited scope). I do hope to see an editor who {{Retired}} over the matter come back. While the i-box stuff, and one other issue, relating to FAC, inspired that party to turn intemperate rather often, that was nevertheless an otherwise highly valued, long-term editor. I'll observe also that the sanctions did not result in a "the other side will WP:WIN and just impose i-boxes everywhere" result that was predicted by some of the generally-opposed-to-iboxes parties, though infobox deployment has increased a bit (which is to be expected given the general support they have among the community, especially frequent mobile users). All that said, I think I would rather have seen this handled with community general sanctions (GS) and ANI, rather than RFARB and ArbCom's discretionary sanctions (DS), though perhaps GS wasn't sufficiently "developed" at that time. It seems to be applied more (and more effectively) of late. PS: I'm kind of pre-answering some possible followup questions, so your second one can be about something else. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:40, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
A double-edged sword has been ARBATC (article titles, since expanded to include MoS). In my less temperate days, this one tripped me up personally, but I deserved it. It has been remarkably hard to get ArbCom or AE or random DS-using admins to apply it consistently/predicably or evenhandedly. It's been very difficult to use it to restrain certain parties who were grossly disruptive for years. Then ArbCom itself basically pulled the remedies' teeth out: The primary, continual locus of AT/MoS-related incivility, etc., is RM, by an order of magnitude, but an attempt to apply ARBATC there resulted in ARCA limiting the scope to just AT, MOS, naming conventions guidelines, subpages thereof, and their talk pages, period. I also have a separation-of-powers concern with ArbCom, essentially WP's judicial branch, applying DS to internal P&G deliberations, i.e. WP's legislative branch. Especially given that DS are today virtually never applied in this area, it would be better vacated, and any future issues of that sort dealt with via community GS at ANI or AN (or other non-ArbCom noticeboard).
Finally, I have found ARBAA2 (Armenia and Azerbaijan, frequently scope-expandable to Turkey, Kurdistan, and related topics) very helpful, along with ARBR&I ("race and intelligence", now expanded to encompass any intersection of ethnicity and alleged abilities or behavior) in dealing with NOTHERE PoV-pushers (sometimes in very unexpected places for ethno-vandalism, like articles on housecat breeds!). I think that the second of those in particular is going to be a perpetual DS topic, and must remain so, while the former is part of a general class of "my people versus your neighboring people" conflicts that will always attract offsite "holy warriors"; it's likely this category of DS regimes [or something like them, such as community GS, if DS were to be retired] will grow. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:44, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
I'm asking all candidates the same questions.
SMcCandlish: Thank you for your comprehensive and candid answers. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:43, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
[More speculative answers to possible interpretations of this question have been refactored to the talk page.] — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:46, 18 November 2020 (UTC); refactored: 17:49, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
Analysis of the four RfC Q7 closure points: |
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1. The closer's first conclusion, "Admonishments and/or final warnings should be much more frequent, and actually enforced", is ostensibly reasonable but vague. The overall problem is that the community fails to act [enough] to resolve disruptive behavior by various long-term and usually-productive but habitually sometimes-disruptive editors who have a lot of wikifriends. The idea is that if ArbCom (rather than just ANI and other community noticeboards) impose a warning that this will/should be taken more seriously than noticeboard-issued warnings (or "driveby" admin-issued ones). But, the discussion itself shows skepticism of this, e.g. claims that warnings and even restrictions placed on "unblockables" by ArbCom still get ignored by noticeboards, AE, and ArbCom itself. So "should ... actually be enforced" is a bit of a belling-the-cat problem, and fairly complex. I have some draft ideas for solutions. But how to tackle this problem in earnest will require more detailed community and internal-to-ArbCom discussion.2. The next Q7 result was that short-term blocks should be more common. I'm a bit torn on this, leaning instead toward topic-bans when feasible. ArbCom and other venues do need to be more willing to impose sanctions not just "yet another admonition". But this exact proposal has cure-worse-than-disease potential: If we hand out short-term blocks left and right, lots of editors (including admins) are going to rack up lengthy "trivial block" logs, and non-indef blocks will lose much community meaning and individual deterrence potential. I've long said that we have strong evidence that topic- and interaction-banning is actually more effective when it comes to usually-productive but sometimes-problematic editors. Those who are just temperamentally incapable of keeping their cool will not be "cured" by short-term blocks, nor will those who are just NOTHERE. On the other hand, long-term blocks with expiration dates tend to drive away instead of reform usually-productive editors, yet don't really do much to deal with NOTHERE people except temporarily. We're often using the wrong tool for the job, in both directions. AE in particular has been too eager to hand out year+ blocks for topical disagreeableness, yet all our DR approaches tend to shy too much away from indefinite-to-effectively-permanent solutions to those habitually very disruptive parties who are "sometimes constructive". I'll just state this as a fact: If someone needs a "long-term" block, they actually need a siteban or indef. Year+ deadline blocks are basically an obsolete, failed experiment. But over-use of short-term blocks as a cure-all would just become a probably worse one, even if they should still be imposed on "unblockables" in the same circumstances under which any random editor would receive one. Side point: I'm personally aware (from direct involvement) of a case where use of repetitive short-term blocks instead of just T- and I-bans cost us a long-term and (outside one topic) productive editor, by triggering a personality issue (about "getting personal justice"). It palapably radicalized the user into becoming someone who can now probably never be unblocked. I argued again and again for only using both types of "cordon the user off from their trouble spots" limited bans instead of blocking, despite being the primary aggrieved party, but neither AE nor ArbCom listened.3. Next RfC-close point: "Users with multiple (but un-sanctioned) cases at ANI, and/or those with lengthy block logs, should be looked at by ArbCom" is kind of gibberish unless you read the thread in detail. What it means is that ArbCom should have a lowered threshold for accepting cases about the conduct of a party who has already been the subject of multiple [relevant and recent enough] community noticeboard examinations, yet escaped effective or any sanction. I strongly agree with this. It would a) help ArbCom do what the foundation and the community decided we needed an ArbCom for; b) likely reduce the number of disruptors allowed to continue disrupting, in general; and c) directly address a lot of the "unblockables" problem; yet also d) incidentally but importantly identify cases where an editor is being inappropriately hounded by a faction (ArbCom examines behavior of all the case parties, and acceptance of a case is hardly a prejudice against the accused). However, this would come at the cost of increasing ArbCom's workload, and probably the generating of more melodramatic venting (along the lines of that which spewed forth about the spate of desysoppings early this year). Next: a "lengthy block log" needs to be for case-relevant issues to be a trigger for lowered barrier to case acceptance. Someone may have racked up a pile of NPA blocks their first year while, say, abusing a band article's talk page as a debate-for-sport forum, yet this may have no relationship at all to the case at hand, e.g. a decade-later and civility-unrelated string of editwarring at history navboxes, motivated by a religio-political stance. ArbCom is not in the business of holding every old transgression against someone every time they're criticized for something else.4. The final point of the close: "More admin cases should be brought before ArbCom", another vagueness. It really means mostly that ArbCom should be more willing to accept ADMINCOND / ADMINACCT cases, not that an increased number of cases need to be generated. It's about difficulty of addressing "badmin" behavior, not an increase in the relative or absolute numbers of admins allegedly violating policy. Formulated more clearly this way, I strongly agree with this proposal, especially given than ArbCom is the only way to effectuate a desysop, and admins are held to higher behavioral standards as a matter of policy. Again, because acceptance of a case doesn't mean the accused is guilty, and malicious bogus accusations will boomerang, the main costs of doing this will be simply workload and rants. It also doesn't require that ArbCom impose more desysopping results in the cases it accepts (though the most recent ArbCom seems to have independently decided it should, post-FRAMBAN, with some community blowback as a result); only that barriers to case acceptance have been too high. I agree with something closely related, from a recent ARCA: an admin subject [legitimately] to multiple ongoing restrictions, or even a single major one, is by definition unsuitable to retain the admin bit, having demonstrated that community trust was misplaced and has been lost. "But they do/did such great work on foo" is irrelevant to that question, which is about permissions for access to dangerous tools not whether they should be banned/indeffed as editors. Update: I've discovered that at least one sitting Arb appears to agree with the gist of this point, saying (on a talk page) that if we stop treating admins as a special class, "that will lead to people voting and asking questions [at RfA] at a less agressive level. To do that, we need to be making it easier to desysop, and, to be honest, we need to be invoking other sanctions against admins. How often does an admin get blocked? How much hoo-hah is there over it when it happens? These are all part of the same issue." |
I am asking the same questions to all candidates.
However, Trumpian editors being censured more frequently than those objecting to some of what some of them are doing isn't necessarily "one of the examples" of left-wing bias on Wikipedia. It's simply a fact, albeit a complex one with multiple causes. Just a few of them are: more aggressive (on average) behavior towards other editors; the fact-checking abandonment and consequent unreliability of many right-wing publishers; infiltration of traditional conservative political views by patently FRINGE conspiracy theories and proven-false propaganda (i.e. Trumpism); and deeper and more shameless PoV-pushing, original research of many kinds (especially SYNTH), and BLP violations; among many others. It is probable that the overall left-leaning bias in the editorial base is playing a factor in the sanctioning rate, of course. There may even be isolated cases of right-leaning editors being unfairly blocked or otherwise sanctioned ideologically despite not violating policies. But ArbCom isn't in a position to examine such a claim unless and until an editor evidences it in a RFARB or ARCA request. Same goes for concerns about far-left activism on Wikipedia. While this does crop up here and there, it mostly seems to get resolved by community noticeboards, we don't have evidence of left-extremism dominating our content, and if someone is certain otherwise and that there's a behavioral issue behind it, they can open a case request. Similarly, there are isolated cases of far-right extremists getting temporary content dominance in some articles and otherwise being disruptive, but this gets shut down.
The broader systemic bias problems (from leftward viewpoints dominating among editors and current-events material, to the essential opposite, our more historical content still being skewed strongly toward a patriarchal and Euro-American viewpoint of what even counts as historical and encyclopedic) are primarily a community matter not an ArbCom one, as they largely resolve to content disputes. Nor is it ArbCom's role to address public or internal perceptions (accurate or exaggerated) of viewpoint-bias among our editors or in our content. For its part, ArbCom can (aside from being more conscientious about both personal biases of individual Arbs and any erosion of community faith in its institutional viewpoint neutrality) certainly become more alert and more, well, courageous when it comes to behaviorally problematic editors clearly motivated by left-wing socio-political activism (WP is already hyper-alert to such antics from the right-wing). Doing so will not make everyone happy and will result is histrionic fingerpointing from a certain camp, but it is necessary (or will become necessary if things get out of hand in one case or another). Disruptors must not get a pass simply because their worldview aligns with that of a majority of Arbs or editors or readers (versus reliable sources). That kind of occasional "'unblockable' because they politically mean well for justice" problem is also mostly a community one, though (it happens mostly at ANI and other community noticeboards).
It does matter that conservatives who follow the P&G rules have exactly the same editing privileges here as progressives who do likewise. But we don't appear to have a crisis on our hands. Even if we did, the community has to address that; ArbCom's role is just examining highly specific cases about behavior problems (not views) of particular editors, and resolving them to the community's/project's benefit. May also be worth noting in this context that "conservative", "right-wing", etc., have multiple meanings depending on which political axis/axes (social, fiscal, etc.) are being considered. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:50, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
Followup notes @A7V2: The "PS" at the end of this addendum to Calidum's question is also pertinent to what you asked in this one. And the first section of my DS review essay also addresses some of this in a general (behavior) way, not specific to politics. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:15, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
"[Another Arb] proposes that all sanctions be enforced with common sense; I agree with [that Arb], but the DS regime makes common sense inapplicable."This is not the only such DS-sketicism I've seen ArbCom (finally!) coming to express.What I would help do about it: The fact that other Arbs and candidates (most of whom are likely to be on the next ArbCom) have raised one or more of the same concerns I have about DS as we currently know it, is one of the main reasons (along with there perhaps being too few candidates at all this year) that I decided to run this year rather than next. There is a great and overdue opportunity to form a caucus to overhaul (or even replace) DS. And there's more than precedent for doing so: DS itself was just invented out of nowhere by a single Arb, and implemented experimentally. Then it was just left running despite overwhelming evidence of failure of the experiment. The 2013 DS review, which was at least a start but ultimately ineffective, was essentially the "baby" of a single Arb as well. But if a significant number of Arbs next year want to take this on, then real change will finally happen. I think much of what I would like to see resolved is already clearly implicit in the problems I identified above. As I've said in response to some other questions here, and on the talk page (where I outlined a series of potential steps to address various problems, broader than just DS), one useful and probable approach will be merging DS into community GS, and in the process stripping out all of the counterproductive, confusing bureaucracy. But much more specific revisions will be needed to address some of the problems I wrote about, especially outright abuse of DS to violate the very principles it's supposed to be supporting and enforcing, along with the overreach beyond ArbCom's actual raison d'etre and authority. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:00, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
I liken this non-issue to the similar one that most or all Arbs at en.Wikipedia may have to ask admins or other functionaries at other WMF projects for evidence that our Arbs don't have direct permissions to reach (e.g. in a case of personal-attack harassment that began here and then extended to pt.Wikipedia or Commons but was later removed from public view on those sibling sites). In short, I wonder how does anyone feel a fully competent candidate would not be able to discharge the role of Arbitrator effectively without adminship. I'm not certain I would be the only non-admin Arb that WP has had. [Update: digging into it, it appears that WTT was elected while not an admin at that moment, but had already passed RfA. And that is all. So we have yet to have a true non-admin Arb.] There have definitely been many non-Arb applicants (legit ones, not joke nominations), and I came close to election in 2017. As with WP:Bureaucrats, if the "job" technically could not (or by community rede or WMF decree should not) be done without being an admin, then adminship would simply be required as a precondition of candidacy.
[More speculative answers to possible interpretations of this question have been refactored to the talk page.] — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:11, 19 November 2020 (UTC); refactored, note added: 21:56, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
As a very general matter, I would say there is likely some heightened INVOLVED risk if an admin is "patrolling" a particular topic area. For this reason, admins who spend a lot of time dealing with disruption in, say, the DS scope of Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict do not significantly work on content relating to topics inside that scope. In a particular case, it could come down to all sorts of questions: Is the shepherding being done in an administrative an even-handed, behavior-centered manner to stop/forestall repeated outbreaks of similar disruption, or is it editorial concern about the content's meaning and which sources are being used for it? If there's a combined content/conduct dispute going on, is an admin's concern about attempts to thwart V/NOR/RS consensus that has already been determined for that topic (e.g. via an RfC), or are they in effect defending a particular viewpoint or selection of sources without there yet being a consensus on the matter? Is prior significant interaction between an admin and a non-admin editor simply administrative or does it have the character of a content dispute between them?
It's important to remember that previously having sanctioned an editor does not make an admin INVOLVED with regard to that editor. But this is not a magic wand that allows the admin to become involved in the content of the topic, then sanction an opposing-viewpoint editor in that topic and claim immunity because they'd previously sanctioned said non-admin before the admin was editing in the topic area. But "You previously sanctioned me and now you're involved in the topic, so you can't ever address my content or behavior in this topic" isn't a valid argument, either (though it's one I have seen someone try to make); even an INVOLVED admin can, instead of directly acting, open an ANI, AE, or RFARB request as an editor. We also have HARASS rules about not "stalking" particular editors out of AGF-failing conviction that they'll eventually get up to no good in a particular topic or in general. So, is an admin doing that, or are they actually analyzing everyone's non-minor contributions to a frequently disrupted topic more generally? It's possible an editor who doesn't follow our policies might feel they're being edit-stalked when what's really happening is that only their behavior at the page is triggering a response because that of others' isn't disruptive or against policy. I think we've all seen this many times and we all know how that ends up.
See also my answer to IP user 2600:1004:*, above; it's in part relevant to topical "admin cabals" or "stealth admin" suspicions. On "modification of DS by a single administrator ...": I can't really comment on that without knowing the specifics, because even what is meant by it is open to a lot of interpretation. The most I'm willing to say at this point is that I'm generally not a fan of admins using DS to create highly novel remedies for specific editors. The community has a difficult time knowing how to interpret and apply them (lacking a "precedent" record of community analysis and decision-making) so they're counterproductive, whatever else might be said of a particular one and its alleged motivation or necessity. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 17:03, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
Follow-up question 1 (to my q2)
Desysop people left and right, and the community will resysop them (if they learned from it) in new, low-drama RfAs- what indication do you have that the Community would do this? Even a desysop that was based on (according the Community) too little severity (that is, we concurred they'd misbehaved, but not the level of action) would generally be sufficient to convince a minority of the community against resysopping. It would also take a fairly substantial amount of time to demonstrate this was a theme. It seems like this would take some fairly egregious errors or a string of errors (in terms of community judgement) to resolve the problem, and as an admin, I'd rather not risk being used as a means to try and resolve rfa interpretations.
Definitely, I don't mean that ArbCom should desysop (especially for trivial, short-term problems) to help tweak RfA. That would run afoul of the "remedies are preventative not punitive" principle and then some (more like "... not sacrificial"!). What I'm saying is ArbCom shouldn't be afraid to desysop for habits of gross civility violations, or repeatedly incompetent tool use, or tendentious behavior that involves the tools (to get at the three cases aforementioned), etc., even if it will tick off wikifriends of those admins and result in lots of hair-pulling and fainting. When the Board is telling us in no uncertain terms that we have a long-term problem in letting admins get away with ADMINCOND fails over and over again, then there's little choice but for desysoppings to be less rare. (Which, then again, might actually balance out a bit, in discouraging "badmin" antics in the first place, knowing the wiggle room has gotten smaller.) PS: ArbCom should, in the other direction, not treat certain historically "bright line" things as so bright. I've seen a few desysops in previous years that seemed really unnecessary, being for almost certainly just one-off mistakes, so the action wasn't actually preventative. PPS: I elaborated on some of this stuff earliler, in an answer to AmandaNP. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:41, 28 November 2020 (UTC); noted added: 08:05, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
While retention of productive editors and administrators is rightly considered important for the continuation of the project, the conduct of all editors, especially trusted users such as administrators is also rightly considered important for the retention of other users. I consider these two issues which are, unfortunately, often intertwined to be the most pressing types of issues to the project which ArbCom tends to deal with. I am therefore asking all of the candidates the same questions irrespective of whether they are a former Arbitrator. Many thanks and all the best with the election! SITH (talk) 11:30, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
The "... and why" analyses: |
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I'm not in a position to opine on the merits of the BHG case, having been involved in it, though I'm comfortable doing a little analysis. It was mostly one of those "net positive/negative" examinations (though narrowly about behavior with the admin toolkit, not about the editor's overall activity, of course). Some of my extended response to Calidum's question about "unblockables" is pertinent, in a general way. It is interesting that the finding relating to BHG was unanimous, as was a prohibition, with an I-ban being 11–3, yet the desysop decision was a very split 9–6. This suggests that community concern about some admins being given special wiggle-room is a legitimate issue, especially since this case involved an admin having multiple restrictions/sanctions.In the RH case, the decision to accept, and most of the clauses in the result, including findings of fact and imposed remedies, verged on unanimous, and I'm disinclined to question it. That case boiled down to another net-positive/negative assessment, though the admin's "I just didn't know" posturing did not help. Admins are expected to know what they are/aren't permitted to do, and to learn from admin-sphere mistakes quickly. The elephant in the room: why were the Arb vote ratios in the BHG and RH cases so different? Especially given the types of ADMINCOND issues raised in the respective cases (the one often involving CIVIL/NPA matters, and the other mostly just technical).In the K case, the remedies included a community reminder that ArbCom is the last resort. This obviously indicates that the case should not have been accepted, and instead remanded back to ANI or other community venues, for addressing current issues being raised (rather than digging through old history and reigniting disputes that were long settled). The findings and remedies are much more split than in the RH case. I'd've recused, having worked with K closely enough on various things (not related to the case) that I'd probably be seen as a "wikifriend" and potentially INVOLVED. I think K was railroaded a bit, as a process matter, but that the conduct issues were arguably within the realm of a desysop. However, I have to wonder how much the proceedings were colored by some of the background disputation involving on of the Arbs (and some behavior that is questionably becoming of an Arb). While that Arb did recuse, this could've put pressure on ArbCom to treat the case differently. |
"fundamentally misaligned with the Wikimedia movement's principles of openness, consensus, and self-governance."The "when should WMF act?" matter is a huge and moving-target question, given things like the UCC draft (which has just about the longest talk-page ever), and the harassment RfC (which is about way more than its name would suggest). I've already addressed some of this "mega-question" in answers to George Ho, Calidum (including the talk-page addendum), A7V2, and The Land, above.
To get to the core of your question, I don't think WMF should be acting on conduct issues unless: A) they fall within those OFFICE-type kinds you linked to; B) they fall under WMF Universal Code of Conduct and the project (e.g. en.WP) at which the conduct is happening lacks community-developed policies to already address that type of abuse; or C) it's a WMF T&S report about abuse that spans multiple projects and often outside-WMF harassment (like pestering another editor's family or employer).
Even so, I have my skepticism about all of those categories. E.g., we already block people making legal threats; it does not require OFFICE intervention. And the UCC obviously has a lot of issues in its current draft, while its entire raison d'etre is providing policy for projects that lack it (not interfering with projects already rich in policy). And we cannot examine the T&S processes and evidence, so we generally have no way of knowing if they are equitable. That last has much to do with why FRAMGATE was such a trainwreck. The very fact that ArbCom did get to examine much of that yet immediately un-banned Fram is strong evidence that the T&S evidence-review process (or its application in that case) could be faulty, especially given the level of direct involvement by Jimbo, the board of directors, and WMF executive staff in resolving the FRAMBAN mess. I think ArbCom continuing to have a role as something like a mediator between the community and WMF will be important and permanent, even if it is not the primary purpose of ArbCom, nor the main mode of WMF interacting with this editorial community. [Just to be clear, though, Newyorkbrad's observation that "even if [FRAMGATE] was mishandled, Trust and Safety actions are generally taken with good intentions" is surely correct. Where I'm coming from on this is summed up in a saying about the road to Hell. >;-] — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 15:03, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
The Electoral Commission is collapsing this question as a violation of Fæ's topic ban on
human sexuality, broadly construed[6]. We have also removed a part of the question that improperly speculated about an election candidate. Candidates may still respond to this question if they wish by editing the collapsed content. For further discussion on this matter, please see this thread and this ANI thread. Respectfully, Mz7 (talk) 21:42, 24 November 2020 (UTC) |
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As ArbCom handles unblock requests when user-talk access has been revoked, ArbCom's most likely consideration of new-editor behavior will be via that route. Since admins considering unblock requests are already empowered to unblock with conditions (i.e., with narrower restrictions but some nonetheless), ArbCom is also so empowered. I would like to see it use this approach more often when there is room for benefit of the doubt. (But we do not need any increased leeway for a sockpuppet, vandal, commercial promoter, vicious attacker in political topics, or other clearly NOTHERE abuser, even if the user seems new.) PS: I also touched on some elements of this question in my "too-bannables" comments in my extended response to Calidum. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:05, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
Respect the way that contributors name and describe themselves [...] People who identify with a certain sexual orientation or gender identity using distinct names or pronouns? Regards, The Land (talk) 21:42, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
Given that UCC was created to deal with WMF projects that don't have much in the way of internal policy, and WP is the opposite, and our policies not only seem to be compatible with most of what I see in there but probably the source of a lot of it, I'm not certain anything of substance will need to change in our policies. However, it is just a draft, it could change at any time, I'm still analyzing it, and writing policy is hard, so there will likely be some not-insurmountable problems. While ArbCom has been thrust into the role of en.WP vs. WMF go-between sometimes, this is neither ArbCom official purpose, or WMF's usual way of communicating with a project; it's just what has to be done in emergencies like WP:FRAMBAN. I'm not certain that should change. What WMF needs to be doing better is learning how each community operates, and communicating what it thinks WMF-wide rules should be, to a much larger audience among the community, and taking their input more seriously. So, WMF "interfacing" a lot with our ArbCom isn't really going to help (and might make things worse; e.g. if our Arbs don't identify a problem, WMF might later claim that "English Wikipedia said" there isn't a problem.
However, if WMF's final version of this has as much boneheaded wording in it as the current draft, then we may still need ArbCom occasionally acting as an community–WMF mediator, to ensure that a community policy written on this site to address the same categorical issue as a section in the UCC, can serve as our implementation of that UCC section, even if the exact wording can be interpreted differently and is less or more restrictive (e.g. we have a much more nuanced definition/implementation of civility than UCC's "politeness in behaviour and speech amongst people"). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:01, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
A) I'm skeptical that article-level notices – {{Ds/talk notice}}
, {{Ds/editnotice}}
– or user-talk ones – {{Ds/alert}}
– have a chilling effect in this particular sense – i.e., that people think they are in enhanced danger of governmental surveillance by going to such a topic.
B) However, DS very clearly has internal chilling effects:
{{Ds/editnotice}}
(which pops up a huge warning banner every time you try to edit a page covered by DS) in particular seems threatening and almost like it's some kind of internal surveillance ("We are watching what you edit, and we think you're up to suspicious activity!"). It doesn't matter that it's not intended and technically couldn't work that way; the user has no basis to understand that yet.{{Ds/alert}}
on their user-talk page threatening. Years of sporadic revision (largely spearheaded by me, actually) have only barely eased this. No one ever responds with "Thanks, I wasn't aware of DS and its application to this topic." It is uniformly interpreted as an actionable warning for alleged transgressions when left by an admin, and as a threat of noticeboard drama (and an attempt to get the upper-hand in a dispute) when left by a non-admin. The entire DS "notice and awareness" stuff is nonsensical and pointless BUREAUCRACY to begin with. Editors know it, admins know it, even a lot of Arbs know it.As I've said in other Q&As on this page: Aside from seriously overhauling or even retiring DS, at very least ArbCom needs to apply DS to fewer topic areas, more narrowly defined ones, with fewer nit-picky and inconsistent "trap waiting to be sprung" provisions, and for limited periods of time rather than as perpetual clouds of chill and menace over large categories of content. Nor should DS ever be applied to internal deliberations like policy-formation processes, only public-facing content topics.
It would be much better (and much closer to ArbCom's actual remit) to address specific behaviors of specific editors. This is where long-term and broadly-construed remedies are actually effective (more so than escalating blocks), along with one-way I-bans for harassers, and explicit reform of two-way I-bans as being pure peacekeeping without any implication of wrongdoing (if there was also wrongdoing, that should be a separate remedy). In short, specific editors are the problem (often only topically and temporarily), not the topics themselves. To the extent a topic of real-world controversy seems to attract disruption, most often by new arrivals, then community GS should be able to handle it (though may also need some revision). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:00, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
Respect the way that contributors name and describe themselves [...] As a sign of respect, use these terms when communicating with or about these people. Should this principle extend to religious names, titles, and honorifics?
This all generally goes for non-religious titles, too. Real example: WP for several years had an editor who was a British duke (seems inactive now). Some other editors who are subjects of the British crown decided to refer to him as "your grace" when addressing him directly, as they likely would if they met him at a social function or wrote him a letter; others did not. Editors who were not subjects of the British monarchy did not do this, of course. And if that editor has demanded that anyone do so, he probably would have been swiftly blocked as disruptive (he did not). More generally: various people who are professors and doctors and judges and so on are WP editors, but they do not use titles here, and we usually have no idea whether anyone's claim to such credentials is legit or roleplaying, nor does it matter (see IAC and VESTED among many other essays for why). We do not prepend/append professional and honorific titles to names in articles (except, for some of them, in the lead/infobox of their own bio; see CREDENTIAL, and MOS:BIO#Titles of people). USERNAME policy gives the community broad leeway to consider a username inappropriate, which might be the case if the purpose of one that included a title seemed to be to assert credentials and authority in a topic, and then actually misuse the account that way for OWN-ish, PoV-pushing, and other rather NOTHERE purposes. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:24, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
Being asked of all candidates