Wiki143:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2006/Candidate statements/Questions for JzG

This candidate has withdrawn from the election.[1] The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.

Thank you for your questions. Please be aware that I try to respond quickly with a first impression, and may well subsequently amend or expand that (it's a wiki, after all - we show our working!). If an answer is incomplete, unsatisfactory, misses the point or whatever, do feel free to follow up. I welcome specific examples for discussion. Guy

Question from Crzrussian

1. As a non-teenager with a family and a full time job, do you expect to find sufficient time to discharge your A/C duties properly? What kind of a time commitment do you think the job will take? - crz crztalk 12:58, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

   I won't have a problem putting in the hours, but I suspect that I would spend less time doing admin stuff. It's either drop that or spend less time on articles, and I do little enough of that as is. Of course it's possible that some family commitments will come up (see also User:Phaedriel) but in the end as you can probably see from Special:Contributions/JzG, I am rarely inactive for long.

Questions from Mailer Diablo

1. Express in a short paragraph, using any particular issue/incident that you feel strongly about (or lack thereof) in the past, on why editors must understand the importance of the ArbCom elections and making wise, informed decisions when they vote.

• The MONGO/ED incident, among many, illustrates why it is vital that ArbCom has the unreserved trust of the community. In the end, ArbCom makes the closest we get to binding rulings, and when ArbCom says "no, really, trust me on this" people really do have to be able to trust them. That means voting with care and thought, and it means making sure that as many people as possible do come and vote.

2. Imagine. Say Jimbo grants you the authority to make, or abolish one policy with immediate and permanent effect, assuming no other limitations, no questions asked. What would that be?

• Fantastic question! Policy? we have very few, and I wouldn't want to remove any. I see no pressing reason to add one, either. Let me think about this one, the only thing I really hate right now is RFA (it rejects too many good people) but I would not want to make a unilateral change there either!

• In response to a question on my Talk, I think that was rejected as an admin due to an entirely irrelevant dispute over something he was doing out of a genuine desire to help the project (and those who, like me, find the OGG format tiresome). Stephen is mature, intelligent, calm, civil, conciliatory and knowledgeable, yet we rejected him. We also rejected for reasons which while reasonable enough were connected with an episode which was a low point for the community, and bygones should be allowed to be bygones. I'm sure George will pass next time, but really, given his self-evident commitment to the project and his long history of good faith contributions, we really ought to apply the "no big deal" clause and a dash of good faith. I also feel (more controversially, apparently) that should be given the mop. He is a tireless worker, unlikely to make rogue deletions, active at WP:DRV so could do with being able to see deleted revisions, and he has a sound working knowledge of policy and guidelines. I know his inclusion standards are well below community norms - mine are well above and I was sysopped. In the end, where's the risk? If he wheel-wars or abuses the tools, they can be revoked, but I really don't see much danger of that. Anyway, these are three users I know from around the place (I nominated Stephen and Jeff) and who failed RfA. "This should be no big deal". Hell, maybe I'm wrong. I note that on my Talk, Xolox makes the point that both Jeff and Kappa were, as far as can be seen, marked down as a result of their holding perfectly legitimate Wiki-philosophical views. We (the admins) are not supposed to be a cabal. Guy 20:40, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

• OK, I have thought about it. I would neither remove nor introduce a policy, but I would change WP:OFFICE to include a proper mechanism for requesting updates and clarification. For example, [[:Template:Encodefirst]] (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is office-protected. The protected version is excessively sympathetic, categorising it as an American university. It is an unaccredited institution, and this is verifiable from impeccable sources. Per precedent, other articles on unaccredited institutions have Template:Tl substed, for the avoidance of misunderstanding. In the case of [[:Template:Encodefirst]] (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), lack of any feedback from foundation led to many weeks of frustration and argument (to say nothing of trolling). The number of office protected pages is small enough that it is not outrageous to expect some kind of clarification (e.g. "protected following a complaint") and some reasonably timely feedback on requests for changes, as per requests for changes to protected pages. The lack of any mechanism makes it very frustrating dealing with these articles. Maybe it's just me; of the five protected articles, one is an unambiguous copyvio on Meta and three others are on my watchlist following previous attempts to prevent POV or WP:BLP violations. Two are as I left them, the third is Pacific western , and I can quite see why some of the content I did not remove was WP:OFFICEd. I have no problem with WP:OFFICE actions (I consider it absolutely necessary that there is some mechanism of this type which is not overridden, in cases of pressing legal concern), but I think the process is rough around the edges. I hope that is a proper answer to your question. I would not want to remove WP:NPOV], WP:V, or any f the other core policies, because it is these which distinguish us from the other sites on the net: verifiability and neutral point of view is our USP.

3. It is expected that some successful candidates will receive checkuser and oversight privileges. Have you read and understood foundation policies regulating these privileges, and able to help out fellow Wikipedians on avenues (e.g. WP:RFCU) in a timely manner should you be granted either or both of them?

• Yup. I am pretty active, give or take RL, and certainly inclined to keep backlogs down. I don't much care for the last changes to process at RFCU, though I can see why they were made, but I do view RFCU and especially OTRS as setting a standard well above the run of the mill editorial or sysop standards of exposure, our reputation can be seriously damaged by misuse of them, so privacy concerns to the fore.

4. What is integrity, accountability and transparency to you on the ArbCom?

• It means saying, out in the open, what you have done and (consistent with reasonable respect for privacy) why; it means being prepared to back down and apologise if you are wrong; and it means drawing a clear distinction between editorial judgement exercised as such, and what is said as an arb. I have found one occasion on which an admin decision was challenged (re contentious edits to [[:Template:Encodefirst]] (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) by Template:User-multi). I learned some from that. I also learned a lot from the incidents surrounding [[:Template:Encodefirst]] (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - see also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gregory Lauder-Frost (fourth nomination). Integrity is an odd thing, really; I have always been open about who I am and that has led to some fairly vicious personal attacks, but my personal ethics require me to be open in that way. No doubt one day it will really bite me on the arse. Integrity to me means that you behave as if you were face to face with someone, not interacting through a series of computers, and it also means that you sometimes have to say what's supported by the balance of evidence not what's popular. I will probably refine that a bit, when I have found an example that is lurking in the back of my mind somewhere.

5. Are "honourable" long-standing contributions and having the role of being sysop mitigating factors when dealing with chronic cases of incivility and other forms of policy violations?

• The problem here for me is the word chronic. It implies long-standing endemic incivility which is not corrected by gentle admonition. Obviously if someone has a long history of good contributions to the encyclopaedia, the community will generally view it as worthwhile to try to fix or live with a behavioural problem (I am thinking here again of the SPUI case, where a long-standing editor's dogmatism finally became impossible to work with and there was no alternative but to go to arbitration - had it been a newer editor we'd likely have simply blocked them). I think the mitigation will be seen in the remedes and enforcements rather than the findings of fact, though, so a long-time contributor might get a one-revert parole where a less established editor might get a topical ban and someone with no real history of contributions to the encyclopaedia might simply be banned.

5a. Humour, a tradition of Wikipedian culture, has seen through several controversies in recent history. This is including but not limited to bad jokes and other deleted nonsense, parody policies/essays, April Fools' Day, whole userpages, userboxes... Do you think that they are all just harmless fun, or that they are all nonsense that must go?

• Humour is a necessary safety valve. Of course we should have humour - you ask a rouge admin this? :o) - but we should remember always that the butt of the joke might not think it quite so funny. April Fools' Day is great, a lot of thought has gone into this. But I am less convinced about the articles which are made up of lists of jokes, especially lists of offensive jokes. There is a risk of forgetting that, in the end, we are here to build an encyclopaedia; humour has its place as long as it helps us to do that. I think I'll have to delete some of my humorous things from Wikipedia space, as my point of view on this ahs moved quite a bit recently. WP:NCR stays, though, because it has a seriuos point, as all the best humorous Wuikistuff does.

@ Thank you for your answers! :) - Mailer Diablo 23:19, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Question from xaosflux

(Similiar to MD's Q#3 Above)

1. As functions assigned by ArbCom, describe your view on the assignments of Oversight and Checkuser permissions, including thresholds for (or even the possibility of) new applicants. (Question from — xaosflux ^Talk 13:05, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

   Assigning oversight and checkuser is something that will always have to be done with great care. Adminship is no big deal, we can undo most of the stuff an admin does, but these two have the potential to open Pandora's box (we do not want a CheckUser feeding info to Wikitruth, for example). I am not opposed in principle to new applicants for these rights, or to a process for promotion, but there must be a right of veto at some level and in some cases we will have to accept that reasoning will not be given for that veto. The community has to be able to trust implicitly those who have the Oversight and CheckUser roles. That doesn't mean they have to be infallible or superhuman or anything, it means they must fail to safety (i.e. in cases of doubt default to maximum privacy). If a CheckUser refuses a request, no damage is ultimately done. At work I have god rights and can read every message in every mailbox. I don't do that, ever, and never have, because it would undermine not just my own position but the trust of the entire user community in the integrity of the mail system.

Questions from AnonEMouse

Warning: Most of these are intended to be tough. Answering them properly will be hard. I don't expect anyone to actually withdraw themselves from nomination rather than answer these, but I do expect at least some to seriously think about it!

The one consolation is that your competitors for the positions will be asked them too. Notice that there are about one thousand admins, and about a dozen arbcom members, so the process to become an arbcom member may be expected to be one hundred times harder. (Bonus question - do you think I hit that difficulty standard?) :-)

1. A current Arbcom case, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Protecting children's privacy is concerned with the decision of whether or not a proposed policy has consensus or not, and therefore whether or not it should be a policy/guideline. Whether or not the Arbcom has or should have the power of making this decision is hotly disputed. Does Arbcom have this power? Should it have this power? Why or why not?

   There are at least two cases I know of (both involving Radiant!) where ArbCom is skating round the edges of this issue - and doing it rather successfully in one of them, I feel. There are other cases where policy has been effectively made, by precedent, through ArbCom ruling (no links to sites which "out" Wikipedians, for example). As interpreted in practice, these will be taken as immutable rules and zealously applied, so ArbCom has to be extremely wary of ruling on issues of policy, and where it does so it must be by clear reference to the application of existing policy, not the formulation of new policy. Thus, it is fair for ArbCom to include as a finding of fact that the community has or has not accepted a guideline, where this is unambiguous; it is fair for ArbCom to rule on whether individual editors have overstepped the rules in lobbying for or against a guideline; but in the end the supreme authority for policy is not ArbCom, it is the community and / or the foundation. ArbCom can rule on whether individual editorial actions are in line with policy and Foundation principles, but it cannot (and should not aspire to) make formal policy by fiat. In the specific case mentioned, I would be inclined to say that the proposal has not achieved consensus and is therefore not enforceable, but that individual actions will be judged against policy and legal opinion. Since the basis of this proposal is a supposed legal restriction, I would support referring it to Brad, but if the divided parties are unable to compromise then it may be appropriate for ArbCom to state as a finding of fact (i.e. a statement of the case as it stands, not a binding decision) that the proposal does not have consensus. If there is significant disruption, it may also be appropriate for ArbCom to recommend that the proposal be marked as rejected, assuming no significant steps towards consensus in the mean time. Note that there is a huge difference between ruling that debate on a failed proposal should be drawn to a close to avoid acrimony, and arbitrating that a proposal has consensus, shutting out a substantial and vocal minority. I don't see ArbCom doing that, though, and I would not want that to happen.

   Clarification, please: are you saying that, in the general case, the ArbCom can or should be able to mark a proposal as a failure, but not as a success? AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 16:03, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

   It's more that it's fair to ask ArbCom for closure where something is failing to achieve consensus, and continuing dispute at the margins is sapping the community's time to no evident good effect, but ArbCom is not a way of getting a casting vote when trying to promote something to guideline or policy status - if consensus is not there, then we should rewrite or move on. I note that in at least one current case some of the arbs are holding out against the issuing of content guidance. This is good. Guy (Help!) 17:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

2. Similarly, a recently closed Arbcom case Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Giano barely dodged the possibly similar issue of whether the Arbcom can, or should, determine whether Bureaucrats properly made someone an administrator. (Discussed, for example, here). The current arbcom dodged the question (didn't reach agreement one way or the other, and ended up leaving it alone by omission), but you don't get to. :-) Does the arbcom have this power? Should it?

   It rather depends on how the problem is framed. If you consider it from the point of view of ArbCom ruling on whether the conduct of the 'crats, as 'crats, is in line with policy, then I don't see a fundamental difference between that and, say, being asked to rule on use of admin tools, or CheckUser, or any other privilege. If you consider it form the poitn of view of ruling on the choice the 'crats made, rather than whether they were entitled to make that choice, then I would say not. I would not want ArbCom to decide on whether individual users should or should not get adminship. I'm guessing the arbs would not want to go there either.

3. Various arbcom decisions (can't find a link right now - bonus points for finding a link to an arbcom decision saying this!) have taken into account a user's service to the Wikipedia. Several times they have written that an otherwise good user that has a rare instance of misbehaviour can be treated differently than a user whose similar misbehaviour is their main or sole contribution to the Wikipedia. Do you agree or not, and why?

   Yes, of course. Look at User:SPUI for example. The community and the arbs cut him a lot of slack in recognition of the very hard work he has put in. We do not require people to be infallible. Someone who is consistently tendentious may be banned, where someone who is usually good but has a bad episode may be admonished. I would hate to see it any other way.

4. If you agree with the above point, which service to the encyclopedia is more valuable - administration, or writing very good articles? For example, what happens when two editors, an administrator and a good article writer, come into conflict and/or commit a similar infraction - how should they be treated? Note that there are relatively the same number of current administrators and featured articles on the Wikipedia - about 1000 - however, while relatively few administrators have been de-adminned, many former featured articles have been de-featured, so there have been noticeably more featured articles written than administrators made. This is a really tough one to answer without offending at least one important group of people, and I will understand if you weasel your way out of answering it, but it was one of the issues brought up in the recent Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Giano, so you can imagine it may come up again.

   I am having some difficulty visualising what you mean here; as far as I'm concerned what you present is a false dichotomy. To my mind this would be no different in principle from weighing up the balance when two very good editors are in conflict (except that admins are expected not to use the tools where they are personally involved, but I'm assuming here that there is no pre-existing dispute, and the dispute comes about due to an admin coming along to a running dispute). If the admin is involved in a content dispute, and uses the tools to gain an advantage, then that is unequivocal.

5. While some Arbcom decisions pass unanimously, many pass with some disagreement. I don't know of any Arbcom member who hasn't been in the minority on some decisions. Find an Arbcom decision that passed, was actually made that you disagree with. Link to it, then explain why you disagree. (If you don't have time or inclination to do the research to find one - are you sure you will have time or inclination to do the research when elected? If you can't find any passed decisions you disagree with, realize you are leaving yourself open to accusations of running as a rubber stamp candidate, one who doesn't have any opinions that might disagree with anyone.)

   You are assuming that there is a decision they have reached with which I would disagree - given the quality of past arbs, that is a big assumption. But I will review them and see if I can find one in the last year or so (much older than that and the dynamic of the project is probably too different).

   One case, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Israel-Lebanon, included a finding for which I did not care much, that the requirement for reliability of sources could be relaxed in order to allow more timely coverage of current events. We are not Wikinews, this may prove to be a mistake, but I'm content to sit and wait to see what happens. But that's not a decision I disagree with as such.

   One case, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sathya Sai Baba (from which I would have recused were I an arb, due to my being a Christian) leaves me rather dissatisfied, in that the article on Sathya Sai Baba still, after the arbitration, reads to me as excessively sympathetic. This is partly a result of my own beliefs and partly because my own exposure to this subject has been largely through a series of television documentaries which are highly critical of Sai Baba, painting him as a charlatan and possible child molester. That said, on the balance of evidence and policy, I cannot fault the conclusion. Mostly this just highlights the difficulties in documenting subjects where opinion is highly polarised with little genuinely objective independent coverage.

   Clarification please: you seem to have done the research to find two instances where you disagree, but then write that you don't disagree after all? AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 16:03, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

   I disagree at the gut feel level but cannot dispute the evidential basis. I have spent quite a bit of time readng through old cases and can only find isolated elements where I disagree. Reviewing the history of some of them, it seems that the items I would dispute, failed to reach a consensus among the arbitrators and were voluntarily struck, or never made it past Workshop. I am not comfortable with Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Israel-Lebanon, in the single specific respect that it endorses use of blogs as sources for developing current events, because i think as an encyclopaedia we have no need to lower our standards in order to document things on which we do not yet have any proper historical perspective, but that is a Wikiphilosophy which does not have widespread support and actually I am now persuaded that what matters is not the medium so much as the source - some individuals have blogs where they publish material which is fact-checked and based on intimate personal knowledge of the subject, and these are no less valuable than editorials in academic journals. Of course they are less good than a peer-reviewed publication, but the peer-review process is not infallible. This is why I like to see a decent number of reliable sources for an article which looks to be vulnerable to POV (including corporate biography and articles on popular culture where Google results are likely to be heavily over-represented by fans). I guess what I'm saying here is that I think the process is pretty good, and where my personal views conflict with what ArbCom says then I would either have recused in advance or accepted the consensus. I think it is not good that we have few active arbs right now as it makes it more likely that a contentious decision might slip through, but looking at this [2] version of a current RFAR I would be surprised if a really bad one made it out. Does this make me part of the hive mind? I have no idea. Perhaps it just indicates that I am open to persuasion by a reasoned argument, or at worst I'm prepared to agree to differ.

6. It has been noted that the diligent User:Fred Bauder writes most of the initial Arbcom decisions -- especially principles, and findings of fact, but even a fair number of the remedies. (Then a fair number get opposed, and refined or don't pass, but he does do most of the initial work.) Do you believe this is: right; neither right nor wrong but acceptable; or wrong? When you get elected, what do you plan to do about it?

   To be honest I have always assumed that Fred communicates with the other arbs by mail during this process, but in any case I don't see it as his prerogative to do this, and would have no reluctance in doing so provided I could do as good a job (which would be difficult!). Looking back, it was not always the case that one arb was most active in this way, and it will probably be different again going forward.

7. For those who are administrators only - how do you feel about non-administrators on the arbcom? Note that while "sure, let them on if they get elected" is an easy answer, there are issues with not having the ability to view deleted articles, and either not earning the community trust enough to become an admin, or not wanting the commensurate duties. Or do you believe that non-administrators are a group that need representation on the arbcom?

   There are many excellent editors who are not admins, especially given what David Gerard (I think it was him) described as the "arbitrary demands for shrubberies" at RFA. Most new sysops seem to be elected as janitors or vandal fighters, and these are not essential qualities for an arbitrator. It's not a question of "representation", this is not a democracy, it's a question of the best candidates for the job.

AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 14:21, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Questions from Newyorkbrad

Welcome to the hustings. These are standard questions that I have been asking all the candidates. I see a lot of questions up above, so to the extent one of your answers would duplicate something you've said above, feel free to cross-reference instead of repeating. Thanks. Newyorkbrad 16:04, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

1. What can be done to reduce the delays in the arbitration process?

   Encourage more community-based management of problem users. I would not want to see less consideration of cases, although there is no reason it can't be quicker as long as the same amount of thought goes in. After reflecting a bit more on this, I'd like to say that actually I rather admire the way that ArbCom thinks things through. Sure, it takes longer than we'd like, and there is a lot of fighting between the disputant parties in the mean time (which I would like to do something about, perhaps via temporary injunctions) but it is good to have a balance to the dominant culture of immediatism. There is, after all, no deadline to meet. Concerns over content - specifically defamation - would never be dealt with by ArbCom anyway, so it's good to take the time to investigate properly, and perhaps if we felt less pressed to act now! we would all of us be less inclined to bite.

2. If elected, do you anticipate participating in drafting the ArbCom decisions? If so, do you have any writing experience relevant specifically to this task?

   Yes I anticipate doing that, no I have no specifically relevant experience (although I spent some years working as a technical writer as part of my job; it's not the writing that causes the uncertainty, it's the nature of it). On the other hand, this is a wiki and we debate content, all of it, including ArbCom decisions. Many of our editors are not great writers, but their input can be valuable anyway.

Questions from John Reid

Q: 1. Who are you?

A: I am Guy Chapman (this is on my user page). My identity is not and never has been a secret. I'd tell you more about me if you want, but I'm guessing this is about whether I am open about my real identity, background, opinions and biases, which I am.

Q: 2. Are you 13? Are you 18?

A: No, I am 42 (this is on my candidate statement).

Q: 3. Should ArbCom arbitrate policy disputes or any other matter outside user conduct issues? Why or why not?

A: ArbCom exists to arbitrate user conduct issues. There are a couple of cases currently in arbitration where they have been asked to rule on policy but it seems to me that they are restricting themselves (rightly) to considering principles, and user conduct as related to those principles. So: foo is policy is a valid finding of fact, foo is policy is not a valid remedy.

Question(s) from maclean

Do you have dispute resolution experience in any of the following areas: Wikipedia:Mediation Committee, Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal, Wikipedia:Third opinion, Wikipedia:Requests for comment, or Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates? If not successful with the Arbitration Committee, will you seek a position with the Mediation Committee? ·maclean 07:35, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I have been involved in several RfCs (and some RFARs), have referred several users to the AMA, but do not typically take part in mediation committee / cabal cases because as an admin I am more usually called on to protect or block. I have sent quite a few people in the direction of dispute resolution instead of taking admin enforcement action in what appear to me to be differences of opinion between good-faith contributors. I am a strong supporter of fixing things within the community where possible. I had not really considered joining the mediation committee or cabal (nobody suggested it to me!); I would stand if people with more experience of it came along and told me I could make a useful contribution.

Question from Ragesoss

In the Wikipedia context, what is the difference (if any) between NPOV and SPOV (scientific point of view)?

• This is well illustrated in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience. The neutral point of view means reflecting the balance of informed opinion. If the subject is one of the natural sciences, then the scientific point of view pretty much is the neutral point of view, in that the scientific community has a pretty good mechanism for weighing up the merits of competing theories. That doesn't mean every article must be written about the consensus view, but it does mean that articles on views which are dismissed or refuted by the scientific consensus are treated in a way which , while it provides full information about the subject (provided it is verifiable from neutral sources of course) leaves the reader aware of the extent of its acceptance or lack thereof, and the reasons for its lack of acceptance. It means that tiny minority theories can be ignored in high level articles on the consensus view. And it means that if a supposedly scientific subject has absolutely no sources, pro or con, in the scientific literature, then it is almost certainly not appropriate for inclusion, as was the case with [[:Template:Encodefirst]] (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views).

If the subject is, say, creationism, then the neutral point of view is probably an agnostic one, rather than strictly humanist or scientific, and NPOV would require that we reflect the fact that creationism is a belief system restricted to a subset of Christians, and that the majority view in the West at least is that it is not a correct explanation of the origin of life. We do this pretty well, for the most part, in high profile articles, but abysmally badly in some cases where almost the sole interest comes from proponents of the theory; weeding through walled gardens of articles like those on Remote Viewing and rooting out the POV can be exhausting. Astrology is a good one here - NPOV says we must reflect the fact that large numbers of people believe it, but we have to guard against giving undue weight to the claims made by certain people who try to "prove" that it is a science.

I'm certainly not inclined to believe everything a man in a white coat says, because I have experience of the problems with certain types of observational epidemiological studies (most highly cited studies of this type later turn out to be wrong or at least greatly overoptimistic; tey are however routinely represented as what "science says"). The most spectacular example I can remember was the supposed link between combined hormone replacement therapy and reductions in coronary heart disease. "Suspend belief" is a valuable principle [3].

Point of clarification, per a followup on my talk: not all sources we use must necessarily be neutral, when I say that a theory must be verifiable from neutral sources I mean that in order that it be represented as a scientific theory there must be at least some discussion in impartial sources - peer-reviewed journals or textbooks from respected publishers with a proven editorial process. We can use partisan sources to detail elements of a theory, but not as sources for its status, or indeed for its being a valid scientific theory. A good example here is Time Cube. As a theory of everything, it has no validity. As a scientific concept it is unverifiable. As a website we can verify that it exists and what it says, and that it is the butt of endless jokes due to its obvious absurdity and the eccentric (to put it charitably) nature of its proposer. But we cannot represent it as a scientific theory because we have no credible sources for its validity, because the world of science simply ignores it - as a theory it is clearly risible, claiming that pi=3.20 exactly and that -1 x -1 = 1 is "stupid and evil".

Questions from Badbilltucker

Thank you for volunteering to take on this task, and for putting yourself through having to answer these questions. For what it's worth, these particular questions are going to all the candidates.

1. I've noticed that a total of thriteen people have resigned from the committee, and that there is currently one vacancy open in one of the tranches. Having members of the committee resign sometime during their term could create problems somewhere down the road. What do you think are the odds that you yourself might consider resigning during the course of your term, and what if any circumstances can you envision that might cause you to resign? Also, do you think that possibly negative feelings from others arising as a result of a decision you made could ever be likely to be cause for your own resignation?

Resignations tend to be due to something unforeseen, and I don't foresee any unforeseen events :-) What's more important is that I would resign if there was a clear indication that I had lost the trust of the community, or if I felt that my judgement was unsound, or if some external commitment came up which meant that I cold not give the time to it which is needed. I would do this regardless of whether it left a gap, because in the end the community can always appoint another arb, there is nothing to say we can only do this through a once-a-year election. In my view it's better to let an arb step down gracefully than have a long and bitter fight about something. We have seen more drama around ArbCom in the past 12 months than I would expect, but then, we've seen more drama on Wikipedia with things like the userbox war and other issues which polarise the community.

I would point out that this year I have suffered the loss of a sister and moved house, and I'm still here.

2. There may well arise cases where a dispute based on the inclusion of information whose accuracy is currently a point of seemingly reasonable controversy, possibly even bitter controversy, in that field of study. Should you encounter a case dealing with such information, and few if any of your colleagues on the committee were knowledgeable enough in the field for them to be people whose judgement in this matter could be completely relied upon, how do you think you would handle it?

By reference to user conduct and policy. ArbCom does not rule on content, after all. What we require is verifiability, not truth; if that means we represent both sides of an external controversy and document the debate then that is fine by me. It's only when one or other group takes it upon themselves to assert the truth of one or other position that we have a problem. What is more difficult is where we have a dominant and a fringe theory, and one side wants to include the fringe theory in the article on the mainstream view, and the other wants to include the mainstream view in the article on the fringe theory (see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience). The latter is generally required by WP:NPOV, since we must reflect at the very least the fact that the mainstream does not accept the fringe theory, and why, but the former is an editorial judgement and may well require specialist knowledge in order to evaluate the significance of the fringe view. As a content issue that would be settled through debate, RfC etc.; ArbCom is involved only if the editors are unable to disagree in a civil and productive manner.

Question from Giano

What is your view on the IRC Admin Channel. What subjects do you, and would you if elected, see fit to discuss on the IRC Admin channel? Why would you not discuss the same subjects On-Wiki. Giano 18:47, 12 November 2006 (UTC

I don't use it, never have. I don't see it as appropriate for ArbCom deliberations anyway since IRC is for quick chat (great for vandal fighting) whereas ArbCom has no deadline to meet and needs to be right, not fast. In any case I would rather things were either out in the open wherever possible (the mailing lists are OK, but I still prefer on-wiki for anything of substance) or private via email. Discussions on IRC inevitably give rise to accusations of a cabal.

Question(s) from Dakota

If elected to the Arbitration Committee will you continue active editing? Will you not lose interest in contributing to articles. Will you be available to any users who seek your help or advice.

--Dakota 13:45, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• Being an admin has reduced my time working on articles to the minimum I'm prepared to tolerate, so the thing which would slip would be doing admin "stuff" (which is OK, I guess, since there are a thousand others; some people might think it a blessing if I spend less time on that!). I have a list of articles which I think need creating or expanding, and one by one I hope I'll cross them off. I still maintain outside interests :-) Availability? Sure. I have only ever come across a handful of people who I will absolutely refuse to have anything more to do with and two of these sent gleeful messages after my sister died, I don't think many people would mark me down me for that. I wish I hadn't just remembered that, I can't express adequately how those messages made me feel. Anyway, I have always tried to be approachable, but of course some people find me intimidating for whatever reason. I strive not to ignore any civil question or comment, but I bet I have missed a few along the way simply by virtue of being very busy (here and in RL). In the end, what you see is what you get with me. Guy 19:43, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Question from Cryptic

You state above that "... ArbCom has to be extremely wary of ruling on issues of policy, and where it does so it must be by clear reference to the application of existing policy, not the formulation of new policy" (emphasis yours). How do you reconcile that statement with this deletion of well-sourced material claiming "Blatant WP:BLP violation"? —Cryptic 18:38, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure it needs to be reconciled, since that was an action I took as an individual admin based on my interpretation of WP:BLP and WP:NPOV; it does not seem to me to set any kind of precedent (why would it? I am just one of over a thousand admins). That article reads to me as a blatant POV fork, it's not a notable test case cited in the judicial reviews or legal journals (or at least not so far as I can tell) and it seems to serve no purpose other than to pursue an agenda against a living individual. I can't say I'm an admirer of that individual, but it appears to be hard enough keeping the lid on this POV in one place without it appearing twice. WP:BLP and WP:NPOV (which this appears to me to violate by virtue of being a POV fork and by giving the case undue weight) are existing policy. As always I am happy to have this decision reviewed if anyone wants to review it, and will do my best to accept with good grace if it is restored, but I don't see that as being particularly connected with ArbCom, other than that it's also mentioned in an ArbCom case. Guy (Help!) 21:13, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of that ArbCom case, what do you think of the scope of proposed decisions? Do you think any of these venture into rulings on policy or content? There are also some deep questions on the Talk page, and I'd be interested in seeing your (and anyone else's) comments on them. Kla'quot 08:11, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm watching and waiting, wondering what will happen over the stated WP:BLP issues. I'm more than a little surprised that an admittedly biased article was allowed by ArbCom to stand during deliberation, but I guess they are relying on the editors to fix the problem. I hope they are right. I might well have been more conservative, myself, although with Bucketsofg being a sysop and very experienced editor I don't think it's a black-and-white issue. I will come back to this later, it's not at all straightforward Guy (Help!) 00:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Questions from Torinir

I'm asking these questions all applicants:

1) How would you handle a situation where an error of judgment has occured, especially if evidence is provided to confirm that the position is incorrect?

If it's a genuine error of judgement and not motivated by any kind of malice? Just undo it. This is a Wiki after all. If it leads to a user dispute and the finding of fact is that ti was an error of judgement, then the remedy would be to recommend it be undone, but I doubt that most good-faith editors, faced with compelling evidence of an error, would stand in the way of tis reversal to the extent that ArbCom became involved. At least, I'd hope not.

2) If a decision of yours, while technically a correct one, would knowingly be unpopular en masse, how would you present your decision?

I'd state it in simple terms and give reasoning. I've never been one to consider popularity as a guiding principle in making a particular decision - What do I care what other people think? - but that is not the same thing as ignoring consensus and we must make a distinction between a correct but unpopular action and one which simply overrides consensus (or even a vocal minority). And of course it's not always easy to see the difference. Take, for example, the deletion of [[:Template:Encodefirst]] (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). By some definitions the meme was verifiable even if the individual fundamentally is not; an alternative interpretation is that it violates WP:BLP and WP:NPOV by giving undue weight to one single incident and some highly distasteful "look at the freak" piss-taking. Perhaps we should add "Wikipedia is not a freakshow" to WP:NOT :-)

3) Place each of these policies/guidelines listed in order of precedence (to you) starting with highest priority. There is really no right or wrong answer. I'm interested in seeing what you would normally look at first when assessing an article.

The key here, for me, is when assessing an article. Some things need immediate action, others, while important - vital, even - can wait. Apart from the top two, which are mandated by foundation for the protection of the project, NPOV, V and OR are the big three and much of the rest of policy and certainly guidelines tracks back to these. So:

1. WP:BLP because people matter - also because without this our asses will get sued and we don't need that - but actually this is only a distillation of NPOV, V, RS, NOR as specifically applied to biographies; the reason it gets top spot is because violation requires fixing now.
2. WP:C in as much as again we cannot afford to be sued, copyright violations should be nuked on sight. Slightly less important than BLP because in the end we can probably wait until we get a DMCA takedown notice, but it is always best to avoid that. And frankly there is no point trying to evaluate the neutrality, verifiability etc. of a page that has to be nuked due to violating WP:C. So this comes before the content itself.
3. WP:NPOV, non-negotiable, the founding principle of the entire project
4. WP:V, underpins NPOV in that we have to be able to prove the content is neutral
5. WP:NOR, underpins NPOV and V, because if the work is original/unpublished we can't verify its neutrality
6. WP:RS, a guideline which helps with assessing verifiability
7. WP:N, a guideline which describes the kind of article which is likely to meet policy
8. WP:NOT, in as much although I see (by virtue of the articles I frequent) a lot of soapboxing, a lot of content that fails WP:NOT badly enough to require action also fails something else. The WP:NOT failures I encounter are typically dictionary definitions and directory entries. The directory entries I come across largely fail WP:V since there are few, if any, reliable sources for them (they are usually free software).

Questions from Ben Aveling

1. Which of the follow roles should arbcom members fulfil: judge, jury, executioner, detective, lawyer, psychoanalyst, teacher, leader, parole board, parole officer, weighing machine, opinion poll, weathervane, policeman, keeper of the vision, guardian of peace, visionary, psychic, nurse, other?

• Oh, all of them, plus a few others :-) Actually ArbCom more like the inquisitorial system, whereas the roles mentioned are based on the adversarial system. Detective work is a part of it, although the parties usually bring plenty of evidence, and it has been described as forensic activity by some. I wouldn't glorify it with that term, but the ability to follow things back to their source is needed. In the end ArbCom's job is to verify that the evidence brought is representative, and then clarify how it relates to policy. Weighing machine fits...

2. What would wikipedia lose if you were (re)appointed to the ArbCom?

• I think it would lose much of the admin work I do (perhaps no bad thing) but then, if I restrained myself from getting involved in day-to-day janitorial stuff it might gain some productive edits to the encyclopaedia, so maybe not all bad. Guy (Help!) 22:01, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

3. How to handle a user who wants to make a contribution but lacks the social skills to do so?

• Depends. If its the aggressive type of lacking social skills then we have a real problem; if they absolutely cannot interact civilly then we have not much option but to show them the door. If the user is not aggressive but simply does not "get" how we work then a mentor or buddy might be able to help, and I've had several productive email conversations with editors who don't get what the problem is with what they are trying to do; being approachable and responding thoughtfully when engaged directly is always a good technique with the knowledgeable but socially below par. It's a perennial problem, though, in that fundamentally a lot of us don't have the time to help out the enormous number of such people we come across, and some of them probably are not worth the effort (there is only so much you can do to help someone who wants to add content they can't properly justify). But some people whose skills in collaborative editing are below what might be desired (SPUI again) can be worth the effort.

Regards, Ben Aveling 21:21, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Question from Sugaar

How would you deal with abuse of authority by administrators, meaning by this application of blocks as punitive measures and use of blocks in unclear PA cases, as per WP:BLOCK. Would you protect the sysop no matter what or would you defend policy above all? In other words, what do you consider more important: strict discipline or strict application of policy? Thanks.

The phrasing of the first part gives me some slight problems: first up, one must establish that it is a genuine case of abuse of privilege and not the routine cry of "rouge admin abuse!" by a frustrated soapbox warrior (which is by far the most common source of allegations of abuse of privilege in my experience). Then one must look at the circumstances: is it a borderline case? A bad call? You ask about "unclear PA cases" - that covers a pretty broad spectrum from biting the newbies (bad) to stopping one of those few users who spend their entire time skirting the borders of personal attacks, Wikilawyering over the resultant blocks and blatantly gaming the system. Assuming it's a bad call, or newbie-biting, then one must look at the history. Is this an isolated incident, where simply pointing out the error will prompt an apology? Or is this an admin who routinely tramples round the place blocking people on flimsy grounds, in which case serious consideration needs to be given to their continued use of the sysop bit. So: it's rather a loaded question, and carries with it a very wide range of possible answers.

I'd want to see some evidence of prior attempts to resolve the dispute before seeing it at ArbCom. And by that I don't mean a series of places where a user has protested a block and been told by numeorus others that it was perfectly fair. A common example is an editor who calls another editor a nazi. That is not in itself a personal attack, but it is gross incivility and highly offensive to many people. Such behaviour, if repeated, undoubtedly warrants a block to allow them to cool off; the wise editor will accept this and move on - it doesn't matter precisely which nuance of policy was breached, there is no doubt that policy was reached, and probably the editor has lost their temper and needs a cooling-off period. Sometimes the blocked editor will start arguing about it, and bring the case to the admin noticeboards - they are usually politely advised to learn and move on, or to start an RfC. The way we know that an admin is behaving badly is when we start getting RfCs certified by more than just a few disgruntled disputants, and that is when ArbCom gets involved.

To take it at face value, though, an admin who starts playing fast and loose with the block button should be placed on block parole, just as an admin who wheel-wars (or indeed an edit warrior) may be placed on revert parole. Rightly or wrongly the community (and the admin concerned) seem to think that desysopping is a Huge Big Deal, so the temporary suspension of the sysop bit is an option which has not really been explored. Reinstatement of desysopped admins has caused much pain and grief.

In the end, though, nobody gets protected against the consequences of their actions, if those actions are to the detriment of building the encyclopaedia. Have I answered your question? Guy (Help!) 20:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

More or less you did. It is an election question but it is also something I'm worried about personally (I have been blocked with only one official warning before, never ever got in such trouble before - and it's two years as wikipedian, and the alleged PAs are nuisances, ignoring my clear intention of ammendment after I discovered that calling "nazi" to an obvious neonazi could be PA)

Why do you think that while WP:BLOCK clearly states that ANI is the place to appeal such questionable blocks, and RfC must be initiated? WP:RFC, at least the main page, does not make explicit mention either of RfCs on administrators, only on articles, users as editors and I personally am wary of starting it when other people involved in the same situation has not done it about my suppossed malignant behaviour or anything. In fact I was the only one who started an RfC in the disputed article (contents) but got no replies.

The PA issue has been used as means to displace editors from the disputed article (personally I'm not getting back in that rat-trap after the block) by POV-pushing editors with a clear ideology. It's not any rouge administrators thingy. It's simpler but also more complex.

This is not election-related so you may prefer to reply in my talk page. Thanks for your comments anyhow. --Sugaar 21:58, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

There are numerous ways of appealing a block, including placing Template:Tl on your user page, but reading the threads here I'm afraid you're flogging a dead horse. You were clearly in the wrong, and a six-hour block is not in the least harsh. The fact is, you can't use WP:NPA or WP:CIV to chase an editor away from a contentious article unless they are being incivil. If all sides keep their cool, nobody gets blocked. That said, it's never a surprise when debate becomes heated on the Talk pages of articles on Moldova, Transnistria, the Basque region, Cyprus, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands - and of course the daddy of them all Gdansk. Or is it Danzig? (No, no, I don't want to hear). Try not to take it so personally (and yes I know I'm a fine one to talk). Guy (Help!) 00:03, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I wasn't "clearly in the wrong", the block issued is clearly against policy, and it doesn't really matter if it is 6 hours, 6 minutes or 6 years, what mattes is that WP:BLOCK clearly discourages using block as punishment, and asks for many guarantees in the case of using them in PA cases. Thanks for making clear you are for discipline over policy.

Also the fact is that the editor in question used NPA to chase me and others out, with help of certain administrator. With full success. The last open minded editor that remained there just wrote asking me to go back. But I can't under this pressure. --Sugaar 00:30, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not going to get into your dispute here, for obvious reasons, but to address what has happened in other, similar cases:

• When multiple experienced editors and admins give the same response, the wise course is to accept it rather than keep asking in different places in the hope of eventually getting what one wants - that is known as forum shopping and tends to try the patience of all involved.
• A short block for gross incivility is a small matter; the wise editor will learn from it , moderate their tone and carry on. Incivility is unhelpful to the project, and imputing motives (even where accurate) does not help to foster the spirit of collaboration.
• In matters of deep-seated polarised debate, comments such as "the last open-minded editor" tend to be semantically equal to "the last editor who agrees with me".
• Sometimes when everyone disagrees with an editor it is because they are wrong rather than because everybody else is biased.

I said I'm not going to go into your individual case, but I will give you a piece of advice: if you feel you have a grievance, and if that supposed grievance has been dismissed as baseless by numerous admins (as appears to be the case), then the next step is to open a user conduct RfC. Please be aware, however, that this, too, may not have the result you want. It's not entirely clear to me what you do want other than a free pass to assert your point of view in some articles against vocal opposition. That is unlikely to happen. If you had started off by contributing civilly to the already-open content RfC, which is the right way to approach that dispute, then we would not be having this conversation. This is not to say that Shell is irreproachable here (although I have certainly found no fault in what I've read), just that your actions and especially your own words have not helped your case. Guy (Help!) 08:22, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Question from the Crying Orc

You recently nominated an article for deletion, then closed the AfD discussion early and speedy deleted the article, on the grounds that it was spam, a conflict of interest, recreation of deleted material etc., once it became clear that the discussion was pointless [4] which is ultimately the sort of judgment call an admin has to make from time to time. Arguably, Wikipedia is having an increasing crapflood of this kind of article, as people or groups of the most marginal notability try to include articles on themselves to satisfy their own vain tendencies. As an ArbCom member, you will be facing cases like this, particularly where cranks try to edit their own articles in order to portray themselves very favourably, and then complain when they are not accorded the adulation they think they are due — and these situations can, from what I have seen, become extremely nasty, often ending up in arbitration. How would you envisage dealing with that kind of behaviour, and handling angry cranks who think they're being persecuted by other editors trimming their autohagiographies down to size? The Crying Orc 08:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Yup, I should have simply deleted it in the first place, as a couple of editors rightly pointed out. Here are some links for those interested in reading up:

[[:Template:Encodefirst]] (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mega Society

Wikipedia:Deletion review/Recently concluded (2006 July), see [5]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mega Society (second nomination)

It was re-created out of process by a user who either is or is connected with Christopher Michael Langan, who is one of the couple of dozen members of the subject organisation. We were treated to a sock-fest at DRV, and we had lengthy argumentation by the society's Internet Officer (not declared as such until some way through the debate) and by a member or associate, Michael C. Price. The arguments raised had previously been seen, addressed and dismissed at DRV. We had assertions of multiple sources, but these were for the inclusion of individual members, not supporting the group itself. There is one non-trivial article in a reliable source independent of the subject, and that fails to establish the importance of the subject. Most of the article is an argument over IQ measuring which belongs in IQ, and the bulk of the content is work of the society's officers or members, whose word as to the importance of the subject cannot be accepted due to conflict of interest. In short, the article, like the organisation, appears to exist primarily out of vanity. So I corrected my own error in not simply G4 deleting it, an error which caused drama where none was necessary. It can go to DRV if people want, but in the end it's my bad for not researching the backstory adequately. Guy (Help!) 12:04, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't beat yourself up about it. It was an honest attempt at a civil discussion which was ruined by vote stacking and wikilawyering. Respect for putting an end to it when it became clear which way things were going. MartinDK 15:01, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I should have foreseen it, though, given the other vanispamcruft linked to Langan. Ah well, we all have off days. Guy (Help!) 15:43, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you may have misinterpreted my question somewhat — sorry! I think you actually made the right call, in at least giving the article a chance on AfD (which ended up being a waste, but at least you assumed good faith at first. No, what I was asking was, how you would as an ArbCom member treat a case to do with that sort of thing — some individual or group using the encyclopedia as a mirror for their own glory and splendour...especially when it comes to the question of crackpottery and pseudoscience. Since those cases do end up there, as in the case of Jack Sarfatti and others. The Crying Orc 16:46, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Okey-dokey, now I'm sitting at home at my leisure...

It is pretty clear that Wikipedia is now the number one destination for every kind of vanity, spam, fringe theory and all other varieties of POV-pushing. Most of this is pretty easy to deal with: some of the people involved are, frankly, not too sophisticated in their techniques, and it's far easier to identify than subtle vandalism. Removing the articles is usuall painless, quick and uncontentious. The users themselves may, I guess, be converted to being productive contributors. No, not I guess, I know, because at least one user who started off by writing about his own company is now among my most-admired editors. Sometimes they will carry on and get blocked. And sometimes that learns them, and they ask nicely, and are unblocked and reform. Or so I'm told. The ones which spring to mind most readily here, and emphatically did not. In the former case I think we did our best and it failed because the user is essentially irredeemable. In the latter case, I regret that this user seems unable to accept that his behaviour is problematic. I used to know a fair bit about the world of quarrying, coating and concrete mixing plant, but much of that is now seriously out of date and I was really hoping that once this editor had come down off the Reichstag and put his Spider-Man suit away he might actually be able to help with articles like asphalt plant. Unfortunately he is too obsessed with trying to obscure all mentions of the name of the company he spammed (and even there he might have got his way if he had just been up-front and asked nicely to help get the meta-pages out of the Google hits for his firm, I'm not sure how others would feel about that).

How to deal with it, then? For the simple cases it's... simple. For the complex cases we have the agony of things like Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience. I think the excellent Fred is slightly more sympathetic to Eric Lerner than I would be; it's a pretty clear conflict of interest regardless of Lerner's expertise. This business of Langan is another such case. There is a small group of involved users apparently engaged in the boosting of something which appears to be right on the fringes. They have created articles, and they have been deleted; but they are clever and subtle and some good contributions would be lost if we banned them, but they need watching. I'm pretty sure that Lerner will leave if any significant restriction is placed on him; we will lose something as a result, but it is hard to calculate whether the net effect is positive or negative. Of course a lot of these people will wander over to Citizendium, where they will have a field day until some mainstream experts come along to balance them - and prominent mainstream scientists have not much to gain from editing websites, their reputation comes from publishing in peer-reviewed journals.

So in the end I think we fall back on what has worked in the past: informed but not necessarily expert editors doing their best to ensure neutrality, verifiability and accuracy from reliable secondary sources, backed by clue-based processes to fix the inevitable disputes. We should show respect to experts but not undue deference. Has that answered your question? Guy (Help!) 22:29, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

That's not the full story. The claims Guy makes in his opening response, above, were refuted upon examination. I am not Christopher Michael Langan/User:Asmodeus, nor have any association with his Mega Foundation or his silly CTMU rubbish, and I'm saddened to see that he repeats these allegations here. The Mega Society (the subject of the current deletion affair) and the Mega Foundation are distinct organisations. Anyone can make mistakes, though, and that isn't the issue here, but if I don't want the false allegations and misconceptions repeated here to cloud the issue. The more serious issue is how Guy has reacted to rebuttals of these errors, making unsubstantiated allegations of vote stacking, sockpuppetary etc. Several users with neither strong views about, nor any association with, the article's subject complained about Guy's arrogance, paranoia, readiness to assume bad faith and uncivil behaviour:[6],[7],[8],[9],[10]

Should some like this become an arbiter? Arbiters, like all admins, should follow procedure and not set themselves up as judge, jury and executioner. --Michael C. Price ^talk 17:10, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Redux: routine collision between WP:ILIKEIT and WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:RS, WP:N and of course WP:COI (Michael was too shy to mention above that he is a member of the society in question and a contributor to its magazine). Guy (Help!) 17:33, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

It didn't seem necesary to mention it since you had already mentioned it and it is true, unlike the other assumptions you made, which were false. You have not addressed your failure to follow procedure and, instead, engage in uncivil, arrogant and even paranoid behaviour (that other people complained of). Instead we are treated to the usual attempt to deflect the argument with an ad hominem. It would have been nice to see your claims about WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:RS, WP:N and WP:COI actually debated in the AfD insetad of just asserted; that's why we have procedures. --Michael C. Price ^talk 18:13, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

So you say. By my reckoning, arguments about the deletion of this article now outweigh the total word count of all the sources ever cited for it. Guy (Help!) 22:41, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Irrelevant. This is not about the deletion of an article, but about your judgement and behaviour. --Michael C. Price ^talk 00:49, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Like I said, I made a bad call in taking it to AfD instead of simply nuking it as an out-of-process recreation of a deleted and reviewed vanity article. I fixed that error. End of story. Guy (Help!) 10:16, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Question from CharlotteWebb

Hello, JzG. Could you summarize your relationship to User:Brian G. Crawford, specify under what circumstances (if any) you feel Mr. Crawford should be allowed to return to the project, and explain how you would go about making such a decision, if elected to the arbitration committee? Thanks. — CharlotteWebb 07:25, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• To take the two halves of that question in reverse:

It seems that Brian has been banned indefinitely by Foundation, and that means only Foundation can let him back. I think it's a shame (for Brian), but in the end Wikipedia is not therapy and there is no doubt that Brian's personal issues make him too volatile to be a comfortable presence around the project - he upset too many people in too many ways, and his contribution history is scarcely stellar.

How would I go about assessing such a case if it were brought to ArbCom? I'd look at the history and listen to what the involved parties have to say. Even Jeff, who bore the brunt of Brian's attacks, does not seem to harbour any malice towards him (not that things ever got to the point of asking the parties how they would feel about Brian coming back, since he isn't, at least not without Foundation approval). Take a look at , a community banned user who took their case to ArbCom and presented credible evidence of intent to reform, which was accepted and the account unblocked and placed on a standard parole. I don't know whether this is effective as they have not edited since. Even if an unreformed aggressive user were able to keep up a front for long enough to be unblocked by ArbCom they would be wasting their time since a parole would undoubtedly be attached and as soon as they reverted to their former behaviour they would be blocked again, with dramatically less chance of every coming back. Community patience for aggression is pretty low right now.`

My relationship with Brian is limited to trying to offer him some support and stop him going nuclear. This failed, of course, but I think the blame lies with his medication not with any of the individuals concerned. I have a good deal of sympathy with his position, as I think many others do. Guy (Help!) 10:14, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

After he was banned for death threats (and the most outrageous personal attacks I've ever seen) you quite vocally opposed the ban, insisting that Mr. Crawford was a productive editor who "currently" had "issues" (from which, it seems, you had reason to believe he would soon recover). Has your opinion of his ability to reform changed during the four months that he's been banned? If so, was this influenced by your interactions with Mr. Crawford, or by your observations of the people he has hurt, or by other factors? — CharlotteWebb 10:46, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't recall opposing the ban, actually, Imy recollection is that I tried to get him to calm down and then endorsed an indefinite block until such time as he stabilised. My opinion on his reformability has not changed, the problems were, according to his emails to me, the result of medication which is not used at all in some countries due to precisely these side-effects. I remain of the view that a civility parole would probably be worth trying, based on the enormous difference in tone between emails to me back then and emails now - it is as if they are written by a completely different person, even to the point of stating that he accepts the Foundation's ban. What is much harder to forgive, though, is his use of ban-evading sockpuppet accounts. Also my opinion of his value to the project has been significantly revised following a more detailed review of his contributions.

Indcidentally, the personal attacks were not the most outrageous I've ever seen (ParalelUni holds that dubious honour, see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/St Christopher, but as I'm involved my perspective may well be distorted). There has been some talk lately about the issue of personal attacks - some people do seem to troll pretty aggressively and then run to the nearest admin when someone bites back. I think we should take these things seriously, but we should also recognise the difference between a death threat and the usual "I'll f***ing kill you!" crap which is common among immature males in particular and actually has no real substance behind it. I do not put Brian's actions in that category, undoubtedly they were at the worst end of the spectrum, but there is no doubt in my mind that the balance of his mind was disturbed at the time, which is after all a valid defence in law; we are usually a bit more forgiving than the law courts. Brian's major problem appears to be with a small number of articles on barely-verifiable sexual subjects of highly questionable merit. A remedy which enforced his staying away from them may be effective. Or not, he may be dangerously and irredeemably obsessive.

I am conflicted here, though, because we are discussing a specific case from which I would of course have to recuse, rather than the general. On the other hand it's hard to make generalisations about such things because every case is different. As a general principle, if the attacked parties are willing to be magnanimous then I see every reason why we should assume good faith and accept an apology. As to where, precisely, I would put the bar at what constitutes an unforgivable attack, which is what I guess you are driving at here, I have to say that in the abstract I can't be sure. It would depend very much on the circumstances, the precise nature of the attack (some threats are more credible than others; any evidence that the attacker has actually taken steps to identify the real-life persona of the victim and where they live, for example, is going to take a lot of explaining away) and whether I thought that the attacker was genuinely remorseful and unlikely to repeat the offence. We are, after all, allowed to be human. ArbCom is a good place to settle this kind of thing, because there is sufficient time to sort through things and understand both the problem and its causes. Where fault lies on both sides, and the subject at issue is heavily polarised, it is understandable when people react badly, especially if English is not their first language. There are many editorial disputes surrounding issues of race, ethnicity and politics which fall into this category.

I'm conscious that this is still a bit of an unsatisfactory answer, but then it's a very difficult question. Guy (Help!) 12:33, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to hear about your sister, and sorrier still that ParalelUni would stoop to such obvious cheap shots, but I guess that's a risk you take in publicizing a tragic personal event — if I had a choice in the matter, I wouldn't.

However, I'd hesitate to characterize his behavior as more outrageous than that of Crawford, having witnessed such morbidly offensive comments as this unrepentant trolling (for which it appears he intended to use a sockpuppet, but goofed up, or maybe Erik the Rude was actually a different person, and Brian was disingenuously trying to mis-attribute his tirade to a Erik — neither would surprise me — but the tone of the other user's comments seemed similar enough [11] that most people believe it is was in fact Mr. Crawford's sockpuppet). This wasn't just a bad day, calling an RFA candidate a "large, thick, shiny and mucus colored well nourished maggot" and former administrator a "fucked up delusional piece of human garbage" all in one breath. Brian had had a lot of practice, and made quite a name for himself by saying things like "Go choke yourself with an oversized dildo and save the world your insufferable presence" [12] and "If we were to meet face to face, you'd be at a distinct disadvatage as per my fingernails in your carotid sinus..." [13].

You say you don't recall opposing the ban, but in late July your words were:

"Why on earth would we block him indefinitely? He has a long history of productive edits. We know he currently has issues, but I see no reason why an indef-block without process would be justified."

To put this in perspective, half of the other people in that discussion were hinting at calling the police and having Crawford arrested. But then Crawford (not blocked yet?) responded with more name-calling: "a disgusting abomination who would not be taken seriously by any police organization", "What I did to Catamorphism, nominating her for adminship when I knew she would be attacked visciously and shot down was just my sick idea of fun. I have to admit, I hate bulldykes, and I've hated bulldykes ever since I saw them on my college campus." [14]

Yet, it seems like you were still lukewarmly defending this fellow, even as recently as last month [15] where you suffix the term "death threats" with the asterisk of "side-effects of psychogenic medication", and appear to entertain the notion that his ban might be appealed at some time in the future. So, hopefully you can understand why I feel uncomfortable (to say the least), and why I really would like to know just how far you'd go to help a fellow deletionist, even one capable of such grotesque hate speech. Thank you. — CharlotteWebb 14:57, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I didn't publicise it so much as offer it as an explanation for disappearing off the face of the earth for a while. I count several editors as friends, it seemed only fair to let people know about this event, which absolutely dominated my attention for some time after.

As to Brian, I was obviously wrong back then, which is probably why I don't recall it :-) I also overestimated his contributions, probably because I was looking at project space not article space. I am as you say lukewarmly defending him because I know some of the story, and when he his issues were the result of medication, I have no reason whatsoever to disbelieve this. It has nothing to do with whether he is a deletionist or an inclusionist, I don't think I let philosophical differences dominate my actions in that way - did I not nominate User:Badlydrawnjeff for adminship? And actually I see inclusionism / deletionism as a false dichotomy, I see most people as being somewhere along a continuum between include all and delete all, I have yet to see anyone who sets no personal bar to inclusion. That has nothing to do with applying WP:AGF in the case of someone who was quite open with me about his problems and the causes, and actually asked me to indef-block him in the end. Chris beat me to the punch. If you think that behavioural issues which are a documented side-effect of medication are beyond debate, discussion or forgiveness, then I guess we will just have to agree to differ. You may be right in that his problems may well be inherent and only exacerbated by medication. I'm not known for being against indef-blocks on principle, my usual rule is to stop the problem, talk to the user, let them have a second chance once they have understood it, and if they then go on to re-offend, a plague on them. Credible legal threats and credible threats of personal harm are grounds for indefinite blocking and no unblock without some pretty strong evidence that there will be no repeat. In general such blocks should be appealed to ArbCom. I have supported one or two indef-blocked users taking appeals to ArbCom, and tried to open debate about this. We must, after all, be fair to everyone, even the difficult cases, and as a community we need to feel that we can put a block on a problem user immediately without worrying that the community will then refuse to allow an unblock after further discussion. I see no sense in a time-limited block of someone who simply does not respond to any kind of attempts to reason; nor do I see any reason to continue to block them after they have accepted that debate is the way to proceed. Probation is good, it allows the user to redeem themselves and improve the encyclopaedia in the process.

Incidentally, thank you for asking this question, I have spent much time thinking about how I believe we should respond to problem users as admins (and as a community) since you asked it, and I hope that I will be a better sysop as a result. I think I am acting somewhat differently, whether that's self-delusion I do not know. Guy (Help!) 15:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Question from ATren

JzG:

First, for the uninitiated, here is the background for the question I am about to ask:

About 8 months ago you (JzG) got involved in a mediation on the PRT page. The conflict was very heated, and was mainly between several editors on one side (including me), and a single editor, Ken Avidor, on the other. Avidor was attempting to add unverifiable information from his blog on the PRT article in order to influence a local political campaign, and was posting dozens of irrelevant links back to his political blogs on the PRT talk page (which, by almost every definition, is linkspam). There was also evidence that Avidor was manipulating Wikipedia for his political campaign, by repeatedly applying the NPOV tag, then blogging about the NPOV tag as evidence that "Wikipedia has been infiltrated by pro-PRT cultists".

When you first arrived in mediation, you admitted that you were a "huge fan of Road Kill Bill" and therefore you would not deal with Avidor's transgressions. Roadkill Bill is Avidor's cartoon, and you actually created the Wikipedia article for it, and later defended it for deletion, so it's clear you have an affection for Avidor's work.

Since then, you have repeatedly accused everone except Avidor of POV pushing, MPOV, bad faith, and even twice threatened to lock down the article seemingly at the behest of Avidor, as he had requested this very action less than an hour earlier. It should be pointed out that your threat was based on your misreading of a single word, and seemed to be an extreme overreaction given User:Skybum's history of good faith edits. To have done so at the apparent behest of an editor with an abusive edit history, and one which you admitted affection for, seemed quite inappropriate.

The debate has raged on for months, and in all that time, you have been unswerving in your support of Avidor and his views, while accusing everyone else in the debate of bias.

My question is this: given your admitted admiration for Avidor and his views, why didn't you recuse yourself from the mediation? Do you think it was appropriate for you to mediate this dispute when you had such an affection for one participant? Do you think such a decision would be appropriate for a member of arb com? ATren 03:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

(Please note that the above is ATren's version of the background, and I dispute much of what he says).

The question is as fine an example of begging the question as one could ask for. I do not "admire Avidor and his views", I find his cartoon funny - there is a tremendous difference. You have been loudly demanding that I unilaterally censure Avidor, who has not edited the article in dispute for over six months, without opening that to cover all tendentious edits by both parties in what is clearly a polarised debate, as is evident from your blog as well as Avidor's. You appear, still, to believe that your own biases equate to neutrality. I find that very tiresome. And one does not "recuse" from mediation, especially if one is not actually a mediator. You and Avidor very obviously have a fight going on outside Wikipedia. Thanks for offering, but I'd rather you kept it there. Guy (Help!) 12:58, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

JzG, you didn't answer my question. I asked "Given your admitted admiration for Avidor and his views, why didn't you recuse yourself from the mediation?" The question has nothing to do with me or the biases you perceive in me - you were the one mediating, and you are the one asking to be elected to an arbitration committee. And it is important for any member of a judicial body to know when it is inappropriate to participate in a case.

In this case, you came onto the dispute as a mediator, even though you admitted you were a *huge* fan (your words) of one of the disputants' work. Now, since then, my contention is that you have allowed your affection for that editor to cloud your judgement - but that is incidental to the question.

My assertion is you should not have mediated that dispute, given your admiration for one of the participant, because regardless of whether you could act neutrally, you would always be open to questions about your bias. Mediation is about trusting the judgement of a neutral third party and it's pretty difficult to do that when the third party is a "huge fan" of the guy on the other side of the dispute.

Beyond this issue, there is also the issue of our own internal biases. You, Guy, know that we all have our biases, even when we think we're being neutral. This is precisely why mediators should always recuse themselves from a dispute when they have affection for one of the participants! In this case, you admired Avidor's work, and his political statements in his cartoon - you already knew him and respected him, while the rest of us were strangers to you. How can anyone be expected to maintain neutrality in such a mediation? This is precisely why mediators recuse themselves when there is the slightest chance that they might not be able to act with neutrality - yet you seem unable or unwilling to admit this fact. You seem to believe that you are above such biases, capable of maintaining a mediator's level of neutrality even if you are a huge fan of one side.

So the point is not so much whether you were able to act neutral (my assertion is you were not) but whether you should have mediating at all in this dispute. As an arb com member, you will need to make a decision about recusal almost daily, and if you are unable to make sound decisions about recusal, you risk not only your own credibility but the credibility of arbcom itself.

Now, please answer my questions as asked:

Given your admitted admiration for Avidor and his views, why didn't you recuse yourself from the mediation? Do you think it was appropriate for you to mediate this dispute when you had such an affection for one participant? Do you think such a decision would be appropriate for a member of arb com? ATren 14:35, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

ATren 2/2/06: "So now you're bowing out, eh? You went in and empowered that fucking idiot and now you're dropping it on the floor. You are as much a moron as he is." Why is ATren allowed to "edit" Wikipedia?....Avidor 17:04, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Redux: you refuse to accept any answer other than the one you want; you refuse to accept that you have bias. Sorry, not going there. Guy (Help!) 16:58, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

My bias is irrelevant to my question - I was not mediating, and I am not up for arb com. I'm asking why you didn't recuse yourself. If you believe you were correct in mediating this dispute, then say so. Evading the question gets us nowhere. ATren 17:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

ATren, you are beating the bloody smear where the dead horse once lay. Avidor has not edited that article for over six months, you have, you refuse to acknowledge your own bias, and you are still ranting about Avidor both on and off Wikipedia and letting him bait you. It's utterly absurd, and if it wasn't so bloody frustrating it would be funny. Guy (Help!) 19:32, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Why. Don't. You. Just. Answer. The. Question??! ATren 20:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I have. Repeatedly. You just didn't like the answer. Guy (Help!) 22:20, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, then I must have missed it. Why don't you post your answers below my 3 numbered questions (below) like you did for the other questioners? ATren 00:27, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you must have missed it. Have you stopped beating your wife yet? Guy (Help!) 09:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like ATren is upset because two of the most outspoken proponents of PRT in Minnesota, Rep. Mark Olson and former Councilman Dean Zimmermann have run afoul of the law. Zimmermann is awaiting sentencing for a bribery conviction and Mark Olson is scheduled to appear Dec. 12th before a judge on domestic assault charges. In the one place in the U.S. where PRT had its best chance to receive public funding a few years ago, there is now a zero chance of PRT getting one dime of Minnesota taxpayers' money...Taxi 2000 has nothing new on its website since 2004....J. Edward Anderson has been quiet since Taxi 2000 sued him... A recent PRT conference ( ATRA) attracted only 90 people and no media .... too bad the Wikipedia PRT article has no real information like that....Avidor 17:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Question from ATren, Redux

I am reposting my question in a new section, because my original section got off onto several tangents.

1) Given your admitted admiration for Avidor and his views, why didn't you recuse yourself from the PRT mediation?

2) Do you think it was appropriate for you to mediate this dispute when you had such an affection for one participant?

3) Do you think such a decision would be appropriate for a member of arb com?

Questions about my bias or the PRT debate itself are irrelevant to these questions - the core issue is whether JzG will recuse himself from arbitrations involving editors and/or issues he is close to. ATren 18:00, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Irrelevant? It sounds like ATren is upset because two of the most outspoken proponents of PRT in Minnesota, Rep. Mark Olson and former Councilman Dean Zimmermann have run afoul of the law. Zimmermann is awaiting sentencing for a bribery conviction and Mark Olson is scheduled to appear Dec. 12th before a judge on domestic assault charges. In the one place in the U.S. where PRT had its best chance to receive public funding a few years ago, there is now a zero chance of PRT getting one dime of Minnesota taxpayers' money...Taxi 2000 has nothing new on its website since 2004....J. Edward Anderson has been quiet since Taxi 2000 sued him... A recent PRT conference ( ATRA) attracted only 90 people and no media .... Martin Lowson is no longer the CEO of ATS (ULTra)... too bad the Wikipedia PRT article has no real information like that....Avidor 18:13, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I think, ATren, that you are never going to accept any answer other than the one you want, and since the one you want is to unilaterally condemn one half of a clearly bipartisan dispute, in which you are far and away the more active party, over six months after the other party's last edit to the article in dispute(!), which you are still actively editing, you are not going to get it. Guy (Help!) 19:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I think, JzG, you are refusing to answer a simple and quite relevant question. But if your answer is "no comment", then so be it. ATren 19:50, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

You are welcome to think whatever you like. I think you are bringing your battles to Wikipedia, judging by your blog, and that is not a terribly good idea. Trying to pretend that I am involved in those battles is pretty silly, though. Guy (Help!) 22:18, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

(1) You really don't have a clue about the history of this debate, do you? My first conflict with Avidor was here, and it later spread outside of Wikipedia. But don't let facts get in the way of your spin. (2) You still haven't answered the question. ATren 00:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

(1) I don't care, (2) yes I have, you just didn't like the answer. Guy (Help!) 09:56, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Note: JzG has refused to answer this question, despite my repeated requests. I asked whether he should have recused himself from a dispute because of affection for one of the participants, and he has repeatedly evaded the question by trying to divert the attention to me. If his answer was no, then it would have been nice to hear that from him. I will no longer seek an answer, as it's clear that I'm not going to get one, but I'm writing this note to clearly document that no answer was given. ATren 02:22, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Have you stopped beating your wife yet? I notice you have refused to answer this question. Guy (Help!) 07:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I have never beaten my wife. Now answer my question: Do you think you should have mediated the PRT dispute given your admitted affection for one of the editors in that dispute? I am frankly annoyed that you continue to evade this question by somehow implying that it is a loaded question.

Quite the contrary, the question is quite simple and straightforward. You mediated a dispute after admitting you were a "huge fan" of one of the disputants - this much is incontrovertible. Now, during the course of the dispute, the three of us on the other side were repeatedly frustrated at your apparent bias towards the views of that one editor, but this fact is incidental to the question, because my question is whether you should have gotten involved as a mediator at all. Obviously, I think the answer is no, but I thought it was important to hear your answer, along with your reasoning. Is that too much to ask for someone who seeks a judicial position such as this? ATren 09:30, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

(folded in from below)

Indeed - and at least in your case he admitted he was wrong... I'm still waiting for him to acknowledge just one of his many transgressions in my dispute. ATren 02:10, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

LOL! And guess what, ATren? I'm still waiting for you to acknowledge that your own bias is not the same as neutrality! Just fancy that. Actually I didn't admit I was "wrong" in Michael's case, either, I debated the issue with the involved parties and I believe an understanding has been reached, although Michael does not appear to be a party to that. Guy (Help!) 11:54, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

(end fold-in)

And, last time I checked, I am not running for arb com. Editors in a content dispute are not expected to be neutral: however, an admin who enters a dispute as a mediator certainly should be. The last thing arb com needs is someone too arrogant to recognize when their inherent biases will prevent them from acting with neutrality. ATren 09:37, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

ATren, your question explicitly assumes that your interpretation of matters is entirely correct and that your behaviour is entirely blameless. I dispute that, as I have made abundantly clear on several occasions. It is functionally equivalent to have you stopped beating your wife yet, and I have given you all the answer you are going to get, which is that I will not unilaterally condemn one side of a clearly bipartisan dispute, especially in response to demands by the massively more active party in that dispute, and most especially since these demands include the assumption that said party's biases equate to neutrality. Please feel free to ask a generic question which is not founded in your continued campaign against Avidor continued on Wikipedia and in your attack blog for several months. The falsity of your assertion that I unequivocally back everything Avidor says is readily demonstrated by reference to Avidor's post above, for example, in which he lists sevaral things which an anti-PRT campaigner would like to see in the article but which I have made no attempt to include because they are essentially editorialising and not demonstrably significant. I really am having trouble by now accepting that you are not much more intimately involved with the Minnesota scheme than you admit, you have turned up the heat enormously since it was defeated and its key proponents arrested.

I know you do not like that answer, you have made this perfectly clear. I'm sorry you don't like that answer, I suggest that your best bet is to either find a better question, one which is generic and not tied to your own interpretation of a dispute in which I have after all had very limited involvement since the excellent Stephen came along, or you give up before you are accused of trolling. Guy (Help!) 11:54, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Now I'm a troll (see this edit comment). Just for the record, I have been accused of all of the following by JzG, without a shred of evidence:

1. POV pushing - repeatedly on the PRT articles, even though I worked tirelessly to discuss POV problems in the article and JzG largely ignored me, then reverted me. (Ask User:Skybum and User:Fresheneesz who also got this treatment from JzG). I've asked JzG to link to my POV-pushing edits, and he's ignored me - mainly because there are none. There was one POV-pusher in this whole dispute, and it's the editor which JzG has defended from the beginning, despite solid evidence of his political campaign, despite solid evidence of m:MPOV (he's repeatedly quit Wikipedia and come back, he's attacked Wikipedia with a cartoon, and he's become an active member of Wikipedia Review), despite solid evidence that he was gaming Wikipedia to advance his political motives. But I'm the POV pusher.
2. bad faith - my motives have constantly been questioned by JzG, again without a shred of evidence. Now he accuses me of being involved in Minnesota politics! Completely ridiculous! (Any admin can check my IP - it's from Buffalo, NY - and I'd be happy to reveal my true identity to a neutral third party). He's accused me of "bringing external conflicts here" even though my conflict with Avidor started here and spread elsewhere. Once again, I've asked JzG to bring evidence of bad faith behavior, but he refused.
3. Trolling - this is the best one yet! He's the one who brought up the PRT pages during Fresheneesz' arbitration, implying that Fresheneesz was a problem editor from those days (even though there were three others who had major problems with JzG's behavior there, not Fresheneesz's). He's the one who started aggressively editing the PRT page again, once again editing at the behest of Avidor, restarting a mini-war there. He's the one who went to AN/I to plead his case, twisting the facts and mischaracterizing the dispute. And, going back further in the dispute, he's the one who threatened to lock an article because he misread a single word - and he did it twice. He's the one who effectively took ownership of the article by reverting my (and others') edits on sight, usually with a snide comment that assumed bad faith on our part. There is proof of all of this, and I've presented this proof many times in the past; against this, JzG has never provided a shred of evidence that I am a troll, or POV pusher, or acting in bad faith, yet he continues to misrepresent.

Now, let me rephrase the question again, to be sure there is no way it could be interpreted as leading or begging the question:

Do you think you should have recused yourself from mediating the PRT dispute? Please explain your reasons.

Now, are you going to try to deflect again by attacking my role in the dispute, or are you going to honestly answer this simple question? ATren 16:07, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

ATren, I did not say you were a troll, I said that if you continue your relentless insistence on my answering a question the validity of which explicitly requires my acceptance of your version of events, you will most likely be dismissed as one. I offered as an option that you might choose to ask a more generic question rather than one which seeks to further your own narrow agenda. I see that you have refused to do so. This is not a surprise. I await a question which is applicable generally and which does not require the acceptance of your own version of events. Guy (Help!) 17:39, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

<<<--- reset indent

OK, if you insist, I will reword the question to be completely generic:

If an administrator is a self-admitted huge fan of the lone editor on one side of a heated content dispute, do you think he should mediate that dispute? ATren 18:26, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Key word: editor. Editors are free to edit articles, although we generally discourage editing articles in which you have a vested interest in the content. I'm sure that mediators - members of the mediation committee and the mediation cabal - typically do not involve themselves as mediators in disputes where they are predisposed to support one side, and may withdraw where they become aware post-facto that one side is an individual they might be predisposed to support, but I am not a mediator and never have been. Editors whose edits are such that even their opponents accept the vast majority of them as a self-evident improvement to the article, are probably not a problem for the project. Editors who refuse to admit to their biases, or who portray their biases as neutrality, often are a problem for the project, especially where they repeatedly agitate for those with an opposing view to be sanctioned in some way. Guy (Help!) 19:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, let's say an administrator was acting as a mediator on a particular case, even if he wasn't a member of a mediation group. Do you think that it would be appropriate for that admin to mediate (informally or otherwise) a case in which he admitted that he was a huge fan of a single editor on one side of the debate? ATren 19:29, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

But that would depend on accepting your interpretation of events, which I don't. So there you have an end to it. Evidently the problem was not that great, as there is no apparent dispute that the vast majority of my edits were unambiguously good. Guy (Help!) 22:34, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I thought we were dealing in generalities now, so why are you referring to specifics of one particular case? I am asking you whether it is appropriate for an administrator to act as a mediator (either officially or unofficially) in a case where he has expressed admiration for the editor on one side of the dispute. It is you who are now making reference to a specific case. So when I ask you in the context of the case, you refuse to answer on the grounds that the question is leading; then when I frame the question generically, you turn around and reference specifics! What gives? ATren 22:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, here's a generality: if a mediator comes to an article and says "I am here as an official mediator", they should not normally be involved if they have an attachment to one or other party. Guy (Help!) 22:59, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Questions from Anomo

1. Do you think there should be an age requirement for ArbCom? Anomo 12:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

No. I've seen some very mature behaviour from very young editors, and some terribly immature behaviour from much older editors. Age confers experience, but wisdom can be inherent :-)

2. I have read on several websites (they even gave links to block logs) of Wikipedia admins who do things like indefinitely blocking accounts who have not edited for months, there was no CheckUser anything, no reports, and the admin didn't give any reason, just put personal attacks as the block reason (e.g. saying "troll"). Basically such cases seem done beyond punative, but just out of bullying. I saw at least ten of these, but so far I can only find one here [16]. I don't feel like digging for hours, as I just want to ask your opinion of whether you support or oppose such admin activity because it's clear most support it. Anomo 12:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

It would depend on the account. Sometimes we find "sleeper" sockpuppet accounts which are or have been used by banned users. Thodin was not here, I think, to build an encyclopaedia (and there are some attacks in his edit history, such as [17]). I don't think Rhobite should have blocked Thodin, I think he should have asked another admin to do the honours, but in the end a duisruptive user is a disruptive user, and Thodin (see block log) clearly created and re-created an entirely inappropriate attack article in mainspace. If a user asks to be unblocked and no admin will unblock them, they do have some difficulty accessing ArbCom as "court of final appeal", as it were; it would be prudent to allow blocked users to request ArbCom review of their block without blocking their IP for block evasion (ugh! sorry about that sentence). On the other hand, most of the indef-blocks I have seen (not that many to be sure) have been righteous and completely uncontroversial; that does not detract from the fact that it is entirely plausible that there are some which are not and we need a proper mechanism for handling them. Preferably without letting the more egregious trolls waste too much of the community's time.

3. What is your view on the current policy often called "kicking them while they're down" of deleting the user and talk pages of people who are blocked? Anomo 12:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

The name you give to the policy is begging the question rather. Sometimes it is the best way of stopping them from digging the hole even deeper, and very often these pages are abused as a soapbox or to attack others. As always there should be a review if it is considered contentious, but most that I have seen are not.

4. What is your view on the practice on Wikipedia where a person blanks out text on talk pages because the text mentioned something wrong the person did or defeated them in an argument? The text blanked usually has no reason given. When there is a reason given, it's only a fake reason. In rare cases, the text is not blanked, but the entire talk page is archived including discussions hours old, blanking it out. Anomo 12:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

It is not specifically prohibited, but if it hampers the progress of a debate on content, or is apparently an attempt to obscure problems to prolong the period before action is taken, then it may be considered disruptive. A polite request not to do so (with reasons) is, of course, a necessary first step. I've changed my opinion on this over time and am much more likely to judge acording to the overall contribution history of the editor rather than being dogmatic.

5. What is your view on the frequent practice of locking the talk page of someone who is banned to avoid communication with them? Anomo 12:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Is it frequent? I'd say it's a valid way of preventing abuse, but not many blocked users are abusive. Maybe it's common with indefblocks. The recent locking of John Reid's talk was highly controversial and quickly undone, I think. In general it's neither necessary nor desirable, but some people do seem to be unable to distinguish Wikipedia from a soapbox, and others will fail to accept a block which is adjudged righteous by numerous admins. Reasons for locking a talk page might be: attacks; aggressive soapboxing; chronic abuse of Template:Tl (e.g. by wiping declined requests). Do you consider those to be valid? Or is there a specific example that would illustrate the question?

6. Why do you feel in the past when in a conflict in ArbCom between non-admins and administrators that ArbCom has always sided with the admins? Anomo 12:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Always? Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rachel Marsden/Proposed decision censures Bucketsofg, an admin, and admins have been desysopped by ArbCom in the past, including Dbiv (who has since changed his username). It would also be disturbing if most ArbCom did not find that admins were in the right; RFA is considered by many to be excessively restrictive and it would be worrying if problematic admins were being appointed despite that. Where the conflict is between long-standing admin and non-admin users, I think the balance is much less clear than you imply, but that's just an opinion. Was this question prompted by a particular case or cases? Maybe you could link them so I can see what you mean. Guy (Help!) 13:26, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Question from Dfrg.msc

In one sentence, what will you bring to the Arbitration Committee? Dfrg.msc ^{1 . 2 . Editor Review} 23:27, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I can do it in a word: dedication. Guy (Help!) 00:46, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Arrogance, more likely. --Michael C. Price ^talk 00:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Michael, one man's arrogance is another's firmness. Deleted articles re-created out of process by involved parties have always been subject to re-deletion. I have had a civil discussion with other involved parties about this same issue, I believe we have reached an understanding (although that may just be my interpretation). See also Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/ScienceApologist for the specifics on Asmodeus, who re-created the article. Redux: wait until the dust settles, there is no deadline. Guy (Help!) 07:45, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The article was not re-created out of process: I was specifically encouraged by the closing admin of the DRV to rework and recreate. And as I have noted before (on a number of occasions) Asmodeus is not associated with the article and did not recreate it. --Michael C. Price ^talk 05:56, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

So you say, but as noted elsewhere you have a conflict of interest here. As does the person who re-created the article. And most of the people who edited it. And quite a number of people who participated in the AfD. Guy (Help!) 07:34, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I see, so nothing I say will ever be taken seriously by you, even when they are factual errors that can be easily verified? As the DRV closing admin concluded:

the most effective way to establish an article after it has been deleted in a close AfD is to rewrite it: make it "faster, better, stronger." This is, in fact, what you claim to have done with your draft. Good show. Best wishes, Xoloz 16:22, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Is this how an admin and prospective arbiter should behave? --Michael C. Price ^talk 13:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

You should talk to your fellow members more. Guy (Help!) 18:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

And the relevance of this to your inappropriate behaviour is? --Michael C. Price ^talk 18:55, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

... that you, as a party with a vested interest in the content, are probably not best placed to judge the appropriateness or otherwise of my behaviour. Guy (Help!) 00:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Voting in the elections

Hello, the ArbCom elections are coming up very soon and I was wondering if you would give your public assurance not to vote or comment on other candidates. I think this will help keep friction to a minimum. Imagine how ugly it would be if two people who vehemently publicly attacked and opposed each other both ended up sitting on the ArbCom together. I think, in the best interests of decorum, these kind of conflict of interest issues should be avoided. Do you agree? --Cyde Weys 20:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

This seems to be a question with a backstory. There are several candidates I would have absolutely no problem supporting, at least one I suggested should stand, and I see no compelling reason why I should not support them. Nor do I see any special reason why a civil comment should not be included in respect of a candidate I would oppose, if there are any such, but I would be very cautious about this. If there are two individuals who would plainly be unable to work together, I would imagine that one would withdraw if the support for the other looked substantial. I have no idea how we would handle a situation where two arbs absolutely cannot work together. I would hope that those whose disagreements are excessively violent will simply avoid each other during the election process. Guy (Help!) 11:22, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Question from Fys

Do you think it is justified to make assumptions about the point of view of contributors based on a mere superficial understanding of their politics? Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 15:55, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

In general? It depends on the circumstances - the ArbCom case Wikipedia:requests for arbitration/ScienceApologist endorses the idea that it is acceptable to assume the obvious even if a user makes some superficial attempts to conceal it. For example, it's reasonable enough if you have documentary evidence of a user's political affiliations and strong political opinions, and an ArbCom sanction against them for tendentious editing of political biographies, to assume that low-grade edit warring over poorly sourced negative information in an article on a member of the opposing political party may well be politically motivated. To make judgements over the significance of negative content in articles on sitting MPs of an opposing political party may well be a conflict of interest. Certainly it is very rarely acceptable to link to attack blogs as part of a citation, and such inclusion always demands consensus on Talk if it is removed. Guy (Help!) 17:29, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Since you have gone from the specific to the general, I will follow. Firstly, what evidence do you have that when (nearly two months ago, and before any dispute arose) I wrote that the mention should not "elevate [the questioned material] into something more than it is (a disaffected and highly politicised local who has a beef against their MP, not a serious political criticism)" I must have been lying?

Secondly, what ArbCom sanction for "tendentious editing" is this? I have been involved in one ArbCom case and that does not include any finding of "tendentious editing" at all. Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 17:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Fys, I understand that you never give up, so I will simply state that I have no intention of playing your bloody stupid game of pretending you are right when nobody else agrees. Guy (Help!) 18:55, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

For the record, I happen to agree with Fys, that you make undue assumptions about the POV of editors, sometimes even using those assumptions to imply bad faith. I have evidence of this, and will present it when I vote tomorrow, but I just wanted to point this out here because I believe you are once again evading an important question. ATren 19:16, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

You're right, JzG, I don't give up. I don't give up when you make unfounded accusations on my neutrality and then refuse to entertain further discussion when I provide the evidence which demonstrates that your assumption was wrong. This is highly relevant to the ArbCom: it cannot have members who jump to unwarranted assumptions in the first place, and it especially cannot have members who refuse to revise their opinions when presented with evidence that contradicts them. Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 19:17, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Background: Anne Milton is a Conservative Member of Parliament. She has a constituent, Tim Ireland, who has set up a blog which attacks her. There is a dispute over whether the blog should be mentioned in her biography article.

JzG claims that the reason why I want it mentioned is that I am a supporter of the Labour Party. He has offered no further evidence.

Meanwhile I point out that, as long ago as June, I was writing "In my mind the blog is highly significant and should be mentioned because it is unusual to find a blog specifically targeted against a particular MP" but stressing that the mention "be worded in such a way as to be neutral and informative". Then in October I wrote that the blog should not be made into "something more than it is (a disaffected and highly politicised local who has a beef against their MP, not a serious political criticism)". Furthermore I point out that I have written articles on Conservative politicians and Liberal politicians which have not been impeached for their neutrality, and that articles I have written about Labour politicians contain considerable criticism. Indeed I wrote Anne Milton including all the material which is to her credit.

All of this evidence is dismissed as an attempt to play games. I have more which I have not yet mentioned but which is highly relevant. Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 19:17, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually it's much simpler than that. Fys edit-warred over content sourced to an attack blog in a biography of a living individual. Per an ArbCom ruling, Fys has a history of disrupting political biographies by edit-warring, and may be banned from such articles as a result. Incidentally, the article subject is a Conservative and Fys is a Labour activist and outspoken supporter of the Government, but Fys' disruption is by no means restricted to political biographies whose subjects he supports. Fys is now absolutely dead-set on finding some way to save face after his block, which was posted to WP:ANI for review [18]. Fys can whistle. Guy (Help!) 20:08, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

The purported 3RR was not over "content sourced to an attack blog" as you would know if you read the links. The dispute was over whether to mention the blog at all. The dispute now is over your claim that the reason I want the blog mentioned is that I am a supporter of a different party. I ask you again: where is your evidence for this suggestion? Where is it? Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 20:14, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Revert 1: [19]; Revert 2: [20]; Revert 3: [21]; Revert 4: [22]. So a definite substantiated 3RR violation, not a "purported one"

The content, as the diffs above clearly show, is sourced to two places, one of which is an attack blog, and refers in whole to the allegations of the attack blog. Per WP:BLP and general policy the onus is on the person seeking to include content to justify it and to achieve consensus for its inclusion. Per Talk:Anne Milton, consensus for inclusion is not evident.

Per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Irishpunktom, Fys edit-wars. Which is what he was doing here. And he was blocked, and unblocked when he undertook not to edit-war on that article any more.

And that, I think, is all I have to say on the matter for now. Guy (Help!) 22:33, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Removal of sourced content is simple vandalism, excluded from 3RR. This was sourced content, sourced to The Times, our newspaper of record. The vandal editor removed sourced content and a link to the blog. There is clear consensus on the talk page for inclusion. Meanwhile you have not said what your evidence is for claiming that the reason I wanted it mentioned was my personal political views. Where is it? Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 22:38, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Removal of questionable negative content from a WP:LIVING article is not simple vandalism, two separate admins told you this was not simple vandalism, and the case was posted for review and endorsed by other admins. I think the only person who sees this as simple vandalism exempt from 3RR is you, and since you appear to have a dog in the fight, and a reputation for edit warring, that's not terribly persuasive. The extent of argumentation you are prepared to create rather than simply taking it to the article's talk and debating it like a rational human being is beyond belief; you never even tried to find out if the other party would accept the content without the link to the blog, for example, or whether an alternative wording would be acceptable. You just went straight in with edit-warring, for which you have already been sanctioned by ArbCom and blocked more than once. If you feel you have a legitimate grievance, I suggest you take it to dispute resolution. Guy (Help!) 22:43, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

You have not said what your evidence is for claiming that the reason I wanted it mentioned was my personal political views. Where is it? Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 22:46, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

dispute resolution is that way → Guy (Help!) 23:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Question from TheronJ

1. You mention above that, had you been an arbitrator at the time, you would have recused from the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sathya Sai Baba because of your own religious beliefs. Based on your background, any prior conflicts, etc., are there any other areas or topics where you anticipate receiving requests for recusal, or where you might consider self-recusal? If so, what are those areas and how would you decide whether to recuse? Thanks, TheronJ 02:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

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