Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Candidates/28bytes/Questions

Candidates are advised to answer each of these questions completely but concisely. Candidates may refuse to answer any questions that they do not wish to, with the understanding, however, that not answering a question may be perceived negatively by the community.

Note that disclosure of your account history, pursuant to the ArbCom selection and appointment policy, must be made in your opening statement, and is not an optional question.

General questions

What skills and experience, both on Wikipedia and off, will you bring to the Arbitration Committee if elected?
The past few years of serving as an editor and administrator have taught me a great deal about how Wikipedia operates, for good and ill. It is important to be well-versed enough in our guidelines and policies to understand the alphabet soup of three letter acronyms that serve as shorthand for our core values (BLP, N, NPOV, NPA etc.) But it's more important to be able to set aside the jargon and speak plain English to users to help them understand what those policies mean, and how understanding them and following them makes life easier for everybody. I believe I bring to the table both the necessary understanding of our policies and principles, and ability to fairly apply those policies and principles to disputes that come before the committee.
What experience have you had with the Wikipedia dispute resolution processes, both formal and informal? Please discuss any arbitration cases, mediations, or other dispute-resolution forums in which you have participated.
My dispute resolution experience on Wikipedia has primarily been informal in nature: trying to talk upset users down, trying to get two (or more) editors who are butting heads to see the other persons' point of view, and (not infrequently) encouraging editors to ignore slights and let go of grudges so that formal dispute resolution processes are not needed. There is an unfortunate tendency on the project to unnecessarily escalate minor disagreements to major ones rather than let them go, and I have tried in several venues (for example the Administrators' Noticeboard) to fight that trend by encouraging de-escalation and disengagement.
Every case is evaluated on its own merits ... but as a general matter, do you think you would you side more often with those who support harsher sanctions (bans, topic-bans, desysoppings, etc.) against users who have misbehaved, or would you tend to be on the more lenient side? What factors might generally influence your votes on sanctions?
The single key factor that will influence my vote on sanctions is "will it help?" Sometimes sanctions do help; when an editor is otherwise productive but is causing major disruption in a specific topic area, a targeted topic ban can make sense. If we can keep an editor focused on constructive editing while avoiding areas that have caused them trouble in the past, that approach is often better than a blanket ban. Bans, of course, are sometimes necessary, and despite our "anyone can edit" ethos, it would be naive to think that literally everyone on the planet is capable of editing constructively. Some people just aren't a good match for a collaborative environment, and if the only reasonable way to end the disruption is to ask them to leave, sometimes we have to do that.
Please disclose any conflicting interests, on or off Wikipedia, that might affect your work as an arbitrator (such as by leading you to recuse in a given type of case).
Regarding on-wiki conflicts, I would tend to recuse if a case focused on (for example) one of my RfA nominators, or someone I'd nominated for RfA. Topic areas where I've invested a lot of editing time would likely merit a recusal as well. Off-wiki, if a case involved someone I knew in person, worked with, or had any type of financial dealings with, I would recuse.
Arbitrators are elected for two-year terms. Are there any circumstances you anticipate might prevent you from serving for the full two years?
I intend to serve the full term if elected, but the future is, of course, impossible to predict. I have seen enough arbitrators leave unexpectedly that I think promising not to do so would be unwise.
Identify a recent case or situation that you believe the ArbCom handled well, and one you believe it did not handle well. For the latter, explain what you might have done differently.
I think ArbCom handled the SchuminWeb case well. (Full disclosure: I carried out the committee's desysop request in my role as a 'crat.) This was a case involving admin accountability, and in the past the committee had sometimes failed to act when the administrator in question left (or appeared to leave) to avoid answering difficult questions. In this case, the committee gave the administrator the choice of participating in the case, or relinquishing the tools, which is, I think, a reasonable way of handling things in such a way that admin accountability is assured. In this instance, the administrator chose not to participate, and the admin tools were removed accordingly. A case that the committee did not handle well, in my view, was the one involving Rich Farmbrough. There was the (unintentional) seeming changing of policy via a Finding of Fact that suggested that, contrary to longstanding practice, it was somehow unseemly for a bot op to unblock their bot once they'd fixed the problem for which it was blocked. That FoF was, thankfully, later revised, then eventually vacated, but its inclusion suggests an unfamiliarity among the then-arbitrators of how bots work. (The most bot-savvy Arb, User:Hersfold, was recused in that case.) Add to that the vague and inconsistent definitions of "automation" (does "automation" include "cut and paste?") and the blocking of the bot during the case by an arb who was party to the case, and you have a giant mess. I can't wholly blame ArbCom for all of that, though... arbitrators are not necessarily expected to know anything about automation. But familiarity with bots would certainly have helped.
The ArbCom has accepted far fewer requests for arbitration (case requests) recently than it did in earlier years. Is this a good or bad trend? What criteria would you use in deciding whether to accept a case?
It annoys filers to no end when ArbCom tells them to go through standard dispute resolution first, but often, ArbCom is quite right to tell them to do that. Arbitration should be a last result in most cases (obvious abuse of administrative tools is a clear exception.)
What changes, if any, would you support in ArbCom's procedures? How would you try to bring them about?
I like Courcelles' idea of a separate Arbitrator Discussion page, to move the (non-private) discussion that occurs on the mailing lists to a publicly viewable area. Transparency is a good thing, and a dedicated page would be a good, concrete way to achieve that.
What changes, if any, would you support in ArbCom's overall role within the project? Are responsibilities properly divided today among the ArbCom, the community, and the WMF office? Does the project need to establish other governance committees or mechanisms in addition to ArbCom?
I remain uncomfortable with the current arrangements that require the committee to be the investigators for child protection issues. I would prefer to see the WMF take over this role entirely; they have the financial wherewithal to hire specialists who are better equipped to handle such things than volunteers who are generally untrained in that area.
It is often stated that "the Arbitration Committee does not create policy, and does not decide content disputes." Has this been true in practice? Should it be true? Are there exceptions?
The editing community – not ArbCom – is empowered to create and change policy, and to decide content disputes. The community's decision on an article's content, or what a policy should say, cannot be overruled by ArbCom. Sometimes the committee skirts a little close to the edge on policy "clarification"; for example, in desysopping an administrator for unblocking an editor blocked by an oversighter, one could argue that the committee was changing policy by fiat. Despite the fact that most people agreed that undoing an oversight block should have been against policy, it was not at the time of the unblocking, and the policy itself was only changed after the administrator was (temporarily) desysopped. Without the action of ArbCom in that case, the policy likely would not have been changed, although, again, it's generally agreed that the change itself was a good one. Such edge cases are thankfully rare, and the committee in general tends to stay within its remit, as it should.
What role, if any, should ArbCom play in implementing or enforcing the biographies of living persons policy?
Proper enforcement of our BLP policy is absolutely critical, and ArbCom must continue to support the community's efforts to ensure that the policy is properly enforced. We should always keep in mind that real people, with real lives, are affected by what we allow in articles: repeating tabloid rumors or other poorly-sourced gossip in contravention to the BLP policy can do real harm to the article subjects, and it damages Wikipedia's reputation as well. When editors who refuse to abide by the letter and spirit of the BLP policy are involved in a dispute that comes before the committee, ArbCom must make it very clear that the BLP policy is not optional, and that anyone who is not willing to abide by its requirements will not be allowed to edit BLPs, if indeed they are allowed to edit any articles at all.
Sitting arbitrators are generally granted automatic access to the checkuser and oversight userrights on request during their terms. If elected, will you request these permissions? How will you use them?
I intend to use those privileges sparingly, and mainly to support whatever work the committee is currently engaged in. For example, there may be cases where a party to a case has made edits that have been oversighted, and those edits may need to be viewed to properly analyze the case. I don't expect to make much of those tools outside of matters brought before the committee, except perhaps for emergency situations where I happen to come across an oversightable edit that must be dealt with immediately.
Unfortunately, many past and present arbitrators have been subject to "outing" and off-wiki harassment during their terms. If this were to happen to you, would you be able to deal with it without damage to your real-world circumstances or to your ability to serve as an arbitrator?
No one is thrilled to have their real life information dragged through the internet. I've seen some truly nasty and personal stuff directed at arbitrators and other editors in the past, but if anything, the realization that anyone could do the same to me has heightened my awareness of how article subjects might feel when Wikipedia allows unsourced or badly sourced rumors or gossip to appear in articles about them, in violation of our BLP policy. Just as we don't like other people targetting us unfairly, we should do our utmost to make sure we're not doing the same thing to others.
Should the Arbitration Committee retain records that include non-public information (such as checkuser data and users' real-life identities) after the matter the information originally related to is addressed? Why or why not?
There's not an easy answer to this. I want to say, as soon as the matter is closed, we should delete the non-public information: we shouldn't be building private "files" on editors for future use by whomever might come across them. But I suspect that the reality is that there are certain cases, particularly long-term abuse scenarios, where maintaining checkuser data is essential for preventing editors from being harassed and targeted, so I have to reluctantly allow for the possibility that sometimes we do need to retain non-public data longer than I'd prefer in an ideal world.
Under what circumstances, if any, should the Arbitration Committee take action against a user based on evidence that has not been shared with that user? That has not been shared with the community as a whole?
The first example that comes to mind is when a banned user returns with an abusive sock: we obviously don't provide them the checkuser data so they can see how they were discovered, nor is it an especially good idea to explain to them what "tells" led us to notice their return. So we don't provide them the evidence although we do provide them with the reason for the action. I can't envision a scenario where an editor wouldn't be entitled to at least the reason for a sanction. Regarding sharing information with the community as a whole, there are a variety of situations, mostly involving child protection and privacy in general, where it would be unwise (and possibly unlawful) to share details with anyone other than the editor in question.

Individual questions

Please ask your individual questions here. While there is no limit on the number of questions that may be asked, please try to keep questions relevant. Try to be as clear and concise as possible, and avoid duplicating questions that have already been asked.

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Question from Tryptofish

What are your views about possible changes to procedures concerning the confidentiality of communications on the arbcom-l e-mail list, as proposed at the bottom of this draft page and in this discussion?
The draft in Risker's userspace looks like a reasonable start to me. You mentioned possible concerns about instruction creep, but I agree with you that in this case it may be warranted: the last thing we want to is leave people with the wrong impression how "forwardable" their emails to ArbCom will be, so there's some merit in laying out specifically what can be forwarded, and under what circumstances. I will admit I have a concern about the change to allow intra-list emails from arbitrators to be made public without the arbitrator's consent if a majority of their colleagues approve it. Could this lead to a situation where, if two arbs happen to be saying inappropriate or embarrassing things on the list, the more popular arb's emails will be kept confidential and the less popular arb's emails will be released publicly? An unlikely scenario, perhaps, but I think it serves us well to at least consider such possibilities.

Questions by Sven Manguard

What is, in your view, the purpose of an ArbCom motion? Under what circumstances, or for what areas or processes, would the use of a motion be your first choice in handling the situation?
The rule of thumb I would use in determining whether to recommend a motion versus a full case is this: are reasonable people likely to consider the motion controversial? Emergency motions (e.g. compromised admin account requiring urgent desysopping) and housekeeping motions aren't controversial, whereas proposing to ban or permanently desysop an editor in good standing is almost always controversial, and would typically be more appropriately dealt with within the context of a full case.
When is it not appropriate to start a motion? If the community has reached consensus on an issue, does ArbCom have the right to overrule that consensus with a motion? If the community is unable to resolve an issue for some time, and there is no active ArbCom case related to that issue, can ArbCom step in and settle the issue themselves by motion?
It is almost never appropriate for ArbCom to start a motion for the purpose of overriding community consensus. Exceptions exist when the committee is in possession of information of a private nature that cannot be shared with the community (the community consensus thus being an uninformed one) – but absent privacy issues, it is not appropriate for ArbCom to (for example) decide to ban an editor by motion that the community has just decided should not be banned. It is not ArbCom's role to find disputes and solve them; let the community bring disputes to ArbCom for the committee to arbitrate.
Please identify a few motions from 2013 that you believe were appropriate (if any), and a few you believe were inappropriate (if any). Discuss why you have reached the judgements that you did. Do not address the "Phil Sandifer desysopped and banned" motion in this question, it will be addressed in Q4 and Q5.
Aside from the number of housekeeping and procedural motions, one good one that I alluded to in an earlier question was the motion to vacate an ill-considered finding of fact from the Rich Farmbrough case that had the unintented consequence of changing bot policy for the worse. While the finding of fact was controversial, the committee (rightly) determined that vacating it would not be, and as such, a motion was the appropriate way to do so. The mutually-agreed rescinding of an interaction ban was another good use of a motion.
The "Phil Sandifer desysopped and banned" motion has proven to be hugely controversial. What (if anything) did ArbCom do right in this matter. What (if anything) did ArbCom do wrong in this matter.
What they did right was acting swiftly to let an administrator know that doing opposition research on editors and posting it publicly in such a manner was completely unacceptable. Some have argued that a double standard was employed, as the targeted editor had previously linked on-wiki to offsite articles outing another editor, and was not given a lifetime ban with no appeal allowed for a year, as Phil was: the "no appeal for a year" clause is indeed harsh. I can see their point. However, administrators can and should be held to a higher standard of conduct. This was clearly a controversial motion, but if one of the goals was to avoid drawing attention to the offsite content, I'm not sure a full case would have been better. I am sympathetic to the argument that ArbCom has no remit outside of Wikipedia itself, and by sanctioning an editor for blog posts, the committee is making policy, or at least acting outside of it. But it's clear that both ArbCom and the community as a whole have been wildly inconsistent on what constitutes outing and/or harassment, and how it should be dealt with, and I don't have any good answers on how we might become more consistent and fair. It's an unfortunate truth that people tend to see such behavior as either admirable whistleblowing or unforgivable harassment depending on how sympathetic they are to the parties involved.
In the aftermath of the "Phil Sandifer desysopped and banned" motion, several Arbs laid out their reasoning in extensive detail and debated people that disagreed with their decision. While it is not uncommon for individual Arbs to explain their reasoning in greater detail, it is uncommon for so many of them to do so, to do in the midst of a hostile debate. Do you believe that the ArbCom members' explaining of their position was constructive, or did it only add fuel to an already large fire? Do you believe that ArbCom members should be explaining their reasoning in great detail regularly?
In general, arbitrators should always be willing to clearly explain their reasoning when asked, and if a decision is in any way controversial, they should do so proactively before being asked. Most decisions are straightforward enough not to require an explanation, but if one is requested, an arbitrator should be able to provide one. Regarding the Phil Sandifer case specifically, regardless of whether I agree with the decisions made, I do appreciate that arbitrators were willing to explain their reasoning. There does come a point of diminishing returns where one has extensively explained their reasoning to the best of their abilities, and questions continue to appear, and of course the particulars of some decisions can't be adequately explained as doing so might infringe on a party's privacy, but in general, people can often live with a decision they disagree with if they at least understand why it was made.
Currently, much of ArbCom business is handled over email, and in other non-public forums. Do you believe that all ArbCom discussions that do not directly concern private information should take place publicly? If so, how? Why or why not?
As I mentioned in my answer to general question 8, I think that Courcelles' suggestion of setting up an on-wiki Arbitrator Discussion page is a good one. Obviously we can't migrate all list discussion to that page, but I think an on-wiki discussion page is a step in the right direction: if arbitrators can get in a habit of starting discussions on-wiki and reserving private venues for genuinely private matters, the community can better understand where arbs are coming from in real time, and possibly offer them some insight into things they hadn't considered.
The above question (Q6) was asked to every candidate last year, with several of the ultimately elected candidates pledging to make ArbCom procedures more public, or at least expressing support for such an idea. There has been, as far as I can tell, no progress on the issue.
- If you are a current ArbCom member: What, if anything, has happened on this issue in the past year? What role, if any, are you personally playing in it?

- If you are not a current ArbCom member: If you made a commitment above (in Q6) to bring increased transparency to ArbCom, only to reach the body and find that the rest of the committee is unwilling to move forward on the issue, what would you do?

- All candidates: Do you have any specific proposals that you can offer to address this issue?

I covered some of this in the answer to the previous question, but one thing I could and would do as an individual arbitrator is lead by example in posting to an on-wiki arbitrator discussion page rather than initiating conversations in private venues.

Question from Sceptre

Between allowing a fringe POV pusher to roam free in Sexology, the massive embarrassment of the Manning dispute, and ArbCom instructing admins to undelete libel (see Jimbo's talk page), how would you seek to repair Wikipedia's reputation amongst LGBT–especially transgender–lay-readers?
The best ArbCom can do is to listen to each party, treat each party in a case with respect, and ensure that anyone who is running afoul of our BLP and NPA policies is (at the least) reminded that they are expected to follow those policies. Improving Wikipedia's reputation among the transgender and broader LGBT communities is not something that ArbCom has a lot of control over. I have not followed the Sexology case, and am not going to be able to set aside the time to catch up on it now, but should the matter reappear before ArbCom I will take the time to familiarize myself with that case and its background. Regarding the Manning case, I was one of the three closers (along with User:Kim Dent-Brown and User:Guerillero) of the most recent move discussion, so our (joint) comments on that are available there for you to consider.

Questions from Rschen7754

I use the answers to these questions to write my election guide. There is a large correlation between the answers to the questions and what the final result is in the guide, but I also consider other factors as well. Also, I may be asking about specific things outside the scope of ArbCom; your answers would be appreciated regardless.

The questions are similar to those I asked in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012; if you've already answered them, feel free to borrow from those, but make sure the question has not been reworded.

What is your view on the length of time that it took for the case Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Tree shaping?
On its face, I can't see anything about that case that would require that length of time between the start and finish; as an arbitrator I would certainly be unhappy if new cases were to proceed at that pace and would do what I could to speed things along a bit.
What is the purpose of a WikiProject? b) What is the relationship between stewardship of WikiProject articles and WP:OWN? c) What should be done when there is conflict between WikiProject or subject "experts" and the greater community?
The Wikipedia concept of "ownership", is, I think, one of our most misunderstood policies. What some editors seem to do is interpret it to mean is that the person(s) who wrote a particular article, or the WikiProject(s) that maintain it, have less standing than someone who goes around reformatting articles in a particular way. The thinking seems to be, "I can go 'fix' this article to match my preferences, and if the article's writer or WikiProject member objects, they're exhibiting WP:OWNership and may be disregarded." I think that's exactly wrong; people familiar with a particular article are within their rights to revert a change they believe is unhelpful: the Bold/Revert/Discuss cycle is really a great way to improve articles. There's (usually) absolutely no harm in making a bold edit to see if it will stick; if it doesn't stick, let's go to the talk page to discuss it. If the two of us can't reach an agreement, let's bring more people into the discussion. WP:OWN tells us that an article writer can't overrule consensus simply because they created the article, but neither does an editor who has never edited the article get to impose their preferences if there's a disagreement and consensus can't be reached. If there's disagreement, respectful discussion on the merits of the proposed change is the answer.
Does the English Wikipedia have a problem with "vested contributors"? Why or why not? If there is a problem, what is to be done about it?
I think it is difficult to argue that different contributors aren't treated differently based on their tenure and accomplishments. Someone whose work has appeared on the front page dozens of times is going to get more leeway when they mouth off in anger than someone whose first (or tenth, or hundredth) edit was to mouth off in anger. Is that fair? Not really. But the community has long been divided on how to deal with it, and while I've given it plenty of thought, I don't have any good recommendations for how we might reconcile the divide. In a perfect world, no one would mouth off and disrespect their fellow editors. Failing that, it would be nice if people could ignore it when someone mouths off and disrespects them. But that's hard to do, and when there's a chance to get the person who disrespected you sanctioned for it, it's hard for people not to try to do so.
a) Do you believe that "it takes two to tango" in some circumstances? In every circumstance? b) Would you consider mitigating the sanctions on one user given the actions of another? Eliminating them entirely?
In some circumstances, yes, it does take two to tango. Things like this do happen from time to time, where if either party had shrugged, moved on and let the other person have "the last edit" there won't have been a giant, sprawling ArbCom case. But there are many cases where a single party is hounding, badgering, or harassing other parties without provocation. Even with provocation, it may be the case that one party's behavior deserves a reminder and the other party deserves an outright site ban, based on the nature of the behavior; every case is different.
zOMG ADMIN ABUSE!!!!!!! When do you believe that it is appropriate for ArbCom to accept a case, or act by motion, related to either a) abuse of the tools, or b) conduct unbecoming of an administrator?
Administrator misconduct (e.g. wheel-warring or blocking an opponent in a content dispute) should typically lead to a case acceptance, unless it's made clear by the admin that it was a one-time occurrence unlikely to be repeated. Or conversely, it's clear that this isn't a first-time occurrence and the administrator has previously been warned that repeated misconduct would lead to a desysopping, which can be handled by motion if the facts are not in dispute. Abusive socking, compromised accounts and other "emergency" desysoppings would typically be handled by motion.
What is the relationship of the English Wikipedia (enwp) ArbCom to other Wikimedia sites, "Wikimedia" IRC, and so-called "badsites" or sites dedicated to the criticism of Wikipedia? Specifically, what do you define as the "remit" of ArbCom in these areas?
ArbCom does not and cannot control what anyone does outside of English Wikipedia, and that includes Commons, Meta, other language Wikipedias, IRC, Wikipedia criticism sites, and editors' personal blogs and websites. That said, if an editor is using off-wiki means to intimidate or harass another editor, ArbCom can and often does sanction them for it. There is a great deal of confusion and disagreement about when it is appropriate to do so, but if (for example) an administrator called an editor on the phone and threatened to beat them up, I don't think any reasonable person would expect ArbCom to shrug and say "what happens off-wiki stays off-wiki."
What is your definition of "outing"?
Outing is the revealing of personal information about an editor that they do not want revealed; typically, their real name, age and/or location. It is often conflated with harassment (and is indeed discussed within the harassment policy), but it is possible to do one without the other (e.g. one wikifriend accidentally addressing another by their real name is outing but not harassment, whereas posting pictures of an editor's workplace in a place they are likely to see it is harassment but not necessarily outing.)
What is your opinion as to how the CU/OS tools are currently used, both here on the English Wikipedia, and across Wikimedia (if you have crosswiki experience)?
CheckUser is a valuable tool, but it is important to realize that it is an imperfect one, and both false negatives (sophisticated sockmasters understand its limitations) and false positives (like this one) do happen. Oversight is likewise a very valuable tool for the project to have, but as I am not currently a member of the audit subcommittee I don't have much visibility into whether there have been misuses of the tool in addition to the occasional mistakes and misjudgments that, being human, we all make from time to time.
Have you been in any content disputes in the past? (If not, have you mediated any content disputes in the past?) Why do you think that some content disputes not amicably resolved?
I have had content disagreements with other editors, but very few have risen to what I'd call a dispute; so far I've been fortunate that I've dealt with mostly reasonable people who've been willing to hash things out on the articles' talk pages. The closest to a content dispute I've had was when an editor persistently tried to add some poorly sourced criticism to The Video Game Critic, which I had watchlisted; I had to request help from the BLP noticeboard on that one.
Nearly 10 years from the beginning of the Arbitration Committee, what is your vision for its future?
While sanctioning will always be a part of the committee's duties, I would like to see an arbitration committee that is willing to take more nuanced approaches to resolving disputes. For some disputes (particularly nationalistic disputes) that may not be possible, but in some cases, it may be possible to suss out compromises from the parties that may avoid the need for sanctions. We can ask parties if they would be willing to disengage voluntarily from troublesome areas, which may save the need for a case. Sometimes they won't, and sanctions will be necessary; but in certain cases it may be worth a try, to save everyone's time and energy.
Have you read the WMF proposal at m:Access to nonpublic information policy (which would affect enwiki ArbCom as well as all CU/OS/steward positions on all WMF sites)? Do you anticipate being able to meet the identification requirement (keeping in mind that the proposal is still in the feedback stage, and may be revised pending current feedback)?
I don't foresee any problem with meeting the identification requirement; the foundation should have some idea of who has access to private data.

Thank you. Rs chen 7754 02:12, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Collect

I also use these questions in my voter guide, and the latter four were actually general questions asked in 2012, which I asked be used again.

An arbitrator stated during a case "I will merely say that now arbitration of the dispute has became necessary, it is exceedingly unlikely that we would be able to close the case without any sanctions. Problematic articles inevitably contain disruptive contributors, and disruptive contributors inevitably require sanctions." Do you feel that once a case is opened that impartial arbitrators will "inevitably" have to impose sanctions?
Not necessarily, no. Sometimes it is the case that editors may "see the light" during the case and make an honest commitment to avoid whatever disruptive behavior brought them to ArbCom. In many such cases we would be well-served to give them that opportunity without sanctions, especially if this is their first visit to ArbCom. (Obviously, if they have made a commitment to avoid problems before and have not honored that commitment, the committee is much less likely to offer that opportunity.) And sometimes a dispute is very much "of the moment" and a reminder to all parties to accord themselves according to our policies and principles would be sufficient. Committee members should never feel bound to issue sanctions if they're not convinced sanctions would be necessary or helpful.
Do sanctions such as topic bans require some sort of finding about the editor being sanctioned based on at least a minimum amount of actual evidence about that person, or is the "cut the Gordian knot" approach of "Kill them all, the Lord will know his own" proper?
There absolutely has to be evidence, reflected in a finding of fact, to merit a sanction. (And to add to that, deciding on a sanction and then crafting a finding of fact to support it is the wrong approach to take.)
Do you feel that "ignoring evidence and workshop pages" can result in a proper decision by the committee" (I think that for the large part, the evidence and workshop phases were ignored in this case is a direct quote from a current member about a case) Will you commit to weighing the evidence and workshop pages in making any decisions?
The evidence and workshop pages can be long slogs of less than relevant text, but it's critical that each voting arbitrator review it nonetheless. I will indeed commit to reviewing the evidence and workshop pages before making a decision, as should every committee member.
Past Cases: The Arbitration Committee has historically held that prior decisions and findings were not binding in any future decisions or findings. While this may have been wise in the early years of Wikipedia, is any avoidance of stare decisis still a valid position? How should former cases/decisions be considered, if at all?
I think a balance has to be reached; for consistency's sake, past decisions should be seriously considered, as doing otherwise is unfair to parties who may have had an expectation of what is and is not acceptable behavior. On the other hand, there have been bad decisions in the past, and policy has changed over the years in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, so old decisions that relied on old versions of policy may be obsolete, and a fresh approach may be needed. Finding the right balance is tricky, but I don't think we can follow either extreme of ignoring old cases or hamstringing ourselves by letting their precedence be an overriding factor.
The "Five Pillars" essay has been mentioned in recent discussions. Ought it be used in committee findings, or is it of explanatory rather than of current direct importance to Wikipedia?
As a rule, the committee should stick to citing policy, but general references to our core values, including the Five Pillars, can be useful to frame the arbitrators' thinking about a case. The community sets the policies, it's the committee's job to ensure the parties in a dispute are following them. Pillars, principles, guidelines and essays have to take a back seat. We can't sanction someone, for example, for violating Don't be a dick, tempting though it may be in some cases.
Biographical articles (not limited to BLPs) form a substantial part of conduct issues placed before the committee. Without getting the committee involved in individual content issues, and without directly formulating policy, how should the committee weigh such issues in future principles, findings and decisions?
I will refer to my answer to general question 11, but in short, the committee must take that policy especially seriously.
"Factionalism" (specifically not "tagteam" as an issue) has been seen by some as a problem on Wikipedia (many different names for such factions have been given in the past). Do you believe that factionalism is a problem? Should committee decisions be affected by evidence of factionalism, in a case or around an article or articles? If the committee makes a finding that "factions" exist as part of a conduct issue, how should factionalism be treated in the remedies to the case?
Factionalism is indeed a problem, and in some cases (the Scientology case comes to mind) it is appropriate to tailor a sanction to a group, but in general the committee is better served to hold individuals responsible for their own behavior; holding a group responsible for the excesses of their worst member will generate charges of bias and collective punishment, both of which are things the committee should endeavor to avoid.

Thank you. Collect (talk) 00:38, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Piotrus

(Note borrowed from Rschen7754): The questions are similar to those I asked in 2012. If you've already answered them, feel free to borrow from those, but make sure the question has not been reworded.

when would you see a full site ban (full block) as a better choice then a limited ban (interaction, topic, etc.)?
Site bans are typically the better choice if an editor is engaging in gross misbehavior and/or there's little hope that a lesser sanction will put an end to the problems. It's sometimes difficult to determine whether an interaction or topic ban will be sufficient, but in general the goal should be turning productive but problematic editors into editors whose focus is entirely on the productive aspects of their editing. Sometimes, of course, that's not possible.
numerous ArbCom (also, admin and community) decisions result in full site bans (of varying length) for editors who have nonetheless promised they will behave better. In essence, those editors are saying "let me help" and we are saying "this project doesn't want your help". How would you justify such decisions (blocking editors who promised to behave), against an argument that by blocking someone who has promised to behave better we are denying ourselves his or her help in building an encyclopedia? What is the message we are trying to send? (You may find this of interest in framing your reply)
In general the committee should only issue sanctions to the extent they are necessary to actually resolve the problem(s). If a topic ban, or even a warning, is reasonably likely to do the job, that should be preferable to a full site ban.
to an extent we can compare the virtual wiki world to the real world, what legal concept would you compare a full site ban to? (As in, an interaction ban is to a restraining order what a full site ban is to...?)
I have seen various editors compare a site ban to everything from being tossed out of a bar for being rowdy to being executed by the government. There are likely endless analogies to be made, but if we're considering only legal concepts, I think the analogy to a restraining order would be applicable to both an interaction ban and a full site ban.
The United States justice model has the highest incarceration rate in the world (List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate). Is something to applaud or criticize?
I think most reasonable Americans would consider our incarceration rate to be a disappointment rather than an achievement.
a while ago I wrote a mini wiki essay on when to block people (see here). Would you agree or disagree with the views expressed there, and why?
There is a lot to like about asking the question "is this helpful?" when considering a ban, but I think the better question is "are there less harsh alternatives to a ban that would accomplish our goal of ending the problematic behavior?" Sometimes the answer is "no", and in that case a site ban is what we have to go with, even if doing so will lose us future positive contributions from the editor in question.
I respect editors privacy with regards to their name. I however think that people entrusted with significant power, such as Arbitrators, should disclose to the community at least their age, education and nationality. In my opinion such a disclosure would balance the requirements for privacy (safeguarding Arbitrators from real life harassment), while giving the community a better understanding of background and maturity of those entrusted with such a significant power. Would you be therefore willing to disclose your age, education and nationality? If not, please elaborate why.
I am an American, in my 40s and a college graduate (bachelor's in Computer Science.)

Thank you, --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:30, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Questions by Gerda Arendt

Thank you, precious candidate, for volunteering.

Please describe what happens in this diff. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:09, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In that diff, Pigsonthewing appears to be moving an infobox from the bottom of the page to the top of the page, uncollapsing it, and making an inadvertent typo. Doing a little digging I find that it is cited by User:SilkTork here in his vote to site-ban Pigsonthewing in the Infoboxes case. SilkTork's comment in part reads "That he deliberately parachutes into infobox editing disputes in such contentious areas: [1] (March 2013) concerns me deeply." Is that truly a contentious edit, and one that merits a site ban, if only in a "straw that broke the camel's back" sense? No, not really. I don't think it was a good example to use to illustrate the claim that his editing was disruptive to the extent that it merited a site ban.

But I would like to share with you a story, of my editing several years ago. I had decided to fill in the gaps in our article coverage of songs listed in List of Billboard Mainstream Rock number-one songs of the 1980s. Armed with Google and my handy copy of Joel Whitburn's chart book from that era, I begin creating articles, like this one. As I did, I included a succession box at the bottom, with helpful links to the previous and subsequent mainstream rock chart-topper. However, I noticed that a few days later, another editor would come in and remove the succession box from the article I had just created. I didn't particularly like him doing that; I thought the succession boxes were a good addition to the articles I'd created. We discussed it, but didn't come to a resolution: he was insistent that the boxes go; I wanted them to stay. We held an RfC about it, which was inconclusive: neither the "keep them in the articles" nor "remove them" positions reached a consensus. Eventually, we reached an informal agreement on our talk pages: I wouldn't add any more, and he wouldn't remove any more. It wasn't what I wanted, really, and I don't think it was what he really wanted either, but sometimes you have to make much compromises to avoid endless, tedious fighting and arguing about something that, in the grand scheme of things, isn't that important. After giving it some thought, I came to the following realization: "do I really want to spend the precious hours and days given to me to spend on this Earth battling about succession boxes?" The answer was a resounding "no." So I honored our informal agreement and moved on. For all I know he may have gone and removed them later anyway; I stopped paying attention, as I was busy writing new articles on different subjects.

I give you that background simply to say this: informal agreements that put disputes on ice are really underrated. It's an approach that has worked well for me, and I believe deeply that it would work well for many other editors. Just imagine if the key players in the Infoboxes ArbCom case had taken that approach! So much time, effort, and hurt feelings could have been avoided. There would then not be any question about how strong or weak a particular diff was in determining whether to ban an editor... because there would have been no ArbCom case to begin with. So this is the approach I take as an editor; all I can do is lead by example and hope that other editors who may be heading for an ArbCom case consider if it's an approach worth trying before they have to argue their way out of sanctions.

P.S. I did enjoy our collaboration on de:Move Like This, and I look forward to another one in the future. Whatever sanctions may be in place on the English Wikipedia, you are more than welcome to add whatever boxes you like to any new articles I create on German Wikipedia.
Thank you for a good answer, a life story, and answer to question 2 already, - all this while traveling! You show little mercy, naming the one who interpreted the diff in a strange way, but then it's still on the final version of the Proposed decision, easy to find. What I don't understand is that obviously nobody (but me) tried to find an explanation for describing the restoration of the article author's wish and the most helpful STOP to that discussion in the way you cited. I missed communication. - On agreement: I have an agreement with Nikkimaria: She doesn't revert my infoboxes anymore (as she had done in this example), I don't add infoboxes to "her" articles. It leaves the readers with inconsistency but is better than hours of arguments. - The Planyavsky case was in March, the arb case in August, - we had learned already, that was not noticed. I would not question this one diff so much if there had been any other in the "evidence" (Thank you, Mackensen!). - Last question (but you have my support already, I just said so): imagine further that after said arb voted to ban the editor, and an equal number of arbs voted against it, it's your turn to cast the one and final vote that will ban or not. Assuming you lean towards it (or will you never?): will you? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:04, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I admire your and Nikki's efforts to come to an agreement, and I couldn't agree more with your statement that the compromise "leaves the readers with inconsistency but is better than hours of arguments." To answer your question: no, I would not support a site ban based on that evidence.
Thank you for that answer, but the question should have been a bit different: would you cast a decisive vote to ban with that narrow margin in an imaginative case where would lean towards ban (or would you never?)? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:13, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I can't promise not to cast the deciding vote in favor of a ban; every case is different, and if I have reviewed the evidence presented and reached the conclusion that a ban is the best option for Wikipedia, I will have to vote my conscience. But if I believe that an equally good or better resolution of a dispute is possible without a ban, I will of course oppose one, whether I am the deciding vote or the only one to oppose it. Voting for a ban is not something I would do lightly, or without carefully reviewing the evidence presented.

Thank you for a thoughtful answer that I support, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:25, 24 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Question from User:MONGO

Please detail your most significant Featured or Good article contributions. GAN, FAC or even Peer Review contributions qualify as evidence of teamwork in bringing an article(s) to a higher level of excellence.
Move Like This is my first successful good article nomination. I wrote that, submitted it for a DYK, polished it up a bit with the helpful suggestions of my GAN reviewer, and then translated it to German (with the generous help of User:Gerda Arendt) and submitted it for DYK on the German Wikipedia. I enjoyed the experience and hope to get a few more of the articles I've written to GA status as time allows.

Question from User:Worm That Turned

Firstly, please accept my apologies for adding to the list of questions! I'm one of the less controversial arbitrators but even I have had my writing twisted, my honesty questioned, my personality derided. I've been the target of unpleasant emails and real life actions. Other arbitrators have been subject to much worse. Have you thought about how being an arbitrator might affect you and what have you done to prepare?
I work from home, so I'm not particularly worried about people calling my "office" to complain, and if they decide to show up in person, well, my wife has a big dog with a healthy appetite. But more seriously, I'm under no illusions that being on ArbCom will be a pleasant experience, free of nasty emails or attack articles. I'm not running because I think it would be a fun way to spend my time; I'm running because this is one of the top ten most viewed websites on the internet, and letting the committee that is its de facto "supreme court" fall into the hands of people who are not serious about our responsibilities is not something I want to see. What we do on Wikipedia has a very real impact on people's lives, whether they are the subject of an attack article, or simply getting wrong information from a medical article that has sources that fail Wikipedia:MEDRS. There are some great candidates running in this year's election who get that; if there were a few more, I wouldn't be running myself.

Question from User:HectorMoffet

The number of Active Editors on EnWP has been in decline since 2007.

This decline has been documented extensively:

In our own "Editor Trends Study"
In popular media ("Nobody wants to edit Wikipedia anymore")
In scholarly literature ("How Wikipedia’s reaction to popularity is causing its decline")

This raises several questions:

Is this really problem? Or is it just a sign of a maturing project reaching an optimum community size now that the bulk of our work is done?
Well, it's complicated. Some of the reasons for the decline are benign: most of the articles the average reader expect to see in an encyclopedia already exist, albeit with varying levels of quality, so the early phenomenon of people joining to write "obvious" articles is no longer applicable. And even though we could benefit from new editors improving existing articles, for many people article maintenance is much less enjoying and fulfilling than article creation, so there's less incentive for them to become an editor. But some of the reasons are more worrying: we simply aren't a very welcoming place in many respects. Part of that is due to the fact that established editors don't take kindly to novices "breaking" articles they watch, part of it is the very confusing labyrinth of rules and procedures that have evolved over the years that make it easy for new editors to, in many cases, see the article they spent time writing get deleted almost instantly, and with no human contact aside from boilerplate templates. People whose first efforts are rejected in a seemingly cold, robotic fashion are naturally less likely to stick around.
In your personal opinion, what steps, if any, need to be taken by the EnWP Community?
Quite simply, we need to be more welcoming. Speak to new editors in plain English instead of wiki-jargon. Avoid slapping templates on a talk page when a personalized message offering help would be better. Those simple human touches take more time, but the extra time spent is often a good investment.
In your personal opinion, what steps, if any, need to be taken by the Foundation?
I'm not sure the foundation can do much to improve the culture, but they can improve the editing software, which they've been trying to do. The Visual Editor is a worthy project, although they need to step up their quality assurance testing and consumer relations skills considerably, and do a much better job of listening when established editors take the time to evaluate the software and offer their suggestions for improvement.
Lastly, what steps, if any, could be taken by ArbCom?
ArbCom can indirectly help in the goal of retaining good-faith editors by ensuring we properly deal with those who drive them away with personal attacks, edit warring, battleground behavior and other policy-breaching behaviors. But ultimately it is up to the community, and to a degree the WMF, to provide a welcoming editing environment.

Question from Carrite

Sorry that this comes so late in the game. What is your opinion of the website Wikipediocracy? Does that site have value to Wikipedia or is it an unmitigated blight? If it is the latter, what do you propose that Wikipedia do about it? To what extent (if any) do you feel that abusive actions by self-identified Wikipedians on that site are actionable by ArbCom?
I read it regularly. Anyone serious about improving Wikipedia should listen to what its critics have to say. We can't get into a situation where we're in an echo chamber where we only listen to people whose perspectives match ours. Sometimes the critics are right: the Qworty saga was an embarrassment; we failed at several key points to stop someone with an axe to grind from using Wikipedia to "revenge edit." Sometimes they're wrong (Google "Busy day at the Wikimedia Foundation office?" for an example). And sometimes they're gratuitously nasty and petty, as when they used a quote from an editor's own mother to bash them. But shutting our eyes and ears to criticism is never the answer. (My reply to Rschen7754's question 6 should answer your fourth question.)

Thank you. Carrite (talk) 03:21, 28 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from iantresman

How important do you think is transparency and accountability for Admins and Arbitrators, bearing in mind that: (a) Checkuser and Oversight have no public logs, even though we could say who accesses these features (without necessarily giving compromising information)? (b) ArbCom has its own off-site discussion area.
Transparency and accountability are both very important goals, but as you point out, it is not possible, especially in the case of oversighted edits, to have full transparency. Due to legitimate privacy concerns, the actions of oversighters and checkusers are, by design, not open for the community to review directly. Regarding ArbCom's off-site discussions, I do believe (as I mentioned here) there are some things the committee can do to move less privacy-sensitive discussions on-wiki for better transparency.
I see lots of ArbCom cases where editors contribute unsubstantiated acusations without provided diffs, and often provide diffs that don't backup the allegations. Do you think ArbCom should do anything about it? (ie. strike though allegations without diffs).
In many cases there is genuine disagreement whether a particular set of diffs support the claim(s) being made, and in those cases it wouldn't be appropriate to strike or remove the comments. But in the case of entirely unsubstantiated allegations, yes, I think it would be appropriate to either strike out or remove them.
Incivility on Wikipedia is rife. Sometimes it is ambiguous and subjective. But where it is clear, why do you think enough is done to uphold this core policy?
I agree that incivility can be extremely subjective, and it's one of the things the community has consistently struggled with. As long as different editors have vastly different standards of what is and is not uncivil discourse, I don't think there is any easy solution. About the best we can do (aside from modeling the kind of civil discussion we'd like other editors to employ) is to enforce the no personal attacks policy, which tends to be somewhat less subjective and less divisive to enforce. Many clear examples of incivility are also personal attacks, and when they are, it often makes more sense to address them within the context of the NPA policy, precisely because civility standards vary so widely.
Editors whose username lets them be identified easily in real life, are frequently subjected to "oppositional research" by anonymous editors who can readily achieve WP:PRIVACY. Do you think this double standard is fair, and should anything be done?
Our harassment policy is clear that "opposition research" to target editors is not acceptable conduct, and that's true regardless of whether the one(s) doing it edit under their real names or a pseudonym.
I see lots of ArbCom cases where Arbitrators appear to ignore the comments of the editors involved. Do you think that basic courtesies should require Arbitrators to make more than just an indirect statement, and actually address the points being made?
There are so many comments and side discussions in a given case that it's not really feasible for the committee to address each one proactively, but generally speaking I think that if the committee is asked a direct question about a specific point, arbitrators ought to provide an answer.

Question from Bazonka

Wikipedia is largely an on-line community, and some editors prefer their activities to remain entirely on-line. However, other Wikipedians engage in off-line, real world Wikipedia activities, such as Wikimeets, outreach work, or training. How much are you currently involved in these off-line activities, and would this be different if you were or were not on the Arbitration Committee?
I haven't attended any meetups or participated in any "in person" initiatives, but I wouldn't rule out doing so in the future.

Question from user:Ykantor

Should "Petit crimes" be sanctioned? and how ?
The present situation is described as User:Wikid77#Wiki opinions continued says: "some acting as "inter-wikicity gangs" with limited civility (speaking euphemistically)...Mob rule: Large areas of wikis are run by mobocracy voting. Numerous edit wars and conflicts exist in some highly popular groups of articles, especially in recent events or news articles. In those conflicts, typically 99% of debates are decided by mob rule, not mediated reason...Future open: From what I've seen, the Wiki concept could be extended to greatly improve reliability, but allow anonymous editing of articles outside a screening phase, warning users to refer to the fact-checked revision as screened for accuracy (this eventually happened in German Wikipedia"
At the moment there is no treatment of those little crimes. i.e. deleting while cheating, lying, arguing for a view with no support at all against a well supported opposite view, war of attrition tactics, deleting a supported sentence, etc. The result is distorted articles and some fed up editors who discontinue to edit. I can provide examples, if asked for.
In my view, each of these small scale problems does not worth a sanction , but the there should be a counting mechanism, such as a user who has accumulated a certain amount of them, should be sanctioned. What is your view?
The editing process is not intended to be based on mob rule, although it may sometimes seem as though it is. The consensus model we use is far from perfect, and whenever one is on the "losing" side of a discussion – as any active editor is from time to time, myself included – it may feel as though might has triumphed over right, and that a better decision-making model might lead to a better result. But ArbCom's remit is not to overrule consensus to pick the "correct" side of a content discussion, or to change the model we use to settle disputes. Any such changes must come from the community itself. Regarding a "counting mechanism" for editing infractions, I agree that it's important to see the big picture when considering an editor's editing behavior, and that it is unwise to focus only on isolated diffs.
Currently, the arbitrators does not know the editor past little misconducts, and without such a mechanism, he would not know. Ykantor (talk) 16:27, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It is the responsibility of the parties in a dispute to present the relevant evidence. I don't believe a formal "infraction counter" for each editor would be a helpful change as there would be endless arguing over whether a particular infraction should be counted, and if so, for how much. If two parties with different "infraction counts" were to appear before the committee, arbitrators might feel pressured to more severely sanction an editor with the higher count without regard to the nature and quality of the evidence.
Does Our NPOV policy mean that an editor is violating the policy if he only contributes to one side?
The issue is discussed her: [2].
In my opinion, the view that every post should be neutral leads to a built in absurd. Suppose that the best Wikipedia editor is editing a group of biased articles. He is doing a great job and the articles become neutral. The editor should be sanctioned because every single edit (as well as the pattern of edits) is biased toward the other side. !
Not necessarily; it is theoretically possible that if all of an editor's edits to an article or topic area appear to be from one point of view, it's because that article or topic area was indeed biased and the editor is bringing them into line with a neutral point of view. But there are of course many other cases where it is the editor, not the article, that is not in sync with what reliable sources say about a topic, and that their edits, no matter how well-intended, are bringing the article out of sync with reliable source views. Each case must be considered on its own merits.
I am sorry, but I was not clear. I am talking about a situation in which both opposing opinions has wp:rs. An editor has deleted my well supported sentence, because he claims that I have to write for "the enemy" too, although I do not have access to the other opinion sources. I said that he should describe the other supported opinion, and both could co-exist in the article. Am I wrong? Ykantor (talk) 16:27, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Without commenting on the specific edits that you have made, I will say that I agree with the following general comments made by User:Zad68 in the discussion you link to:
Be careful about a statement like "must present both sides" because that's not in line what WP:NPOV says (in WP:DUEWEIGHT, the relevant topic here): for editing to be compliant with WP:NPOV, the editing must show that the edits aim to give emphasis the significant views found in reliable sources in proportion to the prominence found in them. If the reliable sources support View X and View Y equally, then an editor who adds View Y to an article that only has View X is complying with WP:NPOV. If the reliable sources present View X as fringe, but overwhelmingly support View Y, then an editor who cuts back on or removes View X from articles (per WP:FRINGE) is complying with WP:NPOV. In these sorts of scenarios, technically it is the editor consistently adding View X to the articles in a disproportionate manner that is editing with an NPOV problem, and the editor dealing with View Y isn't.
Consequently it is much more complicated to assess whether an editor is editing with an NPOV problem as compared to many other problems. It's easy to see when one particular edit is vandalism, or is unsourced, or is sourced to something that is clearly not WP:RS, or doesn't represent the source cited accurately. It's just about impossible to tell whether one particular edit complies with WP:DUEWEIGHT because you have to have a complete working knowledge of a broad overview of all the available sources, including their biases, quality and relevance. If the edit is adding one piece of information, and accurately representing a good source, you can't tell whether NPOV is satisfied just from that one edit.
Sorry to bother you again with one continuation question
There are ignored rules. Should we change the rules or try to enforce them? how?
e.g.
As a general rule, do not remove sourced information from the encyclopedia solely on the grounds that it seems biased. Instead, try to rewrite the passage or section to achieve a more neutral tone
lying

I can show that those 2 rules were ignored in the wp:arbcom but those are just an example. There are more ignored rules. So, Should we change the rules or try to enforce them? how?
Yes, we should of course enforce our policies, unless there's a good reason not to. But editors with different points of view will naturally have different approaches. The section you quote goes on to say "Remove material only where you have good reason to believe it misinforms or misleads readers in ways that cannot be addressed by rewriting the passage" and it may be the case that a particular passage does indeed "misinform or mislead" readers, and can't be salvaged. There are absolutely such cases, although the case you have in mind may very well not be one of them. A discussion on the talk page is the best first step in determining whether a passage should stay or go. The removal a sourced statement is not, in an of itself, a violation of the rules: the bold–revert–discuss cycle applies to any addition of content. But if there is consensus on the talk page that a passage should stay, and an editor refuses to honor the consensus and repeatedly removes it, we then have a behavioral issue that ArbCom can address.

Will it be possible for you to refer to "Lying" as well?

for instance, an editor deletes a supported sentence and say in the edit summary, that ""already written in the article "firmly opposed" or "opposed to any form of" means the same"". But it is not in the article, and the quotes are definitely not the same. (It is just an example, and I have no intention to use your reply anywhere). Ykantor (talk) 14:57, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from user:Martinevans123

Should articles ever use The Daily Mail as a reference source? Should articles ever use YouTube videos as external links? Is there still any place for a "WP:civility" policy, or does it depend on how many "good edits" an editor makes? Should we be allowed to donate to the Wikimedia Foundation using Bitcoins? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:08, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(1) The Daily Mail gets it badly wrong often enough that I would be very leery of using it as a source; we could probably do with a periodic review of the articles that do use it to see if the claim(s) sourced to it are being supported by other, more reliable sources, to either swap in those sources or remove the claim. (2) YouTube links are fine if they are official videos/interviews from the media source or subject's official YouTube channel and not fan-uploaded copyright infringements. Unfortunately YouTube URLs do not generally differentiate the two, which makes it difficult for bots, for example, to help weed out potential copyright infringements without removing benign, allowed-by-policy links as well. (3) WP:Civility is policy, and all contributors, regardless of accomplishments or tenure, are expected to follow it. There is, of course, a great deal of disagreement and subjectivity in determining when a particular conversation "turns uncivil", and when an administrator comes across such a conversation, it's quite frequently preferable to let it run its course than to rain down civility blocks upon one, some or all of the parties. I recall one example shortly after I became an admin where I received an email alerting me to some very uncivil behavior. As it happens, I received the email several hours later than it was sent, and by the time I saw it, the participants had resolved their differences and were speaking amicably. Would it have helped anything if I'd interrupted the conversation by blocking one or both parties? Nope. There's something to be said for reacting to incivility with patience and restraint, instead of "enforcement." (4) Sure, if grilled cheese sandwich shops are now accepting Bitcoins, I see no reason why the WMF shouldn't as well, if they are inclined to do so.

Dear 28bytes, your sensible answers fill me with hope and encouragement. Thank you very much. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:14, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]