Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Candidate statements/Jpgordon: Difference between revisions
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Hi Jp, this is a question about trolls and other kinds of bad-faith editors. We have all dealt with certain types of editors, where going through the full process of an arbcom case feels like a terrible waste of time and energy, because even a glance at their edits shows they're not making good contributions to the encyclopedia and are causing trouble. However, they may not be bad enough for an admin to give them a long or indefinite block for disruption. They inhabit the twilight zone of what Carbonite has called the semi-troll.
What's your view on how the arbcom should position itself with regard to these users? On the one hand, we all want to see some form of due process. On the other, the arbcom isn't about giving every dog its day, but about getting the trains to run on time, as someone on the mailing list said. My own position is that the arbcom should have zero tolerance of trolls and semi-trolls, and I feel we all know them when we see them, but I can see that some people would find this too harsh a view. What's your position? [[User:SlimVirgin|SlimVirgin]] [[User_talk:SlimVirgin|<sup
:Good question. I don't think arbcom is the right place for a zero-tolerance approach; administrators and other editors should, however, be supported in their lack of tolerance for trollery. Arbcom has to be flexible; certainly, keeping the trains running on time is the top priority, but keeping the trains running on time means having a good respect for the train crews. [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not therapy|Wikipedia is not therapy]]; we don't have any particular responsibility here to provide emotional support for troubled adolescents who wish to express their disdain for authority by wasting the time and energy of the huge mass of encyclopedists here. What Arbcom should be for primarily is to arbitrate disputes between well-intentioned editors who are having trouble reconciling their differences with each other. Assuming good faith requires us to assume that each editor, until proven otherwise, is working to better Wikipedia. But as one particularly annoying well-intentioned but utterly wrongheaded user wrote recently, [[WP:AGF]] is a rebuttable assumption. It's also the case that good faith isn't sufficient; an editor might be editing in good faith but be blinded by political views or have emotional problems that make their good faith work to the detriment of Wikipedia. It's these subtleties that Arbcom has to be most careful about. I'm far less likely to label people "trolls" than some other editors; I think, for example, that both Rex-with-all-the-numbers and Zephram Stark truly believed they were fighting the good fight; they just could not understand that their methods and their rhetoric was totally discrediting and drowning out any positive contributions they might otherwise be making.
:So, to make a long story endless, I think "trollery" shouldn't be an issue for Arbcom; I'd just as soon see the term kept out of Arbcom discussions at all. It's not a helpful label. "Disruptive asshole" should suffice. (Oh, I think I'm not supposed to say that.) --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]][[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]] 18:40, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
::Good answer. Thank you. ;-) [[User:SlimVirgin|SlimVirgin]] [[User_talk:SlimVirgin|<sup
==Question from Marsden==
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#How closely do you think admins should have to follow policy when using their special powers?
—[[User:Simetrical|Simetrical]] ([[User talk:Simetrical|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Simetrical|contribs]]) 02:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
#It should be in ArbCom's purview; perhaps I've missed a debate about it, but I always assumed it ''was'' in ArbCom's purview.
#Rather closely, but not obsessively. I'm not a literalist except when programming; this would inform my interpretation of Wikipedia policy. --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]][[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]] 07:27, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
#Obviously, but how liberally do you think it should be applied? —[[User:Simetrical|Simetrical]] ([[User talk:Simetrical|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Simetrical|contribs]]) 00:46, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
*Not very liberally -- like any penalty. But swiftly when necessary. --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]][[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]] 08:25, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
==Concerns over personal attack templates==
[[User:Improv]], who is also a candidate for the arbitration committee, has placed the following statement on [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)]]:
: ''I am concerned about [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion&curid=895730&diff=34790720&oldid=34790144#Template:User_against_scientology|recent templates] surviving AfD that appear to contrast with [[WP:NPA|established policy]]. In particular, I feel that these templates are [[Poisoning the well]] when it comes for how we treat our fellow wikipedians. There are circumstances where knowing too much about one's neighbours politicises how one deals with them. This is, to an extent, unavoidable in society, but wearing signs of hate as badges on our shoulders takes what is a small problem that we can usually deal with into the realm of being damaging to the community. Already, there have been signs of people refusing to help each other because they are on different ends of a political spectrum -- this seems likely to get worse if this trend continues. Some people cry that this is an attack on their first amendment rights (if they're American, anyhow), but that doesn't apply here because Wikipedia is not the U.S. government -- it is a community that has always self-regulated, and more importantly it is an encyclopedia with a goal of producing encyclopedic content. We have a tradition of respecting a certain amount of autonomy on userpages, but never absolute autonomy. We might imagine, for example, templates with little swastikas saying "this user hates jews". I am not saying that such a thing would be morally equivalent to this template against scientology, but rather that we should aim to minimise that aspect of ourselves, at least on Wikipedia, so we can make a better encyclopedia. The spirit of [[WP:NPOV|NPOV]] does not mean that we cannot have strong views and still be wikipedians, but rather that we should not wear signs of our views like badges, strive not to have our views be immediately obvious in what we edit and how we argue, and fully express ourselves in other places (Myspace? Personal webpage?) where it is more appropriate and less divisive.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AVillage_pump_%28policy%29&diff=34797833&oldid=34788153]
I am inviting all candidates, including Improv, to expand on this theme on their questions pages. Do you agree that this is a cause for concern as we move into 2006? How do you see the role of the arbitration committee in interpreting the interpretation of Wikipedia policy in the light of this concern? --[[User:Tony Sidaway|Tony Sidaway]]|[[User talk:Tony Sidaway|Talk]] 20:42, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
*I'm really torn on this one. I think POV-based [[granfalloon]]s on Wikipedia are both harmful and inevitable, as long as we have user pages and talk pages. I am not convinced they are harmful enough to do anything about, though; their harm is mitigated by their self-identification and the public nature of editing. Things like "User against Scientology" could fairly be construed as a personal attack on any editor who happens to be a Scientologist and dealt with accordingly. --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]][[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]] 08:09, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
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