Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2004/Candidate statements: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:23, 23 November 2004

Revision as of 20:26, 23 November 2004

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I'm all about improving accuracy and eliminating bias. Even though occasionally I get flamed for '''holding''' POVs that other contributors dislike, I'm generally one to whom people come frequently to '''put out the flames''' when the edit wars get out of hand.

I probably have the lowest ratio of (extreme POVs held) to (edits reverted), because I'm rather good at distinguishing between "common knowledge" and "what I personally believe". So I hardly ever engage in [[edit war]]s. (Okay, except with Dr. Connolley, but it's all in good fun - it never gets mean-spirited. ;-)

I can get any relevant idea into any article, and make it stick -- without sparking an edit war -- simply by taking into consideration WHY the warring parties are so keen on keeping or deleting a certain wording. It's almost always because they feel that's the only way to keep Wikipedia from endorsing a biased POV (see [[Augusto Pinochet]]).

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If elected to the arbcom, I would encourage all contributors to try courtesy and empathy first before making an appeal. Also, maintain a "clean audit trail" yourself. I wrote [[Wikipedia:Avoid personal remarks]] and [[Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot]], because we should focus on making accurate and unbiased articles, not on making others feel cheap or putting them in the wrong.

For users who do NOT support our goal of making accurate and [[NPOV]] articles, I favor quick action. If an uncooperative user doesn't respond to polite requests on their talk page, I think an admin would be well-advised to block their account temporarily (i.e., a "temp-ban"). I have found; even a 10-minute temp-ban works wonders. It's more about how swift the consequences are, than how stern they are.

For determined trolling or POV pushing, I would prefer to talk the matter over by private e-mail with arbcom members like Cecropia, Mav, sannse, Raul, Theresa and The Cunctator. I'm sure we can think of something effective if we put our (virtual) heads together.