Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Candidate statements/Tznkai

Statement

I want to make it clear, before I even start listing the details, that I have no idea what to expect from adding my name onto this list. I do however, believe strongly that the community should provide the Wikimedia Foundation/Jimbo/Wikipedia itself as many legitimate options as the community can, and I believe I am a legitimate option.

I have been an editor on Wikipedia since about May 24th, 2005. In that time I have engaged in a number of disputes, controversies, mediations, etc. Likely as not, you have not heard of them, and to me that is a Very Good Thing. The accomplishments of bringing editors at their worst to their best should not be advertised, because it showcases fellow editors at their worst, not their best. I beleive very strongly that Wikipedia needs to treat its editors as people, fellow human beings, and offer them that basic respect.

Thus, the goal of Arbitration is not punish those who have done wrong in some cosmic sense, but to protect the integrity and longevity of the project. Thus ArbCom must stand between the community and the Encylopedia, and intercept any disaster that may befall either. Keeping in mind those principles, Arbitration would be a processes which handles, primarily, disputes between editors. Ideally, the Arbitration Committee should be able to clearly delinate principle and action in such a way that it never has to do anything: the Arbitration Commitee should truly be the step of last resort. This is however, the ideal. In reality the Arbitration needs to balance making itself unpleasant enough to be the last resort, as well as accessible enough to those who need it. Arbitration needs to focus on every applicable resource to protect the project, especially from dispute. This includes rescuing editors who have caused trouble, but have potential to reform, as well as losing good editors who threaten to demoralize scores of others. I believe strongly that Arbitration Committee should spearhead a community wide effort to create alternatives to two parties going to arbitration asking "who's right and whos wrong?!". This includes formal and informal mentorship agreements, formal and informal mediation, and controling the usage of dispute resolution tools to prevent damage to the project.

I think I provide a unique perspective. I provide the combination of beliefs I expressed above, and the relative newness to formal authority. I am NOT mired in past high profile disputes, and I very strongly believe that you need as many diffrent voices you can get, so long as they all work together.

Tznkai 05:49, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Questions

What are your views of the proposed Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Code of Conduct and User Bill of Rights?

--HK 16:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My first response, without even looking, is it sound suspiciously like mainstream politics, and thus should be killed with fire, because Politics is Bad and Wikipolitics is Worse. Glancing through the Code of Conduct it looks like a bunch of suggestions that are easy to follow (when to recuse), a few redundancies (Follow WP:NPA, no really?), and a misunderstanding.

" Those elected by the will of the Wikipedia community to serve on the Arbitration Committee are bound by the principles of impartiality and fairness in their decisions."

While I agree with the sentiment, its technically incorrect to say the ArbCom's power derives from the will of the community. This isn't a majority ellection/represntative government, is the community putting forward its opinions on who will best serve to protect the encylopedia from errant memebers of the community, and who will best serve to protect the community from errant members of the same, and handing it up to Jimbo to figure out. Personally, I think the diffrence between mob rule and consensus decision making is a tricky one, and thats what we have someone with reserve powers for. Of course ideally, this would all be moot because we wouldn't NEED an ArbCom, people would settle things on their own.

So to the first, the Code of Conduct, I would be willing to follow its principles, as the community has every right to ask and largley expect the ArbCom to act like responsible community members, but I would suggest against putting it as policy, because it reinforces the erronious idea that ArbCom is the Supreme Court of Wikipedia, bring your complaints here, and let us decide WikiLaw.

I'll address bill of rights in a second--Tznkai 04:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alright. Did a little more looking, and found a couple of sticking points.

"No ex post facto laws."

This came up in the Code of Conduct as well. This is dead wrong in one sense, and very true in another. The restriction of ex post facto laws is designed to keep a party (usually citizenry) protected from governing authority (usually the state), where as the state would oppress the citizenry, by making up laws that they broke. First off, ArbCom isn't about laws, wiki or otherwise. Its about protecting the project (project= >51% enyclopedia + <49% community). So no laws. No matter what rules or policies are being followed or not, disruption of the project must be addressed. ArbCom is the last resort for dealing with disruption. Thus, any "punishments" or preferably, remedies are judged by magnitude of the problem, not by policy guidlines. We don't sentance people for crimes around here, and we don't fine people. Thats wikipedia as a whole, editor, adminstrator, arbitrator, and Foundation board member. So. No Laws. No Oppressing users. No stopping the protection of the project within reasonably action.

"Arbitration Committee members should follow policy and precedent rather than altering it."

Policy isn't ArbCom's perogative or master. Protecting the community and Jimbo are. It is answerable to the community, if for no other reason than the practical. Policy is a tool to protect the project. ArbCom is a tool to protect the project. No one overrules the other, protection of the project and the head bludgeoner thereof rule both policy and ArbCom.

Now, any moment here, people are going to ask why I'm so deferential to Jimbo.--Tznkai 04:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

---

Let me summarize what I said pu there into something simple: ArbCom, Adminstrators, and Policy are all tools to protect the project.

Questions from User:-Ril-

The following questions are for each candidate, and do not specifically target you

Do you hold any strong political or religious opinions (e.g. concerning George Bush, Islam, or on which end you should break a boiled egg)? If so, would you recuse yourself from cases centred on these?

How willing are you to contest the decisions of other arbitrators rather than just "go with the flow"?

Do you view all requests to re-address cases, particularly requests made by those most penalised, as being automatically without merit?

In the case against Yuber, it was decided by the arbitration committee that it is the duty of arbitrators to investigate, and rule on the behaviour of not only one party involved, but all of them. Do you support this decision?

Do you believe that regardless of Jimbo Wales' own views on the matter, the community should be able to strip arbitrators of their position under certain circumstances, and if so, what circumstances?

As a corollory:Do you believe, regardless of Jimbo Wales' view on the matter, that a large number of signatories (e.g. 150 requesting censure against 50 supporting the arbitrator) to an RFC against an arbitrator is enough that the arbitrator should be judged as having been rejected by the community in light of their actions, and consequently for them to be forcibly stripped of their post?

wikipedia has a policy of NPOV. Excepting straw men, have you ever introduced a substantial opinion or fact that contradicts your own political or religious viewpoint into an article on a topic of which you have strong opinions, and if you have, how frequently do you do so compared to your other substatial edits to articles?

--Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 02:15, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hoo boy. Lets take these one at a time:

• I believe very strongly in the opinion that people should keep their opinions on religion and politics the hell out of Wikipedia, except for the occasional friendly chat or bias exposure to make a troll feel silly about getting the bias very wrong. I similarly believe that ________ is evil statements about any topic is not against the Neutral Point of View Policy, but is incredibly unhelpful. I would likely reject cases that are about article content, and recuse from cases that involve people I am known to be involved with, but I can think of no subjects I would need to recuse from. Oh wait, I take that back, abortion would be an off limits area for me, as I am a major contributor to that article.
• I am extremly willing to say what I think, and unwilling to fight for the sake of fighting. Thus I will register my objection if I am in the minority and there is no hope of discussion moving forward, and move on. I will not fight and fight and fight, as I believe that is useless.
• They involve a slightly higher burden of proof, and claims that "the last case was decide wr0ng!!!1111!!!1!!" well earn my skepticism, but sometimes, mistakes are made, or people (gasp) change. I'm perfectly willing try letting people try again.
• Yes. You're not going to get a complete picture just by focusing on the problems comitted by a single involved party. I admit to the enjoyment of the idea that parties that bring forward cases when they have also contributed to the problem, will suffer the consequences for that problem.
• Jimbo Wales hold reserve power for a good reason. Wikipedia is largley his baby, and (slightly joking here) we serve at the pleasure of the Wikimedia Foundation, if for no other reason that they pay for the server bills. So no, barring some twisted situation of a conspiracy of Arbitrators protecting a single arbitrator who has commited serious crimes and/or has brought disaster to the project, and somehow Jimmy Wales is involved/hoodwinked, I can't think of a decent reason not to trust the man.
• Not really. Wikipedia is a not a democracy, and we don't really have a govermental structure per se. Its erronious to see ArbCom as an office, as this is a useful, but equally perilous analogy. However, anyone so served would do well to take it seriously, as it is sign of *something* wrong. If subjected to one myself, I would likely resign, but I am loathe to force anyone else to. ArbCom serves to protect the community and the encylopedia, and not in that order! Its not a post per se, or a position of Honor and Peerage. Its a job that pays horrible, and so long as it is clear that the Arbitrator continues to serve the purpose of an Arbitrator, even a supermajority does not change that. However, I stress again, that if someone is censured, it bears investigating because clearly *something* is wrong, whether its a job for ArbCom or the community at large is a diffrent story all together. (I myself am a large fan of mediation)
• Uh. Dunno about strong opposition, but I have written a number of things I disagree with on abortion. I try to avoid opinion writing as much as possible, and organize, describe, and cite. That takes my own personal point of view out of the article quickly.
• Does that answer everything?

--Tznkai 03:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Recusal, Code of Conduct, Expansion

I am asking these questions of all candidates:

1. Do you pledge to abide by the proposed recusal guidelines at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Code of Conduct#Recusal?

2. Are there any parts of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Code of Conduct that you do not agree with? If so, please describe in detail how you would improve them.

3. Will you please pledge to support expanding the number of seats on the Arbitration Committee? If not, how would you propose alleviating the present arbitration backlog?

Thank you for your kind consideration of and answers to these questions. —James S. 06:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]