Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2019/Candidates/Fish and karate/Questions

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Questions from Newslinger

2. When, if ever, would discretionary sanctions be an appropriate countermeasure against paid editing?

   Countermeasures implies all paid editing is bad, but I guess you're talking about undisclosed paid editing. This is clearly A Bad Thing, and in the very least it breaches the conflict-of-interest policy. But we do already have this policy in place; additional action around undisclosed paid editing (which might include discretionary sanctions, among the other various tools the community and Arbcom has to address such issues) would only need to be considered if that policy and existing procedures in place were clearly not resolving the matter.

4. To what extent, if any, should the Arbitration Committee endorse the adoption of two-factor authentication on Wikipedia?

   Two-factor authentication is a useful way for people to secure their account, should they choose to do so. If they choose not to do so, then they must take accountability for any issues arising as a result of not enabling TFA. I understand that the recent spate of compromised admin accounts were due to those accounts using guessable passwords or non-unique password/email address combinations (q.v. [1]). Two-factor authentication would have potentially prevented these breaches, but so would good password management. I have no objections to the Arbitration Committee encouraging the use of TFA should a user choose to do so, but would also want to see users encouraged to use strong, unique passwords. I do not think TFA should ever be enforced.

Questions from Carrite

2. What's the biggest problem with Arbcom? Is it fixable or inherent?

   The biggest problem to my eyes is the lack of engagement between Arbcom and the community. People see the arbs as remote and uncaring. This has led to all manner of issues, not least Framgate, which arose as a result of the WMF's concerns over the ability of the English Wikipedia to self-police. This is fixable. The key is for the members of the Arbitration Committee to remember that they are members of the Wikipedia community first, and to try and rebuild the confidence of the community by acting for them. Of the people, for the people, and so on. Secret hearings and off-Wiki discussions will always have to take place where privacy is a real issue, but the default should be for all discussions to take place publicly. If we as the community can see the discussions - and hey, maybe even participate, it would be mindbogglingly arrogant to assume that the answer to every problem sits only in the heads of the 15 people lucky/dumb/brave enough to sit on the arbitration committee - then engagement increases, disillusionment is addressed, confidence rises. The fact so many arbitrators will be new this time round offers a uniquely clean slate to allow en.Wiki to do this.

4. If you were editing an encyclopedia article about Wikipedia Arbcom, for which member of the committee, past or present, would you include a photo as an illustration for the piece? Assume there is room for only one or maybe two photos.

   Aha, this is a trick question, I would not be editing it as now my name is on this I have a COI. Probably Newyorkbrad as longest serving member, should he be willing.

Thank you. —tim /// Carrite (talk) 11:35, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Peacemaker67

2. What do you think about the decision to accept Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/German war effort? In particular, considering the lack of prior dispute resolution attempts or attempt to use ANI to deal with the behavioural issues. Why or why not?

   There were prior dispute resolution attempts and it was clear those that were tried were very unsuccessful, to the point it was clear simply kicking the can back to ANI would likely not be able to address such a complex set of issues. There's little point in requiring such a complex and sensitive conduct issue - which this clearly was - to go through dispute resolution steps just for the sake of ticking boxes, when it would inevitably end up being bounced back to Arbcom a few weeks later. Furthermore, in this case there was the additional factor of non-public information pertinent to the case (including private correspondence and a clean-start account), which would not have been manageable at ANI.

Question from Gerda

2. I commented in the Fram case, decision talk, like this. Imagine you had been an arb, what would you have written in reply? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:42, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

   Hi Gerda, I would have said that I understand your view, and that I agree that Fram's block/desysop by the WMF were out of the en.Wiki usual processes (but perhaps not out of the WMF's processes). However we members of the general community do not have access to all the information to which the Committee had access. As we don't know the whole facts, I can't speculate what else I'd have said with an Arbitrator hat on.

4. Same case, same thread, we had some facts open, and I looked, and found them unclear: subheader LouisAlain. Imagine you had been an arb, what would you have written in reply?

Question from Calidum

2. Why were you so inactive between 2009 and 2017? Calidum 15:59, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

   I got married, moved house, had two children, moved house again, completed a master's degree, it was a busy time in my career, and in 2016 was rather ill. All that takes up a lot of time, and while I like Wikipedia and see it as a valuable thing to do, it is decidedly not more important to me than any or all those things. So for that period of time, my priorities were elsewhere. Circumstances over the last 2 years or so have stabilized and changed and I now have time to spend on, well, stuff like this, and would be able to dedicate the time I'd need to serving the community properly, should I be elected.