User:MBisanz/ACE2008/Guide/AGK

Hello, below are some optional questions to help the voters at the 2008 Arbitration Committee elections get to know you, the candidate, better.

1. How long have you been an editor of Wikipedia?

A. I have been a registered Wikipedian for 2 years and 8 months. I edited occasionally as an anonymous editor for a couple of months on top of that. AGK 17:34, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

2. How many total edits do you have on Wikipedia? What is your % of edits to the article space?

A. I have made 19,620 edits to Wikipedia.^{source: special:preferences.}
13% of those—2108—were made to the mainspace.^{source: SQL's tool.}

I have an inflated userspace count in part due to my requests for checkuser work, which involves sizable volumes of sock tagging.
AGK 17:34, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

3. Are you an administrator? If so, how long have you been one?

A. Yes. I have been an administrator for 17 months (1 year and 5 months). AGK 18:22, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

4. Do you hold any other userrights or positions at the English Wikipedia? (crat, medcom, WPPJ, etc)

A. I do, yes, although they probably aren't that important in terms of my ability to operate as an Arbitrator on enwiki. I am a Mediation Committee member and an Arbitration Committee clerk. I'm also a member of the now-closed ArbCom ethnic edit warring work group. AGK 18:22, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

5. Do you hold any userrights or other positions of trust at other WMF projects? Which ones?

A. No; I am not regularly active on WMF projects outside of the English Wikipedia. The only position I hold that could conceivably be listed here is an approved account on the Wikimedia Foundation site, but that's not an orthodox position such as sysop. AGK 20:39, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

6. Have you ever been named as a participant of a Request for Arbitration? If so, please link case(s).

A. I have never been named as a party, no. My primary involvement in Arbitration to date has been as a third party; as a participant in decision development; and as an Arbitration clerk. AGK 20:39, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

7. Have you ever been blocked or subject to restrictions such as WP:RESTRICT, WP:BLPLOG, WP:AER, or WP:SANCTION? If so, please link to the relevant issue.

A. I have not, no. My primary involvement in the field of behavioural sanctions has been through proposing the placing (and, on occasion, removal) of sanctions on accounts, and through commenting on others' proposals. AGK 20:39, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

8. Have you ever been blocked or formally sanctioned at another WMF project? If so, please describe.

A. I have never been blocked on a sister WMF project, no.

9. What is your best work at Wikipedia? (an article, list, image or content template)

A. I can't point to a single mainspace contribution as my best. [More to come.] AGK 18:22, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

10. If elected, would you request the Checkuser and/or Oversight userrights?

A. I suspect I will elect to take both rights, yes. Indeed, I have considered requesting—and have been prompted to request by others—the CheckUser right, but ultimately, never did. AGK 18:22, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

11. Please list any disclosed or undisclosed alternate or prior accounts you have had.

A. I have only edited from this single account, with the exception of a few non-notable IP addresses which I used to make routine article contributions. Additionally, I am the owner of AGK! (talk · contribs), AGKbot (talk · contribs), and Testcfc (talk · contribs), although I use none of them in practice. AGK 20:39, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

12. What methods of off-wiki communication do you use to discuss Wikipedia related matters? (IRC, Skype, WR, Mailing Lists, blogs, etc) Please link to any publicly available forums you use.

A. I'm a firm believer in Arbitrators being approachable by all, including regarding private matters. When an editor has a matter that is private in nature, I do not wish to rule myself out as being approachable for assistance and advise on it; as such, I do indeed make myself contactable via off-Wiki mediums.

One may contact me via:

email;
IRC: I'm a regular idler in all of the major wiki[p/m]edia channels (I'm an op in a few, also), in #...-en-admins, and in a number of private channels. I'm also available via Google Talk;
Skype: I'm available via skype voice and text chat, and I am a "regular" on the NotTheWikipediaWeekly, a Skype-based discussion panel (I'm the text chat contact for the project, also);
blogs: I don't maintain a blog, although I do have a blogger account (@gmail.com accounts get one by default) and I use that to comment on my the blogs of my fellow Wikipedians that keep one;
Wikipedia Review: I have WR account and I occasionally use it to browse posts my attention is drawn to. I have never posted to the site, however; indeed, for all the use I make of it in practice, I may as well not have an account.

I've advertised my other-mediums availability for a good while now, via User:AGK/Contact (and .../Private).

As a parallel principle, however, I also hold it as necessary for Committee members to remain open and transparent insofar as is possible: contact should be sub rosa only as is necessary, and weighing privacy vs. accountability & transparency is an art that must be mastered by members of the Committee.

AGK 20:49, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

13. Do you have OTRS access? If so, which queues?

A. I am not active on OTRS, no. AGK 20:49, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

14. How do you resolve the apparent inconsistency between RFAR/MONGO and RFAR/Jim62sch as to off-site activities by users?

A. Actually, I don't see much inconsistency between the two specifically-linked rulings ("#Karma" and "#Conduct outside Wikipedia"). Upon a cursory glance, indeed, the two seem to contradict one another: whilst "Karma" seems to suggest that those who post highly negative views off-Wiki (eg., a Wikipedia Review user) should expect to be subject to an unsympathetic view by the on-Wiki community at large, "Conduct outside Wikipedia" could be interpreted to hold that off-Wiki activities—with the exception of 'extraordinary circumstances'—have no bearing on enwiki.

However, the true intentions are slightly different. "Karma" is documenting the trend on-Wiki whereby those who express vehemently anti-Wiki feelings off-Wiki are subject to increased scrutiny on-Wiki (after all: if they voice through a megaphone off-Wiki that their distaste for the project, what's to stop them one day deciding to go off on a vandal spree, or undertake some light user_talk trolling?). This is a pure example of the ArbCom "tweaking" policy, which in itself is intended only to document enwiki's communal norms and ways of working.

Conversely, "Conduct outside Wikipedia"—according to my reading, that is—essentially is affirming the logic that a user's off-site action is not ordinarily subject to Wikipedia policy. For example, sending abuse to another editor though gMail does not normally warrant a block on-Wiki, except where that email is part of a huge pattern of attack (to the point where Wikipedia as an encyclopedia is actively and extensively suffering because of those emails).

It's a fine balance, and a rather intriguing one to analyse. :) AGK 21:10, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

15. What is your opinion on the new closed motions process?

A. In theory, yes, the page is a good idea: where a full case is not necessary, a closed motion on the matter is a better course of action for the project and all involved in the incident; additionally, it keeps decision-making on-Wiki (as opposed to on-Mailing List), maintaining transparency, scrutiny, and accountability. My only concern is that the page will be used inappropriately, where (for example) a full case would be preferable; or that the page's "bite-size" nature may result in the Committee inadvertently rushing decisions (the absence of a full /Evidence, /Workshop, etc. page might give the impression that the matter is of lesser importance than a full case, and therefore worthy only of a lesser amount of attention), resulting in a lower quality of decision. I think the Arbitrators are competent enough, however, to bear that in mind, and to utilise the Closed motions page only where appropriate, and in the correct fashion. AGK 22:21, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

16. Besides compromised accounts, under what circumstances would you support or initiate an emergency request for desysopping?

A. In addition to "compromised accounts" (which I interpret as an account being hacked by an individual other than the owner, and—usually—utilised for nefarious purposes), I would consider an emergency desysopping to be an appropriate course of action in response to:

wheel warring
flagrantly disruptive administrator actions (the cliché deleting the main page and the Robdubar incident both spring to mind).

As an additional layer, I also recognise the value of temporary injunctions removing the administrator privileges of an editor whose conduct justifies serious concern (eg., an administrator who has recently suffered a personal loss and who has a result has went 'off-the-rails,' including practising serious incivility). There are a number of factors to be considered, however, and such incidents should really be handled on a case-by-case basis.

AGK 20:39, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

17. Currently, only Jimbo Wales and the Arbitration Committee are authorized to perform/request involuntarily desysop an administrator whose account has not been compromised. What is your view of community-based desysopping decisions?

A. I support in principle the introduction of a "requests for deadminship" process, whereby the community can re-establish its consensus on an editor having the +sysop bit (compare: consensus can change). The bureaucrats, however, should certainly be utilised for such a process, to evaluate a de-adminship discussion for true consensus.

Of course, the community–and RfA in particular—can occasionally be inclined to function as more of a lynch mob than a decision-making body. In certain cases (eg., an administrator who is unpopular [has 'pissed a lot of people off'] but is a net-plus and a firmly valuable asset—I shall not name any case studies or examples here, but I do have a few in mind) the Committee may be a more useful body to evaluate the fitness of an administrator to retain his/her +sysop bit. Where possible, I prefer consensus to be decided by the community; the Committee may occasionally need to intervene and adjudicate the matter when the community has or will fail.

I have a number of thoughts on "RfDA" [requests for de-adminship], but I suspect they may not be strictly relevant to this question, so I'm going to cut my losses and be concise. :-) As a reiteration: where possible, I support community-based desysopping, so long as it is done fairly and executed well (here, again, the practical arrangements would need to be seen before I sign off on a de-adminship process); however, occasionally, it is not practical. This is another "decide on a case-by-case basis" matter.

AGK 22:21, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

18. If you owned Wikipedia as the WMF currently does, what would you do to fix the BLP problem?

A. The problem can be solved on a project-by-project basis, and I'm inclined to answer from that view in that I'm answering these questions from the point of view of a potential Arbitrator (although, of course, I'm answering these for fun and not because I'm running this year :). There are failings with the BLP policy: it's ambiguous, and the grey area exists as to what is notable enough for inclusion. Anything which falls in this grey area can be included (under normal circumstances) on the project, but deleted at the request of the subject.

This grey area would ideally be vaporised. A subject would either surpass the benchmark for notability, and therefore be notable to the extent that they cannot reasonably request we delete their article, or would fall below the benchmark for notability (as documented by our BLP policy in line with the project's expectations and consensus, of course), and not be included at all. The remaining layer of the problem—libel in BLP articles—could be solved by FlaggedRevs (that system could feasibly be set to operate only on BLP articles).

Done and done, in theory. In practice, it's going to be a long slog. But those would be my first steps to improving the BLP situation.

AGK 20:39, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

19. In 2004, the Arbitration Committee referred issues to the Mediation Committee. However, as of recent, the Arbitration Committee has not referred issues to the Mediation Committee. Would you refer more content-based disputes to MedCom or continue the current practice?

A.

20. In the past the Arbitration Committee has taken a checkered view of wheel wars, desysopping in some cases and not desysopping in others. What do you believe constitutes a wheel war which would result in a desysopping?

A.

21. How involved must an administrator be to be unable to enforce policy on a user? Given that it is expected that all admins understand policy when they pass RFA, under what circumstances would you not desysop an administrator who was clearly involved with a user they blocked or an article they deleted/protected?

A.

22. Besides the technical capabilities administrators have, the Arbitration Committee has granted administrators the rights to enforce certain general sanctions with regards to specific editors and articles. What is your view on these new non-technical privileges being considered part of the "administrative" function for purposes such as RfC, Recall, and RfAR?

A.

23. Current checkuser policy at the English Wikipedia prohibits checkusers from fulfilling "fishing" requests. However, global privacy policy does not prohibit such requests from being fulfilled, so long as personal information is not disclosed. Would you support the alteration of the en.wp policy to permit fishing requests?

A.

24. In 2006 the Arbitration Committee asked the community to address the issue of protecting children's privacy on Wikipedia. To this day there is still no policy on how to handle children's privacy on Wikipedia. What steps would you take to ensure children's privacy is protected under policy?

A.

25. How do you resolve the apparent inconsistency between RFAR/LevelCheck and RFAR/Durova as to what may be considered justification for blocks of educated new users?

A.

26. Originally RfARs were named in the style of Party X v. Party Y in line with the idea of two groups in opposition to each other (eg. User:Guanaco versus User:Lir). Later it was changed to naming an individual user (eg. Husnock). Now cases get random names like Highways 2. What naming convention do you believe is the appropriate one for ArbCom to use in designating case names? under what circumstances should a case name be changed after opening, such as in RFAR/Zeraeph?

A.

27. A case is presented between two administrators who have repeatedly undone each other's administrative actions with regard to the deletion of an article. The basis for the deleting administrator's action was an OTRS ticket showing the article to be a copyright violation. In performing the deletion, the administrator clearly referenced the OTRS ticket number. Assuming the undeleting administrator did not have OTRS access, do you penalize him more or less for wheel warring? Do you penalize the deleting administrator for wheel warring?

A.