View source for Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2023/Candidates/Firefly/Statement

===[[User:Firefly|Firefly]]===

Hello! I'm Firefly, and I'm volunteering to serve as an Arbitrator. If elected, I would bring two main things to the Committee: my experience as a Checkuser combatting complex abuse; and a pragmatic, problem-solving attitude to business.

; Who I am
I have been editing on-and-off since 2005, but became consistently active in early 2021. I [[Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Firefly|passed RfA]] in March 2022, and was [[Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/CheckUser_and_Oversight/2022_CUOS_appointments#Results|appointed as a Checkuser]] in October 2022. I have been an ArbCom clerk [[Special:Diff/1036991483|since August 2021]], and therefore have familiarity with the on-wiki administrative aspects of ArbCom. I have written a handful of Good Articles on various subjects - these are linked from my [[User:Firefly|user page]] if you are curious.

; What I believe
Volunteer time is Wikipedia's most precious resource - and one that we risk running out of. It is for that reason that I spend the majority of my time here dealing with abuse - from long-term abusers to [[WP:UPE|UPE]] operations who wish to unfairly skew our coverage of certain topics toward the point of view of whoever pays them.  The Committee does a lot of solid anti-abuse work, and I believe both my technical experience as a Checkuser and my wider knowledge of how abusers operate would be useful.

I am a pragmatist - I believe that every problem has a solution, and that calm, rational discussion is the best way to reach them. It is important for final-decision-making bodies such as ArbCom to act with compassion and fairness, taking into account that we are all human; but also decisively, in order to prevent conduct issues from becoming corrosive to trust in an area, thereby depleting that volunteer-time resource.

; What I would look to improve
By and large ArbCom carries out its often thankless task effectively. Any process can be improved however, and if elected I would advocate for the following:
* Tweaks to the block appeals process: perhaps involving the delegation of Checkuser block appeals to the wider group of Checkusers; and more transparency on rationales for granting appeals, within the boundaries of the Privacy Policy.
* Improvements to the workflow tools used by the Committee - I understand these are cumbersome and can lead to increased administrative burden.

; Disclosures
I am over the age of 18 and have already signed the [[meta:Access_to_nonpublic_personal_data_policy|ANPDP]]. I have had two previous usernames ([[User:Richard0612|old username of current account]], [[User:Reticulated_Spline|old separate account]]), and operate two bots ([[User:FireflyBot|FireflyBot]], and [[User:FireflyBot II|FireflyBot II]]) - all of which are also listed on my user page.

*{{Admincheck|Firefly}}
{{Arbitration Committee candidate/2023|Firefly}}

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