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

I have a good amount of experience with the arbcom, having, I believe, a record for number of cases involved in. I have a lot of respect for what the job takes, and I feel confident saying that the single biggest thing it takes is wading through evidence pages - often confusingly ordered and worded evidence pages. It involves reading diffs, and a huge amount of dedication to piecing together what's going on.

This is a change from what the arbcom needed last year. Last year, the arbcom was dealing with cases like Lir, Plautus, and Irismeister regularly, and dragging at them. That's not the case this year - the last slam dunk malevolent user the arbcom dealt with was Plautus, which took them a week.

Anyone who knows me knows I'm not one to tolerate disruption, trolling, and malicious intent, and I won't - those who come to Wikipedia to be pains in the ass should be shown the door as soon as possible, and I'd prefer those cases never even hit the arbcom. But when they do, I will act to protect Wikipedia from the abusive. But that's not 10% of what the arbcom is about now.

It doesn't take anyone special to ban Plautus or Lir - I doubt there's a person running in this election who wouldn't have done that. What we need are arbitrators who are willing and able to put in the commitment to the harder cases - to the ones that involve the well-meaning editors with a legitimate disagreement that need to be disentangled, not smashed with a banstick.

Different circumstances require different kinds of arbitrators. And I promise to be one of those different kinds of arbitrators. If elected, I promise to review evidence carefully, and to look at situations with the larger Wikipedia community in mind. Like it or not, arbcom decisions are cited as justifications in policy debates now, and the arbcom needs to be careful about what it says in light of that. A recent near-disaster is the Coolcat case, when the arbcom nearly made a ruling that could easily have been interpreted as shutting down informal mediation. I was one of the ones who pointed out that problem, and if elected, I intend to keep problems like that from happening - without abandoning the need for effective rulings that minimize the need for repeat cases.

The point of the arbcom is to take difficult disputes - dispute that are disrupting Wikipedia, and making it impossible for articles to improve, and make it so that the articles can improve. Nothing more, nothing less. I understand that well, and if elected, you can trust that I won't forget it. And you can trust that I will be diligent and attentive to my duties. I promise that no case will sit more than two weeks without my attention - whether in the form of a vote, or in the form of a specific question to participants to clarify the matter.

Questions

Joke question by Snowspinner himself

Mr. Spinner, have you stopped beating your wife yet?

Question from Sjakkalle

You write in your candidates statement "Anyone who knows me knows I'm not one to tolerate disruption, trolling, and malicious intent" and "those who come to Wikipedia to be pains in the ass should be shown the door as soon as possible". I have some questions regarding this:

What do you feel the community consensus is regarding your decision to delete a number of AFD debates at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Snowspinner 2?
- Considering that there are over 150 signatures split over 17 separate views, I'm not sure it's fair to call the result of that RfC a consensus. I think, if anything, that RfC showed that there are deep divides within the Wikipedia community regarding deletion issues and how to handle them, and no consensus either for or against the deletion of the AFD debates. In the absence of consensus, I haven't done it again - regardless of whether it's the right thing to do, its disruption clearly outweighs any benefits it might bring, and for that reason alone, it shouldn't be done. Snowspinner 15:30, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
A more philosophical question, so I only expect some thoughts rearding this, but what is a troll and what is not a troll in your opinion?
- I still largely agree with what I wrote at Wikipedia:What is a troll. Snowspinner 15:30, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
How long is "as soon as possible"? As a case study, how do you feel the community handled and resolved the fairly long Wikipedia:Requests for comment/SamuraiClinton?
- I'm not sure there's a generalizable rule about "as soon as possible." When Plautus returned, I was pretty confident in removing him around edit #5. In the case of Samurai Clinton, he doesn't seem to me to fall into the category of "those who come to Wikipedia to be pains in the ass" in the first place, and so I'm not sure the "as soon as possible" description applies - I think the community handled the issue fairly well. It looks to me as though Samurai Clinton was a slow learner, but at least a learner, and his behavior, though irritating, seemed to only have a few out and out policy violations - the Insane Clown Posse edit, the Autosexual/Homosexual merger, and of course the use of sockpuppets for voting. I would think banning the socks would be a no-brainer. Past that, the central question I'd ask in looking at his behavior is whether the list of things he's doing wrong is shrinking or not. A similar case - User:John-1107 - I blocked indefinitely because he showed no understanding whatsoever of the social norms of Wikipedia, and seemed infinitely capable of finding new problems to cause. In general, I think for cases like SamuraiClinton where a probable diagnosis of Asperger's presents itself, the best thing that can be done is for the user to get a mentor. Ideally this mentor comes voluntarily from the community. Less ideally, it's forcibly imposed by the arbcom once there's already a lot of bad blood. (Speaking of which, an Association of Mentors would be a GREAT thing for some Wikipedians to get together and form) Snowspinner 15:30, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Some questions being asked of all the candidates by jguk

Q: How old are you and what do you do? (If student, please state what subjects you are studying.)

A: 23, PhD student in English focusing on popular culture and on theater. Snowspinner 15:42, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Q: How many hours a month do you think you will need to be a good Arbitrator and are you really willing to put in the time?

A: As many as it takes, and yes. Snowspinner 15:42, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Q: If chosen, you will need to arbitrate on disputes arising from the creation or revision of articles. Experience of creating and revising articles yourself, particularly where it has involved collaboration, is very valuable in understanding the mindset of disputants who come to arbitration. With reference to your own edits in the main article namespace, please demonstrate why you think you have the right experience to be a good arbitrator.

A: I think this question is misleading in some important ways. Certainly article writing experience is helpful - and I have a fair amount, though most of it is old. I think I would point to Heteronormativity as the best example of my working collaboratively and in a situation of dispute. The article has been under continual dispute since I got to Wikipedia, but I think what's been most notable is the fact that User:AlexR and I, who originally were on opposite sides of the dispute and edit warring kind of bitterly, have pretty much come together in agreement on what needs to be done on the article, and gotten an article that, even if neither of us are happy with it (Because we haven't had time to go do the referencing work the article needs), we're at least happy with what it's trying to be. Above all, what this indicates to me is that what's often needed in disputes is time. I walked away from the article twice, and that helped a lot.

But I think what's most indicative is not my edits to Heteronormativity, but my edits to Talk:Heteronormativity. Which is to say, my experience in dealing with disputes, rather than being in disputes. Here, I cite my work at WP:TINMC, my work mediating on the Lyndon LaRouche articles (A mediation that was unsuccessful, due to my own mistakes, and from which I learned an important lesson about the nature of NPOV, verifiability, and cults), and my involvement in arbitration cases before as relevent experience. Snowspinner 15:42, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Q: Please list out what other Wikipedia usernames you have edited under.

A: I have edited under one other username, which I decline to state here. It's a sock I maintain so that I can edit articles without what I see as the priviledge of being an administrator, and so publicly declaring it would somewhat defeat its purpose. It's been admitted elsewhere, and is not hard to find if you want - User:Mirv is aware of it, and has commented on its existence publicly, and I am happy to disclose it to specifically interested people via e-mail or on their talk pages. Snowspinner 15:42, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I note that I asked Snowspinner to reveal his sockpuppet but he has not done so. Grace Note 01:01, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thought I did. I have now. Sorry. Snowspinner 01:52, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Ral315

You say that you've probably been involved in a record number of ArbCom cases. For the record, have any specific cases made rulings in any way affecting you? Also, curiously, are there any cases where you believe you've been partially at fault for?

I have never been affected by an arbcom ruling. The only two cases to be successfully raised against me Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Snowspinner vs. Lir and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/John Gohde ended with the people raising them getting a one year ban. The one case I do feel partially at fault for is Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Anthony DiPierro 2, which was in part prompted by a misunderstanding of the speedy deletion process on my part. I did not recieve sanction for that, I assume because it was a reasonable misunderstanding, if a misunderstanding, and not something I've done since. Snowspinner 15:46, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Request from Dragons flight

Arbcom is overworked and no fun. Please review these discussions: [1][2] [3] Come up with a short list of suggestions for ways you would endorse for improving the arbitration process. Bonus points for actually managing to create new policy. Dragons flight 08:03, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've participated in some of those discussions, in fact. For the most part, I think the arbitration process works fine when arbitrators make decisions - it's just a matter of speeding that up. Somewhere - maybe in one of those debates - I proposed a specific timeline in which arbitrators who do not explicitly vote to accept (Or refuse) a case within two weeks would be assumed to be recused for it, thus eliminating the effect of people who essentially act as "no" votes on every proposal by never getting around to voting. This, coupled with, maybe, a six-person increase to the committees size (To prevent majorities of 3) would help a lot, and do so in a non-radical way, which I think is an important goal. No need to reinvent the wheel, honestly - the wheel turns. It's just a mite flat. Snowspinner 13:24, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Question by Quadell

Greetings. I have only had one interaction with you before, and it dealt with conflicts between users. It was not a positive experience, and I wanted to ask you your perception of it in hindsight.

Background: back in April, I submitted thousands of untagged and orphaned images to Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion, and deleted them if there were no objections in the time period required. Over 99% of these deletions were uncontroversial, and were (I feel) a much-needed cleanup task. However, two of the images were uploaded by Anthere, a vice-chair of the Wikimedia Foundation at the time. Due to an oversight I failed to inform her on her talk page that the images had been listed for deletion, and she was upset to see them deleted. I apologized to her, and we worked it out.

Regarding that conflict, you left me the following note on my talk page:

There are a handful of users on Wikipedia where, should you find yourself in conflict with them, it is almost certain that you have done something wrong. Anthere is one of them. I say this because, from what I can tell, you have upset Anthere. Also, from what I can tell, this was avoidable. When deleting an image uploaded by a respected and longtime contributor, you don't delete without asking questions first. Had you asked Anthere, she could have explained. But you didn't. And you offended a good contributor with it.

I hope you'll take this as a lesson in the future.

My question is, do you still stand by this statement? In arbitrating, will you be biased by believing that certain users should be assumed to be in the right because of who they are? This is especially relevant now that unverified orphans are being deleted within a week, and similar cases could certainly arise. Thanks, – Quadell ^(talk) 20:44, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I stand by it in the sense that there are people who, when you find yourself in conflict with them, you should probably stop and reconsider the situation. Anthere is certainly one of them. Would I ever propose an arbcom principle along the lines of "Anthere is a priori right?" Of course not. Would I, if I were doing image deletion, leave an Anthere image until I checked with her? Yes, and I still think that's good practice.

Your question is also a bit misleading, in that I left that message before things had been worked out between you and Anthere. You make it sound like I came late to the party - I did not.

Regardless, yes - for editing practice, it makes sense to give people who have repeatedly proven their respactability the benefit of the doubt. I see this as an extension of Wikipedia:Assume good faith.

Is it possible that Anthere could be wrong? Of course. But glancing at a situation, I assume Anthere to be the voice of reason, and I'm surprised if I see otherwise. Snowspinner 21:29, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Q from SchmuckyTheCat

What's more important - the letter of any specific policy, the intent of the policy, or the goal of the project? How do you balance these? SchmuckyTheCat 01:11, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The goal of the project always trumps individual policies, and nothing that conflicts with the goal can be considered a policy. Phil Sandifer 21:25, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Form question by Snowspinner

Being an arbitrator requires a finely tuned bullshit detector. What in your life has prepared you to detect bullshit with ease? Phil Sandifer 21:25, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I teach freshman composition at a public university. My bullshit detector is as sensitive as they come. Phil Sandifer 21:25, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Form question by karmafist

You more or less already answered this above, but many policies contradict and overlap with each other, and then WP:IAR makes things even more complicated while making them paradoxically more flexible. When two or more policies apply and conflict, what do you do? karmafist 18:58, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Answer to form question by Karmafist

It would depend entirely on what the two policies were, how old they each were, who was involved in crafting them, etc. Phil Sandifer 19:44, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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? [if current arbitrator] Does your visible behaviour on recent cases reflect this decision?

--Victim of signature fascism 16:52, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Not that spring to mind.
If I think the other arbitrators are making a problematic decision, I will contest it without hesitation.
No, but requests to re-address cases need to bring some evidence of a reason to readdress them. A good example of this is the recent readressing of the climate change issue, where the fact that one user's parole was being used only as a means of harassment was at issue.
I think that if a problem is staring the arbcom in the face, it would be remiss of them not to aid in its correction.

Phil Sandifer 17:57, 3 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Marsden

Many people have noted that Wikipedia's original communitarian structure is no longer functioning very well. One editor has suggested that ArbCom is "about getting the trains to run on time," which is a reference to a fulfulled promise of Mussolini's fascist government. Do you agree that Wikipedia needs to become more orderly, and if so, do you think there are any options other than a move toward a more centrally controlled authoritarian system? Do you think that the spirit of cooperation in Wikipedia would survive such a change? Marsden 16:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]