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The barely-filtered views of a jaded, Political Correctness-hating, NPOV-loving middle-aged pinko content writer that spends way too much time hanging out at Wikipediocracy...
Hello fellow Wikipedians!
My, how time flies. I am back again with the sixth annual edition of the least influential Arbcom voters' guide on the planet. I suspect this guide's distinct lack of potency can be ascribed to the following: two parts "Nobody reads it" plus one part "People read it and heed it" plus one part "People read it and consciously do the exact opposite."
Fair enough. I have strong views about bureaucracy, careerism, and blind intellectual orthodoxy — not everyone is going to agree and some will disagree quite vehemently. Nevertheless, whether you are a heeder or a disagreer or just a reader, welcome to the guide.
This year, we were reminded once again just how important Arbcom is when the Fram hit the fan. What a catastrophe! Arbcom gets no better than a C-minus from me for it's rather tepid defense of community decision-making autonomy. They should have hit faster, harder, louder, more publicly, and absolutely burned up the wires backstage kicking the movers and shakers at WMF in their entitled keisters for their bureaucratic overreach — the worst example of tone-deaf hubris since the SuperProtect fiasco of five years ago.
Moreover, in the aftermath Arbcom should not have agreed to take on a secret case with secret evidence on behalf of preferred people, no matter how loudly WMF argued that the rule of law and the right of the accused to hear charges against them and to present potentially exculpatory evidence in their defense were quaint relics of another age.
These are basic principles of fairness and justice. "It's only a website" is not an excuse. (And no, WMF, this is not "your" website — you are the legal caretakers of "our" website.)
It will be another year or two before English WP shakes off the attrition and demoralization resulting from the 2019 Fram fiasco, but we eventually will get through it. However, be advised: WMF are still settling personal scores and fucking things up with their secretly deliberated and unappealable SanFranBans. (Talk to BrillLyle about what was done to her sometime.) Watch these people carefully, one and all. There is too much money on the table and too many bureaucratic careers are in play... The power relationship between paid staff and volunteer community is unequal; future abuse is likely.
This year we have a near-record 11 openings between normal vacancies, vacancies due to resignations, and an expansion of the committee back to 15 from its previous reduced size of 13. With the dwindling levels of participation over the past few years, it was not at all clear that we would be able to come up with 11 candidates period for the 11 open seats — let along 11 good candidates. Fortunately, people have stepped into the breach and I feel as though this is one of the strongest election classes in memory.
Bear in mind, this is not a set of predictions of who I think will win. I do that over at Wikipediocracy, which I hope you will drop in and read. This is, instead, a list of those for whom I will be voting and why — with some strong reviews for a few of my faves and big thumbs down for a couple of those on my Least Favorite list. Thank you one and all for running and please don't take it personally, even if I hold my nose and make gagging sounds.
And so, on with the show...
1. Bradv — The biggest issue facing the community in 2019 has been Framgate. Brad was asked about having hung up a RETIRED banner during the fiasco with the edit message "Enough. Email me when the WMF takes steps to actually fix this place instead of destroy it." His response to the question about whether he would have done the same as an Arb is worth quoting in full:
I was incredibly frustrated throughout that incident. The WMF had intervened to ban an admin, with complete disregard for the regular community processes, without any public evidence, and without any accountability or appeal process. They released statements that said nothing at all, ignored thousands of questions from the community, and refused to provide any reasonable explanation for their action. The day that the story about what they had done finally hit the news, the executive director of the WMF posted a tweet that revealed both her ignorance of the issue and her contempt for the journalist who reported on the incident. At that point I had had enough. I felt powerless to say or do anything that would help, the community was tearing itself apart trying to make sense of this, and in my mind our grand experiment had turned from a volunteer project with a plan to document the sum of all human knowledge into a big corporation which had finally figured out how to get people to do stuff for free. If this was the way things were going to be, I wasn't sure I wanted to be part of it.
I wasn't the only one. Following a wave of resignations things started to turn around. Katherine apologized for her tweet and started to take interest in understanding what had happened and how the community was reacting. The board got involved, and eventually issued a statement allowing the ban to be reviewed by Arbcom, at which point I felt hopeful enough to undo my retirement and get back to work.
I am not entirely sure how I would have reacted if I were an arbitrator at the time. I know that the arbs were as frustrated as I was, but even when I posted that notice I was hoping none of them would quit as they were much better positioned to speak truth to power. I like to think that as an arb I would have remained more hopeful and outspoken. At any rate, I really hope this never gets repeated, and I will do everything in my power to prevent something like this from happening again.
2. NewYorkBrad — Well, duh.
3. Worm That Turned — Dave/WTT is a really good dude. He and Molly/GorillaWarfare were the two Arbs who really tried to get it right in the contentious Fram case, making sure that the findings of fact matched the conclusions drawn and actually engaging with the community in a public venue. The committee was dealt a bad hand during that debate and didn't play their cards perfectly. Not one member of the committee is entitled to perfect marks for having made correct decisions 100% of the time. However, Dave was one of those who really took the matter seriously and who did his due diligence and then some in working the case. I am tickled that he is running again and am happy to give him my most vocal support.
4. Maxim — Elected Bureaucrats (as opposed to the unelected small-b bureaucrats in San Francisco) are held in the highest esteem at WP. They are, essentially, the gold standard of Administrators, who must demonstrate steady activity and sound judgment to gain election, which requires a super-super-majority at RfB. I don't really even recall one Bureaucrat running for Arbcom, let alone three (Worm That Turned, Xeno, Maxim). This emphasizes how problematic the attrition of our internal governance mechanism has been, and how important is its reconstruction and fortification in 2019. Maxim is one of those who did the right thing by stepping aside in protest during the Fram crisis, and the highest credit to him for that. It was the mass resignations and retirements and strikes of key users that finally moved the needle in that existential crisis of governance. For a Bureaucrat to have done that aided the cause immeasurably; that he wants to become involved in Arbcom now indicates an ongoing interest in rebuilding the institution's potency. All good. Now a few words from his protest message during the Fram affair:
Ironically, I have been more engaged with the project in the past three weeks, both on- and off-wiki, than I have been for years. That said, it is particularly telling as to how large of a crisis we have when a new dumpster fire seems to start most days, whether through comments or good-faith attempts to improve the situation. At this point, I don't think it particularly matters anymore what precipitated the ban. Instead, the greater issue is that by injecting itself in user behavior matters and bypassing established community processes, the WMF has managed to wholly undermine those processes and make matters much worse than they were prior to their actions. Indeed, I think we see a corollary to the Streisand effect: by trying to solve an issue quietly, supposedly to protect victims of harassment, the heavy-handed and, in a way, unilateral approach that eschews any appearance of natural justice, has instead produced the loudest and most chaotic solution possible. I echo the statement by Arbitration Committee that asks the WMF to "[leave] behavioural complaints pertaining solely to the English Wikipedia to established local processes". Otherwise, our community processes are left impotent....
Anyone entrusted with access to confidential information should not be disclosing it to unauthorized parties. It's equally bad, whether it's to someone who's WMF banned or not. That said, it's unreasonable to try to restrict advanced permission holders from participating on criticism sites or interacting off-wiki with whomever they please. The part that would be problematic is misuse of confidential information, and not the association with someone by itself.
5. Casliber — The Ozzie Cas has been elected to the committee three times already. You know what you're getting with him: someone who is intelligent, honest, and reasonable. I'd include him on the All-time Arb Star team along with NewYorkBrad and Roger Davies and Opabinia Regalis and Worm That Turned. Whatever winnowing happens in this election, you can take it to the bank that Cas will be one of the top vote-getters in 2019. And that is a very reasonable outcome.
Alphabetical list
I followed the Arbcom Fram case with great interest. In particular, I was impressed by the arbitrators who engaged with the community. Overall, the Fram incident deepened my commitment to Wikipedia, and as a supporter of English Wikipedia having some autonomy in governance, I want the new Arbcom to be strong. I’m standing because I can help, or at least give the voters a greater choice of candidates.
All these would be okay choices, but there are limited openings. Alphabetical list.
ArbCom is supposed to do as much of its decision-making as possible out in the open, and if a decision has to be made that hinges on private information, a disservice is done to (and resentment is elevated within) the community. See the recent Fram controversy for a good example of this. If I were presented with confidential information as an arb, I would read and consider it, but I would try really hard to find publicly available evidence that the private stuff might point to (and then base the final decision on the public stuff). I'm not ready to go so far as to say I would always decline to hear a case that was only (or primarily) going to depend on private information, but I would probably lean somewhat in that direction unless there were very strong and pressing reasons to consider the case anyway. If this might mean I would be the only arb (or maybe one of only two) to ultimately vote to decline a case, then so be it.
This year there are a large number of seats available on the committee after a tumultuous year, and I feel there is a need for some steady hands from long-time community members to work with those who are newer to ensure that the Committee best represents the editing community. In 2015 I did my best to communicate progress on cases as much as possible, and I did a lot of chivying behind the scenes to keep things progressing and get decisions made - a role I intend to repeat if elected. I firmly believe that every new request for a case, clarification or amendment should be acknowledged and responded to as soon as possible, and that no open business should go for more than a week without at least one arbitrator commenting at least once (and ideally more). Accordingly I will endeavour to always acknowledge new business if no arbitrator has yet done so, and to provide weekly updates (if required) on ongoing business I am not recused on. I will also answer reasonable queries about decisions where I can (but I will not feed trolls).
1. Kudpung — Every election there's one or two candidates that absolutely get my backhair up. I used to have a category for such candidates called "You've Got to Be Kidding Me." Well, you've got to be kidding me... With more sharp edges than a broken beer bottle, Kudpung would find himself in the same place as Fram if he ever had to run the RFA gauntlet again, and you can take that as gospel from the leading bookmaker in the growth industry of Wikipedia Charity Betting. We won't get into his 5700+ item Special Minimum Standards for Future Administrators list, which he maintains all the while bewailing the fact that nobody seems to want to run through the spanking line at RFA anymore, or the GorillaWarfare fiasco. Or the way the Signpost has been made into an anti-paid editing agenda vehicle. After all, *I* am an (ad hominem dismissable) example of a notorious "paid editor" in his narrow world, and I shit you not. Hell, we won't get into anything about any of this, no good can come it it. No. Just no. Really. No. Wikipedia is not paper so I have room to say that again: NO.
2. Hawkeye7 — Hawkeye is a good content editor and a valuable volunteer. However, after being defrocked as an Arb he has run the RFA gauntlet twice without success and there is no guarantee that the third time will be a charm if he is elected to the committee. Moreover, we really need Arbs who are elected community reps to collectively exert a countervailing force to the unilateral initiatives of the San Francisco bureaucracy. Hawkeye has proudly been the beneficiary of WMF dosh to attend two Wikimanias and has been deeply involved in the officially sanctioned de facto paid editing that is GLAM. Whether he spent more money than he took in as a paid content writer is largely irrelevant. We need volunteers who are financially independent of WMF. This is not to besmirch his integrity; I'm sure he's a fine person whose heart is in the right place. But I want to see more separation than this.
3. Calidum — This is, by my count, the fourth run for Arbcom by Calidum (formerly Hot Stop). Still not an Administrator, you'd assume that somebody who has already gone 0-3 would figure out that before grabbing successfully for the brass ring, one must initially jump through the first hoop. The entry into the race at the last possible moment did his candidacy no favors. Zero-point-zero percent chance of success in this election.
...the disconnect between arbs and the community, as a macro-issue, is what most concerns me about the Committee and its prospects for a positive impact going forward. There have been many times this year where the Committee either lacked proper and timely response to community concerns, or failed to incorporate the community's feedback in their discussions. This isn't to say the Committee should track popular support, but arbs do have a fundamental responsibility to listen, interact, and carefully consider genuine and well-thought suggestions and critiques, even if they ultimately vote a different way. The goal should be to ensure both parties and participants feel heard, regardless of the outcome of a particular case or decision. Arbitrators are vested with a great deal of responsibility, and that necessarily comes with this essential need for accountability.
Have at it...
This long essay-post by former WP Arbcom member Kelly Martin, published November 14, 2019, is so important and so on point that failing to bring it here in full from Wikipediocracy would be a disservice and a failure.
| "Arbcom as it really is, and how to fix it..." | ||
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Vigilant: I'd prefer that there were some people on ARBCOM with actual successful arbitration experience from the real world... Carrite/Randy from Boise: The name of the committee is a misnomer. In the words of Kelly Martin, posted at WPO on Feb. 1, 2015: "The ArbCom is in fact the disciplinary committee of an unincorporated voluntary association, so calling it one would be far more appropriate than its present name, which is indeed quite misleading." Ideal experience for Arbcom isn't real world arbitration experience, it would be more along the lines of having worked for 20 years as a junior high school vice principal. (another user): This is quite correct. Arbitrators listen to both sides and possibly independent witnesses, yes, but they then try to find a solution reasonably acceptable to both parties. ArbCom rarely does this. More importantly, arbitrators do not punish either party, still less any independent witnesses. That is the function of a court or a disciplinary committee. Kelly Martin's post More significantly, an arbitrator is charged with finding a solution that is maximally acceptable jointly to the parties of the dispute (either by finding in favor of one or the other, or by finding a middle ground that both parties are at least partially satisfied with), without any obligation to considering the impact of that solution on third parties not part of the dispute (except insofar as such an impact might relate back to one of the parties). This does not describe the behavior of the ArbCom; the ArbCom has fairly frequently issued "a pox on both your houses" decisions which leave neither party remotely satisfied. An arbitrator who resolves the dispute he is charged to resolve by maximally screwing both parties has completely failed in his duty as an arbitrator. A disciplinary committee, on the other hand, is charged with dealing with individuals whose conduct disrupts the purpose of the wider body it serves, by finding solutions that mitigate the effects of such disruptions and seek to prevent their recurrence. This is exactly what the ArbCom does. A disciplinary body has no obligations to the interests of the parties before it, other than to refrain from manifestly unfair behavior; its duty is to maximize the interests of the larger body it serves. There isn't really a need to make real-world analogies here, because the ArbCom actually is the disciplinary committee of the (at best vaguely organized) "Association of Wikipedia Editors". It's not analogous to one; it is one. There is no need to use analogies to judicial courts when we already have countless examples of other disciplinary committees to look for for guidance. Nearly every long-established voluntary organization has a disciplinary committee of some sort, and anyone familiar with parliamentary law is aware of this concept. I suspect that the main reasons Wikipedians reject this model is that legitimately operated disciplinary committees of these bodies tend to operate behind closed doors, generally seek to minimize drama, and usually issue mostly-opaque rulings. The fact that the ArbCom persistently fails to conduct itself as a proper disciplinary committee ought doesn't make them not one; it just makes them one that is very poorly operated. This could be mitigated if the "Association of Wikipedia Editors" would acknowledge its own existence and organize more formally, such by electing a governing board, setting down proper bylaws, and establishing committees related to its broader purpose; this would relieve the ArbCom from its dual role as both disciplinary committee and "highest governing body", and allow the ArbCom to actually act as a full-time disciplinary board. I also agree with "Randy" that the people most qualified for this role are those who have spent years finding ways to minimize and mitigate disruption. Middle school vice principals are a good example; another good example would be those with experience as community moderators on online services such as Steam or reddit. It's not the job of a vice principal to decide who of two fighting seventh graders was in the right, but rather to terminate the disruption their fight causes to the educational environment and take steps to ensure that it doesn't happen again. Similarly, the job of a Steam content moderator is to try to ensure that Steam's product is enjoyable to the bulk of Steam's users, and to remove from that environment influences that make that product unenjoyable to Steam's customers. Often, this will mean ejecting both disputants from the fray, even when one of them has the merit of being right, but that's often how it works in civil organizations. Wikipedia is not, as presently constituted, a civil organization. Experience with mediation or arbitration would be better utilized on Wikipedia's committee for resolving editorial disputes, except (of course) Wikipedia doesn't have such a committee. The failure of Wikipedia to establish any sort of meaningful process for systematically resolving editorial disputes in its nearly twenty years of existence, to me, leads me to conclude that the core of Wikipedia's committed members is not actually all that interested in "knowledge". Of course, the reason why the ArbCom is so important is precisely because Wikipedia lacks any meaningful way to resolve editorial (that is, content) disputes; the ArbCom has long insisted that it has no authority to resolve content disputes. The way to win an editorial dispute on Wikipedia is therefore to transform the content dispute into a behavioral dispute, typically by egging one's editorial opponent into some sort of misbehavior that can then be used as the basis for a disciplinary action that, if parlayed correctly, will result in one's editorial opponent being silenced. This can often then be parlayed into silencing everyone else who tries to advance the same editorial position as a proxy for the restricted individual. This has turned the ArbCom into a de facto editorial board, even as it refuses to acknowledge that it is doing so, but with editorial decisions made not on a sober evaluation of whose editorial position has the merit of appearing to be "most accurate", but rather on the basis of whose editorial position was expressed with the least raucously screeching voice, and also quite commonly on whose position was backed by the largest (or at least loudest) number of influence peddlers within Wikipedia's community. The sad thing is that committed Wikipedians generally think that this is somehow better than having a group of people who could credibly be considered subject matter experts examine the facts under dispute and issue a ruling based on what appears to them to be the most factually accurate representation of the matter under dispute; that somehow a mudslinging competition is a better way to determine truth than a panel discussion among generally acknowledged experts. If Wikipedia had a functional content dispute resolution process that could resolve content disputes before they became behavioral disruptions, there might possibly be fewer behavioral disruptions. Or, more likely, not, since, in my experience, at least, the vast bulk of Wikipedians who are not willing to compromise on content issues are going to become behaviorally disruptive when they don't get their way. But I'm not convinced that this is obligatory in a project like Wikipedia; the fact that it has evolved to that state may simply be a consequence of the decisions made early in Wikipedia's life. A project with different core principles would attract different participants.|}
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