v t e Arbitration Committee Election 2022 candidate: Robert McClenon Candidate statement Questions for the candidate Discuss this candidate

Add your questions below the line using the following markup:

#((ACE Question
|Q=Your question
|A=))

There is a limit of two questions per editor for each candidate. You may also ask a reasonable number of follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked.

Question by Red-tailed hawk

2. Hello. Thank you for volunteering to serve on the Arbitration Committee. Would you please explain your understanding of WP:INVOLVED, and would you summarize the extent to which you agree and/or disagree with how the Arbitration Committee has applied the principles of involvement with respect to administrator conduct in Reversal and reinstatement of Athaenara's block, Manning naming dispute, and Climate change? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 00:13, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   I see the policy on administrative involvement as reflecting the distinction between content and conduct. An administrator is involved in a controversy if they have been editing the content, in which case they should allow other administrators to deal with any conduct issues. An administrator who is involved with the content of an article may not use administrator tools to "win" a content dispute. The policy on involvement is explained in considerable detail in the Climate Change statement of principles, and I agree with those statements of principle. In that case, an administrator was admonished and restricted, and I think that ArbCom acted reasonably in that respect. In a predecessor dispute to Climate Change, an administrator was desysopped (had their administrator status revoked), largely for using administrative tools to win content disputes. In the Manning naming dispute, an administrator protected the name of the article after moving/renaming it, thus (mis)using an administrator tool in a content dispute. The administrator should have been either desysopped or admonished and restricted, and was admonished and restricted. The Athaenara case involves a somewhat different sort of involvement, because the involvement was in an RFA rather than about article content. I agree that the administrator/functionary who was sanctioned was wrong to use a functionary tool while they were involved.

Questions from InsaneHacker

2. Thank you for standing for election. In your candidate statement, you reference your experience volunteering at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard which, like ArbCom, deals with disputes in the broadest sense. However, there are also differences between DRN and ArbCom. The former handles content disputes and is based on voluntary participation by participants, while the latter handles conduct disputes in situations where parties are often involuntarily brought before it.
   What are the skills you've gained from DRN work which you think would be most useful as an arbitrator, and in what areas might you need to have a different mentality as an arbitrator than as a DRN volunteer?

   The skills that are applicable to both DRN and ArbCom include a thorough knowledge of Wikipedia policies and guidelines, the willingness to read through walls of text, the ability to recognize the mix of content and conduct issues in a dispute, and a recognition that the objective is the improvement of the encyclopedia. A content dispute mediator should keep attention focused on the article in question, to try to minimize the impact of any conduct issues. What I will have to do differently as an arbitrator is to focus on the conduct, because ArbCom does not resolve content disputes. The ability to distinguish content issues from conduct issues is important for both content mediators and arbitrators, who address the two types of disputes.

Just adding one question for now. InsaneHacker (💬) 00:17, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from TheresNoTime

2. How do you foresee the role of the Arbitration Committee changing with regard to the adoption of the Universal Code of Conduct (namely, due to the enforcement guidelines, and the introduction of the global Coordinating Committee)? — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 05:59, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   I see that your question is about the enforcement provisions and the global U4C. How the U4C affects the ArbCom will depend on whether the U4C interprets the enforcement provisions as they are written, or attempts to increase its power. The enforcement provisions state that the U4C is co-equal to ArbComs, and has final jurisdiction in appeals when there is no other appellate body, or when the appellate body is not functioning. If the U4C respects the self-government of the English Wikipedia and the co-equality of its ArbCom, there will be slight changes to the role of the ArbCom, involving coordination with the U4C in cases of cross-wiki abuse. If the U4C attempts to deal with English Wikipedia conduct issues, ArbCom will also have to advocate for the autonomy of the English Wikipedia, just as it did in the Fram case.

4. Is ANI pronounced A-N-I or Annie? Thank you for standing, and good luck. — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 05:59, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   Acronyms should normally be spelled out letter by letter, and this is no exception. It's Ay-En-Eye.

Question from Beyond My Ken

2. Robert, you stood for RfA twice, in 2006, and in 2017. In the first you did not collect a sufficient percentage of votes, and in the second you withdrew your candidacy before it could be closed as failed. As a result, you stand now for a seat on the Arbitration Committee as a non-admin. I believe that -- except for trivial cases way back in Wikipedia's history, when Jimbo Wales appointed arbitrators -- no non-admin has ever been elected to the committee. Since becoming an arbitrator is more difficult than becoming an admin, why did you make the decision to stand for ArbCom knowing that it would be extremely difficult to be elected, and that you are bucking precedent? Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:59, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   It should be more difficult to be elected as an arbitrator than designated as an administrator, because arbitrators have even greater responsibility. I think that RFA is still too difficult, and that it is at least as difficult to pass RFA as to be elected an arbitrator. ArbCom elections are a more civilized process than RFA.

4. What would you say to members of the community who might feel that you should have stood at RfA and become an admin first, before then attempting to become an arbitrator in some future year? Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:59, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   I will tell them that I respect their opinion, and that we disagree.

Questions from Gerda Arendt

2. Do you believe that we still have infobox wars? If yes, do you have better ideas than the 2013 arb ruling to end them?

   Yes, there are infobox wars. On the one hand, I haven't recently seen any edit-wars over whether an article should have an infobox. On the other hand, two of the most recent disputes that I mediated were about the content of an infobox, so I can guess that there are also edit-wars over whether there should be an infobox. There have been two ArbCom cases about infoboxes, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes in 2013, and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Civility in infobox discussions in March 2018. The 2018 case authorized discretionary sanctions including a remedy known as infobox probation. The two remedies for infobox wars should be infobox probation to minimize conduct issues, and Requests for Comments to decide the content issue of whether to have an infobox. Whether to have an infobox is a content decision, and RFC is the usual means of resolving content disputes that are not resolved otherwise.

Questions from RoySmith

2. I've noticed that you often comment in the preliminary statements section of case requests. I'll leave you with a somewhat open-ended (multi-part) question: Could you talk a bit about how cases are run? What parts of the current process works well? What parts could be improved? To what extent should the arbs base their decision on their own investigations and deliberations, and how much on the comments posted by the community?

   I will start by saying that, in my opinion, input from the community, other than evidence, is unlikely to be helpful in cases that have been accepted by ArbCom, because ArbCom hears cases that the community is unable to resolve, often because it is divided or polarized. For more or less that reason, I think that the workshop is usually the least useful phase. I do not recall a recent case where it appeared that the workshop was useful in focusing the attention of Arbcom. I will add that my comments to ArbCom on case requests are usually about whether ArbCom should accept the case and what its scope should be, which are questions that the arbitrators sometimes discuss as they are deciding whether to take a case.

Question from DanCherek

2. Thanks for volunteering. In your statement, you write: If that means that ArbCom should reduce its back-office load of invisible appeals, then ArbCom should reduce its back-office load of invisible appeals. On a practical level, what steps would you take (or propose) to make this happen? DanCherek (talk) 18:07, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   I don't have much knowledge of or insight into the invisible back-office work, but I know that Arbitrators have referred to it. At this point I would think that it might be in order to assign one or two Arbitrators, or one or two functionaries, the role of screening the appeals. Many of the unblock requests that come in by email only require a brief review to know either that the editor is still a net negative, or that the editor deserves one more chance.

Question from BilledMammal

2. Would you ever support a principle or finding of fact that is based on the Universal Code of Conduct?

   Yes. Section 3 of the UCoC, on Unacceptable Behavior, is consistent with the English Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If an editor's behavior violates a subsection of Section 3, the ArbCom should refer to it in the Finding of Fact, and if necessary in a Principle, in sanctioning the editor. Citing the UCoC when applicable may help to ensure that we are left alone by the U4C.