This is the talk page for discussing a candidate for election to the Arbitration Committee.
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v t e Arbitration Committee Election 2009 candidate: Kmweber Candidate statement (create) Questions for the candidate (create) Discuss this candidate (create)

• It is difficult to see what difference one refusenik is going to make on a committee of 15 (and perhaps 18). If there were others, perhaps, but just one? Hard to see how Kurt could achieve his goals. Moreschi (talk) 20:24, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it's more likely that any vote for Kmweber is going to be along the lines of a protest vote - i.e. one for "absolutely nobody." If he should win, then it really would be time to have a very serious discussion about disbanding ArbCom altogether. Ray^Talk 22:30, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Kurt winning is a situation I feel comfortable not planning for. We'd deal with it if it ever happens. Tim Vickers (talk) 05:04, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Any support for Kurt, given his utter unrepentance for a campaign of serious off-wiki harassment he enacted a year ago, would be so stupid that you'd be technically brain-dead. Even if it's a protest vote. Unfortunately, the switch to secret balloting this year makes it harder to judge voters for possession of clue and sound judgement. Sceptre ^(talk) 23:48, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Eh, Kurt recycles his catch phrases often enough, I might as well recycle my opposition from last year: "To be honest, I can't think of a single user more disruptive and destructive to this project than Kurt Weber. It can't even be claimed that he has the courage of his convictions: for someone so militantly and reflexively opposed to self-nomination to posts of power, for instance, he seems to do so himself often enough. Beyond that, Kurt's very premise is breathtakingly flawed. This is not some crackpot anarchist collective. The "community" doesn't own Wikipedia; the Foundation does, and it can delegate authority to whomever or whatever it wants, to whichever degree it finds good. Those who can't handle that an incorporated organization can manage its own private website to its own liking ... well, no doubt you can find some encyclopedia out there where you don't have to honor any rules or authority you find distasteful."  Ravenswing  14:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Opposing me is fine, but please don't lie and claim I hold a certain position on an issue that I don't, especially when I've explicitly explained my actual position multiple times (including in one of my responses to the questions on my ACEQ page). Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 15:11, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is not Alice In Wonderland, and you don't get to call stating a position you've framed yourself a hundred times over a "lie." By the bye, there's this little interesting factoid; over half of your edits to Wikipedia over the last thirteen months have been concerning your two ArbCom candidacies. I see no reason to give any credit or consideration to someone who isn't, as it happens, a participating member of Wikipedia.  Ravenswing  15:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • The problem is that you didn't state the position I actually hold on the issue. I have never said "self-nominations are inherently bad," "self-nominations should be forbidden," "no one should ever self-nominate," etc. I have simply said that they are prima facie evidence of power-hunger, which simply means that absent compelling evidence to the contrary, one should presume that they are made out of power-hunger. My self-nominating myself in no way contradicts that point: while I know that I am not power-hungry, I don't expect others to be able to read my mind and know my motives, so they should presume I am power-hungry unless and until they are able to uncover compelling evidence to the contrary. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 15:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Tell you what; go ahead and pull up some self-nominated RfAs where you supported the candidate, instead of reflexively opposing every time you voted, and I'll reverse my vote on your candidacy. (Don't strain yourself looking, by the bye. I just did. You never have.)  Ravenswing  15:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • You obviously didn't make much of an effort, or you would have come across this. And even if no such examples existed, then that would just have been because in no case was enough convincing evidence presented to overcome the massive doubt that a self-nom creates in my mind. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 16:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • In which case of course you understand your own self-nom reinforces the massive doubts in our minds.  Ravenswing  16:59, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
              • Did you see above, where I said "while I know that I am not power-hungry, I don't expect others to be able to read my mind and know my motives, so they should presume I am power-hungry unless and until they are able to uncover compelling evidence to the contrary"? Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 19:05, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
                • Yes, I did, but since you've fought so hard and vigorously in the past against the notion that your own credo applies to you as well, either you weren't being forthright with us then or you're not being forthright with us now. Which it is scarcely matters.  Ravenswing  19:27, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
                  • "since you've fought so hard and vigorously in the past against the notion that your own credo applies to you as well,"--no, I haven't. More dishonesty. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 19:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

He seems pretty serious about eliminating ArbCom, that's for sure. --Explodicle (T/C) 17:40, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Someone more serious about it wouldn't have taken a near-year long break from Wikipedia, as opposed to consensus-building.  Ravenswing  20:19, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A detailed analysis of this candidate's edits in article, user and project space can be found at User:Franamax/Ucontribs-2009/Kmweber. Franamax (talk) 06:38, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Kurt,

This could come across as a personal attack, so I begin by saying that it is not. For a number of years, you have been extremely dedicated to loudly expressing on Wikipedia a number of unfounded and caustic principles. When pressed, you have failed to provide a credible logic for your theories, time and time again.

Personally? I happen to agree that ArbCom is a waste of space filled with good, well-meaning people who once on the committee simply lose sight of the forest from the trees. The negative impact on the encyclopedia is that good people get kicked out of, or driven away from the project, while a large number of individuals such as yourself, who appear to have a pathological issue with Wikipedia are, if anything, emboldened to undermine the project. This view puts me in the awkward position of secretly wishing you get elected, while still holding out some kind of hope that ArbCom can some day get focused on doing things that actually help the project grow and improve in quality. In many respects, you are a creation of ArbCom, in that ArbCom reinforces the framework that gives you and your ilk the upper hand. Thusly, your election would only be an appropriate means for ArbCom to welcome you home.

At the same time, I do also worry about allowing Wikipedia to exist in a state that effectively takes advantage of individuals such as yourself. You generally strike me as something of a Sarah Palin; well meaning, but otherwise well informed enough only to be dangerous to objectivity. I honestly hope that you can find it in yourself to step back from the project more permanently (I don't think you've really been gone for a year) and focus on gathering perspective in support of the reality that Wikipedia is merely a website, and most likely nothing more than a footnote in history. I suspect that in 20 years, Wikipedia will be one of those cultural touch stones that people look back on as representative of this decade, much in the way people fondly recall Pong, mullets, Max Headrome, Usenet, the Goonies, bell bottoms, platform shoes, LSD, MC Hammer, the Information Super Highway, AOL/Time Warner, dignitude, neo-conservatism, Contract with America, not having sexual relations with that woman, Sosa/McGuire, Michigan Militia, Geocities, and Garbage Pale Kids. Nothing here really matters, and as pointed out above, we don't even own the place.

Wikipedia isn't yours, mine, or ours, it is the Foundation's, and we are the bored 20 and 30 somethings who's trival knowledge is harvested for free to the benefit of Jimbo. Loosing site of this simple truth, that we exist as a community only to benefit Jimbo, is what should be front and center in your mind any time you feel an anger welling up inside. Without Wikipedia, nobody knows who the hell Jimbo is. Without Wikipedia, most of us would not have a free way of loafing around on the internet in the office. Without us, Wikipedia has no content. Without content, Wikipedia doesn't make an article on Jimbo notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia. We build it, we police it, we distribute it while Jimbo takes all the glory, credit, and yes, profit by way of cashing in on his fame. Yet we allowed it to happen by participating. Why waste your time "controlling" something if you can just make money off it.

If you want a real cause to obsess over, consider fomenting a Wikipedia strike wherein all long-term editors demand our fair share of Jimbo's profit. We're a cultural phenomenon that generates cash, media, and jobs by way of conventions, meet-ups, academic discussions, university courses, books, articles, and television coverage. As far as I can tell, only one guy gets a cut of any of it.

It is what it is, and we don't own it, so just take a few deep breaths and relax. Hiberniantears (talk) 15:52, 12 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]