Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates

2015 Arbitration Committee Elections

Status

The December 2015 Arbitration Committee Election results have been posted.
Please offer your feedback on the election process.

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WP:ACE2015/C

The nomination statements of editors running in the 2015 Arbitration Committee elections appear below.

Eligibility criteria

An editor is eligible to stand as a candidate who:

(i) has a registered account and has had at least 500 mainspace edits by 1 November 2015.

(ii) is in good standing and not subject to active blocks or site-bans.

(iii) meets the Wikimedia Foundation's criteria for access to non-public data, is willing to sign the Foundation's non-public information confidentiality agreement^[note]

(iv) has disclosed any alternative accounts in his or her election statement (legitimate accounts which have been declared to a member of the Arbitration Committee prior to the close of nominations need not be publicly disclosed).

Statements must:

(i) be submitted after 00:00 UTC on 8 November 2015 and until 23:59 UTC on 17 November 2015;

(ii) not exceed a limit of 400 words^[note] (although candidates are free to link to a longer statement if they wish);

(iii) confirm that the candidate will fully comply with the criteria for access to non-public data;

(iv) include a disclosure of all prior and alternate accounts or confirmation that all such accounts have been declared to the Arbitration Committee;

(v) be created using the inputbox below, by appending your username to the existing text, clicking the button, and following the instructions.

The nominating period is now over

Footnotes

^{^} From the Wikimedia Foundation's Access to nonpublic data policy:

Any volunteer who is chosen by any community process to be granted access rights to restricted data shall not be granted that access until that volunteer has satisfactorily identified himself or herself to the Foundation, which may include proof that such user is at least 18 and explicitly over the age at which they are capable to act without the consent of their parent in the jurisdiction in which they reside.

^{^} The mandatory disclosure of alternate accounts and declaration of intent to comply with the WMF identification policy are exempt from the 400-word limit, although candidates are encouraged to be concise.

Standing candidates

Mahensingha

Hello Editors... I volunteer myself for the said election. I stand fully eligible as per the criteria mentioned. I have been active on wikipedia since long enough and made 4,564 (Total edits) on India related articles. If you think that I am fit for Arbitration Committee then please vote. My personal impression about myself is that I always tried my best to do justice to the responsibility I shoulder and I never quit till I finish. Thanks

Kirill Lokshin

I am a long-time Wikipedian and former arbitrator, having served three terms on the Arbitration Committee (2007–2009, 2010–2011, and 2012–2013). During my time on the Committee, my primary focus was drafting case decisions—I ultimately wrote more than 60—but I was, at various times, involved with virtually every aspect of the Committee’s work. Among other activities, I was the Committee’s first coordinating arbitrator, served a term on the Audit Subcommittee, and helped develop the current arbitration policy as well as the original system of discretionary sanctions.

Much has been written elsewhere about the various problems with the arbitration process as it currently stands. I will not repeat those points here, save for two:

The fundamental purpose of the Arbitration Committee is to hear requests for arbitration and to render decisions on them; its consistent inability to do so in a timely manner is unconscionable, and needs to be addressed. Part of the problem is, I suspect, simply a lack of active arbitrators with the experience necessary to efficiently draft case decisions; but, beyond that, too much of the Committee’s time is being taken up by its various secondary roles. This is a problem that we can and should resolve, in part through better technical solutions, and in part through delegation and devolution of elements of the Committee’s work to the community, or to other groups, as appropriate.

The Arbitration Committee must take a strong stand against harassment of Wikipedians, both on and off the project, with particular attention paid to systemic harassment directed against vulnerable individuals and under-represented groups in our community. While the Committee will probably not be able to solve this problem on its own, it must, at the very least, be part of the solution—and not, as has unfortunately often been the case, part of the problem.

With the Committee likely to experience significant turnover and loss of institutional memory as a result of this election, I believe there will be a need for experienced arbitrators in the coming year, and offer my services to the community once again.

Disclosures: I am already identified to the Foundation, and have signed the applicable agreements regarding access to non-public data. I have a single alternate account, Kirill Lokshin (test account).

Gamaliel

The most important thing we can do on Wikipedia is to facilitate content creation. That means content creation by everyone, regardless of who they are or how much experience they have as an editor. Issues such as harassment and civility are not, as some would have it, a necessary part of content creation, but inhibit content creation by many current and potential editors.

The Committee has a difficult job. While it is filled with well-meaning individuals, collectively they have favored narrow decisions that focus on the behavior of a few editors while ignoring systemic issues plaguing Wikipedia and prioritize policy compliance over normal expectations of behavior in extraordinary circumstances. The Committee cannot create policy, but it can use the matters before it to address systemic issues, which many parts of the community are demanding it do.

Offline, people are energized and optimistic about the possibilities of Wikipedia. Online, the community is fractious and the environment often toxic, exacerbated by the failure to address these issues head-on. Enough is enough.

Were I to serve, my priorities will be to:

Demand zero tolerance for harassment.
Push for the Committee to receive professional training in mediation and harassment, funded by a WMF grant.
Push to expand the Committee to properly handle the workload. The demands on the Committee members are high, often leading early departure.

I have been a Wikipedia editor for eleven years and an administrator for ten. I have created more than a thousand articles and I have nearly seventy thousand edits. Offline, I am a librarian and professor at a mid-sized university in the US. Wikipedia is the focus of my academic research.

I am not the perfect editor or candidate. A decade is a long time, and it is full of many examples where I could have acted better or made a better decision. Likewise, I do not demand perfection of other editors nor would I demand it of parties before the Committee. I only ask what I try to do, and that is for editors to acknowledge their mistakes and strive to do better, instead of loudly insisting that disruption is the correct path. A perfect candidate who offends no one and makes no errors avoids controversial problems, and we need people willing to attempt to solve those problems and risk making mistakes to do so, instead of standing by doing nothing.

Mandatory declarations: I will comply with all policies for dealing with non-public data and have already signed a confidentiality agreement with the Wikimedia Foundation to do so as part of my work with The Wikipedia Library. I do not recall ever doing any editing with another account.

GorillaWarfare

I'm Molly White, a 22-year-old American software developer. I've been a Wikipedian for over nine years, and an administrator for five of those. I have served a term on the Arbitration Committee from 2014–2015 and am putting myself up for re-election.

I have not been an uncontroversial arbitrator in the past two years. I certainly have made some mistakes during my tenure; I personally think my biggest shortcoming was my timidness to speak my mind when I thought something was wrong when I first took the position. I think many people will agree that I have overcome that. I realize that I've made a reputation for myself as a feminist and as someone who is willing to acknowledge and fight against the gender gap issue on Wikipedia. I think that making Wikipedia a welcoming and safe place for non-men to contribute will help the project immeasurably, and be beneficial to all editors regardless of gender. If you don't think that that is suitable for an arbitrator, I urge you not to vote for me.

This is a shorter statement than those put forward by many other candidates, but I think my actions over the past two years speak louder than my words. Please ask if you need any more information.

The only other active Wikipedia account I currently have access to is User:NEU-Molly, an account I used while helping a research laboratory at my school. I have not edited using that account since December 2013, and have no plans to return to working for that lab. I used to use User:GorillaWarfarePublic when editing on public computers, but no longer do. I also first started editing as User:Theunicyclegirl, but lost the password a year later. I have already signed the access to non-public data forms as an arbitrator, functionary, and OTRS volunteer.

Hawkeye7

As of November 2014, I have been a Wikipedia editor for over ten years, with over 62,000 edits. I have contributed to 44 Featured Articles, 2 featured lists, 80 A class articles, 215 Good Articles, and 219 DYK articles. I have been active as a MILHIST coordinator, being re-elected to a fifth term in September 2014. In this capacity I have assessed articles, closed A class reviews, and written articles and book reviews for the MILHIST newsletter. I assist at DYK with reviews and at times have been involved in the assembly of the prep areas. I have also written and maintained the MilHistBot and FACBot used by the featured article and MILHIST A-class article processes, and for updating the MILHIST announcements page. I was runner up in the WikiCup in 2013, MILHIST Military historian of the year in 2012 and runner-up in 2014.

I have been involved with GLAM work with the Australian War Memorial and the Australian Paralympic Committee. I was instructor in four Wikimedia Australia workshops, and an accredited Wikimedia media representative at the Paralympic Games in London in 2012, where I filed stories and interviews for Wikinews, and worked on keeping the Paralympic articles up to the minute. Since then I have continued expanding the Paralympic articles, particularly relating to wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby, and the games in Sochi in 2014. I have travelled around Australia, and to Thailand, China, the United States and Canada covering these sports. Most recently, I worked with a class at the University of Queensland in St Lucia. I attended Wikimania in Hong Kong in 2013 on a scholarship from the Wikimedia Foundation. I also ran, albeit unsuccessfully, for the post of president of our Australian chapter.

I decided to run for ArbCom because reform is so urgently needed. I want ArbCom to take the lead in solving problems. ArbCom needs greater transparency in the way that it operates. Where possible, it should discuss cases openly and not in camera. It should issue rulings that give clear guidance to editors and admins. Every ruling should be accompanied by a plain English statement of what is being done and why. Where possible, evidence should be restricted to what is on the evidence page. Arbs should recuse themselves on a reasonable request to do so. Above all, ArbCom should look beyond editor behaviour and consider what is best for the encyclopaedia.

“

The role of ArbCom is no more that of handing out blocks and bans than the role of a supermarket is stacking groceries on shelves.

”

While I only edit under my own account, I control two Bot accounts, MilHistBot and FACBot . If elected I will comply with the WMF identification policy.

NE Ent

Candidate Statement

Accounts are User:NE Ent, User:Alt Content, User:Jester of the court, User:Entbot

I certify I meet these requirements for access to data barely remember 18, actually... and will sing the WMF confidentiality agreement if elected. NE Ent 03:15, 16 November 2015 (UTC) And, after the aria, I will sign it also. NE Ent 11:07, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

LFaraone

Hello, I'm Luke Faraone. I've been a Wikipedia editor for over 10 years, an administrator since 2008, and a member of the CheckUser and Oversight teams since 2013. I am currently serving a two-year term on the Arbitration Committee, and am presenting myself for community consideration.

The past year has been a testing year for the committee, and the next year won’t be any easier. With a majority of seats up for election as well as several resignations and retirements, retaining the committee’s institutional memory is important.

The role of the Arbitration Committee has changed considerably since it was founded. It now has a wide range of unrelated responsibilities. These need cutting right back so that it can concentrate on its core role of resolving disputes.

For those tasks that the committee retains, we need to focus on consensus-building; in recent times we have too often been a committee divided. Part of this may involve moving more slowly, with a clear understanding of the rare circumstance in which swift action is required.

When I first joined the committee in 2014, there were discussions about reworking the way we handle private communications. This stalled, in part because of a lack of a clear owner for the process and in part because of other concerns taking attention away from it. While I agree that the Arbitration Committee should strive to be as transparent as possible, there are many matters which cannot be discussed publicly. This is an undeniable fact, explicitly acknowledged by the Arbitration Policy. I intend to invest a good deal of effort in early 2016 towards revitalising work on process management, and will stress that such processes need to be discussed and decided upon with the community's input.

I will continue to comply with the criteria for access to non-public data; I am identified to the Foundation per roles as a functionary, volunteer response team participant, and arbitrator. I used the username Firefoxman prior to a rename in 2008. User:LFaraone_(usurped) is the account that was previously under my current name.

Kevin Gorman

I’m Kevin Gorman, frequent editor since 2011, and admin since the beginning of 2014. I’m also the former Wikipedian-in-Residence at UC Berkeley, moderator of the gendergap-l listserve, and frequent badgerer of PR blackhats. At the beginning of 2015, I went into severe septic shock, had several organ systems fail, and spent most of 2015 recovering from it - and within the last few months am to the point where I’m recovered enough for a full time workload, and have my health well-controlled. However, I may die in July 2016 so if elected, I will be serving most of my term from heaven.

I know it’s unusual for someone with a recent editing gap to run for AC, and I hadn’t intended to run - but some recent arbcom decisions, combined with concern over lack of candidates interested in actively guiding arbcom decisions towards increasing the health and continuing the growth of ENWP (and its active editing community,) combined with a little bit of prodding from a few other people made me change my mind. A longer statement about some of the problems I see with arbcom in the recent past can be seen here - but the short version is that I believe arbcom needs to be simplified, act faster than it currently does, and take more decisive action when confronted with an intractable issue, because failing to do so allows the problem to continue to fester and harm the community.

Arbcom should act as rarely as it can. When it does act, it should act quickly, transparently, and to the most significant extent possible aiming to support a collegial encyclopedia with an environment as conducive to creating content on the widest variety of encyclopedic topics as possible. Arbcom shouldn’t act punitively for the sake of acting punitively, although in support of content creation and our continued health as a community there will be times when community members must be desysopped, removed from a particular area, or removed from our community as a whole in order to strengthen the encyclopedia and our community.

It concerns me greatly that every study conducted on the English Wikipedia’s demographics has found that the vast majority of our editors are men, generally well-educated, generally fairly-well off, and almost entirely from the Global North. Our encyclopedia aims to encompass the sum of all human knowledge - a lofty goal that we cannot possibly accomplish unless we take steps to ensure that, to borrow from a recent public comment, we’re sending no demographic into a cultural buzzsaw.

I have already identified myself to the Wikimedia Foundation (although am willing to do so again if needed,) and have no issue signing an NDA. Wikipedia has made me sick over the last few years (literally). It's time that patient Kevin finds a cure for Wikipedia and his disease which is the same thing: ME.

Kelapstick

I am Kelapstick, and for those that don't know me, I have been an administrator since 2013, and an Oversighter since March of this year. I also hold OTRS access, although I don't consider myself a very good OTRS agent (as I don't handle many tickets). As an editor, I have been around since 2006, and have amassed 40,000 edits (including deleted), created about 100 articles (excluding redirects, including DAB pages), have a bunch of DYKs, and one GA.
So what will I bring to ArbCom, well hard to say I suppose, I think I am pretty reasonable most of the time. I am able to cut through the chaff to get to the crux of an issue, and I think that's a good thing as an ArbCom member. Also I consider myself pretty up on cultural differences, having spent extensive time working in multiple countries (Canada, US, Australia, and Mongolia), which I think is helpful on a project with such a diverse membership. I am sure you have a bunch of other questions for me about my suitability for this job, and I'll do my best to answer them for you.
Now for the bad news, I am heading to Indonesia on 15 November, so there will be a pretty big chunk (I am thinking four or five days) out of this question period where I won't be very responsive (unless Air Canada has put WiFi on trans-Pacific flights, and didn't tell me). I will do my best to respond to what I can between now and then, and when I get to Jakarta.
As per the one mandatory question, I have one alternate account, Kelapstick on the Run (talk · contribs), which you will probably see me use over the course of this process (after Sunday).
As I have Oversight access, I have already signed the Foundation's non-public information confidentiality agreement, and will continue to fully comply with the criteria for access to non-public data.

Casliber

Hi folks, my name is Cas Liber and I am a psychiatrist in his late 40s from Australia. For those who don't know me, I am active in writing and reviewing Featured Articles, Good Articles, DYK and have resurrected the Core Contest and Stub Contest. I have been elected to the committee twice before (2009, 2011-12). My previous statements in 2008 and 2010 still hold true. The adminship/deadminship issue is still live and much of this year has been subject to debates and arguents that have been particularly divisive but maybe needn't have been so. Sitting on the committee can feel like one is under siege at times, and I have worried that arbs have fallen into an "us vs them" type thinking in prolonged disputes, which may not be helpful at times. I (hopefully) haven't been subject to this and will try to look at Big Picture issues and conflicts neutrally and add perspective. Furthermore, I have pushed for the examination of how editors use sources in disputes in cases. If we restrict arb cases to socking, edit-warring and incivility we are leaving wikipedia wide open to organised assaults by parties seeking to influence content (i.e. we're screwed). I've not seen other arbs do this in drafting cases though I concede I have not looked at many this year. I hope I am wrong but I am running because I fear I am right. I have also pushed behind the scenes for WMF to take a more active role in child protection, which has been productive but I think needs more discussion/negotiation. FWIW, I have only had the one account. Maybe a few IP edits while accidentally logged-out over the past nine years...

Wildthing61476

Hello everyone, and nice to meet you all. I'm Wildthing61476 and I have been an editor on Wikipedia now for close to 10 years. My time here on Wikipedia is spent more with cleaning up vandalism or making corrections to articles where they may need to be done. I have focused more on editing articles about topics I'm quite familiar with, such as articles regarding the Baltimore and Maryland areas. I do comment on WP:ANI from time to time, and have read through some previous ArbCom committee rulings to get a better understanding of what is required as a member of ArbCom.

As per the instructions I will abide by the rules and fully disclose that I have no other accounts on Wikipedia, and I have only edited through this account during my time here (save for when I forgot to login). I do not have any blocks or disciplinary measures on my account, and will fully comply with whatever information is required by WMF should I be selected.

I feel that I would be an asset as a member of ArbCom, as I consider myself to be level headed, and I am able to critically review an issue and give an honest estimation on that issue based on the facts. I can, and believe I have proven, that I can remain neutral, and not let personal opinion fly in the face of what an issue is presented. Wildthing61476 (talk) 18:42, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Thryduulf

I have been a Wikipedia editor for nearly 11 years, an administrator for over 10 years and an arbitrator for the best part of 1 year, so I will already be familiar to many of you. I was elected for a single year term last time, but I feel that I still have more to give the community in this role.

The role cannot be learned overnight, indeed I am still learning and that will continue if I am elected. The long learning curve does mean that there is significant benefit in having experience and institutional memory on the committee. I can only offer one year so far, but with potentially only 6 arbitrators continuing, this is something that may be at a premium.

The 2015 committee has not been been as speedy as many, including me, would have hoped. I have done my best to push things internally, and will continue doing so, but we do need to improve. I had a period where I couldn't devote the blocks of time I needed, but still contributed where I was able rather than go fully inactive.

I have tried my best to communicate where possible, but there truly are things that cannot be shared. In addition to those things with privacy issues. matters such as discussing correspondence and drafts have to remain internal, and things like chasing up are simply more effective by email. Most of what we are doing is reading - while the parties to a dispute are all familiar with a situation and what lead to it, we are most often not and have to read the background as well as all the evidence and discussion on all of the current cases. I will continue to share what I can do, but without a fundamental change in both the nature of cases we hear and the arbitration and privacy policies there will always be things we cannot make public.

Ultimately, if you elect me you will continue to get someone who will continue to stand up for what the best interests of the project as a whole and of the people who make it. I have demonstrated over the past year that I am not afraid to stand my ground, even as a lone voice, if I feel that is best but also that I am willing to change my mind if things change.

Mandatory information: I am fully identified to the Foundation and have signed the new agreement. The only accounts I actively use for editing are this one and , very occasionally, user:Awkward42. A full list of accounts I control is at user:Thryduulf#Other accounts.

Keilana

Hi, I’m Emily, and I’ve been a Wikipedian for more than 8 years. I’ve been involved in lots of different places, like starting WikiProject Women Scientists, helping to organize WikiProject Women’s Health, developing a systemic bias workshop kit for Wikipedia workshops on college campuses, and helping to write a bunch of featured articles, good articles, and DYKs.

I’m putting my hat in the ring this year because I think the community needs an Arbcom that includes more women, and more people who spend most of their time in the trenches writing articles. In a happy coincidence, I happen to fall squarely in the intersection of those two categories.

ArbCom has become less and less effective in actually solving the problems faced by Wikipedia’s regular editors, and I think that my experience in facilitating collaboration and my problem solving skills can help make the arbitration process both more effective and more useful to the community.

I’m currently an oversighter, so I’ve already identified to the WMF and signed the non-disclosure agreement. I have an alternate account, Emily Temple-Wood (NIOSH), that I use for my Wikipedian-in-Residence work at NIOSH.

Hullaballoo Wolfowitz

Have you ever seen the 1980 news video where George HW Bush, having just beaten Bob Dole in a presidential primary via vicious negative advertising, turns around and is slick and friendly to Dole? Dole replies "Stop lying about my record". Well, I'm (metaphorically) grumpy old Bob Dole.

Between en-wiki and Commons, I have roughly 75,000 edits. I have been editing regularly since late 2008. I have engaged regularly with difficult and (occasionally) destructive editors, in order to enforce important Wikipedia policies, particularly BLP and copyright policies. I was one of the editors who raised warning signals about Qworty (but was unfortunately ignored), whose editing led to one of Wikipedia's worst public embarassments. I also was one of the first editors to object to the Committee's astonishingly insensitive proposed directive indicating female editors should not fight back actively against sexual harassment

I have had extensive real-world experience with lower-level government agencies, particularly citizen boards which are tasked with resolving issues on matters of public interest and import. Very few ArbCom members, past or present, have claimed such experience, which may be one reason for the Committee's dysfunctionality.

Arbcom is inefficient and ineffective. It needs to resolve disputes more rapidly and more clearly, rather than trotting out a standard list of fossilized bromides. It has adopted procedures which incorporate time- and effort-wasting elements of the legal process without adopting procedures which promote efficiency, fairness, and good decisionmaking.

If elected to Arbcom, I will immediately propose, as a first step, that when a case is accepted, the Committee provide a clear statement of which matters it intends to address in that case. That will do much to eliminate the absurd waste of community time and effort when amorphous cases turn into free-fire zones and timesinks, both in evidence and workshop pages. I also believe far more discussion should take place in public.

Mandatory: Before accepting any advanced permissions accompany the position, I will comply with WMF requirements. I edit primarily as Hullaballoo Wolfowitz, but my Commons account, created prior to unification, is The Big Bad Wolfowitz, and I continue to use that ID for work involving free images. Sometimes wires get crossed, and the "wrong" account makes an edit regarding a particular image. My enwiki account was originally named Harmonica Wolfowitz.

Kudpung

I've been 'on' Wikipedia for nearly 10 years. A lot of people say things like that. In fact I didn't start editing in earnest until I retired in RL 7 years ago. As an admin for five years now, I have had longish periods of intense activity in pretty much each area of admin duty including SPI, RFPP, AIV, PERM, COPYVIO, COI, etc., while also being fairly consistently (but not predominantly) in the trenches at ANI, a spell on WP:OTRS, and over 1,000 requests for help answered at EAR. I like doing detailed research which often turns up unexpected trails of odd editing behaviour.

I very rarely participate in Arbcom but I certainly follow the high profile cases; I only post when I really feel that what I say will be useful – I've never been subpoenaed to appear there. I'm here because my arm was twisted last year but I made a mess of transcluding just when the bell rang, and because I've had it twisted again this year. Missing the deadline last year was no big issue because being an Arbcom member is definitely 'no big deal' but If I am elected I will put body and soul into it and if not elected I will simply continue to pursue my quests for reform and improvement of RfA and NPP and my gnomish CSD and AfD work, and maintaining our school project and its tens of thousands of articles. I have no designs on reforming the Arbcom, but simply to contribute towards making the process as expedient and as equitable as possible.

Over the years I've made some enemies - it comes with the job but if they were truly honest with themselves they know that I am fair without being lenient, and firm without being possessed of power. My career as a teacher, university lecturer, and linguist has led me along a cosmopolitan course, helping me to resolve issues that otherwise get stuck on some cultural or social dichotomy. My interest in the management of Wikipedia and the volunteers who contribute the content and who make it work has also led me physically around the globe in the quest to help make this the biggest and best knowledge base ever.

I'll answer any questions I think are appropriate, provide silly answers to the silly ones, and pass on the others. I am already identified to the WMF, not only for my former stint on OTRS but also for some other delicate matters on other Wikimedia projects. I have the following other accounts that are extremely rarely used: Kudpung2, KudpungMobile, and Kudpung.wikimania.

Opabinia regalis

Well, this is about the last thing I ever thought I'd do here.

My qualifications for the job consist almost entirely of being a level-headed, deliberative, analytical person who is usually pretty good at connecting to the human beings behind the pixels on the screen (despite being an extinct invertebrate). I'm an admin, though not of terribly long standing (ahem, I'll spin this as "unique perspective"). I have no other special permissions and am not important in any ~~other~~ way. I work on articles about biochemistry and think of myself as primarily content-focused (though that damn pie chart has been making a liar out of me lately). My day job is scientific research, and I think the habits of mind that come from digging through a mountain of complex and inconsistent evidence in order to parse out reasonable conclusions are fairly transferable skills. I'm part of this project because I believe in the mission of providing widely accessible, freely licensed content to the public; if I have a "platform" here, it is to center arbcom's activities on supporting that mission.

I'm also a woman in a predominantly male STEM field. The topic of Wikipedia's "gender gap" has been very fraught lately and is full of heated rhetoric on all sides. In a related but distinct development, the problem of harassment of Wikipedia volunteers has become a major issue recently. I think we could really benefit from hearing more women's voices on the committee regarding these issues.

I'm putting my name in now because a) we don't yet have any female candidates, and I hope more will join me; and b) I'd like to start taking questions this weekend. As a note, I'm traveling for Thanksgiving and then again for a long-planned work event the first week of December. On that topic, all else being equal, I think it's good for positions of wiki-responsibility to include people with diverse off-wiki lives and obligations, and it's important that arbcom tasks be structured to make effective use of available volunteer time. Where work can be given back to the community, we all win: perceived power is decentralized, decisions can be made more transparently, and arbcom can concentrate on its core functions.

Mandatory stuff:

I meet the criteria for access to non-public data and am willing to sign the confidentiality agreement.
I have two alternate accounts: a non-admin account Opabinia externa that I occasionally use on my phone, and an old test account Opabinia robotus originally intended for a bot that never materialized.

Callanecc

Hi everyone, I'm Callanecc for those that don't know me and after some suggestions to do so I've decided to nominate. I've been actively editing for around four years and an administrator for almost two years. I've also have the CheckUser and Oversighter permissions since being appointed to the Audit Subcommittee in August 2015 (and since March have both permissions as a community functionary). I volunteered as an Arbitration Clerk around three years ago (as of January) so have seen up close how three different groups of arbitrators have worked, both in public and the limited discussions on the clerks' mailing list. I'm currently an OTRS member and a ACC user (and have been for around two and a half years), so have experience talking to people who are new and/or very upset at how they've been treated. I've also been involved in dispute resolution around the place, including closing various discussions (such as the Hilary Clinton move request).

Having been an arbitration clerk for so long I've got a fairly good idea at the internal machinations of the Committee (although some still drive me nuts) and how various Committees (after each election) have approached various issues (some not widely known). I've also developed some ideas on what I don't think it working and what I could do to change them. Given my experience as a clerk and at OTRS I've developed a fairly good ability to defuse situations by responding calmly and civilly to people who may not be doing the same.

My experience with arbitration enforcement has taught me a few (sometimes hard) lessons which, I think, have been really helpful before nominating for the Committee, but I'll leave further comments about that to any questions people have.

Now the mandatory stuff - I am already compliant with the access to nonpublic information policy (and the OTRS agreement). Regarding alternative accounts (which are disclosed on my userpage), I have User:Callanecc (alt) as a testing and public account and I also have User:Calanecc & User:Callanec as doppelgängers (which have never edited). Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 03:14, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Rich Farmbrough

I am a long time editor (>10 years >1m edits). I have experienced most of what Wikipedia has to offer: on the bad side mobbing, legal threats and threats of violence; on the good side thanks, camaraderie, co-operative editing, resolution of complex issues and creation of quality content. I have been in many roles including bot-running, complex template work, edit filters, being an administrator, copy-editor and gnome, researching Wikipedia, being on the wrong side of Arbcom, supporting new editors (Teahouse), working on Gender Gap/Women In Red and contributing to policy.

I am standing because I have been critical - in some cases extremely critical - it has been said that those who are critical should offer to do the job themselves.

I believe I am qualified in experience and knowledge of the English Wikipedia its processes and community, of the technical considerations that surround the use of the site, and the need to support editors of different personalities, abilities and backgrounds to work co-operatively.

My undertakings are to:

bring no cases while an Arbitrator
only perform CheckUser actions pursuant to Arbitrator activity, and to log publicly as much information as permitted under the Privacy elements of the Terms of Service.
keep to a minimum use of the Mailing List and Arbitrator's Wiki, and to log publicly as much information as permitted under the Privacy elements of the Terms of Service.
press for improvements in CheckUser functionality for better transparency
press for increased transparency about and decreased use of off-wiki fora.
vigorously oppose any "special procedures" during cases.
be diligent, including reading all statements, evidence, workshops and associated talk pages, and reviewing all diffs offered in evidence and proposed decisions.
always search for a result satisfactory to all parties.
encourage the Committee to be timely, while giving all due leeway to parties, especially those potentially facing sanctions.
press for the right for anyone to propose Motions.
encourage and support sanctions that avoid vague terms like "broadly construed"
encourage and support technical implementations of sanctions to relieve the community of its policing role
encourage and support remedies which address underlying issues by providing frameworks for solutions rather than sanctions.
press to open up the Arbcom Noticeboard to host discussions, rather than relegating them to the talk page.

A list of my accounts is at User:Rich Farmbrough/Accounts and an email list will be sent to ArbCom.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:44, 8 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]

Drmies

My name is Drmies. I have been an editor since 2007, an admin since 2011. I have many edits, some of them useful. Wikipedia ought to be, primarily, a place for article creation and expansion, and I've tried to do my bit, having created over 1000 articles, with a couple hundred DYKs, and I co-edited 3 FAs and 6 GAs. I have two other mostly dormant accounts which ArbCom is aware of; I doubt that any of you have ever run into them (and they're much nicer than me).

Admins and arbs should enable editors to write. The ideal ArbCom is nearly invisible, and I would like for ArbCom to be considered less frequently as an option in dispute resolution. But this will only happen if editors are willing to work out their problems at a lower level (DR, AN, ANI); ArbCom should be a last resort, not a panacea. You may find me less likely than some others to accept a case.

When a case lands at ArbCom the process frequently seems complicated. I can’t promise to make it simpler, since I barely understand it, but I would like to try. It is cumbersome too: a recently started case could take weeks or months, when a consensus was forming elsewhere already; by the same token, two admins were recently desysopped in a matter of hours. I also hear complaints about ArbCom not being transparent enough, and I think we can do better. Individual Arbs I know are fine people, but the Com part seems to spoil it a bit. I'll try to do something about it, if only by communicating a bit more with the larger community about where we are in a given process.

Frequently I find myself occupying a middle position in an argument, seeing both sides, and I hope that in all my years I have been able to bring some sides together and, as an admin, reach fair and equitable solutions--the many RfCs I closed can testify to that. I do not believe the block tool is our best tool, and in all but the obvious cases we should talk before we block; that some call me an enabler, well, that does not really bother me. Blocking and banning are serious matters. I don't want ArbCom to be regarded as a death panel, and when ArbCom lays down the law, as sometimes it must, I want more consideration for the spirit and less for the letter of the law.

MarkBernstein

Campaigns of harassment and extortion.

If we don’t address this challenge, society will address it (and us) in the sternest terms. Editors and administrators require protection from “colleagues” in the service of harassment conspiracies and PR agencies.

Knowing What’s Going On

In school, we learned that a glance at the encyclopedia does not make you an expert. (Was the current ArbCom absent that day? Never mind.) ArbCom has rushed blindly into complicated thickets. I will immediately take steps to create a blue-ribbon advisory panel on harassment.

Wikipedians and Waterfowl

We must clean our house, lest those who could advise and assist us dismiss Wikipedia as a nest of boobies. We should treat all editors alike. The best way to avoid being called a flock of juvenile loons is to stop acting like a flock of juvenile loons.

ArbCom should raise up the volunteers who are being trodden underfoot; they make lousy carpets and we have too many sprained ankles already.

Mysterious But Imaginative Strangers

My battered logs bear scars that attest to my experience. My opinion of the current committee’s Infamous, Thoughtless, Careless and Reckless handling of Gamergate received some attention. I have been (and am) frequently hounded by Wikipedia’s least reputable elements; I know what it is to be harried by mysterious strangers who have colorful vocabularies and excessive imagination. I understand the burdens of admins well, having contrived betimes to pose a burden myself.

Pie

ArbCom has encrusted itself in mock-judicial trappings. ArbCom requires more innocent merriment, and I’ll do my level best to supply it.

We need more pie. "There can be no stress in the presence of pie,” wrote David Mamet, and he was not wrong. T. S. Eliot wrote that "above all there must be cake," and though the cake is a lie, the pie (oh my!) is what we chiefly need. Wikipedia today is grimly serious when it should be having fun, and it dismisses serious dangers as mere laddish excess. Pumpkin and pecan; both are required.

With regard to identity, I am the only candidate to have provoked separate press statements from both ArbCom and WMF; they already know me. I am I, so I expect I'm already in compliance with the WMF identification policy. If not, and were pigs to have wings, I'd be happy to oblige.

Withdrawn candidates

Salvidrim!

Fuck it, I'll be the first to throw my hat in. There are, for now, 9 vacant seats on ArbCom for the upcoming election. I only nominate myself because there are not currently 9 candidates whom I trust to fill these seats and their duties. I will gladly later withdraw my candidacy if there are ever 9 such candidates. To put it another way: if there are 9 candidates who I think would do a good job as arbitrators, I will withdraw and support them. I don't want to be an arbitrator but I would rather begrudgingly sit on ArbCom than see people I don't trust be elected because of the lack of a better alternative. It is my hope that there will be a sufficient number of qualified, trusted candidates and thus that I will be able to continue having a meaningul, peaceful life outside of the Committee.

Oh, and because the rules say this is required: Yes, I'm already identified to the WMF. Yes, I will sign the confidentiality agreement if elected (I've already signed the OTRS-specific one). Whatever alternative/humour/doppelganger accounts I have are all redirected to my main one and listed at the bottom of my userpage, but here's a list anyways: Salvidumbass!, Salvidrim, Salv~enwiki, Salvid, Salvadrim, Ben Landry, Benoit Landry. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉

I've always maintained I would withdraw if there were a sufficient number of candidates I would support, and I'm honouring that promise. There are at least nine candidates I will support.⁽¹⁾ Sorry if this seems WP:POINTy but I couldn't bear the thought that shitty people could be elected and that I wouldn't feel justified complaining because I had failed to actually try to do better when I had the chance. At least now I know for sure that the Arbitrators we will elect will do a far better job than I ever could've. ;) ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 14:46, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

AKS.9955

Hello. I have been actively contributing on Wikipedia since Jan 2014 and have fair bit of constructive contributions (17,500+ edits). I am also actively involved in various "housekeeping" tasks such as WP:AfD, WP:NPP, WP:PC, WP:CUV apart from my attempts in building the encyclopedia. I have never been blocked neither do I have any site-bans. Furthermore, I my work will show that I have been contributing positively to Wikipedia and have never worked with WP:COI or WP:BIAS. As per the requirements, there are no issues in qualifying for "criteria for access to non-public data" or for executing confidentiality agreement. I have never used derogatory language towards anyone, no matter what the circumstances are and have always tried to respond to all the meaningful messages sent to me. I am hopeful that the voters will approve of my candidature. Many thanks for your time. Cheers, Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 05:45, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello everyone. I am withdrawing my candidature as I personally (and honestly) feel that there are lots of good contestants with higher experience who can do better justice to ArbCom. There are a few who I really liked and I am sure that they will make it to ArbCom this year. I wish all the contestants all the best for the elections. I would also like to thank everyone for taking out time and asking me the questions. Cheers, Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 07:02, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Samtar

Hi all! My name is (Redacted), and I've been an editor on the English Wikipedia for a little over seven years, where I've come to enjoy collaborating with you lot. Through my time here, I've gained an insight into Wikipedia policies as well as an interest in dispute resolution and some of the housekeeping which is needed to help Wikipedia run smoothly. I've had a real insight into the range of contributors we have here through my volunteering at OTRS (which also means I'm identified to the WMF). I'd like to help further by serving on the Arbitration Committee. I confirm I will fully comply with the criteria for access to non-public data, and I have two doppelgänger accounts (Redacted) (real name) and User:Myrcx (registered IRC name) and an unused bot account User:Xphois. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you all for your questions and consideration. On reflection, although I believed I would be a net positive to ArbCom, my lack of experience would ultimately cause more issues than I could hope to solve. I'd like to wish everyone running the best of luck. Many thanks samtar ^{t} 16:35, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Timtrent

Disclosures: I meet the eligibility criteria. I have the account User:Fiddle Faddle as a declared alternate account, and adopted it to remove confusion because I use the signature "Fiddle Faddle" on my main account and have almost since day one here. I confirm that I will fully comply with the criteria for access to non-public data and the WMF identification policy. I will sign the relevant confidentiality agreement. I have been here almost 10 years with a fairly broadly based portfolio of edits.

I am not an admin and have no desire to be one. I involve myself in WP:AFC as a reviewer and a guide, trying hard to retain new editors with advice and guidance despite a variable and usually high workload. One of the areas I find myself drawn to is the handling of the more challenging editor interactions, attempting to bring order out of chaos.

I cut my editing teeth here quite a while ago in the controversial area of 9/11 conspiracy theories, a topic where I had no horse in the race, simply a desire to see if WP:NPOV could be wrested from a mire of conflicting opinionated editing.

I believe in bringing an analytical and polite approach to every situation, coupled with a light hand.

I am well known for typing errors.

I am far more interested in helping editors do it right or do it better than I am in dealing with persnickety folk who want to use process to prove how right they always were.

Am I suitable to work here as an arbitrator? I have no idea. I think so, and I promise to do my best if you choose to entrust the position to me. I rest on my editing track record, in articles, with editors, and on talk pages. Fiddle Faddle 21:57, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawal

Since offering myself as a candidate my personal circumstances outside Wikipedia have changed such that it is very unlikely that I will be able to devote the extra time required to serve. It is important to be able to devote the time, and a foolishness and a conceit to continue knowing it is unlikely to be available. It would do the English language Wikipedia and the community a disservice.

While my vanity says it would have been good to see the end result of the polls it is far more important for the project for me to withdraw now, even at this late stage, than to continue as a candidate, only withdrawing after potential election and resigning in the middle of a period of service. I am humbled by the amount of support I have been offered. I offer my apologies to those who have already voted and ask those of you who have supported me at the poll to consider re-voting. To those who opposed, an oppose vote is never wasted.

I want to stress that I have stood as an editor, believing ArbCom to require editors, whether admins or not, to work for the good of the project. The discussions about ensuring that non admins who are elected are able to see the material have been interesting, and have formed no part of my decision to withdraw. I have absolutely not stood as a 'non admin', nor as a protest candidate, but have stood believing that, for this committee, an editor is an editor, is an editor, and that I would be able to serve you and add value. Fiddle Faddle 07:06, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]