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This is unquestionably the worst ArbCom we've seen since 2009. It is off the rails, using all the worst interpretations of policy I've seen in many a year. As a list of grievances:
- The topic banning of Ohconfucius was very poorly grounded in policy. I was at least heartened to see that it only passed by a narrow margin, still, it passed. And just as bad is the associated finding of fact, which contained a rather blatant "anti-X = pro-Y" fallacy (some arbs tried to explain this away; I found their comments highly unpersuasive).
- The Perth case nearly turned into the most draconian decision ever rendered. Some members of the committee seemed convinced it was their job to do so to make sure admins were accountable to the community. A noble cause, I suppose, but no one actually called for a desysopping, and many called for clemency. And almost without exception, the arbs who supported the desysoppings didn't show any sign they gave a flying feather what people were doing on the talk page, rather, they just ignored it. (SirFozzie was an exception; while I disagreed pretty thoroughly with his reasoning, he deserved at least a pat on the back for communicating with the folks.)
- The attempted ban of Malleus was a horrible abuse of process. Someone asked for clarification, that was all, and we got a ban proposal that nearly passed. It's also more of the committee's usual enforcement of conduct over content nonsense. The one point I can credit the committee on is that nearly all of them repudiated the odious comment one of them made about Malleus being "not a Wikipedian". Then again, the fact that they've been unwilling to censure a colleague who tries to rigidly enforce the civility policy whilst being unwilling to follow it himself is not particularly heartening.
- The recent R&I motion was another "close call", in that it failed, but would have set a really bad precedent, both for overturning AE admin action on a hunch and in suggesting that if you hammer your opponents with wiki-litigation for long enough, something's guaranteed to stick.
And there are a couple ongoing issues that the committee never ever resolves: It's still far, far too difficult to get discretionary sanctions or any meaningful action on geographic conflict areas outside the Anglophone world. Whenever one of these areas flares up, we have to deal with the trouble of all the prior steps of dispute resolution plus a case itself to get any meaningful results, by which time good users have already burnt out. (A common answer we get is "ask for general sanctions from the community". This does not work. Only areas of interest to Anglophones get these, for example, the recent US political ones, or the older Abortion ones. Geopolitical disputes outside the Anglophone world get nothing.)
My previous point also gets at another one: Cases still take too bloody long. Despite all the committee's apparent attempts to streamline process, they just seem to be getting slower and slower. And, as a bit of a corollary, what I find particularly frustrating is how cases sit at evidence for weeks on end, then, once the proposed decision's up, votes come in like owl post at Privet Drive, and the case gets wrapped up with barely any time for community comment.
So, those are the things I'd like to see get better, and will be looking for candidates I think can do better than this. Oh, and my usual rule that I am not interested in having civility cops on the committee still applies. Now onto the candidates!
Candidates
editBeeblebrox: Not sure yet, but answers to questions seem good thus far. I'll be interested in seeing how much flak he gets over the Meta incident. I, for one, intend to give him none over that; I think he was exactly right about the way the Meta admins acted in that case.
Carcharoth: I found Carcharoth's tenure on the committee to be characterized by consistently sound judgment and insightful commentary. Was it long-winded sometimes? Maybe, but I don't think that's all that bad a characteristic to have; Newyorkbrad certainly writes a lot of commentary, too. While I do value conciseness, I would rather have an arb with a good voting record than a concise arb with a loose cannon voting record. Support.
Coren: This is going to be a tough call for me. My concerns from last year still concern me, and a total of four mainspace edits this calendar year, one of which was to add a protection template, doesn't inspire confidence. Still, his voting record on the committee was pretty solid, which needs to count for something. Will be thinking, though I'm leaning oppose at this point.
Count Iblis: Not sure the "party" thing is quite as bad as many other guide writers are making it out to be. People coming together to run on a reform platform isn't necessarily a bad thing in my book. But I'm not convinced by this platform at all. Oppose
David Fuchs: Hasn't really stood out in any way during his tenure on the committee thus far. Nothing really attracts me, but then, neither have his votes been awful, and I would say they've been correct around 80+% of the time. I would probably lean support at this time, particularly if I don't find more excellent candidates to support. A non-outstanding, but still pretty good, arb is a whole lot better than an unknown who turns out to be horrible.
Elen of the Roads: I've thought a while. I just cannot support. Even if the leak was as a result of unacceptable misuse of the ArbCom mailing list, and it was, I can't really condone leaking it, and even more critically, being dishonest about it with the committee. On the other hand, I am unwilling to empower the bullying that was done here by another arbitrator, so I'm doing a rare thing for me and going neutral.
Guerillero: Seems like a good candidate. Support.
Jc37: Unimpressed with his behaviour concerning Penyulap's talk page. Protecting it indefinitely in the first place was rather shaky under policy, and when it was reversed, he submitted this case request. In addition to being severly tl;dr (not a good quality in an arb; conciseness is desirable), I found its grasp on policy rather poor. Accusations of "wheel warring" existed where there was in fact no such offence. The allegation of involvement was also poorly grounded, per my reasoning here. All told, I'm not seeing the grasp on policy needed for an arb here. Oppose.
Jclemens: It is very hard for me to write anything good about this arbitrator. His actions while on the committee have been a disgrace to the committee and to Wikipedia as a whole. He seeks to enforce civility with an iron fist while being unwilling to follow the same policies himself. The best-known example, of course, is his declaration that another user had "never been a Wikipedian". We do not elect arbitrators to define who is or is not a Wikipedian, and certainly not to demean content contributors. The fact that all he was willing to do in response to the criticism was this self-backpat does nothing to convince; indeed, I think Rschen got it right. And there's this comment about his being blocked. I find it laughable and appalling that he would talk about "speaking his mind". No non-arb who demeaned another user would get anywhere with some "that's just my opinion" excuse, and Jclemens himself would be one of the first to lay down the smack. But apparently that doesn't apply to sitting arbs.
And in case anyone thought that was the only case of Jclemens being uncivil, we've got these examples where he suggests that someone needs mental help: [1] [2]. Plus this condescension, even if over a year old, and of course all the ones I've already brought up in my previous guide.
And then there's this SPI. Jclemens attempts to force his own result on the close, one that was opposed by everyone else in the discussion except Jclemens himself. He also suggests that he has the authority as a checkuser to do so [3]. This is absurd; a checkuser's special role at SPI extends only to the technical ability to use checkuser functions, not to determining whether behaviour is acceptable or not. Jclemens's grounds for believing the user in question was in violation of policy: substituting my own name for the user in question, the alternate account said "Alternative account of h.e.i.m.s.t.e.r.n" instead of "Alternative account of Heimstern". Jclemens called this "obfuscation" and indicated that caused the user to fall afoul of the requirement that alternate accounts be "fully and openly" disclosed. I find that ridiculous and maybe even a bit of an insult to the reading abilities of the users of the site. What makes all this worse is that the person who started this SPI was a sock of a banned user and Jclemens pushed this SPI in that user's favour. It is unacceptable for anyone to aid and abet a banned user, least of all an arb.
So, for Jclemens, I'm only not saying "strong oppose" here because that really isn't meaningful in a straight vote with only support/no vote/oppose options. Oppose with more conviction than I've ever opposed any candidate.
Keilana: Will have to look. Generally found a good admin, but not certain enough to support yet. Coren raises some very interesting points in his guide, I think I may need to ask him for clarification.
Ks0stm: Self-admitted lack of experience in dispute resolution is not promising, and nor is his answer to the civil POV-pushing question. In fact the community is not doing a good job handling this, and is something ArbCom must be aware of and prepare to deal with. As such, barring any reason I might have to switch, I will oppose.
Kww: Opposed in the past, but I'm seeing little of what made me oppose him in the past in his current statement. He says he was misunderstood last year. Is that a satisfactory answer for me to support? Not sure yet.
Newyorkbrad: An excellent arb. True, he's been in the position for a long time, but that doesn't really matter to me. What matters is that he's the right person for the job. Support.
NuclearWarfare: Have bugged him to run in the past. Very clueful, good judgment. Perhaps most importantly in my book, he's good with considering content and conduct. Clearly recognizes the problems of conduct-only arbitration and seems likely to be ready to use the hammers on the POV warriors Support.
Pgallert: Not familiar at all with him/her. Answers to the questions not looking too bad so far.
Richwales: Not too familiar, will need to check more. Believer in NPOV, good, believer in civility... Going to have to see what that means. Thus far, answers on civility have seemed pretty reasonable. Seems to understand the problem of sanctioning only superficial civility.
Worm that Turned: Biggest mistake I made last year was not supporting him. He's shown a lot of clue and good sense in problem-solving on Wikipedia. Believes in civility without being a civility cop. Support.
YOLO Swag: Not even close. Nothing has changed since last year (note, he was known as "NWA Rep" then). Furthermore, I was unimpressed by his behaviour at the RFC on rules and procedures for this election, where he seemed to blame guide writers with a vendetta against him for all kinds of ills. And again, more of the same. Oppose.