I am anxious for us to take the opportunity this year to reform ArbCom. I want it to become less of a law court, I want it to take fewer cases because more get solved before reaching that point, and I want people on the committee who think less in terms of precedent than in terms of finding solutions, and are not afraid to admit that they or a former ArbCom made a mistake. Above all I want the committee to hold above all else that piece of boilerplate that they vote up at the start of every remedy:
The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors.
This means that what I want in an Arbitrator is not unlike what I want in an administrator: sympathy for the wide variety of people in the community, mindfulness that writing and improving articles is our purpose here, clue and willingness to act on it including willingness to try a new solution, and fairness. I'll be settling for a group of candidates who collectively embody these ideals. What I do not want is: further hardening of ArbCom into a legal body that makes decisions based on its own precedents, further importation of politics into ArbCom decision making, favoritism based on friendships, or genuflection to the WMF, whose desires are orthogonal to the needs of the encyclopedia and the community, and who are not our bosses.
Conversely I have no problem with non-administrators serving on ArbCom, whether or not they have declared themselves open to becoming administrators at some future point. Arbitrators are automatically granted the Checkuser and Oversighter rights to facilitate their performance of their duties, and the WMF has clarified that it regards election to ArbCom as a satisfactory substitute for RfA for the purpose of allowing non-administrators to hold these rights.
Since openness is being discussed, I will point out that ArbCom necessarily receives and examines confidential evidence, starting with editors' e-mail addresses. Confidentiality is important, and I expect all Arbs to maintain it scrupulously. That said, the current model of secret deliberations behind a screen of apparent discussion ("Workshop") and of legalistic and rule-bound statement and evidence phases is obscurantist and requires a good dose of daylight and plain English. I expect those I vote for to work for clarity and accessibility without sacrificing privacy.
Some good things are being said on the hustings and elsewhere. Here is the beginning of a collection:
- ArbCom is not GovCom, and it doesn't rule this wikipedia.
- [A]pparently many Wikipedia editors value the community more (or at least as much) as the actual encyclopedic content, and that's not something I agree with. Encyclopedic content should always be everyone's priority, and the community, cooperation and collaboration behind-the-scenes should only be a means-to-an-end to produce reader-facing content. (although I don't agree with everything in this answer)
- Maintenance of NPOV is imperative for the longterm health of The Project.
- I think efforts to bend Wikipedia to becoming a platform to rectify political and social injustice rather than to neutrally serve up educational knowledge need to be resisted - and even moreso efforts to turn Arbcom into a proactive agent for political and social change and away from the reactive arbitration (the clue is in the name) response team it is supposed to be.
- IMO - The foundation and concept of wikipedia was NOT to FIX life, but to DOCUMENT it.
- I don't know much about ArbCom stuff, except that they always seem to do an opening chorus wherein they define things like the meaning of life and the smell of underpants, and some of them recuse. It's all a bit like the Rules of Bridge, or the protocols of The Grand Order of the Superior and Ineluctable Narwhal to me.
Here for anyone interested are my current thoughts about how I intend to vote. Personally, having stated for the record that restricting Eric Corbett from commenting on the putative gender disparity among editors was wrong and his latest violation of that restriction so minor as not to justify a long block, if any—and having backed that statement up with an unblock—I will oppose all members of the current ArbCom running for re-election at this time, all former ArbCom members who voted for that wrong restriction, and the former ArbCom member who made the unjust block I reverted. 'Nuff said.
| Candidate | Comments | Opinion |
|---|---|---|
| Callanecc |  Support
| |
| Casliber | Strong support
| |
| Drmies | Strong support
| |
| Gamaliel | I do not trust this editor to set aside personal biases and friendships. |  Oppose
|
| GorillaWarfare | Oppose
| |
| Hawkeye7 | I do not trust this editor to set aside personal biases and friendships. | Oppose
|
| Hullaballoo Wolfowitz | Possibly neutral | |
| Keilana | Support
| |
| Kelapstick | Strong support
| |
| Kevin Gorman | I do not trust this editor to set aside personal biases and friendships. | Oppose
|
| Kirill Lokshin | Oppose
| |
| Kudpung | Support
| |
| LFaraone | Oppose
| |
| Mahensingha | Does not appear to have sufficient experience | Oppose
|
| MarkBernstein | I do not trust this editor to set aside personal biases and friendships. | Oppose
|
| NE Ent | Has done some interesting thinking on civility and other policies | Support
|
| Opabinia regalis | Strong support
| |
| Rich Farmbrough | Proposes that ArbCom decisions be automatically enforced, which is the reverse of the direction we need to go. | Oppose
|
| Thryduulf | Oppose
| |
| Wildthing61476 | Possibly neutral |