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Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2012/Candidates/Jclemens/Statement

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Jclemens[edit]

Hi, I'm Jclemens, and I'm running for reelection after having served for two years on the committee. If reelected, I will continue actually implementing what I promised in last year's election statement: holding administrators and other long-term users accountable for conducting themselves by the same standards expected of every other user.
Needless to say, there are a number of users who fear this sort of evenhanded enforcement or dislike how I've gone about it for the past two years. If I am re-elected, it will be because enough voters choose to stick with a proven egalitarian who treats everyone fairly, than newcomers with untried promises. All of the unproven candidates would certainly do their best if elected—but with me, you know what you're getting into, and so do I. I'm not a politician—I won't parrot platitudes: the job is thankless, but I'd rather do it than leave it to others who haven't seen the things that I have.
I'm far from perfect, and that will undoubtedly be pointed out in great detail by those who don't like my approach, but what I am is forthright and consistent:
  • I won't make promises, like absolute transparency or sweeping reform, that cannot possibly be kept.
  • I've had a consistent philosophy of administration, and now arbitration, that has survived actually doing the job.
  • The most ambitious plans I have are to actually make Wikipedia into a five-pillars kind of place, with more than lip service given to every one, where newbies are welcomed into the fold and educated, rather than treated as nuisances by vested contributors who have forgotten what it is like to try and comprehend this strange shared website.
  • I still do as much content contribution as I can find time to—including half a dozen GA's and a DYK in the past year. Arbitrators are not the encyclopedia's masters, but rather its servants, selected for its most distasteful and responsible role.
As a sitting arbitrator, I am already identified to the WMF, and use User:Jclemens-public as my only alternative account for work on untrusted computers or connections.