Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2023/Candidates/Maxim/Questions

Arbitration Committee Election 2023 candidate: Maxim

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Thank you for standing :) ArbCom makes a lot of tough decisions in user conduct cases, often with potential for community blowback. What's the toughest (or, one of the toughest) decisions you've made with the admin tools? Preferably a situation related to user-conduct, although anything'll do. Talk about the way you approached the situation, the weighed factors, how you came to a decision, any fallout that came as a result, and if you would have done anything differently. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 00:12, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi theleekycauldron, I can't help but note that you undid your posting of this same question to Cabayi on the grounds that he's an incumbent, which leads to answer your question with a question of my own: are you specifically looking for something I would have done with admin-only tools? I've served recently for three years as an arbitrator and I've been a bureaucrat for 12 years. If looking at what the spirit of the question may be, then limiting to admin-only tools perhaps isn't as applicable to me. My hierarchy of "tough decisions", in order of decreasing toughness, looks something like ArbCom-related CheckUser investigations, ArbCom cases involving desysops or site bans, appeals to ArbCom having a potential of an unblock, and situations involving bureaucrat tools. Maxim (talk) 00:48, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Maxim: Hi! {{trout}} for me, I didn't think to cross-reference the list with former arbs. You're right, the question doesn't really apply to you. Thanks for taking th etime :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 02:17, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This year's committee has had trouble maintaining a healthy quorum of active arbitrators. What experience do you have, particularly on Wikipedia, with doing work you've agreed to do even when that becomes hard? Thanks, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:45, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'd have to point to the three years I was an arbitrator as the best example of my doing work on Wikipedia that I've agreed to do. I am touched that so many of my colleagues (including three threads: 1, 2, and 3) have vouched for the quality (and quantity!) of my work as an arbitrator, which of course includes yourself, Barkeep49. :-) Maxim (talk) 01:08, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Our most recently closed RFB was unsuccessful in part due to opposes grounded in concerns about separation of powers between ArbCom members and bureaucrats. At the time I took this not simply as "one should not have both roles", but rather as a deeper set of concerns related to concentration of roles in a few people at that moment, with potential consequences including tendencies toward unhelpful groupthink. But editors also expressed more general concerns about concentration/separation of powers that might affect their thinking about this candidacy as well. So, the question: based on your experience, what do you think about the benefits and/or drawbacks of overlap between the two groups? Indignant Flamingo (talk) 01:25, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Indignant Flamingo, I find arbcrats a fascinating issue that may be worth writing an essay about some day, but I'll share my thoughts in something more to-the-point than an essay. The main benefit of an arbcrat is that we add a long-term, committed, and trusted user, whether to the arbitrator or bureaucrat corps, as applicable. I wouldn't name a main drawback by itself but it's a combination of separation of powers, groupthink, and community health. The last point is perhaps the more curious one to me: at a certain number of arbcrats, we have a situation that only a small group of users are willing and able to serve in certain high-profile roles. Does that become cabalism in the most toxic sense of the cabal deciding who can join it? Is it because the new user to new admin and onward pipeline is dry? Or perhaps because a certain job is perceived as nasty enough where very few users are up for it? On the whole, I don't think it's inherently bad that we have arbcrats, but when there is a high enough proportion of arbitrators who are also bureaucrats, then it's understandable that certain profound questions are raised. Maxim (talk) 13:38, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think ArbCom should be more transparent about the outcomes of private inquiries, especially regarding admins and functionaries? This question is motivated by the admin meatpuppetry situation in September, but it's up to you whether to discuss that situation in particular. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 06:25, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Tamzin, I'm interpreting "inquiry" as "investigation" and not as "question"; if I'm wrong, then please tell me to answer the question again. :-)
My previous experience as an arbitrator was that we shied away from private hearings—if we got an email that describes something purely on-wiki, then our response was to ask the sender to pursue the matter on-wiki. There is also an idea of not digging unnecessary holes; what this metaphor means here is that we have sometimes ended up with some matter, which perhaps we shouldn't be involved with, or be involved with to the extent that we are, but we've ended up with it anyway, for one reason or another, and it's not straightforward to shake off. One example is at times still hearing appeals that are out-of-scope but we've been hearing the same appeal for something like a decade, so we end up retaining jurisdiction anyway out of a sense of fairness of having told the appellant a year prior to come back in 12 months. Your example from September has been an ArbCom issue for I think 15+ years (I'm working off my memory here, not the archives).
In principle, more transparency is better, and my experience during the three years I was an arbitrator was that we avoided dealing with something in private as much as possible. For example, if it was a formal case with some elements of private evidence, we would summarize and publish that evidence on-wiki to the extent possible. That said, situations absolutely arise which are wholly unsuitable for public discussion, and if ArbCom has been less transparent than ideal, then perhaps it's a question of erring on the side of privacy. A big part of ArbCom's work, whether the public or behind-the-scenes parts, often involve balancing imperfect solutions. This extends to private investigations regarding admins and functionaries: there is a balance between transparency and privacy, and given the specifics of a situation, chances are that no matter how transparency and privacy are balanced, the outcome is imperfect. Maxim (talk) 14:20, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The majority of ArbCom's workload is in handling private matters, not public ones such as cases. Can you please elaborate on how you will handle the large volume of private work the Committee receives? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 17:52, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In a nutshell, I think I will handle the large volume of private work in the same way I did during the three years I was previously an arbitrator, that is to say, I will do a lot of it. More details can be seen in my answer to Barkeep49 (including the links); I also touch on the importance of behind-the-scenes work in my candidate statement and in my essay on arbitration. Maxim (talk) 19:26, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In one case this year, ArbCom themselves served as the "filing party", accepting a case that had not immediately been brought to them. What are your thoughts on ArbCom taking actions via full cases when they don't have a request from the community to do so? --Tryptofish (talk) 01:02, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Tryptofish, by tradition ArbCom will not open a case sua sponte. I think this tradition stems primarily from the fact that a formal case request requires a filing party. Certainly, a sitting arbitrator could file a formal case request, but then this filing arbitrator would be presumed recused even if there is no prior reason for recusal. It is also instructive to consider Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Orangemarlin; while the problem with that case was much deeper than ArbCom acting in case format outside of a formal community request (the best way to describe the primary problem would be "rogue arbitrator"), I think that incident also established to some extent that ArbCom generally shouldn't start a case without a community request.
All that said, Wikipedia isn't necessarily governed by inflexible rules, and exceptions exist. The decision to open the case cited from this year was not unreasonable; exceptional situations may require exceptional actions. The key word here is "exception"—ArbCom generally shouldn't open a case without a community request, but it is on rare occasion a reasonable choice to take. Maxim (talk) 15:20, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Arbcom seems to limit itself to a very narrow range of responses to admins, with nothing in the gap between admonition and desysopping. What sort of things should it do when admonition isn't enough but a desysop is too much?Ϣere SpielChequers 10:04, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi WereSpielChequers, the problem with some action between admonition and desysop is that it doesn't seem to be a popular course of action. Adminship requires community trust, and if restrictions are placed on an administrator, particularly on tool use, then it is not an uncommon opinion that said restrictions are evidence of a lack of community trust, and thus the appropriate response is desysop. I'm leery of saying that a majority of the arbitrators I've served with hold that view, but it felt, particularly during discussions, that if it wasn't a majority, then it was pretty close to it.
The other complication is that we need the "right" kind of situation. We need an administrator that will participate in the case while having the self-awareness to realize that some actions may have been less-than-ideal, and a situation that doesn't have a case of egregious or chronic tool (mis/ab)use or other suboptimal behaviour. Looking at User:Maxim/ArbCom and desysops, this "right" kind of situation is unusual; the GiantSnowman case worked out in that direction, but it is the only substantial example of such a situation. The most likely outcome of a case about administrator conduct nowadays appears to be the administrator either not participating in the case or stepping away from the project as a whole. Maxim (talk) 15:52, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There has been tension between the volunteer community and the WMF in the past, and there may be more with the universal code of conduct now in force. Tension on the talkpage of the Elbonian civil war has spilled out into an acrimonious RFA for one of the protagonists, and the press have reported demonstrations about this article in the capital town of Elbonia and in several villages during the current visit of the US president to Elbonia. Cases being filed with Arbcom include: You should desysop the longstanding admin who briefly fully protected the talkpage for the Elbonian civil war, we have already desysopped him on the Elbonian Wikipedia for senility; Your new admin is too young to write about rape in the Elbonian civil war and should stay away from such topics until she is at least a teenager; Many of the voters in that RFA only otherwise vote "Keep" or "delete" in various Elbonian related deletion discussions, they may be admins on the Elbonian Wikipedia but several lack sufficient English to participate here, especially when they write entries on talkpages that consists of nothing more than rows of squares. Which bits of the Universal Code of Conduct have been breached in this kerfuffle and what if anything should Arbcom do about it? Ϣere SpielChequers 10:04, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Relying on the Universal Code of Conduct is not particularly useful to solve English Wikipedia conduct disputes. In theory, it is a minimum set of behavioural standards that apply across all Wikimedia projects. In practice, it is a document generally cribbed from English Wikipedia policies and guidelines, but it lacks the nuance that our existing library of policies and guidelines has, and that's without counting the 20-something years' worth of evolution and application that these documents have on the English Wikipedia. In 2023, ArbCom referenced the UCoC as a principle in only one case; this principle mentioned that ArbCom "may choose to evaluate compliance with English Wikipedia PAG, while still respecting the UCoC", and did not mention the UCOC further in the decision. Citing chapter and verse of the UCoC so far is rare; my observation is that it seems to be most often done by editors disaffected that their preferred outcome was not realized in a given situation based on the application of existing policies and guidelines.
As for the hypothetical situation at hand, it can be broadly described as tendentious editing and tag-teaming. What ArbCom would do depends on the specifics, particularly the presence of prior attempts at resolution. Maxim (talk) 15:52, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I love to sing the music of Mozart and Pärt, Requiem and Da pacem Domine. What does the RfC about an infobox for Mozart tell you regarding WP:CT infoboxes, and can you offer ideas towards peace? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:21, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Gerda Arendt, it depends on what one's definition of peace may be, for there is no clean compromise between having an infobox and having no infobox at a given article. It appears that we have less infobox chaos than before and that there are no infobox-related frequent flyers at AE. Given that there are many long-term editors with strong opinions on the matters, perhaps the status quo is not a bad place to be. Maxim (talk) 01:32, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for standing as a candidate for the ArbCom. You maybe be familiar with a recent Law and Social Inquiry article titled "Canceling Disputes: How Social Capital Affects the Arbitration of Disputes on Wikipedia" that was the subject of the current article on the Signpost. In addition, a previous paper from 2017 in International Sociology also examined similar trends from the ArbCom. In short, these papers argue about the existence of external factors influencing ArbCom decisions such as editor tenure, and raise concerns about canvasing among others. Are you concerned about the issues presented in the articles, or do you have any other concerns about the structure or operations of the ArbCom?
Pre-emptive followup if you do have concerns: If selected as a member of the ArbCom, would you (and if so, how) use your term on the ArbCom to assuage any concerns that other editors may have in dealing with active cases before the committee? Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. — microbiologyMarcus ^{(petri dish•growths)} 16:56, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi MicrobiologyMarcus, I find it unwise to consider ArbCom as a monolithic, unchanging body. From observing ArbCom over the years, I would peg the start of a "modern" era around 2010; only 14 cases were heard that year. Since then, I've found that how ArbCom operates is as much as anything a factor of the individuals serving on the Committee and the overall group dynamic (some iterations of the Committee appear to have had, at least at times, profoundly rotten group dynamics). ArbCom is nominally a dispute resolution body; in practice, it has also ended up being in part a disciplinary committee and in part somewhere we send stuff that we can't send anywhere else. In principle, its primary goal is to find an optimal result for the encyclopedia. While notions of justice and fairness are most certainly part of an optimal result, they are not the only considerations. Maxim (talk) 01:54, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
what is the most important type of editor? ltb d l (talk) 07:01, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi ltbdl, all types of constructive editors are important. Maxim (talk) 13:28, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
do you support mandatory registration for wikipedia editing? why or why not? ltb d l (talk) 07:01, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On one hand, the Portuguese Wikipedia has barred logged-out editing for a few years, which doesn't seem to have crashed that project. On the other hand, I've always liked the concept that there is still no barrier to make a small edit on Wikipedia; most if not all of the Internet nowadays forces at least registration to post anything, if not some sort of mandatory email verification. It would be interesting to see how IP masking pans out, and perhaps how major browsers report user agents at that point in time. It may well be possible that the present sort of openness becomes impractical. Maxim (talk) 13:28, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Would you care if an article for a kids tv show got vandalized with false information? Scoophole2021 (talk). 07:22, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Scoophole2021, vandalism is vandalism, and it should be reverted or removed. We strive to produce a free encyclopedia containing verifiable information, which includes articles on many children's shows. Maxim (talk) 13:28, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Consider the hypothetical where the English Wikipedia community comes to a consensus under WP:IAR that violates WP:CONEXCEPT. The English Wikipedia community attempts to enforce that consensus but the WMF pushes back, resulting in wheel and edit warring. If an ARBCOM case was opened on this matter would you sanction editors attempting to enforce the consensus, and would you support the English Wikipedia's right to come to that consensus? BilledMammal (talk) 11:48, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi BilledMammal, it really depends on the specifics of the matter. Under WP:CONEXEMPT, arguably three of the four items involve the WMF in one way or another. ArbCom has a standing monthly call with certain WMF employees, mostly within the scope of Trust and Safety, which provides a forum to discuss matters of mutual concern. My first course of action would be to have a call as soon as possible, with the rest of the Committee, to the WMF to find a mutually acceptable solution. If such a solution isn't found, then I think at that point the next steps would really strongly depend on the specifics of the situation. At any rate, sanctioning editors wouldn't be my first concern in such a mess.
On the other hand, if the push-back happened to be related to a Committee decision, then there would be a responsibility to carefully review the original decision, at least internally. Perhaps it was communicated poorly, or perhaps it is indeed just a poor decision. Committees of the past have certainly made questionable calls, but I don't recall them provoking mass wheel and edit warring, and I like to think that it comes as much as anything from the fact that around this time each year, we as a community can chuck out half the committee, and the rest of it the year after. Maxim (talk) 13:28, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The roles of checkusers and oversighters are currently managed at the pleasure of the sitting arbitration committee. What, if any, conditions would be necessary for you to support divorcing checkuser and oversight functions from the arbitration committee, making these roles managed by the community instead? — xaosflux ^Talk 18:42, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi xaosflux, it depends on how complete such a divorce would be. As far as appointing functionaries goes, an RfX process where appointment is conditional on a support vote of at least 70% and at least 25 supports would satisfy global policy. Our current practice is to have ArbCom, functionaries, and the community review candidates, in that specific order, prior to a final ArbCom decision. As for removal of access and less drastic steps prior to that (review and removal), which is presently entirely within the purview of ArbCom, that would probably have to be punted to the global Ombudsman Commission.
I could reasonably see appointing functionaries via RfX, but I think the drawback is that we'd get even fewer administrators interested in the job, because of having to run the RfX gauntlet. On the other hand, I don't necessarily see the review and removal functions being removed from ArbCom any time soon. Unless we had AUSC resurrected—which itself was derived from ArbCom—those removal and review functions would end up with a global body. We appear as a community to continue to have a strong preference to keep our own house in order, and I don't think that downloading that job to a global body would prove to be popular among arbitrators, functionaries, or other editors. Maxim (talk) 21:52, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You have served previously on the Arbitration Committee. How would you respond to concerns that not enough new blood is injected into the committee, and how if at all do you think a high proportion of former arbs in the new tranche would affect ArbCom? Fermiboson (talk) 01:16, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Fermiboson, in this election, the most former arbs we can possibly get into the new tranche is three, which means that no less than five of 15 arbs as of 1 January 2024 will be new to ArbCom. That's still a reasonable level of new blood on the Committee, as that needs to be balanced with experience and institutional memory. A willingness and ability to serve is of huge importance to thriving as an arbitrator, so it stands to reason that we'll get a fair few incumbents and ex-arbitrators willing to continue to serve, perhaps in part given their first-hand experience. A final thought I have on the subject is that when considering how the CUOS appointments went this year, coupled with us being in the 10th year of appointing on average fewer than two new administrators per month at RfA, the choice of "new blood" at this year's election could have been worse, perhaps even much worse. Maxim (talk) 13:39, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think that AE in practice is more effective than ANI at addressing disruptive behavior in contentious topic areas? (excepting matters involving parties named in the original arbitration cases) Sennalen (talk) 04:06, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Sennalen, a decent amount of matters end up filtering over to AE when there is already contentious topic designation, and that is by design. All things being equal, AE is designed to (ideally) have a better signal-to-noise ratio, as it is a much more structured venue. On the other hand, if there is a long and drawn-out ANI thread on something within the scope of a contentious topic, then perhaps the problem is particularly complex and not exactly something that falls neatly under "enforcement of an arbitration decision". I suppose that the extreme end of "long and drawn-out ANI thread" ends with ArbCom revisiting a prior case, which is interesting given that contentious topics procedures have been amended recently to make it more straightforward for AE admins to punt something to ArbCom. Maxim (talk) 13:39, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My Guide to Arbitration contains observations from my two terms an an arb and three stints as a clerk. I attempted to capture what tends to happen in a case rather than what should happen. Which observation do you disagree with the most and why? --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 07:48, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Guerillero, I generally agree with your essay. The tone could be less cynical, but it's also on a topic where cynicism is hard to avoid. If I start nitpicking, then I think the lowest-hanging fruit (realistically, this fruit is lower than the rest but it's not exactly objectively low-hanging) would be point 4 under evidence. I wouldn't say that arbitrators do not understand the background of a case in such a black-and-white manner; I would argue that the understanding of a case's background depends on the nature of the case and the specific arbitrator, and that it is possible that quite a bit of background knowledge is already present. I recall from the time I was on the Committee that from time to time, whether on the mailing list or even on IRC, it was not entirely uncommon to share, for example, an ANI thread, about something that was brewing. That meant if that case was actually presented to us, a few of us definitely had a general idea of what was going on from the get-go. Maxim (talk) 13:39, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Where in the world are you based? BirgittaMTh (talk) 10:19, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Are you aware, that English is de facto world language and English Wikipedia is used by vast number of global population, not only from English-speaking-countries (as (mostly) most trustworthy of all wikipedias)? And thusly, e.g. Point Of View of e.g. US of A might not be Neutral Point Of View in things, that occur all over the globe, like measles or climate or cars :) BirgittaMTh (talk) 10:19, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi BirgittaMTh, I'm well aware of English of being a major lingua franca. It's probably one of the big reasons we have a lot of contentious topics related to (inter)ethnic disputes, perhaps more so than other language Wikipedias—both sides are likely to speak English as an auxiliary language. Maxim (talk) 13:22, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm reinforcing Flamingo's question in the hope that EACH candidate will answer. Since you're at the top of the list, posting here seems to be the simplest way to do that. What exactly is the purpose of an individual having multiple roles?
Also, for you Maxim in particular: Please list ALL of your sock puppets, rather than just the most prominent ones. I don't see why you'd have more than a handful, so perhaps you can explain that briefly.
Finally, not a question but a comment: you didn't address Flamingo's point about "groupthink" -- instead you deflected it into a denial of the paranoid notion of "cabal" which isn't the same thing. Martindo (talk) 00:34, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Martindo, I wouldn't say there's a "purpose" per se to an individual having multiple roles, but it's a creature of how the English Wikipedia works. Administrators already require a high amount of trust to serve; other, more restricted permissions or roles—namely arbitrator, bureaucrat, checkuser, oversighter—require even more trust. We have very few new(er) users interested in RfA, and generally those admins who have been around for longer who were not previously interested in serving in those aforementioned more restricted roles tend not to be interested now, which means there isn't a huge pool of prospective candidates to choose from. At prior elections for ArbCom, bureaucrats have generally done well, so it seems that as a whole, there isn't a particular interest in segregating such roles. The corollary here is that I would be unlikely to stand for election if candidates would tend to do poorly on account of being bureaucrats! As an aside, I think that, in particular, name recognition plays a large part in predicting success at ArbCom elections (see User:Barkeep49/Elite for a related essay on that theme).
On the other hand, the German-language Wikipedia has had an explicit non-accumulation-of-function policy since 2009, where one user cannot serve in more than one of the four previously mentioned roles. On the English Wikipedia, on end it would be entirely feasible to bar bureaucrats from other roles, but on the other end, unmixing ArbCom and CheckUser would require redefining ArbCom's role first. (I would be remiss to not point that the German-language Wikipedia CheckUser culture is radically different from ours—it is a tool that used very infrequently, and only in very particular cases.)
I don't think that "deflection" is a fair characterization of my answer to Indignant Flamingo; to me, "cabal" and "groupthink" in this case are two sides of the same coin. The first groupthink oppose in the RfB in question posits the hypothetical that with enough arbcrats, ArbCom in a sense could have a say on administrator promotion in close cases, while already having the say on removal of administrative permissions. To me, that broadly describes a cabal, specifically one where a limited group of users have a disproportionate say on who becomes or remains an administrator. But, keep in mind that these close calls, involving crat chats are rare. Another point to consider is that "herding cats" is a frequent metaphor for getting ArbCom to do something, which is evidence that groupthink isn't the defining characteristic of ArbCom. At the end of the day, the problem for me is that we have a very limited pool of users willing to do certain jobs, so the willingness to serve strongly outweighs an edge case scenario. If the groupthink scenario had more sway, I would imagine there would have been some RfC in the wake of that RfB to either restrict bureaucrats from serving as arbitrators, or, on a more limited scale, to restrict arbcrats from participating in crat chats.
About alternate accounts, as noted in my candidate statement, there are some declared to ArbCom, which per the election rules do not need to be publicly disclosed. The statement also mentions User:Maximr, User:Maxim's JS test account, and some in my user creation log (out of that, those that are mine are User:Maxim testing 1, User:Maxim at UAA, User:Maxypoda, User:Dashing Maxim, and User:Maxim on Wheels). These are either testing accounts (I tend to forget passwords to those) or joke accounts, which, 15 years ago, were much more fashionable than they are now. :-) Maxim (talk) 03:06, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]