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

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There is a limit of two questions per editor for each candidate. You may also ask a reasonable number of follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked.

  2. 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]
    Unilaterally taking controversial action with the tools wouldn't just be tough – it would often be a mistake too. For example, the criteria for speedy deletion are meant for uncontroversial cases; speedy deletion is not meant to be knowingly applied "with potential for community blowback". Same applies to actions taken in response to WP:AIV reports. Whenever there's a tough decision to be made, it should be the result of a consensus – which is why ArbCom is a committee and not a collection of people who individually authoritatively define the results of cases.
    I tried to avoid making this mistake as far as I could, and I've been successful so far. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 01:50, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  4. 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) 00:44, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    There are multiple points in my monthly contribution graph and my user page history where off-Wikipedia events made it complicated to continue as I had done before. In all these situations, I found a way to continue even without having agreed to do so in advance. While we are all volunteers and keeping this in mind is healthy, I have committed to responding to talk page messages and e-mails within 24 hours and remaining accountable even when sick or tired. This has worked for 4 years now; it should work for another two. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 01:50, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  6. 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) 06:23, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    This is an easy request to make, especially without access to the communication that happened behind the scenes. "More transparency" always sounds good. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 09:07, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  8. 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!⚓ 17:51, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm aware that, when dealing with cases and the few requests that end up in the clerks' queue, I'm looking at the tip of an iceberg. Most of the private work will be done via e-mail, and to a lesser extent IRC. I'm familiar with using (and administrating) both, and I am positive about my ability to deal with the yet-unseen rest of the iceberg in at very least an acceptable way. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:29, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Is there, or are there any top-priority goals you would like to accomplish in the ArbCom? --ThatOneWolf (talk|contribs) 18:09, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    No. 🙂 Do I need to have an agenda? ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:29, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  12. 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) 00:58, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    This was a highly unusual decision based on the Committee's jurisdiction over all matters [previously] heard by it. That said, all arbitrators are community members, and the recent Lourdes case request was opened by an arbitrator. Beeblebrox's recusal as a filing party is the only practical difference to ArbCom initiating a case by itself. So while both types of case requests may seem strange at first, there isn't much I could argue against it unless we're interested in prohibiting arbitrators from requesting cases. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:03, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  14. In the question asked by Tamzin, q3, I am a little unsure of what your getting at in your answer. Could you please elaborate on this. Sure transperancy may be good, but there are also significant policies regarding privacy. As such it is not always possible to share information. What exactly is your view on transparency of what may be private data. When is it not ok to share information from within an investigating committee. Thanks for your application also. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 07:48, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    In my answer to question 3, I tried to say the following: Neither Tamzin nor me have access to the data we're talking about, so our arguments about "more" transparency can only rely on guesswork. And while I value transparency in general, I also trust the Arbitration Committee not to carelessly publish information it has privately received, and not to carelessly un-oversight information that has been reasonably oversighted. I wouldn't want to break this fundamental trust as an arbitrator either. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:40, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  16. 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?ϢereSpielChequers 10:14, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    It isn't always this way; Doc James was restricted but not desysopped in 2020's Medicine case. This type of restrictions is rare because the only difference between admonishment and banning of a behavior is the threat of an immediate block. If that's really required to prevent an administrator from continuing to misbehave, they should probably not be an administrator. Or the other way around: If desysopping is unnecessary, such a restriction is usually also unnecessary, and a properly worded admonishment would be fine. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:09, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  18. 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? ϢereSpielChequers 10:14, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    An analysis of the case requests, first:
    • No administrative misconduct of the longstanding admin has been provided in this example, as the full protection may have been the justified end of an edit war between many highly experienced users, perhaps about the inclusion of a perceived WP:NOTFORUM violation. If there is a need for sanctions, WP:AN would be a place to request them.
    • Where does the age information come from? As even the self-disclosure of the described information is regularly suppressed (cf. WP:RFO, search for "self-disclosure"), it would be very tough to imagine a situation where this case request wouldn't be removed and oversighted. No reasons for sanctions against the new administrator have been provided here either.
    • Regarding the RfA votes, I'm neither a bureaucrat nor applying to become one; I should just note that the community hasn't imposed suffrage requirements beyond "having an account" at RfA yet, and ArbCom wouldn't be in a position to overturn it.
    Now, about conduct issues: In your example, "for senility" and "too young" are personal attacks – the former is generally worse to me because it is less likely to be written in good faith. Personal attacks are contrary to the expected behavior on Wikimedia projects, and they're incompatible with the UCoC's prohibition on insults.
    Civilly voicing concerns about the quality of English contributed to the English Wikipedia and its English talk pages is often justified but still subject to civility requirements, and "rows of squares" (▯▯▯▯▯?) indicate a font issue on the reader's computer.
    Fortunately, our local policies (WP:NPA, WP:CIV, WP:HA) are usually sufficient to deal with violations of the UCoC. There may arguably be a few exceptions to this, such as: The latter concern was a hot topic in the HJP case; the resulting finding may arguably have dismissed too lightly the possibility of enwiki's policies being a lower standard than the UCoC in a few edge cases. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:29, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  20. 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) 11:18, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure about that specific RfC, but looking at Talk:Stanley Holloway § Rfc re: i-box and Talk:Georges Feydeau/Archive 1 § Infobox, it becomes clear why the motion for removing "infobox probation" as a contentious topic restriction had to fail despite its lack of application. Without a community-wide, documented and clear consensus about the inclusion of infoboxes, there likely won't be peace in this area. Restrictions can attempt to reduce the noise caused by uncivil and repetitive voices, but they can't resolve the conflict. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:58, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  22. 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) 16:57, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

    I am currently not concerned by the way the Arbitration Committee operates. There will always be attempts to prove, sometimes with reference to mysterious "Wikipedia insiders" and fancy diagrams, how unjust and wrong central aspects of Wikipedia are, or how biased and doomed the project as a whole is. If I seriously shared these concerns, I wouldn't spend most of my free time here. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:00, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  24. In your opinion, what is the single worst remedy or finding-of-fact that the Arbitration Committee has voted in support of during a case or motion that was resolved in 2022 or 2023? — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 04:07, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I won't attempt to provide a definite answer to a request for a "single worst" decision, but remedy 11 ("Request for Comment") of the Conduct in deletion-related editing case, which ended up being rescinded six months later, was clearly a learning experience. The RfC primarily mandated by that remedy (permanent links: page, header) is "not open yet" in capital letters; it has been over a year and the reference to "Nov 5" there has become ambiguous in the meantime. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 13:29, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  26. In your opinion, what is the single most important thing that the Arbitration Committee has needed to improve upon throughout 2022 and 2023, and how will you improve upon it when you are elected to the committee? — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 04:07, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    This is mostly already answered by my candidate statement and in response to similar questions above. In a nutshell, I'm fine with how the Arbitration Committee works and am not applying to push for reforms. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 13:41, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  28. what is the most important type of editor? ltbdl (talk) 06:58, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    While it would be naive to say that all contributions equally improve the encyclopedia (the most obvious counter-example being vandalism), it would also be inappropriate to trivialize contributions such as typography fixes. It would be especially inappropriate to answer the question by attempting to rank ("types of") people rather than edits. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 13:57, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  30. do you support mandatory registration for wikipedia editing? why or why not? ltbdl (talk) 06:58, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Temporary accounts, previously known as "IP masking", will be deployed to the first wikis in March 2024.[1] This may improve our ability to message IPv6 users whose IP addresses change on every computer reboot, but it may also make the detection of and response to abuse harder especially for newcomers who lack access to the addresses. Temporary accounts are as close to "mandatory registration" as we have ever been, just with a random username and no password. I don't think requiring users to define a username and a password would noticeably prevent unhelpful contributions. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 14:27, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  32. Would you care if an article for a kids tv show got vandalized with false information? Scoophole2021 (talk). 07:10, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes. The severity of this, of course, depends on the type of false information. An incorrect biography of a living person can damage the article subject's life; an incorrect biography of a fictional character can't. This is why fixing the former is exempt from the policy against edit warring while fixing the latter is not. Also, some of the "obvious vandalism" that happens in fancruft-prone articles isn't obvious to outsiders, so dealing with AIV reports about these can be tricky. However, of course I care, and the intended audience of these shows should never have to look at a vandalized Wikipedia page. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 14:57, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  34. 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) 11:45, 25 November 2023‎ (UTC)[reply]
    This sounds like 2014's "superprotect" disaster. I wouldn't sanction editors for attempting to enforce a consensus, valid or invalid. I would, however, enforce the prohibition on wheel warring and likely support the removal of administrative and bureaucratic privileges that have been misused in this way. Edit warring shouldn't be something the Arbitration Committee has to deal with, but in this case of a serious conduct dispute the community has been unable to resolve, the necessity of sanctions has to be evaluated carefully. For example, edit warring that requires template editor or interface administrator privileges clearly demonstrates unsuitability for these permissions, and should lead to their removal even if the edit warring was done for a perceived good cause (it always is).
    That all said, the Arbitration Committee is not in a position to authoritatively decide if the "consensus" that led to the disruptive behavior is valid, just as it isn't in a position to make authoritative decisions about article content. If the Wikimedia Foundation uses technical measures to override a community's wishes, these measures are not something the Arbitration Committee can decide to remove or keep either. It can attempt to limit the disruption caused by one side of the conflict by sanctioning editors for their conduct, but that's about it. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 16:06, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  36. To check whether I've understood you correctly; if Interface Admin A implements consensus, the WMF reverts the change, and then Interface Admin B re-implements consensus, you would support revoking B's admin privileges? BilledMammal (talk) 16:18, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    This specific clarification example is far less severe than the larger image you had written about. Whether B's single revert already counts as wheel warring depends on whether "the WMF" is viewed as an "administrator". The global rights policy has different provisions for staff, system administrators and global interface editors, and the actual group membership of "the WMF" in this dispute may matter. At very least in the moment an elected local administrator reverts an elected local administrator's edit to a fully protected page, restoring it without further discussion becomes an unacceptable thing to do. In less clear cases, evaluating compliance with administrative conduct requirements may be helpful. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 17:22, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  38. 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]
    I'm not entirely happy with the opinion statements built into this question, starting with "at the pleasure of" and ending with "instead", as if – for example – representative democracy wasn't a form of democracy and as if ArbCom elections weren't also CU+OS elections. The community already manages access to these permissions, and the way this is currently done is the result of unsuccessful direct CU/OS elections and an RfC. There is a discussion at WT:ACN § Call for Checkusers and Oversighters (permanent link) explaining this situation, and I don't think the current lack of checkuser and oversighter appointments is caused by a committee arbitrarily rejecting qualified applications. I also don't think that contacting ArbCom privately with an application is a less inviting and more frightening process than directly having to submit an application on a public page. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:19, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  40. 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) 03:42, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    It may depend on the behavior and the reported user, but in general, the requirements for dismissing an enforcement request at AE are relatively strict and increase the probability of action being taken in response to a report of actual policy or restriction violations. Even if the result is "just" a logged warning, that log entry would likely not have been the result of an ANI discussion. Also, the structure of AE requests is formalized while an ANI section is usually just one huge threaded discussion with varying quality of indentation. At AE, concise, unemotional and policy-based statements don't get buried within the repetitive bickering of a few loud participants. Thus, if there is disruptive behavior within the scope of AE and ANI and your aim is to maximize the chance of administrative intervention, reporting it at AE is probably the more effective choice. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 09:02, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  42. 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]
    I had expected a page full of (implicit) comparisons between concept and reality, but in its current form, most of this seems to be a general guide about behavior that wouldn't hurt outside of ArbCom cases, too. It's hard to disagree with this.
    What I find most interesting is the section about the Workshop page. The HJP case had a separate analysis page instead; the Industrial agriculture case has an analysis section on the evidence page, created on request because of the lack of a Workshop. Perhaps, contrary to the (satirically exaggerated) description as a "mud pit", the Workshop does serve a useful purpose. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:48, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  44. I have recently finished a rewrite of Genghis Khan. What is the worst problem with the article at this revision, and why? Please reference relevant policies or guidelines. I am asking this question to candidates whose ability to evaluate/write content I am not immediately convinced by.. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:47, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I won't attempt to answer this question. The Arbitration Committee resolves conduct disputes; it does not rule on content. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:17, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  46. I posted this as Q21 for Maxim and will modify it here. First, what exactly is the purpose of an individual having multiple roles?
    Second, please clarify workload and how this fits a status quo of about 30 ArbCom with 8 slots open to 10 candidates at present. Maxim's answer #10 suggests only a handful of cases ever since 2010. If the workload is that low, why so many candidates? OTOH, if the workload is high, why so few (these past several years) -- should there be an active reconsideration of the role (e.g, redefining its responsibilities more narrowly) that might lead to a larger number of candidates in future elections? Martindo (talk) 02:53, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Assigning multiple roles to one person, not just on Wikipedia and not just in volunteer communities, can be a simple necessity due to a lack of individuals. On Wikipedia, we don't deny rollback group membership to users just because they already happen to be a pending changes reviewer; we're happy about people doing both for free.
    This becomes more complicated when group membership is associated with power. Even if they had the time and abilities to do so, we wouldn't want members of a parliament to act as supreme court judges; the power of these two roles is intentionally separated. Separation of powers is probably most important when their actions depend on each other: Judges interpret the laws made by the members of the parliament. Bureaucrats implement desysops requested by the Arbitration Committee. Under the current procedures, if the enacting ArbCom clerk is a bureaucrat, they perform the desysop themselves; this could surely be criticized from a theoretical point of view without making a difference in practice. If permission misuse was the concern, a single bureaucrat on ArbCom would already be a problem; I don't think that's the case.
    So the "purpose of an individual having multiple roles" is filling these roles. Many things on Wikipedia are the result of pragmatism. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:38, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  48. In response to your second question above, regarding workload and the number of candidates: ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:38, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    There have been 44+46+37+33+35+12+25+31+29+23+24+17+24+119 = 499 requests for cases since the end of 2010, resulting in 16+11+12+11+19+5+4+6+9+8+6+7+5 = 119 cases. As described in question 4, this is the tip of an iceberg.
    The number of volunteers applying for a position may increase when it comes with less responsibilities and less work. However, the Arbitration Committee performs necessary tasks listed at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy § Scope and responsibilities, and delegating any of them to a new role requiring additional volunteers would worsen the problem. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:38, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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