Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates/GorillaWarfare

GorillaWarfare

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Hello. Your experience and priorities seem valuable and I would likely vote for you. However, there is something to be said about your ID name. It does not inspire the image of an objective mediator and it brings about images of an edit warrior and despotism. My 2 cents. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 16:59, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Forgive me for being so direct, but your position is utterly ridiculous, and your message sounds like that of a troll.--DawnDusk (talk) 17:44, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

3 Questions

Hi @GorillaWarfare: Just 3 questions

Are you, in fact, a Gorilla?
I agree with @BatteryIncluded: What's a warrior doing in Arbitration? More, I'm uncomfortable with your casual use and propagation of War as a conceptual metaphor. As a Veteran, and a father of Veterans who lost their closest friends fighting for the people of America and Afghanistan, [insert pompous statement here]. In what ways does working on Wikipedia approximate being in war?
Re I have not been an uncontroversial arbitrator in the past two years. I certainly have made some mistakes during my tenure; I personally think my biggest shortcoming was my timidness to speak my mind when I thought something was wrong when I first took the position. - What were your Top 3/5/10 biggest mistakes and how did/will you fix them?

Thanks; LeoRomero (talk) 02:10, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@LeoRomero: Any reason these are here and not on my questions page? Any objection to moving them, or me doing so? GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:22, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@GorillaWarfare: I just did for you what I did for the rest: clicked on Edit Source, which opened another screen, then followed instructions. (Unless yours was the one missing the Edit Source link, which I fixed, I think). I'd rather you not move stuff, if you don't mind too much. For one thing, it's much easier for voters (me, anyway) to read one page, than to click and click and click and click into the individual question pages, which I didn't even know existed. I'm just a regular voter, not an expert like you all. - LeoRomero (talk) 02:39, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I'll answer here if you prefer.

> Thanks @GorillaWarfare: I informed organizers via the election feedback page that some confusion may have been caused by procedural changes between the nomination process and the general release of the notice to vote. I think it's good that you now appear on this main discussion page, and suggest you abstract here the conversations on your questions page, which I encourage all voters to read. I especially admired how you handled inappropriate personal questions, choosing honesty over the privacy you deserve.

No, I am in fact not a gorilla.
1. Bummer. Now I'm gonna have to reconsider my vote.
To me, my username says less that I'm a warrior and more that I enjoy silly plays on words. Working on Wikipedia in no way approximates being in war.
1. Intelligent wordplay. Vote resecured.
As I said, I think timidness to speak my mind was a big one. I have gotten better about that, though I think that kind of confidence really only comes with time and experience. I also have mentioned elsewhere that I struggled sometimes with when it was necessary for me to recuse; I've recused when I shouldn't have, and failed to recuse when I should. I've also proposed and supported elements in proposed decisions that in hindsight were poorly thought-out. Again, I think that can only be remedied by hard work and experience, as well as guidance from and discussion with other arbitrators. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:00, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
1. .... and the Community you represent, of course. :)

Thanks again; LeoRomero (talk) 17:35, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@LeoRomero: The fact that GorillaWarfare has a strong sense of humor (witness her username, an obvious pun on the term Guerilla Warfare) counts in her favor. I'd prefer to have as many ARBCOM members with senses of humor as possible sitting on a case where allegations of bullying or "microaggression" are involved. I didn't see her choice of a username as indicating an unduly combative nature where such would be an impediment to her serving ENWP well on ARBCOM.

By the way, some of the most effective Secretaries of State the United States of America has had were veterans of combat in the US military before becoming responsible for our nation's diplomacy. I come from a family of citizen soldiers, myself (we lost a son in Iraq in 2006) and don't view a mild irreverence to war in general as being a fatal flaw in an arbitrator. Some of the most devastatingly funny jokes about the military came from men and women who stood in harm's way for the rest of us. (Thank you and your family for your and their service, by the way.) loupgarous (talk) 00:40, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dear loupgarous, our service cannot compare to yours. Your family's loss of a young child, who tried to make this world a better place, who would have done even more had he lived - to us, that's a daily nightmare, but not our daily life. I'd like to know more about your son, my kids will too. Please email me if you like. - Hugs; LeoRomero (talk) 17:45, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Our humor kept us alive (and yes, it was very, very, dark). I like that GorillaWelfare has a sense of it. Arbcom needs humor (not the dark kind though). Everyone in our arbitration coliseums could use a little lightening up. All Wikipedians oughta have fun. We are so GD serious, like any of our violent debates will ever matter, ever. What I blame for that? This whole "Wikipedia is War" metaphor that we migrated into WP from our extra-wiki lives. Edit Warring?! That's what War means around here? May I have a body count please? We celebrate Edit Wars. We honor Veterans of Edit Wars. We even hand out medals (see image on right). So sad, ya gotta laugh.

Satanic Bible

On your page, you link to the article for The Satanic Bible, the LeVayan Satanist text. I understand that you consider it an example of a "Good article", but I think you'll agree that it's a rather controversial choice. Do you endorse the group and its beliefs, and if so, how can people expect you to be neutral in arbitrations of a religious nature when you belong (or at least are openly sympathetic) to what is essentially a parody religion founded by and consisting of Atheists that have been known to use Satanic imagery and other means to intentionally mock those who believe in a higher power? -TBustah (talk) 17:53, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's marked as a good article because it was reviewed and determined to meet the criteria. I am not a LaVeyan Satanist, nor am I religious at all. I work on articles on a wide range of topics; I've worked relatively recently on mandated reporter and feral cat, and I am also not either of those. GorillaWarfare (talk) 18:49, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you TBusth - I think you have just convinced me to give her my vote.Sgerbic (talk) 02:25, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Me too, TBustah/Sgerbic. Cheers! Shir-El too 19:34, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Controversial articles which meet our standards for reliable sourcing and WP:NPOV are better than usual candidates for Good Article status specifically because they met those standards despite attracting editors who may have wished to use the article to grind their personal axes. loupgarous (talk) 00:08, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

key success factors of the linux community

linus torvalds created a community of programmers working on the linux kernel 1991. the community grew since then to nowadays 5'000 commits a month, 5 times more than 10 years ago. alone the linux kernel mailing list receives more than 20'000 messages a month, 3 times more than 10 years ago. innovative technologies are added to the kernel first from universities, individuals, companies, bearing the GPL. what do you see as the key success factors of that development, and what can you take off that into your work at wikipedia? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 15:26, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I use Linux as one of my primary operating systems, but that's about where my knowledge stops. I'm not involved in the Linux development community, so I really don't have enough knowledge to answer this question. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:35, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bravo! Shir-El too 19:30, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]