Hawkeye7[edit]

As of November 2014, I have been a Wikipedia editor for over ten years, with over 62,000 edits. I have contributed to 44 Featured Articles, 2 featured lists, 80 A class articles, 215 Good Articles, and 219 DYK articles. I have been active as a MILHIST coordinator, being re-elected to a fifth term in September 2014. In this capacity I have assessed articles, closed A class reviews, and written articles and book reviews for the MILHIST newsletter. I assist at DYK with reviews and at times have been involved in the assembly of the prep areas. I have also written and maintained the MilHistBot and FACBot used by the featured article and MILHIST A-class article processes, and for updating the MILHIST announcements page. I was runner up in the WikiCup in 2013, MILHIST Military historian of the year in 2012 and runner-up in 2014.

I have been involved with GLAM work with the Australian War Memorial and the Australian Paralympic Committee. I was instructor in four Wikimedia Australia workshops, and an accredited Wikimedia media representative at the Paralympic Games in London in 2012, where I filed stories and interviews for Wikinews, and worked on keeping the Paralympic articles up to the minute. Since then I have continued expanding the Paralympic articles, particularly relating to wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby, and the games in Sochi in 2014. I have travelled around Australia, and to Thailand, China, the United States and Canada covering these sports. Most recently, I worked with a class at the University of Queensland in St Lucia. I attended Wikimania in Hong Kong in 2013 on a scholarship from the Wikimedia Foundation. I also ran, albeit unsuccessfully, for the post of president of our Australian chapter.

I decided to run for ArbCom because reform is so urgently needed. I want ArbCom to take the lead in solving problems. ArbCom needs greater transparency in the way that it operates. Where possible, it should discuss cases openly and not in camera. It should issue rulings that give clear guidance to editors and admins. Every ruling should be accompanied by a plain English statement of what is being done and why. Where possible, evidence should be restricted to what is on the evidence page. Arbs should recuse themselves on a reasonable request to do so. Above all, ArbCom should look beyond editor behaviour and consider what is best for the encyclopaedia.

While I only edit under my own account, I control two Bot accounts, MilHistBot and FACBot . If elected I will comply with the WMF identification policy.

• Hawkeye7 (talk · contribs · count · logs · target logs · block log · lu · rfas · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · checkuser · socks · rights · blocks · protects · deletions · moves)

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Questions from Gerda Arendt[edit]

Thank you for stepping forward!

2. Arbitration findings and the wishes of principal editors govern the use of infoboxes in articles. If you want to win my "neutral" please say how you would close the discussion at Joseph (opera)#Restore infobox?

   You have my gratitude for your help in translating the wheelchair basketball articles into German. The players were delighted. Now, as to closing the discussion, we have one editor opposed and four in favour, but only two arguments. For: it improves the article by removing redundancy in the nav boxes at the top and bottom of the page and by presenting the image of the opera characters in a more visually appealing way. Against: (Folantin says to use what he said elsewhere so...) infoboxes have forced editors into giving misleading, oversimplified or irrelevant information: wrong birth dates, anachronistic flags, erroneous genre classifications and so on. Weighing the two arguments, I would find the Against case flawed, because all Wikipedia articles involve summarising the available information into article form. The argument therefore applies to articles as well as the infoboxes. I would therefore have closed the discussion in favour of including an infobox.

4. An editor has been blocked for a month in the name of arbitration enforcement for having said that he creates half of his featured content with women. I find it kafkaesque and remember the opening of The Metamorphosis for an analogy. If you want to win my "support", please - on top of #1 - suggest improvements to get from arbitration enforcement ("not a fun place") to arbitration supervision, where such a thing would not happen. I offered some thoughts, wishing to see Floquenbeam's "no foul, play on" more often, or Yunshui's "The edit was unproblematic and actually made Wikipedia better."

   Another crap article. I haven't encountered The Metamorphosis before, so I read through the article. In the lead it says it "has been cited as one of the seminal works of fiction of the 20th century and is studied in colleges and universities across the Western world." And that's all for that! No source, no elaboration, no explanation. Also, the editor in question didn't say that he creates half of his featured content with women, he said "particularly on FA/GAs I'd be inclined to think that". The real problem is elaborate bans that attempt to restrain editors with red tape, rather than clear guidance on policy.

6. The article quality is not an arbitration topic. (I meant the story, not the article.) Excuse my sloppy, intentionally drastic summary of the edit in question. I don't see how it can be seen as a blockworthy violation. I wait for ideas to improve AE to avoid the force of such a reaction to a harmless or even praiseworthy edit. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:10, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

   So long as AE is carried out by whoever comes along, there won't be a lot of consistency. And bans that end with phrases like "broadly construed" don't help. My thinking has been along the lines of abolishing AE and transferring the function to BASC. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:03, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Müdigkeit[edit]

2. How many hours per week do you plan to work for the Arbitration Comitee?--Müdigkeit (talk) 18:54, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

   I plan to set aside an hour or two every day. I have capacity for more. My personal circumstances are such that I will have ample spare time in 2016, which is one of the reasons I decided to run this year. There is only one major event, the Paralympics in September, when I will be out of the country. I will still have internet access, but the Paralympics will have overriding priority at that time. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:51, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

4. Do you have a very secure email address that can handle several hundred mails per day(and several thousand mails in total if you have to take a small break)?--Müdigkeit (talk) 18:54, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

   My email system has handled far more than that back in the days when mailing lists were all the rage, and disk space on the server isn't the issue it used to be back then. When I was in China in 2015, I was cut off from my email for two weeks without any ill effect. The mail will be read during the Paralympics but will have to remain on the server until I get back. I could rig a Bot to clear it each night, if necessary, but then I wouldn't be able to go back to the older mails. I would certainly like to encourage less use of the email system for ArbCom work. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:51, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Collect[edit]

2. Can a case be opened without presuming that sanctions will be necessary? Do you feel that once a case is opened that impartial arbitrators will "inevitably" have to impose sanctions?

   Yes! Absolutely! There should be no presumption that blocks and bans will be handed out.

4. If an administrator states (hypothetically) "You will vote however you like, and I am frankly not interested in changing your mind, but you should at least be honest about why you are opposing me. At the moment, you are not", would that administrator be considered "involved" or "impartial" in any way with the editor in whose talk space he made such an edit?

   I would not consider the administrator to be impartial.

6. Are arbitators under any reasonable obligation to afford editors who are out of the country on a trip, or have other substantial reasons for absence from a case, any delays in considering cases concerning them? If such a person is given only 1000 words to rebut 1000 words from each of five or more "evidence providers", is that a reasonable limit to place on the defendant, or ought the limit be raised to allow rebuttal of each such section?

   At MILHIST we have had a number of editors who have been sent to Iraq and Afghanistan. So I think that arbitrators are under a reasonable obligation to permit delays, especially as few cases are time critical. It seems unlikely that there will be damage to the encyclopaedia from an editor who is offline. Procedures have to be administered using common sense, fairness and reasonableness.

Question from BethNaught[edit]

2. To what extent should people who write many GAs and FAs be exempt from WP:CIVIL?

   From experience, I know that ArbCom does not take content creation into account at all. I am not sure all of them understand what GAs and FAs even involve. I am not advocating giving content creators a pass on civility. I am advocating reorienting the way that we look at user behaviour. WP:CIVIL is about disruption. If a WP:EXPERT editor gets into conflict with WP:Randy in Boise, then it is Randy who is uncivil.

Questions from Beeblebrox[edit]

2. There's a bit of an elephant in the room, which you have not adressed in your candidate statement. I'm sure you expected this to come up, so perhaps you could talk about the fact that you are not an admin, but you used to be, until you were removed by arbcom?

   Yeah, and it's a total pain. There's not a day that goes by I wish that it had not happened. You see lengthening queues of admin work and watch DYK running late and you're powerless to do anything about it. I recently had my template editor bit restored, so at least I can work on the templates again. They have become far more complex, and there's a lot of code in Lua now. I am not bitter about it. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:42, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

4. Sorry for repeating myself, but what I was looking for was some comment about what led to your removal, if you believe you got a fair hearing, etc, not just a general observation about administrative backlogs.

   There were three cases. In the first, I was attempting to repair a problem with the GA Bot and blocked an editor called racepacket when he attempted to interfere. As what I was doing was purely administrative, I did not consider myself WP:INVOLVED; but Ironholds, reviewing the case at my request, disagreed, and felt that I had been far too lenient on racepacket as a result, in view of his long block record. Later racepacket attempted to get an editor fired from her job, resulting in an ArbCom case. I was then listed as a party to the case for reasons never made clear, and ArbCom admonished me for a bad block. ArbCom chose to treat the harasser and his victim as morally equal, and issued a mutual interaction ban, which they have never seen fit to lift. I didn't feel treated unfairly personally, but I felt that the way that ArbCom's handled the harassment case was very poor. (The outcome might have been even worse, but for the intervention on our behalf of a skilled wiki-lawyer called Chester Markel, who was subsequently blocked as a sock of a banned user.)
   
   In the second case, racepacket mentioned my name (I do not know whether it was my real name or my user name) in connection with two other wikimedians. I inferred that one was his original harassment victim; the other, not on the English Wikipedia, remains unknown to me to this day. What comments he made were revdelled, and ArbCom did not share them with me. (Being on another project, I could not read them myself.) It was a clear violation of racepacket's interaction ban, and triggered another ArbCom case. Emails from ArbCom said that serious allegations had been made against me, but they were not shared with me. I felt that my treatment in this case was unfair and unjust.
   
   IIn the third case, I blocked an editor called Malleus Fatuorum for this personal attack. This stirred up a hornet's nest. Not surprising to anyone acquainted with his history, but at the time I had never encountered him before, and was completely unfamiliar with his case history. (ArbCom expects everyone reads all the drama boards.) In an appeal for assistance to another admin, I described Malleus as "apparently some sort of koala" - an Australian Army term meaning a protected species - one that cannot be shot or exported. In any case, I was in deep trouble. One editor posted a woodcut from Alice in Wonderland with the inscription: "Having agreed on the sentence, ArbCom now retires to decide what the editor is guilty of." They decided on wheel-warring. The definition was expanded during the case to include lifting a block without consulting with the originator of the block; but I hadn't done this either. They never published their reasoning. So the final verdict was: "for wheel warring [the third case] and conduct unbecoming of an administrator [the second case], in the face of previous admonishments regarding administrative conduct [the first case]". (That there was in fact only one admonishment was not overlooked.) The case was very poorly handled, damaged the encyclopaedia and solved nothing. But you try and do the right thing, and you put your editor rights on the line every time you make a decision. Lots of people have been treated worse than me.

Question from Yash![edit]

2. In the past couple of years, the ArbCom has closed various cases, passed motions, and such. Is/Are there any outcome/s that you disagree with? If yes, which? And, what result/s would you have rather preferred? Yash! 05:52, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Guerillero[edit]

Thank you for running for the hardest and most thankless job on the project. Many of these questions are sourced from actual cases, discussions, and problems over the past year. Enjoy!

Subcommittees[edit]

2. The Audit Subcommittee was created in 2009 to investigate improper tool usage of our Check Users and Oversighters. Currently, neither the community nor the committee can decide how to handle. There have been calls to completely disband the subcommittee, transfer its role to the functionaries en banc, and extend it for another year. The current auditors terms expired on 1 October, 2015 and they have been continuing in their roles without formal authorization. What would you do about the subcommittee if you were elected to ArbCom?

   As I understand it, there is also an Ombudsman Commission at the Wikimedi level that duplicates its function. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:47, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

4. The Ban Appeals Subcommittee exists to hear appeals of community bans and long-term blocks. There have been moves to divest this role from the committee. What would you do about the subcommittee if you were elected to ArbCom?

   There is no consensus to divest the role, and I fear that the cowboys would move in if it was divested. So we need to strengthen it. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:47, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Current Disputes and Cases[edit]

2. What are your standards for banning someone from the project compared to a topic ban or some lesser sanction?

   I have wrestled with this one. I have often thought that if I had blocked racepacket immediately and permanently, then a lot of drama could have been avoided. But we don't want to kick people out, so we work our way through escalating sanctions. I think most people do respond, but we need to be better at spotting the ones who won't. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:47, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

4. Nearly every case involves violations of the civility policy in some way. At one time, a remedy call a "Civility Parole" existed but it fell out of vogue. Today, the only tools in the current Arbitrator's toolboxes to deal with civility issues are interaction bans, topic bans, and site bans. What new and creative ways would you bring to the table to solve this problem?

   When cases are focused on user behaviour, then they will inevitably involve the Civility pillar. But I disagree that bans are the only tools in the box. Pages can be locked or deleted. Tools can be taken away. The root cause of disputes can be dealt with by ruling in favour of one side. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:47, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

6. Do you believe that the Super Mario Problem exists? How would you fix it?

   Yes, I do, and the problem is not administrator behaviour, it's arbitrator behaviour. Anyone who gets through RfA has a potential voting bloc behind them, and arbitrators are afraid of that. The solution is to move away from electing arbitrators. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:47, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

8. Do you see value in Admonishments and Warnings as remedies at the end of a case?

   Yes, I do. I know some people see them as a bullet dodged and go straight back to what they were doing, but I definitely took my admonishment to heart. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:47, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Insider Baseball[edit]

2. Does the workshop serve as a useful portion of a case?

   Not the way that things currently operate. ArbCom does not seem to pay much attention to it. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:47, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from GrammarFascist[edit]

2. Please divulge as much of your demographic information as you are comfortable making public. Specifically: your gender, including whether you are cis, trans or other; your sexual orientation; your race and/or ethnicity; where you live (feel free to specify you live in Triesenberg if you want, but a country or continent will do just fine — even just "Southern Hemisphere" or "Western Hemisphere" is helpful); whether you have any condition considered a disability (even if you're not so disabled you're unable to work) including deafness, physical disabilities, developmental disabilities and mental illnesses, again being only as specific as you wish; and what social class you belong to (e.g. working class, middle class, etc.). ¶ If you prefer not to answer any or all of those categories, I won't count it against you. My intention in asking for this information is not to out anyone or try to force affirmative action. However, when deciding between two otherwise equally qualified candidates, I would prefer to be able to vote for more diversity on ArbCom rather than less.

4. Please list at least one pro and one con of having non-administrators serve on ArbCom.

   The first pro that comes to mind is that there are a lot more non-admins than admins, so we are drawing from a broader and deeper talent pool. One con is that non-admins may be unfamiliar with the administrative mechanisms. This doesn't apply so much top me, though, as used to be an admin.

Thanks for answering, Hawkeye7. —GrammarFascist _contribs^talk 00:37, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Worm That Turned[edit]

2. Hi, I'm Dave, I was on Arbcom between 2013 and 2014. I can tell you now that being an arbitrator is tough - you become a target. Comments you make will be taken out of context, your motives and abilities will be insulted, you may be threatened or harassed. Have you thought much about the "dark side" of being an arbitrator? How have you prepared for this?

   I have certainly thought about it. My usual method of simply walking away will not be possible. And I won't have admin tools to, for example, lock my user page against vandals. Any advice that you have about preparing for it will be appreciated. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:52, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

   Thanks for answering Hawkeye, and for being so frank. My simple advice would be to think about the nightmare scenario, be it someone contacting your work, family or other, then take steps to mitigate that possible damage. For example, talking to your manager about the possibility of someone trying to apply pressure via them. That's all I should say publicly, but feel free to email me for more. Worm^TT(talk) 09:09, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Smallbones[edit]

2. Wikipedia is starting to have a reputation for bullying and misogyny, see, e.g the recent article in The Atlantic by Emma Paling, "Wikipedia's Hostility to Women”.
   Are you willing to take serious steps to stop bullying of editors on Wikipedia? especially bullying directed toward women editors? Is this one of your top 2 priorities? What would you consider to be a more important priority than stopping the bullying? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:15, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

   I have no higher priority than this. This is 2015, and it has got to stop. I refer back to the Chief of Army's speech: Those that think that it is OK to behave in a way that demeans or exploits their colleagues have no place in this Army... If that does not suit you, then get out. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:15, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Biblioworm[edit]

2. Do you have experience in successfully resolving disputes, either on-wiki or off-wiki?

   As a MILHIST Project coordinator, I have been involved in resolving disputes. The mechanisms are very different there though. There are no blocks or bans, and editor behaviour is not a focus. Rather, it is all about getting the content of the pages correct. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:02, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Brustopher[edit]

Hi, and thank you for running for Arbcom. These questions focus on WP:OUTING. For the purposes of these questions please assume the editors' usernames are far more distinct and unique than the ones I have given.

2. User:Foo get's into an edit conflict on Wikipedia with User:Bar, and end up as parties to a large Arbcom case. Soon afterwards on reddit someone going by the username Bar begins posting lots of critical and disparaging threads about Foo. In these threads they claim to be Wikipedia user Bar. The Bar account on Wikipedia is older than the Bar account on reddit by several years, however the Wikipedia account had only really begun active editing a few years after the reddit account had been created. Foo notices these posts and complains on Bar's talk page and ANI. Bar responds by accusing Foo of WP:OUTING and claims that the account might not even be his. Is it OUTING to connect the Bar reddit account with the Bar Wikipedia account?

   I love hypotheticals! I have a whole page of them. Anyway, the answer is no unless the reddit account contains identifying personal information. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:36, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

4. User:Alice is a party in an Arbcom case. She is browsing the internet one day and decides to google her Wikipedia username. She finds that somebody has uploaded naked photos of another woman to a pornsite and labelled them "Alice of Wikipedia." She looks into the account that has uploaded these files and comes to the conclusion that it is owned by Wikipedia User:Bob, an editor she had clashed with heavily on wiki. In the process she also finds out his real life identity. She emails her evidence to Arbcom. Alice then decides to go to Wikipediocracy's forums, and makes a thread informing them of this porn site account. She asks them if they can guess which Wikipedia editor is behind it, and mentions that she also knows his real life identity. They independently come to the conclusion that it is User:Bob and figure out his real life identity without Alice giving the game away. Alice confirms that this is the case. Nobody in the forum finds it remotely questionable that Bob owns the account in question. In such a situation is it appropriate for Arbcom to pass a finding of fact stating "Alice posted inappropriately to an off-wiki website apparently with the objective of having the participants identify a Wikipedia editor by name." Furthermore is it appropriate for them to then use this supposed violation of WP:OUTING as part of their justification for site banning Alice?

   In the Racepacket case, ArbCom ruled that identifying information does not have to be correct. By publishing a photograph identifying her in connection with her Wikipedia account, Bob has violated WP:OUTING in addition to WP:HARASSMENT and cops a site ban. Since he is not a Wikipedian, and she is a victim of harassment, it would be highly inappropriate for Arbcom to pass such a finding of fact, or indeed to take any action against her at all. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:36, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Hell in a Bucket[edit]

2. From your statement it appears they you intend to use your period on Arbcom "I decided to run for ArbCom because reform is so urgently needed. I want ArbCom to take the lead in solving problems." Is this an intent to legislate from the bench and how would you make editors comfortable with the fact that you are coming in to change or reform and not bypass community consensus.

   The difference between change and reform is that the latter is, by definition, opposed. ArbCom is is neither a judicial nor a legislative body. It is elected by the community to serve the community. It is outside the purview of editor consensus. I am running on a platform of reform. Of the way ArbCom conducts its business. Of the relationship between the committee and the community. Of the image of the community in the wider world. That is my platform, and if elected, that will be my mandate. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:33, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Optional Question from Pharaoh of the Wizards[edit]

2. Why did you not try to became an admin again first ? While it is not necessary for every arb to Block,delete,protect,oversight or use Checkuser as others can do it. But How will get access to deleted material which is necessary for every Arb as in most of the cases evidence involves deleted material.This is absolutely essential to take a decision.?

   The decision to run this year was based on the need for urgent action, but also on the fact that due to my personal circumstances, I have the time to devote to it in 2016, something that that did not become apparent until a month ago. That non-administrators can run for ArbCom is not new. ArbCom can grant whatever level of access is required to perform the arbitrator function. A statement was made to this effect back in 2013.[1] Admins do not normally have checkuser or oversight either; it is granted to them while serving on the committee. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:33, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Antony–22[edit]

2. In general, does enforcing civility harm free speech? Does it help it?

   There is no free speech on Wikipedia. The servers are hosted in the United States where there are no free speech laws with respect to private websites. WMF can create its own policies regulating speech. Users can be blocked, banned, restricted from editing or even from viewing the pages, with or without a good reason, or for no particular reason at all. To enable an international group of people of different backgrounds with little in common except the English language to work collaboratively on building an encyclopaedia, WMF established what we call civility, which is our collection of social norms.

4. It's been pointed out that incivility and harassment are not precisely the same thing. What is the line between incivility and harassment? How much does incivility, when it doesn't cross the line into harassment, affect our ability to retain editors, including but not limited to its effects on the gender gap?

   In the real world they are quite different things, but here we have defined harassment as one form of incivility. The whole purpose of civility is to facilitate our collaboration, so incivility jeopardises that; but some editors may also leave because they find the requirements of civility (such as no legal threats or racist remarks) too restrictive. Editor retention and the gender gap are major problems that threaten the long-term viability of the whole project. Dealing effectively and decisively with bullying and harassment will be a good start.

6. Arbcom's actions have come under scrutiny from the outside press lately. Do you think the Arbcom has a role in educating reporters about cases when they come under such scrutiny, to reduce the factual inaccuracies that sometimes creep into these articles? For example, do you think that releasing statements, such as been done once on a previous case, should be considered in the future? If so, how could they be made more effective?

   If you have had any dealings with the mainstream news media, then you will know that factual inaccuracies are only to be expected. Wikimedia Australia has long been involved in educating the public about Wikipedia, and I think this is important. I recently helped conduct a class at the University of Queensland where sports students were analysing articles. You had to emphasise what for us are many of the basics, like the fact that anyone can edit the articles. Most people still believe that paid WMF employees create the articles. I think that ArbCom does have a role in educating the community and the outside world about what it does, and issuing similar statements in the future should be considered. One thing I would like to see corrected is in the statement that the text was approved by the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee by motion via the private arbitration wiki and mailing list. This practice must cease.

8. This question is optional, since candidates don't necessarily like to talk about current cases. But imagine that you are a current member of the Arbcom and you are delegated the task of writing a succinct, neutral primer for the press, of no more than a few paragraphs, on the circumstances leading to the current case Arbitration enforcement 2. Write that primer below. Do not cover or express an opinion on the proposed or actual decision, but concentrate on how you would help a reporter understand what happened before the case was filed.

10. One last question. Wikipedia relies primarily on volunteer labor, and many are attracted to Wikipedia in part due to its countercultural, even transgressive nature of subverting traditional gatekeepers to knowledge. Recently there has been increasing participation by professionals from academic and cultural institutions. This is perhaps causing some angst that the community and its interactions may become "professionalized" to the exclusion of established editors. Do you feel this fear is warranted? How can volunteers and professionals with different standards of conduct be made to coexist on Wikipedia with the minimal disruption to our existing contributor base?

    That's a very good question. As article standards have been repeatedly lifted, the degree of expertise required to work on the articles as also lifted. Many open source software projects have been taken over by companies. They started using the software in their products, the company started to rely on it, and then they assumed responsibility for it. Full-time staff replaced the original volunteers. Wikipedia hasn't gone that far. The Military History project is fortunate that our subject area is one that is accessible to the general public. But the disruption has already occurred. It is a major factor in the decline of editor numbers. In the longer term, I expect the professionalisation trend to continue, and for academic and cultural institutions to assume stewardship of the articles. The Paralympic articles has been generated by the University of Queensland, the Australian Paralympic Committee and volunteer Wikipedians. I expect this trend to continue.

Question from Rcsprinter123[edit]

2. In your own words, please explain the purpose of the Arbitration Committee and why its existence is necessary. And what, if any, changes or reforms would you support regarding the structuring and processes of Wikipedia's arbitration system?

   The Arbitration Committee is a body of volunteer editors elected by the volunteers who edit the Wikipedia. Its role is to resolve intractable disputes between editors through arbitration. It has the power to impose restrictions on editors, or even to ban them from the site entirely. Although sometimes described as Wikipedia's High Court, the Arbitration Committee applies Wikipedia's internal policies and guidelines rather than legal principles. These include high standards of personal conduct. Disputes between editors can be disheartening to the volunteer editors and damaging to the Wikipedia project. The Arbitration Committee acts to resolve them in a manner which minimises disruption.
   
   With regard to the processes, I have a number of reforms in mind. Each case normally has a statement of principles. These should be linked back to our policies and procedures. Then we have the findings. The case findings should contain links to the evidence pages where the findings of fact can be found. Currently, many cases have findings whose origin is uncertain to say the least. The blank pad rule should be strictly applied. (It is already supposed to be.) For each of the resolutions, a rationale should be provided, linking back to the principles and the findings. Someone reading through a case should be able to follow the committee's reasoning step by step. Currently, this is not happening, even in the most simple of cases. AE should be able to enforce both the letter and the spirit of resolutions, which they currently cannot do. Former cases should set precedents. Above all, Arbitration Committee business should, wherever possible, be conducted in the open.
   
   One reform I've managed to help prompt already: a reconsideration of what tools and bits are actually needed for Arbitration Committee work. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:14, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question from User:Beyond My Ken[edit]

2. Do you believe that SPI is the only legitimate mechanism for determining the nature of suspicious editors? If so, what do you advise long-term editors with a good feel for behavioral patterns to do about questionable editors when there is no clear candidate for who the master might be?

   My own experience with SPI is with racepacket socks. They would return to the same pages and attempt to make the same edits. "As a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly." (Proverbs 26:11) I would dutifully file an SPI report. The investigation would turn up inconclusive. Courcelles would then block the sock under WP:DUCK. I have a lot of faith in the ability of long-term editors with a good feel for behavioural patterns - something I am very familiar with from my old job. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:24, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question from SNUGGUMS[edit]

2. Since you were previously desysopped back in February 2012, this might make some people skeptical about trusting you with authority. How do you feel you have changed since this occurred enough to be trusted with Arbitrator rights?

   New York Brad opined back then that I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I put myself in that place. My train of thought was: "This needs to be done. Nobody is doing it. I'll do it then." The same attitude that led me to become a Wikipedian in the first place. And later an admin as well. I first came to Wikipedia when I started receiving emails complaining that an article that I wrote was in error. My first reaction was that I hadn't written any articles on Wikipedia, but on checking I found that I had. Pages that I had written had been copied into the Wikipedia. For a while I restricted myself to fixing up those articles and the occasional outrageous error. I was appalled at the quality of the Wikipedia. Everywhere I looked I found poorly-written articles. It seemed overwhelming. But Lindleyle encouraged me to give Wikipedia a go. And somehow, I'm still here.
   
   So what has changed? For a start, I pay a lot more attention to goings on within the community, reading Signpost from front to back each week, checking the drama boards and going over the ArbCom cases. This prevents me being blindsided again, but by and large, it is a stomach-churning exercise, and regularly reading the ArbCom cases has been what has prompted me to throw my cap in the ring. A more pleasant way of viewing the wider Wikipedia is working on DYK. You get a wonderful view of the stream of articles coming through. I even discovered Montanabw, another Wikipedian with my own rare personality type. She'd make a good arbitrator too.
   
   What else has changed? Forced abstention from admin work has been very frustrating. While I still agree to take on tasks like constructing a new bot for FLC, I have become accustomed to trusting that others will do the right thing. Even when I have made mistakes, my heart has been the right right place. I have always tried to do the right thing. That's the quality I look for in an arbitrator. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:04, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question from User:Atsme[edit]

2. You commented above, "If a WP:EXPERT editor gets into conflict with WP:Randy in Boise, then it is Randy who is uncivil." Please elaborate, and also please share your thoughts about the following, which I borrowed from the user page of Someguy1221 with reference to WP:V: In an encyclopedia built by volunteers, in which no real vetting of an individual's expert status is feasible, this policy simplifies discussion greatly. Instead of relying on debate over the validity of a fact or viewpoint, the debate focuses on the easier to tackle issue of whether it is verifiable. Even if experts could be vetted, this philosophy is still preferable. Allowing experts to run the show would merely invite them to introduce their personal biases into articles. Thank you. --Atsme^📞📧 03:19, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

   Randy rarely shows up with sources. Not reliable ones in any case. With MilHist we have certain advantages in this regard over other parts of the Wikipedia. Firstly, expertise demands a familiarity with the sources. I can quickly gauge the level of an editor's expertise by the way she selects and uses sources. Secondly, historians tend to publish books rather than papers, so the secondary sources usually reflect the latest research in any case. So WP:V actually serves us well as a vetting process. Where we run into trouble is when the focus shifts onto the sources. Historians are used to a hierarchy of reliability, something that is solidly enunciated by WP:RS; but an newbie expert may find the emphasis on secondary rather than primary sources to be odd, and takes a bit of getting used to. I totally disagree with the final sentence though. We need experts and we welcome experts. Anti-intellectualism is just a form of incivility. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:52, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question from User:Wikimandia[edit]

2. Many editors were unhappy with the results of the recent Neelix fiasco, in which the AC closed the case as soon as Neelix resigned as an admin, despite the fact that many of the issues brought up in the evidence page had nothing whatsoever to do with misuse of administrative tools or even his redirect spam, including building walled gardens and violation of WP guidelines concerning advocacy in editing. This led to accusations of a double standard for admins and regular editors. (If a non-admin had done the same, there could be no such easy dismissal as we don't have tools to resign). Neelix never acknowledged or agreed to stop any of this behavior, simply (eventually) apologized for the redirects only and then later resigned with no further comment. There was significant support for at least a topic ban at the ANI. Do you believe a topic ban or other measure should have been applied in this case?

   At least. The abrupt closing of the case was another symptom of the mentality that cases are all about punishment, rather than user behaviour or policy. There were serious behavioural issues here that were not addressed. There were also policy issues: redirect spam, walled gardens and unpaid advocacy. I really want the committee to focus on the big picture. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:07, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Ryk72[edit]

Thank you for stepping forward; your commitment to serving the community is greatly appreciated.

Please accept my apologies for the lateness of these questions.

2. The en.Wikipedia community has been likened to that of a gaol (US:prison), with members of various gangs aggressively supporting each other in disputes, which are policed by trusted inmates. Do you agree with this view? If so, why so? If not, why not? To what extent are the behaviours which lead to this view enabled by AN/I, AE & ArbCom?

   I don't believe that we are at this point. While we have editors with common interests and views, we don't have the degree of discipline where they support each other whether they agree or not. We have seen it though, in the Gamergate case. ArbCom is particularly vulnerable to organised political pressure due to the fact that it is elected. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:18, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

4. Do you believe that our current processes & procedures encourage adversarial methods of dispute resolution? If so, is this a good or bad thing? If bad, what role should ArbCom play in addressing this?

   There are a number of processes that do encourage this. AfD is probably the best example of a process that is adversarial by nature. It increasingly involves mustering the correct arguments based on our existing policies and procedures. This has largely removed the old conflicts between the inclusionists and the deletionists, but it can be a happy hunting ground for Wiki-lawyers. I have seen articles deleted because one side was unable to produce or substantiate the required arguments. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:18, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

6. What are the advantages and disadvantages of WP:BOOMERANG? Would you support it's retention, restriction or abolition? Why?

   That is a really good question. Usually you see it at AN/I, where the problem is that when there is a dispute, it is often the case that nobody involved has completely clean hands. My advice to any editor thinking of reporting something to AN/I is: don't. Seek alternative means of resolving disputes. WP:BOOMERANG takes a far more sinister aspect at AE, where you can be declared "vexatious" and summarily blocked. Again, my advice to any editor thinking of reporting something to AE is: don't. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:18, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

8. We see regular use of WP:DUCK/WP:SOCK to justify indefinite blocks of new editors entering contentious topic spaces, without those editors being explicitly linked to banned accounts. Is this use justified? If so, why so? If not, why not?

   I don't edit in contentious topic spaces. It was my dumb luck to come into MilHist, which ironically turned out to be one of the calmest projects on the Wikipedia. The idea of blocking a WP:DUCK/WP:SOCK without linking it to another account sounds very odd to me. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:18, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

10. In Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel_articles_3#Remedies, ArbCom implemented a "500/30" limit on edits to the Palestine-Israel (the 3rd topic space in which this remedy has been used). What are the positives & negatives of this remedy as written? Would a more technical/formal implementation (akin to semi-protection) be an improvement? What other improvements, if any, might be made?

    I don't know if three topic spaces would be sufficient to implement code changes, but a technical implementation would be my preference. Self-protection is currently equivalent to 10/4, so it should be possible. Such a restriction will keep newcomers away, which is a negative, but it also keeps drive-by editors with a POV to push away. It also keeps editing in the hands of those with at least some experience in dealing with a contentious topic area. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:42, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

12. A hypothetical editor, involved in a contentious topic space, regularly derails Talk page discussion with personal views on the subject, anecdotes of their off-Wiki involvement in the topic, epistemological first principle reasoning for exclusion of material, "hatting" of discussions, and snide attacks on new editors. Administrators have failed to address this editor's behaviour; WP:AE has failed to address the editor's behaviour. What should be done?

14. Would you be prepared to recuse from 1/3rd of cases, and encourage other Arbs to do likewise, so that each case might be addressed faster, and by fewer Arbs?

    I'm not sure if having less Arbs on each case will speed things up much, but I am committed to recusing. I don't want to be an arb who has to be pressed to recuse. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:42, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks in advance for any answers. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 15:31, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Mkdw[edit]

2. In relation to WP:VOTESTACK and votebank, what is your interpretation of the practice of notifying WikiProject members of an on-going WP:RFA where the candidate is a prominent member of that WikiProject?

   The MilHist Project coordinators voted to do this back in 2008. Coordinators including Kirill Lokshin and Roger Davies opined that it was acceptable. The issue came up again earlier this year, with the consensus again being that notifying project members of a fellow member's RfA candidature was not a violation of WP:CANVASS. Most felt that fellow project members were most likely to have interacted with the candidate who was a fellow project member, and therefore were best placed to render a considered judgement on the candidate's suitability for adminship. Some MilHist Project members felt that if there was WP:VOTESTACK going on it was by RfA regulars, who were using canvassing allegations to protect their turf. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:42, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question from DawnDusk[edit]

2. Do you have any personal military experience? --DawnDusk (talk) 17:57, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

   Yes. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:58, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question from User:Blackmane[edit]

2. This is a hypothetical that is somewhat based on real threads that have occurred on WP:AN and WP:ANI in the past. An editor who self identifies as having a mental disability or disorder has been indefinitely blocked for a variety of violations, take your pick of edit warring, NPA, disruption, CIR, POINT, Godwin's etc, and is now seeking to return to editing. Quite a few members of the community have sought to advise this editor on why they were blocked but struggle to get the editor to understand. I'd like to hear your thoughts about how Wikipedia works with those who suffer from such disorders. This is an open ended, and deliberately vague, question that will no doubt be difficult to answer, but is more for me, and presumably other editors, to get a grasp of your thoughts. Blackmane (talk) 02:00, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

   The overwhelming majority of editors with mental illnesses are not disruptive, and the overwhelming majority of disruptive editors do not have mental illnesses. But reading your description presents a whole list of names to me. I can be disheartening when, for example, you review a block to find that the block appeal itself contains another instance of the very thing that the editor in question was blocked for in the first place. Pedagogy isn't my strong suit; I often struggle to formulate explanations of topics I comprehend easily and immediately, but which some other people have unaccountable difficulty with. The bottom line, I'm afraid, is that while I'm always willing to go the extra mile for people with disabilities, the project is about building an encyclopaedia, and other concerns are subordinated to that. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:23, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Kevin Gorman[edit]

2. Recently a situation came up where the gender of an editor, which had not been disclosed by the editor anywhere on-wiki, was posted on several pages. The gender of the editor given the nature of their background is a potentially quite sensitive piece of information, with potential real-life implications. With fairly extensive discussion and multiple requests to oversight the information, the decision was made not to oversight the information with the stated reason being that gender does not explicitly fall under any of the English Wikipedia's oversight criteria. In a similar situation, would you support either interpreting the oversight criteria more broadly in general, IAR oversighting a situation like this, rewriting the oversight criteria to be more inclusive, or would you choose to not oversight the information in question? (As background, according to the EFF, the triumvirate of date of birth, zip code, and gender are sufficient to uniquely identify 87% of American citizens.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:28, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

   Per WP:OS: Removal of non-public personal information, such as phone numbers, home addresses, workplaces or identities of pseudonymous or anonymous individuals who have not made their identity public. The policy is already written to be inclusive by the inclusion of the broadening term "such as". Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:29, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Jorge Stolfi[edit]

2. Could you please share some of your feelings about the "articles for deletion" mechanism, notability criteria, article-side editorial stickers ("This article does not have enough references" and the like), and complexity of the wiki markup language and templates? While arbitrators are not concerned directly with those items, I suspect that disputes that will reach the committee will often originate in editor disagreement about those and other editorial issues. Therefore, I would like to have some idea of which side you may unconsciously see as the "good guy" in such disputes. 8-)

   To start with the last, the complexity of the markup is the most off-putting part of writing for Wikipedia for most people. If you belong to a certain age bracket, you might have learned HTML markup from web pages. That's not possible with today's pages, which are full of CSS and script so there is little to be learned in them. As a consequence, millennials have little feel for markup. Similarly, the templates used to be hard enough to work with; now you have to be able to program in Lua. I personally think that makes trm more rather than less readable, and it wouldn't hurt if we all learned it (I did), but at least the admins, who after all have the template editor bit, should. I don't see much value in "This article needs improvement" stickers. So fix it! I particularly dislike being told to petition myself to do something. A Martinet would turn himself down and then appeal. The AfD mechanism generally cranks along reasonably well, but not perfectly. The old inclusionist v deletionist debate has reached a stable consensus, but I once had an article deleted under WP:NOT - an invalid rationale, but what can you do? Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:32, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]