The circus hits town, arbcom 2009 here we go Options

[EricBarbour]

Our job is to help ensure that the new guard don't turn into a bunch of corrupt, conniving dicks as well.

They already are a bunch of corrupt, conniving dicks.

Why, how dare you! Where's your Wiki-Luv??

I still think Md and Hersfold will be the first to be busted for malfeasance. Hersfold's previous history is such that only a dysfunctional looney-bin like Wikipedia would give him administrative powers, and then hand him a seat on their Supreme Court Of Holy Jimbo Kangaroos.

[CharlotteWebb]

More, by my count. Ten of us have been entirely open about our identities since before the election (Cla68, Fred Bauder, Jehochman, Kirill Lokshin, Kmweber, Shell Kinney, SirFozzie, Steve Smith, William M. Connolley, Xavexgoem) […] (Coren) […] (Mailer diablo) […] two and four more …

Hmmpf, I wouldn't have guessed Kirill Lokshin was his real name. Until now I assumed it wasn't though I never cared one way or the other, just thought it sounded kinda… I dunno… middle-earthy perhaps.

Anyhoo, I don't really care which but I'm curious how many of these folks (aside from yourself) you would realistically consider supporting in 2010.

I guess you could also throw Guy Chapman, Tony Sidaway, Phil Sandifer, David Gerard, etc. into the mix for purposes of epic drama (or if you run out of candidates) since they're all so fucking… accountable, yeah that's it.

I mean, what could go wrong?

[jayvdb]

I'm kind of puzzled by Jimbo's point 1) in that post - that all ArbCom members must identify themselves to the Foundation or himself personally. The Foundation, sure - but identifying only to Jimbo just sounds like a slippery way of effectively not identifying oneself at all.

Ideally, all ArbCom members should voluntarily identify themselves to the entire community. The next time elections come around, the community should demand it of anyone who seeks the position.

I had a go at Jimbo about that when I saw it.

Sam Blacketer would have been sorted out at the beginning of 2009 if I had not accepted Jimbo's reassurances that all Arbcom members had been identified to either WMF or him. Silly me. My guess is that if Sam Blacketer had publicly identified himself at the beginning of the year, disclosing his history on Wikipedia and asking the community to comment, he might still be an arbitrator (who recuses on anything to do with UK politics).

Lar did ask the new arbs whether they would publicly identify themselves. Most of the new appointments are either publicly identified, or said that they would publicly identify if they were appointed. I think it was the clerks who said they wouldn't be publicly identified, but then I see that Mailer diablo (T-C-L-K-R-D) has added his real name (Kenneth Kua) onto WP:ARBCOM.

This question needs to be more prominent next year. And someone should write a "voters guide" to highlight the answers.

[One]

Sam Blacketer would have been sorted out at the beginning of 2009 if I had not accepted Jimbo's reassurances that all Arbcom members had been identified to either WMF or him. Silly me.

I remember that. He seemed to be out of the loop there.

You will also recall that FT2 and others were adamant that all new arbitrators elected last year and forward would be required to identify to WMF. In fact, it was posted on last year's election information page. But when we were seated, Jimbo seemed to think it might be an option. Fortunately, all of the new arbitrators last year strongly strongly favored WMF identification, which apparently cause Jimbo to erroneously assume that everyone was so identified.

It's not clear to me that WMF does anything with the information, but I suppose it's better than nothing.

This post has been edited by One: Fri 25th December 2009, 9:44am

[CharlotteWebb]

It's not clear to me that WMF does anything with the information, but I suppose it's better than nothing.

Frankly I doubt they're above selling it to telemarketers.

[jayvdb]

It's not clear to me that WMF does anything with the information, but I suppose it's better than nothing.

I don't think that they do anything with it, but having the identification details on file means that they are not able to avoid taking real action because the person "responsible" is unknown to them.

As an example, there have been a number of cases where oversight/suppression has been done in order to comply with UK/US court orders, such as the Baby P case. If an oversighter directly goes against those court orders by undoing suppression, the courts would not be happy if the WMF can't produce a real name and address.

Or, if an arbitrator posted something potentially libelous, say on a noticeboard, ...

[Kelly Martin]

The "identification" requirement wasn't adopted for any reasonable purpose; it was a political move intended to disqualify certain people (mainly SlimVirgin and Jayjg) from holding certain offices on the grounds that those people would be unlikely to submit to identification. There is no coherently recognizable business or legal purpose for the requirement, other than some vague belief that "identified" people are less likely to do Grossly Wrong things.

Of course, it's a virtual certainty that a good fraction of those people "identified" to the Foundation have submitted fictitious documents, or has simply given Cary Bass a sufficient "sob story" as to be effectively exempted from identification. The policies that were written internally to back up the identification process permit Cary to grant exemptions pretty much as he sees fit, and Cary has never been entirely on board with the identification requirement in the first place.

[Shalom]

Of course, it's a virtual certainty that a good fraction of those people "identified" to the Foundation have submitted fictitious documents, or has simply given Cary Bass a sufficient "sob story" as to be effectively exempted from identification. The policies that were written internally to back up the identification process permit Cary to grant exemptions pretty much as he sees fit, and Cary has never been entirely on board with the identification requirement in the first place.

I don't agree with you. I haven't identified to the Foundation but many folks here have, and can comment on the process. I have every reason to believe the Foundation does require at least one proper identification document. I also have every reason to believe that folks give their real identities. What incentive is there to lie?

We never did hear if Essjay and Poetlister gave their real names to the Foundation, but I suspect they did.

[CharlotteWebb]

What incentive is there to lie?

Every.

We never did hear if Essjay and Poetlister gave their real names to the Foundation, but I suspect they did.

I suspect they did not.

[Kelly Martin]

We never did hear if Essjay and Poetlister gave their real names to the Foundation, but I suspect they did.

I suspect they did not.

Essjay never identified to the Foundation; it was partially because of Essjay's manipulations that Cary stalled implementing the identification policy. He eventually did identify to Jimbo, but only because it was required of him by federal law (when he took employment with Wikia), and it was shortly after that that the entire Essjay affair imploded. (Keep in mind that Cary would have been very sympathetic to Essjay's "I'm gay and I work for the Catholic Church, so if you out me I'll be fired" gambit.) Meanwhile, it's a virtual certainty that any identity documents submitted by the PoetEntity would have been fictitious, and I doubt Cary would have been able to tell forged British identity papers from authentic ones anyhow.

[thekohser]

Hersfold's previous history is such that only a dysfunctional looney-bin like Wikipedia would give him administrative powers, and then hand him a seat on their Supreme Court Of Holy Jimbo Kangaroos.

Hersfold was a complete idiot from the moment he came near my Talk page. He locked my page because the discussion was getting a bit too close to the truth.

He came to his senses a couple of hours later.

[Milton Roe]

(Keep in mind that Cary would have been very sympathetic to Essjay's "I'm gay and I work for the Catholic Church, so if you out me I'll be fired" gambit.)

Really? Cary doesn't know much about the Catholic Church, then! They don't care if you're gay so long as you're chaste.

Maybe he told Cary that, loosely but canonically speaking, he was a loose professor of canon law who could not pry himself loose from a life of cruising gay bars like a loose canon?

And like Mr. Shankbone, had a canon of loose Canon shots of his canon?

[CharlotteWebb]

We never did hear if Essjay and Poetlister gave their real names to the Foundation, but I suspect they did.

I suspect they did not.

[…]

Meanwhile, it's a virtual certainty that any identity documents submitted by the PoetEntity would have been fictitious, and I doubt Cary would have been able to tell forged British identity papers from authentic ones anyhow.

To whom it may concern:

I have received a e-mail from the artist formerly known as poetlister concerning my previous post in this thread. I do not intend to post its entirety without explicit permission (and I'm not sure even whether I should reply to it).

In this correspondence the sender expresses concern that I have accused the poet-entity of an unspecified (though probably un-prosecutable) crime.

I believe this interpretation hastily assumes (among other things) that I know for sure whether poet-guy (as "Cato") submitted any papers at all, though in fact I have no certainty of this.

This post has been edited by CharlotteWebb: Sat 26th December 2009, 6:03pm

[RDH(Ghost In The Machine)]

Our job is to help ensure that the new guard don't turn into a bunch of corrupt, conniving dicks as well.

They already are a bunch of corrupt, conniving dicks.

Why, how dare you! Where's your Wiki-Luv??

Long ago dead, dried up and blown away by the wind, my inebriated corvid friend.

Cheers.