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Posted by: Littleunknownadmin

He's considered by many, including myself to be a process "wonk", which means all he does is focus on policies with little encyclopedia building. Those type of candidates tend to be controversial, does he even stand a chance with ArbCom. This one is going to be a interesting candidacy to watch.

Posted by: Kato

The Arbitration Committee is http://wikipediareview.com/blog/20071215/ten-reasons-why-the-arbitration-committee-doesnt-matter/ at Wikipedia. The committee is not "the leadership". It oversees only a handful of convoluted cases a year that generally have nothing to do with an encyclopedia's content. Most of these cases relate only to ridiculous trivial dramatic feuds. And even then, the Arbitration Committee tends to fudge a verdict, resulting in conditions that are little different to those if the players had never bothered bringing it up at all. Simply a tremendous waste of time.

The Arbitration Committee provides just another avenue for gameplayers to relieve their drama fixes. These annual elections in particular serve no purpose other than to provide a dramatic Carnival of the Absurd every year. This circus kicks up much negative drama that is clearly harmful to Wikipedia - with no net gain.

If people can't see this, then I suggest that they are so addicted to this crap they've lost all perspective, and should seek professional help.

Posted by: Jehochman

Well, I am a computer scientist, so I like processes and having everything neatly defined. If that is wonkish, I am guilty.

I do prefer policies and clear explanations on wiki when doing things like blocking users. Would the "he's a wonk" faction prefer blocking people based on vague impressions or worse, political reasons? The fact is, a lot of admin abuse occurs because people don't pay attention to pesky details, such as evidence.

As for encyclopedia building, I tend to work on non-controversial articles, like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_submarine_K-152_Nerpa, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Coral_Sea and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-853. If you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Franamax/Ucontribs-0.3b#ArbCom_2008_Candidates, you'll see that I am not the biggest mainspace contributor, but I do at least some real editing.

Posted by: D.A.F.

Checking his behavior, he's the one who impressed me the most from all the candidates. Unlike some I won't name he does not appear hungry for power or do not answer for a show.

Some of his comments were right on target, too good to be true though.

Posted by: D.A.F.

Do you have anything to say on the points raised http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dbachmann#on_the_arbcom? Do you agree?

Posted by: Jehochman

I agree in large part with Dbachmann's comments on ArbCom. Content matters. Just because one side is more skillful at using (or abusing) the rules to advance their position does not mean that they should prevail.

ArbCom does not rule on content matters. To me that means they do not write the articles or make editorial decisions within the realm of reasonable disagreement between good faith editors. However, if an editor is attempting to add bullshit to the encyclopedia by citing bogus sources or misrepresenting reliable sources, then ArbCom has an obligation to stop them.

Posted by: D.A.F.

Thanks for your reply. I've witnessed your attempt to handle what was happening at Hemsheni article, when you requested checkusers on both sides and finally detected article ownership. Even though you were powerless as the member who was owning the article enforced his change and the other side just left it to not spark another edit war you still demonstrated that you have the potential to more than just check for incivility and edit warring.

You are devoid of any sofistication and do not double talk and that smells honesty (a word so alien on Wikipedia).

I wish you the best of luck.

But I still believe that the Arbcom is worthless.

Posted by: D.A.F.

Hmmm..., was checking your contributions this last half hour. Then came up with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents/Battle_of_Opis#Use_of_sysop_tools

Did you even bother checking what you were reporting? Erzerum, it was an IP who was vandalizing the page by removing sourced information about the Armenian massacre. You didn't even bother adding that info about it being an anon IP and who was vandalizing.

Van resistance, if you even bothered checking before making that claim? The edit war was between Seemsclose, TA-ME, then an IP address all (including the IP, who at least was 'pro-Armenian') were Armenians and Meowy who is not even Armenian. If you want a disruption from an admin in the same article you should rather check Jaydb who blindly reverted an IP's legitimate reinsertion of the term genocide which was removed. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Van_Resistance&diff=204383607&oldid=204248892]

As for Hemshin peoples, dude there was several contributors in that article, Meowy, VartanM, Eupator, Namsos and several other editors and Omer was on the opposit end trying to enforce his fringe theories about Hemshin being Turks when every single encyclopedia's in the world claim them to be Armenian. If you check you will see Adoniscik editing the article too, he's a Turk, did he revert Namsos? No!

At least Khoikhoi is not representing himself as an arbitratior, if you want to see a history of selective enforcement of policy, like you'd call, you should check someone who is presenting himself as arbitrator, Jaydb.

Posted by: opinionated spectator

Jehochman does not seem to be that bad. But his ties with sleuths such as Durova will probably hurt him in the election.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Hello J.

Do you only mean "...by banning that user" (from the affected articles or from the entire site), or are there other remedies you would consider?

Posted by: Jehochman

Hopefully the editor would get a lot of helpful advice before they ever got to ArbCom. If they showed a willingness to listen to advice, I'd oppose a ban. It is best to use the least amount of force necessary to get the job done.

I personally dislike using blocks to modify behavior, though once in a while they may serve to get the editor's attention. If somebody is doing wrong I think we should explain to them how they can do better. If somebody repeatedly does not get the message, then we have to figure out what to do.

If problems are specific to a particular topic, then it is better to ban them from just that area. If the person is making a mess wherever they go then a long block or ban may be needed. We have to balance the goals of helping one individual with protecting the many other editors.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

I was hoping you would assure us that you would never propose or endorse a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Footnoted_quotes#Special_enforcement_on_biographies_of_living_persons to do the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Sarah_Palin_protection_wheel_war#Full_protection_and_special_BLP_enforcement_by_MBisanz with no one, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Motion:_re_SlimVirgin#Restriction_on_arbitration_enforcement_activity%5b/url being allowed to revert it. Do this and you'll have my vote.

Right now it's open season for anyone wishing to game the system and I'm surprised it doesn't happen on a daily basis.

But what can I say, maybe the most responsible admins are those who don't know what they can get away with. Ignorance really is bliss?

Posted by: Jehochman

Wikipedia policies, if enforced fairly, provide all the powers necessary to patrol biographies. You can take a look at my work on [[Talk:Sonal Shah]]. No special powers were needed to get that situation under control.

Administrators should not reverse each other's actions willy nilly, no matter what. If people would follow that ideal, then special enforcement would not be needed.

I was not involved in Footnoted Quotes, and have never used those powers. If it came before me, I'd have to look at it closely in order to make a decision. In general, I prefer to stick with traditional policies.

I recently thought about asking ArbCom to expand the special enforcement of Pseudoscience to all fringe topics. (See [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion/Workshop]]) I struck out that request because it seemed to be a bad idea, upon consideration.

Those are my feelings. Vote accordingly.

Posted by: SelfHater

Following the success of their campaign to prevent Obama being elected president (with only 78% of American Jews who voted backing him), the Jewish Internet Defense Force has now chosen their next big electoral intervention. Their aim? To prevent Jehochman from joining ARBCOM. (See the rolling news section here http://www.thejidf.org/.)

The chief sin of the candidate against the Jewish people can be seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User%3AEinsteindonut. Please note that Mr. Donut wishes it to be known that he has absolutely no connection whatsoever with the JIDF and that is a series of coincidences that has led to every Wikipedian who has ever blocked him or reverted his edits being denounced by the JIDF as the vile antisemite that they are.

Posted by: Heat

This should guarantee his election.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

God, I love the Internet.

Posted by: Eva Destruction

I just love the 'and they use so-called "reliable sources" like the New York Times'. If quoting the NYT is really the worst problem they can dig up about Wikipedia, Somey & Selina may as well shut WR down now.

Posted by: Rootology

So having read the JIDF, they come across as the Jewish answer to the Christian Worldnet Daily, a place for the extreme right wing whackadoodles from the other faith to hang out and vent. Or am I misreading it?

Posted by: SelfHater

You catch on quickly. They have several pages on their site praising Meir Kahane, an American-Israeli who led the most rabid wing of the settlers' movement and founded the now-banned racist and terrorist Kach party. As well as venting, the JIDF like to sabotage other people's web pages. Some of those pages actually deserve sabotage.

They are also now big Wikipedia news. Jimbo himself has just removed a personal attack on Mr A. Pseudonym, the great founder of the JIDF, from the talk page on the JIDF article.

Posted by: Heat

No, that's about right.

Posted by: D.A.F.

There is a little more into this. I've been reading Jehochman those last days and his contributions, his main problem would be consistancy something the Arbcom is really lacking. The problem with having 7 spots is the danger of electing bad apples. Jehochman is one of the lesser worst ones, this would justify him to be in the committee, only because there is 7 spots.

Posted by: Heat

He's nowhere near the top 7

Posted by: D.A.F.

I'm giving my opinion, what I am saying is that since there are 7 spots, normally he should have passed and not because he fits there, but that there are many worst than him. The communittee has decided else.

Posted by: Jehochman

If you look at last year's election and see where Moreschi finished, that is where I expected to finish. I am very close to the mark. The community does not like controversy. I am the type of person who steps forward to do what is necessary, devil be damned. The results are what you see.

To get a seat on ArbCom the formula is to go off and quietly edit articles, and once in a while handle low-key disputes. Don't go anywhere near banned users, drama mongers, or nationistic POV pushers, or corrupt admins. If you handle those sorts of problems, you'll be viewed as "controversial" and the disruptive parties will gleefully vote against you. Unfortunately, this tendency means that ArbCom newbies often lack experience solving the problems that most frequently come before them. They have to learn on the job, leading to higher burnout and lower performance.

Posted by: wikiwhistle

No-one (i.e. not the average "lackey") cares about those users though. At least half of politically active users- AN/I and RfaR viewers, will vote for you if you've gone near banned users etc- if you've enforced policy in a way in which influential users would want it endorsed.

Posted by: Eva Destruction

Is that really fair? Risker is currently running second, and most people who know her probably know her from Giano's talkpage, the history of Northern Ireland or Talk:Barack Obama, none of which are exactly oases of calm.

Posted by: D.A.F.

There is some truth there, you're contribution on Cold Fusion case would worth a moral support, just because you're actually doing something about content when others are taking more popular cases. But consistancy is really lacking in your case.

Posted by: Shalom

You could say the same thing about RFA. Qualification to do admin work doesn't count for anything if people dislike you.

Posted by: Milton Roe

During Obama's first and only term in the Senate, he was wondering whether to make a run at the presidency. One of his advisors gave him maybe the best piece of advice of his career, the gist of which was: "Go for it! Go for it before you get a long record that can be used against you, and also develop a big list of people with grudges and long memories."

Of course, this is not new. It's long been known that the path to government, military, business, and academic advancement is to work your way up in a series of laterial moves, where you take higher and higher positions in a series of new places. At each of which you don't have an odiferous record and an enemies list, and thus always look like the great-heroic-outsider-fixer-upper. An image which is projected on you, by optimistic people who don't know you very well.

The problem on WP is that there's no place to go. There's just WP, and they keep records. So it's like trying to climb the ladders of power in the same small corporation, without being related to the boss. Very difficult. On WP as anywhere else, it requires loads of chapstick.

Posted by: D.A.F.

Disliking someone should not be the sole excuse to oppose when that person's misactions seems to be mistakes. Someone can be liked by many but not genuine or honest, this alone will undo any good contribution.

White Cat is an example of such genuine user, how stupid some of his comments are and the weird way he reacts shows he's genuine in his weird sort of way. No one likes to be opposed so many times and still facing the community judgement this much and still run. I'm sure he has the sympathy of many who oppose him.

Posted by: wikiwhistle

Precisely, people who talk reasoned common sense and base their actions solely on policy without rubbing people up the wrong way, without obvious favouritism or adverserialism, won't be as likely to have a prob. Of course, the popularity contest element would still apply.

Posted by: The Wales Hunter

You could get on the ArbCom next time around quite easily if you passed an RFA first. Then I could support you with some sort of caveat about reclusing or being very, very careful if you had a case involving one of your WR buddies!

*I'm being serious about the first part, not the second.

Posted by: Shalom

Sticky Parkin could someday be a credible candidate, but she won't ever win, and knowing her personality, she won't ever try. The "WR is bad" meme could hit her, though, the way it's hitting Cool Hand Luke.