Actually, only Bishzilla has admin rights.

Bishonen is the main account, and is the one that communicates like a normal human being. "Bishzilla" was created so that Bishonen could write in a comically threatening tone about eating other editors for breakfast, burning them alive, and so on. Again, not an acceptable candidacy.

Bishonen had the admin bit transferred to Bishzilla.

In the 'confirmed running' section, James Forrester is the most dangerous.

And considering the Trogdorian/Godzilla-ish way in which WP is administrated, that's probably appropriate. Baniate and burniate. Don't think too hard.

Her candidacy would be far stronger if she ran under the Bishonen account.

Why not? It's perfectly honest, normal Wikipedian admin behavior.

Or must you have children running this place childishly AND pretend to be adults, too? And maybe they want medals, barnstars, and

Well, not much stronger.

I've had a few pmails on all this and peeps are asking if I'm going to run for ArbCom.

Answer: no

I wish I could run for a seat, but I just don't have the spare time necessary to give the position the attention it deserves.

you'd fit right in with the incumbents then...


Arbcom as it is, is irrelevant. It's an opaque roadblock put up by a delusionally self-important Jimbo Squad of part-time lightweights.

The WP community abides.

Time and time again the community has to come back after a flaccid, paralyzed, impotent arbcom fails to do anything that provides any service to wikpedia and do the right thing.

Arbcom - ignore it. It's ignoring you.

Didn't Durova promise to only stay on for one year if elected to Arbcom? I don't see the harm in just going for a year.

It would be better if there were just a small number (like four) of arbs handling one case from beginning to end before taking on another case, instead of relying on all the arbs to handle all the cases all the time.

Heck, it'd be better if there were only one arbitrator, as long as he or she could be unseated. Then we would at least have someone to credit or blame.

As it is, I think the most important thing to ask here is that each member of the committee stand for reelection this December, regardless of their "tranches." The Arbitration Committee has lost the confidence of Wikipedia's volunteers and critics alike. These terms were set by someone and can be reset; there is nothing sacred about them. Anyone who wants real reform should start there.

I already proposed that on WP, and my proposal was shot down.

"Shot down" by what, four people? What we really need here isn't a discussion, but a petition. Any threaded discussion will be manipulated by people with an interest in sabotaging or foreclosing it.


Couldn't agree more.


This from people who emphasize that Wikipedia doesn't do fairness and isn't a system of law! Who cares if it's "fair" to the arbitrators? Most of them don't care if they're fair to others. Some of them should be happy they're not blocked or banned.

(p.s. NewYorkBrad would win reelection anyhow.)


I'd also like to clarify: whether the "tranche" system is inherently flawed or not is utterly beside the point. Volunteers and critics alike have lost confidence in this Arbitration Committee. What is most immediately needed is not any particular policy change, but a motion of no confidence.

Can't we add some proposals for vote onto the ArbCom election, kind of like they do in the US (I don't know if they do this elsewhere or not) in which they add bond issues and new laws to election ballots for people to vote on? If there isn't anything saying that we can't do this, then I think we should do it during this election- give people some ArbCom reform proposals to vote on, such as term reductions, etc.

Correct. Bishonen is incredibly good, but as you imply, joking need to be set aside in matters such as this. Especially in Wikipedia of course, which lacks any noticeable sense of humour.

[edit] I note the following extraordinary comment on Giano's talk page by Scribe. "It is this use of blocks to stifle criticism that troubles me most about "civility blocks". " Since when has the use of blocks as criticism - as well as the use of the oversight/deletion function, on which I still have some interesting unpublished emails from Scribe - every troubled this man?

MBisanz has compiled a list of all the people who are confirmed and likely to run: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:MBisanz/ACE2008

Confirmed:

Aaron Brenneman
Bishzilla
Coren
Hersfold
Jdforrester
Jehochman
SirFozzie
Wizardman

Likely:

Carcharoth
Catherine de Burgh
Fish and karate
Gwen Gale
Rlevse
The Fat Man Who Never Came Back
WJBscribe

Nice to see that J D "FeloniousMonk's contributions are worth more than Cla68's" Forrester is going to be in the running. I never had a chance to oppose him with a nasty comment before.

Please don't (the nasty comment that is, you can oppose whoever you like). Two wrongs don't make a right.

I could go and say who I'll be supporting or opposing, but it would spoil the surprise. I'll let everyone into a secret though, I'll be opposing most people. It's a pretty poor selection this year, I must say.

The individuals in the race don't matter. Whoever is hand-picked for the job, they'll still be Jimbo's pet chimps. Arbcom elections are a pretend vote for a pretend court.

Last time Jimbo appointed someone was in February 2007, when he appointed Mackensen to replace Dmcdevit, and Essjay as an extra. Mackensen had previously been on ArbCom, and resigned in good standing. Prior to that, was September 2005. I doubt he'll be doing it again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arb...tions#Elections

"Since then, Arbitrators have been appointed based on the results of advisory elections held annually. Jimbo does not consider himself bound by the results of the elections, but generally has appointed Arbitrators from among the candidates with the highest percentage of positive votes (Jimmy has stated he will not appoint someone having under 50% support)."

Are you saying that page is inaccurate?

If Jimbo's appointments accurately reflect the results of the election, then those appointed arbitrators are not automatically "Jimbo's pet chimps".

Sure they are. Anyone who might actually want to rock the wikiboat would be excluded.

"Arbcom" is just another map in the game of wikipedia. It has a symbolic role for the serfs, but its actual role is extremely limited. It's composition is irrelevant - any random group of labourers will be as effective as any other.

Do you have any evidence to that effect, or is it an as-yet untested hypothesis? Not that there's anything wrong with as-yet untested hypotheses - I express quite a few of them around here - but they should be recognized as what they are.

While I abhor Jimbo's insistence on appointing arbitrators himself, there is no reason to think he would deliberately skip over a dissenting candidate who was appropriately placed on the results list, even if he might want to. The furthest he has gone in the past is to expand the ArbCom to justify including loyalists further down the list. Furthermore, realistically speaking, he couldn't exclude a dissenting candidate if the candidate was appropriately placed--it would be disastrous for Jimbo's political standing in the community. Nor does it make any sense to suggest that a dissenting candidate would transform to become a "pet chimp" simply because Jimbo made the formal appointment in recognition of the community's mandate.

To suggest that the composition of the ArbCom is irrelevant is simply ludicrous--in the context of Wikipolitics, nothing is more important than the composition of the ArbCom. It's only irrelevant if you think Wikipedia itself is irrelevant, and therefore whatever future direction the project takes is inconsequential.

I agree with your entire first paragraph. I have a couple of quibbles with the second.

I would argue that the behaviour of the WMF Board is more important, but this depends on your definition of Wikipolitics (though even under a narrow definition, I'd argue that the behaviour of the WMF Board ought to be more important than the composition of Arb Comm).

It's quite possible to believe, as I think many do here, that Wikipedia is relevant but that Wikipolitics, even broadly-defined, are not. I think that's the view of the faction that believes that Wikipedia is beyond hope, but that it's too harmful to be ignored.

Re: Anyone who might rock the wikiboat...

Jimbo said if anyone retired mid-year this year, he would replace them from someone who got at least 50% in the 2007 election. Jimbo didn't keep his word. (Is anyone surprised?) Newyorkbrad retired and UninvitedCompany lapsed into real life, but Jimbo left their seats vacant until NYB returned and UC formally resigned. Anyway, he said anyone who got 50%, and he explicitly included Giano in that list.

Where did he say this?

Paul August also resigned, remember. NYB was gone from the end of April until August; Paul left in August, and UC in September. There's no point really in replacing Paul and UC, since it's so late on in the year, and I think everyone knew NYB's departure was only temporary.

At this point I agree that it's not worth it to replace UC and PA before the elections. It wasn't obvious to me that NYB was coming back, though maybe it was obvious to everyone else - it certainly wasn't publicly spoken of that way.

Jimbo said it in his announcement of his December 2007 selections, reported in the Signpost. Look in the Signpost archives for December 2007.

He probably just didn't notice that Arb Comm was depleted.

I was going to present the current arbcom as exhibit A, but I see Shalom has already done that quite nicely. I may be inclined to collect examples of arbs-toeing-the-line here as we go along.


That's assuming the body actually influences the "future direction of the project". It doesn't. It makes relatively inconsistent decisions on the banning-and-reverting - as you say, "wikipolitics" - but does not substantially influence goals and methods.


Here, for those with short memories. Also of interest in that writeup is the way term lengths and composition of the body are chopped and changed at will.

Hey, you're moving the target. I'm not asking you to provide evidence that Arbs toe the line, I'm asking you to provide evidence that "Anyone who might actually want to rock the wikiboat would be excluded" even if they won the election.

See first sentence.

I'm with Sarcasticidealist here. I think I intended the opposite of what Useonceanddestroy is interpreting of me -- namely, Jimbo might well appoint someone whose views he personally does not agree with. The main problem for someone hell-bent on rocking the wiki-boat, to use that odd metaphor, is to win the election from the community. When I think of who is likely to make it into Arbcom, I think of people who have not been involved on the protagonist level in edit wars, but may have tried to resolve them and succeeded, or are involved in sockpuppet investigations and block/unblock requests of established users. Anyone who has a realistic shot at making Arbcom has to fit into the institutional framework.

I think Jimbo's relative lack of involvement at this stage is advantageous in that he's not likely to reject any candidate by virtue of disliking that candidate. He dislikes certain people, to be sure, but he won't care enough to keep them off Arbcom. At least, that's what I'm hoping.

Hmm, no one has commented that Jimbo has extended the term of Thebainer. He also reminds us that he retains a monarch's veto if the community does not select a "good, safe, and trusted appointment." Long-time admin Duk had this to say about Jimbo's sense of trustworthiness:I think this poor track record might actually explain why Jimbo declined to fill any seats this year. I once read a daily newspaper which refused to issue political endorsements because the editor recommended Nixon in 1972.

Lar also posits an interesting theory:

I can't think of a single appointment by Jimbo that was a good one to be honest. Kelly Martin and Essjay were a disaster for a start.

I'm not bothered that thebainer gets another year. FloNight's term was extended last year for two extra years in the same manner, and nobody batted an eyelash as far as I can recall.

I do object strongly against Jimbo arrogating to himself power to overrule the community's preference in the ArbCom elections. There's a severe difference between extending the term of a sitting arbitrator who hasn't served a full term, versus hypothetically refusing to appoint a candidate with consensus because Jimbo doesn't like him or her. As with many issues, I agree with Sarcasticidealist in that discussion thread.

Yes, my appointment was a disaster because I wasn't interested in playing the SlimVirgin Game. My stock started falling after I questioned Mel Etitis' conduct as an administrator; you can guess what was behind that.

It's my considered opinion that any "outsider" who managed to get elected would be appointed, then harassed to death by the rest of the loyalists until they either converted or resigned in disgust.

Jimbo explains why the WMF board doesn't take over his role on enwp and confirms the important role that ex-Arbs (except Kelly Martin, I imagine) play:
Meanwhile, Cirt is asking a line of Socratic questions, trying to understand why discretionary selection is good and necessary.

"shoot that troll on sight!" - Jimmy says

Well, it takes courage to stand out from the 'crowd', and sometimes the price can be high. I think WP will eventually implode because of the distinct lack self-honesty amongst almost all the admins. Sad really! ~~~~

Did you mean to sign with 4 tildes? ~~~~

Second sign of madness, so I hear.

Well, I have to be honest with you wikiwhistle. My bad, my bad, my bad!!! Two hours sleep last evening does that wacko Wikipedian stuff to people.

That's ok lol I bet a lot of people have done it on various forums.

Strange for someone who claims not to have edited WP for 3 months or something though.

Well, don't tell a 'certain admin' about it, or she'll see it as evidence of socking! These admins pick up on the most bizarrest of things, suspicious lot!!

Jimbo now says that new Arbitrators must be approved by current and former members of the Committee…


…with Thomas H. Larsen, Giano, Jehochman, SlimVirgin and Cla68 dissenting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#G.27day

I'm not sure anyone likes this particular idea, but hey, what can we do?

This will only serve to intensify the insular nature of ArbCom.

I have no idea what the philosophy is here. It's not a power grab for him, because he's actually relinquishing some power here, he's just doing it badly. It looks like he's trying to accumulate courtiers - only thing is, Jimbo, constitutional monarchs don't generally have those.

It's actually almost as though he's so resistant to a nice, straightforward method of arb selection that he's deliberately making it as chaotic as possible to prove that the wonderful anarchic Wikipedia spirit is still alive.