Disclaimer: This page expresses
my personal opinions and observations only. I encourage all voters to do their own research on the candidates.
Apology: I'm running late this year and still don't have the guide completed as of the beginning of the vote. My only excuse is offline distractions. Aside from my dayjob, I also have a new book coming out in two weeks. I'm not going to promote it here, but just say that things are crazy busy. However, I'm still trying to carve out time for my ArbCom guide as I believe strongly in the process, and in casting an informed vote. --
Elonka 17:31, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
Overview
For those who aren't sure what this is about: The
Arbitration Committee is part of the Wikipedia
dispute resolution process. In fact, ArbCom is pretty much the last stop. For a general real world analogy, ArbCom is sort of like the
Supreme Court of Wikipedia. The arbitrators don't make decisions on article content, but they do issue rulings on complex disputes relating to user conduct, and they have considerable authority within the wiki-culture. Members of the Committee are usually elected for two-year terms (sometimes one or three), with a new batch elected each year.
Candidates self-nominated from November 8 to 17, and the voting period will run from November 24 to December 7. For details on voting eligibility, see the
2020 election page.
For this 2020/2021 cycle, the size of the Committee is 15. Eight arbitrators will be remaining on the committee, and seven new ones will be elected for either a one-or two-year term.
My standards
This page that you are reading contains my (Elonka's) thoughts on the current crop of ArbCom candidates. My general standards for a candidate are:
I am also a strong supporter of
civility, as I believe that rude behavior on the project can drive away other editors, and I would hope that ArbCom would help support that view; however, I also understand that not everyone has the same feelings about civility, so I am willing to support arbitrator candidates for other reasons than just that one.
Past votes
To see my thoughts on previous elections, check the history of:
NOppose. As I said before, he became an administrator in 2009, then was de-sysopped in 2012. He needs to demonstrate community trust and become an admin again before running for ArbCom
YSupport. Trusted member of the community, has checkuser/oversight access. I was hesitant last year because of lack of experience in FA creation, only had one GA and a couple DYKs.
NWeak oppose. He became an administrator in 2012, on his second try after a failed attempt on
Snottywong. He was fairly inactive for a long time, then his recent activity levels became much better, but he still doesn't seem to have much in the way of actual content contributions, having mostly shown a technical interest with bot tools and other admin work. I am also concerned by this thread at ANI, and the multiple links to which it leads.
[1] Scanning through things, it's just enough to push me over to the "oppose" column, sorry.
YWeak support. . BDD is a good editor, without being a particularly active editor. I'm not seeing an FA, instead, most of BDD's efforts appear to be with redirects. I also don't see much experience with dispute resolution. I don't see any reasons *not* to support BDD, but neither am I seeing solid reasons to support. As such, I wanted to abstain on BDD's candicacy, but I am allowing a weak support because of the small number of candidates. I do advise, if BDD does not make it this time and wishes to run again in the future, I would recommend some activities such as bringing an article to FA status, or digging into Arb Cases such as by offering uninvolved comments, or acting as an administrator in Arbitration Enforcment.
YSupport. Became an admin in September 2019. Has experience with dispute resolution. I was hesitant last year because of lack of experience in FA creation, but I do see some work on a couple
Featured Lists so this checks the box for me.
YSupport. Is a new administrator, but has good content-creation experience, experience with dispute resolution, and I also like that they provide diversity to the Committee.