Guild Wars Wiki talk:Elections/2008-02 bureaucrat election/Tanetris

Tanetris, I posted some questions for all candidates at Guild Wars Wiki talk:Elections/2008-02 bureaucrat election#Questions for candidates. --Rezyk 23:29, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Responding here rather than directly on the candidate page simply for length.

In what ways should one expect that you might operate the role differently than previous practices? (Higher/lower barrier to case acceptance? More/less leniency? Use as a bully pulpit? Other?)

I won't directly compare myself to previous bureaucrats, simply because each case is different, not enough cases have been presented to determine statistically-significant patterns, and I'm not a mind-reader. I consider ArbComm a tool for the wiki community, and like any tool, there are times when it is the only tool for the job, times when other tools might work but it is the most efficient tool for the job, times when it might work but other tools are more efficient, and times when it is useless or will only make the situation worse. Obviously, when it is the only or most efficient tool (Raptors comes to mind), it should be used, and when useless or when it will make the situation worse, it shouldn't. When other tools may be more efficient, I generally prefer they be tried first, but if they fail for whatever reason, ArbComm can be used as well. I realize that this is all a very general metaphor, but as I mentioned, each case is different. In any case presented, I would need to look into the specifics of what's happened, consider what ArbComm can do, consider what other tools, whether it be the admins or the community, can do, and present my opinion. Even if I do feel something is inappropriate to ArbComm, I'll be happy as an individual contributor to give my personal opinion on what should be done. The matter of leniency I'll address in the next question.

To respond specifically to the idea of using bureaucratship as a bully pulpit, I feel every wiki user, whether a bureaucrat, a sysop, a registered user, or an anon IP, already has a bully pulpit if they're articulate enough to use it and can do so without resorting to abusiveness.

In what way(s) would your decisions in arbitration be affected by the weight of a user's general history of valued contributions (or lack of such)? Would user valuable-ness reliably translate into some extra degree of leniency from you?

Context is absolutely important in any arbitration decision, but that doesn't mean that someone who's been a good contributer in the past gets a "Get Out of Jail Free" card, so to speak, nor that someone who's been a less-than-model wiki member in the past, or who has no significant past to speak of, has no hope of surviving an arbitration unscathed. While a long-standing valuable contributor does tend to hold more weight in disagreements, if I see someone attempting to use that weight as an excuse to get away with unacceptable behavior, I would be less lenient, not more. If someone isn't an established user and doesn't know the wiki inside-out and backwards, I would tend to be more lenient if there seems to be a chance to help them understand what behavior is unacceptable and why.

What stance would you represent regarding the appropriate administrative response to user trolling/disruption/incivility/harmfulness? How is that stance justified given the current status of those issues within our system and culture?

I believe that it is within both the spirit of policies in general and within the letter of the Admin policy specifically that sysops are given discretion to deal with those who are doing harm to the wiki, so long as the response is reasonable to the actions and intentions of the transgression. To put it more plainly, I absolutely support a sysop who bans someone who is clearly being disruptive and has repeatedly ignored warnings, even if that person is not specifically breaking the letter of policy. If it's clear that the disruptive person attempting to act in good faith, I'd expect the ban length to be shorter than someone who is being disruptive to be disruptive and flaunting the rules, but even good faith disruption is unacceptable, and if a short-term ban is the only way to get that through, I support that. - Tanetris 07:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)