SMcCandlish

I've been a Wikipedian for twelve years, and am a skeptic, a political centrist, a civil liberties policy analyst for over a decade, and a cultural anthropologist by training. All of these things make me a good candidate, and combine to produce a see-all-sides mindset, grounded in evidence and necessary procedure but guided by principle not proceduralism. I've decided to offer to serve on the Arbitration Committee for several reasons.

While I have long been involved in Wikipedia's internal WP:POLICY development, I work on content and am here as an editor of an encyclopedia, not as an admin. I'm not alone in long having an issue with the fact that almost all Arbs are admins and tend to do notably less content work than average. I don't think this works very well; it doesn't properly represent the community intent and interpretation ArbCom is expected to bring to bear.

I aim to have ArbCom be more consistent, more transparent, less bureaucratic, and less afraid to address and rectify is own collective past mistakes. I said a while back that what the community expects out of our entire dispute resolution system is ultimately that the disruption caused by a dispute be resolved quickly and with as much community buy-in as can be mustered, but this has not really been happening. Incivility and PoV pushing appear to be increasing, editor retention has dropped, the discretionary sanctions system has not been reviewed much less revised in years (and is clearly problematic in multiple ways), and too much emphasis has been put on blocking productive people for transgressions rather than removing them from the areas in which they're not productive or hamper others' productivity, and getting everyone back to "work". I think these and other issues can be rectified, and I have the time, patience, and experience to move them in a positive direction.

The boilerplate: I signed the WMF confidentiality agreement years ago, and will do so again if its wording has changed. My doppelganger accounts are listed on my user page [1], aside from one disclosed to ArbCom but not listed on my page for privacy reasons (I edit under my real name, and have used that alternative account occasionally – well within the legitimate uses provision – for editing controversial topics, to avoid data-mining).


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