Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2025/Candidates/SilverLocust/Questions

Individual questions

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The majority of ArbCom's workload is in handling private matters, not public ones such as cases. Can you please elaborate on how you will handle the large volume of private work the Committee receives? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 00:20, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am open to software recommendations from current arbitrators. As I understand it, funding for specialized case management software is not in the picture. Beyond staying on top of emails, my impression is that it is useful to have a Daniel making sure things get resolved (per motion).
I'm asking this question of all candidates who have not previously served a term on the Committee. As I noted in my first question, much of the Committee's work happens behind the scenes. The Committee mailing list thus includes reports about many people, and frank assessments by both non-arbs and arbitrators of the behavior of other editors. Despite admonitions against doing so, there is a sort of macabre temptation for new arbitrators to search their own name in the ArbCom archives. How would you handle finding an unflattering report or frank assessment of you in the archives? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 00:31, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If I found any private complaints about me in the arbcom-en archives, I would consider it private correspondence not to be publicly shared and I would be recused from handling it.
The Arbitration Policy says To hear appeals from blocked, banned, or otherwise restricted users is one of the duties and responsibilities of the Arbitration Committee. In what ways do you see ArbCom following or not following the duty and responsibility it has in this way? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:45, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the current approach of primarily hearing appeals that involve private evidence or appeals of the Arbitration Committee's own decisions. For appeals of OS and CU blocks, I would prefer to defer to functionaries with CU/OS access unless they reach no consensus.
How much has your time as an Arbcom clerk helped prepare you for this role? GothicGolem29 (Talk) 01:27, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For the most part it just has made me more familiar with arbitration procedures, with arbitrators' expectation of behavior on arbitration pages, and with many of the current arbitrators.
Thank you for standing as a candidate. Please describe the characteristics that you believe make for an effective arbitrator. Please describe the characteristics from that list that you possess, and identify the ones that you do not possess. (Note that it is impossible for any one person to have all of the characteristics that would make for an ideal arbitrator; it would be surprising if you were unable to identify any such characteristics that you do not personally have.) Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 01:33, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
ArbCom's primary role is in hearing disputes, and as with any adjudicatory role it is essential for an arbitrator to be fair and open-minded. However, I don't think the most effective arbitrators are very different from other arbitrators in how neutral and reasonable (and so forth) they are, and I don't have reservations about myself as to those attributes. Rather, as with most things on Wikipedia, the most valuable and limiting resource we have is volunteers' time (in this instance the many hours arbitrators need to devote to consider various incoming requests and other tasks of the Committee). The best arbitrators in my consideration tend to be those who have gone above and beyond in the time they have contributed to the Committee, often over many years. If elected, I am willing to devote substantial time to the role, but I cannot claim that I would be perfect in that respect or that I would be unusual among arbitrators in the amount of time that I am able to devote to the role.
Recently, the Arbitration Committee took the extraordinary step of consenting to the public release by an individual arbitrator of information shared by the WMF in confidence (including by breaking the ANPDP [Access to Nonpublic Personal Data Policy]) in relation to the WCNA incident. Under what circumstances, if any, do you believe that the Committee should publish material that was (a) shared with the Committee in confidence and/or (b) prohibited from disclosure under the Access to Nonpublic Personal Data Policy? Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 01:33, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
ArbCom is authorized to make an exception to ANPDP when "(1) a sanction is necessary and (2) disclosure of Nonpublic Personal Data in their decision is reasonably believed to be necessary for community safety or transparency purposes". To more plausibly fall within that exception, I would have included in the announcement an ArbCom ban for Gapazoid and an admonishment of the Wikimedia Foundation to (1) devote more of its resources to trust and safety and (2) acquiesce in any reasonable request from the community or (with respect to private evidence) its elected representatives.
The U4C currently requires its members (voting and non-voting) to be on Discord as a core part of our workflow. ArbCom does some work on Discord currently but does not require it. As a person who is active on Discord, do you support the status quo and if so how will you balance Discord and onlist discussion, and if not how do you think it should change? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:16, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am open to other communications means that are secure, archived, and accessible for arbitrators and people sending requests. I'd need to see more specifics on whether Discord meets those criteria.
While most editors could simply walk away from a dispute whenever they choose, arbitrators have to work closely with a fairly large team of other people for an extended period of time. They do not get to self-select, they may disagree with each other strongly, and they still have to maintain good working relationships with each other, even under pressure. How do you plan to adapt to this shift in your working environment? Elli (talk | contribs) 03:53, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Y'all arbitrators aren't so bad, Elli, and I am used to disagreeing agreeably. It's not unusual to have colleagues who you haven't personally chosen (much more unusual to work only with those you prefer, really). I can't think of any of you (or my fellow candidates) who seem difficult to work with – and in running I've decided I would be interested in working with you all.
Assume you see an editor who is blatantly POV-pushing. They make sure to always stay within our policies and guidelines, and you can't find any incriminating evidence against them. They have not edit-warred, have not met the criteria for bludgeoning, have not engaged in personal attacks (they may be the most civil individual you've met), have not fabricated sources, and have not publicly or privately stated any intent to push a certain POV. They have a clean block log, and may even have a few good or featured articles under their belt. However, they always vote for the side they support, bending or selectively applying policies to fit their rationale. The community is well-aware of this, but can't do anything since they haven't violated any of our policies, and they know that discussing this onwiki would be seen as casting aspersions. You are aware that some community members have left the topic area because of having to deal with this editor (or perhaps several such editors, on all sides). How would you deal with this type of editor as an admin and as an arbitrator? To be absolutely clear, I don't have anyone in mind. I'm just aware that this is a problem previous committees have tried to tackle with varying levels of success. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 04:06, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
POV pushing is itself a policy violation, and the selective wikilawyering you describe is also, among other things, gaming the system and battleground behavior. In past cases, there has been evidence submitted purporting to show a pattern of partisan voting (supports/opposes) in formal discussions. That sort of evidence (if persuasive) is a strong basis for at least a topic ban. Even if the evidence isn't very convincing, so long as a commenter specifies what evidence they are relying on to conclude that another editor is pushing a POV, that wouldn't be casting aspersions (which on Wikipedia refers to doing so without evidence).
What have you done to prepare yourself to understand the arbitration committee's workload, and to manage your time to handle it? isaacl (talk) 04:06, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have seen (or in some cases heard) current and former arbitrators describe the workload. There isn't anything in particular I have done to manage my time if elected, though I don't have a very busy life currently (beyond, well, having a job).
When, if at all, do you think it is appropriate for ArbCom to sanction or warn a user without a minimal onwiki disclosure of the reasoning? What about ArbCom not disclosing the existence of the sanction or warning at all? theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 04:09, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The reasoning needs to be disclosed except to the extent private information must be withheld. Even when private evidence is involved, the broad reason for a sanction should be noted (such as sockpuppetry, harassment, or off-site coordination) rather than a generic reason like "{{ArbComBlock}}". Additionally, private evidence should be provided to the accused person so far as practicable.
Do you agree to put Wikipedia readers first in every ARBCOM decision? (t · c) buidhe 04:25, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In short, yes. My goal would be to disincentivize conduct that detracts from the interests of readers. Note, however, that the Wikipedia:Readers first principle (and the interest of readers generally) is primarily about the content of articles, which the Arbitration Committee does not directly rule upon.
Besides all its other duties, ArbCom is sometimes not just a deliberative body, but a representative of the EN-Wikipedia editing community. If you were representing us, what would you say or do about the removal of Lane and Ravan from last month's WMF board election? --GRuban (talk) 14:58, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would communicate community concerns to the WMF and (for transparency) would support disclosing inadequate responses by the WMF. Personally I will not participate in WMF pseudo-elections (or donate to the WMF) until the board is selected by the community, and I would encourage others not to either. I encourage the WMF Board to reform itself and would support petitions to that effect.
ArbCom is regularly in a drought of clerks. What do you think about the position now, having done the work of one? Do you have ideas about the position that would help the drought besides "advertise some more"? For example, there are regular contemplations about removing the position entirely. Izno (talk) 00:19, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
At the moment I certainly don't think we are in a drought, considering the many new clerks. I do think it's useful for the Committee to have some people available to carry out tasks, including maintaining and updating arbitration templates and case pages. I think the natural response is to seek more clerks when needed. However, I do find it helpful to reduce menial work, as with some modules I created that we use to somewhat automate counting of votes by arbitrators (apart from conditional/second-choice votes).
What should be done by ArbCom, by the community, and by the WMF, to address the use of large language models and similar artificial intelligence in Wikipedia? Robert McClenon (talk) 06:01, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I consider that a matter for the community, not ArbCom or the WMF (except to the extent the community seeks tools from the WMF in dealing with problems). ArbCom does encounter LLM use in many of the communications people send these days. On that front, I believe the correct approach is for ArbCom to ask that submissions be written by humans and not the output of a prompt.
There have sometimes been said to be unblockable editors. These editors often actually have long block logs, so that they are not really unblockable, so much as unbannable, in that there is no community consensus on how to deal with them. Should ArbCom sometimes accept cases about particular editors? Robert McClenon (talk) 06:01, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, ArbCom is well situated to resolve disputes where the community has been unable to reach a consensus, including based on long-standing issues with a highly active, "unblockable" user. (Though any dispute will inevitably have other involved parties, even if only one party ends up sanctioned.)
What lessons did you learn from our interaction last year? DS (talk) 01:05, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Should ArbCom remedies ever require administrators to take specific actions, removing their discretion to evaluate individual circumstances? More specifically, what do you think of the requirement in WP:CT/A-I to apply extended confirmed protection by default without requiring prior disruption or even recent editing activity on articles, and the effect of this on WP:RFPP? Daniel Quinlan (talk) 07:13, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]