Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 19:58, 6 December 2005

Jayjg

I'm Jayjg. I joined Misplaced Pages on June 15, 2004, was made an administrator on September 13, 2004, and in July of 2005 Jimmy Wales appointed me to the Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee. I'm a pretty active Misplaced Pages editor, having made over 30,000 edits.

I believe the Arbitration Committee is an unfortunate, but necessary, last step in Misplaced Pages's dispute resolution process. In the past I've felt and raised concerns about the effectiveness of all of the formal dispute resolution mechanisms (including mediation, RfC, and RfAr). RfAr in particular has suffered from slowness (mostly related, I believe, to having far too many inactive members), and from decisions that tended to be too narrow to be effective (e.g. prescribing remedies on one specific article, when the issue is an editor's behaviour in general). I think it's important for Arbitrators to keep in mind that our primary and ultimate goal here is to create a great encyclopedia.

I have found the Arbitration process itself quite interesting, but extremely time consuming; reading through the evidence on a single case can take many hours. I've been actively involved in almost all cases started after my appointment to the committee; in addition to regular involvement in votes on whether to accept or reject case, and regular contributions to the Arbitration Committee mail-list, I've also worked on the Skyring, Alfrem, Gabrielsimon, Ed Poor, AI, Coolcat, Davenbelle and Stereotek, Rktect, Rainbowwarrior1977, DotSix, Keetowah, Onefortyone, BigDaddy777, Everyking 3, Regarding The Bogdanov Affair, jguk 2, Louis Epstein, REX, Polygamy, Stevertigo, Lightbringer, Maoririder, Rex071404 4, Silverback, and Ultramarine cases. In the future I'd like to get even more involved in trying to build the workshop pages, which is where the decisions are crafted by the arbitrators, the involved parties, and any other member of the community who wants to make suggestions.

question from MPerel

In light of some of the more mean-spirited, provocative "questions" you've been asked, as an arbitrator, what do you think is the best course of action for dealing with annoying, troublesome, perpetual trolls? --MPerel 00:24, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

As an editor, I try to extend good faith until it becomes clear that it's misplaced; after that, I generally ignore them. As an arbitrator, I examine the evidence provided, review the relevant policies, add some common sense, and rule accordingly. Jayjg 00:39, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Question from Marsden

In my extensive experience with you, you have promoted and defended your POV with regard to matters related to Israel in ways that have been belligerent and contemptuous of the possibility that you are strongly biased in what you consider a neutral point of view. I do not know whether this is deliberate on your part or due to an honest blindspot in your thinking such that you are simply incapable of recognizing that yours is only one point of view among many, and that it is often completely biased. In any case, I consider your attitude to be a disqualifying characteristic for any sort of general arbitration function, and I intend, barring an unforeseen explanation from you, to campaign vigorously against your candidacy here.

In particular, I direct you to your activity in the Israeli-occupied territories article, and the reaction of other editors to it (, , , , , , ), and to the history of the Moroccan Wall edits from September 23 to October 7, in which you and a few editors who are often found supporting your positions in editing disputes obstructed the improvement of the article for over two weeks ().

I honestly cannot think of anything you could say in any reasonable amount of time to change my mind about you, but given that I am going to recommend that people oppose your candidacy, is there any sort of rebuttal you'd like to make to my characterization above of your behavior on Misplaced Pages?

Marsden 01:51, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Marsden you have made around 300 article edits, of which the majority are reverts. You have been blocked four times by four different administrators for trolling, disruption, and "vicious and mean-spirited attacks," which you've made against several editors, including Fred Bauder over an Arbitration Committee case you weren't even involved in. You have said that I am "evil", that I should "get used to having a stick held over head" because your role here is to "beat into submission". You'll therefore understand why I suspect your assessment in these matters is less than neutral, and why I don't bother answering your thinly veiled attacks cloaked in the guise of questions. Real questions on the subject of your attacks have already been answered, and I won't be responding to you any further. Jayjg 00:57, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for at least not completely ignoring my criticism of your behavior, Jayjg. I don't think, however, that I've ever said that my role here was to hold a stick over your head or to beat you into submission; it is more that that has seemed to be the only way to get you off of a POV position that you have decided to promote. Nor have I made any attacks against Fred Bauder, regardless of how you may characterize my comments to him. Marsden 01:15, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Question from Unbehagen

Why do you think you attract so much criticism as being an editor who agressively pushes pro-Israeli POV? How would you deal in situations where you are asked to arbitrate in disputes regarding this particular area of special interest for you? Unbehagen 12:41, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Given that the majority of your 35 or so Misplaced Pages article edits to date have been devoted to edit-warring on two articles, "Zionist terrorism" and "Israel-occupied territories", often reverting me, perhaps you should consider the possibility that your view of both Misplaced Pages and me are quite narrow, and your premises mistaken. As has been suggested before, please review the Fallacy of many questions and Begging the question. Jayjg 23:32, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Please review assume good faith and try answering me in a civil manner. I note that the "edit warring" you refer to was mostly with you. Indeed you have been censured for edit warring by the arb com itself - which I have not. Would you hold this out to be fit conduct for an Arb Com member? Unbehagen 23:37, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Question from Jfdwolff

Jayjg, my compliments on your hard ArbCom work so far. I would like to hear your views on one matter in particular, in extension of MPerel's question above. I recently came accross Raul654's Laws of Misplaced Pages. On this interesting page Mark makes some incisive observations about the dynamics of the Misplaced Pages community. Of particular interest is the first law:

Much of Misplaced Pages's content, and all of the day to day functions are overseen by a small core of the most dedicated contributors. These users are the most valuable resource Misplaced Pages has.

Corollary - Of these highly dedicated users who have left, the vast majority left as a result of trolls, vandals, and/or POV warriors - typically not as a result of any one particular user, but from the combined stress of dealing with many of them. Consequently, such problem users should be viewed as Misplaced Pages's biggest handicap.

I believe it is the view of many users that a well-functioning conflict resolution process on Misplaced Pages is still miles away. For example, there is no moderation of note on requests for comment, allowing cases to sizzle for weeks until they die out without clear resolution or consensus.

Having worked on various controversial articles in my areas of expertise I can understand why some dedicated users burn out or depart in exasperation. What measures do you think should be taken to streamline dispute resolution? Do you think it is time for the ArbCom to pass verdicts on NPOV disagreements to stop disruptive edit wars? What role does the ArbCom have in protecting the "highly dedicated users" Raul654 describes? JFW | T@lk 21:14, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

As I said in my candidate statement, I see the weaknesses in Misplaced Pages's dispute resolution mechanisms as a serious issue, which is why I think it's so important to have a functioning Arbitration Committee. Raul654 is quite right: many "highly dedicated" (and I might add, highly contributing) editors have been driven away by trolls, vandals, and POV warriors. That said, I still don't think the correct solution is for the Arbitration Committee to get into content disputes, which often require expert knowledge to resolve properly. Rather, I think Misplaced Pages has a set of content policies (WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:V) and guidelines (WP:CITE), and behaviour policies (WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL) and guidelines (WP:FAITH, WP:POINT) which, when adhered to, make it extremely difficult for disruptive editors to have their way. Nevertheless, for editors who refuse to abide by these policies and guidelines, yet are smart enough to avoid being pure vandals or so outrageously disruptive that they are banned by community consensus, there must be a highly functional Arbitration Committee, which can examine these issues and rapidly and accurately rule on them, in order to ensure that policy is respected. Jayjg 00:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, Jay. Would you support ArbCom-appointed mediators with an expertise in debated subjects to provide mediation as an ArbCom proxy in situations of content dispute? JFW | T@lk 01:33, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I've been intermittently involved in discussions about how one could go about ensuring accurate content. As it stands, I have concerns about this idea's practical usefulness. Misplaced Pages has hundreds of thousands of articles, certainly tens of thousands of areas of "expert knowledge" - how would one go about finding and appointing experts in each area? How would one ensure that they really were experts, and unbiased (experts can often be biased as well)? And, even if they weren't biased, how would you assess the inevitable complaints from holders of minority views that the experts were biased? Other encyclopedia's deal with this issue by simply appointing an expert to write an article; given that we are not going to follow that route, I think it is more practical to simply insist on adherence to our content policies (e.g WP:NPOV, WP:V) and guidelines. It might be easier to create a committee which ensured adherence to those policies, and that committee would not necessarily need to be made up of experts in the specific subject areas. Jayjg 23:33, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Form Question from karmafist

Many policies contradict and overlap with each other, and then WP:IAR makes things even more complicated while making them paradoxically more flexible. When two or more policies apply and conflict, what do you do? karmafist 18:41, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

In my experience, the policies generally don't contradict one another; rather, they tend to support each other, and, as a whole, are an excellent foundation upon which a great encyclopedia can be built. Of course, if there are any contradictions, the only solution is to use common sense. Jayjg 00:07, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Questions from SlimVirgin

Hi Jay, you edit some of the most contentious articles on Misplaced Pages: those about the Arab-Israeli conflict, anti-Semitism, Zionism, and related areas. This means you’re used to dealing with conflict, because the nationalist, pro-Israeli editors feel their POV is under-represented, while the pro-Palestinian editors look at the same article but see the opposite, so neither "side" is ever happy and you’re stuck in the middle. Then there are the trolls and disruptive editors, who focus on you because you stand up to them.

Can you say something about whether your experiences have helped you understand how to handle conflict, and how that understanding would help the arbitration committee and the community if you were elected? Can you also say what it feels like to have to constantly fend off the trolls and the bad-faith users, because it’s clear that some of them target you, even to the extent of trying to turn this page into yet another platform for their attacks. We’ve had a spate of good editors leave recently because of the stress of dealing with disruptive editors, but you’re still here: do the attacks upset you, and if they do, what keeps you going? SlimVirgin 00:01, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

In answer to your questions:

1) Have your experiences "helped you to understand how to handle conflict"?

Absolutely. What it has taught me more than anything is how important Misplaced Pages's policies are. I've never seen a dispute that didn't resolve itself when everyone started editing in accordance with the policies, or wouldn't have been resolved had everyone done so. That's why the work of the Arbitration Committee is so important, because it's there to uphold policy, and the policies are the only things that ensure that Misplaced Pages doesn't turn into a POV rant or personal blog. Sometimes, when there has been a lot of emotion on a page, and there always is when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, there's a sense of relief all round when people start applying the WP:NPOV and WP:NOR policies. The editors on each side start to respect each other, even if they’ve been fighting hard; they start to read and evaluate each other's sources instead of letting everything get personal, so the whole experience becomes more intellectual and more enjoyable. I've seen sworn enemies develop long-term mutual respect after editing experiences like that - it's actually quite moving. And then just as everything settles down, a new editor arrives on the page, and it all starts up again. :-) Jayjg 00:15, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

2) "How that understanding would help the arbitration committee and the community if you were elected?

I have a solid understanding of our policies. I would continue to enforce them rigorously and continue to be even-handed in doing so. People have asked whether I could do that fairly in disputes involving the Arab-Israeli conflict and the answer is definitely yes, because so long as the policies are applied, they almost always suggest their own answers. But having said that, one must use common sense as well. I'm not afraid to support stern remedies for bad-faith editors who are trolling and wikilawyering. I have made more edits than any other Arbitration Committee member, and I edit in areas of Misplaced Pages that attract passion and controversy. I feel I have the experience and maturity to be able to tell the difference between the editors who care about Misplaced Pages but might have been goaded into making an error, and the ones who are essentially troublemakers who contribute little or nothing to the project. I'd try to make sure that common sense always wins the day, and what that means in practical terms is that if you appear before the arbitration committee with good intentions, a history of good edits, and are open and honest, you'll find that I'm likely to give you the benefit of the doubt, even if you've made some mistakes. Jayjg 00:25, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

3) "Do the attacks upset you, and if they do, what keeps you going?"

Well, I do find them upsetting – not so much because of what they say, but because of the obvious malice that underlies them. It's disappointing to know there is so much hatred in the world. Still, when it happens, I try to keep the words of Epictetus in mind: "If you hear that someone is speaking ill of you, instead of trying to defend yourself you should say: 'He obviously does not know me very well, since there are so many other faults he could have mentioned'". :-) Jayjg 00:30, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Question from Carbonite

Misplaced Pages currently has sufficient resources and policies to deal with vandals and blatant trolls. However, there exists a population of users who may act uncivil and "trollish", but also contribute positively (to varying degrees) to Misplaced Pages. These users may obey the letter of policies, but excel at violating the spirit of them (i.e. "If a policy doesn't specifically prohibit an action, I can do it.") Often, these "semi-trolls" can take an immense amount of time and effort to deal with (by admins and other users). Without discussing any specific cases, how do you think the ArbCom should handle these users? Carbonite | Talk 16:33, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

You're right; in fact, this is often what the Committee ends up having to deal with, "grey area" editors, who are not quite disruptive enough to get banned by community consensus, yet sufficiently disruptive that other editors eventually feel it is worth the effort (and risks) involved in taking them to Arbitration. In the past the Arbitration Committee's remedies have tended to be fairly restricted in their scope, focussing on a single article, or perhaps a single subject; subsequent to the ruling, the individuals have simply switched their attention to some other article or area, and it all starts again. Recognizing this, I have been working hard to ensure that the Committee focuses on general behaviour, and crafts broad enough remedies that the behaviour itself ceases, so that other editors are not constantly running into this problem, wasting more time, getting more frustrated, etc. Jayjg 23:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Questions from User:-Ril-

The following questions are for each candidate, and do not specifically target you

Do you hold any strong political or religious opinions (e.g. concerning George Bush, Islam, or on which end you should break a boiled egg)? If so, would you recuse yourself from cases centred on these?

I have strong opinions on almost every subject; sometimes they're even well-informed. ;-) As for recusal, I think the key is to know yourself, and know policy. If you stick to looking at the evidence, and ruling on policy alone, it's hard to go wrong. In cases where I have been asked to recuse, I have also sought and followed the advice of all of the other members of the Arbitration Committee (past and present). Jayjg 23:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

How willing are you to contest the decisions of other arbitrators rather than just "go with the flow"?

Yes, and I have done so. Jayjg 23:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Do you view all requests to re-address cases, particularly requests made by those most penalised, as being automatically without merit?

No, of course not. I evaluate each of them on their individual merits. Jayjg 23:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

In the case against Yuber, it was decided by the arbitration committee that it is the duty of arbitrators to investigate, and rule on the behaviour of not only one party involved, but all of them. Do you support this decision? Does your visible behaviour on recent cases reflect this decision?

I've actually been a strong opponent of the Arbitration Committee "making" cases rather than ruling on them. I feel that it is critical to keep the investigative, prosecutorial, and judicial branches separate. If judges are also police and lawyers, it puts too much power in the hands of the judges. Jayjg 23:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

--Victim of signature fascism 16:47, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Question from BDell555

Do you believe that activities by editors outside of Misplaced Pages are relevant to a determination of whether a given user is a disruptive Wikiuser or "troll"? Should those activities be monitored, and if so by whom? Could you please comment on the banning of User:Amalekite in this context, and any infractions committed by that particular user within Misplaced Pages. Also, could you cite an example of where you have ever disagreed with your fellow candidate User:Jpgordon on what to do with a problem editor?Bdell555 07:38, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Some questions being asked of all the candidates by jguk

Q: How old are you and what do you do? (If student, please state what subjects you are studying.)

A: I'm in my forties and work in management.

Q: How many hours a month do you think you will need to be a good Arbitrator and are you really willing to put in the time?

A: I'd be willing to put in around 40 hours a month. There's a need for candidates able to put in the time to help craft the actual decisions, and I'd like to be part of that process, so I'd put in more time as the need arose.

Q: If chosen, you will need to arbitrate on disputes arising from the creation or revision of articles. Experience of creating and revising articles yourself, particularly where it has involved collaboration, is very valuable in understanding the mindset of disputants who come to arbitration. With reference to your own edits in the main article namespace, please demonstrate why you think you have the right experience to be a good arbitrator.

A: I edit in high-conflict areas, and as I've said above, having a thorough knowledge of policy is the best way to resolve conflict, and I have that. I've also developed a good sense of when an editor is acting in good faith and when not, and that experience has already helped my work with the Arbitration Committee.

Q: Please list out what other Misplaced Pages usernames you have edited under.

A: User:Jayjg1

Follow-up to jguk's question from Marsden

It is interesting that you work in management, and yet you have been able regularly to make, per an earlier estimate of mine, an average of 15 Misplaced Pages edits per hour for over 8 hours a day (usually corresponding closely to regular working hours), 5+ days a week. And this largely in addition to, by your estimate above, 40 hours a month of ArbCom time. I guess the question most Wikipedians would like you to answer is, where do you work and are they hiring? My question, however, is, does participating in Misplaced Pages fulfill part or all of your employment duties? And if it does, to what end are you employed to participate in Misplaced Pages? Marsden 19:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)