David Gerard wrote job. I hope that all the successful candidates, who have had support across the community of Wiki-en, will also be supported by others now that a very open and democratic election process has proceeded to a conclusion. There seems no reason to doubt that as an institution it is, roughly speaking, what Wiki-en wants, and that the elected members are there because their general take on policy matters has a broad consensus behind it. I think the corollary to allowing wide freedom to comment in the public life of the community, in the elections, is that the thickness of required skin should not be constantly called upon in the day-to-day work of the ArbCom. Charles

A number of users used the endorsement page to disendorse candidates. Some of the disendorsements were in fact personal attacks. Several people tried to remove the disendorsements from the endorsement page - this led to accusations of censoring, cabalism, and election fraud. Lots of fun all round ;-) My thoughts exactly. When you stand for election you do put yourself in the firing line. But as an arbitrator you are going to piss off a certain class of editor. Namely the people up before the AC. These people are somewhat likely to be the sort to be, how shall I put it? - vocal in condemnation of you. You need to be able to take, insults and abuse in order to be an arbiter. Theresa

Rebecca (misfitgirl(a)gmail.com) [041222 23:04]: Perhaps it's just me, but looking at some of the disendorsements made me wish I'd gotten better ones than I did. Evidently I do love everyone. Goodness me! - d.

I don't really agree. It isn't wrong to consider people's past or private life, if, in fact, it is relevant. That may be hard to determine in a particular case, especially when slogans such as "interfering with the administration of justice" are being thrown around. Not paying costs for transporting and housing a witness in an ethics proceeding is a serious matter considered from the perspective of a court, but hardly relevant to Wikipedia. Aggressive and systematic point of view editing over a period of years, accompanied by bad faith denial, is a serious matter considered from the point of view of Wikipedia. I think we need to be able to talk about whatever someone considers relevant with respect to both candidates and existing arbitrators. With respect to CheeseDreams and her discovery of my legal problems, I can understand that upon this discovery she felt she had hit the jackpot and all her troubles would go away once she knocked her tormentor out of the matter. The problem is, she is involved in an Arbitration case due to the complaints of a number of people which resulted from a number of actions she has taken. Trying to change the focus won't work, even dropping the case wouldn't work as the underlying problem would continue to manifest. Most of the arbitration proceedings only happen after many attempts to somehow resolve matters at a lower level and indefinitely continuing with the status quo becomes very difficult. Fred

I'm faced with something I haven't seen before on Wikipedia. A self-confessed sockpuppet, Wiesenthaler, is making continual abusive comments, and edits that straddle the line of anti-Semitism. He has admitted he created the sockpuppet for the purpose of engaging the Jewish "gang" on Wikipedia. With people who break the 3 revert rule we now have an administrative remedy, but what can be done about a sockpuppet created for the purpose of abuse? A number of editors have already e-mailed about this, indicating how upset they are with this situation, and generally indicating that they are thinking of leaving Wikipedia. Can sockpuppets like this be banned, or must they be dragged through a 6-8 month Request for Comment, Mediation, Arbitration process, continuing to abuse and drive away Wikipedia editors, before finally being banned, only to then pop up as another sockpuppet? Jay.

Just block the account. The block policy is clear on this matter "Sockpuppets that were created to violate Wikipedia policy should be blocked permanently." Theresa

I had done it, but [[user:Ta bu shi da yu]] has undone it. UtherSRG On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 08:32:59 +1100, Rebecca <misfitgirl(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 17:01:06 -0500, JAY JG <jayjg(a)hotmail.com> wrote: And it has been redone for what I hope will be the final time, but this time the block has been fully and incontrovertibly explained. --Charles Podles ([[en:User:Mirv]])

Theresa Knott wrote: Yes, of course. There's a pretty clearcut difference between the difficult user who may be bringing in a valid but uncomfortable perspective on an article, and someone who is just deliberately trying to undermine the trust that our system rests upon. --Jimbo