User:Vanamonde93/ACE guide
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I am not going to share a complete list of my votes. Often my choice of supports is decided by the thinnest of margins, and I see no purpose in offending qualified and respected colleagues. I am sharing what I look for in candidates in the hope that it will be useful.
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My strongest recommendation is: Do your research! The qualities below are what I look for, but regardless of what your personal criteria are, an editor’s entire record will tell you much more than their candidate statement. No single editor is likely to possess all of these qualities, but that’s why ARBCOM is a committee.
I focus my research on candidates’ contributions to challenging discussions. This includes contributions to noticeboards (ANI/AN/AE, RSN, etc), content discussions requiring collaboration (FAC, FAR, GAN, DYK, AfD, PR, etc), user talk conduct disputes, and project-wide discussions.
For the record, I have been an admin for 9 years, and a functionary for 7. I am active admin at arbitration enforcement, and I do content work in multiple contentious topics. I have never been on ARBCOM. Weigh my opinions with that in mind.
Criteria
- Policy knowledge. Obvious, perhaps, but arbitrators need to understand the nuances of the policies they are required to enforce. At the same time, they must have a sense of priority with respect to policy. Our policy framework is immense, complex, and self-contradictory. Not all policies and guidelines are created equal: neutrality and verifiability, for example, are central.
- This is best evidenced through noticeboard contributions. Skillful and insightful handling of conduct disputes, particularly at arbitration enforcement, is one of my favorite indicators of a good arbitrator. Taking a superficial approach to conflict resolution, doing a poor job of explaining oneself, or fixating on trivialities of process, are red flags.
- Patience and even temperament. Arbitrators will take a lot of flak, and need to be able to remain calm and explain themselves when their good faith is being questioned.
- Good indications of this are how they have reacted to previous challenges to their actions, on their user talk pages or at noticeboards.
- Self-reflectiveness. This is a quality I value very highly in arbitrators (and admins in general). We’re all imperfect people trying to do difficult tasks. Doing them well requires being able to reevaluate your position and to admit errors.
- As above, how does a user react when challenged? Are they able to recognize their mistakes and show learning, or do they insist that they are open to criticism, while being intransigent?
- Insight & analytical ability. Our most intractable disputes involve a variety of misconduct. Arbitrators need to be able to look beyond superficialities to deal with, for instance, civil POV-pushing.
- I find skillful handling of noticeboard reports to be the best indicator of this skill, but insightful discussion closes are also useful.
- Open-mindedness. The ability to set aside pre-conceived ideas and opinions is critical. Arbitrators are expected to recuse when too close to a subject, but will still need to adjudicate matters on which they have opinions, and need to do so dispassionately.
- A lot of different areas can show an ability to examine evidence with an open mind. These include content work, AfD participation, and participation in project-wide discussions.
- Collaboration and ability to de-escalate. Arbitrators need to work through disagreement. We have many editors who, having formed an opinion, refuse to give ground: these are a poor fit for the committee. Individuals who handle collaborative discussions badly enough for them to become conflicts are also a poor fit.
- I look for evidence of collaborativeness in long content or policy-related discussions on article talk pages, in content review processes, or at noticeboards. Evidence of fomenting conflict is usually found in noticeboard histories and user talk histories.
- Courage to speak up. By virtue of handling most private evidence of misconduct, and by interfacing with the WMF, arbitrators are often going to be the first to become aware of some awkward problems. I would like our committee to be brave enough to tackle these when they arise (see, for a good example of this, the statement related to WCNA ‘25). My previous point notwithstanding, sometimes trouble is worth starting.
- Has the candidate flagged problems with another editor (or, sometimes, wider problems) when it became necessary? Did they do so respectfully, and in the right forum? How do they discuss their own role, if any, in the situation?
- Content experience. Yes, really. ARBCOM does not adjudicate content matters, but the line between content and conduct isn’t always clear. Contentious topics are rife with editors who engage in selective reading, source misrepresentation, and original research, contributing thereby to our most insidious NPOV problems. Arbitrators need to be able to detect such behavior, and in my view content experience helps considerably.
- Writing content on difficult topics is a good indicator of an understanding of content policy. But so is the ability to mediate a difficult content discussion, or insightful participation in content review processes.