My views on the Arbitration Committee and my views on the process as well as my platform for my candidacy are as follows:

  • Personal discipline and transparency - I pledge to keep an open mind about every situation that lands before the committee and carefully examine both sides before making an opinion as to the dispute/situation. This goes for voting on proposed decisions, to accept or reject cases and motions as well as any other votes that would take place if I were a member of the Audit Subcommittee or Ban Appeals Subcommittee.
  • Case length - Cases take too long, one to two months should be the maximum time unless there were exceptional circumstances. Cases the past few years have lasted as long as six months which is clearly an unacceptable time to leave a dispute without a resolution.
  • Effective sanctions - Sanctions, when they are imposed, need to be effective. Having sanctions that the sanctioned editor can easily game their way out of is a situation even worse that a disruptive editor without any active sanctions at all.
  • Improved communication - The committee needs to improve its communication with both the community in general as well as internally and with the clerks. While I have little to no first-hand knowledge of the problems that do exist internally, it is clear that problems do exist and they need to be fixed. The implementation of the noticeboard is an excellent start, but there also should be a place for discussion of miscellaneous issues that are not related to a current or recently resolved arbitration request.

I do not for a second want the community to think that I would be a magic wand and be able to fix the problems immediately. I pledge to make the utmost effort to do all that I can to implement reforms to fix the problems that I have identified above. -MBK004