If I used specific examples that would distract you from the underlying problems why arbcom is ineffective in resolving disputes. - White Cat On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 5:47 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 21/03/2008, White Cat <wikipedia.kawaii.neko(a)gmail.com> wrote: And if you don't, we have only your word for what these underlying problems are. If you want to make accusations, you have to give evidence to support them.

On 21/03/2008, White Cat <wikipedia.kawaii.neko(a)gmail.com> wrote: That's not how it works. You start with specifics and then generalise. Trying to do it backwards doesn't work (what's the point in discussing specific cases once you've already established the general case?). You wish a particular action to take place (disbanding arbcom), so the burden of proof is on you. Present your evidence.

I'd give White Cat one more chance to actually present evidence before killfileing the thread.

On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 8:48 AM, Christiano Moreschi <moreschiwikiman(a)hotmail.co.uk> wrote: I suspect quite a lot of users would agree that we should take a harder line on some people; however, I'm not sure that there is wide agreement on WHICH people. One person's troll is another person's unfairly maligned good user, I find. Arbcom suffers from the well-known and far from unique problems of committees (slow to decide, cautious). However, being quick and rash isn't necessarily the right thing either. -Matt

Arbcom takes a lot of time to make quick and rash decisions. You hardly see extensive discussions by arbitrators on workshops or proposed decisions anymore On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 5:57 PM, Matthew Brown <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 21/03/2008, Christiano Moreschi <moreschiwikiman(a)hotmail.co.uk> wrote: No, not exactly private. -- Alex (Majorly) http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Majorly

Well, I don't see it. Private enough... On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 6:15 PM, Majorly <axel9891(a)googlemail.com> wrote:

Be fair. If you ask, the arbitrators will usually provide their reasoning, even though it may be bad reasoning. Now and then they provide reasoning without being asked. I don't view this as a major problem as far as ArbCom operations are concerned. CM Odi profanum vulgus et arceo. _________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the next generation of Windows Live http://www.windowslive.co.uk/get-live

White Cat wrote: In my experience, this is not true. If there are real problems, then please bring me a specific detailed case in which the ArbCom really got something badly wrong. There is an appeal mechanism, after all. And in my experience, the ArbCom is eager to correct errors, examine everything to see where the evidence leads, etc. Not all the work is public, and for good reason. There are frank and thoughtful discussions about how to best defuse difficult situations, etc. --Jimbo

I'm afraid Jimbo that is not my experience of the Arbcom, I regard them as spiteful and vengeful, not qualities needed in an Arb. More interested in maintaining their own status quo than in the encyclopedia. In my opinion many of them need replacing, and even more of them removing from the Arb's mailing list. Giano On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 11:20 PM, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:

You, David, im my opinion are a great part of the problem. Many editors, rightly or wrongly, do not trust you. Giano On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 12:03 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 22/03/2008, Giacomo M-Z <solebaciato(a)googlemail.com> wrote: This does not in fact contradict or indeed address anything I said, nor that you managed to set a new record for the tolerance extended to a good writer with difficulty working with others in a civil manner in the hope of them shaping up. - d.

White Cat wrote: Maybe some people are expecting too much from Arbcom. So what, then, should be the scope of Arbcom's authority. They should not be ruling on content. They should not be writing policy. Most cases should have had evidence reviewed and rulings made long before the matter became a case with Arbcom. They would then review the case when asked to determine if there had been any errors in the earlier decision. There must be some reason why you haven't read the entire document. One can only presume that Arbcom members have similar reasons.Scrolling only through the TOC was onerous enough. "Good proposals" itself is a subjective judgement. My guess is that everyone who makes a proposal believes that it is good. Voting on every proposal is absurd. In giving the proposers the benefit of the doubt it is more likely that each has some elements of value, and a straight up or down vote is likely to oversimplify. A single synthesis makes more sense. The pay rate of the arbitrators is not calibrated to giving detailed attention to every proposed solution. Does not having the time to give detailed consideration to every proposal count as random conspiracy? Being ignored is a fact of life that one has to learn to live with. I can't begin to outline the number of times my excellent ideas have been ignored; proceeding in a spirit of forgiveness keeps my feet on the ground. Fair enough. It's hard to imagine anything worse for them to do. We don't need for the Arbcom to be trolled into individually compromising expressions of views. The maxim "Don't feed the trolls," There is nothing in the job description asking them to swim in piranha infested waters. Their rationale should accompany their decision. Ec

White Cat wrote: Don't impute to me things that I didn't OK Are we dealing with the Arbcom in general, or your own personal problem with them? Then why bother bringing it up. If you had no reason to look at it, why would you have any reason to complain about what is or is not in it.. Looking at and reading its contents does not imply an obligation to comment on evry drive-by rant. If they find a good idea they use it, and adjust their decision accordingly. I get the impression that what you mean by talking with them is getting into exchanges with the peanut gallery. It's a an arbitration not a mediation. They can ask questions, and they can issue a decision. Going much beyond that brings their credibility into question. Ec

White Cat wrote: OK. Maybe some did, but I didn't, so I can let that issue go, on the basis of misunderstanding. I didn't know we were keeping logs of who has only looked at the page. Voluntary compromise is the aim of mediation. By the time it gets to Arbcom one assumes that all attempts at mediation have failed. Hearing evryone's perspective is not the same as commenting on every perspective that's expressed. Private obiter is exploitable by those who want to restrict the arbitrator into a particular system of bias. They then have an excuse for arguing that he should recuse himself for bias, when they really mean that he should recuse himself because he won't support their point of view. True it's not a "legal court system"; it's much less than that, but if over the years the courts have developed useful rule of practice there is no problem to adopting them. It isn't talking to the arbitrators that compromises their credibility; the compromises arise when they answer all those comments directly. Ec.

On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 7:39 PM, Matthew Brown <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote: Right /workshops are entirely unnecesary at the moment. Not talking at all does not save arbitrators from accusations. They will never avoid such a thing as almost always there will be an unsatisfied party or parties. There should be no excuse why arbcom supposed to play the Almighty. - White Cat

On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 8:57 AM, Matthew Brown <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote: There's a dynamic tension between individual admins, the "community consensus" as a whole, the admin community consensus, and Arbcom (and, sometimes, OTRS or the Office or senior staff, but usually not). These all have different roles that are played. It's REALLY REALLY GOOD to have checks and balances, more proactive aspects and more deliberative aspects to the overall governance scheme. Of all the online projects I am aware of, this is not only the largest in terms of active participation, but also the best governed in the sense of structurally having adapted relatively rapidly when serious problems show up. That is not to say that there isn't room for improvement. But a lot of what Arbcom does is a feature, not a bug. Even if it bugs people sometimes. There was a time when admins individually or collectively imposed "a pox on both your houses" more often in disputes. There was a time when admins tended to take a side in a dispute in a more unipolar manner and other parties would get a short shift, even on legitimate concerns. There's less of that happening now outside glaringly obvious abuse cases, which has slowed down arbitrary admin and admin community consensus responses. That doesn't mean Arbcom should wield a swifter or harder hammer. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

To the moderator, please approve this very lengthly post. It will be analyzed slowly. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My frustration developed in the past 3 years actually. Whenever I brought up a case on arbcom it was either rejected or accepted but once concluded the end result resolved nothing. I can for example post my first arbitration case which hurt me more than the person I was complaining against. All following text is summarized in this graph because I know no one would read all of this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Episodes_an… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Coolcat%2C_… Case lasted betweem 24 July and- 5 October 2005. My claim was that three users were wiki-stalking/harassing me. Case was filed over this reason. As a result, - I was indefinately banned from mediating unless officially appointed to the Mediation Committee. Like Mediation Committee will officially appoint someone sanctioned from mediation... - All my mediation attempts failed thanks to the interference of the people I was accuse of stalking. My usefulness as a mediator aside, arbcom pretty much omitted their involvement on all of the failed mediation cases - Cool Cat is prohibited from moving the comments of others around on the talk page of any article or any user talk page other than his own. Additionally he is not permitted to archive any talk page other than his own. Cool Cat may make no edit to a talk page which is not at the end of a section unless he begins a new section at the bottom of the page. This restriction shall last for one year. - This was because Fadix kept embedding text within my posts for example if I were to post a two paragraph post. Fadix would post in the middle of it. This not only destroyed the meaning but it also created an unsigned paragraph - Cool Cat is, for one year, placed under a mentorship as follows: If Coolcat should disruptively edit articles relating to Turkey or the Kurds (or on mostly-unrelated articles with sections dealing with Turkey or the Kurds, such as the Armenian Holocaust on Holocaust<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust>)t>), an admin may block him for a short time, up to three days. - I recieved numerous complaints to my mentors. All from the people I accused of stalking me which finally annoyed the mentors after two months. This was what arbcom threw at me. In return arbcom ruled "Davenbelle <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Davenbelle> (talk<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Davenbelle> *·* contribs<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Davenbelle&g…)e>), Stereotek <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Stereotek> (talk<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Stereotek> *·* contribs <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Stereotek>), and Fadix <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fadix> (talk<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Fadix> *·* contribs <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Fadix>) are counseled to let other editors and administrators take the lead in monitoring Cool Cat<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Cool_Cat&action=e… (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cool_Cat> *·*contribs<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Cool_Cat>). If subsequent proceedings which involve Cool Cat show that he has been hounded by them, substantial penalties may be imposed." Basically they kindly ask my stalkers to stop. That did not happen for another two months. Then Davenbelle left wikipedia Fadix and Steriotek (aka Karl Meier) left me alone. All good right? No. Davenbelle returned with a new username: Moby Dick. After months of stalking. A new arbitration case was filed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Moby_Dick Case lasted between 16 June and 13 August 2006 - Moby Dick is banned from editing articles which concern Turkey or Kurdish issues - Moby Dick is prohibited from harassing or stalking Cool Cat or Megaman Zero. - Should, in the opinion of any administrator, Moby Dick make any edit which constitutes harassment of Cool Cat or Megaman Zero, he may be briefly blocked, for up to a month in the event of repeat offenses. After five blocks, the maximum block shall increase to one year. All bans to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Moby Dick#Log of blocks and bans<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Mob…ns>. This remedy may be expanded in scope to include harassmennt of any other user if, in the opinion of at least three administrators, it is deemed necessary. So all I got out of arbcom by 13 August 2006 was a very serious warning to Moby Dick/Davenbelle Regardless, harassment lasted till 22 August. Then Moby Dick fell into inactivity. A curious new user (User:Diyarbakir) started editing between 13 September - 4 November. Then he vanished. User pretended being a kurd and made edits that would have been consistent with a "ultra-nationalist kurd". Not that this is a crime but I will tell you why this is significant below. With an 81 Day gap Moby Dick returned editing stalking some more between 12 december and 18 december. Then he dissapeared again. On mid January Moby Dick stalked me to commons. Unlike enwiki commons has a level of common sense that awes you average wikipedian. He was shown the door. His harassment campaign ended instantly. With a 68 day gap Diyarbakir returned stalking and continue to do so with various gaps. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Moby_D… Between 26 Apr - 2 May a block discussion on Diyarbakir has started. I filed a checkuser case suspecting he could be a banned user. Checkuser revealed something that came a s a shock to me. Diyarbakir was infact editing from the same IP as Moby Dick. So the person pretending to be a "ultra-nationalist kurd" was in fact Moby Dick/Davenbelle. The user was FINALY indef blocked. What arguing between 1 July 2005 and 2 May 2007 finaly came to a close or so I thought. A user Jack Merridew registered a week earlier than the block discussion mentioned above. User registered practically a day after Diyarbakir's last edit. I had peace and quiet between 2 May and 27 July. This was my first contact with Jack Merridew at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Admiral_%28Sta… 27 Jul 2007. The article serries was also an interest to Davenbelle Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Comparative Ranks and Insignia of Star Trek<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Compar… He was also present during the Porthos (Star Trek) AFD among other things. Later on Jack Merridew blanked/redirectified about 100 Oh My Goddess! related articles. Practicaly all of them. Oh My Goddess! related articles used to be the pride of my contribution. Now there isn't much left of them. Anywho... The rhetoric continued until 22 November where the E&C arbitration case was finally filed. I was ill prepared for it and was able to present very little evidence but others presented plenty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Episodes_an… This case lasted between 22 Nov - 28 Dec 2007 This is the third ever arbitration case I have ever participated. First one without Davenbelle or so I thought. You see, although Jack Merridew wasn't marked as an involved party, he was very involved. More than some involved parties. Arbcom was only able to rule "Like many editing guidelines, Wikipedia:Television episodes<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Television_episodes>is applied inconsistently. For an example, see List of South Park episodes<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_South_Park_episodes>and note that there is an article for each episode. An ideal response to such situations would be broader discussion of the guideline among editors with varying editing interest, with consensus achieved prior to widespread changes." Kindly asking people to stop mass removal of material. This made the situation worse as some parties thought they had unquestionable consensus or something. It obviously did not work. It was election season and arbitrators were tired. This rhetoric continued another 21 days and it was again in front of arbcom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Episodes_an… Case lasted between 19 January and 10 March 2008 Again Jack Merridew is very active Arbcom made two remedies. First remedy banned TTN from TV related related articles for 6th months. TTN for a while shifted his attention from TV related articles to Video game articles effectively obsoleting the arbcom remedy. Second remedy asked people to work collaboratively. Arbcom also passed an enforcment clause that banned anyone violating the remedies. Realistically only TTN would have been effected as the second remedy was diplomatically and toothless worded Nearly all my evidence on meatpuppetary and potential sockpuppetary (of Jack Merridew and Davenbelle/Moby Dick) were disregarded. I have not been following this dispute but I seriously doubt it had been resolved if the discussions throughout the case were any indication. Jack Merridew case was too complex seperate issue for the E&C Rfar so on 13 March I filed a case over Jack Merridew. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Jack_Merrid… As of this post 2/4 arbitrators support/oppose hearing this case. Meaning the case could theoraticaly be accepted if minimum 6 arbitrators accept to hear about it (for 4 net support). That would mean 12 out of 15 arbitrators would have voted. Thats quite rare. So assuming miracle happens and Jack Merridew case gets accepted that would mean I would have spent 5 RfArs dealing with Davenbelle. That is assuming I am right in identifying Jack Merridew as a mere Davenbelle sock. You should review the evidence at the following URL if you care about this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Statement_b… Checkuser places Jack Merridew, Davenbelle, Moby Dick, and Diyatbakir on the same geographic area. Bali, Indonesia -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is my experience with arbcom. This is why I do not believe arbcom serves to have a function. Don't get me wrong arbitrators are well meaning people and I respect them immensly for the volunteer work they are doing but the way arbcom operates is very ineffective in resolving anything which is why I am very displeased with all of this.

His ban was community action backed by an arbitrator acting on his own. It wasn't in accordance with the ruling at all. He was banned for an "impressive amount of stalking" as well as abusive sokcpuppetary. Probably more so due to the latter. - White Cat On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 11:12 PM, Thomas Dalton &lt;thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

Maybe I have and it is waiting moderator approval. Patience grasshopper. On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 5:51 PM, Screamer &lt;scream(a)datascreamer.com&gt; wrote:

Hilarious. I suppose you think the mods would let through your oh-so-scathing evidence, too?