[WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee

[White Cat]

On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 1:20 AM, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> 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


Since my seemingly ongoing case since 2005 arbcom hasn't managed to come up
with a resolution. There were two arbitration cases which only gave friendly
warnings. A third one is about to be rejected. You are welcome to review the
cases. I have nothing to loose at this point anyway. Aside from my sanity
that is. :)

But enough of that...

In my experience arbcom tends to avoid making decisions with teeth most of
the time. They give out warnings that any sane person should agree to. You
know... decisions that declare meatpuppetary as something not to do. But
they do not pass decisions that have a teeth. For instance if people were
engaging in meatpuppetry prior to the case and since it is clearly
prohibited behaviour perhaps an *enforceable* remedy could be passed to
prevent future meatpuppetry on a particular case. If the involved people are
not engaged in meatpuppetry they have no reason to object to it anyways.

Appeals are the problem. Appeals supposed to deal with sharp edges that form
after the case. Issues that should be solved during the case (as they were
after all presented there) are not resolved in the cases and so much time is
wasted on appeals.

First E&C arbitration case basically concluded that people should work
together of which a lack of it was the very reason people filed the case.
There were many proposed remedies that could have been more effective in
resolving the dispute but arbcom decided not to pass them. I can only
respect arbcoms decisions but I knew it back then that this would not solve
anything. I had said so on many instances.

Not surprisingly about a month later the second E&C arbitration case was
filed which lasted for about 2 months I think.

Despite outcry from people that the passed remedies on Television related
articles would not be able to resolve the dispute at all were not heard.
Video game related articles after all are not in the scope of remedies whose
scope is limited to television related articles. So the disruptive activity
that used to happen on television related articles now happen on video game
related articles.

This shift did not start after the arbitration case, it happened during the
case after the passing of the temporary induction that halted all activity
on television related articles. Don't believe me? How do you explain what
happened to multiple Dungeons & Dragons articles? It isn't even a video game
mind you; a board game. The disruption is back to television related
articles as well as the temporary injunction went kaput since the closure of
E&C2.

I see many revert wars happening right now - not as fast paced as before
given TTN quit editing. But E&C2 managed to resolve nothing aside from the
TTN factor who left on his own probably due to the arbcom temporary
injunction. TTN was singled out and the underlying problems were not
resolved. People continue TTN's legacy.

People are tired with dealing with such a thing. I know I am. If arbcom will
go out of their way failing to address my concerns anyways why should I
waste time with appeals? E&C2 was supposed to be an appeal case. In other
words less than a month after the conclusion of the first case there were
enough issues to warrant a second one. I think there currently are enough
issues to start a third case just a week or two after the closure of the
first case.

Enough of that...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Episodes_and_characters_2/Workshop

Private communication is fine. But when "Comment by Arbitrators" section on
/Workshop is never used by arbitrators we have a problem. Why should people
even post anything at all in workshops anymore? In the above case only thing
arbitrators posted was about the temporary injunction (I haven't reread the
entire /workshop document so correct me if I am wrong) and even then only a
few of them showed up. Same goes for talk pages of the case.

Good proposals from other people on workshop should be voted on on /proposed
decisions even if they were discussed privately - say in the arbcom mailing
list. Thats what I would do. *People should be told why their proposal was
rejected.* This is very important. Otherwise you feel being ignored. You
continue to believe you may be right with your proposal but because no one
seemingly payed any attention to it they simply did not know about it. Or
much worse they intentionally chose to ignore it because of <put random
conspiracy theory here>.

Arbcom tends to ignore inconvenient questions weather they are asked such
questions on the arbitration case, on their talk page or anywhere else. This
is probably to avoid saying anything that may cause problems. They perhaps
do this to protect the encyclopedia which is what they are hurting with
their method of protecting it. They are in this protective veil.

They should be more open in discussing their rationale without worrying
about their or arbcoms reputation. People may actually agree with their
rationale should they hear about it.

Arbitrators should probably be available on IRC. There should be unofficial
office hours per arbitrator where people can talk with the arbitrator
without fearing sanctions and remedies.

    - White Cat