On 22 October 2015 at 16:27, Sarah (SV) <slimvirgin@gmail.com> wrote:

Daniel, I happen to think that any Arb who is asked to excuse themselves from a case should do so, within reason.

I tend to agree with you on this, Sarah.

But in particular I think women who see certain Arbs as sexist should be able to require recusal. Otherwise the case is hobbled before it begins. Ditto for anyone with concerns about racism or homophobia.

I'm a little less certain about this one: if there are five parties to a case, and everyone decides to brand three different arbitrators as sexist/racist/homophobic etc, you're down to .... nobody.

I would like to see a jury system replace the committee, with small groups chosen to resolve particular issues. The committee has not worked for a long time. It isn't the fault of any individual or group. It's a combination of the way Arbs are nominated and elected, and the way they end up cloistered away from the community. It creates a "thin blue line" mentality. I would like to see a grassroots approach, at least as an experiment.

That was what RFCs and mediation committees did, although I grant that their "decisions" were not binding. They fell apart - RFCs because genuinely uninvolved Wikipedians stopped participating. The Mediation committee fell apart because there were so few people who were any good at dispute resolution actually mediating them, and also because mediation required the "participation agreement" of long lists of supposed parties. (I was once listed as a "party" for a mediation on an article where I made one edit to remove poop vandalism.)

There's no evidence at all that jury systems are any more fair or accurate or impartial or unbiased than any other dispute resolution systems. (A quick look at the number of convicted prisoners who have subsequently been exonerated proves my point.) Add to that the simple fact that "volunteer" pools of jurors are, simply by dint of numbers, going to be made up of the same types of people who are already arbitrators/functionaries/admins (or potentially people who were rejected for those responsibilities because they were unsuitable), and that compelling participation of people who have deliberately NOT wanted to participate in such activities is more likely to result in those individuals leaving the project entirely rather than making great decisions (other than the obvious "this is stupid, ban them all so I can get back to my categorization"). In fact, I suspect that a jury system made up of conscripted jurors would actually result in much harsher sanctions all around. There are some who argue that would not be a bad thing.

Risker/Anne