I haven't followed ARBCOM closely enough this year to be quite as scathing as Risker, but the what little I have seen  is very disappointing.

I haven't been an arb, but I have done jury service, and I'm a fan of the system. But it relies on conscription to draft people in for a task that they are literally locked in a room to do. If a case were only an hour or so of time then I think you could experiment with inviting panels of a random thirty or so of our three thousand or of most active editors. My guess is that a random thirty would give you half a dozen who'd respond - you could tweak the numbers if my guess is out. But I'm not confident that this would work for cases that require more than a couple of hours involvement, or that involve personal information and thereby require "private sessions". I doubt there are sufficient such cases for a jury system to make a meaningful contribution to the system.

Reforming arbcom is difficult. Influencing its election rather less so, I haven't done a voters guide for a few years but I'd commend doing so to anyone who has the time to thoroughly check the candidates.

On reform, I rather like the panel system, not because a panel of five arbs will make much better choices than a dozen arbs, but because only having five arbs on each panel would reduce the workload, hopefully to something manageable. A lighter load gives the possibility of more people considering arbcom, and even of arbs engaging more with the community on non arb stuff.

Another option is to invest in training arbs and functionaries. Both on technical training - if Sarah and Kevin are right re the Lightbreather case then it may just be that they didn't know how to get or read the evidence; Also they could be given the sort of training that UK magistrates go on. Question to Risker, what sort of training do they currently undertake?



On 22 October 2015 at 22:04, Risker <risker.wp@gmail.com> wrote:

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
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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