On Wed, 2004-03-10 at 17:13, Fred Bauder wrote:
I have some trouble understanding this. But ok, mediation doesn't work. This actually is no surprise. The reason mediation works in the real world is that going to court is a real bitch. Folks here may justifiably calculate they have little to lose and if they want to "play around" read "troll" play games really, no harm no foul.
*Once the Arbitration Committee set itself up, it immediately dropped even the pretense at arbitration and constituted itself as a panel of grievance hearings with independent power of adjudication.
That is what abitrators do, decide disputes and render judgements. Comparing us to a "panel of grievance hearings" injects a practice from labor relations which contemplates a sort of appeal to an employers. I wonder what you thought arbitration was supposed to amount to.
Something close to what the disputants seem to expect us mediators to deliver. A negotiation between the parties themselves but with two arbiters and an umpire to make the final call.
As far as I can see, the current arbitration process has short circuited any negotiation between the parties themselves.
The only logical thing to do is to rename the Arbitration Committee into something more close to what their actual role is, and rename the Mediation Committee into the Arbitration Committee, and give it live ammunition. What do I mean with live ammunition? I honestly don't know! Anything the current "so-called" Arbitration Committee can bear to part with...
Ok, Maybe you want them to be able to impose short bans, protect pages...
Yup. For starters..
What?
Anything that will give timely relief, but will not be so heavy as to be considered a serious sanction which previously would have been the sole prerogative of Jimbo. Basically anything that won't cause the general editorship or your operation to cry foul.
J-V Heiskanen