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