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