JAY JG said:
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com
Someone who is scared to take a complaint to the arbitration committee because he may then be held accountable for his own actions is, it seems to me, missing the point.
Missing the point indeed; the point being that few people come out looking completely spotless under the kind of forensic examination that sometimes happens in the inevitable counter-suits, combined with the fear that ArbCom will feel it needs to sanction both parties, so that it appears "fair". Again, I'm not saying this is actually happening, but that there is a perception that this is happening, which discourages people from getting involved.
Of course the would-be petitioner could always get someone relatively spotless to bring the complaint. But then I think that Arbcom would suddenly realise that it has to expand its attentions to all involved in a Wikipedia fuck-up, not just those who put their names to a complaint on WP:RFAR. Which I think would be reasonable. Arbitration is supposed to be a way of keeping Wikipedia functioning well, so of course it isn't going to accept the preconceptions of one or another party to a behavior dispute. Look, we're just talking about editing privileges on a Wiki. Should I be told by English Wikipedia's arbitrators to wipe my nose and stop spitting on the floor, it would not reflect adversely on my career. Nor would it subtract points from my driver's license, and it would not really bother me in the least. Suppose I bring a case and the worst happens: I'm banned for a year or more.
Banned from en.wikipedia? Well my French is passable, my Spanish too, and I need to brush up on my German and my Portuguese. There's Simple English, Anglo Saxon and Latin. If English Arbcom has jurisdiction over these Wikis, it's news to me. To paraphrase Peter Pan, for any competent English Wikipedian, being banned would be an awfully big adventure. This is not a monoglot project. And then I could always get on with the things I *should* be doing instead of Wikipedying. ;)