On 12/01/2008, doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
And I /would/ suggest this is a role that arbs could take on (who else?), NOT as policy makers or adjudicates after the fact, but as people trusted by the community for sane unbiased judgment - who tend to know what's going on - who can give a developer a sanity check as regards where the consensus on en.wp lies.
Oh yeah, that might be workable.
It's important that the arbcom is for resolving interpersonal disputes - it's NOT the government of en:wp,even though people keep trying to thrust this role upon them (and they have the good sense to avoid it).
To the extent they take on functions as a voice of en:wp (checkuser, oversight, emergency deadminning, etc) it's because there's no-one else who can reasonably do the job and they get volunteered for the particular role.
In terms of requests like this ("please switch on this function for en:wp"), they would be the right ones. But requiring all such changes to go through them is fraught with instruction creep and bureaucracy.
- d.