On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 4:10 PM, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
I agree with you completely, Phil. ArbCom, as it presently is, is a disaster. And is a major obstacle to achieving a healthy, collaborative and fair creative community. My questions are: Who has the power to change that? How would the process that could evaluate ArbCom, and bring about change, get started? I would be interested in helping.
on 10/28/11 12:40 PM, Carcharoth at carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
ArbCom has far less influence than people give it credit for. What you are looking for is leadership, and that has to come from the community (or a body elected for that purpose by the community), not a dispute resolution body (which is what ArbCom is, or at least what it started out as). What is needed is a body other than ArbCom to provide leadership. That is what Wikipedia is lacking. There have been attempts (by both ArbCom and the community) to institute such a body, but the "community" tends to resist radical change, which is of course part of the problem (though it is also a safety feature against too radical changes).
The upcoming ArbCom elections might be a good time to air some of these matters, but only if done in a well-thought out manner, by someone with the time and motivation to see through a process that may take months or years to come to a conclusion.
Carcharoth
I agree with you completely, Carcharoth, that "What is needed is a body other than ArbCom to provide leadership". It is this lack of a formal, structured full-oversight body this is the fatal flaw in the entire Wikipedia Project. But to try and establish this body via ArbCom doesn't register with me. I believe such a new concept such as this will require a formal resolution, or whatever mechanism such additions or alterations to the structure of the Project require.
Marc