I surprisingly find myself in agreement with many things about this ArbCom decision with Sam Spade.
Here's how I see it:
1) Jimbo, who said he sees Wikipedia as a "von Mises model", appoints like-minded people to ArbCom such as Fred Bauder and JayJG. Jimbo appoints conservative cronies like that, making a far worse choice than the ArbCom elections, which in my view elected some good, decent people like Raul654, who I don't always agree with, but at least is neutral, fair and so forth. 2) So Fred Bauder, Jimbo-appointed conservative cronie from way back "does" the case, and most of the other arbs just sign off on the work he did. I've seen this movie before. 3) Getting onto ArbCom went from Jimbo appointments (who like JayJG and Bauder are horrible), to an election, which brought in good arbs, and now he wants to go back to appointing people again. Of course he can't just kill the election once it's in place, so he says he will have an election to help him decide or some garbage like that. I mean it's nonsense. Despite the "be bold" mantra, I am usually not so bold on such things, but I moved the "ArbCom 2005 elections" page to something like "Arbcom 2005 support vote" and noted that there would be no elections. Of course I was immediately reverted, and my notes on how the election is a fraud were removed. 4) Reading myself, I'd think I'm just another Wikipedia crank, except I'm not because I "gave up" on Wikipedia months ago. It will be some time before the alternative wikis like Demopedia, Dkosopedia, Anarchopedia, Red Wiki and so forth get momentum though (which I am helping generate), so I am kind of stuck here for a bit unfortunately. For those who have agreed with little I have said so far, here is one thing I'll say that if you think about it, you might agree with me on. Wouldn't it be a good thing for all the "left wing cranks" to go off and edit some other wiki encyclopedia? Wouldn't that stop a lot of edit wars and nonsense, and people could concentrate on making the pages in the Science, Mathematics, Technology and so forth pages better, instead of wasting time on all of this other nonsense? For some reason, Wikipedia has grabbed onto and held onto the third rail of politics, and the only reason why I can think this happened is because Ayn-Rand-reading porn magnate Jimbo wants it that way. I should also note that when I heard Brian Lamb ask Jimbo about Ayn Rand and porn, I was of course delighted, and if there is a God, I hoped I had something to do with that question being asked. 5) Nobs01 is not a von Mises, Ayn Rand reader. He is not a rabid Zionist like JayJG. He is not a conservative hick lawyer like Fred Bauder who probably wears cowboy boots. He is a complete nutcase, he is not playing with all 52 cards in the deck. Go to Nobs01's user page, and go through the history, and ask yourself if this is the user page of someone who is well in the head. And I live in a city where I meet nutty people all the time. Nobs01 is a nut even nuts are scared of. And ArbCom is doing nothing except a month ban of him for personal attacks. Is this going to solve the problem? Is thing going to solve Nobs spreading his crank red-under-every-bed theories around Wikipedia?
Ruy