-----Original Message----- From: Todd Allen [mailto:toddmallen@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2007 01:17 PM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Arbcom
Riana wrote:
On 14/10/2007, fredbaud@waterwiki.info fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
In fact, the situation is so bad, that I think we should consider alternatives to our current procedures. Is there some other way we could resolved the issues which come to arbitration, perhaps by committees of administrators?
Fred
Something like - CSN, perhaps? Somehow I skipped over the MfD but I truly think that it was a great alternative to the sluggish arbitration process - input from a varied range of people across the community spectrum, much less of the snipery that goes on at the arb talkpages (Hkelkar 2 springs unpleasantly to mind), enforceable sanctions. Quick, nearly painless. Oh well, not much point talking about the one that got away.
Damn, someone beat me to saying it. As Riana says, rather a moot point now, but I think we need to seriously consider some processes other than "Let people misbehave for months on end but never get -quite- bad enough for an already-overloaded ArbCom to take the case or an admin to justify a block." A means by which the community could request lesser sanctions than an outright indef block or ban is needed.
Blocks are blunt instruments, sometimes all that's needed to stop disruption is to give someone an enforced break from a page for a while. There are obvious cases where that would be helpful; I would like to see a proposal where such sanctions can be imposed by the community (perhaps vetted or approved by a randomly selected group of admins, as suggested above, and with the arbitrators accepting an appeal if the decision is clearly questionable).
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Something like that is what I have in mind. We need to be much more flexible and immediate.
Fred
On 10/14/07, fredbaud@waterwiki.info fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote: ...
Damn, someone beat me to saying it. As Riana says, rather a moot point now, but I think we need to seriously consider some processes other than "Let people misbehave for months on end but never get -quite- bad enough for an already-overloaded ArbCom to take the case or an admin to justify a block." A means by which the community could request lesser sanctions than an outright indef block or ban is needed.
...
Something like that is what I have in mind. We need to be much more flexible and immediate.
Fred
I think this is an excellent idea. We had such a problematic editor in the plants area. She was allowed to go on and one, without any blocking, or any consequences for reverting after a dozen discussions in which she agreed not to revert. She was allowed to continue italicizing higher taxa after Wikipedia plant editors decided they would not be italicized on en.Wiki. She even came back with a half a dozen sock puppets after being permanently banned to do just the same thing.
I think, in the long run, she got so bad because she was never just blocked in the first place. A series of escalating blocks either would have gotten the message across, or gotten rid of her soon--the former unlikely, for all she claims to be able to read everything on the planet about plants better than every other person who ever edited Wikipedia, it's clear she doesn't read for understanding by her failure to understand the community would not put up with her any longer.
There are a number of trouble making editors, serious trouble making editors, who obviously like to contribute, make solid contributions, but cannot debate with civility with other editors--blocking these editors sooner might get the message across really well.
KP