Delerium wrote,

The current hope is that the community can deal with this, if people who behave badly are taken out of the system. That is, the community will spot and remove original research, and if someone keeps readding it despite a consensus that it should be removed, the person will eventually be banned.

I understand this. And, as I hope I have made very clear, I do believe that the unregulated community must and can be the first, and major, way of dealing with such problems.

Two big buts (and, as we all know, everyone has big buts):

First, many other people have pointed out that the way that the community deals with such issues often escalates to a point where vigilant members of the community violate personal behavior rules in the process of trying to control an editor who is damaging the content of an article. I am not excusing violation of personal behavior rules, I am just making what I think is a factual observation. Since the only official dispute-resolution mechanism we currently have is concerned exclusively with behavioral violations, and not content, vigilant members of the community are punished along with those damaging content. As many have pointed out, the 3RR actually favors editors who damage content, against vigilant members. I am NOT saying that the ArbCom should stop dealing with violations of behavior policies. I Am saying that this situation calls for a second mechanism. (I share Mav's concern about extending the ArbCom's powers -- I think that such a second mechanism should involve a second committee.

Second, let's remember that there was a time when we similarly expected the "community" to deal with all problems, including personal conflicts involving violations of behavioral policies. Mediation and ArbCom developed as we realized that the anarchic community processes simply were not sufficient. I think it is clear now that anarchic community processes are not always sufficient to deal with violations of content policies.

Believe me, I sometimes miss the days when there was no formal mechanism for dealing with problems, and editors just had to argue it out -- even vituperatively! -- until someone gave up. This is why I still think that the community should try to resolve all disputes, concerning content and behavioral policies. But I understand the need for the ArbCom -- as Wikipedia grows, and becomes even more heterogeneous, I don't see an alternative. But similarly, as Wikipedia grows, I think we now need a second committee. Two committees to handle different kinds of disputes may seem like a lot compared to the old days. But really, I don't think two committees is too much.

I'd be open to a committee policing for original research at some point, if that turns out to be necessary. Policing for NPOV is a lot more complicated.

As long as it is seen as a dispute resolving mechanism, rather than as police, I think it would work for both (indeed, one of the problems with the ArbCom right now is that it is both dispute-resolving, and police. Maybe we need both functions, but they call for different mechanisms -- a dispute-resolution process does require, as Fred has insisted, that the committee look at the behavior of "both" parties. But this is possible only because there are two or more parties. I think the policing function requires a committee that can talk to users who violate policies even when no one has filed a formal complaint).

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701