Dear all.
We have a rough agenda:
PRINCIPLES 1) "Jurisdiction" - what disputes do we plan to get involved in? 2) "Rules" - How do we judge cases 3) "Outcomes" - what solutions can we impose? 4) "Transparency" - issues of privacy, openness, accountability, etc
PROCESS 1) "Requests" - how does one request arbitration? 2) "Who takes part?" - how do we pick arbitrators on a case? 3) "Trial" - How does the trial proceed? 4) "Judgement" - How do we give our judgement?
We might add points to that as they come up. Currently we're largely discussing Jurisdiction, though we've also has some discussion about Requests and Transparency prompted by your comments here and elsewhere.
A couple of current Jurisdiction issues:
* What sorts of disputes should the arbitration committee hear? Article disputes? Wikiquette disputes? Copyright/Legal/Election disputes?
* Should we always require mediation, generally prefer mediation (with exceptions), or not require mediation?
Your thoughts and opinions are very welcome.
-Martin "MyRedDice" Harper
A couple of current Jurisdiction issues:
- What sorts of disputes should the arbitration committee hear? Article disputes?
Wikiquette disputes? Copyright/Legal/Election disputes?
I prefer a narrow jurisdiction: I don't want to be asked to decide if Usama bin Laden is a terrorist, or even if DNA is a nucleic acid. Rudeness isn't a crime and I don't think our time should be wasted with "mommy, he called me a Nazi!" or even "mommy, he called himself a Nazi!" whin(g)ing. I can see us arbiting non-obvious copyright and legal questions, but if by "election disputes" you mean "mommy, he voted twice!" I feel that the person who set up the election needs to resolve any conflicts.
- Should we always require mediation, generally prefer mediation (with exceptions),
or not require mediation?
I prefer flexibility; ie, prefer mediation but allow exceptions on a case-by-case basis.
Unless that's a typo. I think that even if we don't now, we soon will require medication.
On Friday 23 January 2004 03:16 pm, Sean Barrett wrote:
A couple of current Jurisdiction issues:
- What sorts of disputes should the arbitration committee hear? Article
disputes? Wikiquette disputes? Copyright/Legal/Election disputes?
I prefer a narrow jurisdiction: I don't want to be asked to decide if Usama bin Laden is a terrorist, or even if DNA is a nucleic acid. Rudeness isn't a crime and I don't think our time should be wasted with "mommy, he called me a Nazi!" or even "mommy, he called himself a Nazi!" whin(g)ing. I can see us arbiting non-obvious copyright and legal questions, but if by "election disputes" you mean "mommy, he voted twice!" I feel that the person who set up the election needs to resolve any conflicts.
If you think that personal attacks on other wikipedians are OK, then please advocate for the "no personal attacks" rule to get repealed.
I advocate the enforcement of the agreed-upon rules that are specified in [[Wikipedia:Policy]], which happens to include [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]. Your characterisation of the desire of wikipedians that personal attacks should halt as 'Mommy, he called me xxx" and "whinging" is both condescending and illogical, given that "no personal attacks" happens to be a wikipedia policy. I have quoted it before, and I shall quote it again (from [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]):
"No personal attacks on the Wikipedia, period. [...] Unlike the other rules, which are community conventions enforced only by our mutual agreement, this one may also be implemented in extreme cases as policy, i.e. grounds for banning that go beyond our traditional "sheer vandalism" threshold."
I agree that arbitration should not involve making decisions about wikipedia content, only the conduct of wikipedians.
- Should we always require mediation, generally prefer mediation (with
exceptions), or not require mediation?
I think that in cases where there is nothing to mediate (eg. the MNH case), there should be no mediation.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
Best, Sascha Noyes
If you think that personal attacks on other wikipedians are OK, then please advocate for the "no personal attacks" rule to get repealed.
I advocate the enforcement of the agreed-upon rules that are specified in [[Wikipedia:Policy]], which happens to include [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]. Your characterisation of the desire of wikipedians that personal attacks should halt as 'Mommy, he called me xxx" and "whinging" is both condescending and illogical, given that "no personal attacks" happens to be a wikipedia policy. I have quoted it before, and I shall quote it again (from [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]):
Sorry, no. I am not going to try to change the policy. Rather, when a case comes before the arbitration committee that consist of nothing more substantial than name-calling, I will recuse myself.
Vandalism, yes. Explicit threats, yes. Edit wars, yes. Insults? You're not paying me enough to tell people not to be hostile or rude. I'd rather relieve Sisyphus for a millennium or two.
My characterization is "illogical"? Non-sequitur -- I'm not a Vulcan. "Condescending"? You're absolutely right. After all, my /six-year-old/ doesn't need my help to handle simple name-calling.
I guess I'm at the other pole and just don't want to be associated with any offensive personality and vote with my feet before I put up with it.
Fred
From: Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 14:51:47 -0800 To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration progress report #2
If you think that personal attacks on other wikipedians are OK, then please advocate for the "no personal attacks" rule to get repealed.
I advocate the enforcement of the agreed-upon rules that are specified in [[Wikipedia:Policy]], which happens to include [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]. Your characterisation of the desire of wikipedians that personal attacks should halt as 'Mommy, he called me xxx" and "whinging" is both condescending and illogical, given that "no personal attacks" happens to be a wikipedia policy. I have quoted it before, and I shall quote it again (from [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]):
Sorry, no. I am not going to try to change the policy. Rather, when a case comes before the arbitration committee that consist of nothing more substantial than name-calling, I will recuse myself.
Vandalism, yes. Explicit threats, yes. Edit wars, yes. Insults? You're not paying me enough to tell people not to be hostile or rude. I'd rather relieve Sisyphus for a millennium or two.
My characterization is "illogical"? Non-sequitur -- I'm not a Vulcan. "Condescending"? You're absolutely right. After all, my /six-year-old/ doesn't need my help to handle simple name-calling.
-- Sean Barrett | Some days it just isn't worth preparing sean@epoptic.com | the environmental impact statement. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Friday 23 January 2004 05:51 pm, Sean Barrett wrote:
If you think that personal attacks on other wikipedians are OK, then please advocate for the "no personal attacks" rule to get repealed.
I advocate the enforcement of the agreed-upon rules that are specified in [[Wikipedia:Policy]], which happens to include [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]. Your characterisation of the desire of wikipedians that personal attacks should halt as 'Mommy, he called me xxx" and "whinging" is both condescending and illogical, given that "no personal attacks" happens to be a wikipedia policy. I have quoted it before, and I shall quote it again (from [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]):
Sorry, no. I am not going to try to change the policy. Rather, when a case comes before the arbitration committee that consist of nothing more substantial than name-calling, I will recuse myself.
So what you're saying is that you don't want to enforce [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]. So who will enforce this rule? As I have stated before, we should either enforce our rules or stop paying lipservice to them and scrap them.
My characterization is "illogical"? Non-sequitur -- I'm not a Vulcan. "Condescending"? You're absolutely right. After all, my /six-year-old/ doesn't need my help to handle simple name-calling.
I question your suitability for the role of arbitrator based on your condescention towards those who want the wikipedia policies enforced.
We have made the choice that it is preferential to have policies concerning etiquette. The primary reason for this choice is the fact that valuable contributors will be driven away by people who grossly violate common decency. I care enough about wikipedia to keep haggeling with people on these mailing lists to enforce policies that are beneficial to wikipedia. Personally, I act on gross violations of etiquette by ignoring the people who engage in such behaviour. I believe that the persons who wrote policies such as "no personal attacks" believe, as do I, that not everyone reacts to gross violations of etiquette as your "/six-year-old/" and I do. Retaining valuable contributors with a thin skin is why enforcement of rules such as "no personal attacks" is indeed a good idea. The only argument you have given against enforcing such rules is that your time is too precious.
So would it be correct to conclude that you either you think that nobody will be driven away by personal attacks, or it is not worth your time to retain these contributors? I will also put to you my opinion that in cases where there has been a gross violation of policies such as "no personal attacks", all the arbitration committee will have to do is the following: 1. Verify the veracity of the claim that a policy was grossly violated If (1) is found to be true, then either: 2.1 Inform the violator that if he/she should engage in such behaviour again, they will be banned. Or, if the previous violations were found to have been sufficiently extreme: 2.2 Ban the violator I doubt that this proceedure would take too much time.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
Best, Sascha Noyes
Sascha Noyes wrote:
So what you're saying is that you don't want to enforce [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]. So who will enforce this rule? As I have stated before, we should either enforce our rules or stop paying lipservice to them and scrap them.
Well, I see a lot of our policies more as "you ought to do this" and "you ought not do this", rather than as "if you do (don't) do this you will be banned", which is a somewhat more strenuous pronouncement. Of course if we have no consequences the rules are meaningless, but I don't think we should be banning people simply for violating "the letter of the law", so to speak. Really we should only ban people who we've determined are highly detrimental to Wikipedia, combined with a determination that they're unlikely to change their behavior in the near future. In my opinion, anyway.
-Mark
So just regularly not following policy is ok, so long as you're polite about it?
Fred
From: Delirium delirium@rufus.d2g.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 16:06:19 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration progress report #2
Sascha Noyes wrote:
So what you're saying is that you don't want to enforce [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]. So who will enforce this rule? As I have stated before, we should either enforce our rules or stop paying lipservice to them and scrap them.
Well, I see a lot of our policies more as "you ought to do this" and "you ought not do this", rather than as "if you do (don't) do this you will be banned", which is a somewhat more strenuous pronouncement. Of course if we have no consequences the rules are meaningless, but I don't think we should be banning people simply for violating "the letter of the law", so to speak. Really we should only ban people who we've determined are highly detrimental to Wikipedia, combined with a determination that they're unlikely to change their behavior in the near future. In my opinion, anyway.
-Mark
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Fred Bauder wrote:
So just regularly not following policy is ok, so long as you're polite about it?
Well, not _ok_, but I think it has to be pretty egregious to warrant a ban, which is a pretty severe sanction and should be the last resort. Note that I'm not commenting on the particular cases that have come up recently, which may very well be of the severe-enough-to-ban sort; just commenting generally. Perhaps it's a personal opinion, but I think we ought to strive to be as open and accomodating as possible, and avoid banning as much as possible, since that's basically a "we give up, this person cannot work within Wikipedia" decision. Several previous conflicts have been resolved somewhat more satisfactorily--for example, partisans on both sides of the Polish vs. German names dispute have engaged in some anti-policy activity (name-calling, revert wars, etc.), but have also contributed a great deal of useful information to the Wikipedia, and seem eventually to have been persuaded to act more in line with our policies. I think if we had simply banned a few of them that would've been a quicker but overall worse solution.
-Mark
On Friday 23 January 2004 07:06 pm, Delirium wrote:
Sascha Noyes wrote:
So what you're saying is that you don't want to enforce [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]. So who will enforce this rule? As I have stated before, we should either enforce our rules or stop paying lipservice to them and scrap them.
Well, I see a lot of our policies more as "you ought to do this" and "you ought not do this", rather than as "if you do (don't) do this you will be banned", which is a somewhat more strenuous pronouncement.
"No personal attacks on the Wikipedia, period. [...] Unlike the other rules, which are community conventions enforced only by our mutual agreement, this one may also be implemented in extreme cases as policy, i.e. grounds for banning that go beyond our traditional "sheer vandalism" threshold."
The question is whether this is an extreme case. I agree with you that we shouldn't run around "throwing" everyone who has made a personal attack in front of the arbitration committee. But the above-quoted policy also states quite clearly that the policy "may also be implemented in extreme cases as policy, i.e. grounds for banning".
Of course if we have no consequences the rules are meaningless, but I don't think we should be banning people simply for violating "the letter of the law", so to speak. Really we should only ban people who we've determined are highly detrimental to Wikipedia, combined with a determination that they're unlikely to change their behavior in the near future. In my opinion, anyway.
Basically the same question as above; when are people "highly detrimental to wikipedia"? The current policy, by my interpretation, states that someone is highly detrimental to wikipedia if their personal attacks are extreme. Which is obviously far from a clear-cut answer.
Your suggestion of assessing whether or not someone is likely to change their behaviour is, IMO, answered by my suggestion in the parent email under (2.1): A "last warning". In my opinion inferring the probability of future compliance from past behaviour is in most cases an unsatisfactory approach.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
Best, Sascha Noyes
Basically the same question as above; when are people "highly detrimental to wikipedia"? The current policy, by my interpretation, states that someone is highly detrimental to wikipedia if their personal attacks are extreme. Which is obviously far from a clear-cut answer.
But the practice is that someone is highly detrimental to Wikipedia, when the sum of what he brings is lower that the sum of what he destroys.
I think we need to consider what they destroy and how without consideration of what good things they have done. In other words, if some one is accused of destructive behavior, evidence that they wrote a good article or were polite in some other context is inadmissible evidence. After it is determined that we are dealing with someone who regularly transgresses, then as we consider remedies we might consider all the wonderful things they did.
Fred
From: Anthere anthere8@yahoo.com Reply-To: anthere8@yahoo.com, English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 09:26:55 +0100 To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration progress report #2
Basically the same question as above; when are people "highly detrimental to wikipedia"? The current policy, by my interpretation, states that someone is highly detrimental to wikipedia if their personal attacks are extreme. Which is obviously far from a clear-cut answer.
But the practice is that someone is highly detrimental to Wikipedia, when the sum of what he brings is lower that the sum of what he destroys.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Just as in justice, a jugdement declares someone guilty (or innocent) first
Which set somehow a range of punishement, depending on the crime
then the points in favor of the accused are examined. and help to decide on which side of the range of punishement he will be.
Fred Bauder a écrit:
I think we need to consider what they destroy and how without consideration of what good things they have done. In other words, if some one is accused of destructive behavior, evidence that they wrote a good article or were polite in some other context is inadmissible evidence. After it is determined that we are dealing with someone who regularly transgresses, then as we consider remedies we might consider all the wonderful things they did.
Fred
From: Anthere anthere8@yahoo.com Reply-To: anthere8@yahoo.com, English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 09:26:55 +0100 To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration progress report #2
Basically the same question as above; when are people "highly detrimental to wikipedia"? The current policy, by my interpretation, states that someone is highly detrimental to wikipedia if their personal attacks are extreme. Which is obviously far from a clear-cut answer.
But the practice is that someone is highly detrimental to Wikipedia, when the sum of what he brings is lower that the sum of what he destroys.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
If a person drives other, equally (or more so) valuable users because of continued abuse, isn't that detrimental to the project?
RickK
Delirium delirium@rufus.d2g.com wrote: Sascha Noyes wrote:
So what you're saying is that you don't want to enforce [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]. So who will enforce this rule? As I have stated before, we should either enforce our rules or stop paying lipservice to them and scrap them.
Well, I see a lot of our policies more as "you ought to do this" and "you ought not do this", rather than as "if you do (don't) do this you will be banned", which is a somewhat more strenuous pronouncement. Of course if we have no consequences the rules are meaningless, but I don't think we should be banning people simply for violating "the letter of the law", so to speak. Really we should only ban people who we've determined are highly detrimental to Wikipedia, combined with a determination that they're unlikely to change their behavior in the near future. In my opinion, anyway.
-Mark
--------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
I second Sascha's concerns. If you're an official representative of Wikipedia and are serving on a committee designed to make sure that people are following the policies, then it's not your place to pick and choose which policies you will enforce.
RickK
Sascha Noyes sascha@pantropy.net wrote: On Friday 23 January 2004 05:51 pm, Sean Barrett wrote:
If you think that personal attacks on other wikipedians are OK, then please advocate for the "no personal attacks" rule to get repealed.
I advocate the enforcement of the agreed-upon rules that are specified in [[Wikipedia:Policy]], which happens to include [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]. Your characterisation of the desire of wikipedians that personal attacks should halt as 'Mommy, he called me xxx" and "whinging" is both condescending and illogical, given that "no personal attacks" happens to be a wikipedia policy. I have quoted it before, and I shall quote it again (from [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]):
Sorry, no. I am not going to try to change the policy. Rather, when a case comes before the arbitration committee that consist of nothing more substantial than name-calling, I will recuse myself.
So what you're saying is that you don't want to enforce [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]. So who will enforce this rule? As I have stated before, we should either enforce our rules or stop paying lipservice to them and scrap them.
My characterization is "illogical"? Non-sequitur -- I'm not a Vulcan. "Condescending"? You're absolutely right. After all, my /six-year-old/ doesn't need my help to handle simple name-calling.
I question your suitability for the role of arbitrator based on your condescention towards those who want the wikipedia policies enforced.
Best, Sascha Noyes
--------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
Rick wrote:
I second Sascha's concerns. If you're an official representative of Wikipedia and are serving on a committee designed to make sure that people are following the policies, then it's not your place to pick and choose which policies you will enforce.
My problem with this is that it's very unclear what is and is not Wikipedia policy. There are a lot of pages which purport to be policy, but some of them have been written by a single person and mostly ignored by everyone else, so at best can be called "one person's attempt at a proposed policy". There are some others that have some support, and multiple contributors, and still others than have a good deal of support. Then there are some procedural things, like VfD and the sysop-request process, that are de facto policy by virtue of the fact that they do what they say they'll do. But, apart from the fact that we strive for a "neutral point of view", I'm not aware of anything else that can be said to be "official policy", just a lot of things that have greater or lesser degrees of support as policy. For example, "no autobiographies" is a proposed policy with some support, but can't really be said to be official policy. "No personal attacks" likely has much more support, but I see it as quantitatively different rather than qualitatively--it should be given more weight since it has much more support, but none of our "policies" are really set in stone, since any of them can be modified at any time. In fact, the Wikiquette page was modified by User:168... just yesterday! So which version is official policy? The new one, or the old one? My answer would be neither--they're both proposed policies, with greater or lesser degrees of support.
-Mark
On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Martin Harper wrote:
Dear all.
We have a rough agenda:
PRINCIPLES
- "Jurisdiction" - what disputes do we plan to get involved in?
- "Rules" - How do we judge cases
- "Outcomes" - what solutions can we impose?
- "Transparency" - issues of privacy, openness, accountability, etc
PROCESS
- "Requests" - how does one request arbitration?
- "Who takes part?" - how do we pick arbitrators on a case?
- "Trial" - How does the trial proceed?
- "Judgement" - How do we give our judgement?
We might add points to that as they come up. Currently we're largely discussing Jurisdiction, though we've also has some discussion about Requests and Transparency prompted by your comments here and elsewhere.
A couple of current Jurisdiction issues:
- What sorts of disputes should the arbitration committee hear? Article
disputes? Wikiquette disputes? Copyright/Legal/Election disputes?
- Should we always require mediation, generally prefer mediation (with
exceptions), or not require mediation?
My thoughts are that mediation should be the preferred first step. Disputes should go to Arbitration if: 1. One or more of the parties involved are not following the terms they agreed to; 2. One or more of the parties involved refuse to agree to mediation; or 3. A matter of expediency, or specific kinds of issues (e.g., say 2 sysops are having a reversion war over the Front Page -- a dispute I hope never to see).
Your thoughts and opinions are very welcome.
Geoff