Good point, yeh, I'm still living in the past, editwarring over Stalin... Biographies of living persons, and the considerations behind it, also apply to the article about the event. And in the cited example, Simon Fraser University 1997 harassment controversy the material about the persons involved is considerably toned down from its original iteration which resulted in deletion for BLP reasons. The focus is changed from the persons and the alleged details of their behavior to meta considerations about taking action in situations where facts are inherently unknowable, perhaps the basis of the notability of the event. That is our clue. We ought not republish material which is based on one person's version of events, however laundered the assertion may be by republication in a generally reliable source. Fred

On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 3:18 PM, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote: We have around 125 articles with "criticism of" in the title: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&redirs=1&… Yes. Failing guidelines, those pages would seem to be where to discuss this. Carcharoth

Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote: Strange, isn't it Charles, that the deprecation of criticism sections/articles would be the convention for "quite a few years now" and yet no attempt at its formalization has "made it past being an essay into a guideline" let alone policy? Stranger still, is it not, that this same invisible notion can still find abuse as the centerpiece of a large-enough edit war such that resulted in the poorly-conceptualized case given (disrespectfully) the Prez' name? More thing on my to-do list: Get Arbcom to actually deal with adjudicating policy and sections therein. - Stevertigo

George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote: Hm. This came up recently at WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case&oldid=312162973 Wikidemon wrote: "In short form, Arbcom is not the place to propose changes to policies and guidelines. It is not empowered to do so, so there is nothing actionable for Arbcom to decide based on this request." Me: 'A court that cannot legislate from the bench - strike down law, uphold current law, (or portions thereof) - is not called a "court," it's called a "police station." [Which] makes the concept plain that an unempowered court cannot even "uphold" law, as it has no power to do otherwise. It can however, "parrot" law. Which, sort of sums up Wikipedia's dispute resolution affairs quite nicely.' - Stevertigo

Surreptitiousness wrote: Arbcom has been around for about five years, with dozens of people involved, and much change of personnel. Two basic types of criticism are: (a) (Demagogue) Arbcom has changed too much from its intended role, pushing for power to order people around as Jimbo pulled back from day-to-day management; or (b) (Armchair General) If I were on Arbcom, I'd see that some fundamental issues about behaviour on the site were tackled in a purposeful way. As it is, Arbcom just tinkers with a few of the worst disputes, and can't make major change in what is basically a holding operations. Since enWP has changed almost beyond recognition since 2004, what is more remarkable to me is that Arbcom is roughly what it always was, even with a completely different bunch of people running it. The limitations appear to be that what is distinctive about Arbitation (evidence-led decision-making rather than threaded discussion) scales only as far as supporting offsite discussions do (i.e. Arbcom has no physical meetings, so its committee work is by threaded discussion which is a lousy way to get quick decisions made sensibly). What was good about the earlier years of Arbcom was that innovation in remedies and clarification of policies in terms of the decisions that would be taken to enforce them cleared up quite a number of issues that now rarely need to get into RfAr. That kind of innovation as "crafting" decisions to the needs of the site ceased to have so much (new) traction a couple of years ago. Charles

2009/9/25 Surreptitiousness <surreptitious.wikipedian(a)googlemail.com>om>: The 2009 arbcom's main problem is a severe case of [[regulatory capture]] by the worst violators of the civility rules. Note the case of the admin busted grossly abusively sockpuppeting, where the arbcom sat on the evidence for a month (two arbs apparently resigning in disgust at the regulatory capture of the AC - check the resignation times versus the block log); and, when the case finally became public, having to be dragged kicking and screaming to actually acting in the way they would for any other socking admin. I'm entirely unsure the arbcom isn't an idea whose time has run, at least in its present form - it needs a shakeup to avert the regulatory capture. - d.

On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 1:16 PM, Surreptitiousness <surreptitious.wikipedian(a)googlemail.com> wrote: You can't just throw out a possible new arbcom membership requirement without considering the effects. Practically - arbcom is going to come from people who already populate AN and ANI, admins and others. Nobody else is aware enough of the abuse issues and problems that crop up. There are some people on ANI who aren't admins and also aren't at least somewhat of a problem case. But most of those are on the path to be admins or have been asked and have declined. I am not sure if we want the others as Arbcom members. That would be pretty much the opposite of what David is trying to get at, I think. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

Surreptitiousness wrote: We're not short of proposals, usually. Progress could be made with further functions being split off, in the way that ban appeals are now a subcommittee function. There is no particular reason why socking or civility cases shouldn't be handled in this fashion, where the evidence is clear-cut enough (the usual case). The kind of radical change people don't want to see is from something monolithic that works (despite grumbling) to something else equally monolithic that is a complete step in the dark and unknown quantity. And don't forget that proposals have been howled down, in living memory - at least if you take a pile-on of a dozen people to be an expression of public opinion. Charles

On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 10:22 PM, Surreptitiousness &lt;surreptitious.wikipedian(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote: <snip> But then consider the time wasted when someone writes up the same proposal again (or something similar), under a different title, without realising the idea has already been rejected, or at least discussed before? If you organise the rejected ideas, you might begin to see a pattern, and to be able to identify the areas where new ideas come up most often, or which ideas are truly perennial, and work forward from there? <snip> What about the alternatives to the ACPD that were set up at the time? Do any of them show any signs of life either? My big point at the end of all that was that if several such bodies were given the chance to grow and develop, surely one of them would succeed. If the answer is in fact that *all* of them failed, that will be depressing. Carcharoth

On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 10:32 PM, Surreptitiousness &lt;surreptitious.wikipedian(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote: <snip> The point was that a little bit of effort organising the rejected proposals, would save time in the long run. If we (the community) leave a whole mass of things unorganised, it's not surprising that it looks like a mess to someone who comes along and looks at it in an attempt to understand what happened here. I did start at one point, but it needs to be a group effort. <snip> On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 10:32 PM, Surreptitiousness &lt;surreptitious.wikipedian(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote: I think increased publicity and participation and open (non-privileged) mediation is a better way to go than closed (privileged) mediation. Have facilitators for guiding the development of policies and guidelines, but don't mix them up with content mediation. Similar skills, but totally different aims and approach. Nice analogy! Because you need wide input from across the project, rather than something like this becoming the personal fiefdom of any one or two or three or any small group of people who self-select for the role. Letting any one person, no matter how good, mediate or facilitate core community issues, is a recipe for disaster. You need to have a wide range of people with different backgrounds, and even in cases where only one person is involved, you need different people and not just one person. That is, in fact, what you have on the Arbitration Committee (people from a wide range of backgrounds). I think people underestimate just how diverse ArbCom is. Look at how the Macedonia, West Bank, and Ireland naming situations were resolved. You had people guiding and facilitating the discussions (and ArbCom helped to a certain extent in pointing the way for some of those frameworks to be set up, and calling for uninvolved admins to help facilitate the discussion - or to put that another way, the pre-ceding ArbCom cases, in my view, prepared the ground for a proper resolution to the disputes). But the key was not just the people facilitating the discussions. The real key, in my view, was the increased participation from a wider range of people. This, ultimately, handed down a *community* decision, with the authority of the community behind it, rather than a small group arguing on a talk page. It is nearly always increased participation by previously uninvolved long-term Wikipedians, who are prepared to take the time to read about an issue, and give their opinion on it, that resolves some of the intractable issues around here (not always, as sometime deep splits remain no matter how much of the community you involve). Conversely, the disputes that end up as ongoing incivil and argumentative and tendentious discussions tend to drive people away, and discourage uninvolved editors from getting involved. i.e. Protracted disputes create bad editing environments. Facilitation can improve that and restore the editing environment needed for calm and rational discussion to lead to consensus on an issue. That calming of the editing environment is what both arbitration and mediation do, albeit in different ways. Carcharoth

David Gerard &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Surreptitiousness &lt;surreptitious.wikipedian(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote: Hm. Does our dear Arbcom still think that the thread around its leg is a chain? At some point in the near future it might be a good time to collectively conjure up ideas about what a more ideal "Arbcom" will look like. We all think we know what works and what doesn't, so the basic premise is simply relevant experience - in which we are all sufficiently qualified. The questions are simple: 1) What should it do, and 2) how should it work? -Stevertigo

on 9/25/09 5:36 PM, Fred Bauder at fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net wrote: These comments are refreshing, and the suggested actions would have an enormous impact on the quality of collaboration in the Project. All healthy, constructive collaboration must include healthy, constructive dialogue. Marc

Marc Riddell wrote: Traditionally, though, the problem has been underestimated. One need not adopt the language of "regulatory capture", as David Gerard does, to look the issues in the eye: (1) There is actually no substantive consensus position that uncivil editors are a net negative to the site; (2) Practical implementation of measures has proved completely divisive; (3) The waters are fairly comprehensively muddied by those who take up tactical positions amounting to the assertion that any arbitrator who attempts to enforce the civility policy is part of the problem, not part of the solution. In terms of "crafted" remedies, we see this clearly enough in that civility paroles have proved hard to enforce, and those who do try to enforce them are (fairly systematically) embroiled by insult. This rather suggests we have gone past the point where ad hoc solutions might have worked. Charles

On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 2:30 AM, Charles Matthews &lt;charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com&gt; wrote: I would disagree - I think there's no consensus on individual cases where the editor's positive contributions are widely thought to be very good. There's no consensus on "when does the uncivil outweigh all the good they are doing", but not on "are they uncivil or not". There are dissenters on the uncivil point - but they are at the fringe, not within the mainstream. (I could be wrong on that, but that's my observation, and what I act on) Not always, but too often. We have had a fair number of successes, where despite someone crying to ANI a consensus formed for a good civility / NPA block very rapidly and robustly, even with experienced editors being blocked. One can no longer go around being abusive and have a statistical expectation that one will in fact get away with it. The odds, for ANI / AN known persons, are high that they will get away with it - but the odds of being nailed are now high enough that people are taking note. I have had good limited success, when I can spare the time. Admins / arbitrators / senior editors who are staying above the tactical fights before it becomes a serious issue (ie. are not in fact conflict of interest appearance in an incident) are having good luck imposing civility warnings and blocks and making them stick. The problem is - being active on ANI and staying above those tactical fights, and yet engaged enough to spot and call the true civility serious cases, in a timely and responsive manner. I have been busy the last couple of months at prior workplace (coworker left for weeks on honeymoon) and new workplace (ramping up) - which took my time away nearly entirely for the last month and a half, plus or minus. There are a couple of incidents that, had they happened two months ago, I would have just blocked someone near the beginning for 48 hrs with a nice long polite civility discussion on their talk page. Instead we had pages and pages and pages on ANI. It's not so much that it's impossible to do and make stick, as doing it and making it stick requires the right people, timing, attention, and focus, and those are all in perpetual short supply. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 3:22 AM, Charles Matthews &lt;charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com&gt; wrote: I agree, the experience for Arbcom trying to constructively grapple with the problem is clearly as frustrating as for admins trying to grapple with it, but obviously different as you have pointed out. The internal perspective there is appreciated. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 7:53 PM, stevertigo &lt;stvrtg(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: See WP:DRAMAOUT. Not sure if that was a success or not. Voluntary wikibreaks have the same effect. Carcharoth

On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 9:16 PM, Surreptitiousness &lt;surreptitious.wikipedian(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote: <snip> [Disclosure: I'm one of the currently serving arbitrators] As far as ArbCom siding with admins, I suggest you gather some data first. Look at the number of admins desysopped or otherwise sanctioned by ArbCom in previous years and then compare to this year (2009). That might give you a clearer picture of what is going on. From what I can tell, ArbCom have always aimed to I would also be *very* wary of reports from partisans of what ArbCom has done, or has been doing this year. Nearly every aggrieved party will spin things to present cases and incidents to suit their version of what happened. The actual truth of the matter may be very different. I'm not saying trust what ArbCom say they've done, but seek to verify yourself (from the original discussions and actions) what ArbCom and others are saying, and look to see whether those criticising ArbCom have a reason to present things in a particular light. Also remember that critics of ArbCom have more time to devote to spinning things their way. Individual arbitrators, and ArbCom as a whole, often don't have time to respond to protracted and drawn-out (over months and years sometimes) criticisms of previous or current decisions. That is a weakness of the model. The single-minded person can, through a process of continual misrepresentation without rebuttal, gradually wear people down and effectively rewrite the story of what happened. It is precisely that lack of time that means I don't intend to participate further in this thread, but if people do mention specific examples, please do look at what was said and done at the time, not what people are saying now. Carcharoth

stevertigo wrote: I believe you are misreading what is said here. It is not being stated that Arbcom has no time to do the job. Rather, it is being stated that if it wants to do the job, it doesn't also have the time to deal with all the heckling and rewriting of history that can go on after a case is closed. Charles

stevertigo wrote: There is _more_ of an argument for this approach now, than there was when Arbcom was closing 100 cases a year. Then the "be gruesome" (sei grausam) approach of saying "get over it" was fairly clearly applicable: appeal in 3 months or 6 months if you must, but don't assume everything on the site revolves round you. Now the acceptance filter means it is mainly big, complicated cases that go to arbitration, and perhaps a paragraph afterwards in the Signpost is a little scanty. But this is what blogs are for, surely. And blogging onsite is basically a bad idea. If there is an argument to put, why not write it up coherently offisite and send the Arbcom a link? Carcharoth wrote "Loose ends" means an endemic lack of closure to onsite discussions. Quite unlike the pre-filtering of arbitration cases, there is no forum onsite, I believe (who knows the whole site these days?), in which general policy matters pass through a preliminary "interesting/rehashed and dull" gate, after which they could have some fuller status of live topics. Should there be? And are these two halves of something? Charles

Ken Arromdee wrote: I think you need to recognise that the community can then clarify in whatever direction it likes: removing the ambiguity in the same way as the Arbcom went, or not, as the mood takes it. Since the drafting cannot be expected to be watertight, adjustments may be needed. But we know who has the last say. And a given case is not a precedent (such examples as there are for people using Arbitration cases as direct precedents are rather discouraging). That is a somewhat periphrastic way of saying that people nonetheless do take notice of the decisions. As we know, people tend to think they "need" some policy to win an argument they currently are in engaged in, without great regard to the overall needs of the project. So no doubt cases are brought for those kinds of reason, and if the case has to be accepted for the common good, the Arbcom has to make some sort of sense of it all, by writing down principles that give some proper context to what is decided. If it is all as fraught as you imply, I wonder why no one has brought out a codified form of Arbitration "principles", so we can see the "policy made by Arbcom" in the round. (I have certainly pondered this in the past, but really there is perhaps less in this than meets the eye. Only if you assume that the community's norms are limited to what is written down on official policy pages - which is undoubtedly an incorrect view - does the production of Arbcom's principles seem like major innovation.) Charles

stevertigo wrote: That can't work without opening up the broader question of how policies are formulated and later amended. Any kind of policy review process needs to operate separately from Arbcom, and be able to rule whether policies were properly adopted. Until such a process is fully operational nothing useful would be accomplished by having Arbcom rule on those policies. Ec

2009/9/28 Charles Matthews &lt;charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com&gt;om>: That's probably horribly accurate, considering the arbcom tends - fairly reasonably - to regard the workshops as somewhere annoying people go to be ignored ... - d.