Everyone who volunteered was appointed to something, and two who didn't volunteer I appointed anyway. (Obviously, they can decline if they must.)
I selected primarily based on your own stated preferences, although in a couple of cases, I moved people who said "prefer this, but would do either" to the other side, mostly just to balance out the numbers.
Mediators -- people who are volunteering to get involved in mediating user disputes, but without any actual power to vote for or recommend a ban or any other punitive action
Angela LDan Geoff DanteAlighieri VancouverGuy sannse Ed Poor Jussi-Ville Heiskanen Stevertigo
I envision this group being fairly fluid, with new volunteers appearing, and existing volunteers retiring, as personal preferences dictate.
Arbitration -- people who are volunteering to get involved in arbitrating user disputes, with the results of the arbitration being formally binding in the sense that it is at least possible for the arbitration committee to vote to ban someone or take some lesser action to enforce their decision
C - Gutza C - MyRedDice C - NoHat C - Epopt B - Fred Bauder B - Delirium B - Maveric149 B - Camembert A - Jdforrester A - Kat/UninvitedCompany A - Cunctator* A - Erik Moeller*
These last two are marked with a '*' to indicate that I'm drafting them, if they don't refuse.
The letters indicate groups up for re-election in the future. I'm thinking that these posts are to be held for 3 year terms, with group A up for re-election next December, group B, the following year, group C, the following year. (People were partitioned in this way randomly, with the exception of Cunc and Erik, who I placed in the shortest group because they didn't even volunteer in the first place!)
Terms begin January 1, which means we have the rest of this month to argue about what the hell all this means. :-)
---------
Both committees should meet via email -- we should set up public mailing lists, I think -- to work on procedures and policies. We'll have to write this up cognizant of the difficulty of obtaining a quorum at times, etc.
In any event, I'm holding as a 'reserved power' the right to pardon anyone who is banned by the arbitration committee, in the unlikely event that the process seems to be going astray.
Also, just to be really clear on this, I'm also holding as a reserved power to "disband parliament" if problems appear to be made worse overall by this change. We can always go back to our current 'benevolent dictator' model, if it works out better. (But it's really exhausting for me to try to figure out that someone needs to be banned.)
In the future, if this is working well, and if elections are producing good results, then I'm certainly willing to make stronger promises about not just overturning the whole thing. I'm just very cautious about the whole concept right now, and think we should try it and learn from it before we imagine that it's "the way things are".
--Jimbo
From: Jimmy Wales Arbitration -- people who are volunteering to get involved in arbitrating user disputes, with the results of the arbitration being formally binding in the sense that it is at least possible for the arbitration committee to vote to ban someone or take some lesser action to enforce their decision
C - Gutza C - MyRedDice C - NoHat C - Epopt B - Fred Bauder B - Delirium B - Maveric149 B - Camembert A - Jdforrester A - Kat/UninvitedCompany A - Cunctator* A - Erik Moeller*
These last two are marked with a '*' to indicate that I'm drafting them, if they don't refuse.
Sounds fine to me.
From: The Cunctator Thursday, December 04, 2003 3:25 PM
From: Jimmy Wales Arbitration -- people who are volunteering to get involved in arbitrating user disputes, with the results of the arbitration being formally binding in the sense that it is at least possible for the arbitration committee to vote to ban someone or take some lesser action to enforce their decision
<snip>
Sounds fine to me.
I should amend, of course, except that I'm more than a bit skeeved out by the whole development of institutionalized hierarchies.
The Cunctator wrote:
From: The Cunctator Thursday, December 04, 2003 3:25 PM
From: Jimmy Wales Arbitration -- people who are volunteering to get involved in arbitrating user disputes, with the results of the arbitration being formally binding in the sense that it is at least possible for the arbitration committee to vote to ban someone or take some lesser action to enforce their decision
<snip> > Sounds fine to me.
I should amend, of course, except that I'm more than a bit skeeved out by the whole development of institutionalized hierarchies.
And so all the more reason, from my point of view, for me to want you to be part of the process, to help ensure that it is as unhierarchical as possible.
--Jimbo
From: Jimmy Wales Thursday, December 04, 2003 3:20 PM> The Cunctator wrote:
From: The Cunctator Thursday, December 04, 2003 3:25 PM
From: Jimmy Wales Arbitration -- people who are volunteering to get involved in arbitrating user disputes, with the results of the arbitration
being
formally binding in the sense that it is at least possible for
the
arbitration committee to vote to ban someone or take some lesser action to enforce their decision
<snip> > Sounds fine to me.
I should amend, of course, except that I'm more than a bit skeeved
out
by the whole development of institutionalized hierarchies.
And so all the more reason, from my point of view, for me to want you to be part of the process, to help ensure that it is as unhierarchical as possible.
My goal is to make such institutions unnecessary, but history shows us that once people are given power they're loathe to give it up, even if their institution is harmful or obsolete.
In other words, this is a step in the wrong direction which is not likely ever to be reversed.
Jimmy-
thanks for the nomination, but I have to decline at this point because of time constraints and for philosophical reasons. Given that I'm frequently a person *involved* in disputes, it would only seem too likely that I would have to recuse myself much of the time. I prefer to get involved in a non-formal manner and only request the intervention of formal authority when necessary.
I will be very interested in seeing how these two committees make their decisions, and offer my comments along the way. Re: mailing lists - not sure about that. Cunctator has been an ardent advocate of using message boards. I have some reservations about boards, but perhaps this would be an opportunity to try them, especially as this will be a "use once, then forget" kind of system (i.e. people will not want to subscribe/unsubscribe for a single debate). phpBB allows posting without registration, and the admins could be registered users who are also moderators on the board.
An alternative option would be Phorum, which can be interfaced with mailing lists using a script called Phorummail. But phpBB would be faster to set up. I would volunteer as a board admin (technical only) in case we go with phpBB.
Regards,
Erik
I wrote:
phpBB allows posting without registration, and the admins could be registered users who are also moderators on the board.
^^^^^^ mediators/arbitrators
I should also add that phpBB, and some other forum systems, include built- in poll systems. This way, we could have an open discussion, but the poll could be closed to mediators/arbitrators and would be easy to use (polling via email is a PITA).
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
Cunctator has been an ardent advocate of using message boards. I have some reservations about boards, but perhaps this would be an opportunity to try them, especially as this will be a "use once, then forget" kind of system (i.e. people will not want to subscribe/unsubscribe for a single debate). phpBB allows posting without registration, and the admins could be registered users who are also moderators on the board.
I think that's a good idea, it is an opportunity to try something new, yes.
--Jimbo