I think the issue that Jay raised is a serious one.
The scenario is that A brings an arbitration case against B, the committee looks at both sides of the dispute, then both A and B get penalties.
This is a clear violation of A's right to due process. Nobody should be penalised unless a case is brought against them (by the committee if they wish), it passes the initial voting as to whether the case should be heard, then there is a period of argumentation and collection of evidence specifically in relation to that person. This is not true in the case of A, since the voting and Evidence page argumentation is primarily in relation to B.
If the witnesses in a criminal trial are found to have committed crimes themselves, they are sceduled for their own trials. They are not given sentences by the original court. The same principle should hold here.
It is not enough to lump A and B together as defendants at the beginning, as that can still mean that A is put on trial due to the strength of the case against B.
Zero.
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zero 0000 wrote:
If the witnesses in a criminal trial are found to have committed crimes themselves, they are sceduled for their own trials. They are not given sentences by the original court. The same principle should hold here.
The analogy fails because this is not an Internet Democracy but an encyclopedia-writing project.
Even if that is not the case, it fails because ArbCom cases are more analogous to civil trials, not criminal ones. We have a pile of janitors with mops, buckets and M-16s for the equivalent of criminal ones.
- d.
zero 0000 wrote:
The scenario is that A brings an arbitration case against B, the committee looks at both sides of the dispute, then both A and B get penalties.
This is a clear violation of A's right to due process. Nobody should be penalised unless a case is brought against them (by the committee if they wish), it passes the initial voting as to whether the case should be heard, then there is a period of argumentation and collection of evidence specifically in relation to that person. This is not true in the case of A, since the voting and Evidence page argumentation is primarily in relation to B.
If the witnesses in a criminal trial are found to have committed crimes themselves, they are sceduled for their own trials. They are not given sentences by the original court. The same principle should hold here.
It is not enough to lump A and B together as defendants at the beginning, as that can still mean that A is put on trial due to the strength of the case against B.
This isn't the scenario here though---there are no cases against specific people, only disputes *between* multiple people. We require that earlier steps of the dispute-resolution process be followed first, such as mediation. If these are unsuccessful, the matter goes to arbitration. The arbitration is thus arbitration of the dispute between two people, and is charged with resolving it in some way.
The proper analogy, as the name implies, is to arbitration hearings, not to court cases. It is standard practice in arbitration that sanctions may be levied against either or both of the parties to a hearing.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
This isn't the scenario here though---there are no cases against specific people, only disputes *between* multiple people. We require that earlier steps of the dispute-resolution process be followed first, such as mediation. If these are unsuccessful, the matter goes to arbitration. The arbitration is thus arbitration of the dispute between two people, and is charged with resolving it in some way.
The proper analogy, as the name implies, is to arbitration hearings, not to court cases. It is standard practice in arbitration that sanctions may be levied against either or both of the parties to a hearing.
I should clarify that the distinction in practice is admittedly blurred. Early on, arbitration cases were always labelled "X vs. Y", but these days they're more often labelled with just one person's name, which does pretty clearly imply that there's a single defendant. The actual discussions and decisions still go on under the assumption that this is arbitration between disputants though, since that was how the function of the arbitration committee was conceived.
Whether this ought to be changed to some other model, perhaps more approximating court cases, is of course open to debate.
-Mark
zero 0000 said:
I think the issue that Jay raised is a serious one.
The scenario is that A brings an arbitration case against B, the committee looks at both sides of the dispute, then both A and B get penalties.
This is a clear violation of A's right to due process.
Well it isn't a trial, and nobody said A or B had a right to any process!
But think of the arbitration committee as, perhaps, an examining magistrate, not a judge. They are investigator, prosecutor and judge all rolled into one. I think the mistake being made is to assume that there is supposed to be some kind of adversarial system with a clear winner and a clear loser as in the case of a criminal trial under the system of common law. This isn't the only way of getting at the truth and deciding how to remedy any problems that exist, and for our purposes it certainly wouldn't be a very efficient one. It also must be borne in mind that we are all accountable, at all times, for all of our actions on Wikipedia. We're not here to gossip, make a living, entertain ourselves, argue or save the world. Common principles of justice and the individual have no place here. This is a community, one with a purpose, and the arbitration committee is here to ensure that it functions smoothly. Someone who is scared to take a complaint to the arbitration committee because he may then be held accountable for his own actions is, it seems to me, missing the point.
Tony Sidaway wrote:
It also must be borne in mind that we are all accountable, at all times, for all of our actions on Wikipedia. We're not here to gossip, make a living, entertain ourselves, argue or save the world. Common principles of justice and the individual have no place here.
Not quite *no* place - volunteers must feel the processes are fair. The AC may say "we do this, this and this," but if people don't feel that's enough, they will feel less like participating in the project. Which would be bad.
This is a community, one with a purpose, and the arbitration committee is here to ensure that it functions smoothly. Someone who is scared to take a complaint to the arbitration committee because he may then be held accountable for his own actions is, it seems to me, missing the point.
That I'll certainly second.
- d.
David Gerard said:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
It also must be borne in mind that we are all accountable, at all times, for all of our actions on Wikipedia. We're not here to gossip, make a living, entertain ourselves, argue or save the world. Common principles of justice and the individual have no place here.
Not quite *no* place - volunteers must feel the processes are fair. The AC may say "we do this, this and this," but if people don't feel that's enough, they will feel less like participating in the project. Which would be bad.
Yes, you're right. I plead a late night and too-hasty proofing.
I'm puzzled. I made a 3RR report when the other guy made 4 reverts in 24 hours. He'd stopped talking and had become abusive so I pulled the trigger, having refrained from undoing his 4th revert. Yet I've been blocked for a 3RR breach. How is this so?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#Use...
Pete (Skyring)
You were also reverting, that's why, and Adam did warn you, I believe, that you had violated, or were about to violate, 3RR. He also said that he wouldn't report it, and if you did get blocked, he'd object on your behalf, because he doesn't like to see people blocked for 3RR, even when he disagrees with them. Shortly after he said that to you, you went and reported him.
Sarah
On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 14:28:35 +1100, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
I'm puzzled. I made a 3RR report when the other guy made 4 reverts in 24 hours. He'd stopped talking and had become abusive so I pulled the trigger, having refrained from undoing his 4th revert. Yet I've been blocked for a 3RR breach. How is this so?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#Use...
Pete (Skyring) _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 20:56:21 -0700, slimvirgin@gmail.com slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
You were also reverting, that's why, and Adam did warn you, I believe, that you had violated, or were about to violate, 3RR. He also said that he wouldn't report it, and if you did get blocked, he'd object on your behalf, because he doesn't like to see people blocked for 3RR, even when he disagrees with them. Shortly after he said that to you, you went and reported him.
Sarah
I've removed the block Skyring had not reverted more than 3 times in 24 hours.
Adam Carr was being abusive and clearly violated the 3RR rule. He is, from my experience, one of the most abusive editors I have come across on Wikipedia. Skyring was consistent in offering sources and logic for his edits, and in refraining from retaliating to Adam's provocative abuse.
It doesn't matter in the slightest that Adam purports not to like seeing "people blocked for 3RR, even when he disagrees with them." Apart from the fact that he was trying to cover his own ass this is not the preference of the Wikipedia community.
Skyring was correct to report him and to imply that doing so was some kind of backstab is to intimidate.
Christiaan
On 4 Mar 2005, at 3:56 am, slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
You were also reverting, that's why, and Adam did warn you, I believe, that you had violated, or were about to violate, 3RR. He also said that he wouldn't report it, and if you did get blocked, he'd object on your behalf, because he doesn't like to see people blocked for 3RR, even when he disagrees with them. Shortly after he said that to you, you went and reported him.
Sarah
On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 14:28:35 +1100, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
I'm puzzled. I made a 3RR report when the other guy made 4 reverts in 24 hours. He'd stopped talking and had become abusive so I pulled the trigger, having refrained from undoing his 4th revert. Yet I've been blocked for a 3RR breach. How is this so?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/ 3RR#User:Adam_Carr
Pete (Skyring)
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com
Someone who is scared to take a complaint to the arbitration committee because he may then be held accountable for his own actions is, it seems to me, missing the point.
Missing the point indeed; the point being that few people come out looking completely spotless under the kind of forensic examination that sometimes happens in the inevitable counter-suits, combined with the fear that ArbCom will feel it needs to sanction both parties, so that it appears "fair". Again, I'm not saying this is actually happening, but that there is a perception that this is happening, which discourages people from getting involved.
Jay.
JAY JG said:
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com
Someone who is scared to take a complaint to the arbitration committee because he may then be held accountable for his own actions is, it seems to me, missing the point.
Missing the point indeed; the point being that few people come out looking completely spotless under the kind of forensic examination that sometimes happens in the inevitable counter-suits, combined with the fear that ArbCom will feel it needs to sanction both parties, so that it appears "fair". Again, I'm not saying this is actually happening, but that there is a perception that this is happening, which discourages people from getting involved.
Of course the would-be petitioner could always get someone relatively spotless to bring the complaint. But then I think that Arbcom would suddenly realise that it has to expand its attentions to all involved in a Wikipedia fuck-up, not just those who put their names to a complaint on WP:RFAR. Which I think would be reasonable. Arbitration is supposed to be a way of keeping Wikipedia functioning well, so of course it isn't going to accept the preconceptions of one or another party to a behavior dispute. Look, we're just talking about editing privileges on a Wiki. Should I be told by English Wikipedia's arbitrators to wipe my nose and stop spitting on the floor, it would not reflect adversely on my career. Nor would it subtract points from my driver's license, and it would not really bother me in the least. Suppose I bring a case and the worst happens: I'm banned for a year or more.
Banned from en.wikipedia? Well my French is passable, my Spanish too, and I need to brush up on my German and my Portuguese. There's Simple English, Anglo Saxon and Latin. If English Arbcom has jurisdiction over these Wikis, it's news to me. To paraphrase Peter Pan, for any competent English Wikipedian, being banned would be an awfully big adventure. This is not a monoglot project. And then I could always get on with the things I *should* be doing instead of Wikipedying. ;)
It is being involved which will teach you how to avoid the common mistakes which disputive Wikipedia editors make, such as making personal attacks rather than addressing user behavior, and discussing the issues rather than focusing on how to express and include divergent opinions in articles on controversial subjects.
If you are not going to make personal attacks anyway being on personal attack parole doesn't amount to much.
Fred
From: "JAY JG" jayjg@hotmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 16:43:39 -0500 To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'?
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com
Someone who is scared to take a complaint to the arbitration committee because he may then be held accountable for his own actions is, it seems to me, missing the point.
Missing the point indeed; the point being that few people come out looking completely spotless under the kind of forensic examination that sometimes happens in the inevitable counter-suits, combined with the fear that ArbCom will feel it needs to sanction both parties, so that it appears "fair". Again, I'm not saying this is actually happening, but that there is a perception that this is happening, which discourages people from getting involved.
Jay.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
--- JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
From: "Tony Sidaway"
Someone who is scared to take a complaint to the arbitration committee because he may then be held
accountable for his own
actions is, it seems to me, missing the point.
Missing the point indeed; the point being that few people come out looking completely spotless under the kind of forensic examination that sometimes happens in the inevitable counter-suits, combined with the fear that ArbCom will feel it needs to sanction both parties, so that it appears "fair". Again, I'm not saying this is actually happening, but that there is a perception that this is happening, which discourages people from getting involved.
Jay.
Yes, it has happened. Twice to me. It's not worth the hassle.
RickK
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