Kelly Martin wrote:
On 6/16/06, Michael R. Irwin michael_irwin@verizon.net wrote:
Nathan Carter wrote:
I would be interested in assisting in this area if there were to be two people doing the job.
Is Checkuser is kind of Wikipedia specific or has this function spread to all wikis?
CheckUser is available on all Wikimedia projects.
Two is excellent for alternate viewpoints and highly increased reliability.
Three is the first odd number which provides both redundancy and no deadlock capacity assuming each checker provides a firm yes or no there is or is not a problem. Three way spread with complicated opinions probably means more review is necessary to figure out what the hell is really going on or a simple no conclusion.
My personal recommendation is for a commission of five, one of whom should be a Board member. Without a Board member, the commission can only be advisory.
If you have a commission (or committee) doing this sort of thing it will really be nothing but a second Arbcom. Anthere's suggestion really brings us back to having another form of mediator. The role requires a person with good people skills who can investigate a situation and make recommendations, preferably a person who is not in the habit of getting involved in disputes.. Whether there should be more than one depends on the volume of work since each such person working independently of the other(s) on different cases. Most of the discussion should be confidential and offlist to avoid any compulsion by admins to show support of each other. Each case would be judged on its own merits. The perception by a newbie that nobody will pay attention to position needs to be overcome. Admins who are too quick to find punitive solutions to problems give a totally misleading impression of the nature of a wiki.
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