On Sat, 2003-12-06 at 06:49, Alex R. wrote:
From: Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
>Me too. As does the whole discussion of whether arbitrators should have a remit which includes content of articles.
>I think this highlights the fact that the missing third wheel of the mediation/arbitration pair is Expert Determination.
>I think Alex756 briefly mentioned this in a much earlier discussion, but it got lost in the volume of discussion about arbitration and >mediation, which are slightly better known by most folks. So, Alex756, would you like to recap?
Arbitrators make decisions based upon a dispute.
Yes, well this is pretty much the problem with having wikimedias arbitrators decide the content of articles. The content of the articles can almost never be easily framed as a "dispute" (where there are two clear alternatives).
Almost always quarrels over article content are what are technically termed "issues" (where the object of the dispute resolution is to discover what the content should be, not which). Or so I think.
If a one were to allow disputant wikipedians to bring to arbitration "formulated disputes" between two versions of an article, that would be a horrendous usurpation of the wikipedia editorship as a whole.
Sometimes this dispute is based upon facts, or relationships between facts (we often call that law, rules) or relationships between rules (adjectival dispute resolution). There are facts that are readily determinable through such activities as reviewing documents, listening to the testimony of individuals (I was there, I saw what happened) or through an expert. I am assuming that this is what you are interested in. Such experts make reports. It is true that experts may have differing opinions, thus several experts (representing each position in a dispute) may tender their reports and opinions. True the arbiters may make the final decisions ( these may be judge like or jury like, or a combination of those roles) but their decisions must bear some reasonable relationship to the generally accepted methodologies of the experts. Or they could make a reference to such experts, or a panel thereof and that panel could make
a determination based upon their generally recognized expert qualifications ir the arbiters could appoint an expert and ask for a report. Such report may be questioned by the various parties to the arbitration (they are not litigants, arbitration is basically a contractual relationship, not one that is state imposed) and some type of appeal to the arbitrators may be possible if the experts make a determination that can be shown to disregard the decision making process of their expertise. There are really many ways in which arbitration and the determination of experts can interact. Does that help, Cimon?
Well yes, it helps define what I wasn't talking about ;-)
I guess I was thinking more on the lines of expert determination like that in cases where a contract itself says that in case of a dispute an independent expert is brought in, and produces a binding evaluation.
I confess that the problem with this is where to find an outside expert, as quite likely they are already embroiled anyway. Looking outside wikipedia has problems, though there is precedent for that. I'm thinking about the case of Florentin Smarandache and his Neutrosophy article (from my first days on wikipedia, btw).
As I recall, in that case the man was totally unable to write about himself and his theory comprehensibly, and an outside logician from India was brought in to fix the articles.
I suppose a nearmiss might be to get someone from an adjacent field to do the expert determination.
Where the arbitrators might conceivably come in is, if one party wanted to directly revert the article back to what it was before the expert made his contribution. Maybe.
Well, these are my thoughts at the moment anyway. Ask me tomorrow, and I might have a differerent opinion.
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen (aka Cimon Avaro)