From: Jimmy Wales
I'll be away from tomorrow morning early and returning Tuesday. I'll
be available by cellphone 24x7, so those of you who have that number
could reach me in an emergency. I will also have net access, although
I don't intend to be online much.
Remember when I had people volunteer for mediation and arbitration
committees? I haven't forgotten. Expect initial appointments to
those committees on December 2nd, when I get back.
If anyone still wants to volunteer, let me know.
Remember -- mediation in this context means "attempting to resolve a
problem without resort to bans or restrictions of any kind, by helping
two parties to a conflict find a mutually satisfactory solution", and
arbitration in this context means "more mediation, but this time with
ultimate resort to bans or restrictions if absolutely necessary".
Unless the membership and decision-making of these committees is fully
open this will lead us to the same kind of broken, paranoid culture of
Dmoz.
Claims that mediation and arbitration can't work without secrecy are
false.
Or to be more positive: any structure set up which involves a level of
secrecy, if we are to move past the benevolent dictator model, MUST have
formal methods of ensuring accountability and oversight by the general
community--that is, everyone, including non-Wikipedians.
And I *strongly* believe that for any Wikipedia problem for which there
is a hierarchical solution there is also a non-hierarchical solution,
which though possibly more complicated to implement technologically,
will assuredly be better and more scalable.
--tc