[Foundation-l] Wikinews EN ArbCom

[michael_irwin at verizon.net]

Nathan Carter wrote:

>I was just wondering what the use of ArbCom is if certain users choose 
>not to participate and claim that they do not recognise ArbCom procedures.
>Why should we even have it if that is the case?
>For those interested in this take a look at - 
>http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Requests_for_arbitration/Users_Cartman02au_et_al_v_Mrmiscellanious#Statement_by_User:Mrmiscellanious
>Cheers,
>Nathan Carter (Cartman02au)
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>  
>
Basically the case was made early both in public and in private to Jimbo 
and Larry that "Jimmy says ..." or "Larry says ..." might not scale well 
as the sole method of conflict resolution as Wikipedia conquered the 
Alexi ratings.

The Arbcom was established sometime thereafter .... possibly to help 
provide the appearance of legitimacy to a "community" evolving on an 
owner's server's and bandwidth.   Notice that Fred Bauder also 
established an outlet for POV articles.  Another useful way to allow 
individual expression and bleed off some of the more militant POV 
warriors. 

The use of Arbcom in the face of some users' refusal to acknowledge its 
sovereignty or applicability is fairly straightforward.  Some useful 
conflict resolution now is better than zero conflict resolution or 
perfect legitimate sovereign resolution authority sometime in the next 
few hundred years.  I assume Arbcom has proven efficacious at resolving 
some conflict or Mr. Bauder would probably not still be involved with 
it.  I saw him in action at several legal articles and he does not 
strike me as one interested in wasting his time.

If you wish to improve the perception of the legitimacy of the Arbcom 
more widely throughout the "community" it might be useful to consider 
ways to improve the selection of the arbitrator's.   I may be out of 
date here.  It is possible/likely that the stacked Board has moved 
beyond hand picking people it likes and trusts.  OTOH The label and 
lynch mentality established early in the project may have simply been 
polished up a bit.   Why design and implement a political machine if 
there is no intent to use it?  How were the emerging committees intended 
to offload some of the stacked Board's workload and traceable 
responsibilities established?   Were they handpicked by the stacked 
Board, Jimbo, or selected/elected/nominated by the communities of 
interest that they serve or represent?

Another angle of attack might be to improve the appearance of the appeal 
process.  A few years ago I saw Fred explain that Arbcom's authority was 
derived from Jimbo's status as site owner/God King and therefore he 
could not really effectively arbitrate policy disputes directly 
involving Jimbo as an adversarial party.   As I understand it, at that 
time, appeals beyond the Arbcom were made to Jimbo as the God King.  
Borrowing some vernacular from "24", the ultimate governing ontological 
dinstinction is "Jimmy says ...".   (Which "24" and I and possibly a few 
others rather vocally viewed as a potentially fatal flaw in the 
implementation of the universal ether, absolute correct frame of 
reference, or NPOV.   Fortunately, there is a limit to how much damage 
Jimbo can personally do in other language Wikis.  Inevitably multiple 
biases will infiltrate and errors begin to cancel as the WikiEmbassies 
and translaters improve the flow of information between wikis. )

We could lift and tailor the U.S. approach to adjudication appeal.  When 
U.S. citizens are in dispute with the all powerful executive (el 
Presidente Jimbo) the case is generally appealed to a separate body 
(U.S. Supreme Court) with authority completely autonomous from the 
executive specified by the U.S. Constitution.

Note that in reality this effects the executive very little in day to 
day administration.  Presidents often do as they please despite the 
Court's rulings.  After all they control the armed forces, the daily 
expenditures, and often a public mandate.  Nevertheless it provides a 
pressure relief valve and a focus for vocal minorities attempting to 
drive change to more tolerable (to them, not necessarily the executive's 
minions) conditions. 

Note that this process would probably require modification of the 
existing charter of the Wikimedia Foundation's filed charter.   This is 
not surprising since Jimbo explicitly stated on the Wikipedia mailing 
list that he intended to stack the Board and then proceeded to privately 
develop the initial Wikimedia Foundation charter to do just that.

The whole issue thus resolves to the question of when Jimbo will get 
tired of the problems that unilateral godhead creates within these 
projects he founded and whether suitable modifications can be designed 
and implemented to rectify the deficiencies before some upstart 
organization lifts our materials and begins improving them under a more 
useful charter that encourages effective widespread participation.

It will be interesting to see what recommendations the external 
professionals the stacked Board has been contemplating bringing in have 
and how they compare to some of the community's previously volunteered 
opinions and recommendations.   Of course it is always possible that 
only yes people professionals will be hired as a next stage of window 
dressing.  Effectively this can be done in face saving ways such as 
having the consultants or experts provide multiple options along with 
analysis from which the client then selects the "best" or preferred 
options which are then made public.

Notice how quickly the hired legal expertise turned out to be private 
client confidential with the "clients" being the stacked Board members 
with fiduciary responsibilities rather than the wiki community members 
or foundation membership at large.   This after qualified (Self alleged, 
I asked the volunteer for no verifiable credentials, ... assume good 
faith and all that.) volunteers from the community at large were 
pointedly and repeatedly ignored.

Perhaps we need several teams of legal beagles to adequately represent 
all segments of the "community"?

Might also be interesting .... does anyone know whether any of our 
attempted grant proposals to date have been declined due to specific or 
general concerns stated regarding potential conflicts of interest?

I realize the details are probably 
secret/proprietary/private/something.    I am more interested in the 
existence of the category .... monies not available locally due to 
apparent conflicts of interest.   Could be viable funding should an 
upstart fork ever arise to compete ineptly with the status quo we elite 
few have created herein.

Regards,
lazyquasar