I haven't followed ARBCOM closely enough this year to be quite as scathing
as Risker, but the what little I have seen is very disappointing.
I haven't been an arb, but I have done jury service, and I'm a fan of the
system. But it relies on conscription to draft people in for a task that
they are literally locked in a room to do. If a case were only an hour or
so of time then I think you could experiment with inviting panels of a
random thirty or so of our three thousand or of most active editors. My
guess is that a random thirty would give you half a dozen who'd respond -
you could tweak the numbers if my guess is out. But I'm not confident that
this would work for cases that require more than a couple of hours
involvement, or that involve personal information and thereby require
"private sessions". I doubt there are sufficient such cases for a jury
system to make a meaningful contribution to the system.
Reforming arbcom is difficult. Influencing its election rather less so, I
haven't done a voters guide for a few years but I'd commend doing so to
anyone who has the time to thoroughly check the candidates.
On reform, I rather like the panel system, not because a panel of five arbs
will make much better choices than a dozen arbs, but because only having
five arbs on each panel would reduce the workload, hopefully to something
manageable. A lighter load gives the possibility of more people considering
arbcom, and even of arbs engaging more with the community on non arb stuff.
Another option is to invest in training arbs and functionaries. Both on
technical training - if Sarah and Kevin are right re the Lightbreather case
then it may just be that they didn't know how to get or read the evidence;
Also they could be given the sort of training that UK magistrates go on.
Question to Risker, what sort of training do they currently undertake?
On 22 October 2015 at 22:04, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 22 October 2015 at 16:27, Sarah (SV) <slimvirgin(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Daniel, I happen to think that any Arb who is
asked to excuse themselves
from a case should do so, within reason.
I tend to agree with you on this, Sarah.
But in particular I think women who see certain Arbs as sexist should be
able to require recusal. Otherwise the case is hobbled before it begins.
Ditto for anyone with concerns about racism or homophobia.
I'm a little less certain about this one: if there are five parties to a
case, and everyone decides to brand three different arbitrators as
sexist/racist/homophobic etc, you're down to .... nobody.
I would like to see a jury system replace the committee, with small
groups chosen to resolve particular issues. The committee has not worked
for a long time. It isn't the fault of any individual or group. It's a
combination of the way Arbs are nominated and elected, and the way they end
up cloistered away from the community. It creates a "thin blue line"
mentality. I would like to see a grassroots approach, at least as an
experiment.
That was what RFCs and mediation committees did, although I grant that
their "decisions" were not binding. They fell apart - RFCs because
genuinely uninvolved Wikipedians stopped participating. The Mediation
committee fell apart because there were so few people who were any good at
dispute resolution actually mediating them, and also because mediation
required the "participation agreement" of long lists of supposed parties.
(I was once listed as a "party" for a mediation on an article where I made
one edit to remove poop vandalism.)
There's no evidence at all that jury systems are any more fair or accurate
or impartial or unbiased than any other dispute resolution systems. (A
quick look at the number of convicted prisoners who have subsequently been
exonerated proves my point.) Add to that the simple fact that "volunteer"
pools of jurors are, simply by dint of numbers, going to be made up of the
same types of people who are already arbitrators/functionaries/admins (or
potentially people who were rejected for those responsibilities because
they were unsuitable), and that compelling participation of people who have
deliberately NOT wanted to participate in such activities is more likely to
result in those individuals leaving the project entirely rather than making
great decisions (other than the obvious "this is stupid, ban them all so I
can get back to my categorization"). In fact, I suspect that a jury system
made up of conscripted jurors would actually result in much harsher
sanctions all around. There are some who argue that would not be a bad
thing.
Risker/Anne
_______________________________________________
Gendergap mailing list
Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org
To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please
visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap