[WikiEN-l] Mediation, arbitration

[Jimmy Wales]

There are a few people (Anthere, TufKat, others?) who I neglected to
include in my first list, but it is past the start of the year, and we
have a few outstanding controversies that need to be addressed.  So
I'd like to move that we get things organized.  Unorganized committees
with no set procedures are worse than my benevolent dictatorship, I
think, because there's no clear way to say what should be done.

Mediation and arbitration are very different activities.  To recall,
mediation is a no-penalty effort to resolve a conflict through 3rd
party friendly intervention.  The mediation committee seeks to find a
way, on an article or in a personal conflict, for work to continue
without further trouble.

The arbitration committee, on the other hand, can impose a solution
that I'll consider to be binding, with of course the exception that I
reserve the right of executive clemency and indeed even to dissolve
the whole thing if it turns out to be a disaster.  But I regard that
as unlikely, and I plan to do it about as often as the Queen of
England dissolves Parliament against their wishes, i.e. basically
never, but it is one last safety valve for our values.

I'd like for a (relatively quick, as there's work to be done now) vote
among each committee for a chairperson, who will be tasked with
organizing the work.  I'd say that the chair should come up with a
plan of action, and propose some voting thresholds, and then with the
input and consensus of the wider community, I'll stamp my official
seal of approval on that.

--Jimbo