[WikiEN-l] Wik and a not-quite-proposal for constitutional change

[Martin Harper]

Jimbo asked:
> I genuinely want to know what arguments are being made in his
> favor, and by whom, and for what reason.

Eg:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Wik2

172 and Danny in particular. To a perhaps lesser extent, Baldhur, Meelar, Dissident, 
RickK, Secretlondon, Sam Spade.

That's just on one page. There are lots of other discussion pages, of course, but reading 
through that should give you a pretty good insight into the relevant discussion. Happy 
reading! :)

Erik wrote:
> I have to say that if they cannot solve this problem [of Wik], I must consider the  
arbitration process broken.

With the best will in the the world, the arbitration committee is not going to magically 
turn Wikipedia into a place of sweetness and light, nor is it going to reform troublesome 
users into paragons of righteousness. A fair, unbiased, and accurate banning process is 
probably part of the puzzle, but it is actually quite a small part. Other parts might 
include:

* Technical measures of various sorts (anti-puppet, anti-revert, anti-edit war, anti-anon 
edit, etc)
* Better policies and guidelines in general
* Good mediation for problems
* Some form of content arbitration, possibly votes, possibly something else
* Bold editing 
* Better policies for allowing bans of various lengths that don't require the committee.
* Culture change
* Multiple independent versions of controversial articles
* yada
* yada
* yada

As an arbitrator, I'm entirely happy to enforce whatever rules you folks decide on, and if 
those rules make the committee obsolete, that would be absolutely fine.

-Martin