[WikiEN-l] Broken dispute resolution mechanisms (was Reithy is a problem)

[JAY JG]

>From: Rhobite <rhobite at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: Rhobite <rhobite at gmail.com>,English Wikipedia 
><wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Reithy is a problem
>Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 22:02:40 -0500

While I don't know the details of this particular case, I think it does 
raise the issue of a larger problem on Wikipedia that I've mentioned before. 
  For a while now schemes for "freezing" pages in various stable states have 
been bandied about on this list.  In my opinion one of the reasons this is 
becoming an issue is because Wikipedia's dispute resolution mechanisms are 
broken, to the extent that editors who repeatedly and deliberatly violate 
Wikipedia rules (e.g. regarding NPOV, personal attacks, civility, etc.) 
operate with near impunity.  Unless they unambiguously commit outright 
vandalism, for which they can be blocked, little or nothing is done about 
them.  Request for Comment is a useless quagmire; partisans on each side of 
the issue line up their votes, and nothing is accomplished.  Requests for 
mediation take weeks or months, with mixed results at best.

However, the worst issue is requests for arbitration.  The arbitration 
process is the only one which actually has any "teeth"; yet it is almost 
completely disfunctional.   Again, not commenting on the merits of the 
cases, the Avala, Lance6wins, and Rex071404 cases have dragged out for 4 
months or more now.   The three month old Cantus vs. Guanaco case is still 
in the Evidence stage!  Many other cases are two or three months old, with 
every indication that they are in for more months of little or no action.   
"Justice delayed is justice denied."

Frankly, Wikipedia has plenty of trolls on it who would, under any 
functional system, have been hard banned within a couple of weeks of their 
arrival.  As it is, though, Arbcom only manages to ban, what, two or three 
users a year? Sysops and bureaucrats have commented to me privately that 
they ignore all of these mechanisms, since they are almost completely 
useless.  The ultimate outcome is that good editors, not wanting to get into 
fights, avoid the articles being trolled, and eventually abandon the 
project.  When the administrators of the project have no faith in its 
processes, and when good editors are being driven away, then these processes 
need to be fixed.

Jay.