[WikiEN-l] Another conflict regarding linking to "attack sites"

[Matthew Brown]

On 4/25/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Two of the arbitrators involved in that decision (Fred and Jay)
> confirmed during a recent request for clarification that the rulings
> applied to any attack site, not just to ED.

I note that I did not contribute to that request for clarification.

In my personal view, things in the 'Principles' or 'Findings of fact'
sections in an arbitration case are not remedies.  I am uncomfortable
with people taking things said in that section as commands from the
arbitration committee to do anything.  If we wanted to explicitly rule
that something should be done, it would be in 'Remedies' or
'Enforcement'.

In a sense, what we are saying there is that we believe that existing
policy, precedent and/or common sense already contain those things.
In this case, six Arbitrators considered not linking to attack sites
as already covered by de facto policy.

The arbcom is a bad way to make new policy, since there are only a
small number of us.  We attempt to interpret existing policy for
circumstances not explicitly considered by those policies, however.

My concern (which is a general one, not just specifically for this
case) is about the danger of taking things stated in a short sentence
as a principle in a specific arbitration case as being a complete and
full interpretation of the entirety of Wikipedia policy on that issue,
disallowing any nuance or complexity of interpretation.

Assuming that Principles stated in a case are the immutable law of
Wikipedia is also a dangerous assumption to make.  We do not consider
ourselves bound by precedent, for one thing; the Arbcom reserves the
right to change its mind in future cases, although sensibly we try not
to do that too much.  However, we are certainly not bound to keeping
precedent if current arbitrators find the precedent an incorrect one.

Although applying a governmental model to Wikipedia is in itself a
dangerous over-simplification, in most cases it's correct to see the
arbitration committee as a judicial arm of government, not a
legislative or executive one.   We try to come down on the side of
interpreting policy, not making policy, though the line is a blurry
one.

-Matt