Matthew Brown wrote:
IMO, we can only make all inter-arbitrator messages public ... We cannot legitimately turn the current arbcom system into a wholly public and transparent one ... I suspect that if the arbcom became a wholly transparent and public body.... I know that there are some who'd advocate such radical openness. No secret arbcom deliberations. No OTRS. No privacy policy? It would seem to follow. Checkuser data open to all to view?
I'm sure there are, but no-one here has suggested this. This smacks of 'strawman'.
if the interests of the end product are best served by having some private processes, we have them.
Exactly, no one would say otherwise. My question is simply does the current *level* of non-public process best serve the product. That's question that we surely never stop asking.
it would be possible to open arbcom proceedings up a little without going to those extremes.
Indeed, that's my point.
However, anything short of forbidding any kind of closed deliberation or discussion among the arbcom members cannot even hope to satisfy those who frankly don't trust authority and structure; and even then, I suspect, the paranoid would suspect clandestine communication.
So, ignore such paranoid idiots. However, it is again a strawman.
I do trust arbcom, I don't always agree with them - but that life.
However, this type of bunker mentality and endemic culture of secrecy really isn't going to help. There should always be an openness to people like me asking from the outside: could we do this better?
I accept that there's going to be a lot of arbcom stuff that needs private communication - and none of that should be impeded. But the principle ought to be "secret only when necessary".
The fact is right now that almost all arbcom deliberation is behind closed doors - and is simply not open to the parties or, indeed, to interfacing with concurrent community discussions.
A few arbs seem to comment on workshops etc - and all credit to them - but where are the rest? (Granted some of these are such trolling shitstorms that any sane person would avoid them.) I've only occasionally seen arbs comment in the arbs 'discussion sections' of the proposed decisions case - and I'm talking about cases where all
Now, if that's because arbs are listening to the discussion and have nothing much further to say - fine. But I strongly suspect that the mailing list is hot with "what do we do about user x,y or g" in cases where the community is having the same discussion and there is no confidential information at stake. (If I'm wrong about this, I appologise and I'll go home with my tail between my legs.)
But, I'm not even suggesting that *all* such discussion needs to be open - I'm just suggesting the "secret is the default" attitude is the wrong way round. It is true that sometimes it is beneficial for a jury to retire to consider its verdict, and as someone pointed out to me "jury transcripts are not published". However, that person forgot to say that juries don't make transcripts in the first place and they certainly don't have archives of discussions available for the next jury to refer to.
In the end, the legal parallels are not helpful. We should just say:
Wiki-communities are open communities. Arbcom does indeed have much business that by necessity can't be. However, whenever it *can* be open, it should be open.
Doc