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