[WikiEN-l] Arbcom

[joshua.zelinsky at yale.edu]

Quoting David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:

> On 16/10/2007, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The downside of this is that taken to an extreme, it effectively
>> *requires* that participants get an experienced advocate to help with
>> the process and motions, which introduces the role that Attorneys play
>> in real life.  And we're a volunteer organization, so we can't make
>> someone stand up and argue for someone else's defense.
>
>
> The other downside is that this was tried - the Association of
> Members' Advocates, because people who ended up in arbitration tended
> to be those who rubbed others up the wrong way and did a really bad
> job of representing themselves in the first place. The ArbCom welcomed
> the idea as potentially helpful ... then *all* the AMA did was
> wikilawyer and try procedural tricks, rather than actually help
> translate their clients' positions and thoughts into something that
> appeared reasonable and comprehensible. They were literally worse than
> useless. I remember having frequently thought "could you please shut
> up and stop dragging your client down." Eegh.
>
>

There were a variety of problems with the AMA. 1) Many of the advocates 
were the
self-righteous sort who enjoy wikilawyering 2) Many others were people 
who while
not clueless were close to it 3) Many of the people who go in front of the
ArbCom don't have a better argument to make that can be reasonably translated.
This third problem seemed to be the most common and serious problem. If
translating their clients positions are going to definitely get their clients
banned, or if their clients positions are impossible to translate into any
coherent thoughts, the AMA members didn't have many options other than to
wikilawyer.

This is related to the fact that the vast majority of people who get hard
sanctions from the ArbCom do in fact deserve the hard sanctions, in at least
the minimal sense that the project will be better off with the editors
sanctioned.