[WikiEN-l] ArbCom Legislation

[Anthony]

On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 3:25 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
<cimonavaro at gmail.com> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
>> C'mon, Arb Com was imposed by the incorporator, president, and board
>> chair of the foundation which controlled the domain name and servers
>> on which the project ran (the servers were actually *owned* at the
>> time by a corporation of which I believe Jimbo was the majority
>> shareholder, and which he was definitely in control of).  At the time
>> Arb Com was imposed, Jimbo had every right to install the arbitration
>> committee.  To say he's "not all that special" is to be incredibly
>> ignorant of the historical context.
>
> Sorry but, as someone who was there (volunteered and got appointed
> to try and make a go of the mediation committee), this is spun so
> far that it bears almost nil relation to the real historic record.
>
> Jimbo did not impose the arbcom structure. He asked for volunteers
> to see if a workable group could be convened that could take some
> of the work he no longer had time for.
>
> The arbcom, when it formed itself, immediately morphed into a body
> that had nearly zero resemblance to what Jimbo or others had at
> first described as how it should operate.
>
> At first it did not satisfy nearly all the wishes that were hoped
> it would satisfy (though it was markedly more effective than the
> mediation committee I was a member of, that isn't saying much - and
> this does really reflect badly on me individually). Despite this
> Jimbo said that he would give it respect and support, and try very
> hard to not meddle or countermand its decisions except in a very
> extreme miscarriage of justice.
>
> I honestly don't know if Jimbo ever overturned an Arbcom decision,
> but positing that Jimbo instituted the Arbcom as his own creation,
> is just not even close to any form of veracity.

As someone who was a named party to one of the very first arb com
cases, and who was in contact with Jimbo regarding its progress, I
must strongly disagree with you.

I'm not sure if it's worth my time to go and find an exact quote,
since you yourself have provided no evidence to support your
assertions, but when I suggested back then that the Arb Com could be
ignored, Jimbo basically said to me that my submission to the arb com
was voluntary, but that failure to submit to it would result in a
permanent ban.  I asked him numerous times to look into the ruling,
and while he often responded with a promise to look into it, he never
even gave me so much as an explanation as to why he found it
justified.

> Given what I said above, I think it is obvious that "designing" a
> replacement for the arbcom would be an excercise in futility.

I frankly don't even understand how that follows even if what you said
above was correct, which it isn't.