White Cat wrote:
Appeals are the problem. Appeals supposed to deal with
sharp edges that form
after the case. Issues that should be solved during the case (as they were
after all presented there) are not resolved in the cases and so much time is
wasted on appeals.
Maybe some people are expecting too much from Arbcom.
This shift did not start after the arbitration case,
it happened during the
case after the passing of the temporary induction that halted all activity
on television related articles. Don't believe me? How do you explain what
happened to multiple Dungeons & Dragons articles? It isn't even a video game
mind you; a board game. The disruption is back to television related
articles as well as the temporary injunction went kaput since the closure of
E&C2.
People are tired with dealing with such a thing. I know I am. If arbcom will
go out of their way failing to address my concerns anyways why should I
waste time with appeals? E&C2 was supposed to be an appeal case. In other
words less than a month after the conclusion of the first case there were
enough issues to warrant a second one. I think there currently are enough
issues to start a third case just a week or two after the closure of the
first case.
So what, then, should be the scope of Arbcom's authority. They should
not be ruling on content. They should not be writing policy. Most
cases should have had evidence reviewed and rulings made long before the
matter became a case with Arbcom. They would then review the case when
asked to determine if there had been any errors in the earlier decision.
Private communication is fine. But when "Comment
by Arbitrators" section on
/Workshop is never used by arbitrators we have a problem. Why should people
even post anything at all in workshops anymore? In the above case only thing
arbitrators posted was about the temporary injunction (I haven't reread the
entire /workshop document so correct me if I am wrong) and even then only a
few of them showed up. Same goes for talk pages of the case.
There must be some reason why you haven't read the entire document. One
can only presume that Arbcom members have similar reasons.Scrolling only
through the TOC was onerous enough.
Good proposals from other people on workshop should be
voted on on /proposed
decisions even if they were discussed privately - say in the arbcom mailing
list. Thats what I would do. *People should be told why their proposal was
rejected.* This is very important. Otherwise you feel being ignored. You
continue to believe you may be right with your proposal but because no one
seemingly payed any attention to it they simply did not know about it. Or
much worse they intentionally chose to ignore it because of <put random
conspiracy theory here>.
"Good proposals" itself is a subjective judgement. My guess is that
everyone who makes a proposal believes that it is good. Voting on every
proposal is absurd. In giving the proposers the benefit of the doubt it
is more likely that each has some elements of value, and a straight up
or down vote is likely to oversimplify. A single synthesis makes more
sense. The pay rate of the arbitrators is not calibrated to giving
detailed attention to every proposed solution. Does not having the time
to give detailed consideration to every proposal count as random
conspiracy? Being ignored is a fact of life that one has to learn to
live with. I can't begin to outline the number of times my excellent
ideas have been ignored; proceeding in a spirit of forgiveness keeps my
feet on the ground.
Arbcom tends to ignore inconvenient questions weather
they are asked such
questions on the arbitration case, on their talk page or anywhere else. This
is probably to avoid saying anything that may cause problems. They perhaps
do this to protect the encyclopedia which is what they are hurting with
their method of protecting it. They are in this protective veil.
Fair enough.
They should be more open in discussing their rationale
without worrying
about their or arbcoms reputation. People may actually agree with their
rationale should they hear about it.
Arbitrators should probably be available on IRC. There should be unofficial
office hours per arbitrator where people can talk with the arbitrator
without fearing sanctions and remedies.
It's hard to imagine anything worse for
them to do. We don't need for
the Arbcom to be trolled into individually compromising expressions of
views. The maxim "Don't feed the trolls," There is nothing in the job
description asking them to swim in piranha infested waters. Their
rationale should accompany their decision.
Ec