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