[WikiEN-l] A modest proposal - a recap of resolution-l

[stevertigo]

Bod Notbod<bodnotbod at gmail.com> wrote:

> I like transparency too.
> It makes me pause to wonder whether a dispute resolution mailing list
> is actually against the grain of that.

I understand this point, and I have made it myself in the past - both
with regard to mailing lists, and with regard to the use of IRC.  My
main issues with both forums dealt with access - mailing lists may
require subscription, and typical IRC usage will expose one's IP
address. In reality though, our mailing lists - at least the public
ones - allow non-subscriber posting, and easy to read web archiving,
and freenode now has a web interface at webchat.freenode.net .

Its also true that while email has its problems (waves or something
like it may be able to help), note also that discussion threads on
wiki are also not ideal (waves again) - still email's continued usage
means it is still quite canonical when it comes to dealing with
high-level discussions.

This list for example has been the place for discussing most major
issues on enwiki since '01-'02. And likewise, the point is not to
circumvent or replace on-wiki handling of specific issues, rather to
augment and enhance the overall handling of disputes. We also need a
bit of a terminology change, as I stated previously - we don't have
'edit wars' anymore - we just have editorial disputes.

Anyway, while I appreciate an absurdist argument as much as anyone
(hence the title of this thread) its at the very least extremely
ironic to call an open mailing list 'opaque' or 'lacking transparency'
considering that so much of official dispute resolution at this point
happens on private discussion lists. Resolution-l would not replace
arbcom-l or medcom-l (using what their proper names would be) - rather
it would simply augment and strengthen overall dispute resolution
handling.

If a channel is not open, it's potency and resonance are already muffled.

> I've only recently signed up to a couple of the mailing lists as I intend to get (and am getting) more
> involved with Wikipedia. These lists have a pretty low profile, I'd
> say.

I know you've been around on the wiki for a while, though, right?
Again, I understand the point of keeping things on-wiki, but the fact
of the matter is that on-wiki discussions are often less than ideal -
and less than visible - something required when dealing with issues
that are far-reaching.

> Whilst these mailing lists are, I believe, open for everyone to join,
> it still strikes me as a bit of a back door: I would have thought it
> far more transparent to deal with all dispute resolution on the wiki
> itself where people can see what's going on (and people can place
> relevant links easily) rather than in an email list which is going to
> have a rather different audience.

Same points as above. Linking is a trivial issue, and shouldn't really
affect our discussion here. Technical solutions might also help, but
these have not even been implemented here on wikien-l.

> To put it another way, if I were an editor in dispute with someone
> else and I wasn't subscribed to the mailing list and I become aware
> the other person was discussing it there, I think I'd rightly feel
> that there was something "going on" in a sort of conspiratorial way
> and that a conscious effort had been made to circumvent tackling my
> points.

Keep in mind you are making the same misconceptions that Thomas did.
The resolution-l forum is not for getting into details about how to
handle

> The wiki (en, at least) doesn't seem short of ways and means to deal
> with disputes. I'm somewhat sceptical about the motivation in creating
> a new channel for disputes that requires all parties to sign up for an
> email service to be fully cognisant of where that dispute is heading.

You are contradicting yourself - on the one hand you acknowledge that
an open list does not require subscription, and on the other you claim
that signing up is required.

-Stevertigo