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

[stevertigo]

On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 8:18 AM, Charles
Matthews<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:

> Hmm, it might save time if you sent an email to Jimbo, so you could get
> his straight and insightful "no" to the idea of resolution-l. Or even
> his very direct and trenchany "yes".

Hm. I don't email retired people. Interferes with their fishing.

> Given your announced intentions for it, I think it is reasonable to
> assume that it is ground of your own choosing for a battle with the Sith
> Lords of Arbitration.

Ha. If those "Sith lords" did things more openly, they would be the
beings of light and wisdom people thought they were when we voted for
them.

> So it turns out you don't vote for or against arbs? You are in the
> majority, since turnout hardly reaches 20%. But it rather undercuts your
> premise.

Hm. I did vote in that election IIRC. Could be wrong about that though
- might have been busy with real life. But just like with the current
board election, I don't have to get too involved in any of the
soapboxing to just vote for people I know and respect. The issue then
with Arbcom is that election to that institution means they stop being
the same beings we voted for -  instead becoming this largely insular,
non-responsive and overworked hanging court. Doesn't have to be that
way, IMHO.

> many people were voting for the
> general principle of change rather than specifics of how Arbitration
> could be improved, procedurally or at the level of what type of person
> should be an arb.

I like getting into specifics, personally, and I agree with your
apparent view that just changing things up sometimes doesn't quite
have as much validity as implementing specific desired changes. In
fact I foresaw some of these specific issues a couple years ago, and
outlined them at WP:DRREF .

> The Gorbachev reference is therefore to try to get
> away from the idea that US politics is the only valid type of
> comparison. It is also slyly implying that you can end up with Putin, a
> KGB man, whatever the sloganising.

OK. We now know you are a true and capable fan of the politics.

> I happen to think that requests for
> things to be more "open" can be queried: there is plenty of private mail
> that should remain private because it is either (a) about private life
> details that have no bearing on the encyclopedia, but come up because
> voluntary work tends to drag private matters into the workplace,

I agree only in part. In fact, I would propose the rule that any
discussions in private be made redundant and redacted (removing
private details) in a public archive. This ideally could be done quite
orthogonally - public copies are identical to the private ones, albeit
with certain appropriate and collaboratively editable redactions.

> horse-trading and straw polls which are part of the proper work of a
> committee. In fact Arbitration cases generate acres of material showing
> how decisions are made; and in most cases (not all) what appears on the
> wiki is at least a fair record of how a decision was reached.

Ah. "Horse trading" as in I will agree to ban Peter for one year, if
you agree to ban Paul or two?  In the context of Arbitration, the
practice is actually quite a DBAD violation.

Opening things up will have some nice counterbalancing effects toward
that: Any Arbs inclined to be quite "Sith"-like in private will
instead think twice. Which brings up an interesting corrollary - we
know that overworked people sometimes have problems thinking even once
about anything, let alone twice.

Stevertigo wrote :
>> The fact remains that dispute resolution functions need to be more
>> open. If Arbcom and perhaps even Foundation (hm) actually functioned
>> fully in accord with their own stated principles or values, then there
>> would be no issue with concepts like transparency.

> That's it: sentence 1 says this is about glasnsost'. And sentence 2
> appears just to be false, IMX.

Its neither Glasnost, nor Perestroika, nor the Bolivarian or Orange
revolutions, nor the Boston Tea Party. It's just me cracking open the
clam, under the suspicion of a notion that there still be some pearls
inside.

-Stevertigo