[WikiEN-l] Dispute resolution mailing list

[Charles Matthews]

stevertigo wrote:
> CM: "If it descends to "X is a disruptive editor so something should 
> be done" one can expect some fairly primitive knockabout."
>
> Is primitive knockabout any worse or better than organized and 
> modernistic knockabout?
>
Here's a literary answer I bring out every few years: Solzhenitsyn in 
"First Circle" described the use of chalk and blackboards to resolve 
disputes (in the context of scientists in a "camp" supposed to design a 
scrambler phone for Stalin). That apparently worked; while mailing list 
threads seem designed to prove that electrons are worse than chalk. But 
of course that is largely a function of the rules and moderation: in the 
"First Circle" context the audience would quickly decide who was in the 
right, and bring the business to a halt.

I do not have the faith you expressed in the efficacy of "mailing list 
technology", an opinion perhaps not unconnected with reading three years 
of ArbCom mail.  It is entirely appropriate to ask whether a list will 
give good results, given the nature of lists.

Charles