[WikiEN-l] Oversized criticism sections and WP:UNDUE (was: Notability and ski resorts)

[stevertigo]

Carcharoth <carcharothwp at googlemail.com> wrote:

> I would also be *very* wary of reports from partisans of what ArbCom
> has done, or has been doing this year.

A couple days ago I had a chance to read Jimbo's Arbcom appointment
directive from Dec. '08 (a diff - for some reason posted to his own
talk page), in which he stated several interesting and important ideas
for Arbcom to improve itself - promptness, expanding/branching out, no
private deliberations, full transparency, responsiveness.

During my own more recent appearance at court, it wasn't apparent that
any of these concepts were even in Arbcom's lexicon, let alone
incorporated into its actual practice. I wound up echoing them, but
had I known of them I would have just parroted them instead. Which
might have not been successful either.

The point here is that several times now Jimbo has apparently restated
that Arbcom has basically all the freedom in the world to reconstitute
its inner workings in any way that it and the community thinks it
needs to. The chains are off, and what threads are left are of little
concern to Community, or the day to day functions of Arbcom.

> Also remember that critics of ArbCom have more time to devote to
> spinning things their way. Individual arbitrators, and ArbCom as a
> whole, often don't have time to respond to protracted and drawn-out
> (over months and years sometimes) criticisms of previous or current
> decisions. That is a weakness of the model. The single-minded person
> can, through a process of continual misrepresentation without
> rebuttal, gradually wear people down and effectively rewrite the story
> of what happened.

I appreciate that Arbcom may be understaffed, and I estimate that
needs to be triple its current size.** But the notion that hard
limitations on signal are required for thoughtful deliberation is a
false one.

There was a interesting suggestion that Arbcom require involved
parties to collaborate on creating a single definitive timeline of
event-diffs. That alone should make it quite easy to see how the
problems developed, and people can then refer to each discrete event
for commentary.

**Size isn't everything, of course. (But recent issues suggest that I
need to keep my language simple - to the point of being almost
simplistic).

> It is precisely that lack of time that means I don't intend to
> participate further in this thread, but if people do mention specific
> examples, please do look at what was said and done at the time, not
> what people are saying now.

I'm sure I speak for everyone here when I say that we do appreciate
what little responsiveness Arbcom or its members can afford.

-Stevertigo