[WikiEN-l] Fwd: Random jury

[WereSpielChequers]

> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 04:00:56 +0100
> From: Ian Woollard <ian.woollard at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Destructionism
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
>        <AANLkTikV1_XHAbsm+HzezF=D9zp6L6RndqvvTZd47CCd at mail.gmail.com>
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>
> It seems to me that the isms we get are to do with the relatively poor
> decision making process we have. I think the current 'judicial' system
> involve admins is rather broken.
>
> The problem is that the RFCs/AFDs etc are too prone to vote stuffing
> of one form or another, the most benign source of which is probably
> 'noticeboards', whereas the most malign is presumably sockpuppets or
> even paid stooges.
>
> In theory admins should sort most of these problems out, as they're
> supposed to follow the policies, rather than treat it as a vote, but
> because the admins are voted in/out via a popularity contest they
> usually go with the popularist vote.
>
> Perhaps the wikipedia would do much better to go with a random jury
> selection process to make the actual decision, and then have an admin action it.
>
> There would be downsides but I would tend to think that that would
> probably be more normative to what the reader expects when they read
> the article.
>
> --
> -Ian Woollard
>

There are many criticisms I would and have made of RFA, but it isn't a
popularity contest, though it can be an unpopularity contest as the
70-75% threshold for success means that only a relatively small number
of foes are needed to derail an RFA. And admins are definitely not
voted out by a popularity contest, though replacing Arbcom with some
sort of lynch mob  does get unsuccessfully proposed every few months.

Having a jury system instead of anyone who cares enough about that
article or deletions in general would be a tad unwiki, and I suspect
only the extremists on both sides would willingly serve on such juries
in any number. Even then I doubt you would get large enough numbers to
replicate AFD.

As for sockpuppetry, traditionally Wikipedia has been very relaxed
about this. It would be technically feasible to be much more rigorous,
we might need to invest a little in software and hardware - we'd
certainly need to amend our privacy policies both to keep data on the
IPs used by logged in editors for much longer, and to go on fishing
trips.  But if we wanted to we could have software that notified the
checkusers whenever two accounts that sometimes used the same IP voted
in the same AFD, and I suspect we could permanently store IP and
editing pattern info on serious miscreants so that the system could
warn checkusers of their possible return. We'd certainly need to allow
for more false positives, but I suspect I'm not the only Wikipedian
who would welcome a somewhat beefed up approach to sockpuppetry.

WereSpielChequers