[Wikipedia-l] Arbitration/mediation on en

[Fred Bauder]

> From: Delirium <delirium at rufus.d2g.com>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2003 13:07:43 -0800
> To: wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Arbitration/mediation on en
> 
> I think this is already what you have in mind, but just to clarify what
> I think is an important point, is this the correct understanding of the
> two committees' "power", such that it is? --
> 
> Mediation: Involved in both disputes between users, and in particularly
> difficult disputes over articles (including content and content
> presentation), for example by suggesting compromise wording or
> rearrangements.  Mediators have no specific power to impose a solution,
> but should act in good faith, and hopefully their efforts will be seen
> as a good faith attempt to mediate disputes to reach a mutually
> agreeable conclusion.
> 
> Arbitration: *Only* tasked with reviewing potential bans of users.  Does
> *not* have any power with regards to arbitrating the disputes over
> content or content presentation.  Basically, this committee is what
> decides when someone simply cannot work within Wikipedia, after an
> appeal from someone who has made that claim and asked the user to be
> banned.  The actual disputes themselves stay at the mediation level
> indefinitely, and are not subject to arbitration (any "voting" decision
> on them would be a wider vote on the talk page, presumably).
> 
> -Mark

The arbitrators cannot decide any dispute that is not submitted to us, but I
think our jurisdiction should include disputes over content in appropriate
instances, for example, where repeated struggles to produce a NPOV article
have failed. 

Fred