[Wikipedia-l] Arbitration/mediation on en

[Andre Engels]

On Fri, 5 Dec 2003, Delirium wrote:

> 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).

Your own statement already says it. "Indefinitely". What if I want A,
someone else wants B, and mediation does not find a solution, either
because one or both of us is too stubborn, or because there simply is
no compromise between the two? Should we just be left alone fighting?
Should we be told time and again "Come on, there should be a solution"?

I do agree that getting to a solution through mediation is the
preferred solution. But there are times when it does not work. Under
your scheme, it seems to me that in that case there is no choice
between "just let the edit war keep going" and "Mr. A is banned".

Andre Engels