Matt wrote in part:
Creating another special class of users is not IMO
required; keeping a
list of people willing to step in and mediate / arbitrate controversial
issues on a basis of no real extra power is probably good enough.
For mediation, I agree. For arbitration, I'm not so sure.
See, an arbitrator makes a decision which must be obeyed;
this must be agreed to ahead of time, and be enforceable.
So an arbitrator ought to have some degree of power-endowed-by-Jimbo.
That said, I'd like the mediator bit to start up before the arbitrator bit.
Who knows, maybe it'll be sufficient! So I agree with your broad point,
that we don't need to -- hence shouldn't -- unflatten the hierarchy.
I certainly strongly oppose the User:Mediator idea of a
solitary,
unknown-to-everyone mediator.
Of course, that's a bad idea.
I'm not one to reject ideas just because 142 came up with them,
but jeez.
There is, as suggested by some,
a problem with people not accepting mediation by someone they think has
ideological 'baggage', but the fact remains: they might be RIGHT in their
rejection of such a person.
True, I think that there are situations where Ed should not mediate,
and probably even people that he shouldn't mediate conflicts among;
because of Ed's few passionate positions and the few users that dislike him.
This is /despite/ the fact that I HEREBY NOMINATE ED POOR FOR MEDIATOR,
since he seems to be good at this sort of thing, almost all of the time.
But we should have more than simply a list of volunteer mediators.
The mediators, in volunteering, should make a study of mediation;
and Wikipedia (or the English Wikipedia) should have some ideas
about how mediation ought to be done, discussed and written down.
Ed recently wrote that he has a lot to learn about mediation;
and this does not surprise me, but I believe that he can learn it.
It may take a certain kind of personality to understand well
the kind of detachment that a mediator should take;
a mediator can't try to get /their/ opinion chosen,
but has to focus on resolving the /disputants'/ positions.
Accordingly, I HEREBY NOMINATE MAVERIC FOR MEDIATOR,
since this sort of thing is right up his INTJ alley.
-- Toby