So you wouldn't be happy to volunteer for the position and take some of the workload off Jimbo? Peter, not sticking his hand up, neither

So you wouldn't be happy to volunteer for the position and take some of the workload off Jimbo? Pete, now even more curious

<grin> good point!</grin> Food for thought, though. Just how much crap does Jimbo get, just for being who he is? My guess is that it's a lot. Peter

Actually I think you kind of have this backwards. Usually an appeal is from a decision made by a specialized group to a larger group which represents broader community opinion. You have an appeal from a pretty large group to one person. How about appeals being to the administrators as a group? If there really is a consensus perhaps some way could be found to express it. Fred On Jan 8, 2006, at 10:23 PM, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) wrote:

True, but he has it set up more as an appeals court. A ombudsman in the sense you set forth would be welcome. I wouldn't mind at all someone dropping me a note, saying "Hey, cool it, you're getting carried away [with whatever]." We all need feedback. We don't need a second-guessing czar. Things are hard enough the first time. Fred On Jan 8, 2006, at 11:22 PM, Peter Mackay wrote:

OK, I didn't read the proposal. I don't think we need an appeals court that isn't Jimbo. Not just yet, anyway. But I'd like to see an independent person, possibly with a staff of helpers, review cases of perceived injustice. I'm not going to bring up old meals again, but I could certainly have used someone like that a few months ago. However, I don't think that there's much point in having an ombudsman, because the community would want to elect him or her, and the end result would be that the community would elect exactly the same sort of person that they had elected to the ArbCom, resulting in an unsurprising groupthink. I've just cast my eye over the voting process for the ArbCom and I have got to say that it sucks. Every editor gets multiple votes, because they can support or oppose every single candidate. That's like a single voter being able to vote twice over in every voting district in the country. The end result will be a remarkably uniformly thinking ArbCom that has the support of a majority, while the minority will find that their views are unrepresented. To put it in party political terms, this is like having a Republican elected in every single voting district (supposing the country to have a majority of Republican voters), because any local differences will be smoothed out. While I realise that WP is not a democracy, and we aren't quite at the stage of organised factions or political parties, I cannot view such an situation as leading to tranquility and stability. Peter (Skyring)

I spotted that and it outweighed some of the negative feelings I've had about you. It was very kind and thoughtful, and I would not have expected that from you. The fact remains that the voting system is flawed and easily manipulated. I'm seeing editors advertising on their user pages which candidates they support or oppose, and you can then check on the voting pages which way they voted. The "factional" vote is easily determined, and because the vote is public, votes can, in effect, be bought and sold. Not for money (though that would be possible), but in political terms of deals done and favours exchanged. The way the system is set up, this will inevitably lead, barring some sort of revolt, to cronyism and concentration of power in the hands of those best at gaming the system. Let me put it another way. The term "Gerrymander" refers to the drawing of boundaries of voting districts to favour one side (typically those already in power). Even if an overall electorate is split 50:50, clever drawing of boundaries can result in concentrating supporters for Party B in a small number of voting districts, so that Party B will overwhelmingly win those districts with margins of 90% or so, leaving Party A to scoop up the large number of remaining voting districts with majorities of (say) 55% - because most of their opponents have been concentrated elsewhere. The Roman Republic had a similar deal, where voters were divided into urban and rural "tribes". Urban tribes were vast in numbers, so each individual vote was of small value, but the smaller rural tribes gave each voter a much larger say. At the end of the day the *overall* votes of tribes were tallied, much like an electoral college system where each State returns just one delegate instead of a several based on population, and surprise, surprise, the rural tribes usually ended up supporting the winning candidate. The system of ArbCom voting is one big gerrymander, with the difference being that Party B cannot win a single district. Not unless they can somehow mobilise enough voters to gain an overall majority, in which case they will win every single contest. As I say, so far WP has not progressed to overt parties or factions, so there is no formal mechanism in place, but the evidence of informal manipulation is easily seen. That's command of language rather than judicial ability, IMHO. If someone can summarise a situation in a completely wrong fashion, then that's a big strike against them as a magistrate. And incidentally, the source of my negative feelings toward you, dating back to my own case. WP doesn't (yet) have a system of junior magistrates, unless you stretch the role of an admin well beyond the "mop and bucket" role, so it is difficult to say how someone will perform in an ArbCom position. Peter (Skyring)

"Fred Bauder" wrote Looking at the section at [[Ombudsman]] on how the UK Parliamentary Commissioner works, in WP terms it would be something like this: - investigation of 'unfairness' - all applications must come through an admin - no remedies offered, just the publication of a report. Charles

Fred Bauder wrote: To 700 admins????? Ec

Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) wrote: Those who would most want the job may ipso facto not be the best for the job. I would expect that a lot of that would be from outsiders who send him private e-mails. For insiders Jimbo would probably need a boilerplate response like, "I have referred your complaint to the ombudsman, all future correspondence on this matter should be directed to him." As long as that Jimbo even sporadically deals with user problems they will roll the dice to get his attention. Ec

Sam Korn wrote: Such an ombudsman needs the authority to take unpopular actions without fear that someone will whinge his way into having Jimbo overrule what he does. He needs to be able to confront anybody, but be seen as fair at the same time. Ec