Of course another way of looking at the "tedious numbers" discussion is
that less than 0.5% of the active users on the English Wikipedia bothered
to vote in the ArbCom elections. Having something like 1 in 200 of the
eligible electorate turning out to vote is an interesting comparison with
the WMUK elections where about 1 out of every 6 eligible voters made the
effort to cast votes.
I actually think that's quite healthy. YMMV.
--
Doug Taylor
On 27 July 2012 14:49, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 2:13 PM, Charles Matthews
<
charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 27 July 2012 12:54, Andreas Kolbe
<jayen466(a)gmail.com> wrote:>
Everybody
on this list cares about ArbCom decisions, most
of the time, and so
does the
entire body of administrators in the English
Wikipedia. For the record,
ArbCom members derive their authority from 300 to 600 supporters' votes.
Wikimedia UK board members, from 40 or 50.
600 is less than the number of "active" administrators, though. But
let's not argue about numbers. I have given some context for my remark
now, which you could have.
I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying. I meant that each
individual arbitrator was voted into office with 300 to 600 Wikimedians'
support votes, vs. three or four dozen for each Wikimedia UK board member.
ArbCom represents a significantly greater Wikimedia electorate (probably
even within the UK) than the WMUK board. But no matter. I agree arguments
about numbers are tedious.
Refusing
to acknowledge any problem, and beating up on ArbCom instead,
really is the least well advised strategy to deal with this situation.
I have certainly not been attacking ArbCom as an institution. I have a
long-term problem with the workshop, which I have never liked, but
otherwise I think ArbCom in general does pretty well.
I sometimes disagree with Arbitration decisions; when I was asked
about this particular pending decision by a Board member, I said that
ArbCom is fallible, but it tends to know more about the case than we
do (i.e. not all the information they have is always public, or fit to
be made public).
I in fact met three arbs for the first time at Wikimania, with two of
whom I had worked. I talked also with Risker, who came onto the
committee after me. I am not attacking any of these people, please let
me say. There is a half-told story about the Fae case and Wikimania
and the ban, clearly, but I am also not going to try to tell that
story either.
I am not going to say "let's move on", because the topic of the thread
is a legitimate one for members of the chapter to discuss. I am not
myself a WMUK member, and I have things to do now, as do the Board and
Fae. I have my own views on framing the issue, which have to some
extent appeared in this thread. Please everyone respect AGF in any
further contributions, and minimise personalia.
Fair enough, Charles.
Let me add that, like everyone else, I don't agree with every detail of
every ArbCom decision either. That's only natural; the arbs don't even
always agree among themselves. But on the whole I believe the committee as
a group get it right, and significantly more so than the community average
as expressed at a free-for-all venue like ANI. If ANI were all Wikipedia
had, all hope would be lost.
Even where I wish ArbCom had decided differently in a specific case, I can
still see that the decision they made was made in good faith, and within
the realm of what's reasonable. One can't ask for more than that.
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