[WikiEN-l] Should the content of articles be subject to arbitration?

Sun Jan 25 19:29:16 UTC 2004

Sascha Noyes wrote:

>On Sunday 25 January 2004 09:28 am, Ira Stoll wrote:
>  
>
>>I feel very strongly that article disputes be settled by arbitration, or
>>some other time consuming process where the issue is well thought over and
>>researched, rather than decided by poll. To be honest, I have a rather
>>contentious issue that I would like to have arbitrated, assuming it is
>>still a concern by the time the arbitrators are ready to start taking cases
>>(and also assuming it is decided that they will handle article disputes :)
>>JackLynch
>>    
>>
>
>And I feel equally strongly that our articles, particularly not our 
>contentious articles should be written by any committee which issues a decree 
>about what is and is not "fact", what does and does not merit inclusion in a 
>particular article, etc.
>  
>
I guess I'm split on this, and don't like either solution.  Our current 
process seems to have two main ways of resolving contentious disputes:
* Whoever is most persistent wins, as eventually his opponent goes away 
and he reverts to his preferred version without anyone noticing
* Whichever position is most popular wins, as it wins the vote (even if 
it's grossly incorrect)

I'm not sure whether "committee decree" is better or worse than these, 
as none of the three options are very good.

-Mark