[WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment

Thu Jun 9 04:46:53 UTC 2005

I see absolutely no need to arbitrate, mediate, or otherwise rule on appropriate content.  

Attempting to do so is like trying to nail warm Jell-O to the wall.  Wikipedia articles are fluid and constantly changing.  Any version of an editorial board could only fix an article's state at one specific point in time, and the "approved" version would probably be long out of date by the time the ruling was formulated and agreed upon.  

The only real solutions are: 
1. to recruit more intelligent, reasonable editors by offering a welcoming, respectful community atmosphere, 
2. to cite our sources more thoroughly and properly, and let the reader decide their individual credibility 
3. to recruit as many editors as possible to make use of the watchlist feature for each contended article
4. to use NPOV tags and their derivatives to warn readers of disagreements over content.  

Our mistakes at this time may be not giving the readers a full sense of just how much disputed Wikipedia articles can change over short time periods, and not making clear enough just what NPOV means.  

Perhaps we need a stronger, more explicit NPOV tag, or variants thereof, for some articles.  We could also make it more clear that our readers can browse the history of any article to gain insight by reviewing its creation process.  We can also slow the process of the change even more, to encourage a more thoughtful process, like was done with the introduction of the 3 revert rule, and like is done every day with temporary edit locks.  

But attempting to vet content through a review board of any kind is folly for a wiki encyclopedia.  The active community IS the review board on a wiki.  

The only oversight that is proper is that which is necessary to ensure that everyone participates fairly and generally on equal terms according to behavior rules.  

Michael Turley
User:Unfocused

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