[WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment

Mon Jun 13 21:11:47 UTC 2005

Sean Barrett wrote,
>Jimmy Wales stated for the record:
>
> > Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> > I apologize to Sean.
>
>I accept without reservation.  I overreacted; though I want to claim
>that the original accusations didn't bother me, they obviously did, and
>then what I mistook as a swipe from a very unexpected quarter upset me
>more than it should.
>
>You'd think an arbiter would have thicker skin, wouldn't you?  I need to
>work on my calluses.
>
>Thank you, Jimbo, and I will continue to enthusiastically support
>Wikipedia in any way I can.
>--
>   Sean Barrett     | Follow your dream! Unless it's the one where you're
>   sean at epoptic.com | at work in your underwear during a fire drill.

Obviously Sean took offense at my stating he was waving a red-herring.  I 
wrote in strong terms because I wanted to make a strong point.  I apologize 
to Sean for using intemperate language.

To make my position clear, "for the record," I do not believe that the 
proposals being floated will in any way threaten our NPOV policy, or lead 
to any content being deleted on the grounds that it is unpopular.

I do not think that people should raise these concerns as objections to the 
attempt to develop a mechanism for either enforcing content-related 
policies, or for ensuring that content is accurate (or for both).

I do believe that the people who are developing different proposed 
mechanisms are not intending to censor content on the grounds that it is 
unpopular, or that would violate our NPOV policy.

I do believe that as we decide which proposal is most likely to be 
effective, it is important that we be vigilant in ensuring that the 
mechanism to be put in place explicitly states that one function is to 
ensure compliance with our NPOV policy, and that the procedures involved in 
such a mechanism focus on enforcing our content-related policies and 
ensuring the quality (primarily meaning that the claims of any article are 
accurate, that when an article, to comply with NPOV, must provide 
conflicting claims, that its account of the conflicts are accurate, that 
articles provide accurate accounts of the contexts in which such claims 
have been made, and that articles provide not only verifiable claims and 
provide sources (thus complying with two other content-related policies), 
that it also provides enough information, accurate and unbiased, about the 
source (e.g. relevant information of the author of the source, including 
but not limited to the person's education, current institutional 
affiliation, and (only in such cases where this is really relevant and 
appropriate to the article) religious and political affiliations, and 
relevant information about the source (e.g. internet, book or 
article?  Popular magazine, newspaper, scholarly journal or archive?)  And 
relevant information about the publication (e.g. is it peer-reviewed; is it 
a university press or trade press; does the publishing institution have an 
explicit religious or political affiliation?  Is the archive of a scholarly 
institution (university or university or public library; a business; a 
religious institution; a political party or movement).

These are the criteria I would use in selecting a proposal, and the issues 
I hope the mechanism will help police.  People may share only some of these 
criteria, or may have others of their own.  I agree that it is important 
that such criteria be used in selecting and developing a proposal.

But I do object to flat out rejections of attempts to devise such a 
mechanism.  Let's all think creatively, as many have, about how to develop 
the best, the most appropriate, and the most effective mechanism.  If at 
the end it turns out that we cannot come up with a mechanism that the vast 
majority, if not virtually all, of regular contributors can agree fits 
their criteria, well, okay -- then we won't adopt that mechanism.  But at 
least we will have tried.

My only intention was to encourage people to be creative and constructive 
first, and be critical only of specific proposals once they have been 
formulated -- and even then, try to be constructively critical, looking for 
ways that we can solve the specific problem with the mechanism.  Like I 
said, if in the end we discover that is impossible, that all the 
constructive attempts n the world cannot lead to a good mechanism, well, 
okay, at that point we give up, reminding ourselves that it was worth trying.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701