[WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'?

Mon Mar 7 02:28:02 UTC 2005

On Sun, 6 Mar 2005, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> AndyL wrote:
>
> >on 3/6/05 6:18 AM, sannse at sannse at tiscali.co.uk wrote:
> >
> >
> >>A much better analogy is of a school headmaster sorting out who did what
> >>after a playground fight. We want to know who hit first, who hit most,
> >>and who chucked in a sly boot from the side-lines.
> >>
> >>
> >That's quite an insulting example actually and elevates the ArbComm to
> >headmaster while denigrating the rest of us to the status of children.
> >School is the closest most of us get to being in a dictatorship - I don't
> >think that's really a great model to emulate. The difference between the
> >quasi-judicial model and the "headmaster" model is that the former puts
> >limits on the ArbComm. While I can see why the ArbComm would prefer to have
> >no limits and be able to do what they wish, including initiate
> >investigations, I don't think that would be healthy for Wikipedia.
> >
> It also denigrates children, who rarely behave as badly as adults.
> (e.g. sports parents shouting obscenities from the stands)  A comparison
> to a bar fight might have been closer to reality.
>
Well, we could always compare this to a domestic dispute -- the one situation
that I understand all police officers hate to get called into. (At least in
the US; it may be different elsewhere.) Not only do the officers have to
figure out just who did what, but also deal with the fact that not only will
their intervention likely fail to make a difference, but that the aggrieved
party is likely to side with her/his adversary -- either at the time of
the intervention (e.g. a battered wife attacking the police officer arresting
the husband), or later (e.g. the other party pleading to have the charges
dropped).

Love makes people do strange things. Why should love of knowledge be any
different?

Geoff