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

Mon Mar 7 16:30:51 UTC 2005

JAY JG said:
>
> Why should it be only people who have actually brought cases before
> ArbCom  who must "suffer the consequences for their own behaviour where
> this has  been deleterious to Wikipedia?"  If you're so keen on the
> concept that  everyone should suffer consequences for their behaviour,
> shouldn't you be  promoting the idea that ArbCom should have its own
> investigative police,  scouring Wikipedia for "deleterious" behaviour,
> and bringing all suspects  before ArbCom for summary judgement?
In a sense, this is what we have.  All editors are responsible for
ensuring that no harm comes to Wikipedia, and the dispute resolution
process escalates otherwise-intractable behavior to arbcom level in due
course.
> ArbCom has never been "a catspaw with which
> adept  procedure-manipulators can wage war on their less adept
> enemies", and there  is no indication that it will ever be so.  Rather,
> it has been a body which  has helped rid Wikipedia of some of its most
> egregious policy violators,  editors who collectively have done more
> harm to Wikipedia than 100 "catspaw"  ArbComs could ever do.  The Cheese
> Dreams et al of Wikipedia were not banned  for being "unadept" at
> "procedure-manipulation", and it is ridiculous to  even imply as much.>
I agree completely.  Arbcom must be free to investigate cases brought
before it and identify and remedy deleterious behavior.  To this end it
should probably not be further restricted artificially as if it were a
court in an adversarial justice system.  I was commenting on zero's idea
that we should limit which parties to a case arbcom was permitted to apply
a remedy to.
There is nothing wrong with arbcom saying at the end of a case: "you've
all been naughty, now stop it" if this is merited.