[WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment

Sun Jun 5 12:48:13 UTC 2005

David Gerard wrote ...

>Basically: most of the really poisonous arseholes have in fact been kicked
>off en: Wikipedia, and when new ones show up they are ejected in reasonable
>order. (In a lot of cases, it's not even reaching the AC as they're dealt
>with as obvious vandals and trolls by WP:AN/I.) So now the AC is getting a
>lot of grey-area cases that are really a proxy for a content dispute. What
>to do about this?

David, this is an issue I and others have raised repeatedly over the past 
years: many irresolvable disputes center on content, and Wikipedia needs a 
mechanism for dealing with these content-based disputes.  Several people 
(with some notable exceptions) argued that the ArbCom can handle this, and 
should.  RJII on the Capitalism page was an attempt to take those people at 
their word, and have the ArbCom handle a content dispute.  Fred Bauder 
seemed to be the only one on the ArbCom to take an interest in this 
case.  Needless to say, after a month or more of arguing and reverts, I and 
several people simply left the capitalism article, to await an ArbCom 
decision.  Then the ArbCom declared that, since we had left, there was no 
more conflict, so the situation was resolved!

What we need first is a ruling by or concerning the ArbCom that it will 
consider and pass judgements on content-based disputes, or it will not.  We 
just need to make this clear, one way or the other.

And if ArbCom will not or cannot handle content-based disputes, we need to 
develop another committee or mechanism.

I am repeating something I have said several times in the past.  This issue 
is not new.

Steve

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