[Wikipedia-l] Comments on Cunctator's Points

Fri Dec 5 14:14:32 UTC 2003


> From: "The Cunctator" <cunctator at kband.com>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2003 08:06:24 -0500
> To: <wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org>, <wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org>
> Subject: RE: [Wikipedia-l] Arbitration/mediation on en
> 
>> From: Jimmy Wales Friday, December 05, 2003 7:26 AM
> <snip>
>> We have just begun a process on en of formalizing the decision
>> procedures for banning people, through the use of two committees of
>> volunteers.  The first "line of defense" is a mediation committee,
>> which attempts to work with parties to find a mutually agreeable
>> solution to a problem.  This committee has no power to ban or to do
>> anything other than act as an outside recommendation for a solution.
>> 
>> The second "line of defense" is the arbitration committee, which will
>> be tasked with the difficult and painful and regrettable task of
>> banning someone from editing.
>> 
>> This is mainly an experiment, and we shall see over time how it works
>> out.  I hope it works well.
> 
> If it is to be an experiment, we should try to figure out beforehand
> what our metric of success is. Total success would be if neither
> committee ever needs to act. But the gradations in between are more
> complicated.
> 
> For example, which is better: if a high or low percentage of cases
> reviewed by the arbitration committee end in sanction or banning?

This must depend on the facts of the cases we get and the response of users
to our decisions. 
> 
> Which is better: if the arbitration committee agrees or disagrees with
> the mediators' actions?

We will know that mediation failed, but a useful legal convention, that we
would probably wish to use, is that the details of negotiations and of what
goes on in mediation are inadmissible as evidence in later proceedings. This
frees up the parties to make concessions during negotiations and mediation
without ruining their "case" for arbitration purposes.
> 
> That second relates to an important point: if a case is presented to the
> arbitration committee, what is being judged is not just the actions of
> the user(s) that resulted in mediation, but the entire process that led
> to arbitration, including what the mediators did.

We don't want to use this information because it makes mediation less
effective. While the arbitration committee might from time to time comment
on the total process and how it might have affected a particular case
decisions regarding wikipedia process must remain here on the mailing lists
and other discussion and decision making forums and Jimbo.
> 
> I think using bulletin boards for this is good, because I think it will
> be very important to establish a reviewable case history.

To review Jimbo needs to know what facts were considered and the basis for
any decision.
> 
> The nearly immutable law of government is that while over the short term
> dangers to the health of society come from individual actors, over the
> long term the dangers come from the system.
> 
> It should be everyone's goal to figure out ways to eliminate potential
> problems before they can happen.

Before anyone can complain that someone has violated a policy that policy
must both be set forth and make sense. Policies need to serve in some way
the goals of delivering information and providing ways to add and refine
information. However the arbitration committee is not a court of review of
Wikipedia policies. We must work with existing policies. Breakdowns can
occur if we can't understand them or how someone could comply with them, and
perhaps in some cases we may be unable to render a decision, or at least a
good decision.
> 
> A good real world example of that is drugs; because it is a criminal act
> to use illegal drugs, millions of dollars and manhours and lives are
> spent in combatting drug use (the "war on drugs"). But if the drugs
> (such as marijuana) are decriminalized, a host of downstream costs to
> society disappear. There *are* different complications and needs
> (tobacco is a good example of the potential problems of having drugs be
> legal to use) but it's a lot easier to deal with drugs as a health issue
> than a crime issue.

Well substitute persistant insistence on making articles reflect some
particular point of view (including repeated reversions of any other point
of view) and we have what kind of an issue? (although perhaps this is not
actually our most important problem--experience will tell much)
> 
> Yours,
> --tc

Fred