Please stay calm and civil while commenting or presenting evidence, and do not make personal attacks. Be patient when approaching solutions to any issues. If  consensus is not reached, other solutions exist to draw attention and ensure that more editors mediate or comment on the dispute.

== Boxed Discussions == In order to keep things tidy and focused, some discussions may be placed in 'further discussion' templates, which appear as 'collapsed boxes'. These discussions are not archived, and may continue, but they are not the focus of this RfC. If someone has 'boxed' a discussion you were involved with, please consider why the discussion may have been boxed before reverting it.

Please feel free to leave any thoughts you have on this. Obviously, still a draft. Lawrence § t/ e 17:03, 13 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Could you add a section on scale problems? I believe arbcom have had internal discussions on this in the sense of what happens as arbcom gets bigger, and as wikipedia gets bigger. In fact, it might be an idea to ask if arbitrators would be willing to tell us what they have discussed themselves in terms of arbcom reform, so that we avoid re-inventing the wheel. Also, the role of Jimmy Wales might be relevant. Finally, that new committee that arbcom set up to report back to them on nationalist editing (I think). That should be mentioned. Plus any other new stuff that I've forgotten. Hey, why not discuss the recent change for format on the arbitration pages (asking people to submit full proposed principles, findings of fact and remedies, rather than separate PP/FF/R). Um. The clerking system as well, though there doesn't seem much wrong with that. Maybe the request system as well. Oh, and the voting rules, some of which may seem arcane or need better explanation to some. But maybe this is going to far. Start at the top and work down, picking out the major issues. Carcharoth ( talk) 17:29, 13 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Asking the AC directly is a good idea to weigh in on the draft, I'll post it on that page. I was tempted to get down and dirty into the minute details, but then the format alone would be massive. My idea for wider, sweeping topic sections would be to allow people to fit in those bits. I might think something in the AC is wonky, but another 100 users may not... Lawrence § t/ e 17:36, 13 March 2008 (UTC) reply

This is the kind of thing people do when all else fails. I've been disappointed with several recent decisions also, yet the immediate cause for today's misery is something that's much easier to fix than getting an undertaking like this one off the ground. Namely, community sanctions need to be better defined and standardized.

A community ban is a block that no admin is willing to undo is a concept that went into policy in summer 2005--when this site had a tenth of its present registered accounts and just a few hundred admins. It isn't scalable. Particularly, that weakness in the banning policy dovetails with vagenuess in the definition of wheel war in a way that made today's debacle inevitable. This is a dynamic that crops up whenever we have a high profile controversial community banning proposal. The difference this time is that we're used to kicking the situation over to ArbCom, and now we're stuck because it's already been there.

As a community, we've been stuck in the dark ages about community sanctions. Wouldn't it be better in general to have some standardized way to intervene earlier with milder sanctions? Suppose we did 1-3 month topic bans before things reached this point? Although I haven't followed all the details on the early history of the Mantanmoreland case, imagine how things might have gone if a brief topic parole had been applied in first half of 2006?

Suggest you put this on hold for now and see what we can do about those areas. It's easier to revise a policy than to haul all of ArbCom into RFC. Durova ^Charge! 17:36, 13 March 2008 (UTC) reply

This isn't really a specific reaction to the Mantanmoreland situation. You got railroaded quickly through your RFAR. The IRC RFAR was basically the RMS Titanic. The Waterboarding RFAR and the Mantanmoreland one both basically went out of their way to not address major concerns of the community. Out of the recent ones I've stuck my eyes on, only Bluemarine has worked out completely well. 1/5 is not so good, and that's just me. My other reasoning for this was that an open-ending RFC will show what the community expects of the AC, and the consensus(s) if any will be the mandated changes the AC must take on in it's service to us. It seemed like a simple elegant solution for any possible problems like that. If 1-2 months after the RFC opens someone goes to them, and says: "200-300 users here have instructed that the AC is doing this, this, and this this way from now on," thats it, and some problems fixed. That is the hope. Lawrence § t/ e 17:42, 13 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Well, then put the 2-3 months and numbers of votes you hope to get, in the document. And make it a specific timescale and forbid people to moan about currently open cases. If this is going to be open for 2-3 months, it certainly does need to be rock-solid. Carcharoth ( talk) 17:48, 13 March 2008 (UTC) reply

I would say 3 months, actually. Though I wouldn't be unhappy about 2 months. Carcharoth ( talk) 17:49, 13 March 2008 (UTC) reply

I tagged it for 3. Lawrence § t/ e 20:59, 13 March 2008 (UTC) reply

I see your point. If you haven't looked at it already, try Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Matthew Hoffman. Durova ^Charge! 02:18, 14 March 2008 (UTC) reply

I see that the current list of what links here shows who has been asked about this. Any more? Noticebaords? Or do you just want individual feedback at this stage? (I came here from FT2's page). Carcharoth ( talk) 17:31, 13 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Since it's still a draft, I was figuring on starting small, then working out by "word of mouth". This is the sort of RFC that needs to leave the gate rock-solid when I hit the move button and kick it over to Wikipedia space. Lawrence § t/ e 17:34, 13 March 2008 (UTC) reply

I've seen a bunch of ways that ArbCom has failed. The most recent IRC case was a disaster... a spectacular case of private interests prevailing over the public good. However, when a person does an RFC like this, the effect will be to catch all sorts of voices. The unfrozen cavemen of the ethnic struggles will talk about how they hate it, the long time content people will talk about how they hate it, the people who think the only problem is people using bad words will talk about how they hate it, etc., and yet all of these people will be hating different, and sometimes diametrically opposed, things. Therefore, we can all agree that the mess is a mess, it's in the clean up that we fail.

I would point, however, to one thing above all others for its reason: it is not elected. Because it is selected, not elected, and selected by someone without a day-to-day experience of the project and the mechanics of the place, the selection basis gets highly suspect, even if it isn't necessarily corrupt. I.e. the persons.

A second thing is the lack of any appeal structure and the lack of accountability for bad decisions. These are both horrible given the size of the project and the necessary narrowness of any one user's point of view. Utgard Loki ( talk) 17:55, 13 March 2008 (UTC) reply

In regards to selected vs. elected, that as anything on any local Wikimedia project can be changed by the local community so long as whatever is changed does not interfere with the core Foundational principles. The community can easily convert it to a straight election if enough support the change. Lawrence § t/ e 17:59, 13 March 2008 (UTC) reply

I think the selected/elected issue is largely a semantic one; in the past couple elections the top vote-getters (by percentage) have gotten seats. If there's a problem with the committee being out of touch, then the community really only has itself to blame. Mackensen (talk) 20:45, 13 March 2008 (UTC) reply

This seems really ambitious. It needs a lot of preface to make it very clear what is going on, and since it's a deviation from normal RFC process, it needs explanatory info on why following the deviation is appropriate and what the deviation is achieving. It's going to be hard to maintain an orderly process, and moreover, hard to justify. None of that is to say it's a bad idea, just that I'm dubious without a lot of preliminary work. I do wish it well. ++ Lar: t/ c 18:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC) reply

I still agree with what I wrote here back in March. Further, I'm not sure now is the time for this. Some reexamination of ArbCom and their remit might be in order but perhaps not this very second. ++ Lar: t/ c 05:55, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Why? What's wrong about this specific moment? If they're going to continue things alone the lines of BLPSE and the sourcing adjudication board, then the best time to do this is now rather than wait for things to get worse ... Celarnor ^{Talk to me}

Unlike Lar, my position has moved considerably since March. If it had been entirely my choice I wouldn't have taken this live today. But Lawrence Cohen's parting wish was going to be honored, and quickly. And really it's been looking increasingly likely that the RFC would occur. I ask experienced Wikipedians to join me in setting the right tone for it. Durova ^Charge! 06:27, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

The statement I just made could conceivably be put under "Statements about what does not work well in the current Arbitration Committee process". I'll leave it up to Lawrence. daveh4h 18:18, 13 March 2008 (UTC) reply

I rv'd your statement and put a "RFC not open yet!" note on the page. Sorry! We're still trying to figure out the RFC format. Lawrence § t/ e 18:28, 13 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Broadly, this RfC will fail for the same reasons that it has been brought forth--our current processes don't scale and we lack mechanisms to manage "interests." I've thought for some time the community in its present form was at least ungoverned and perhaps ungovernable. In this RfC, as has been noted above already, you'll hear from every interest who believes ArbCom got it wrong at some point in the past--content editors, administrators, BLP folks, nationalists, deletionists, etc. Heaven knows Arbcom makes non-optimal decisions all the time, but speaking as a party to these deliberations it comes in no small part from an inability to grasp complex situations and determine the best outcome for the project. I'm not convinced any body of 12-15 men and women, no matter how gifted or how well chosen, could accomplish this in a satisfactory manner.

I think solution, sadly, lies in an expansion of the existing hierarchy beyond strictly technical rights. At the moment, the structure is, vaguely, Administrators-->Arbitration Committee, with the CheckUsers floating around on their own. Back in 2005 it was still possible to talk about administrator consensus, but it was a smaller body and shared a common outlook. I miss those days, but they aren't coming back.

A few months ago a couple of us kicked around the idea of delegating block review from ArbCom to a body of users, with final authority/final appeal still resting with ArbCom. What might also make sense is replacing the RfC system with something akin to the American appellate system: groups of users/administrators with powers to ban users from articles or to take other steps short of bans, with appeal to Arbcom. In other words, taking review out of the hands of administrators/the community en masse and investing it in an appointed or elected body. This frees the community to focus on content issues.

These are ramblings. While I think it's an idea worth considering I'm not convinced of its efficacy. I do know that Arbcom cases with talk pages in excess of 300KB symbolize failure. Mackensen (talk) 21:00, 13 March 2008 (UTC) reply

My 2 cents are that Arbcom is overworked and understaffed. If this RfC does go through, I'd support the idea of splitting up some of Arbs functions (like the fact that users with multiple non-violating accounts can register them with Arbcom!) and maybe even having Arb panels instead of a full body of 15 possible for each case, but that would be a discussion for the RfC. MBisanz ^talk 06:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC) reply

I was under the impression arbcom have had internal discussions about this and other issues. It would be nice if they could update us on this, and let us know if there has been progress on this. Carcharoth ( talk) 12:12, 14 March 2008 (UTC) reply

The Committee is, generally speaking, lethargic on any matter having to do with abstract, long-term reform. I think the initiative in any significant reform of the hierarchy and the pseudo-constitutional system we have will need to come from the community as a whole if it's to go anywhere in practice.

(And I do agree with Mackensen that a more developed hierarchy is likely to be the best long-term solution. This goes beyond the failures of the Committee in its normal tasks, incidentally; there are other areas in which we play no role—policy formulation, content disputes, and so forth—in which the size and non-homogeneity of the community is beginning to make traditional approaches infeasible. In the long run, the community ought to consider how it wants such decisions to be made, and set up the necessary infrastructure to make that work.) Kirill 13:28, 14 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Wikipedia:Dealing with scale? Or can anyone come up with a better name. Do we have a name for long-term strategy pages? Essays? Carcharoth ( talk) 16:47, 14 March 2008 (UTC) reply

I'd call it Wikipedia:Devolution, but that might be begging the question. Mackensen (talk) 23:00, 14 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Very sensible proposals. Thanks, Mackensen. I think we kicked around the idea of delegation in early 2006 (mini-arbcoms akin to circuits was one method of doing it that I considered). I'm cautiously happy about your proposals as outlined above, although still a bit iffy about the arbitration committee' idea of a sourcing committee (once a dodgy source gets the imprimatur, it might be difficult to revoke!) -- Jenny 00:27, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

In my opinion, a majority of arbcom does not bother to read and understand all the evidence in every case and this has been true for as long as we have had an arbcom. Most are just admins that have leveled up. WAS 4.250 ( talk) 11:31, 14 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Ouch. Whose fault is that? But this comment may be a bit premature. ++ Lar: t/ c 17:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC) reply

It's not just laziness--in many cases the combined size of the evidence and workshop pages are simply beyond the capacity of a volunteer to grasp. I stood down at the last election because I didn't have the time to do the job right. Moreover, there's three or four open cases at once, each demanding attention. Again, I think that's an argument for splitting up responsibility. There's no reason for the committee to hear all cases en banc; in practice, one or two people take the lead in a given case anyway. Mackensen (talk) 18:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Note that in the last election I asked a leading question about splitting up to handle more cases, it was not very well received (for example Raul654's answer or NewYorkBrad's answer)... perhaps it's time to revisit that. ++ Lar: t/ c 22:28, 14 March 2008 (UTC) reply

On this very note, I had an idea that I mentioned to Brad that I need to try to write up tomorrow. It was for basically two types of AC cases. By default, all cases, period full stop, would a "Closed" format. Arbiters must announce the scope and things they will look at when accepting the case based on opening statements and linked early evidence. Slightly processy, but it would allow cases to be much sharper and focused. To add additional facets to the case, parties or whomever would propose requests to workshop, with why it should expand, to cover what, and with backing evidence. The AC would then decide in public there to expand or not on the valid points and questions. Each case would carry an "In a nutshell..." type header template so people know what questions the AC is considering. If an entire case hinges on, "Did Lawrence Cohen and Mackensen collaborate to frame Jimmy Wales for the Lindberg baby?" only evidence related to this is accepted. Everyone knows the proposed decision will revolve around this alone. But it can expand to a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th question, if a demonstrated need exists. Save us a crapton of time. If the AC decides to accept the case as an "Open" case--the IRC cases and Mantanmoreland cases probably would have, given the scale--it's like now, and anything goes. A "Closed" case is a precise trial, an "Open" case is a Senate investigation and hearing. Open cases would be infrequent to rare. If the AC feels it needs to, it can easily convert a Closed case to Open partway through, if the need arises. Lawrence § t/ e 18:46, 14 March 2008 (UTC) reply

OK, I have these sections now in this order.

• 1: Statements about what works well in the current Arbitration Committee process

Obvious.

• 2: Statements about what does not work well in the current Arbitration Committee process

Obvious. Set seperate from "what works well" section on purpose, to allow more specific statements on both sides.

• 3: Clarifications on limits of what the Arbitration Committee can't do

This one has funny wording, but it's deliberate I think. The AC as a body I think can try to do anything--whether the community lets them, who knows? I see comments all the time though that the AC can't or doesn't do such and such, often conflicting slightly. Needs clearing up.

• 4: The Arbitration Committee and scaling

Made this a dedicated section as well--this seems to be a major concern going forward.

• 5: Arbitration Committee change and reform

Ideas about how to fix, change, or reform the AC and it's processes, aside from scaling matters.

• 6: Views and statements about this RFC

Views and statements about the RFC itself.

• 7: Discussion

Standard discussion section for RFCs, directing people to post here on talk.

I'm hesitant to break it up too much more. An RFC with a million top level sections will be a waste, but I think these are general and specific enough to start out. What do you all think? Lawrence § t/ e 19:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC) reply

The following proposes a somewhat dramatic shift of focus. I like what Lawrence has started here and am fine with sticking with something along these lines, but I'm suggesting we take it even further.

As Lar says above this is quite ambitious, but if it's going to be ambitious already why not throw caution to the wind and make it extremely ambitious? We could turn this into a community-wide "Request for Comment:Wikipedia Governance." Obviously discussion of the Arbitration process would be a huge part of that, but there's much more we could be talking about. Comments above already suggest a broadened scope would be good. Mackensen, MBisanz, and Kirill suggest devolving responsibilities to whole new subsets of users (which presumably would be "new processes" of the kind we are to avoid discussing in the "Arbitration Committee change and reform" section of this page) and others have raised the issue of election vs. selection which goes to questions about democracy, voting, and Jimbo's role that involve more than simple ArbCom elections.

As Durova and Carcharoth say the overall problem here is one of scale. Wikipedia is just too big to run the way it was run three years ago, and we need to have a big, honkin', community-wide conversation about that and what we should do as a result. Said conversation should last for months and bring in as many people as possible. We could run the proposal by Jimbo and the ArbCom and, if they are game, get their imprimatur so more folks would be inclined to participate. We would maintain very strict civility rules (maybe using a few different admin "clerks" a la ArbCom) and insist that the discussion not drudge up any old grievances, but rather confine itself to analyzing what works now and why, what doesn't work now and why, and what we might do about it going forward (general note: I think we would want to confine the discussion to issues of governance, not of content - they are obviously related but ultimately distinct).

I would also suggest that if we engage in a process like this (and if we don't do it now I think/hope it's inevitable that we'll do it some day) that we rid ourselves of some of Wikipedia's traditional skepticism of "experts" and consult some folks who have ability to shed real light (not heat) on the issues we will be discussing. Obviously we all have our areas of expertise (I can tell you quite a bit about the history of hip-hop and of American foreign policy during the Cold War, just ask!) but few of us know much about how to effectively organize massive online communities devoted to an intellectual project. Actually probably no one is a true expert on that, but there are certainly some people I'd much rather hear from. Why not consult organizational psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, and folks in similar fields? I think we would especially want to hear from those who have studied large online communities, or even large communities in general. The best place to start finding such people would be among Wikipedians, as I'm sure we have a number of folks with expertise in these areas. We could have some of these editors provide us with suggested reading lists that would educate those of us who are not experts and, more importantly, ask them to prepare white papers that deal specifically with Wikipedia in its current state as it relates to questions of governance. Obviously all of this "expert feedback" would not determine what we decide to do - the community would do that - it would just help us to make highly informed choices. Otherwise I feel in a conversation like this a lot of us (myself included) would be shooting from the hip without knowing what in the hell we were talking about.

So that's my BIG IDEA. Maybe it would function better in a different venue, though personally I think simply broadening the scope here would work well. There's been a lot of anger about certain recent ArbCom decisions and I think something needs to be done to address that which is why it makes sense that Lawrence set up this RfC. It seems to me though that this is a good time to have a Wikipedia wide conversation about how this remarkable project will actually function in the years ahead - better sooner than later. Thoughts?-- Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:43, 14 March 2008 (UTC) reply

A complete, community-wide discussion about the future of Wikipedia? If it could be done without becoming a battleground, this could be one of the best ideas I've ever heard. Dr. e X treme 19:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC) reply

• First ratification vote ( talk)
  • Presumably on a revision dated 5 February or earlier. This one as edited by Jimbo Wales adding a link to the vote seems likely.
• Second ratification vote, by the community
  • The vote is on adopting Wikipedia:Arbitration policy "as it stands in the edit of 14:15, 30 Mar 2004"
    • There is no edit so dated. My guess, based on timezone issues, is that it is actually this edit, dated 13:15 UTC of that day, that was understood to be the subject of the vote.
  • The vote was intended to run from 2 April 2004 to 9 April 2004.
  • The vote was not closed until the end of 2005.
  • At the end of 9 April 2004, the count was 28-4 with one abstain.
  • The final count when it closed was 49-15 with two abstains.
• changes since then - what legitimacy, if any, do these have if ratification was required to adopt the policy? Are there any substantive changes? I don't see many at the first read through.
• Wikipedia:Arbitration_policy/Procedure_for_changing_this_policy indicates the existence of several past community efforts to change the way Arbcom does things.
• Wikipedia:Arbitration_policy/Proposed_amendment_revote - a number of the proposed amendments had broader support than the original ratification. There was a requirement for WP:100 votes with an 80% majority in two weeks that was not met, but the original ratification vote did not even come close 100 votes in the year and a half it was left open.
  • Specifically:

    A1 vote count was 77-4.*

    A3 vote count was 40-3.

    C1 vote count was 54-4.*

    D2 vote count was 46-2.

    *One of the support votes was an account which had no edits before or since outside the vote.

  • Note that there was a strict 500-edit requirement for suffrage in the ratification vote that did not apply to the amendments. I have not taken this into account, but note that users with under 500 edits could note their opinion in the "other support" section of the ratification vote, and only one vote is present in that section (others did, but their votes were moved into the main support section as their edit counts rose).
• Wikipedia:Arbitration_policy/Proposals may also be relevant

— Random832 17:20, 18 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Does anyone think that any of the above (A) constitutes an irregularity at all or (B) is enough to call the legitimacy of the committee into question? I think A, I'm not sure one way or the other on B yet. -- Random832 ( contribs) 15:29, 30 June 2008 (UTC) reply

One issue I have with the present ArbCom process is the lack of accountability to the community. Committee members are appointed for three year terms, which is nearly an eternity in wiki-time. There has been much discussion about overriding or extending specific ArbCom decisions or indecisions. However, comparatively little seems to have been said about individual ArbCom members. Shouldn't there be some sort of mechanism for dealing with ArbCom members who have lost the faith of the community, and thus should be removed from their positions? I don't see where in the proposed RfC the possibility of instituting recall procedures would be added, but I see this as a necessary and long-overdue addition (as is admin recall, for that matter, but that's another discussion). I believe recent cases provide ample illustrations for the need for this addition, but believe this is not the place to present it at present. Please let me know if I am in error. Jay*Jay ( talk) 08:44, 19 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Well, no, there shouldn't be any means of removing ArbCom members between terms. That would completely destroy ArbCom's ability to rise above petty political squabbles and deliver its unbiased, honest conclusions without fear of retribution from "the community." ArbCom is our judiciary, and while there is precedent for judges to stand for re-election from time to time, there is no precedent for allowing the deliberative process to be placed under threat of popularity contests. FCYTravis ( talk) 16:58, 19 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Of course there should be a means of removing members between terms - and especially since they are so absurdly long. I am not suggesting that it should be a popularity process or a !vote, but if there is a genuine situation where the judgment of a member across a group of situations no longer enjoys the support of the community, that member should be removed. Relying on Jimbo to act in such a case is ridiculous, since this is a community- and consensus-based project. The US has procedures for removing Governors (recall elections) or Presidents (impeachment). Commonwealth countries can (and have) removed judges by parliamentary actions, and governments have even been removed. I am not suggesting a process that is easy to implement or which could be used as a weapon - it would probably require a substantial group to initiate - but none of that changes the fact that accountability is a reasonable check on the scope of the discretion enjoyed by ArbCom, and an appropriate inclusion in a balanced system. In WP terms, a process determined by bureaucrats where reasons for arguing that actions fall outside the reasonable bounds of discretion (and not simply that an editor disagrees with an action) would seem appropriate to me in the abstract. Jay*Jay ( talk) 17:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC) reply

ArbCom members are not Wiki-politicians. They are Wiki-judges. I vehemently oppose any attempt to further politicize our dispute resolution process. It is not for no good reason that U.S. federal judges are appointed for life, and may not be removed except in cases of true malfeasance and corruption, through the impeachment process. We do not remove judges because we might disagree with their conclusions in a particular case. Such a process would be one step further toward mob rule over deliberation and thoughtfulness.

Three years is not "absurdly long." ArbCom is a deliberative body, and any shorter period of time would compromise their effectiveness. ArbCom is there precisely to take long-term views and provide perspective based on experience, not on hot-button fervor.

Just as in the case of administrator recall, which has been repeatedly rejected by the community, there is not a single example which can be pointed to as to why we would need this process. Who would be recalled? Why? What grounds would be sufficient to say something's "outside the reasonable bounds of discretion?" There is no evidence that any ArbCom member has ever done something which would justify being recalled - so why would we invent something to answer a question nobody has asked? FCYTravis ( talk) 17:50, 19 March 2008 (UTC) reply

(edit conflict) I am not suggestion removal based on disagreements over conclusions in any one particular case, as the expressions (empahses added) judgment of a member across a group of situations and actions fall outside the reasonable bounds of discretion (and not simply that an editor disagrees with an action) make clear. Further, US federal judges' decisions are reviewable by the Supreme Court. Supreme Court actions can be overturned by legislative action. All three groups are constrained by a constitution. ArbCom decisions have very few of these sorts of limitations - the discretion allowed at present is essentially unlimited. Imposing a restriction of discretion within the broad region which might be considered reasonable to the community is neither overly restrictive nor unreasonable. Where reasonable people may disagree, discretion is fine - but consistent behaviours that lead to substantial disquiet about the competence of an ArbCom member should not be ignored if they were to exist. You note that federal judges can only be removed for true malfeasance and corruption - at present ArbCom members cannot be removed by the community, or by fellow ArbCom members, or by any other formal process even then. Such a situation is unsatisfactory and (I would contend) unjustifiable. Discussing whether provision should be made for some recall mechanism is perfectly reasonable, and this is not the place to debate what mechanism might be supported for adoption. Jay*Jay ( talk) 18:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Supreme Court decisions cannot be overturned by a mere "legislative action" as such. They can only be overruled by amendment to the Constitution - which is composed of legislative actions, but is far more involved of an undertaking than passing a law.

You need to define how the "judgment of a member across a group of situations" being "outside the reasonable bounds of discretion" would ever be actionable. You need to define what those "reasonable bounds of discretion" are.

"Significant disquiet" among a group of people is no reason to remove a judge. Earl Warren aroused "significant disquiet" among people when he led the Warren Court to a series of decisions which shattered precedent, along with segregation and discrimination laws.

I would support a mechanism which allows for ArbCom members to be impeached by ArbCom upon evidence of specific acts of malfeasance, corruption or abuse of office. No popular-vote system based on challenging an arbitrator's "discretion" is acceptable. That goes down the path of mob rule - which is precisely what the ArbCom was invented to prevent. FCYTravis ( talk) 18:16, 19 March 2008 (UTC) reply

Just as a factual note... Supreme Court decisions can, and have been overturned by legislative action. Not all Supreme Court decisions are based on constitutional arguments. For example, the rulings requiring the EPA to regulate CO2 emissions are based on statute, and could be overturned by legislative action. -- Barberio ( talk) 23:53, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

As anyone who has ever taken any kind of elementary political science course can tell you, there are multiple recourses for the people to disagree with SCOTUS. First, they can just decide to ignore it; SCOTUS has no command authority to any military or law enforcement agencies, State or Federal. If everyone disagrees with it, they can just keep going about their business. Second, the legislative body can continue passing the law; SCOTUS does not have ex post facto priveleges either; as long as Congress continues to pass a law, then it is still in effect until SCOTUS says otherwise; once declared unconstitutional, they can simply pass it again and wait for a case to elevate itself to the court. These are fairly simple elements of a system of checks and balances to prevent the abuse of power. Unfortunately, Wikipedia has none of these. All we have is one authority that does whatever the hell it wants, and everyone else is powerless to stop abuse until the next election rolls around; unless you count the Foundation as a check, but they would only step in under the most egregious of circumstances. It can't be relied on as an effective check to ArbCom's "everyday" abuses of power. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 00:06, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

I will also note that judges, including Supreme Court judges, can be impeached, or otherwise removed.-- Filll ( talk | wpc) 00:00, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

I would counsel against taking lessons from American political science as a model for Wikipedia. The Committee isn't really a court of law and its authority isn't really subject to challenge in quite the same way. It might be interesting to sit down and write a history of those occasions in which Arbcom's authority has been successfully challenged. I suspect (from my own personal experience) that the majority of such challenges would turn out to have been in implementation. Legitimacy is often questioned, usually by people with some kind of agenda to push, but the broader community is unlikely to fall for that. -- Jenny 00:19, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

The fact that the Committee's authority isn't subject to challenge is exactly the problem, and is exactly why you wouldn't find a lot of challenges to their actions. You can head over to BLPSE and find lots of people thinking that it's a terrible idea, isn't going to work, and is a gross abuse of their authority, but the community is powerless to stop it. I suspect that if ArbCom had ever done this kind of thing before, they would have met with similar reactions. Assuming what you've said elsewhere is correct, at this point in time, they can do whatever they want whenever they want. While it might to be nice to put yourself in a fantasy world where everyone works together nicely with encyclopedic quality being the most important thing, everyone has different ideas about what that means. We don't vote on ArbComm members to act as a policy creating group. We vote on them to handle disputes and editing conflicts that have become extremely escalated. If the community isn't able to come to consensus about policy, then perhaps a policy creation group is needed. But we certainly can't have the same entity both creating policy and interpreting it; that's a recipe for disaster. It creates complacency in that group (especially with their long term of office), reinforces a mindset of unlimited power and then further reinforces that by actually giving them unlimited power with no substantive check on their actions by either the group that elected them or another group elected by the community to serve as an oversight. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 00:44, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Ah. Here I've just told you I have personal experience of successfully challenging decisions by the arbitration committee, and now you're telling me that the problem is that the Committee cannot be challenged. If I, a not particularly powerful or significant user, can recall two successful challenges in which I played a significant part, what does that say about your knowledge of the facts about the Committee's authority?

Moreover arbcom has long been the final arbiter on interpretation of policy and policy enforcement. I don't know how you somehow forgot this. If arbcom says we can enforce the BLP to the fullest extent of our abilities, that's their decision to take and good luck to them. -- Jenny 01:18, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Tony, you were an exceptionally powerful user once upon a time. :) Can you please provide links to these two times you overruled or challenged successfully an Arbitration decision? rootology ( T) 01:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

I was never more than a humble OTRS volunteer (a role I resigned from when I felt unable to do justice to a very arduous job). I changed the Stevertigo RFA into a rather pointed request for a decision rather than the call for mob justice that had been ordered. The reconvened and desysopped him. I asked the Committee to reconsider a topic ban on a good editor after it became clear that the ban was both unworkable and counter-productive. They reconvened and commuted the ban into some kind of parole or probation. I'm sure there are far more successful challenges to the Committee's rulings than these two in which I was involved. -- Jenny 04:20, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Taking this discussion off the main page; It is, perhaps, as untimely to place this Request on the behest of a retiring volunteer upon their resignation as it is in view of the OrangeMarlin matter having contemporaneously being dropped upon the community. An undertaking to file the Request at the appropriate time may have been sufficient (I acknowledge your better understanding of the creator of the draft than I)? The request is filed, as was promised, and now I am suggesting it be suspended until recent events are digested - and hopefully concluded. I certainly would wish to participate in this RfC, but in areas which are unlikely to get the attention they deserve at the present moment. LessHeard vanU ( talk) 08:42, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

I would disagree. This RfC is still very fresh and the OM matter is within the scope. I questioned this at first, but after consideration, I see no reason why suspending this until one incident is resolved is really necessary. — _Maggot ^Syn 09:00, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Well, I think enough people have either voiced an opinion in the RfC and have started contributing to it, or have directly opposed suspending the RfC, that further discussion on if we should postpone are moot. -- Barberio ( talk) 16:21, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Moved conversation

• • Without opinion for or against the motion, please bear in mind that this RFC has been in preparation for four months and bringing it live was the parting request of the retiring Wikipedian whose user space it had been in. Ideally I would have not have timed it for today, but his wish was going to be honored and was certainly not solely based upon a single day's events. Durova ^Charge! 08:26, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply
  • Can I ask when the opportune time will arise? Or will we just keep resetting the clock each time the ArbCom make another blunder, and never have an RfC?
  • None of this is out of the blue. I specificaly gave the ArbCom clear questions to answer a week ago about how they were handling things, and there were clear signals from the community that there was a great deal of discomfort with the way ArbCom were handling things. However, instead of listening to the weight of opinion directly delivered to them by concerned parties, some members of ArbCom instead spent their time organising a 'secret trial'. They have clearly lost touch with how Arbitration is supposed to work, and the system has broken down.
  • I'm firmly opposed to suspending this RFC, when your car breaks down in the middle of the wilderness, you don't 'wait around a while to see if it fixes itself'. -- Barberio ( talk) 10:35, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply
    • a better time would be in a couple of weeks when feelings are less heated. Not hours after the trainwreck on WP:AN. (Durova - I realise that) Viridae ^Talk 10:46, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply
      • The ArbCom have been train wreck, after train wreck, after train wreck for some time now. There is no sign that ArbCom have taken on any of the criticism and community opinion, and seem set to simply go on as they have been. This can only lead to more and more heated feelings, not less! There has to be a point where you say "Enough. They obviously can not fix their own problems. Time for others to step in." -- Barberio ( talk) 10:52, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply
        • Personally I believe we definitely do need this RFC, but to allow a short delay until the current situation has been resolved and all the information is out in the open is why I am supporting a suspension. This will allow the RFC to go ahead with all the facts available and hopefully not get completely focused on this particular incident but instead be more wide ranging on ArbCom as a body. Davewild ( talk) 10:57, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply
          • Per Davewild, and particularly the last point. LessHeard vanU ( talk) 12:43, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply
• To address the opposition to the suspension based on their not being a time limit I think it is pretty impossible to set a time until we know how quickly ArbCom are going to resolve the current situation and how quickly all the necessary information is revealed to the community. This may or may not reveal wider issues with ArbCom. Certainly, personally, I would say not more than two weeks and 1 week (or even less) might be ok depending on this being resolved very quickly. We are not talking about an indefinite postponement here. Davewild ( talk) 13:04, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

  Sidaway has proposed an indefinite suspension and punting the problem to unspecified future 'policy discussions'. I think this is a 'stick our heads in the sand and maintain the status quo' option.

  I also think that any suspension will simply be followed by another suspension due to what ever next drama crops up, and another suspension after that, and so on and so on and so on... The subject has been brought up now, an RfC is current, it has community input, so far the only 'Drama' is being generated by those calling for delay. I simply can't understand why the call to suspend the RfC, unless it's a call to punt a difficult problem into the long grass. -- Barberio ( talk) 13:32, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

  Indefinite wasn't part of the proposed motion, but there has been so little traction on either of the "close" motions he put forward I guess he was getting a little lonely... LessHeard vanU ( talk) 14:45, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

  Look at the timestamps. Snideness is unattractive, and snideness based on sloppiness is ugly and silly. -- Jenny 04:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

As an example of how the problems have been tidied under the rug for too long, I first suggested panels of community arbitrators to reduce work-load back in 2007 [1]. It was dismissed by claiming that the "work-load problem is greatly reduced now so we don't need to do this yet". -- Barberio ( talk) 14:23, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Is there any reason to believe that the workload has not decreased? The other day I compared the current arbitration case workload with that two years ago when I was an arbitration clerk, and the number of active cases now is only a fraction of what it was then. Most of the arbcom page is given over to minor legalistic quibbles and challenges from previous cases--most of which I notice with some gratification tend to be ignored by the arbitrators.

Rather, I suspect that the signs of unease coming from certain quarters of the community have arisen because the Committee now has more time and energy to devote to strategic thinking about systemic problems.

To put it simply, a lot of destructive behavior that had previously gone under the radar is being targeted. Those who are feeling the heat are desperate to cause a diversion, while others are simply puzzled at this new departure: an arbitration committee equipped to deal with longstanding conduct problems and willing to do so. -- Jenny 01:12, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Evidently, though, the targeting of such behavior is viewed as problematic by at least some members of the ArbCom. When a gaffe of the magnitude of the "there-was-a-secret-trial, oh-wait-there-wasn't, was-too-let's-discuss-it-for-days-on-end" debacle, one has to wonder whether the ArbCom indeed is fit to be strategically thinking about longstanding conduct problems. It looks as though they can't even keep their own house in order. Dr. e X treme 04:31, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

I don't think the OrangeMarlin announcement had anything to do with the attempts to handle systemic problems in the BLP--at least, not on the face of it. Arbitrators are human and will make occasional mistakes (large-scale public gaffes like FT2's seem to be exceedingly rare). This kind of problem is minuscule and is very unlikely to harm Arbcom's ability to handle the Encyclopedia's long term problems. It will only appear to loom large to those who are already convinced that something horrible has happened to the Committee, and I don't think they're likely to prevail in the face of the strong evidence that the Committee has been operating substantially more efficiently over the past year than it ever did in the past. -- Jenny 05:04, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Second moved discussion

• I'm not specifically opposed to this, but it's poorly timed. An arbitrator made a mistake at the same time as some people were becoming confused over a remedy made in a recent case, and there was even a belief in some quarters that the Committee had exceeded its powers. This has been interpreted by some editors to signify lack of confidence by the community in the arbitration committee--an interpretation that I believe to be spectacularly wrong. Discussing the arbitration committee is a good idea in the circumstances.
  • The format is poor--at least it was initially. For instance, some opinions placed at the top of the RFC were represented as facts. I've reformatted them as opinion and I invite whoever wrote them to sign the opinion.
  • As an RFC it's nominally part of the dispute resolution process--of which the Committee and (on appeal) Jimmy Wales are the final decision makers. I don't think this is a wise choice. The policy-making strand would be the more obvious path, because if we change arbitration policy we will have to do so as a community.
  • However it's a good idea to discuss the arbitration committee.
  • I invite editors interested in making new policy concerning the Arbitration Committee to take a look at Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Procedure for changing this policy (noting that there isn't yet an agreed procedure for doing so).
  • Obviously we don't want to risk the kind of open warfare that would result from a weakening or loss of the arbitration committee's powers to resolve disputes, so I suggest that proposals for change be considered with care for continuity.
• -- Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 13:14, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

  • RfCs are not solely for dispute resolution, and you are mistaken to state that RfCs are nominally part of dispute resolution. RfCs are regularly used to discuss policy, hence the existence of Template:RFCpolicy_list. -- Barberio ( talk) 13:22, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

    Good point: the automated RFC notice mechanism is sometimes used to flag up policy discussions on the talk pages of policy documents (which is where we discuss policy changes). So technically, yes, the term "RFC" is sometimes used as part of policy change. However, my comment on the unsuitedness of the format of this particular document stands. -- Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 13:32, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

    The format is, I think, as good as it'll get for discussing major policy. If you have alternatives, please detail them. Calling to punt the discussion elsewhere is not productive discussion, as you haven't detailed where it will end up, and in what format it should be.

    Until we have a clearly outlined and better discussion format and location, this is where we should be discussing things. Please do not attempt to derail discussion by fragmenting things into multiple policy pages, and different formats of debate. -- Barberio ( talk) 13:38, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

  Policy changes are discussed on the talk page of the policy concerned. -- Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 13:55, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

  Again, you're not providing a better alternative to this centralised discussion. -- Barberio ( talk) 14:13, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

  The alternatives already exist and I have delineated them. Policy discussions take place on the talk pages of the policies. The motion that has the broadest support so far (and by a mile) says "This RFC is premature and unfocussed. It is unlikely to serve any useful purpose." Maybe it's your turn to listen to what people are telling you. -- Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 16:42, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

  RFCs don't have motions, they are not signed up to, and this is not a vote.

  RFCs have statements that others endorse, or make limited endorsements to. And you should note that some of the endorsements to your statement also said "But we should give it a try anyway.", and that those who did endorse it were endorsing only that they thought the RfC likely to cause ineffective drama. Not a single one of them endorsed your attempt to close the RfC. Few supported the suspension.

  Right now, it looks evenly split between those who want suspension, and those who want to just get on with it. With the note that one supporter has withdrew, and the last few endorsements have been in opposition. It looks well like this RfC will continue, and discussion about suspension should be closed.

  If, in the future, drama and ranting occurs and productive discussion is disrupted, then we might revisit steps needed to let cool heads prevail. But at the moment, the only drama generation is over if the RfC should continue. It seems to me that the cool heads are prevailing at the moment tho... -- Barberio ( talk) 16:57, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

• It looks to me as if you agree with me that an RFC is unlikely to result in any binding policy change. This is presumably your aim, so if you want to achieve that aim I suggest that you take some advice. -- Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 16:59, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

  Please do not make personal attacks. If you persist in trying to disrupt proceedings by making personal attacks, I'll start removing the comments where you make them, and you may ultimately be asked to leave. -- Barberio ( talk) 17:03, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

  I've made no personal attacks. Please avoid making false accusations. -- Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 17:06, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

(restore indent) Centralized discussion is already occurring here. I'm sure it will move on to the appropriate policy talk pages at some point, but let it occur as a result of a natural process migration. Amerique ^dialectics 17:00, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

• Seems like this discussion is needed. Tony, let it run it's course naturally, you don't need to try to dominate this. It was noted that other Wikipedias have even outright deleted their local arbitration committees, so seems like if everyone decides to do something binding here, then binding it is. rootology ( T) 18:03, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply
• I have struck my endorsement of "my" motion, chiefly since the consensus is that the process is already underway and is thus moot - but also because my original intent of a few days pause to allow a conclusion to the OM matter from clouding the issue has been co-opted into a different vision. I wish to have no part in any proposed indefinite suspension (otherwise I would have endorsed the Motion to Close). LessHeard vanU ( talk) 20:36, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

• Tony, some people have lost confidence in ArbCom as a body. I, for one, lost confidence in ArbCom wen they passed the "Sourcing Adjudication Board" remedy without first proposing it to the community. I wouldn't be strongly opposed to the dissolution of the committee at this point, but I think that we can come up with solutions to limit their abilities to modify normal power and procedure without at all hurting their ability to arbitrate an individual case. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 20:38, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

  I think that the Committee and the Community could learn from a discussion of what's working and what isn't. However it's obviously going off half-cocked. Suspending the committee? It's plausible that Jimmy might do so in really dire circumstances, but that's not what is happening here. There would need to be some pretty strong evidence that the Committee was making things worse, or had lost control. Well there's evidence that elements of both the Community and the Committee are panicking over minor stuff, but that isn't really the kind of thing that will make Wikipedia's final dispute resolution mechanism unworkable. -- Jenny 22:01, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

  I don't think that it's become bad enough that we need to go down that route, and I'd hate to see it go; it serves a very useful purpose. Hopefully, we never have to do that. Hopefully, things like this will clarify some things, and bring facts to the committee that they may not otherwise have known. Unfortunately, it's pretty clear that ArbCom needs some work and some reform. In the long run, if keeping a safe, stable editing environment requires the suspension of the committee until a more reasonable model can be worked out, then it might have to be done; hopefully not, because it would, as you say, make the dispute resolution mechanism extremely difficult. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 04:41, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

re collapsing of Motion to Suspend (ec and now the discussion here)

Oh, for fucksakes... it has not succeeded, but there is some decent arguments (which was the reason I struck my endorsement) there that will inform the newcomer to this matter - and it makes the above discussion orphaned. I am not embarrassed to have proposed it, and think it still adds to the debate. So much for transparency... LessHeard vanU ( talk) 21:09, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

The discussion is still there, just in an expandable box.

In my time as an editor, I've seen far far far far too many discussions derailed by endless threaded discussion about the discussion itself instead of the original point of the discussion. I'd don't think we should allow that to happen here.

Some people wanted to suspend the RfC, they proposed it, it was given a days worth of discussion, and a lot of words spent on it. A lot of people made their voices known, and a decision was taken to continue the RfC. We really don't want to spend the next week talking about if we should suspend the RfC for a week do we? -- Barberio ( talk) 21:19, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Suggest using collapse boxes for old talk page material more than new talk page material, and being more conservative about applying them to the main RFC discussion. Durova ^Charge! 21:49, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

• I apologise for my language, and would comment that I recognise the actions were performed in good faith. LessHeard vanU ( talk) 21:56, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply
  • Thanks. :) Durova ^Charge! 00:27, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

I'm considering making liberal use of {{ Collapse top}}+{{ Collapse bottom}} on current and future meta-discussion about the RfC itself, to focus discussion on the Arbitration Committee, and avoid spiralling drama threads. -- Barberio ( talk) 13:46, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Previous discussion over drafting of the RfC has been collapsed. I'll hold off on collapsing other meta discussions (including this one) for now. -- Barberio ( talk) 13:52, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

I think thats rather pointless. Your collapsing old discussions. We archive those. So just create an archive, seeing as how most of this discussion was prior to this RfC going live (from LC's userspace). — _Maggot ^Syn 14:50, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

This is just collapsing the meta discussion on the draft which we should keep for a while. We can move to archiving later... -- Barberio ( talk) 15:18, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Please don't do that. It's annoying. -- Jenny 21:20, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Okay, what's annoying is saying I'm going to do something non-destructive and primarily cosmetic. Stating the clear sound reasons I'm going to do it. Leaving it most the day on a high traffic page that people are reading. Then doing it. And only *then* getting objections from someone who had every opportunity to object.

Can you explain why I shouldn't collapse extraneous meta-discussions into boxes? -- Barberio ( talk) 21:27, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

What's annoying is that you're making it difficult for people who, like me, want to read, and perform textual searches on, the discussion page and the RFC. There's no apparent reason to conceal, or to archive, comments in this RFC or in the talk page at this very early stage, and doing so would be an unusual step. I don't think you've explained why it is a necessary one. You didn't get any objections from me because I'd no idea what "collapsing" meant until I saw it. -- Jenny 21:44, 28 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Lulz were had. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 02:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

"Lulz were had." This is funny, as is the picture on the right. I am not privy to the rest of the joke, however; I have no idea about Kafka's characters, or about how and why arbitrators should (not) resemble them. Could someone please explain? The discussion, at least in its early phases, seems to take much for granted. Waltham, The Duke of 07:50, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

The image refers to Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Arbitration_Committee#No_Kafka, which seems to refer to his novel The Trial where a man is arrested, tried, convicted, and executed without ever being informed the name of his own supposed crime. Durova ^Charge!

I'm assuming its meant to be a reference to secret in absentia trials at ArbCom. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 08:48, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

And other stuff where people get yanked into a case wondering huh? Durova ^Charge! 16:10, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Off topic.. but is this picture appearing with inverted colors for anyone else? -- Ned Scott 09:08, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Yes, the photo shews as a negative and the No smoking bit is in black (I do use the greenscreen gadget, and had assumed it was a result of that). DuncanHill ( talk) 11:23, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Some browsers might have trouble viewing it (I got a couple of complaints it didn't show at all last night when I first uploaded). Looks fine to me. Durova ^Charge! 16:09, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

With the greenscreen turned off, it still appears as a negative (Safari 3.1.1 on WinXP). DuncanHill ( talk) 16:10, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Weird. I wonder whether I set it to a color scale that doesn't reproduce well on all systems. Apologies for any inconvenience. (It's Sunday morning in my time zone and I'm still on my first round of coffee). Durova ^Charge! 16:56, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Well, I like it anyway, and the negative effect is actually rather appropriate for these Kafkaesque times :) DuncanHill ( talk) 17:00, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

I've begun a statistical survey of ArbCom activity. See this post for the first installation. This type of information should be useful to help the community evaluate our present situation. Seeking assistance with data collection; please contact me if you'd like to help. Best, Durova ^Charge! 06:12, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Looking at the data, I see that you note the marked drop in arbitration cases. Indeed it is astonishing how few ongoing cases there are at any one time being heard by the modern incarnation of the arbitration committee.

Even more remarkable is the drop in requests for arbitration. It seems that when I visit the arbitration page these days there are always very few new case requests (as I write there seem to be two substantive requests, at a stretch, and two weeks ago there was just one), whereas if I look at the same period a year ago I see seven requests (excluding one request to re-open a closed case) [2] and if I go two years back I see six. Most of the page currently seems to be requests for tweaks to existing cases, clarifications or appeals. This looks to me like a sign of a Committee that is on top of its job in a community that doesn't feel it has to run to the arbitrators as often as it used to. Whilst some other commentators may want to put a different complexion on things, it's hard to think of a more parsimonious explanation. -- Jenny 06:41, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Actually a survey of requests for arbitration is one of the things on the to-do list for the review; would you like to undertake it? Obviously all the cases that actually opened will be there. The goal is to compare those against cases that didn't open. In order to keep track of cases that opened on the second or third attempt (and a few other statistical parsings) that will mean keeping track of the named parties in each proposed case. Individual usernames won't be published in the study--just cases and trends. Durova ^Charge! 06:58, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

If I saw much value in it, I might be interested in doing work like that. Since case applications and acceptances both seem to have decreased markedly, however, I don't think there's much mileage to be had from examining past history where things were different. The process seems to be well matched to the requirements at present, and there seems to be enough slack for the arbitrators to countenance some quite extensive high level stuff in the background--believe me, I wish we'd had arbitrators able to get involved in stuff like this back in 2006.

Now if somebody could show me that we were heading for higher caseloads and we needed to work out how to recognise long term trends in order to reduce the overall burden over time by far-sighted effort, I'd jump at it. But it looks to me like that mountain has already been climbed. I think people are now beginning to complain that the arbitrators are now sticking their noses into things that, before, they never felt able to tackle. Feisty arbs, I like it. -- Jenny (recently changed username) 07:31, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

One thing that may have been on the upswing is requests for clarification. Would you like to survey that? Durova ^Charge! 08:08, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Somebody might like to do that. My subjective impression is that requests for clarification tend to be used for two different functions: to ask for clarification, and to mount a rhetorical challenge to arbitration committee decisions. The recent request by Barberio [3] illustrates the latter. Winding back three weeks (at random) I notice that there were two active requests for clarification of the other sort. Typically two or three arbitrators will give brief personal views on the detailed circumstances and their expectations. It obviously isn't onerous work for the arbitrators, who are not obliged to respond in any case. I expect the rhetorical challenges to increase over time as this area of the page becomes known as a good platform for barrack-room lawyers who fancy making their mark.

It might be interesting to find what a more comprehensive survey throws up. -- Jenny (recently changed username) 18:54, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

What broke it? It's got that line/weirdness down the left side like AN had. rootology ( T) 18:24, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Although I appreciate seeing myself defended (I really do), the purpose of this RFC is process level issues and general reform. A principal danger in the undertaking is of things fracturing into microdebates about individual cases.

I ask that these collapsed discussions remain collapsed. Those who wish to continue posting of course may do so, yet I seriously ask you to rethink where these discussions are headed: are you likely to change anyone's mind this way? Is it likely to make anything better?

It's more important to me to see ArbCom operate well than to have my own case reheard. I have and will continue to speak up for anyone on behalf of fairness and good process, if a Wikipedian under arbitration scrutiny is getting handled badly. Everyone who knows my record knows I do this without regard for personal or political allegiance.

Please consider this pledge, and reconsider whether to debate individual grievances at this time. With respect toward all, Durova ^Charge! 23:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC) reply

The removal of the mess in the "Responses" section of White Cat's section is fine, but I don't agree with the removal of his comment (which was perfectly okay).

I don't understand the collapsing of the other two sections. They seem to be perfectly fine discussions to me. Could you explain that? -- Jenny 20:37, 30 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Well, the editors who were participating in the other two discussions have accepted the decision. One even posted afterward that he regretted the exchange. Since they don't object and all the material remains open and available, let's let it be. Durova ^Charge! 21:05, 30 June 2008 (UTC) reply

No problem here, but I'm reading them and scratching my head wondering what the problem was. There was a lot of bad feeling against arbcom at the time of that Guettarda discussion, and the things said are understandable if not particularly praiseworthy. The discussion of my "under the radar" comment seems to have been universally polite. -- Jenny 21:10, 30 June 2008 (UTC) reply

a lot of destructive behavior that had previously gone under the radar is being targeted

On "Addendum to View by Guettarda"

View by White Cat

Moved from RFC main page; personal grievances below. Please contact me if you disagree with the decision to move to talk and collapse. Durova ^Charge! 20:28, 30 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Since my statements seem to have been comprehensively misunderstood by all other parties involved, I'm happy with the removal of the response section. However I feel that White Cat's comments should be replaced on the page (without the existing response section, or at least without my comments) and I'll avoid commenting on it. The kerfuffle was no fault of White Cat's and I apologise for being the unwitting agent of what happened subsequently. -- Jenny 20:31, 30 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Thanks. I've already posted to White Cat's user talk. If he requests this move back to the main RFC I'll comply. Durova ^Charge! 21:02, 30 June 2008 (UTC) reply

The talk page is getting a bit long. Unless anyone objects, I'll switch on auto archiving for this page, using the following,

{{User:MiszaBot/config
|algo = old(7d)
|archive = Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee/Archive %(counter)d
|counter = 1
|maxarchivesize = 60K
}}

Which is archiving threads with no new comments for a week.

-- Barberio ( talk) 21:27, 30 June 2008 (UTC) reply

No objections from me. I proposed this earlier one, as opposed to collapsing. — _Maggot ^Syn 21:29, 30 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Seems okay to me. -- Jenny 21:30, 30 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Good idea. Durova ^Charge! 21:38, 30 June 2008 (UTC) reply

I'm good with a week. -- Rocksanddirt ( talk) 23:46, 30 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Please do not forget to create an archive navbox. -- Dragon695 ( talk) 01:29, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

I don't think this will work. Top-level sections are constantly being expanded. A better solution would be to split off and transclude the largest section when the article gets to 300KB, repeating as necessary. #Arbitration Committee change and reform is already at 133KB, which is about half the size of the article. The full article weighs in at 339KB, big enough for a split.

As a point of comparison, Line of succession to the British throne is 340,885 bytes, and attempts to split it along logical lines have failed due to lack of consensus. On the other hand, my bold split of Wikipedia:List of missing journals, which once weighed in at 405,693 bytes, was accepted by the community. There are key difference between those two articles and this one though: This one is changing rapidly and this one is a discussion page. Another key difference is that when I split List of missing journal articles, the English Wikipedia still didn't have edit-top-section as a user preference. Still, spits by major sections are probably in order if things get big enough to cause browser failures. davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 01:40, 1 July 2008 (UTC) Oops, I misread, I didn't see you were talking about the talk page. Yes, by all means, set up archiving on the talk page. davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 17:23, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Quick comment on the archive method proposed....it only archives sections that have no date stamps within 7 days. So, only when a section has in fact, gone stale. And it does it automatically, we don't have to pay attention to it. -- Rocksanddirt ( talk) 03:16, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Yes, I know, which is why it probably won't work as intended. If it archives old sub-sections where the parent or sibling sections are still active, it will do so and separate them from the context of their parent section. This is bad. If it does not archive sub-sections independently of the top-level sections, very little will be archived anytime soon, defeating the purpose. davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 03:30, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

It does do only the level 2 sections (those with 2 =='s as the marker). when I quickly scanned down the page, I saw 5 or 6 sections that have information only from March when the draft of this was being assembled at first. And most of the sections here are only level 2's, so there will be limited potential for break ups, though some of the longer sections might have large stale portions, such is life. The idea is to set aside only that stuff which is really stale, not just make the page smaller. -- Rocksanddirt ( talk) 14:26, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

• Hang on. Barberio is talking about the talk page. Davidwr is talking about the associated front page (he linked to a section of it and is talking about sizes of that front page). The front page needs to be split up, as it is far too big now. The talk page may also need to be split among the subsidiary pages, but this one needs to remain as a centralized talk page, and talk page archiving will also help. The front page, though, can only be managed by manual splits to subpages. Carcharoth ( talk) 15:50, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply
  • For example, the talk page is 105 kilobytes, while the front page is 366 kilobytes. And please don't refer to this RfC page as an "article". Call these pages "the RfC page" and "the RfC talk page". Carcharoth ( talk) 15:56, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

At close to 400KB and longer than the longest article, this RfC is getting hard to keep track of and hard to use in certain browsers. With that in mind, I propose splitting it by section, into:

• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee/Statements about what works well in the current Arbitration Committee process
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee/Statements about what does not work well in the current Arbitration Committee process
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee/Clarifications on limits of what the Arbitration Committee can't do
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee/The Arbitration Committee and scaling
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee/Arbitration Committee change and reform
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee/The Arbitration Committee's Responsibility to Others
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee/Views and statements about this RFC
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee/Comments by FT2
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee/Arbitrators prepared to answer a few questions
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee/Motions to close or extend this RFC

With the main article consisting of just transclusions, notices of transclusions, and the organization, introduction, See also and Discussion sections.

Any considerations, objections, or !votes in support before we do this? davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 17:32, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

I've changed your links to subpages of the RfC page, not the RfC talk page. I agree that some splitting is needed, but would suggest leaving the introductory statement where it is - that is unlikely to expand much. Would also suggest transcluding (to allow dynamic updating) a short summary section from each subpage back to the main page. The summaries of the motions to close, for example, would list the ones that were open, and the current counts. Carcharoth ( talk) 17:42, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Thanks for the fixup. I'm okay with leaving the introductory statement along with the see also and discussion sections. I envisioned transcluding the entirety of each subpage into the main article, so anyone loading the main article would see pretty much what they see today, except for a note at the top of each section saying "the following is trancluded from ___." If you envision transcluding just a summary that is fine but I'm not sure how to go about doing it technically, without creating entirely separate pages for the summaries. I'm also not sure how to keep the summaries up-to-date without human effort. davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 19:15, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

I don't think transcluding the entirety of the subpages would help, as people's browsers and computers still have to load the same amount of text. In terms of editing and edit conflicts, sections avoid this just as well as subpages. The point about splitting the discussions is to keep things under control and to keep things organised, as well as avoiding bloating by stuffing everything into one page. Carcharoth ( talk) 19:24, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Good idea - this RfC was always going to be big. However, please add a box of sorts listing all the subpages for easy navigation. -- _{Escape Artist Swyer} ^{Talk to me} _{The mess I've made} 20:45, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

A split-and-transclude method would be okay for me. -- Jenny 21:50, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Proposal: Create the articles above, and put a short summary at the top of each of the pages. Surround the summary with <includeonly></includeonly> tags, then transclude the sub-articles and provide a "see more" link to the main article. This will satisfy Carcharoth's issue, reduce article size, and not be overly complex. davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 04:09, 2 July 2008 (UTC) reply

• Just do it. Stifle ( talk) 09:44, 2 July 2008 (UTC) reply

  Barring an emergency, I'm going to wait at least 24 hours before the original proposal above. The input so far has been useful. It's also the polite thing to do. It's 417,643 bytes now. It was 380,966 bytes bytes then. If it grows another 13K in the next 6 hours that probably won't kill too many more people's browsers. davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 11:03, 2 July 2008 (UTC) reply

• Okay folks I've done the first one. I'm not sure I like the results though, it interrupts the flow of reading. It's easy enough to make it look like the old way by removing the "noinclude" tags from the subst'd article. What do you think? davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 01:37, 3 July 2008 (UTC) reply

• Can you put links to them all on the RFC main page? rootology ( T) 02:33, 3 July 2008 (UTC) reply

I added this one;

• [[* Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Arbitration_Committee/Arbitrators_prepared_to_answer_a_few_questions

which would benefit from some more eyes - I think it could be a useful addition to this process, and am heartened that the arb.s are up for engaging 'on-wiki' in this way too! cheers, Privatemusings ( talk) 02:36, 3 July 2008 (UTC) reply

I updated Arbitrators_prepared_to_answer_a_few_questions to match the other spun off section then transcluded its summary as I did with the other one. I also added an "organization" section that includes a link to a real-time list of sub-pages. I updated the list on this talk page so it matches the table of contents. davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 03:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC) reply

this section is a placeholder for further discussion on this suggestion Low Sea ( talk) 21:06, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

has this discussion hit the magic 100 Wikipedians yet? Low Sea ( talk) 21:18, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

The main page at this point has had 132 editors, including 1 IP. The talk page has had 37 editors, and none of these were anons.-- Filll ( talk | wpc) 21:43, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

It might have, though these days almost any discussion of any importance approaches and may surpass the "100 Wikipedians supporting something" barrier--even some AfDs I closed a couple of years ago were well over that level, both for delete and for keep! -- Jenny 21:48, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

This talkpage has been viewed 1099 times up to yesterday, per [6]. DuncanHill ( talk) 21:51, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

And 4709 views for the main page. DuncanHill ( talk) 21:53, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

I suspect if it was better organized and easier to read, and better advertised, it might easily get many times many more editors and views. This is a topic of some serious interest. Is it being widely advertised in prominent places?-- Filll ( talk | wpc) 21:54, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

It's linked fairly comprehensively, from WP:RFAR, WP:VPP, WP:VPM, WP:CP, WP:CENT, WP:WATCH, WP:Editor integrity, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Orangemarlin and other matters, Wikipedia:Arbcom electoral reform, a score of pages in Wikipedia talk space, and a dozen or so in user talk space. -- Jenny 22:35, 1 July 2008 (UTC) reply

I've dropped a note to talk pages, and asked arb.s to consider engaging here. Thoughts, feedback, and help with that page would be much appreciated.. Privatemusings ( talk) 04:05, 2 July 2008 (UTC) reply

What the hell does that mean? If they made a mistake, they should apologize. DuncanHill ( talk) 09:48, 2 July 2008 (UTC) reply

... yes, where beneficial to do so. ;-) — Giggy 09:54, 2 July 2008 (UTC) I have no idea either. Maybe ask Jimbo? Nobody else has used the phrase. reply

In whose opinion? You screw up, you apologize. You don't play games and decide not to apologize because you are glad of the harm done by your mistake. DuncanHill ( talk) 09:56, 2 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Yes, I agree (did you see my small message after my sig?). I think it's best you ask Jimbo what he's talking about since he's the only person who's used that phrase. — Giggy 09:58, 2 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Ooops! Didn't see your extra bit! DuncanHill ( talk) 10:00, 2 July 2008 (UTC) reply

I've asked Jimbo on his talk page. Still, at least he hasn't explicitly stated that honesty would not improve the situation, which is the position of one notable arbitrator. DuncanHill ( talk) 10:13, 2 July 2008 (UTC) reply

My interpretation of Jimmy's statement is that sometimes it can be beneficial to apologise and take the blame even where none is due. Sometimes that's the right thing to do. Like when a woman passes wind noisily and her husband says "oops, sorry, must be those beans I ate for lunch". :) -- Jenny 10:33, 2 July 2008 (UTC) reply

"I am sorry if my words were unclear." This is an example of an apology one could make even if not completely convinced of having made an error. Obviously, you are correct: if someone has made a mistake (with negative consequences for someone), then they should apologize. And if you are absolutely convinced that you are right and have done nothing wrong at all, then a pseudo-apology can often just make things worse. But there is a very broad middle ground in human interactions, in which you are not sure. You did your best, but something went wrong somewhere. Fighting to prove that you were right is often just annoying and pointless, and the source of further friction. An apology in such circumstances, even a conditional apology like my example, one which acknowledges the complexity of judging various situations, can be quite beneficial.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:23, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Which reminds me of the old Private Eye cartoon parodying the Punch style of the 19th century –

Enraged host – "Dammit sir, do you realise you just farted before my wife?"

Insouciant guest – "Deuced sorry, old chap, didn't realise it was her turn."

dave souza, talk 11:12, 2 July 2008 (UTC) reply

See Non-apology apology. Like a white lie; it can be both a social lubricant and an excuse to dissemble. 17:47, 5 July 2008 (UTC) WAS 4.250 ( talk)

Dropping a note to say that I've been reading the RFC and other comments about the Arbitration Committee written on various talk pages. Thanks for the feedback. Since I'm just returning from a month long break, I have loads of catching up to do, in addition to addressing the happenings related to the Orangemarlin case and other ArbCom announcements. I plan to to respond as soon as possible. FloNight ♥♥♥ 20:03, 2 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Things seem to be winding down. The ARBCOM has a lot to filter through and I don't envy them.

Date - size - 24-hour edits - increase:

• 00:49, 28 June 2008 - start - 14,757 bytes - start
• 00:00, 29 June 2008 - 327 - 92,113 bytes - 77,356 bytes
• 00:11, 30 June 2008 - 364 - 218,542 bytes - 126,429 bytes
• 00:00, 1 July 2008 - 388 - 345,927 bytes - 127,385 bytes
• 00:31, 2 July 2008 - 107 - 388,683 bytes - 42,756 bytes
• 01:11, 3 July 2008 - 131 - 445,507 bytes - 56,824 bytes*
• 01:12, 4 July 2008 - 104 - 471,862 bytes - 26,355 bytes*
• 00:51, 5 July 2008 - 125 - 515,147 bytes - 43,285 bytes*

*split over multiple files

Interestingly, first 3 days of July in total have almost exactly the same number of bytes as each of the last 2 days of June, and approximately the same number of total edits in any of the last 3 days in June.

Since things seem to be winding down, I recommend 2 or 3 arbitrators plus several other editors get together and distill this down to size, and report those comments that had wide support and draft recommendations for guidelines and policies. davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 03:06, 4 July 2008 (UTC) reply

You do realise that the 4th is an American holiday, right? It's a little premature to say it's winding down because people don't talk during a holiday weekend =) Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 01:26, 5 July 2008 (UTC) reply

There are comments by about 150 editors to date, but no single proposal has more than 43 endorsements (about 30% of those who have edited the page) [7]. The 43 endorsements were for a proposal "No Secret Trials" which affirms the existing arbitration policy which has been explicitly supported by Jimmy Wales and the arbitrators. A suggestion by SirFozzie on reducing arbcom term has 34 endorsements. Although these proportions cannot represent community consensus, they nevertheless highlight areas of significant concern.

Taking into account opposition, no other proposal yet has as many as 30 net endorsements (20% of all those who have edited the page).

I suggest that, if consensus on any one proposal is likely to become apparent, it has not yet become so, and those that have significant support seem to express a sentiment that is already part of the arbitration policy.

There's no harm in holding off to ensure that this represents community consensus, or to await a further summary proposal that would attract community consensus. I see no reason to rush to close this.

Meanwhile, however, I don't see any reason to act as if paralysed. I think it would be nice if the arbitrators tweaked the arbitration policy to record the fact that even giving the appearance of a secret trial can be very controversial.

Also at this stage we might want to move to the arbitration policy talk page and discuss a process for changing arbitration policy. By adopting a process for arbitrator selection into that policy, it would be possible to vary the term.

An alternative approach (and much, much less tortuous) would be to ask Jimbo to accept suggestions on changing the election process, as it seems that he has traditionally done this in the past according to what is in essence a procedure of his own choice. -- Jenny 01:50, 5 July 2008 (UTC) reply

While I agree with much of what you said, I don't agree that the numbers indicate lack of consensus. Given the size of the RFC, we can't expect participating editors to endorse every proposal they agree with. — xDanielx ^T/ _C\ ^R 04:27, 8 July 2008 (UTC) reply

"Unless closed by a consensus supported motion, the RFC will be open at least 3 months from when it goes live, and may be extended beyond that by continued activity or a motion to extend." -- The Red Pen of Doom 02:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC) reply

There have been numerous proposals that got a majority of support, and no other Wikipedia process or vote attempts to judge based on total number of people looking at the page. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 02:54, 5 July 2008 (UTC) reply

• I, for one, based on the "three months" thing, had every intention of coming here in a month or so, reading at my leisure, and then supporting whichever bits I wanted to. There is no need for everyone to comment on all the proposals here right now, still less for anyone to prematurely close this. Carcharoth ( talk) 03:06, 5 July 2008 (UTC) reply

I agree there is no consensus to close this Rfc. I think it should be left running for the full 3 months. Jimbo asked arbcom to proceed slowly. The community should do the same thing. : Albion moonlight ( talk) 06:36, 5 July 2008 (UTC) reply

I will probably support more of the proposals now that it is being split into pieces so I can read them more carefully and ponder them. There is no rush, as far as I can tell.-- Filll ( talk | wpc) 16:16, 5 July 2008 (UTC) reply

No, there's no rush. To gather a sense of community consensus, I think we should let it run for a while. I oppose the idea of a fixed period. There's no reason why this discussion should not be open-ended. I think that it was misconceived, however, and that more progress is likely to be made on the individual policy pages, where policy changes can be proposed in a more focussed manner.

The problem with this RFC is, as with all RFCs, many proposals are made and few of them get significant amounts of support; moreover as the RFC grows larger it becomes more difficult to handle. Some excellent work has been put into splitting the RFC into sections, but the existing framework provided by our policy pages is being ignored with the result that there is much redundancy. -- Jenny 02:50, 6 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Due to my recently finishing the first draft of a novel, and having to organise the start of the editorial revision process, I've not been involved here as much as I was at the start. However, I do intend to keep up my attempts at introducing some sensible reforms.

On the contrary to idea that this is winding down, I think it was just that some of the early concerns risen were very quickly taken up by those interested, and this has slackened back a little while we go over things.

I do think we can report some early results. We have quite a few recommendations that have a significant amount of support and little opposition. "No Secret Trials" has already been accepted as a mandatory requirement of the process. But we also have the strongly supported recommendations that Arbitrators state their own opinions as individuals or pluralities not as 'The Arbitration Committee', and that the Arbitration committee is strongly restricted in its ability to create or alter policy. We also have strongly supported statements that the 'inactive arbitrator' problem seems caused by 'burn out', which could be helped by reducing the terms of sitting members, or adding extra members. -- Barberio ( talk) 21:14, 6 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Um, a proposal "No New Policy" has 21 net supports. Do you suggest that this indicates community consensus for a change in arbitration policy? Obviously I don't care if the proposal passes because the committee has seldom, if ever made policy, but still... wouldn't we want a stronger indication of support for such a change in policy when it's so obvious that it could be misinterpreted by someone who disagees with a remedy? -- Jenny 21:28, 6 July 2008 (UTC) reply

"View by Celarnor (2)", which is a stronger recommendatory that ArbCom stay out of policy all together, has 26 'net' supports. I'd recommend against playing this numbers game. The ratification of the Arbitration Policy itself was only a 'net' support of 33.

Do remember these are recommendations for policy yet to be created, which people can choose to support, and not a vote. When we get to creating a new arbitration policy, we can start talking about how many votes are needed to ratify it. -- Barberio ( talk) 22:06, 6 July 2008 (UTC) reply

We don't do votes. The arbitration policy was ratified by 26 endorsements, you say? Fine. That was a lot of endorsements at the time it went live. At this stage it isn't quite a "numbers" game, except where I remark that the RFC has only been open for nine days, only 160 people have edited the page. That the proposal you champion above has 26 endorsements indicates that most people editing the page haven't supported it. That it doesn't address what the arbitration committee did in the recent case: to wit, to pass an enforcement measure delegating certain of its powers to admins as it does in nearly every case it hears, is only the icing on the cake. To represent binding consensus, any proposal on Wikipedia must make sense in the context in which it is made. For clarification on that, see below for a copy of the response to your request for clarification, posted here by Daniel. -- Jenny 14:06, 7 July 2008 (UTC) reply

...I'm sorry, lass, but you're being really... difficult to work with just now. You seem determined to stop any and all changes to arbcom policy, and are claiming that everyone who ever toucnd didn't vote for something should be counted, not as neutral, but as oppose. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 05:03, 8 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Not really. I'm just saying that 30 or 40 or so people supporting something doesn't equate in any way to community consensus. I'm sure all reasonable people will be able to see that this is the case. Indeed that is the reason we generally don't take straw polls on major decisions. -- Jenny 16:59, 9 July 2008 (UTC) reply

If you are saying that, once this RfC is done, everything with a reasonable number of votes should be written up into a proposal and brought forward to the community for approval (much like the main page redesign), then I could agree with you. If you are instead saying they should be ignored completely, then I would strenuously disagree. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 03:20, 10 July 2008 (UTC) reply

This is a long Rfc. It takes a while to read the proposals, think about the implications, and respond to them. However, I think it'll be fairly clear which statements the community broadly agrees or disagrees with and which ones have no clear support or opposition. Give it time. -- Regents Park ( sink with the skaters) 23:46, 9 July 2008 (UTC) reply

 * Where the power to mandate these new policies and processes comes from;
 * Why they did not feel the need to consult with the community, or allow for community discussion;
 * How they would react if the community rejects these new processes;
 * and any sanctions on editors they may enforce for failing to accept these new processes.

Pending action on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/C68-FM-SV/Proposed decision and the proposed dismissal of the case, I am considering going for the nuclear option here.

If, as I suspect will happen, sufficient ArbCom members vote for this dismissal, I will add a new section to this RfC, titled "Extraordinary Motion of No Confidence". The text of the motion will be, "In light of recent activities, the community can hold no confidence in the current Arbitration Committee. Suspension of the Committee is warranted until new members are elected."

This is a strong step, but I think the some members of the current ArbCom have failed to take on board any of the criticism directed at them, and are damaging the dispute resolution process by their activities. If they don't see sense soon, it may be time to push the emergency stop button. -- Barberio ( talk) 13:54, 9 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Who appointed you king, John? -- Jenny 16:58, 9 July 2008 (UTC) reply

"edit this page", same as you or I. :) rootology ( T) 17:05, 9 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Barberio, please split any such motion into two parts: One, a procedure by which the editors of Wikipedia can call for a fresh set of elections, and two, a straw poll to gauge if any such formal procedure is likely to gain support in the present situation. The "procedure" may be something as simple as "During extraordinary situations, the ARBCOM can be asked to resign en masse by a no-confidence RfC which gains BIGPERCENT support and a margin of support of at least BIGMARGIN. Any such RFC will last between SHORTNUMBEROFDAYS and LONGNUMBEROFDAYS and will be advertised on LISTOFPAGES. Prior to such an RFC, a petition must be posted to SOMELOCATION and must have the support of at least SOMEREASONABLEMARGIN and at least SOMEREASONABLEPERCENTAGE, with the petition being active at least SOMENUMBER but no longer than SOMELONGERNUMBER of days" or it may be something much more involved. If you go the simple route, this is how it might look: During extraordinary situations, the ARBCOM can be asked to resign en masse by a no-confidence RfC which gains a net of 60% support and a margin of support of at least 100 more "support" than "oppose." Any such RFC will last between 15 and 30 days and will be advertised to all logged-in users for the duration of the comment period. Prior to such an RFC, a petition must be posted to WP:RFC and have the support of at least 60% of editors with a net margin of 20. The petition will be active for at least 7 but no more than 14 days." I'm not picky on the wording, only that some agreed-upon procedure exists before moving forward. In any case, I'll probably recommend against any no-confidence motion, but it is important that we have a means to do so in the event of a runaway committee. Personally, I think some of the ideas now under discussion, such as shorter ARBCOM terms and shorter intervals between elections, combined with the lack of a total disaster the likes of which would have everyone screaming "resign," make any discussion of "throwing everyone out" at this time premature. davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 19:38, 9 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Could we perhaps instead put Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Arbitration_Committee#IV._Redress into immediate effect, and apply it to the current Membership. This would also allow those members who do disagree with the current status quo an opportunity to say so. It does seem like some arbitrators need to be recalled to prevent further damage to the creditability of the dispute resolution process. -- Barberio ( talk) 20:17, 9 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Nothing from this RFC can go into effect until the RFC closes. However, if you open an RFC strongly encouraging one or more members to voluntarily resign, and it becomes obvious the discussion is going heavily against them, I strongly suggest they will step down. I don't see such a lopsided RFC happening though. Too many of the "silent majority" will step in to say "no need to resign." davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 20:45, 9 July 2008 (UTC) reply

I'm one of them. Yes, I am one of the first to suggest that we need shorter terms and that the public view of the ArbCom is that things are not running exactly smoothly. However, short of gross misconduct (I'm not talking about making unpopular decisions, I'm talking a new Essjay level scandal) I do not support recalling an Arbitrator mid-stream. Arbitrators must feel free to make unpopular decisions if they feel it necessary. They come from the community, but are not required to simply be mirrors for the community. If that was the case, we would just disband the ArbCom and do everything straight voting/popularity contest. SirFozzie ( talk) 20:58, 9 July 2008 (UTC) reply

The assertion if you open an RFC strongly encouraging one or more members to voluntarily resign needs clarification: I opened the RFC and I have not encouraged one or more members to resign: I reserve judgment and at some point in the future I may do so. Durova ^Charge! 21:03, 9 July 2008 (UTC) reply

I think rather than a global "vote of no confidence" for the entire ArbCom, we need a well-defined "impeachment" procedure for removing individual ArbCom members for gross misconduct. Like real-world impeachment, an ArbCom impeachment should be very difficult, but it does need to exist as an option, as the recent events show. Moreover, I don't think that impeachment powers should be given to a single person, such as Jimbo, but to the community as a whole, whose trust ArbCom needs in order to operate effectively. E.g., off the top of my head, one can require both a community vote and, say, a vote of the current bureaucrats (or admins?), with sufficiently large majorities required in both cases. Nsk92 ( talk) 21:18, 9 July 2008 (UTC) reply

I'm thinking this may be premature, also. I was looking around at several formal procedures for recalling state officials, and I'm thinking some sort of similar system could be adopted on WP, with well-defined parameters and procedures for all proceedings. An RFC could be looked at as a petition for initiating a recall process, but it shouldn't be looked at as the whole process. Amerique ^dialectics 21:20, 9 July 2008 (UTC) reply

I am certainly not suggesting that RfC may ever be all of the procees; it should be harder than that to remove a member of the ArbCom. But I do think that a well-defined process for doing that is needed, even if it is very rarely used. Regarding "recall" vs "impeachment", I prefer "impeachment". A "recall" suggest the possibility of removal for making unpopular decisions without breaking their mandate (e.g. like the recall of Gray Davis in California). I don't think that a removal from ArbCom on such grounds should be allowed. Similar to real-world judges, ArbCom members should be allowed to do their job without having to be in a constant "election campaign" mode. However, removal for serious misconduct is a different matter and that is what the term "impeachment" implies. Nsk92 ( talk) 21:43, 9 July 2008 (UTC) reply

(edit conflict) This link in particular is especially explanatory: [22] Under the section labled "Petitioning," the idea of a scalable minimum # of signatories required to initiate a recall process, "based on a formula, generally a percentage of the vote in the last election for the office in question" seems especially adaptable to the WP system for electing Arbs.

I think Jimbo could be impeached, but I can't see "impeachment" language applied to Arbs. Recall petitions against judges are not unheard of, though, although they do take on the character you describe: [23] Amerique ^dialectics 21:51, 9 July 2008 (UTC) reply

We're a very long way from impeaching Jimbo or even declaring a vote of no confidence in the arbitration committee. 29 new editors commented on the RFA yesterday as a result of a link being added to the watchlist. Let's continue to gather opinions and see if we can find out where the consensus lies. -- Jenny 09:54, 10 July 2008 (UTC) reply

I think I'm just an ordinary user and to be honest, I'm completely bemused by all this. There seems to be a great deal of comment, I haven't got time to read it all and I find it very hard to ascertain by skim-reading which way it is going. Its difficult to see the wood from the trees. I'm not even sure what the debate is about in the first place. Is it really that important a subject ? There's not a lot of point consulting the Wiki membership on this sort of question, as all you'll ever get is the enormous confusing document that now exists. Attempts at democracy amid what is essentially a managed anarchy aren't likely to succeed. Can't the Arbitration Committe and Jimbo Wales reach some sort of agreement ? Hethurs ( talk) 16:26, 9 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Your points are fair, but the flaw comes in the final phrase: both the parties of Jimbo Wales and the ArbComare the community, editors like you and I. It's not for either of those two to come to consensus; it's the community ArbCom arbitrates that needs to find consensus here. -- Anonymous Dissident ^Talk 17:03, 9 July 2008 (UTC) reply

There have been significant problems, and the Arbcom is very uncommunicative when contacted about them. Frankly, if the Arbcom were able to self-regulate, and deal with problems, they would probably have done so by now. Communication is the biggest issue: It is very hard to get answers out of them - or even recognition that a question has been asked - for even fairly trivial matters. For instance, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Homeopathy/Evidence was deleted in the middle of a case (which just closed), and only in the last week, after it was brought up in this RfC, did the arbcom agreed to look a it and figure out what's going on. They still haven't done anything about it. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 05:05, 10 July 2008 (UTC) reply

I think the point was that this page is linked as a watchlist message, when the vast majority of less-regular editors have no idea what the arbitration committee is, and have little reason to care. The odds that anyone randomly clicking on the link to this page is going to be interested in the 500kb+ of nonsense are very low. - Bobet 07:33, 10 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Can anyone please tell me, in a few sentences what's going on here? Guy0307 ( talk) 08:16, 10 July 2008 (UTC) reply

zOMG drama. Who needs sentences? :-) — Giggy 08:57, 10 July 2008 (UTC) reply

In late June, an arbitrator made an error in posting an arbitration case, complete with remedy, in the case of an editor who apparently had serious and longstanding conduct problems. The user had not been contacted prior to this. This was immediately repudiated by another arbitrator, it was vacated and Jimbo has confirmed that it has no status. The arbitration committee has held an internal inquiry and decided that its methods were at fault and the error was a result of poor communication. The conduct problems have been resolved, for the time being, by a mentorship arrangement involving the user.

This RFC which had been in preparation for some time was released during the accompanying on-wiki commotion, and it's been running for twelve days or so. -- Jenny 10:00, 10 July 2008 (UTC) reply

The arbitration committee is a group of people who handle some long-standing editing disputes. They made what some people consider a wrong decision, which was made worse by discussing the issue outside of Wikipedia, instead of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration and its subpages. This resulted in the discussion you see that's irrelevant to a vast majority of users of this website. If you don't know what it's about, it's very likely that you shouldn't care. - Bobet 10:18, 10 July 2008 (UTC) reply

While you may or may not care, this is an opportunity to understand what the arbitration process is all about and give your input, independent of the correctness or wrongness of the decision(s) mentioned above, on defining that process better. The dispute may be raging around it, but the RFC is relevant to any serious editor of wikipedia. In essence, the Rfc seeks to define what Arbcom can and cannot do and it is fairly easy to scroll down the page, read individual comments, and express your opinion on the ones you agree or disagree with while ignoring the ones you don't care about.-- Regents Park ( sink with the skaters) 11:43, 10 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Please don't add summary sections yet. It causes problems when people add new statements, but don't add them to the 'summary', and the person writing the one line summary may accidental misrepresent the statement.

Summarizing all of this will be a very difficult task, and one ideally left till the end of the RfC process, where we can take weight of consensus into account. -- Barberio ( talk) 14:09, 10 July 2008 (UTC) reply

I've started the process of collating together what's been agreed with by a significant amount of people into a page so we can eventually distil it all into a new policy.

Please see Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Arbitration_Committee/Summary.

Once you cut out it down to the items that only got a healthy amount of support, and trim away all the threaded discussion, it starts to look like we do actually have the foundation here for a workable arbitration policy. Which I think is a demonstrated success for this format of RfC! -- Barberio ( talk) 16:20, 9 August 2008 (UTC) reply

After sorting through them, we have four contradictions in supported policy changes. All to do with changing how many members get elected and for how long. I think we'll need to run a straw poll to identify which of these changes has the most support. I suggest running it as an Approval voting including 'No Change to Policy' as an option. This would mean one poll between expanding the number of members elected per election, and no-change; And a second poll between different 'terms and tranches' options and no-change. -- Barberio ( talk) 14:11, 10 August 2008 (UTC) reply

I would argue that the first of the non-actionable ones is actionable: Policy change being to declare that, except in exceptional circumstances, 1 week must be given for evidence preparation. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 18:25, 10 August 2008 (UTC) reply

You're probably right. Go ahead and move it to the right place, and put in a policy change box. -- Barberio ( talk) 18:55, 10 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Altho, having said that, reading it over again, you didn't explicitly say that in the statement people were agreeing with, so I think it's unfair to say such a policy change has support because people might not have agreed if you'd put in a "1 week must be given for evidence preparation" statement. -- Barberio ( talk) 18:59, 10 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Since we'll need to have further discussion to resolve the conflicting policy suggestions anyway, you can always put up your suggested policy to address the problems identified in the statement during that. -- Barberio ( talk) 19:04, 10 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Started a draft poll at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee/Poll. -- Barberio ( talk) 18:54, 16 August 2008 (UTC) reply

I've started a thread at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008#Terms and seats looking to enact or at least move towards creating a larger committee. There's some issues over what this will mean in practise. Thoughts welcome. Hiding T 15:31, 14 August 2008 (UTC) reply