It is a sad day when Arbcom so completely get things wrong. Unless we are to count our blessings that more mistakes have not been made. We see here good editors banned, and more de-sysopping. We see in the Perth case a storm in a tea-cup that almost became a ban-fest, and one of the three admins involved being picked out. And the Fae case beggars belief. The committee gives the appearance of siding with a party of harassers, take no account of the principles of Wikipedia policy, or of common human decency, assumes an enormous amount of bad faith and takes powers into its hands to ban a user, apparently for discussing his case off wiki. RichFarmbrough, 02:35, 25 July 2012 (UTC).[reply]
I'm sorry, I disagree. Arbcom is for resolving conduct issues that the community cannot solve. Clear-cut "Bad Egg" cases will generally not need their intervention. So most cases will involve Good Editors who are accused of having Jekyll and Hyde aspects, strongly enough to cause discord in the community.
Arbcom typically does a reasonable job of considering admonishments and lesser sanctions where possible. Tougher sanctions - including bans and desysoppings - are limited to situations where i) there is a pattern of poor behaviour which is toxic and whose direct as well as indirect chilling effect cannot be balanced by the fact that the same user is being helpful elsewhere; ii) there is an unwillingness to comprehend or admit that certain behaviour was not acceptable, and therefore a lack of confidence that it won't be repeated or can be controlled with lesser measures; or iii) bright line violations that cast real doubt on judgment (and where some deterrent is needed for the bright line to be maintained).
At least one of these situations seems to apply in all the current and other recent major-sanction situations. We can all second-guess if they got it exactly right for each Mr. Hyde, but that's beside the point. Reasonable people will disagree - that's why those situations got to Arbcom. But it's telling that most of the criticism is "...but Mr. Hyde was provoked", or "someone else was worse", or "but Mr. Hyde is most of the time sweet and sunny Dr. Jekyll". That misses the point.
Now I do think Arbcom should get better about *explaining* their rationale holistically. It starts that way, but when Committee members can't quite agree and cases drag on, one senses frustration and a desire to move on as soon as some hodgepodge is cobbled together that every committee member can live with or no longer cares to argue about. Some Arbcom members vote to close cases before it's even quite clear, with all the conditionals and alternatives, what is the final decision they are voting to close on! Given by this time cases will have dragged on for weeks anyway, I would urge arbitrators to take the couple extra days to tie up the decision in a bow, and in particular polish up the "story" (i.e., combined message of the principles, findings, and remedies) they have voted to adopt, which parts of the community will then be reading assiduously to reach closure on the whole unpleasant chapter and/or draw conclusions for appropriate behaviour in comparable situations. Otherwise, we're left intuiting this from incomplete information or from the ebb and flow of the discussion on the proposed decision and talk pages - and those aren't pretty (any more than the underlying conflict). Martinp (talk) 14:07, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As you say "Some Arbcom members vote to close cases before it's even quite clear, with all the conditionals and alternatives, what is the final decision they are voting to close on!" and this is typical of the slapdash manner in which the cases can be handled. Jclemens even boasts on his talk page of not being "deliberative", where he also appeared to offer a "retrial" as an alternative to him making an apology for accusing an editor of something they hadn't done. With this kind of unprofessional approach, it is no wonder that ArbCom consistently come up with bad decisions, almost to the point where one can simply reverse the ArbCom decision to come up with the right one! My historical respect for ArbCom was based on the amount of work needed to take evidence into consideration, I am however assured by a sitting Arbitrator that they do not read the workshop pages, thus rendering the whole process a waste of time. Moreover, and more importantly the committee's grasp of policy and good governance seems sadly lacking, and their understanding of the human issues nonexistent. RichFarmbrough, 08:01, 26 July 2012 (UTC).[reply]
Rich, I am going to disengage here. I thought this might be an arena for people to exchange views on the disposition of a couple of cases that could materially affect the tone for what is acceptable interaction on en:wp. But instead we have our own private echo chamber: my opening salvo was clearly tl;dr for people, and you seem to be unhappy with Arbcom in general and seeking venues to broadcast it. I think you're being unnecessarily strident; I would not be surprised that you think I have rose-coloured glasses or worse. Peace. Martinp (talk) 12:11, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Richard in some ways. The burden placed on ArbCom to act as judges is inhumanly great. Arbs devote a huge amount of time and work very hard to give fair rulings, but they are still volunteers and their time is limited. Serving on the Arbitration Committee is a great personal sacrifice and act of community devotion, and even still, the best efforts of the best arbitrators will not permit them to accomplish the impossible task of considering all the evidence put before them in a short time. An "ideal fairness" in arbitration will never be achieved; what I do think that they provide is excellent arbitration in any case and the best in the circumstances. I also regret when users who are found to do both desirable and undesirable work are totally blocked. I wish that there were a way to accept desirable contributions and to manage undesirable ones. I support all users who support the community in resolving issues outside of ArbCom for the sake of a good community experience, for the sake of saving the good contributions of controversial editors, and for the sake of relieving the burden on ArbCom members themselves. I would not endorse Arbitration reform but I do think that the community could do more to support the Arbitration committee and dispute resolution processes in general. For those of you who have not visited in a while, check out Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard and also see the new WikiProject Dispute Resolution. I would direct anyone who wants to talk broadly about the research into preventing disputes on Wikipedia to write to User:Steven Zhang, a Wikimedia Fellow who is exploring the issue. Blue Rasberry (talk)12:24, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Blue Rasberry is right that the amount of work required of an Arbitrator is potentially extremely large. (I asked three arbitrators at Wikimania how much time they typically spend on Arbitration per week, and one answered me, so I still have no real figures to base quantitative judgements on.) This indeed is a good part of the reason that I have suggested that en banc hearings are a bad idea as either Arbitrators rely overmuch on the drafting Arbitrator (which seems to be the case) or an extremely large amount of resource is used. (With a large number of arbitrators both can be true.) Instead a panel of three or five should generally be used. The second point, which I think is very often overlooked, is that the subjects of the case are involved in a time commitment an order of magnitude larger - with the important distinction that they have not volunteered for it. This needs a more nuanced approach to tackle. RichFarmbrough, 16:37, 27 July 2012 (UTC).[reply]
"Arbcom is for resolving conduct issues that the community cannot solve." The Perth drama, however, had ceased within hours of its commencement and the community, left to itself, solved the matter without any trouble at all. The move war, while unfortunate, had absolutely no impact upon this - in fact, a later RM was more decisive than the original one. It was my view at the time that it should not have been taken to ArbCom, it should not have been accepted by ArbCom, and it should not have resulted in anything more than a slap on the wrist for all concerned as this would reflect the actual level of damage done (while emphasising that the behaviour is discouraged and falls short of the expectations of an admin on this site). I agreed with the arb who said they would have no sympathy for second offences, but all of these were "first offenders" with long, largely (in one case completely) unblemished records stretching back years, all being accused of a single moment of misjudgement which none of them sought to compound after the fact. And as for the Fæ matter, I agree that that was ridiculous - the sanctions which passed look like a pile-on, and I'm not convinced with the evidence provided that the last one should have passed at all. Orderinchaos19:18, 27 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A quick correction - the ArbCom decision states that I posted "another editor's non-disclosed private information on an external website". The Signpost uses the phrase "undisclosed personal information". In fact, the information that I posted was a publicly available WHOIS record, so I believe the awkward wording is intended to convey that the information was not disclosed by Fæ on Wikipedia although it was freely available information. Also, I prefer to be referred to in gender-neutral terms. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 00:34, 30 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Setting aside the controversies of the Fae and Perth case (on which I have opinions, but don't see productivity in airing them), I'd like to talk about the Falun Gong remedy of Mandated External Review. IIRC, Heresfold said that it was meant to be an alternative to protection or a topic ban, instead placing the articles under protection with regards to specific editors, and requiring them to make edit requests. It seems to me to be a tool that the community should employ more broadly, as it has high potential success. I think it's ideal for an editor who has tendentiousness and/or POV issues but is also adding information that improves the project; restrict them to contributions that gain consensus, but allow them to contribute their knowledge and research. This might also be a solution for paid advocates down the line. - Jorgath (talk) (contribs)19:49, 30 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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