Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-02-06/Arbitration report

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Orf with their heads!

• The Betacommand case as it stands is a sorry advertisement for internal governance. If the ban passes (as looks likely) the result will be:
  • Arbcom is asked for clarification of a previous injunction. Instead of clarifying, Arbcom declares the community sanctions (which they were not asked about) void, and bans the user.

Who, subsequent to that, is likely to ask ArbCom for clarification?

Rich Farmbrough, 17:42, 9 February 2012 (UTC).

I'd propose that Arbcom have a general tendency to interpret narrow requests as an invitation to make an attempt at solving the issue in question, in a spirit of "the community is asking us to take ownership of this". Whether the reluctance of the community to submit all matters appropriate to Arbcom intervention, the inadequacy of the petitions when we do, or overenthusiasm on the Committee's part is the proximate cause I couldn't say. Skomorokh 18:07, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, honestly, Rich, if you're afraid of what ArbCom might do you shouldn't ask them to weigh in. Community sanctions are often just mob rule anyway, it's better that an official body be allowed to review any and all of all, regardless of the wording of any request. When you go to create a case it warns you that the actions of all editors involved (instead of just ones named by the initial complaining parties) will be examined, so it should not be a surprise that they will look deeper into issues in other ways as well. Complaining about a clarification that gets additional attention seems to be rather misplaced. Either we have an ArbCom or we don't. Eventually I suspect Wikipedia will need multiple levels of such committees, with a Supreme ArbCom at the top to review lower decisions. Community sanctions have always struck me as too chaotic for any serious organization to use. Voting someone off the island might be great for reality television, but it's not what grown ups do in real life. DreamGuy (talk) 18:38, 11 February 2012 (UTC)