Arbitration re Aristeo's DemotionEdit
While I appreciate Ratwar's effort here, I don't think that arbitration is desirable in this case, and more broadly, I don't that that an arbitration policy is yet (and probably never will be) correct for UESP. Rather I believe that the current process -- discussion on the Community Portal page is correct and should continue.
1) Arbitration is not appropriate for UESP, because it's a process that is designed to work for a large scale community (e.g., Wikipedia). At Wikipedia, there is a huge pool of not just editors, but admins to draw from, with many of those being deeply involved in general issues of policy. Wikipedia's arbitration committee has 15 members, with is three times the size of our active admin count (including myself and Aristeo). Wikipedia's arbitration approach is both necessary and successful because of Wikipedia's huge scale. OTOH, arbitration is not required for us because, being a smaller scale community, we're all within "hands reach" of the issues.
Secondly, arbitration won't work for us (at least not on this issue) because the dispute already involves three out of five active administrators. Arbitration works in part because the members of the arbitration team are among the most knowledgeable, most active, most respected members of the community. That's impossible in this case because the three admins involved in the dispute are not just the three most senior admins (aside from Dave), but also the three most active people in regard to policy.
2) Part of the point of arbitration is to slow down a heated dispute by throwing procedural roadblocks in the way and adding more time. This is not appropriate in this case since ample time has already passed since the initial stages of the dispute. All three of the admins involved in this have had months in which to cool down, to reflect on past actions by themselves and others, and to temper behavior and see how others temper their behavior. I.e., there's no need to slow this dispute down further.
3) Another part of the arbitration is to an opportunity for the participants to think carefully and sum up their arguments coherently. But this also has already been done both on the Principles Controversy and (more recently) on the Community Portal page. So again, the arbitration process doesn't help here.
4) Finally, and most importantly, arbitration in this case would actually be contrary to whole thrust of the issue. The proposed arbitration here would take the decision about whether Aristeo should be reduced in authority because he fails to respect consensus and place it in the hands of one person -- which would in itself be a violation of consensus!
Again, I appreciate the effort, and I have nothing against Ratwar, but I don't think that this is the correct next step in this issue. (I apologize that I had not had time to make this point earlier today when arbitration was first proposed, but in the midst of a busy day with much debate (and RL of course), I had not had the time to have more than a fleeting thought about it until now.)
Considering current status (and now heading away from the general "arbitration" question, and perhaps to point where discussion should be shifted back to the community portal page):
- Jadrax, myself and Nephele clearly vote that Aristeo be removed from non-editor duties.
- I think we can assume that Aristeo votes that he keeps his duties.
- Ratwar is so far neutral.
- Magus raised a defensive question regarding Aristeo. That has been answered at length and he has not contested it, so I think that can be taken as neutral.
So, in short, right now we're 3:1 in favor of demoting Aristeo (with the only "Nay" coming from Aristeo himself).
Going forward, I think that we should treat this in pretty much the same way that we treat the admin nominationship process. Let it air for another week to make sure that everyone has had a chance to speak. (Current participants have had enough time to speak I think, but other editors visit the site more sporadically and may want to chime in.) If, after a week has passed, the consensus continues to be in favor of reducing Aristeo's rank, then we should recommend such to Dave.
If after sufficient time has passed non consensus appears or the consensus turns against the proposal, then the proposal fails (as an admin nomination could fail), and we continue living in the current situation. --Wrye 00:42, 26 February 2007 (EST)
- I'm willing to go along with whatever process everyone agrees on. I agree with Wrye's arguments: we're not wikipedia. Also, making up arbitration rules on the fly for this one case seems like an extra burden. But I also don't want to get into an disagreement about how to resolve a disagreement.
- One minor clarification question. If the arbitration process is not going to be used, presumably then the injunctions proposed as part of arbitration will also no longer be in effect? I'm primarily trying to ensure that nobody is barred from contributing to the Community Portal discussion, if that is the forum to be used for continued discussion. --Nephele 01:04, 26 February 2007 (EST)
- Nephele, if there is no arbitration, none of the temporary injunctions apply. In regards to Wrye's opinion, I will probably post a reply to him tomorrow morning. I want to have time to think about it and clearly make my points. If both you and Aristeo agree, we may move into Arbitration to some degree without Wrye. --Ratwar 01:12, 26 February 2007 (EST)