User:Beetstra/ArbCom

(Still massively in progress, will link it left and right where applicable).

There is a system of dispute resolution here on Wikipedia, and we have an ArbComm which is supposed to take care of things if things go really wrong. Lately, I have actively been following two cases, and I find its decisions careless, out of touch with real life, teethless on one side, and just ripping things to shreds in such a way that it only damages the wider community on the other. Sometimes there can be some late minute repairs to it, though then still, the tone of their final conclusions is sometimes totally besides the point.

(examples)

The case regarding Abd and WMC is, IMHO, a total failure. A draft proposal is posted, which is largely ripped to shreds. Still large parts of that get reposted without refactoring or even a comment.

Hiberniantears said that we don't need admins that are running willy nilly around the project beating people over the head, and I agree fully with that. But now show me that WMC is one of those. WMC was there responding to a provocation (and I have said he should not have), but the Arb. Comm. was informed a friggin' 13 hours before that (something I mentioned, but I have never heard a decent response to that). The response from Arb. Comm.: WMC blocked during the case, which is the extreme of a involved block, desysop. Yes, the only people who could have done something were the Arb. Comm. and its Clerks. You were notified, and you did not do anything, full stop. Your response, someone could have told us. Hint: you were!

Then remarks are not retracted since the Arbitrator is not responding (I am afraid that some are still waiting), remarks are made which are blatantly untrue (also no response or no quick response), people posting on case pages to which no Arb responds (response we had to that: if all arbitrators are going to respond, then it will be a mess here, quite a difference between no Arb and all of them, no? And this has been always the case), total lack of transparency (in this case one Arbitrator came in at the last moment, turning the decision; response: oh, they was already active for a week on the case. Then bloody announce that from that moment, this is not showing signs of propriety (did we not discuss that in this case as well?)), Arbitrators and clerks who let evidence run totally out of hand (OK, if it was 2500 in stead of the 1000 limit (while two arbitrators asked for clear and consise evidence before the case was opened!), what was the last count?), Arbitrators misreading comments and blanking all pages (instead of the one that was under discussion, which was already blanked by someone else; OK, mistakes are made, but a: should it not be the Clerks who do the blanking, citing that the Arbs agree, or b: should that not be reversed when the mistake is seen and first discussed; you might see that in the end we actually agree or come to a consensus, see propriety again), decisions are made without apparently full examination of the evidence (yes, I DO expect you to read it all, even seen the massive amounts of text produced in this case, after all you could have controlled it), clerks who revert editors without even the courtesy of a remark why, no, just a new post,

This decision is total, utter crap, and it costs us yet another productive admin (yeah, sure, he can regain his rights again through the normal means, but if the Arbitrators see distrust, that is difficult to regain), and a, in basis, good editor (who is maybe talking a lot, and should be counseled on how to proceed). Moreover, it has resulted (again) in other editors to walk away. Many others are, like me, are disillusioned, are heavily disappointed, or have lost total trust in the sitting Arbitration Committee. There is no reflection of the community on the results of an Arbitration Committee, no transparency, no touch with real life practice, decisions are made on single actions without seeing the huge majority of actions that do go OK (and/or are consented upon by community, agreement from the community is plainly neglected, overruled, or is not kept under control, and solutions that are implemented are not very well explored, they are practically based on single actions, and/or (as I said) without considering damage the community, the trust in the community and/or the Arbitration Committee.

I am sorry, but in case it was not clear, I don't have any trust in the decisions made by this Arbitration Committee. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:54, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Diffs
Just a collection, no specific order:


 * diff

space for thought
I am, and have been critical about the Arbitration system, and how it operated. I have, earlier, said that I found that the Arbitration Committee is not in control during cases, I have a strong feeling that the Committee is not working as a team, but as separate Arbitrators, that Arbitrators do not communicate or interact with the editors (e.g. during workshop phases of cases), that the arbitration process has a lack of transparency, that drafted decisions are not in sync with the situation, and that (recent) decisions give more (direct ánd indirect) damage to Wikipedia.

That has lead to my loss in trust in Arbitration (though I do trust certain individual Arbitrators, I do not trust the Committee as a whole; even with the Arbitrators I do trust). I do have a strong feeling, that there are many others who feel the same.

The direct damage of these points I have seen, has resulted in hard working admins who do their best to control difficult situations being de-adminned, admonished, banned; hard working editors (who may be difficult to handle, but who are certainly not 'impossible') being admonished, banned. And decisions result in other hard working, trusted editors and admins walking away from the project. That such admins/editors walk away is a loss! Others embitter, loose their trust in the system. I am still trying to do my other on-wiki work, running my bots, trying to follow up on my views I expressed during my RfA, but for what, actually?

Yesterday, I saw the situation move on:

User:Casliber, an Arbitration Committee member, disclosed that they did know that a user, a banned user and a former sysop (user:the undertow), had created a sock account (user:Law), and that that account passed through an RfA and was an admin here on Wikipedia. This has added to my criticism that (besides again the clear observation that the Arbitration committee is not working as a team) the Arbitration Committee also is not in control of what happens after a case. I realise that follow up is also a big task and a lot of work, but some things are apparently even known by Arbitration Committee members. That things get missed, soit, that people manage to evade, happens, but I am afraid that there is not even an active mechanism to follow up. For all I know, all currently ArbComm banned editors are editing under new accounts, and all desysopped admins have an alternate sysop account. It is one to WP:AGF, it is another to loose the trust that enables us to WP:AGF.

In the continuation of the story, Arbitrator User:John Vandenberg posted that he missed an email in the user:the undertow/user:Law-case regarding the same disclosure. I assume good faith in this, a honest mistake, but for me this is yet another example of miscommunication within the Arbitration Committee. This can be avoided.

Related to this, 2 administrators are knowingly supporting a friend, in violation of Arb.Comm., socking and supporting them through an RfA. That is not done. There must be more who know this type of situations, but keep their friends or friendly admins in place.

So next I have to loose trust in my fellow admins? I know, many of the admins who voted in favour of Law in the RfA will not have known. Still, some did.... Others may have found out afterwards. We should not start a witchhunt for those admins who did, but ..

I hope that these admins, like what I suggested for ArbComm, reflect on themselves, and drop their admin bit (you can go through another RfA, in a year or so).

It is time to take action. I am not sure if pushing this situation through Arbitration in the current format is going to help, I would suggest that this needs broad community discussion (and I would be delighted if the Arbitration Committee would guide that, keeping control of the discussions, transparantly interacting with suggested solutions, setting up procedure on the way. It might give me at least the trust in Arbitration back).

It is not the impropriety that is the problem, that is easily solved. It is the appearance of impropriety which is worse. Abd, it was not that there is or was a cabal, or that there is or was appearance of a cabal. It is worse! It are the single administrators who give the impropriety. Now people left because you accused them of giving you that feeling of impropriety, and that is bad. ....

Now, this is going to cost us another set of admins, editors of which we do not have too many anyway. Arb.Comm. kicks out the hard working admins who do their best to keep up site policies, but the ones who manage to keep out of sight should, after reflection on themselves about these situations, consider that they are not trusted by the community, give up their admin bits. We already lost quite some due to mismanagement, burn outs, loss of trust. I wonder if that will give the community trust again in the Admin. corps.

(I feel almost excluded .. I am really not aware of any socking admins :-

Lets look at the Arbitration/Requests/Case/Speed of light-case.

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