User:Hemlock Martinis/EC

This proposal outlines the structure of an Editorial Council.

Background
Wikipedia originally needed no direction. The community of editors worked better on its own, with each part contributing something to a much greater whole. For seven years, the leaderless revolution approach suited us fine. However, as Wikipedia enters its adolescence, we find ourselves in greater need of stability.

The first step was the creation of an Arbitration Committee. With it, the community now had a mechanism to deal with user disputes, which had taken away much energy that could otherwise be channeled towards article writing and improvement. Unfortunately, by its own decision the Arbitration Committee does not rule on editorial disputes. Metaphorically speaking, Wikipedia became a river without banks.

Now, as we find ourselves bogged down in all sorts of editorial disputes &mdash; nationalism-based POV issues, convoluted discussions of broad importance, ancient unresolved content disputes, etc. &mdash; it becomes increasingly clear that there needs to be some sort of council of last resort. Hence the proposal to create an Editorial Council.

What is the Editorial Council?
The Editorial Council is a panel consisting of seven editors. The council's mission is to resolve content disputes and act as an arbiter in such cases. The council's purpose is not to determine comma placement or paragraph order in articles. Nor is every edit war's underlying cause is worth examining. The focus of the council would be on "big picture" content issues. These would be:
 * Long-standing content issues that remain unresolved.
 * Content issues that have a broad effect on the encyclopedia.
 * Nationalism-based content issues that are continued sources of disruption.

It is not the role of the council to examine disputes between specific users or groups of users. User conduct is entirely outside the scope of the council and should, as always, be directed to the Arbitration Committee. This does not prevent the council from examining the underlying causes of a specific user conduct case, but it does limit their powers to purely editorial matters.

Why?
Almost every editor's first question upon reading this proposal will be "Why do we need this?" Allow me to cover a few reasons.
 * The mechanisms for resolving content disputes are shoddy, ill-formed and often ad hoc. Currently many of the "resolved" disputes are not resolved at all. Most often, a small group of editors will claim victory and lock out other editors in the process. Not only does this run counter to the spirit of consensus-building, but it also freezes out future editors from re-evaluating the consensus. While this isn't a pandemic on Wikipedia, it is common enough to be a serious problem.
 * Wikipedia's community needs to distinguish between content disputes and conduct disputes.
 * A content dispute is a dispute about content. The placement of paragraphs, the role and reliability of sources, the usage of images, the readability of the text...these are all debates between editors that occur a hundred times every day on the encyclopedia. However, when two or more editors find themselves unable to reach a common ground in a discussion it morphs into...
 * ...a conduct dispute, in which multiple editors find themselves unable to reach common ground. Usually one editor will surrender to the other, but in some instances these can morph into the complex and multi-faceted edit wars we all know and hate. If they manage to snag some administrators in the mix, the result can be severely disruptive to the encyclopedia.
 * Almost all conduct disputes start out as content disputes. The community's most infamous cases of conduct originated from content disputes. The lack of a clear and simple method to resolve those content issues forces two choices: either an editor can edit war and disrupt the encyclopedia, or the editor can give up. While the latter doesn't sound as bad, it can be a chilling effect to future discussion. By proving a mechanism for resolving content disputes, we can limit many conduct disputes before they grow into the multi-headed monsters ArbCom stares down.
 * The Wikipedia community has grown too large for simple consensus to effectively handle complex issues. In our early days, Wikipedia was smaller both in community size and encyclopedia size. Not only were editors far simpler to gather for discussion, but Wikipedia also faced fewer issues of the complex nature that we see so often these days. Drive-by consensus, in which editors only leave a Support or Oppose comment in a content dispute before disappearing from the topic forever, has also shortchanged editors on both sides who have evaluated the issue in-depth.
 * Wikipedia has an Arbitration Committee to handle conduct issues. It needs an Editorial Council to tackle content disputes. Wikipedia's community has crafted an ample supply of dispute resolution tools. These tools work when tackling users who can't play well with others, but they ignore the causes behind disruption. The mediation and arbitration mechanisms don't have the powers to handle content disputes, so a new and separate mechanism is required.

Process
The Editorial Council process would be as follows:
 * First, an editor petitions the Editorial Council to assess a content dispute. If three members of the council agree to discuss the issue, it comes before the full committee.
 * Second, editors are given a period of time in which they can comment about the case. Ideally editors would explain their positions, and support them by either providing independent factual sources to back their arguments and/or citing established Wikipedia policy or consensus (especially fundamental ones such as WP:NPOV, WP:RELIABLE and WP:OR).
 * Third, the council discusses and votes on its findings. These findings are not carved in stone or binding policy under which editors can be blocked. Most importantly, they would not overturn or ignore consensus. Instead, they should be used as a guide to existing consensus and as a road map for future discussions.

Composition
The council would be a hebdomad consisting of seven editors.
 * Four members of the council would be elected by two rounds of popular vote. Ideally, members would be selected for their neutrality, fair-mindedness and ability to hear both sides of an argument. The elections would be carried out coterminously with the Arbitration Committee elections.
 * Three members of the council would be appointed by the Board of Trustees or Jimmy Wales. These three members would be subject to confirmation by the community during which they must receive 50% plus one of the vote. The appointments should be made by late November so the confirmation vote can take place at the same time as the Arbitration Committee and Editorial Council votes.
 * Editors may not sit simultaneously on the Arbitration Committee and the Editorial Council.

Common concerns
Below I will attempt to explain some of the most common concerns to the establishment of an Editorial Council.

Isn't this a Foundation issue?
I assume you refer to Foundation issues, which states that some issues are beyond debate. One of these inviolable planks of Wikipedia states that "the 'wiki process' [is] the decision mechanism on content." Of course, this refers to WP:CONSENSUS. Concerns have been voiced that giving seven editors, no matter how highly regarded they may be, should not have such broad control over Wikipedia's content. Furthermore, it has been voiced that the establishment of an Editorial Council is a violation of the wiki process. While these are reasonable concerns, they do not apply to the creation of an Editorial Council.

First, to the critical Foundation issue concern. Since an Editorial Council would neither create new consensus nor destroy or change existing consensus, it poses absolutely no threat to the wiki process. Unless either the Board of Trustees or Jimmy Wales indicates that in their opinion an Editorial Council as proposed does go against the Foundation issues, it shouldn't be a concern in discussing the council's merits and drawbacks.

Where does this leave the community?
The creation of an Editorial Council would greatly benefit the community of editors. The presence of an Editorial Council would allow for much more productive discussions. It would give the community something to fall back on should discussions grow stagnant or repetitive, allowing for closure instead of confusion. The community would also be assisted by knowing that once all the points and made and all the variables considered in a discussion, there's a body that's capable of taking all the Lego-like pieces of the discussion and assembling them into a consensus from which the editors can work.

This is a change to how our community operates. Of that there is no doubt. While I will leave to the Wikihistorians just how big of a change it is, it will change the way we approach content disputes on Wikipedia. But that isn't a bad thing. It's true, we've been able to run amok for the past seven years with little of the editorial oversight that other encyclopedias benefit from. And it's true, a lot of good has come from that chaos. Nobody's asking anyone to forget, but we have to look to the future. Rather than being seen as an intrusion into community discussion, it should be seen as a natural growth and progression of it.

Where does this leave the Arbitration Committee?
Exactly where it is. The Arbitration Committee has previously stated that it does not rule on content disputes, only conduct disputes. There would be no overlap in roles and responsibilities between the two groups. Simultaneously holding the elections of both bodies is a simple matter of convenience.

Isn't this just another layer of bureaucracy?
You know, there's this tendency to treat Wikipedia as if were a sovereign nation. As if Wikipedia had a king, a parliament and a nobility. But that's not true. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia, not the community. And while it's true that we make our own laws and our own justice, we are not a civilization.

And because we are not a civilization, we should not look at an Editorial Council as a bureaucracy. Bureaucracy's negative connotations in Western society often obfuscate the issue. An Editorial Council would benefit the encyclopedia's development. An Editorial Council would benefit the community's work towards that goal. Those are the only conditions that matter.

What about the potential for bias?
Wikipedia's NPOV policy would obviously be critical in every decision made by the council. It is naive to assume that the community would not self-correct and block the seating of unsuitable candidates during the elections.