User talk:Doc James/userbox

Kaizen process
Have added here as this is a mentality that is much needed. Wikipedia needs a sort of Kaizen process of improvement. We should expect to fail some of the time as is the expectation of great companies like Google. If we do not have any failures it means we are not attempting to be innovative enough. So yes lets try this. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:02, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Not a new idea, too many ways for this to go wrong
Thank you for the invitation to submit input. Suffice it to say that this is a perennial proposal which, although well intentioned, is unlikely to be workable. The arbitration process we already have is not very successful and has been on steady decline for years. It would be irresponsible to replicate that model with regard to the information that this site presents to the public.

If any alternative could work for perennial disputes, it would more likely be to abandon the wiki model at selected topics and return to traditional encyclopedia writing (articles written by credentialed experts and non-editable, updated once yearly). That is not a popular solution and has its own shortcomings. It would apply only within areas where the wiki model has failed repeatedly and dramatically. On the whole, though, less harm would be done that way. Durova 412 01:02, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * While I agree that it might not work, we will never know unless we are to try it in a limited fashion. That is all I suggest.  We all acknowledge the problem now what to do about it...  Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 02:30, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I think something investigating disputes and associated conduct issues is a better way forward. Something called WP:DISPUTE INVESTIGATION, for conducting indepth investigations of protracted content disputes which have failed other forms of WP:DR such as mediation or an RfC, where the committee gathers evidence from parties and then acting as third party submits the committee's findings to the administrative noticeboard for community review and if necessary for community admins to vote on sanctions. As you know drama is often complex and it is difficult without careful review to get to the root of who is the troll and engaging in disruptive conduct and who is getting baited. Such a committee could look for violations of WP:TALK and WP:SOAP, WP:UNDUE, WP:NPOV, WP:GAME and so forth. At present admin incidents board is a pile on of admins and users, and descends into chaos. ArbCom is over worked and often gets a biased synthesis of diffs, distorted versions of what is really going on and so forth and they don't have the time to do an indepth review of content disputes to get to the bottom of issues and to look at these diffs in context. For example a civil or careful disruptive user could bait a productive user into being incivil or breaking 3rr and then can get the good faithed editor sanctioned or blocked. Such conduct is difficult to detect with diffs alone but requires an indepth review of article and user talk pages and sometimes reading sources.
 * Ruling on content is difficult but may be possible in a limited fashion as long as the ruling stays closely to the 5 pillars but it may lead to controversy or unforseen problems as Durova has said. I feel that content disputes are in general best resolved by the editors involved, the community. Bear in mind such a committee would get hostile abuse for ruling on content and drama and also a wide range of content disputes would arise such as political, archeology, historical etc etc. What happens if a dispute arises over the history of a war in Siberia 300 years ago, or some quantum physic dispute arises, or religious dispute and so forth, how do we get a committee of 6 people knowledgable in the area to decide what is due weight and what is not etc? Some topics may generate drama even within the committee if they are controversial leading to resignations and so forth. Lots of unforseen problems from ruling on content.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  12:22, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Such a committee could also take on cases which have been rejected by ArbCom but continue to cause ongoing problems and disruption.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  12:46, 24 August 2010 (UTC)