Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Reforming Wikipedia/December 2016

Rationale...
Look, I do like the idea that there needs to be some sort of platform for discussing reform, but I am wondering why/how this is an improvement over Village pump (proposals), Village pump (policy) or even Village pump (idea lab)...or even RfCs for that matter. We have so many venues for stuff....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:31, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

One ArbCom reform proposal
Just adding the link here User talk:John Carter. Personally, I think, at this point, turning the DRN processes over to a single body, which can then assign or elect members of constituent groups among themselves, might be better, as I tend to think that people who are involved in the DRN processes probably look at the various phases more and on that basis probably have a better idea of who is good or bad at specific things than the average editor. John Carter (talk) 17:17, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The link doesn't seem to point to anything appropriate at the moment. Were you planning to add something later? isaacl (talk) 22:39, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that should have been to the user talk page. I'm an idiot. Link fixed now. John Carter (talk) 22:40, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm thinking in particular, with the rather remarkably few number of ArbCom cases in recent months and years, it seems to me to be a bit of a waste to request that Arbs not be involved in other admin discussions, or disqualify themselves if they have been involved. This is particularly true given the relatively few admins in general. Maybe some sort of proposal to allow for the construction of a panel on a per case basis from a larger number of potential panelists might not discourage arbs from other admin functions. Electing a largish number of people to take arb cases on such a basis might increase the number of candidates for ArbCom (not necessarily a bad thing itself) and allow for arbs to be more involved in other admin areas. John Carter (talk) 18:21, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Where have you got the idea that arbs can't be involved in admin discussions? I commented in discussions all the time, a lot of current arbs like DGG and Casliber regularly pop up in discussions on every conceivable topic, and some arbs like Newyorkbrad and Drmies spent so much time on the drama boards during their terms, they practically qualified for permanent residency. I can imagine a theoretical situation in which a discussion in which every member of the committee had expressed a strong opinion managed to theoretically render the entire committee as "involved", but it will never happen in practice, since there will never be a committee in which all (or even a significant minority of) members are interested in the same topic. &#8209; Iridescent 00:26, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I got the idea from a comment by Drmies himself on his user talk page in response to my thanking him for his involvement in such noticeboard discussion, actually. And I didn't say "can't," but something like shouldn't. John Carter (talk) 00:29, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Heh—if he said that, he appears to have forgotten his own advice. &#8209; Iridescent 00:47, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what I said yesterday, though if I said it to John Carter I must have meant it. Also, Iridescent, a. your Hanukkah card is in the mail, and b. I was going to VEHEMENTLY deny that I hang out at ANI at all, that is, until I saw that link, which is frightening. On the bright side, every single one of those comments is worth engraving and hanging on the wall, no doubt. Seriously (ha) I have a rather liberal opinion of INVOLVED. There've been one or two occasions on the Arb list where I hung back or might recuse but not because of ANI involvement--one is a case where I had an editorial conflict with an editor and I'm not really interested in being formally involved with that discussion, if it ever comes to one. In practice, I think Iridescent's points are well taken. In principle we could have all kinds of involvedness because of ANI matters, but in practice... besides, if someone weighs in on a discussion, that doesn't make them involved. If I vote to support an iBan between the two of you, finding fault with the one more than the other, does that mean I couldn't possibly be fair an ArbCom case involving either one of you comes up? Anyways, lemon poppyseed muffins just came out of the oven, and I finally sat down to watch some football. Yay! Iridescent, thanks for that frightening link--honestly, I don't feel like I live there... Drmies (talk) 02:52, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Never mind all this ANI stuff, there's something more important here: you made muffins and didn't share?? Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:48, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't see anything from that proposal that can't be done with existing entities, so the idea of another Dispute Resolution body does not thrill me with enthusiasm. My preference would be more vigorous structuring of current discussions on AN/I or elsewhere. I agree that being an arb does not preclude one from commenting or getting involved elsewhere. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:28, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Agree, this proposal seems like it has too many moving parts. Also agree that for all the seeming importance of "reforming arbcom", the place to look for actual impact on editors' routine experience with the project is in making ANI suck less, because even Drmies' muffins wouldn't change the fact that ANI sucks. Um, this doesn't mean I have to post at ANI more, does it? Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:48, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I hate to disagree with Iridescent, who seems to be part of the institutional memory, but it's actually quite true that during my years as an arbitrator, I would intentionally avoid getting involved in AN/ANI/etc. discussions that seemed headed for arbitration. I haven't done any sort of an analysis, and don't intend to, and don't think it's worth a moment of anyone else's time to do so, but I'm sure that my "drama board" participation was higher in 2006-2007 (before I was an arbitrator) and 2015-2016 (after) than during the intervening years. The desirability of doing so was reinforced when I had to recuse in a case the first month of my term because I had gotten involved in a related ANI thread the prior summer, and it rapidly became clear that it would have been better if I'd been active on that case. (At one point I was calling the situation of 15ish active administrators steering largely clear of these discussions the Miltopia Effect, for reasons that very few people will recall these days.)

I think the pressure to avoid AN/ANI for this reason is indeed less with fewer cases coming to arbitration. On the other hand, the argument for deciding cases via subcommittees rather than the full Committee is also less when the arbitrators clearly aren't overburdened, as they might have been in the past hearing dozens of cases a year plus ban appeals and some other matters that are now diverted elsewhere.

In any event, as I've said consistently for several years, the ArbCom is less significant to the project now than it has been in prior years. I'm not quite at the point of voting to abolish it as Iridescent and Risker have advocated, partly because there are occasional disputes involving non-public information that need to be discussed off-wiki, and partly because there was one case (albeit only one) last year in which the AN discussion was explicitly closed with a consensus of "the community is hopelessly divided and agrees to punt this one to ArbCom." But I anticipate that if I am returned to the Committee, I'll be spending maybe a quarter to a third as much time on ArbCom-related work as I did in 2008 or 2009, which is one of the reasons I agreed to run again after my two years off. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:21, 13 December 2016 (UTC)