Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Committees/Archive 1

Rationale?
Probably worth getting this in/clearer before the rush. How does this proposal fix things? Fritzpoll (talk) 18:37, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Simple: the AC won't touch policy/content disputes, of which 99% of our drama is for, and there's no binding resolution methods in place for those things beyond the usual circuses of noticeboards. This puts a solid firm DR step in place for all these things. The AC rejects all those cases--this will head off a ton of stuff, and give finality and a chance for a fair voice to many such disputes. rootology ( C )( T ) 18:39, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Flo's comment
I'm strongly in favor of a new Policy Committee that would assist the Community in making and revising policy. Using an ArbCom style election to choose the member sounds good to me. I'm not certain that a structure for resolving the disputes need an ArbCom style, though. Instead, I hope that the process would not be a reaction to disruptive editing of policy, but a more systematic way to make and revise policy. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 18:44, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * That would be an ideal thing, but I think things are still way, way, way too far off for something like that. And most users honestly aren't that interested in policy building. The system for minor stuff chugs along fine, it's the wars and fights that everyone sees, and that's why I wrote this using the AC style. I can honestly see the Content body being far busier, but the policy side having longer, more involved cases. rootology ( C )( T ) 18:47, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Appreciate the sentiment but...
I sincerely appreciate the sentiment and intentions of this proposal. However, I very strongly disagree with it. Regardless of intentions otherwise (and feel free to color me a cynic), this will essentially create little more than two highly politicized bodies imposing top-down solutions on content and policy. I would add that many times I see the phrase "content dispute" raised, it's a matter involving content but that has behavior that extends well beyond a reasonable content disagreement. For intractable content disputes, something in the line of binding mediation may be a good step to add, though I'm not keen on the model presented here.

Regardless of my other feelings about such measures, we simply have not explored other options that can help fix much of the problem, use extant processes, and clarify what needs more drastic measures. For example, refusal to participate in discussion and consensus building; derailing conversations through horse brutality and truthism; instigating disputes, and blatant misrepresentation of sources should be all handled consistantly as disruption before we take any further drastic measures. I believe that addressing those issues would significantly cut down on the number of intractable disagreements. I've seen several areas of heated dispute that moved on to productive discussion when certain disruptive elements were removed. Additionally, with the disruptive elements removed, it will become much easier to determine the state and nature of the legitimate dispute. Vassyana (talk) 19:12, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Largely agree with Vassyana. The community doesn't want arbcom making policy and content decisions, why would it want another panel to do so? Unless the community indicates a strong desire for this, I'm wary of its acceptance.  — Rlevse • Talk  • 02:50, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The Policy Committee that I envision would not make policy, but rather it would guide the Community through the process of making and reviewing policy. We have a serious problem with some policies needing to be written or rewritten, but the Community does not have process to make it happen and stick. It interest me, because I would like to have a stable set of polices that I can use as a standard to guide our work on ArbCom. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 18:58, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. We can't have a few people making policy. They would be facilitators with a bit more authority than the disputing parties. -- FayssalF  -  Wiki me up®  19:03, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Vassyana: many times I see the phrase "content dispute" raised, it's a matter involving content but that has behavior that extends well beyond a reasonable content disagreement. I see it the other way around: In long-running disputes, where parties find it too difficult to reach a compromise, the temptation is to charge your opponents with behavioral violations in order to rough them up so much that they'll go away (or get blocked or banned). Wikipedia's current set of policies and guidelines channels our energies toward that kind of gamesmanship because Wikipedia doesn't work well in large controversies. Since it's so difficult to reach broad consensus on these kinds of content disputes, the urge grows and grows to exaggerate a behavioral problem or egg on your opponents into bad behavior. In the meantime, you've alienated just the kind of reasonable editors who would be most useful in helping to decide how to cover a hot topic, leaving behind only the fanatics. Noroton (talk) 06:22, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Needs to be better written
Hello again root. I think this proposal needs to be better written. You need a three or four sentence introduction. travb (talk) 19:16, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Go for it, that's why I moved it out of my userspace. I stink at writing these things in "proper" language. :) rootology ( C )( T ) 19:18, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Since when does arbcom handle policy or content?
Sure, arbcom handles behaviour that occured during such discussions, or more often than not, arguments, but they have never made a ruling about policy or content, making this redundant. I would vehemently oppose any attempt by any commitee to create or modify content or policy. It's uneeded beauracracy and will cause much more drama.-- Patton 123  00:09, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Interesting idea
I am wondering how much of a problem content issues are outside certain obvious problem areas. Interesting in that the idea is quite antithetical to the idea of community consensus, but then again has the community grown to a point where some sort of delegation to a designated committee is necessary? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:04, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The AfD model comes to my mind. There's always one admin who closes the debate -in theory, reflecting the community consensus. And there's an appeal for that as well. -- FayssalF  -  Wiki me up®  18:37, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Interesting...
I am in favour of:


 * An independent Policy Committee gathering elected experienced users.


 * An independent Appeal Committee gathering former MedCab people or else elected experienced users.


 * Another Committee I'd suggest and support would be a Nationalistic and Ethnic Disputes Committee (NEDC). This Committee has to report to the ArbCom. This could be composed of experienced administrators and a few respected users being in charge of resolving all disputes with nationalistic and ethnic disputes. Its members can be allocated on a rotating basis -say NEDC team A would oversee the Eastern Europe areas for 3 months before moving to Middle-East disputes and so on; that is to avoid any accusations of bias.

However, I am skeptical with regards to the Content Committee for the obvious reasons everyone is aware of.

Anyway, I would gladly support the implementation of both the Policy, the Appeal and the NED Committees for a testing period of 6 months and see what would give us. -- FayssalF  -  Wiki me up®  18:37, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

not for policy
There are various things i disagree with about existing policy, but I'd much rather see them changed by general consensus than by a select appointed committee. I agree the consensus gathering procedure for policy does not work well; but I fear the committee will be even worse. The community ends up not making necessary changes--the committee will make ill-considered changes. The way in which policy does in fact evolve is decisions in individual cases, and that method seems workable. The existing work of select committees at Wikipedia does not give reason for confidence. Everyone who can not presently get their own way on one or another policy question will want a committee, and that will lead to either no action at all if the committee recognizes the biases, or an erratic and arbitrary  assumption that some of them are reasonable. DGG (talk) 03:59, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Concern re. hierarchy
First off, I think that this is a good germ of an idea. However, I'm a bit concerned about setting up a formal hierarchy of Committees - given that this changes nothing at all about what ArbCom does with cases, why put it in charge and able to take over? Maybe I'm missing something. :-)

James F. (talk) 14:37, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It would work (in the theory I put down) as the AC has no authority or popular support as it's own body today to do content or policy decisions--hence the wording I put here which you'd removed, and I re-added. :) The key would be the mandate that the AC cannot subvert that they are strictly an appeals body for the others. Which may or may not work, but the AC would serve as the failsafe for the others, as Jimbo apparently does for the AC. If the AC then played games with the results of the other committees in a negative or inappropriate fashion, they could, in theory but not without damaging their own value, standing, or authority. Politics polices itself in a vibrant society, thankfully, to keep the clueless, sycophantic, or bad people in check. The system like any other would rely on that, of course. rootology ( C )( T ) 16:49, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Content authority: a different approach
The proposal is an interesting collection of ideas, many of which are worth discussing. I've been thinking about a different, much narrower approach in terms of settling the worst content disputes. I'd concentrate on the large disputes (defined as involving more than a few editors and lasting a while -- and eventually causing a lot of drama that spills into AN/I, BLP/N, and/or Arbcom).

One of the problems we have now is that the best game players in the largest, most protracted content disputes try to push their opponents into behavioral violations and immediately report those violations -- get rid of your opponent, win the "game". It happened to me, and I've seen discussions elsewhere that describe the pattern regarding other longstanding disputes.

I think the major objection to Arbcom getting into content decisions, or any authority getting into content decisions, is that the decision-making group is going to become suspect -- and politics is going to become intense in selecting members of that group (far more intense than any elections we have now, I think). I think a route that would be more likely to succeed is to build upon policies we already have and make use of some of the principles we already use to decide content.

One of the worst gaps in Wikipedia policy in this area is our policies on canvassing (the process of bringing in a wider spectrum of editors) and creating consensus. I think we could have more mature decisionmaking if we acknowledge that (a) it would generally improve things if a larger number of editors who are not as emotional about a particular question are brought in to help decide it in a more disinterested way; and (b) we should accept a "consensus" that may look more like a simple majority on hot topics of the day (say, content disputes at Barack Obama or Sarah Palin during the 2008 election season). Consider how you'd feel if you had your debate and a committee of seven editors acted as jury, deciding the fate of your proposal, and you then lost. Now consider what would happen if you made your best case (briefly) to 50 editors and lost in a 28-22 vote. I think it would be easier to accept the second scenario because it carries more weight: On Wikipedia, numbers tend to confer legitimacy to decisions.

Who decides how close the vote should be in forming consensus on some hot, controversial topic? Leave that to an authorized committee (or we could even specify that a majority in these cases will be considered a consensus). Let the committee decide what question or questions to ask in a Request for Comment. I don't think I'd give the committee as much leeway as closing admins have in AfDs, but the committee could "certify" a consensus in an RfC, and I just bet that Consensus Committee RfCs would attract attention and get a lot of participation.

I think this kind of change would make a substantial difference while, at the same time, not be such a radical innovation that it raises too many hackles to ever get instituted. It builds on principles Wikipedians already like: having the community decide content, somewhat orderly decision-making, some influence from more experienced Wikipedians.

I think we all know that Wikipedia just sucks at resolving content controversies over hot topics. Wikipedia is just a dithering, blithering mess when it comes to that. Some kind of step like this would be an (imperfect) improvement, and I think it could actually get consensus to be implemented. -- Noroton (talk) 05:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The problem Noroton sees of people in a dispute trying to taunt each other into conduct violations is very real, & I'd word it just as he does. I think we should encourage wider participation from those not involved in a particular dispute; our rules on canvassing are a little bit out of touch with reality. I see the problem though not as much in making a decision, but in achieving closure--for anything with emotional impact people with a commitment will be very reluctant to accept any kind of a vote, though larger voting groups are better than small, the results will still be erratic. So  I'm not at all sure how just to set it up,  . Personally, I'd prefer to go with ad hoc binding arbitraton for content, rather than a standing committee. DGG (talk) 06:13, 5 January 2009 (UTC)