UDWiki:Open Discussion/Arbitration and Misconduct

It's become clear through my observations that people have issues with arbitration and the misconduct systems and/or the people using it, yet we don't seem to be doing many things about it past highlighting the issue. I've created this open discussion in the hopes that we can get something accomplished, be it policy, guidelines, behaviour change or all of them.

Try to refrain from personal attacks and don't RE anyone in the problem sections.

Arbitration

Problem

Add what you think the problem(s) are, but keep it short and to the point.

• It takes too long / can be drawn out.--  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 21:19, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• No problems with it. The only "problem" at the moment is that certain parties are taking great pleasure in abusing it. That's not a problem with the system. --Cyberbob 21:23, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• Yep, I agree with Cyberbob here. The problem is people aren't doing things in they way they're intended because it's not in their favor, and instead bitching about how it's not right.--SirArgo ^Talk 21:30, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• Too many loopholes, if a person doesnt want the case they just have to decline all arbitors.--'BP^Tmz 01:37, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
• Frivolous cases and people attempting to use it as an alternative to Vandal Banning to get people they don't like punished. However, it usually works for the majority of cases, it's just the few that mean we are posting here. Linkthewindow  Talk  10:34, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
• As Blood Pander, from what I've seen. Liberty 06:12, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
• The fact that nobody seems to realize anymore that you don't need to agree to arbitration. Its a voluntary conflict resolution system, not a place for you to lynch each other. --Zaruthustra^Mod 07:02, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
• it's mainly used to solve/escalate personal conflicts instead for its purpose of solving disagreements about content-- Vista  T  16:06, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

How to fix it

Free-for-all commenting here.

• The problem with the arbitration system is the Arbitrators. Arbitrators need to realize what is a legitimate case and what isn't. I have seen so many arbitration cases which shouldn't have gotten past the first phase go all of the way through. The solution is to prevent people from letting these cases go through. This should not be a sysop job, but rather a job of the community. If there is a case which has no merit then it should be discarded. Of course if the community sees a case with merit being discarded then they should act to ensure that it remains. Action should only be taken once suitable discussion has occured however (you don't want edit wars raging). - Jedaz - 01:40/16/01/2009

  I respond under here because he is right. Also; maybe it's time This made a come back. I haven't set aside time to alter it based on the policy vote because arbitration has been relatively quite.--Judge Karke, self-proclaimed Decider of Everything and Ruler of All 01:44, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

  Yep. Arbitration is occasionally mistreated (especially in a few recent examples that never made it to a case,) where people don't go to settle a dispute, they go to get someone banned. It should be made more clear that arbitration is not a place for punishments to be melted out. Linkthewindow  Talk  02:24, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

  That is quite true. Maybe we should take some of Wikipedia's ideas and have Mediation as well as Arbitration. I've seen several users suggest it, having Arbitration for editing disputes and Mediation for conflicts between users. I don't think it has made its way into policy discussion, though. --ZsL 09:12, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

  If I remember right, at Wikipedia, Arbitration is for disputes between users, and Mediation is for edits. Don't quote me on it. That's a good idea, but there could be cases that fall between the two, such as where two groups have a dispute over the content of a page that has fallen into simple trolling-mediation or arbitration? Linkthewindow  Talk  09:19, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

  UDWiki:Administration/Policy_Discussion/UDWiki:Mediation The general objections seemed to be that it needed some more work, I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Feel free to mercilessly edit the one linked above(in my namespace), at least then someone will be working on it.--Judge Karke, self-proclaimed Decider of Everything and Ruler of All 10:40, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

  I'm not too sure about it either, after reading wikipedia. They don't explain the difference very well. For the example you quoted, it would probably best to determined what happened first - the edit dispute or the user incompatibility - and send the case to the proper channel. I am a bit surprised that I missed the policy discussion and voting on the Mediation Policy; I'll have to check into this stuff more. --ZsL 21:55, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

  Here is my attempt at a policy closer to Wikipedia's. Thoughts? Linkthewindow  Talk  14:49, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

  I commented on the page, Link, but I don't know if I should have bothered cause all the discussion will probably end up here. Liberty 16:20, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

  Admittedly, I wasn't too sure about the elections-they work at Wikipedia, but there community is a million times bigger, and it's less likely that people will know each other. I may move towards Karek's system of just having a few appointed arbitrators. Linkthewindow  Talk  00:30, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

  I've added my thoughts to the talk page regarding my concerns about this kind of thing being policy. - Jedaz - 02:13/19/01/2009

Misconduct

Problem

Add what you think the problem(s) are, but keep it short and to the point.

• It can take time to get a clear ruling, particularly in cases that are grey areas. -- Cheese 21:22, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• No problems with it. The only "problem" at the moment is that certain parties are taking great pleasure in abusing it. That's not a problem with the system. --Cyberbob 21:23, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• See my comment above.--SirArgo ^Talk 21:31, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• What I said above-people posting frivolous cases, and those "borderline" cases that Cheese alluded too. Linkthewindow  Talk  10:34, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
• There is no "penalty" for not voting so many sysops can actually avoid being "controversial" by not contributing.
• Until there is a limitation on using it to persecute having only Misconduct/Not Misconduct dispositions is harsh and sets too many precedents that will be used as weapons later.
• Without a real penalty for misconduct outcomes there is no fear of being found guilty. However, without stopping the harassment cases facing a penalty because someone hounded you into it is hardly fair. --– Nubis ^NWO 14:23, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
• Some of the cases are about very tiny things. The case itself (even without the ruling) seems unpleasant for the defendant. Minor thing: the example case has a harsher punishment than what typically happens. --Toejam 18:03, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
• red tape abuse is given a slap on the wrist and nothing else repeatedly, just get rid of the damned tape. It's a fucking popular vote, just within a select group.--xoxo 22:53, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

How to fix it

Free-for-all commenting here.

• Add more dispositions.
• Add a Sysop/Crat voted review process. (not popular vote)
• Resolve cases in a timely manner.
• Protect sysops from unwarranted cases. --– Nubis ^NWO 14:27, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, we can quite easily fix the example on the misconduct page, if anyone has a good idea. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 20:09, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Is the example even necessary? It's not like any case actually goes like that. Just remove it and if someone needs an example, they could just look in the archives. Another option would be to leave an example of just a report to show what one should contain. --Midianian^|T|DS|C:RCS| 20:44, 20 January 2009 (UTC)