UDWiki:Administration/Policy Discussion/Arbitration

There is currently no set policy that arbitrators must abide by in an arbitration case. As a result, this had led to some confusion over just how much power an arbitrator has. I hope to remedy this through this policy.

Background

At the moment, the arbitrators ruling can be anything as there is no policy to govern it. This policy aims to provide a clear set of guidelines to which arbitrators should stick to when ruling on a case, thereby giving them a clear set of measures they can use to solve the case fairly and without (too much) controversy.

The Definition of Arbitration

Arbitration shall be used if two or more parties are involved in a dispute over the content of a page. An arbitrator shall be agreed upon by both parties and the arbitrator shall request statements from those involved. The exact method used to do this is up to the arbitrator but will usually take the form of: statement, counter statement, rebuttal, counter rebuttal then ruling. No matter how it is done, both parties must be allowed the opportunity to give their side of the argument.

Arbitration will deal primarily with content disputes and is not the place for:

1. Issues occuring in-game (for example, User X is griefing User Y, User Y wants him to stop) unless they are leading to edit wars
2. Things seen as "newbie mistakes" such as failure to sign posts and improper formatting. These should be addressed by leaving the user a note on their talk page giving them information on these things or to vandal banning as a last resort.

The arbitrator may use a variety of measures in order to solve the dispute. These are ultimately up to the arbitrator and will vary depending on the situation. However, there are certain things an arbitrator may not do and these are covered in more detail below.

What an arbitrator cannot do

The following are expressly forbidden to be used as components of an arbitration ruling and are invalid and non-binding if used. The arbitrator may face vandalism charges if these are used.

• Banning a user - An arbitrator may never rule that a user be banned from the wiki. This power only belongs to sysops and as a result cannot be used in an arbitration ruling.
• Promotion of a user - An arbitrator may never rule that a user be promoted to either sysop or bureaucrat status. This is a community decision and as a result it would be unethical for the arbitrator to make such a demand.
• Demotion of a user - An arbitrator may never rule that a sysop or bureaucrat be demoted in any way. There is currently no established process of calling for the demotion a user from these statuses and as a result, arbitration may not be used as a method to circumvent this. Similar to promotion, it would be unethical for the arbitrator to make a decision of this nature.
• Forced Apologies - An arbitrator may never force one or more parties to apologise to the other.
• Restriction of community participation - An arbitrator may never restrict a user's right to participate in community aspects of this wiki (suggestions, deletions, promotions, policy discussion, etc.). This may not be done either directly (by explicitly banning the user from posting on one or more of those pages) or indirectly (by banning the user from posting on the same page as the other party). Community participation is the backbone of this wiki and to undermine it would be detrimental to its purpose.
• Breach of Owner Privilege - An arbitrator may never make a ruling that overrules any decision that has been made by Kevan as per this section of the administration guidelines. In other words, if Kevan says no, he means no.

Ruling breaches

If a binding article of an arbitration ruling is believed to have been breached, a report should be logged on A/VB with suitable diff links and reference to the ruling (or part of the ruling) that has been broken. This will be judged on a case-by-case basis and if the user's actions are indeed deemed to be in breach of the ruling, the current vandal escalation policy shall be applied.

Appeals

Appeals to arbitration rulings will be allowed but only under the following circumstances:

• The arbitrator has made an error in their interpretation of wiki policies (including this one) thereby invalidating their decisions
• The arbitrator's decision is not supported by substantial evidence
• New evidence that could not reasonably have been discovered prior to the original arbitration has come to light that would have led to a different conclusion.

When an appeal is logged, a second arbitrator will be agreed on by the parties and they will review the case as it was originally presented. In the first two instances, the case will not be re-presented. In the third instance, the case will be re-heard to allow the opposing party to respond to the new evidence.

If none of these circumstances apply, the original decision will stand.

(Thank you to Atticus Rex for his input for this section)

Final Thoughts

As it stands currently, arbitration is broken. The arbitrator is not answerable to anyone and there is no clear limit to their powers. As a result, we need something to remedy that. I admit this may not be perfect but I feel it would be a step in the right direction. Any thoughts to improve this would be most welcome on the talk page.

Thank you for reading. -- Cheese 19:25, 30 September 2008 (BST)

Last Major Update made: on 2nd October at 20:10 (BST)

Voting Section

Voting Rules

Votes must be numbered, signed, and timestamped. They can take one of two forms: # comments ~~~~ or # ~~~~ Votes that do not conform to the above will be struck by a sysop.

The only valid voting sections are For and Against. If you wish to abstain from voting, do not vote.

For

1. For - My Policy. =) -- Cheese 16:15, 15 October 2008 (BST)

Against

1. I made a couple of key points in the discussion, one of which was half addressed ("just make a list of invalid rulings / things beyond the power of an arbitrator (like sysop powers, for example). Make it short and easy to digest, and you'll probably have something worth discussing here") whilst the other was completely ignored ("Problems in past rulings tend to be when time-unlimited editing restrictions have been placed. You know, it could be okay to stop someone from replying to the other party for a month, or something."). This policy proposes that we neuter arbitration to the point where it's useless. --Funt Solo ^QT 16:26, 15 October 2008 (BST)