UDWiki:Administration/Policy Discussion/Arbitration changes 2

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This policy basically changes the Arbitration page rules to the ones below proposed. The main changes are:

  • In the case that the parties don't agree on an Arbitrator, an uninvolved Sysop may nominate one.
  • The capabilities of an Arbitrator are more clearly explained, including what they can do on a final ruling.
  • There's a Sysop's review at the end of the ruling.
  • Now Arbitrators may not apply any kind of vandal escalations by themselves.

In order to ease reading, changes were highlighted in red: keep in mind that the text itself won't be trasladated highlighted as such if the policy gets approved.

These changes basically aim to cover some holes on A/A rules that allow an user to mock or ignore a case as a valid defense, and limits the damage a faulty or biased Arbitrator may make. Also, this gives some predictability to rulings that up to now could include anything from forced apologies to permabans...

Note: Obviously, if approved, this policy take effect on A/A cases started AFTER it is enacted.

A second review was made, adressing voters concerns on the first draft: now Arbitrators may not apply any kind of vandal escalations by themselves, and also the usermessage div style was eliminated (while I don't know how serious that was as a concern, the div style wasn't needed anyways).

UDWiki:Administration/Arbitration page

While the wiki community attempts to work on the basis of encouragement and cooperation, there are occasions where wiki users find themselves unable to reach accord. In the event of this happening, the Arbitration Team may be called upon to intervene, and attempt to find a reasonable compromise that, while perhaps not satisfying both parties, may at least assist in defusing the situation, thanks to the unbiased third party.

Guidelines for Arbitration Requests

In assisting in Arbitration, we generally suggest that both parties agree to the Arbitration and a common Arbitrator. If there's no agreement one week after the original request for Arbitration took place, an uninvolved Sysop will then nominate a willing, active an unbiased Arbitrator for it; this is the same if the accused party chooses to ignore or mock the case. If this happens, the parties have 24 hours to reach an agreement, and if they do not reach accord after this, the Sysop's nominated Arbitrator automatically takes the case. It's considered very poor form to ignore or mock a case, and this may be grounds for a harsher conclusion by the ruling Arbitrator.

If, after an Arbitration request is filed, but before the Arbitration process has started, both parties consider the conflict to be over, then the Arbitration request may be withdrawn. This is why we strongly recommend users to try to talk things through before resorting to Arbitration, as they could settle things out without the need of a third party.

Any Arbitration request should provide at least the following:

  • The aggrieved parties. Either person vs person, or [list of people] vs [list of people].
  • The reason for the arbitration. This should very specifically be without reference to people, as that information has already been provided. It should be a short paragraph indicating the causes of the disagreement, and why both parties feel it requires arbitration
  • Any pages affected by the disagreement. This should be a simple list of links.

Once the Arbitration commences, the Arbitrator will request statements from all parties involved. Any evidence to back up one's statement should be provided in link form. Each party will then have an opportunity to rebut their opponent's statement. During this process it's forbidden for users not directly involved in the case to make any comments. After these two steps, the Arbitrator will then consider the case, reach a conclusion, and determine the outcome that is required.

An Arbitrator's ruling may contain any kind of sanctions to the users involved that he/she believes necessary in order to defuse the problem, as long as it doesn't include:

  • Vandal escalations: Arbitrators cannot rule any kind of escalations on the A/VD page, as these are meant to be handled only by Sysops.
  • Forced apologies: Arbitrators cannot force users to apologize through his rulings, neither can he/she ask them to make or undo an edit against their own will. The Arbitrator can, however, ask a user that has expressed his will to apologize, make or undo an edit aiming at improving the situation to do so as a signal of good faith, and edit the pages in conflict himself to fit his ruling.

After the ruling is made, breaches on the A/A case ruling would be dealt on UDWiki:Administration/Vandal Banning as vandalism and as if the user in question already had two warnings.

Archives

Shortly after the Arbitration is over, it will be moved to an archive page. Any case must remain on the page at least 48 hrs before being archived. As publicly accessible pages, the archives may be used to establish precedent in further, applicable cases.

The current archive page is

The previous Arbitration archives:

Current Arbitrators

The following users have placed their hand up as users who are willing to be contacted to act as an Arbitrator. The role of Arbitrator is not restricted to the Administration team; any user can be contacted as an Arbitrator. Users who wish to place their hand up as an Arbitrator should place their name below on the list, using *{{usr|YourUserPage}}

Also note that not all listed Arbitrators are active on the Wiki.

Available Arbitrators in Alphabetical Order

Arbitration Cases Currently Under Consideration

We woud like to remind that users not directly related to the case are forbidden to comment on the cases once Arbitration has started. If you wish to make a comment, use the talk page

There are currently no cases under consideration

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. I'll be busy for the week, so I may as well leave this on voting before I leave. --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 21:06, 5 October 2007 (BST)
  2. I don't see anything wrong with this. --Roger Thirnell 00:09, 6 October 2007 (BST)
  3. I like it. Sockem 03:14, 6 October 2007 (BST)
  4. looks ok, though i'm not really into the whole A/A thing --~~~~ [talk] 09:43, 6 October 2007 (BST)
  5. looks fairly good, not sure what is left for arbitrators to dish out as punishment but then again Arbitration should not be about punishment anyway! --Honestmistake 12:32, 6 October 2007 (BST)

Against

  1. Once again...No. Ties the Hands of the Arbitrtors. Both apologies (forced or not) and Vandal escelations are tools at the disposal of the arbitrator that not only act as reprobation for behavior that led to the arbitration, but as a deterent to future asshatery as well. If you agree to a Arbitrator then you suffer the consequences, and if you fail to agree on an arbitrator..you obviously arn't that intrested in resolving the issue and need to lose your editing PRIVLAGE altogether. my .02 Conndrakamod TDHPD CFT 00:24, 6 October 2007 (BST)
    I fear whatever will be the outcome of your current case, Conn. And everytime you make a comment, I fear it more. --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 05:25, 6 October 2007 (BST)
  2. Arbitration needs to be as free as possible. --Cyberbob DORIS CGR U! 07:12, 6 October 2007 (BST)
  3. I DEMAND YOU COME TO ARBITRATION. It's arbitration, not make-the-fuck-up-or-I'll-hurt-you. So, no. --User:Axe27/Sig 04:43, 7 October 2007 (BST)
  4. ... the parties have 24 hours to reach an agreement ..., Someone obviously has no life outside this fictitious universe. The first additional paragraph seems to be in a real hurry to get everyone on to A/A then the second additional section undermines anything from actually occurring there. WTF? --Max Grivas JG / M.F.T. 06:04, 7 October 2007 (BST)
  5. Arbitration is for conflict resolution not punishing users. Edit conflicts are not acts of vandalism unless it starts as vandalism.--Karekmaps?! 06:17, 8 October 2007 (BST)
  6. I really don't care for the first statement, but the rest of the changes are great. --ZombieSlay3rSig.pngT 17:47, 8 October 2007 (BST)
    Then are you for or against? --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 18:14, 10 October 2007 (BST)
    I'm against the policy because of the first statement. I sometimes like to include positive aspects in against votes in order to show that I do actually like some parts of it (hint: revision). ;) --ZombieSlay3rSig.pngT 16:17, 12 October 2007 (BST)
  7. This is a mixed bag at best, but the gag order on third parties is a show stopper. Division of authority between Sysops and Arbitrators needs more attention as well, totally agree that Arbitrators are not Sysops and maybe Sysops should not be eligible as Arbitrators. --Dylan Mak Tyme 23:22, 9 October 2007 (BST)
  8. I can't support this - forcing someone into arbitration is the antithesis of arbitration itself. --Ryiis 16:21, 10 October 2007 (BST)
    Great, I'm not the only who noticed that. --User:Axe27/Sig 16:20, 12 October 2007 (BST)
  9. -ditto----Sexualharrison ה •QSG•TStarofdavid2.png Boobs.gif 00:58, 14 October 2007 (BST)
  10. Let's step back several levels and just say that anyone who needs to go to arbitration on an Urban Dead wiki should probably just GTFO. Slicer 05:24, 14 October 2007 (BST)
    Arbitration is there to help resolve edit disputes, it's just frequently misused to solve personal ones.--Karekmaps?! 19:17, 14 October 2007 (BST)
  11. Um, I realy don't like the Idea of forcing people to go to arbitration. It seems, I don't know, Unfair? Can you imagine if someone got hold of this and decided to start an Arb. case againgst someone they didn't like over everything they possibly could?--SeventythreeTalk 19:48, 14 October 2007 (BST)

Voting failed. 5 for, 11 against. Moved to archive --The Grimch U! E! WAT! 02:06, 20 October 2007 (BST)

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