Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Code of Conduct

I figured I'd start this off. Add, change, or propose as you see fit and discuss here. Rangerdude 19:20, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

RD: Who determines this, "Arbcom members who engage in personal attacks during the course of a case will be immediately recused" ? nobs 19:49, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That's certainly a valid issue and one that I am hopeful somebody has suggestions on. There needs to be some sort of enforcement mechanism for Arbcom recusals when the member himself does not voluntarily do so, and I'm open to suggestions on what it should be. Here's one possibility:

"If a personal attack is alleged to have occured and the Arbcom member responsible declines to recuse him or herself, the allegedly attacked party or another arbitrator may make formal motion to enforce recusal on the workshop page. The motion should describe the nature of the attack in no more than 200 words and include the diff of where it allegedly occured. The accused Arbcom member may similarly respond in a statement of 200 words or less. Upon this motion, the matter will be put to a majority vote before the entire Arbcom and all parties specifically named in the case upon its acceptance by the Arbcom. The vote's question shall take the form of "Did the statement made by Arbcom member (insert name) in reference to party (insert name) located at (insert diff) constitute a personal attack on said party?" Any finding of "yes" shall result in immediate recusal.

The vote should ONLY address whether or not the incident was a personal attack and should NOT be a vote on recusal. If it was a personal attack then recusal is the prescribed mandatory penalty. I'm also open to any other suggestions. Rangerdude 20:39, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yah, but if the motion fails, then you got virtually the whole committee endorsing what the offended party claims to be a personal attack. Do we really wanna do this? nobs 20:42, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Who polices the police? These rules can only be enforced if there was some sort of independent ombudsman. To fill this sort of independent role, you would need someone external to wikipedia, someone who neither edits or is an admin. Perhaps Wikipedia could hire someone from here - Xed 23:31, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Another possible option is to restrict the Arbcom's ability to impose penalties. For example, the Arbcom could rule on disputes and propose ways to settle them. They could also "warn" members for policy violations and make a determination of right or wrong in certain cases. Banning powers by the arbcom could be limited to specific eggregious offenses though - e.g. excessive profanity, threats of violence or legal threats, and vandalism. Other than that though, the most they could do is warn somebody. That would limit their ability to apply arbitrary and selective penalties based on who their friends are, which is the problem we're having right now. Rangerdude 23:54, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You can avoid all the above "what ifs" by adopting the same basic code many tribunals use and that are imposed by law for U.S. judges: A person sitting in judgment (ArbCom member) shall have no communication, either direct or indirect, with any party to a hearing before the Committee. - Ted Wilkes 19:23, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This page is useless

Firstly, there is no need for this page. The points are universally not needed, as I shall demonstrate:

No personal attacks: Obviously the policy still applies. Automatic recusal is not only unjustified but impractical: how do you intend to enforce it?
Transparency: Obviously the system needs to be as transparent as possible. However, it is far more important that it be just. Occasionally evidence is presented by email or suchlike, as people don't want it to be shown to the rest of the community. Of course, if the evidence isn't present, it won't be voted upon by the arbitrators.
Recusals: Recusals are need only one criterion: where the arbitrator considers themself incapable of giving a fair judgment. No rules-lawyering is needed.
Favouritism: I fail to see how this is not already understood policy.

Secondly, such a policy provokes rules-lawyering. People are likely to find technical breaches of such a policy and attack an arbitrator for this. This does nothing for the community and only makes the hard job of arbitrator harder.

Thirdly, this entire page is simply impossible to enforce. There is no point in having a policy if there is no way to enforce it. Jimbo and the rest of the committee are already capable of enforcing order. If they can't and people cannot cope with the extreme bias being shown (or likely not), I suggest they exercise their RightToFork or RightToLeave.

[[Sam Korn]] 19:43, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure it it useless. I'd rather we try to make some lemonade out of the sour complaints of these disgruntled parties. Obviously the project page needs to be completely rewritten but the questions it raises are valid. I just wish we didn't have so much arbitration work to do. Hard to get to this. Fred Bauder 20:17, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"so much arbitration work to do" - My suggestion at User talk:Jimbo Wales#A sincere question for some form of policy review/referral committee would help a great deal. - Ted Wilkes 01:33, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I mean it's useless in a practical way. My point is that I don't think there is anything in the page that isn't already the case or is impractical. The questions that it raises are less points of policy than points of practice, and the arbitration policy is not really affected by this set of points. [[Sam Korn]] 20:26, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It would work with an ombudsman, as I mentioned above. - Xed 20:45, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That seems a horrendous waste of money when it is possible for custodes custodit ipsos. Jimbo is the boss; why won't he do? [[Sam Korn]] 20:47, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There's only so many minutes in a day. - Xed 20:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And only so many cases where the ArbCom gets things horrendously wrong. I have never seen any breaches of the rules in this proposed policy. [[Sam Korn]] 20:55, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sam Korn: The problem at Wikipedia, both in article content and the ArbCo etc., is attitude. Someone didn't like John Seigenthaler, or Alan Dershowitz etc. etc. etc. The header you placed here doesn't do anything to alleviate that, it perpetuates it. - Ted Wilkes 01:40, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Um, what? What relation does Siegenthaler have to this policy? My header says that what is new in the policy in impractical and what isn't is already the case. I fail to even see what you accuse me of perpetuating. [[Sam Korn]] 17:59, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Further suggestion

I'd suggest that this also incclude something about Arbs not discussing, commenting on or referring to live cases in other fors (User talk pages, the mailing list, etc) as their comments may be interpreted as a kind of pre-judging of the case. Filiocht | The kettle's on 09:00, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think I covered that (in part) above when I said:

You can avoid all the above "what ifs" by adopting the same basic code many tribunals use and that are imposed by law for U.S. judges: A person sitting in judgment (ArbCom member) shall have no communication, either direct or indirect, with any party to a hearing before the Committee. - Ted Wilkes 19:23, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

This can be modified, as those same rules also include "commenting" on a case.

The project page is a start but it needs simplification and/or amendments. And, if I may, rather than only commenting here, insert what you think any Code should read then if you want, say why here. - Ted Wilkes 01:26, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Fred Bauder's proposal

I'm moving Fred's proposal, which is essentially a rewrite of the entire proposal to Wikipedia:Arbitration Committtee Code of Conduct/revision1. While these changes are potentially beneficial, I strongly disagree with the general direction of them, which is to weaken the proposal to unenforcable mechanisms and restatements of what is little more than the status quo. For example, the recusal policy needs to be significantly stronger than it currently is. So should a strict enforcement of NPA in the arbitration itself - a proposal I suggested specifically because of unpleasant experiences with this problem by Fred himself. Rangerdude 04:28, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have restored the work I did. If this article is to be seriously considered as policy it cannot simply be the work of aggrieved parties who have been the subject of negative sanctions by the Arbitration Committee. Fred Bauder 15:08, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to have diluted it to almost nothing. Homeopathy won't cure Wikipedia. - Xed 15:26, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've put both versions on the page with equal prominence. (If the second wasn't Rangerdude's, please change to whoever it was.) - David Gerard 16:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If you disagree with Bauder's proposal, then just go edit it. I plan to. Then, it MUST be reintegrated to one final document for presentation to Jimmy Wales and to be part of Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2005 - Ted Wilkes 17:34, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Fred's proposal is far better. It actually contains a practical set of notices detailing how arbitrators generally behave. Your page, Rangerdude, contained "unenforcable mechanisms" itself, whereas Fred's contains no mechanisms. Why are mechanisms needed? What exactly are you trying to fix? If you don't say what your aims are, how are we supposed to determine whether suggestions are likely to be helpful? Much as you might like it to be so, this isn't just going to be ratifying your ideas. This must be to determine whether or not they are good aims and good ideas. [[Sam Korn]] 18:07, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Creating a Code of Conduct, be it at Wikipedia or for the United States Supreme Court, is not done by "Joe's" versus "Harry's" etc,. proposal. It is impossible to create Policy by inserting dozens of pages of opinions for people to wade through. Policy and rules are and have been created from the input of those interested by the merging of ideas into a cohesive agreement. Pitting one side versus another through labeling is symbolic of the problems recurring throughout Wikipedia and only divides even further. I don't care who edits this so long as it is a constructive addition designed to achieve a proper Code of Conduct. - Ted Wilkes 20:56, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The page seems to have some extraneous things which have nothing to do with an Arbitrators conduct, for examle,

"Arbitrators should request the assistance of administrators in the enforcement of arbitration decisions",

which just expands Arbitrators power, if it is not already spelled out elswhere, or

"Excessive or repeated criticism of an arbitrator which is not related to their behavior in an arbitration case on Wikipedia may in appropriate situations be considered a personal attack",

doesn't even relate to an Arbitrators conduct. Perhaps remaining focused on the article or the issue may help. nobs 21:05, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]