Arbitration

[Randy from Boise]

ArbCom members seldom extend the courtesy of replying to emails; they apparently feel editors are beneath them and do not deserve or merit a response - GorillaWarfare is as much a part of that as the others. Alex Shih's comment that most of the current bunch are appalling is an accurate description.

As barrister for Beelzebub, I will note that it is probably hard for an individual to respond to an email sent to the collective; and it would take Arbcom two weeks to agree that the sky is blue and the grass is green, let alone agree to a specific reply to a communication of any complexity whatsoever.

Multiply your communication by 100 people doing the same thing and that's the position they are in.

I think the failure is not that of individuals, but that of the system.

What did you write to them about? How should they have properly handled it? What would you suggest they do to fix their communications problem?

RfB

[Vigilant]

I think that once the original sin of accepting a secret case with secret, redacted evidence was made, GW navigated the swirling waters better than anyone else on the committee. She tried to listen, she tried to explain, and she tried to rectify the error that the punishment did not fit the evidence made public and actually contradicted the findings of fact.

She religiously read WO too.
I would quite often see her name listed reading the Fram thread in the "Who is online" section at the bottom.

[Randy from Boise]

Let me bounce an idea off the wall.

Arbcom should elect a corresponding secretary from among its ranks, whose job is to formally acknowledge receipt of every email. These acknowledgments could include short statements of general policy which are agreed upon by the committee as a whole: similar to what one gets when one writes to the office of an elected legislator. "Arbcom believes..."

I'm particularly interested in what current and former members of the committee have to say about this and whether Sophie and 10920 feel that something like this might represent a solution to their specific concerns.

RfB

[Alex Shih]

Let me bounce an idea off the wall.

Arbcom should elect a corresponding secretary from among its ranks, whose job is to formally acknowledge receipt of every email. These acknowledgments could include short statements of general policy which are agreed upon by the committee as a whole: similar to what one gets when one writes to the office of an elected legislator. "Arbcom believes..."

I'm particularly interested in what current and former members of the committee have to say about this and whether Sophie and 10920 feel that something like this might represent a solution to their specific concerns.

RfB

The thing is this is technically done already by most list admins on Arbcom, although simply not consistently. Therefore it would help to codify and make it into a working system somehow.

The obsession to respond "collectively" doesn't really apply to every case. There was a heart wrenching letter to ArbCom during a case, as I responded to them and forwarded to arbcom-l (as the e-mail was very relevant to the case), nobody ever even acknowledged the person. A lot of these folks are more concerned about their image and trivial details rather than looking at the bigger picture of what they are supposed to do, which IMO should be looking after editor's welfare.

Maybe it's the failure of the system, but some individuals cannot escape blame as we have witnessed in the Polish case and Fram case, where some of these arbs simply do not respond to neither pings nor direct queries, nor do they try to articulate and substantiate their opinions on Wikipedia (probably talks a lot behind of the scenes, a lot of these discussions should really be made on Wikipedia as I have canvassed for it repeatedly in the past), but resorts to rhetorics like "y'all elected me to do the right thing so I'll do what I think is right, and I seriously think about every of my decisions". Great, explain your thinking please? (silence)

[Vigilant]

Let me bounce an idea off the wall.

Arbcom should elect a corresponding secretary from among its ranks, whose job is to formally acknowledge receipt of every email. These acknowledgments could include short statements of general policy which are agreed upon by the committee as a whole: similar to what one gets when one writes to the office of an elected legislator. "Arbcom believes..."

I'm particularly interested in what current and former members of the committee have to say about this and whether Sophie and 10920 feel that something like this might represent a solution to their specific concerns.

RfB

The thing is this is technically done already by most list admins on Arbcom, although simply not consistently. Therefore it would help to codify and make it into a working system somehow.

The obsession to respond "collectively" doesn't really apply to every case. There was a heart wrenching letter to ArbCom during a case, as I responded to them and forwarded to arbcom-l (as the e-mail was very relevant to the case), nobody ever even acknowledged the person. A lot of these folks are more concerned about their image and trivial details rather than looking at the bigger picture of what they are supposed to do, which IMO should be looking after editor's welfare.

Maybe it's the failure of the system, but some individuals cannot escape blame as we have witnessed in the Polish case and Fram case, where some of these arbs simply do not respond to neither pings nor direct queries, nor do they try to articulate and substantiate their opinions on Wikipedia (probably talks a lot behind of the scenes, a lot of these discussions should really be made on Wikipedia as I have canvassed for it repeatedly in the past), but resorts to rhetorics like "y'all elected me to do the right thing so I'll do what I think is right, and I seriously think about every of my decisions". Great, explain your thinking please? (silence)

It's worse than that.
Several of the arbs in the Fram case just refused to look at anything that didn't fit their narrative.
Joe Roe, AGK, MdKW

None of them, apparently, looked into the source of the complaints and whether they were brought in good faith for good reasons.
All manner processes designed to ensure fairness were discarded in favor of star chamber antics.

This is the weakest ARBCOM yet.

[Sophie]

Alex Shih said:

nobody ever even acknowledged the person

That sums up the attitude of most current (and several former) members of ArbCom. They treat editors as below contempt and not worth their time, no matter how much time, energy, effort and money the editor may have invested over many years.

ArbCom, admins and many others would rather support disruptive and/or copyright violators - like Elisa.rolle, Laura Hale and dozens of other examples - than those who have genuinely done their best to add quality content. As far as they are concerned it doesn't even merit a 'thank you for your contributions' - it's rather more a 'sod off and good riddance, your work is under a CC-by-xxx licence so we've got it now to do with what we like and we couldn't care two hoots about your feelings/opinions so bugger off.'

The idea of a correspondence secretary does not work when you have members of ArbCom with less experience than those they are addressing replying to point the editor to policies that they are already fully aware of.

[Osborne]

ArbCom members seldom extend the courtesy of replying to emails; they apparently feel editors are beneath them and do not deserve or merit a response - GorillaWarfare is as much a part of that as the others. Alex Shih's comment that most of the current bunch are appalling is an accurate description.

For reference: they are obliged to answer (acknowledge) and track emails. Not answering is a violation of Arbitration Committee Procedures, not a courtesy, unless in an authoritarian system:

* Once incoming mail has cleared list moderation, each message shall be acknowledged with a standard message and processed by the coordinating arbitrator or their deputy within 24 hours of receipt:
* All incoming mail, unless obviously frivolous, shall be tracked on the coordination page of the private wiki, and the coordinating arbitrator or their deputy shall circulate weekly summaries of all open items.

they don't see the need to respond to the peons.

I confirm. My experience is they don't respond to "peons". Who would they complain to?

[Beeblebrox]

Let me preface this remark by stating that on the whole I am not impressed with this particular committee and their manner of interacting with the community. Their open letter to the WMF is the sole thing I have seen them do that was done exactly right.

That being said, if you email individual arbs, they are not obligated in any way to respond. Doing so would give you their email address, and if they don't know you or worse, do and don't want you to have it, you've not given them much choice.

There's a similar issue with the mailing lists where entire groups of people see the same email and discuss it, but somebody has to be willing to give up their details in order to respond. Arbcom has sort of solved this with the creation of Arbitration Committee (T-C-L) as a non-editing role account strictly for smoothing communications. It would probably make more sense for them to simply have their own OTRS queue, like oversight has, that allows for individual members to respond without outing their contact information, but for whatever reason they don't.

Another issue is the sheer volume of email. This happens on some of the lists I am on, minor issues get discussed a little, but nobody responds directly to the user and it just gets forgotten. It's not deliberate in most cases, it's more of a "bystander syndrome" thing where everyone kinda assumes someone else will do it.

Note that I am trying to explain, not excuse. It should work better than this.

[Osborne]

Their open letter to the WMF is the sole thing I have seen them do that was done exactly right.

There is a self-contradiction in the primary message, that makes it moot to critical-thinking people. Other than that, it's well-written and effective political piece, that influences the masses, who don't mind the contradiction.

somebody has to be willing to give up their details in order to respond.

Thanks for giving an explanation that might be part of the full picture. I'll give another understanding of the issue, from the perspective of one, who experienced it.

I assume they are using a dedicated email for wiki, thus not giving up any more detail than their user name. Actually, this is what the arbs I communicated with, do.
With this I'd like to point out, that "giving up their email address" - the primary focus of your reasoning -, is a technical issue, that should not be an issue, whereas who received no response from the ArbCom, feel that they were intentionally ignored, which is a responsibility / neutrality / equal treatment issue.

I do empathize with the possibility of "too many emails", though, that's why I've sent only a few emails, with about a week between to give them time to just "acknowledge". After 2 months I'm still waiting for the in-24-hour acknowledgement, that would be practically one sentence. Note that my email declaring my 2 private alt accounts was acknowledged and processed within 35 minutes. The arbs, who shared their email with me, had no reason to fail their responsibility to "acknowledge" my other emails, even by your reasoning.

It should work better than this.

I agree with that.

[Randy from Boise]

I think the question of acknowledging emails expeditiously should be made into a major ArbCom campaign issue this fall.

RfB

[Poetlister]

For reference: they are obliged to answer (acknowledge) and track emails. Not answering is a violation of Arbitration Committee Procedures, not a courtesy, unless in an authoritarian system:

* Once incoming mail has cleared list moderation, each message shall be acknowledged with a standard message and processed by the coordinating arbitrator or their deputy within 24 hours of receipt:
* All incoming mail, unless obviously frivolous, shall be tracked on the coordination page of the private wiki, and the coordinating arbitrator or their deputy shall circulate weekly summaries of all open items.

Note the weasel words. Who decides what is "obviously frivolous"?

[Osborne]

* All incoming mail, unless obviously frivolous, shall be tracked on the coordination page of the private wiki, and the coordinating arbitrator or their deputy shall circulate weekly summaries of all open items.

Note the weasel words. Who decides what is "obviously frivolous"?

Everything can be turned subjective and weaseled, like civility (see the widely differing opinions on Fram vs civility).
I wonder what was your point with pointing that out. Imho if they claim an email is frivolous, and somebody disagrees, than it's not obvious anymore, and they can't ignore it.

[Poetlister]

* All incoming mail, unless obviously frivolous, shall be tracked on the coordination page of the private wiki, and the coordinating arbitrator or their deputy shall circulate weekly summaries of all open items.

Note the weasel words. Who decides what is "obviously frivolous"?

Everything can be turned subjective and weaseled, like civility (see the widely differing opinions on Fram vs civility).
I wonder what was your point with pointing that out. Imho if they claim an email is frivolous, and somebody disagrees, than it's not obvious anymore, and they can't ignore it.

My point is that the Arbs have a perfect excuse for ignoring any given e-mail: the first Arb to see it decided it was frivolous.

[Osborne]

My point is that the Arbs have a perfect excuse for ignoring any given e-mail: the first Arb to see it decided it was frivolous.

Maybe that happened to my emails
How would you handle truly frivolous emails (eg. trolling), if the highlighted part would be removed from the rule?

[Beeblebrox]

Usually, its when somebody is pushing on with a discussion that has been "asked and answered" already. Some folks just can't let go. Anyone who has worked with block appeals knows all about that. Most first-time points of contact should be being replied to, even if it is just to say "we are aware of this." Of course during the last several months I would expect email volumes to be just a wee bit above normal for the committee so more stuff might be slipping through the cracks.

Its one of those thigs every committee promises to be better about ,and then they aren't.

I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to have a non-voting member who is elected each year for the sole purpose of coordinating communications between the committee, clerks, and broader community. It would have to be someone who was vetted to see anything the arbs could see, but not be an actual arb who participates in the process. Like a city manager who keeps the day-to-day running while the mayor and the council go to ribbon cuttings and have boring arguments.

[Osborne]

Usually, its when somebody is pushing on with a discussion that has been "asked and answered" already.

That's not the meaning of "frivolous". That would be bludgeoning, maybe?

Some folks just can't let go. Anyone who has worked with block appeals knows all about that.

Yep there are those folks. And there are also the cases, where the answer was a template bullshit, eg. a generic paragraph from a policy, that looks like an answer, but does not actually answer the question.
Admins do it all the time. How do you distinguish the two?

[Vigilant]

In a competent org, they'd use a CRM system and it would all be automated.

[Osborne]

In a competent org, they'd use a CRM system and it would all be automated.

Like deciding what is frivolous?
Agree on the non-competent org.

[Vigilant]

In a competent org, they'd use a CRM system and it would all be automated.

Like deciding what is frivolous?
Agree on the non-competent org.

Everything goes into the input queue, everything is processed and stored, queries are sorted in a combination of manual and automated processes, responses triggered based on category post sorting.
Followup reminders and update notifications are time or event triggered and automatically sent.

Even a message determined to be frivolous should get an automated, "We got your email" message and a "We're not following up on this" message.

It's easy peasy.

[Osborne]

Yes, that's how pro crms work.
Occasionally, however a human being has to understand, evaluate the letters and make a decision. That's not automated. If they take weeks or months to do that, the crm cannot do anything but send out a reminder every few days to the arbitrators, who will create a mail filter to trash those reminders.
Problem solved, easy-peasy.

Even a message determined to be frivolous should get an automated, "We got your email" message and a "We're not following up on this" message.

This is how to make email communication professional, but not a solution for the original problem of proper, acceptable emails being ignored.

[Vigilant]

Yes, that's how pro crms work.
Occasionally, however a human being has to understand, evaluate the letters and make a decision. That's not automated. If they take weeks or months to do that, the crm cannot do anything but send out a reminder every few days to the arbitrators, who will create a mail filter to trash those reminders.
Problem solved, easy-peasy.

Even a message determined to be frivolous should get an automated, "We got your email" message and a "We're not following up on this" message.

This is how to make email communication professional, but not a solution for the original problem of proper, acceptable emails being ignored.

I'm talking about infrastructure to make the problem manageable.
If the problem is between the seat and the keyboard, it's hard to manage from here.

[Anroth]

Ah PEBKAC

[Alex Shih]

Damn, ARCA have been effectively deserted. Did all of these folks simply defected from their jobs or what?

[GorillaWarfare]

There's a similar issue with the mailing lists where entire groups of people see the same email and discuss it, but somebody has to be willing to give up their details in order to respond. Arbcom has sort of solved this with the creation of Arbitration Committee (T-C-L) as a non-editing role account strictly for smoothing communications. It would probably make more sense for them to simply have their own OTRS queue, like oversight has, that allows for individual members to respond without outing their contact information, but for whatever reason they don't.

This used to be the case when we were using mailman. Now that we have switched to Google Groups for the ArbCom mailing list, we actually are able to reply to someone without divulging our own email address. It's a pain to do (you have to log in to the Google Groups interface rather than do it via your email inbox) and many of us have publicly known email addresses anyway, but it is possible now.

[GorillaWarfare]

In a competent org, they'd use a CRM system and it would all be automated.

I've suggested this a number of times, but it hasn't caught on yet. After watching the switch from mailman to Google Groups, I'm not confident such a move is a good idea anymore. It did not go smoothly or quickly.

[Osborne]

I'm not confident such a move is a good idea anymore. It did not go smoothly or quickly.

Every transition has it's hickups. Successful companies take the pill once in a while, to remain current, but Wikipedia is still in the 2000s, with a decade or more of technical lag, so there's a lot to catch up with. A crm would be one step, giving a more professional impression, though not the most important, imho. CoC, reporting system is more important for the community.

[Vigilant]

In a competent org, they'd use a CRM system and it would all be automated.

I've suggested this a number of times, but it hasn't caught on yet. After watching the switch from mailman to Google Groups, I'm not confident such a move is a good idea anymore. It did not go smoothly or quickly.

Glad to see there are things we agree on.

What team did the technical work in the switch to Groups?
Please tell me it was the WeMakeFailures engineering team.



While I've been critical of your behavior in the past around your recusal/unrecusal and your behavior towards your friends, ex. Oliver Keyes, I was very impressed with your decision to re-review the material thoroughly in the Fram case.

As I've said in other threads, I'm not really concerned with the outcome, but rather with the process, fairness and equitable treatment.
From my perspective, the Fram case was your finest hour.

[GorillaWarfare]

What team did the technical work in the switch to Groups?

I think it was WMF "Office IT". Not sure where that falls in their org structure.

While I've been critical of your behavior in the past around your recusal/unrecusal and your behavior towards your friends, ex. Oliver Keyes, I was very impressed with your decision to re-review the material thoroughly in the Fram case.

As I've said in other threads, I'm not really concerned with the outcome, but rather with the process, fairness and equitable treatment.
From my perspective, the Fram case was your finest hour.

Thanks

[Vigilant]

What team did the technical work in the switch to Groups?

I think it was WMF "Office IT". Not sure where that falls in their org structure.

Color me shocked.
If they let you buy a package, insist that the vendor or the VAR sub out the installation and migration work to a 'preferred contractor'.

[Bezdomni]

My idea about electing a posse of clerks didn't catch on at Jimbotalk.

meditation

[Eric Corbett]

In a competent org, they'd use a CRM system and it would all be automated.

I've suggested this a number of times, but it hasn't caught on yet. After watching the switch from mailman to Google Groups, I'm not confident such a move is a good idea anymore. It did not go smoothly or quickly.

Glad to see there are things we agree on.

What team did the technical work in the switch to Groups?
Please tell me it was the WeMakeFailures engineering team.



While I've been critical of your behavior in the past around your recusal/unrecusal and your behavior towards your friends, ex. Oliver Keyes, I was very impressed with your decision to re-review the material thoroughly in the Fram case.

As I've said in other threads, I'm not really concerned with the outcome, but rather with the process, fairness and equitable treatment.
From my perspective, the Fram case was your finest hour.

It wasn't up against much competition though, was it.

[Moral Hazard]

The end of Legion showed that reconciliation is the path to wisdom and peace.

[Poetlister]

My idea about electing a posse of clerks didn't catch on at Jimbotalk.

meditation

No, it was never really likely to, was it?

[Eric Corbett]

The end of Legion showed that reconciliation is the path to wisdom and peace.

Reconciliation, like arbitration or mediation, requires a degree of mutual trust and respect.

It's impossible when one has neither for a serial offender such as Gorillawarfare. Wisdom comes from accepting that reconciliation is impossible. Peace comes when one no longer gives a fuck.

[Randy from Boise]

The end of Legion showed that reconciliation is the path to wisdom and peace.

Reconciliation, like arbitration or mediation, requires a degree of mutual trust and respect.

It's impossible when one has neither for a serial offender such as Gorillawarfare. Wisdom comes from accepting that reconciliation is impossible. Peace comes when one no longer gives a fuck.

GW tries. Don't be too harsh.

RfB

[Midsize Jake]

Wisdom comes from accepting that reconciliation is impossible. Peace comes when one no longer gives a fuck.

Yikes, I think he's actually getting even more nihilistic than before.

[Zoloft]

Wisdom comes from accepting that reconciliation is impossible. Peace comes when one no longer gives a fuck.

Yikes, I think he's actually getting even more nihilistic than before.

Or he could be channeling Buddha... or Benny Hill.

[Poetlister]

It's impossible when one has neither for a serial offender such as Gorillawarfare. Wisdom comes from accepting that reconciliation is impossible. Peace comes when one no longer gives a fuck.

GW tries. Don't be too harsh.

RfB

Is it OK if someone tries but for whatever reason doesn't succeed? It means, I suppose, that one shouldn't be nasty to her but on the other hand we shouldn't rely on her.

[el84]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... d_decision

Nice to see that t' Arbs have gone back to form, and are currently 10 days late in posting a proposed decision (on a much-delayed case in the first place) without an explanation. And that is with 60% of the active arbitrators being the drafters.

[Beeblebrox]

I agree it's lame that they are once again very late, but it's equally lame to make that "60%" observation when you know that means only 3 people.

It really is ridiculous that these PDs are always late. Framgate is well over as far as the committee goes, so that isn't the issue. Putting together a PD is like one afternoon's work, at most. It could be one of the three drafters said they'd do it, and then they just didn't. That can happen when people aren't actually paid for their work.

Doesn't look like anyone has tried just asking on the talk page what the holdup is.

[Alex Shih]

Like I said before, this current ArbCom simply does not have the people with experience resolving complex content disputes.

Drafting PD isn't difficult. What's difficult is getting some of these folks to agree, or worse, to even respond to simple queries in the e-mail because none of them are willing to spend time actually understanding the crux of these longstanding issues.

But it's true that if you aren't getting paid for something, naturally it wouldn't be motivating to actually do the work (unless if you are one of those "arbs" that really think of themselves as some kind of "WMF employee"). Although that's really a lame excuse.

[Sophie]

It may well be voluntary/unpaid but it's a position they put themselves forward to undertake so they should be willing to set aside or make the time to do the work - unless, of course, they are nothing but hat collectors.

[Poetlister]

It may well be voluntary/unpaid but it's a position they put themselves forward to undertake so they should be willing to set aside or make the time to do the work - unless, of course, they are nothing but hat collectors.

In their defence, they may be devoting as much time as they can, but have other priorities. Still, if they constantly find themselves unable to do the job, it might be honorable to resign.

[el84]

Yes it is lame that none of them could be bothered to communicate with the community that they were busy and unable to produce a proposed decision by the date they stated they would do so. Neither could they ask one of the clerks to communicate this information to the page.

They may as well just postpone it until next year when they'll have more members to deliberate over it.

[Poetlister]

They may as well just postpone it until next year when they'll have more members to deliberate over it.

They probably will, so the outgoing members don't have to handle it.

[el84]

Poor David Tornheim.

He requests a lifting of his topic ban from 2016 from editing in the GMO sphere.

Three months later... he's still waiting.

[Icewhiz]

Poor David Tornheim.

He requests a lifting of his topic ban from 2016 from editing in the GMO sphere.

Three months later... he's still waiting.

Why is he asking at ARCA? He could have gone AE, seeing that the restriction was AE to begin with and that it was already narrowed at AE. What am I missing?

[Bezdomni]

TonyB + Seraphimblade + NYB + KoF = a familiar team

I couldn't comment on this before (since it's related to food), but geez' someone should really make KoF wear a mask. 43% of the text in that case is his pontificating.

method

(based on the size of the text file containing only his words and the size of the text file containing the whole case). It's well worth digging deeper into KoF's historical contribs to the page which are ... rather voluminous.

I recall that NYBrad got vexed when I pointed out that well over 40% of the jytdog ArbCom case was KoF's logorrhea.

Anyone want to find an ADJ that's more apt than "overlong"? I know that Bishonen likes the word "serpentine"...

[el84]

Poor David Tornheim.

He requests a lifting of his topic ban from 2016 from editing in the GMO sphere.

Three months later... he's still waiting.

Why is he asking at ARCA? He could have gone AE, seeing that the restriction was AE to begin with and that it was already narrowed at AE. What am I missing?

Absolutely no idea. Looking back, he originally filed two clarifications at ARCA which both got declined, and even the AE he filed in 2019 took two weeks before it was closed (which I think is a long time for an AE with the lack of text there). He certainly is a patient guy...

[Icewhiz]

I would've thought AE would be a better route, leaving ARCA for a 2nd chance or appeal. Part of the ARCA holdup was David not answering promptly, but after he di the Arbs mostly ignored it. ARCA can be slow. Heck, anything involving the Arbs can be pretty slow.