Wikibooks:Reading room/Arbitration

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Contents 1 Wikibooks:Resolving disputes 2 Arbitration Policy 2.1 Question 1: Should Wikibooks use formal (specified in policy) arbitration to settle disputes? 2.2 Question 2: Is arbitration, or other intervention, an acceptable way to resolve disputes concerning book content? 2.3 Question 3: Should Wikibooks have a standing "Arbitration Committee" to handle arbitration cases? 2.4 Question 4: Should informal or ad hoc binding arbitration be allowed to settle disputes on Wikibooks, with or without the existence of a formal policy on Arbitration? 2.5 Comments: 3 Taming the elephant in the room... 3.1 Proposition 2.0 3.2 HT's bit! 4 Wikibooks:Editorial board 5 Arbitration, my role, and the Wikibooks "community" 6 My thoughts on Arbitration Committee proposal 7 See also

[edit] Wikibooks:Resolving disputes

I'd like to bring to everyone's attention to Wikibooks:Resolving disputes which I'd like to make an official policy as soon as possible. The page's style reflects common procedures on Wikimedia sites. Please make changes if you wish or leave comments on the talk page. Thanks. -withinfocus 21:45, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration Policy

There are a number of discussions, and policy proposals swirling around concerning the topic of arbitration. "Arbitration" in this instance is the act of one group of wikibookians imposing a binding solution onto a dispute among other wikibookians. In general, People who advocate for the existance of such an arbitration process say that it should be reserved as a "last resort".

I would like to take a basic straw poll among the community on this issue, to gauge where everybody stands (not just the people who are most vocal on the policy discussion pages). I am asking that people vote support or oppose in the space below, and reserve any comments for the space below the polls. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 05:14, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question 1: Should Wikibooks use formal (specified in policy) arbitration to settle disputes?

• Yes. If it is requested by the defendent of the dispute and if a neutral arbitrator can be found. Xania ^talk 16:29, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose There should be a formal policy to settle disputes when Wikibooks:Decision making fails, but not in the form of arbitration. --darklama 17:00, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
• Absolutely having an effective policy to handle disputes between users without dragging the whole community into the minutia of the argument is critically important. -- xixtas 18:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support. With a process for this outlined, and a set of requirements in place that must be satisfied before arbitration can begin, we can avoid things like vigilante arbitration, or ad hoc arbitration, which may turn out to be problems. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 17:21, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support. But it must be used very rarely. A "final word" arbitration must be settled somehow, and once the rules are nicely laid out, we should be fine. It will be a difficult job of making a good arbitration process, but I feel that in the long run, it would be worth it. --Dragontamer 07:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support RobinH 14:57, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support - Don't know if I can vote but this is important to me. I can see being involved in this process myself as I try to stand up against the ed establishment Harriska2 15:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question 2: Is arbitration, or other intervention, an acceptable way to resolve disputes concerning book content?

• Ideally no. Disputes concerning content should preferably be kept confined to the talk pages of the book concerned. Xania ^talk 16:29, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose I agree with Xania, content disputes should ideally be settled through discussion on the talk pages of the book it concerns. --darklama 17:00, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support - Content disagreement should generally be solved by the authors. However a process needs to be created to avoid home grown processes. -- xixtas 18:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support. The current decision making process is geared specifically towards matters of book content, and not towards behavior or policy violations. There comes a point when intervention is required in a dispute (hopefully most disputes don't get that far). We also need to have some kind of "final say" so that situations don't get out of hand with endless appeals and bickering. A decision is worthless if it is second-guessed and over-turned repeatedly, and we need to be able to make decisions and stand by them. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 17:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

• No, however, should these disputes evolve into edit wars, flaming, and so forth, arbitration may be seen as an option. But book content should be settled by the authors, and again, only used as a last resort. Personally; I'd rather see the book forked than arbitration used. --Dragontamer 07:26, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, but..., not arbitration except in extreme battles such as darwinists vs creationists in a biology book or galilean relativity vs modern relativity in a physics book etc. dispute resolution looks like the right way to go. RobinH 14:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• Support - again, I can see this happening - try the instructivist vs. constructivist approaches to teaching subjects. Harriska2 15:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question 3: Should Wikibooks have a standing "Arbitration Committee" to handle arbitration cases?

• With such a small community it wouldn't be possible for a permanent committee to remain neutral so committee members should be chosen and agreed upon by the concerned parties for each dispute. Xania ^talk 16:29, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose Wikibooks has a small community and its not been well established yet by the community through experience how best to handle such situations. I believe its too soon to be suggesting an "arbitration committee". --darklama 17:00, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose - I agree with Xania. There is no need for a standing arbitration committee. Arbiters can self-identify at the time arbitration commences. -- xixtas 18:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Neutral - if others see a standing arbitration committee as being beneficial, I will not stand in the way. -- xixtas ^talk 18:08, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

• Support. At the very least we need to have a list of people qualified to act as arbitrators, and we should specify that an arbitration case must be overseen by more then one arbiter. In this way we can prevent allegations of "abuse of power", and we can also prevent situations where an arbitration case is stalled because of arbiter inactivity. A standing committee may be too much, but the spirit of the idea is a valuable one. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 17:26, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral : With the current scheme, some sort of arbitration committee seems like it could work. Then again, it could easily work against us. If the committee is seen to be powerful, then it would be seen as corrupt, especially when this community gets larger. It would probably work now with this small community, but we may outgrow it in the future. --Dragontamer 07:27, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

• Support An arbitration committee clarifies procedures. Without an established process that has a definite termination point we will end up with the anarchy of admins fighting wheel wars! Sensible "laws" and procedures protect the community. RobinH 15:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• Support Harriska2 15:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question 4: Should informal or ad hoc binding arbitration be allowed to settle disputes on Wikibooks, with or without the existence of a formal policy on Arbitration?

• No. Xania ^talk 16:29, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral I'm still a bit undecided on this point. I think perhaps maybe a balance between formal and informa might be best. --darklama 17:00, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
• Yes. If explicitly agreed to in advance by all parties. -- xixtas 18:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. Ad hoc or informal arbitration should not have the authority to impose binding decisions, especially on important subjects. An ad hoc arbiter should not be able to block or unblock a user, protect pages, etc. Also, we should discourage people from trying to take a situation onto their own shoulders, as arbitration can be a nasty and dirty process. Arbitration without proper community backing can turn into a disaster, for both the parties involved and the arbiter. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 17:30, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support if the ad hoc committee were composed of admins who obey the rules in Arbitration Committee RobinH 15:08, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• Support Harriska2 15:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comments:

• Regarding the current arbitration I'd prefer to see the original arbitrator make his decision. Arbitration may not have been decided by everyone here but it started without much voiced opposition and should be allowed to continue. Punishments should reflect the crime. Remember this is just a Wiki and banning people for 6 months is utter nonsense - work with all parties to reach a compromise rather than punishing! Xania ^talk 16:29, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I am puzzled, Xania, you opposed a standing arbitration committee by saying admins could come together on an ad hoc basis then you opposed the ad hoc committee. RobinH 15:05, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• I believe until the community has more experience with finding ways to end disputes and finds a way that works to the satisfaction of the majority of community that this matter won't end. I think the community needs to be involved in making any decision and in trying out different methods to try to solve the problem, until something is found that the majority of the community prefers. I think since everything up to mediation seems to be undisputed that mediation should perhaps be the last formal step for now, with a less formal method for a final decision, such as suggesting how best to handle it and make a decision will be discussed beforehand on an individual bases. --darklama 17:00, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Strongly oppose maintaining the status quo as suggested by Darklama. -- xixtas 18:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment Wikibooks:Decision making already exists as a process to avoid "home grown" processes for content and policy decisions, so there is no need to create one. There is a need however for establishing what to do when that doesn't work, such as using mediation. I don't consider a community decision to be maintaining the status quo. Through discussion and a desire for change by the community, changes are made. --darklama 19:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• I think that we need to have some formalized method for putting a final end to disputes involving behavior problems or policy violations. This will reduce the endless process of appeals, and it will also prevent admins from feeling that they need to "step in" and take over when things get really out of hand. Some formal method is needed, although I won't say it must be an arbitration committee. Keep in mind that if we had such a policy (be it a pool of qualified arbiters, or a standing committee) we could then be very strict in the cases that the arbiters are allowed to hear, thus preventing any such group from being too pervasive or too powerful. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 17:37, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Taming the elephant in the room...

The "arbitration" involving a problematic user (User:Panic2k4)has not been well accepted by some, and I'm still interested in seeing if we can't find a way to keep him part of the project, while at trhe same time avoiding future conflicts. I'm hoping to have a constructive dialog with him about the issues involved, and I think it would be helpful if the community voiced their support for this. My approach will be to lead him through the following steps, in the hopes that this will lead to his re-integration into the community as a positive contributor:

1. He should think back on all of this and express his understanding of why people find him so hard to work with.
2. He should come up with a strategy to avoid this problem in the future
3. He should make a commitment in writing to get along with his fellow contributors
4. He should agree to having a moderator (or a panel of moderators), and to expect further blocks if he goes back on his commitments or comes up with novel ways of making other people miserable (indefinite blocks that will involve going through steps 1-3 again, with additions to step 3 if appropriate).

I know this guy a bit now, and while I'm not confident this will work, I think it's worth a try. You can follow the process here, but I ask that uninvolved parties not comment there for now. Please indicate your support or opposition! --SB_Johnny | ^talk 23:51, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

* Support - I'm in favour provided this is agreed to by Panic, provided indefinate blocks are not used and Panic is unblocked once this is agreed. Xania ^talk 23:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I can no longer support this proposal. Reading comments by some users here and the wording of this proposal leads me to the conclusion that many Wikibooks members have some sort of personal vendetta against Panic. He has done wrong but so have other editors of the concerned project. My opinion now is that Panic should be unblocked completely with no punishment as this is out of hand and people seem to want some blood for what they believe was wrongdoing. Grow up everyone, unblock Panic and get on with your lives. Xania ^talk 12:31, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

• Support - I agree provided he remains blocked indefinitely until he agrees to it and step 4 is reached, than only blocking again indefinitely if he tries to play games and abuse the process. --darklama 00:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support. I think these steps are rational and should be applied in this case. --Derbeth ^talk 00:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Some of the terminology here makes panic sound more like an untamed animal, or some kind of science experiment. I think that much of this is dependant on the ability to get panic to see fault in his own actions (point number 1), something that I am doubting will ever happen. If he is willing to play ball, then this effort will have my support. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 00:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support - and only if he is immediately indefinitely blocked and stays that way until he finishes the process. -withinfocus 01:52, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

  Panic is now unblocked for the time being. This solution seems that it will fail and so something new needs to be devised. -withinfocus 14:01, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems that we would be much better off letting the status quo stand until consensus develops to change it. There is not any such consensus. --xixtas 14:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Please take that matter up with Xania then, although I prefer you don't. I was not interested in having my block modified to an arbitrary (to me) and unfair time period and so I removed it altogether. Let the process decide what to do, since the status quo was already modified without community consensus. Better yet, work on dispute resolution for a new policy, then apply Panic to it if you wish. -withinfocus 14:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - I think we all need to step back for at least two weeks... disengage. Panic feels wronged and I think I understand why. I know that I would feel wronged if I were in a similar situation. There is a wide range of opinions here about the terms of Panic's return and despite the tally of support, support, support everyone seems to have different stipulations. Instead, I say let things stand for a couple weeks and then revisit this with calm reasoned thinking and together decide what steps are most likely to achieve the desired outcome. --xixtas 03:43, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - I'm not at all involved in this and don't feel qualified to have a vote in it one way or the other. All that I can say is, from the amount of flames that have erupted from this, it certainly looks to me as if a cooling off period is mandatory. On all sides. Chazz 09:00, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose - I think that first of all, Johnny is perhaps one of the least qualified to help out here. Mainly because he is percieved (rightly or wrongly) as an "enemy" to Panic and openly hostle. At the very least he needs to step back and leave this alone for awhile. While I will admit that Panic does have an abraisive personality, I fail to see where that is against Wikibooks policies. Doing on-line collaborative writing takes people of all sorts of personalities and this is something that simply needs to be dealt with socially, not through arbitrary technical approaches. User blocks are not working here anyway, and is not the solution. Let's let the current two-week user block for Panic stay here, and have everybody take a "chill pill" for the next two weeks and not even worry about this issue at all. When the two weeks are over, then we can come back and try to "restart" the arbitration so far as to find a final solution to this whole thing. And to think that my "two weeks" of feet dragging was considered excessive here. --Rob Horning 13:29, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment I disagree that Johnny is not qualified. I agree that he faces an uphill battle that will make it hard to succeed. But he is willing and able which may be a unique combination of qualifications in this circumstance. I suspect my position that the ban is too harsh is well known, but I do not support making any changes to the ban at this time, or calling it a two week ban. It's a six month ban until (when and if) the community in open discussion develops consensus to change it. Two weeks is February 20th. Let's revisit then. --xixtas 14:12, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - The events of the past several hours have been, uh, rather odd. First just to set the record straight, "Elephant in the Room" is an expression meaning "the obvious thing we're not talking about", and I did not mean to imply anything about Panic's animal nature, large nose, or the lack of either. It was an unfortunate play on words, and I offer my apologies to any who misunderstood it. On another record-straightening note, the wheel-warring last night is a very dangerous game, and Xania and Withinfocus should both bear in mind that Robert did discuss undoing my block of Panic before he did it, and I made it clear that whether or not Panic was blocked was up to him, since he had taken over.

My original blocks of Panic were meant to simply stop him in his tracks, in order to discuss things with him before things got re-heated, which became a lot easier to do after bug 8001 (which allows blocked users to edit their pages... I had originally pushed for that in order to prevent unintended collateral blockings of IPs using autoblock, but it works well for this too). I've said before and I'll say again, Panic is a human being who obviously cares deeply about the book he's contributed to, and I'd rather see him here than gone. However, he has a long history of not getting along with other contributors, which has been a detriment not only to the book he cares so much about, but to the wikibooks community as a whole because it's just hard for us to deal with this sort of thing (Wikipedia, for example, would have just banned him long ago and moved on to the next problem).

My offer is still open, and I still think it's a good approach. If it's decided that I'm not the right guy to do this, that's fine, but I think it would be a good idea if someone talked him through this, because whether he indends to or not Panic seems to attract and/or cause trouble, and at the moment he insists that it's everyone's fault but his own.

My intent in bring this up here on the staff lounge was to get some discussion of this "on the record and in the open", since words like "consensus", "unilateralism", and "conspiracy" are being thrown around lately in a rather meaningless fashion. For now I think it's reasonable to just try to keep talking to him. Above all else, let's please try to keep a lid on the drama. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 16:17, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposition 2.0

While I understand that the events of the past 24 hours might be discouraging to say the least, I think we should not not let the angry words and actions of a few rule us... in fact I think what has happened should only serve as evidence for making a solution now, so we don't have to go through this again.

While my particular style might be a bit off-putting to those who aren't used to it, I assure you that my only interest is to try and get this thing settled so that we can move on to other things (which might or might not be bigger and/or better, depending on your point of view).

I want full community support, so that I can talk to Panic as the community's representative. I need to feel free to use the block tool in this endeavor, but I will not use it punitively or unfairly. I'm asking for a leap of faith now, with the assurance that I will stop if there is an objection. We've talked about 2 weeks... give me that much time, and if it looks unfair after that, I will withdraw.

I will do my best not to disappoint you, but it's not going to work unless I have your support. This can't wait... it won't go away if we ignore it, and some wounds will fester if not treated. Please assume my good faith, and give me a chance to prove my competence. My sole objective in this will be to get User:Panic2k4 to try to be a positive part of this community.

Let's get this done. I need two weeks to do my job without review or comment, and I'm confident that there will be no need for review or comment after the 2 weeks are up. Please indicate your support or opposition. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 01:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Support --Az1568 ^(Talk) 01:39, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Support You have my support, although getting panic to accept this, and then getting him to follow the steps you've laid out is going to be difficult. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 03:00, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Support When and if you block please explain the reason for the block clearly. --xixtas 03:34, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Support You have my full support, Johnny. I really want this to work. Iamunknown 06:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Support Webaware ^talk 06:28, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Support Given what little I know of this, you need not only support but also luck and patience. Here's hoping... Chazz 08:58, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Oppose I wish we'd stop referring to Panic as a problem. Let him be and see how things progress rather than treating him as some kind of cancer that needs curing. Blocking should only be used for vandals and not for content-related "problem" users until they reach the stage where they can be considered as a vandal. Xania ^talk 22:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Support I think it's better for them to try and work it out than just arguing over what to do, and Johnny seems to know more about it than most of us. I do not think that Johnny's intent is to just go after him and look for an excuse to block him again, and I feel that if they can talk and reconcile their differences (which may be difficult but would be necessary before anything could be accomplished as far as what is expected of him and what is expected of us in our relations to him and other contributors) then the whole situation will be much improved.

I'd suggest though, and hope, that Johnny only block based on something Panic says or does outside the negotiation, we're all a little heated lately and Panic, I'm sure, isn't the only one who's violated civility policies in the midst of discussions, especially as this drags on. Johnny has been patient, to be sure, and I think will use the tool wisely.

We can discuss actual arbirtation policy separately, as the previous attempt has clearly fallen apart and IMO there's no use trying to run it through another formal process (or trying to continue this one) until we have some sort of agreement on what the process should be, what the roles of the arbitrators and the involved parties would be, and so on, and that won't occur until we've all cooled off a little bit and looked at things more objectively. Mattb112885 18:39, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I hope I'm interreting the support for this correctly, so here's how I want to proceed:

1. I've asked User:Herbythyme to provide oversight for this process. He's not been involved in this so far, and can act as a moderating force if I'm seen to be too pushy (though I hope I won't be seen that way).
2. I'd like Panic's block to remain in effect until he makes it clear that he understands his part of why he's gotten into so many overheated disputes, and agrees not to play that part any more. This isn't a punitive block, it's intended rather to provide some space and time for this conversation to take place without new conflicts arising (or old ones continuing).
3. I'd like him to agree to something like a contract, where he commits to try to avoid these conflicts in the future, and agrees to ask for help from a neutral party if a heated conflict comes about again dispite his efforts to avoid it.

Herby has some conditions he wants met too, but I'll leave that to him to lay out. For my part I just want to get back to working with Panic so that it can be resolved quickly and satisfactorily. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 16:10, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

You will not succeed if you keep Panic blocked and continue to treat him as some kind of rehabilitation case. By all means discuss the problem but an indefinite block (which is what it is) is not right and against Wiki policy. I note that you have support from a majority of users who've voted so that means you can proceed but it's unlikely to get us anywhere. My advice to Panic would be to seek help from the stewards as I think his block is against policy and this is his only way to return to the project. Xania ^talk 22:04, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Xania, please just give it the benefit of the doubt for now.... it might not work, but then again it might. This sort of block is not against wikimedia policies, and Panic has already gone to the stewards twice: that's not an answer (and if you had made only a bit of effort to look into the situation, you would have known this... you're assuming an awful lot of bad faith here, and you really should do some research before doing that! I'm not an immoral person, and neither is Herbythyme, and you should be ashamed of youself for suggesting otherwise). If you have a better idea and/or are willing to get involved in working towards a solution, then please put your ideas on the table and do the work. If you're not willing to invest the time and effort, then please just let those who are willing give it a try. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 23:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

What we have above is clear community support for these actions, and I find the proposition that Panic should ask for the stewards to overturn this decision to be pretty offensive! What is the community worth if we can just ignore clear concensus? Blocking a problem user is not against wikimedia policy, but ignoring community concensus is against our policy. Decisions here are made by concensus, and attempts to undermine that, or to ignore it, or to abuse it, show very poor judgement on your part. I'm pretty disappointed in this last comment, Xania. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 23:51, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

No offense was intended but Panic is not a vandal and therefore does not deserve to be indefinitely blocked from editing. I was happy to support SBJohnny's proposal but the threat of a permanent block was completely inappropriate. He was blocked for 2 weeks for the original offense. He appealed this block and this then went to arbitration (which was subsequently abandoned) and instead a decision was taken by one Wikibooks user that Panic should be blocked for 6 months. No clear reasoning was given. The result of the arbitration should have been ever unblocking, a reduced block or the original block reinstated. Users should not be punished just because they decide to object to their punishment.

The actions and language used against Panic recently remind me of Wikipedia and they are the sort of thing that turn people away from Wiki sites. Everyone needs to think about their actions and realise that this is not some major crime but instead someone who has disagreements about editing a book.

I see that activity on Panic's talk page has died down over the past week suggesting that he's taking a break. I also intend to leave the Wikibooks project for the timebeing as the atmosphere here has turned very sour and the whole project is being ruined. I can't support a project which treats people this way. Xania ^talk 00:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

What you are calling the "original offense" was Panic's 3rd block. Panic was a repeat offender with a history of not getting along with other contributors. While Johnny did block Panic for 2 weeks, it's become commonplace now for admins to second-guess each other, and to adjust the time of blocks imposed by other admins. The idea behind this last block is to fix the problem, not to ignore that it ever happened, or to be particularly mean. This block is only nominally indefinite, it is the plan of everybody involved that Panic be blocked as soon as everybody reaches agreement on the issue. Panic's talk page has been lonely because panic has stated he was taking a wikibreak for 2 weeks to "cool down", which is an excellent first step for him to take (and a good indication that the block will not last much longer then 2 weeks). The only sourness that I see is from the few people who insist that community is unimportant, and that concensus is not necessary. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 00:24, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Panic is not a vandal and should not be banned. But the community at large has clear and valid grievances, including his confrontational editorial style and agressive talk page refactoring. Maybe this is time for a blocking policy similar to the English-language Wikipedia? --Iamunknown 17:47, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I find your recent actions of bringing Herby in dangerous. I haven't commented on this issue for some time but by bringing in another user to "head" the process you are just prolonging this and by how I see it sending this right back to the beginning again. I don't recall seeing any mention of an "oversight" user in your above proposal and others here might not even agree to this action. -withinfocus 18:27, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

To be clear, I just want to make sure the community approves Herby to come in and "watch" the process. The community should agree to the idea of an overseer and as Herby being the specific user to do this. I don't want to make a discussion of this, it's just my opinion that this be approved here before discussing things with Panic. Thanks. -withinfocus 19:12, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] HT's bit!

I have stayed out of the dispute by and large. However I do see it as very necessary to resolve it for the community's benefit. I agree with much of what Johnny says and it seems the community feel the same. As there seems to be few folk active and uninvolved I am prepared to get involved BUT there are conditions.

1. I see this as trying to find a way to get Panic to be part of the community on the community's terms. I am not interested in investigating or passing judgment of Johnny's actions. With 20:20 hindsight I have no idea what else could have been done or if anything could have been done differently. My understanding of Johnny's final block was that it was to buy time to come up with a way of resolving the situation - Wikibooks:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive1#Block_review_needed does not imply a fixed block but one that in Johnny's words needed review.
2. Panic should remain blocked until we get agreement from him on how he will work with the community in future.
3. I'm not keen on saying this but in view of what has happened in the past the community need to agree that my view will be final and binding. Frankly I will not waste my time otherwise and I am not at all tolerant of knife wounds in the back.

I understand this seems rather strongly worded however the history of all this seems to suggest anything less may not resolve the situation and might lead to difficulty - I will help but only with full community support --Herby ^{talk thyme} 17:08, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment I don't understand why we need Herby to provide over site. For better or for worse the community is already involved and already 'overseeing' this process. I will not object to reasonable moderate remedies that I agree with. However, I will object to extreme remedies without substantial justification. This applies whether the remedies are from SB Johnny, Rob, Within Focus, Xania, Herbythyme or anyone else. My view is that someone who's back is "sensitive to knife wounds" is bound to have problems in this process. One of the reasons I support handing this back to SB Johnny is that he keeps getting stabbed over and over and is still coming back for more. A friend of mine used to say on occasion "Don't invite a preacher to a street fight."

If we are going to have a binding arbitration, there needs to be a process and actions of all parties to the dispute need to be reviewed. I fundamentally disagree with "what I say goes" style remedies, unless there is some process and background that provides transparency and makes the reasoning behind the decision clear. --xixtas ^talk 13:29, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

OK - no full community support so I guess that answers it for me --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:37, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Good points, but to extend your metaphor, it's not bad to have a preacher on hand to keep the street fighter from getting too rough :). Herby's "oversight" duty here is just that... someone who will keep an eye on the process, and perhaps nudge us along if we get into a log jam. I'd really like to stop discussing this on the staff lounge, so I think having a neutral party keeping close watch on it can serve as something of a proxy for continual discussion here (anyone else is of course free to comment (this is a wiki), but I'd rather not have this sort of public debate before every word and act. Herby is fair but tough, and he'll be a good lookout. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 13:38, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Huh, Herby must have posted between when I read and when I posted (I have a hard time with the tiny edit window text sometimes). I guess that's that then, but I still hope Herby will keep a watch over the process in an "unofficial" capacity.

If Panic does not make an effort towards doing his part in resolving this situation before his block is over, I will reblock another 2 weeks. If there are concerns, please discuss this with me on [[my talk page... I want to get this done quickly and quietly. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 14:34, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikibooks:Editorial board

I've been writing up a proposal for a new "editorial board" here on Wikibooks. The basic gist of the proposal is that we would have a standing editorial board whose job it would be to edit and revise some of our better books, and prepare them for distribution.

Such an editorial board would not have any additional authority per se, but they would represent a concerted effort to move some of our books to the next level of "goodness" in an organized way.

Some of the specifics of the proposal might definitely need to be changed, but I think the idea of such a board is sufficiently valuable that we should find a way to make it work. All comments or suggestions on this would be highly appreciated. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 15:31, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

like the sound of this proposal and blieve that it would be a good thing for wikibooks.Urbane User (Talk) (Contributions) 08:27, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration, my role, and the Wikibooks "community"

I would like to point out that I did not feel that the arbitration process I laid out necessarily needed to be agreed upon "by the community". Darklama, SB Johnny, and the rest were welcome to join in if they felt that they needed to say their piece, but I set the whole thing up mainly to deal with Panic and provide a forum for him to express his concerns. And to let him know clearly the gravity of what he is being accused of. This really was mainly an agreement between myself and Panic on how to shed light on what really happened, and to try and do some real fact finding. As I also tried to point out on several occasions (unsuccessful it seems), I was also trying to insulate Panic from abuses that would normally put an administrator at a huge advantage over an ordinary registered user.

That admins do from time to time, perhaps even inadvertently, throw quite a bit more "weight" around is a fairly documented fact, and one of the reasons why some individuals seek adminship if only to have that status and to avoid getting pushed around.

While I admit that what I was doing did set a certain preceedence here on Wikibooks, I also said repeatedly that this was a single unique situation where apparently many previous forms of informal arbitration had simply failed. That there was a group of people who were seething with anger about what Panic had done could also be seen, and perhaps that is what I also failed to take into account. If the wording of the various parts of the arbitration platform were offensive or seemed in appropriate (such as "plaintiff" and "defendant"), I did ask on several occasions, both on IRC when I first set it up, on Textbook-l, and other places that it was a Wiki and that anybody was free to change the terms. And I pleaded strongly that somebody might come and "soften" them down if they didn't like those terms. Since this is something comparatively new, I just made an initial framework using the form of a traditional debate. Even now (other than the fact that the pages have now been protected from editing) there is no reason to presume that I intended this to be the absolute final format or the way it would always be done here on Wikibooks. I should note especially that I was not the one who protected these pages from either being edited, or being renamed. I wasn't even sure that I wanted to put Johnny's name on the case name, but used his name merely to try and scare Panic a little bit into realizing that this was a very serious matter.

What I was trying to accomplish here was to seperate the comments made by Panic and the others who wanted to also say their piece. As happens quite often on Wikimedia discussion pages, threads can be jumbled together where arguments go flying and it soon becomes very difficult to even follow a conversation. By setting it up into a traditional debate format, it made trying to follow the arguments much easier, and it allowed a more elaborated response by everybody involved.

One thing I absolutely did not want to have was a discussion page that would go back and forth endlessly with point and counter point and rebuttals going back and forth on and on ad nausium. Particularly given the nature of the arguments, and the fact that just on User talk:Panic2k4 this sort of discussion has been going on for many months, I didn't see that starting another page using that format would necessarily even have an end at all. I guess I succeeded on this point beyond my wildest dreams because it soon became very apparent when the discussion finally ended.

I should note that Panic did not question the "hiatus" that I had taken which was apparently part of the whole misunderstanding here. What I was trying to do was to write an opinion of fact to try and determine what exactly Panic had done that had necessarily been against Wikibooks policy. With all of the personal attacks going on (on both sides!) and the absolutely huge number of edits that were involved, it was going to take more than a quick glance and write a reply in a few quick minutes.

I didn't expect the viseral attacks that were being made against me personally about even trying to set up an arbitration in this particular format. That there were people who didn't like the format and even the idea of having a formal abritration at all here on Wikibooks was quite apparent. I pleaded patience, and got instead heated words and warnings on my user talk page urging me to abandon the whole process.

I should also note that I had hoped that any sort of decision on what sort of action to take should have been a consensual decision, and a process that would have also included Panic and those who were sympathetic to his side of the issues as well. It certainly would not have been a unilateral decision that was made seemingly in the dark by those who were completely unsympathetic to Panic. It is very unfortunate that this portion of the arbitration process I laid out was never even tried, or given the opportunity to succeed.

Two basic fundimental editing/admin philosophies that I do have worked against me here as well: I will not engage in an edit war with anybody. If you revert content that I have added to a module/article/entry, I will not try to put it back. But you should be prepared to hear from me on the talk page where I will try as hard as I can to defend why I added the content and force the person who made the revert to defend exactly why they removed my content.

I will also not engage in wheel warring at all, ever. While there are a few times in the logs that might appear as wheel warring on the part of my account, I would suggest that you look quite a bit deeper and try to put them into context. As for my unblocking of Panic, I did that when I had achieved a general agreement from the user who put the block on there in the first place. And while SB Johnny wasn't too happy with the format of the arbitration, he was willing to give it a go and did concent to allowing Panic to be unblocked. Perhaps I should have insisted that he do the unblocking instead, and that may have been a mistake on my part to give the appearance of wheel warring. That was not my intention, ever.

At this point, I don't know what to do here at all. SB Johnny has decided that he wants to restart the arbitration along a completely different set of lines, and is trying to gain concensus, somehow, for a set of rules to allow Panic back into the Wikibooks community. There are several others including some very notable administrators who don't want me to go back to the arbitration process I started and try to finish the thing.

Fine. If that is the general opinion of the general Wikibooks community, I can live with that. Unfortunately, for what I felt could have been something resolved in the next couple of weeks at most, I feel is going to be a persistant and long running problem on Wikibooks, and this situation unfortunately is quickly moving to the point that it will merely be unresolvable.

I also have been pushed to become a staunch defender of Panic instead of being a neutral abitrator, mainly because I think he is being bullied. I'm not trying to use that word in a derrogotory fashion against any particular user here, but I do feel that the actions of several individuals are now conspiring to push Panic completely out of Wikibooks entirely with no chance for any redemption. I also feel that allowing this sort of behavior here or anywhere is something that should always be fought against. Panic is not the first nor will he be the last "problem user" that will pop up here on Wikibooks, and there has been far too much blood letting here on Wikibooks anyway that has pushed out major sections of our community.

User blocks are to be used to protect the community from blatant vandals who deliberately try to change content and put obscene pictures, words, or other completely unrelated content into prominent pages of the Wiki. This is a very powerful tool, which is one of the reasons why we are generally very careful about who we even allow the opportunity to have the tool as an option. Attempting to silence a "problem user" is an easy way out of what really is a social problem, and something that requires education and leadership.

Besides, in spite of other new tools such as the "checkuser" privileges and other things to combat sock puppetry, I don't see a legitimate way to completely remove somebody from Wikibooks. Blocking an account is only going to get somebody angry and pissed off, perhaps to the point that they are willing to engage in blatant vandalism with the added advantage that they know some of the soft spots of our Wiki here. This is not something we need in general. Even if you link IP addresses with user blocks, you still aren't going to be able to stop somebody determined to cause real harm, if that is what you are trying to prevent. I know I can access the internet through at least six completely different IP address ranges by completely different ISPs. It just turns into a fun game to try and piss off the admins instead, and try to find new ways to cause aggrivation. --Rob Horning 23:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand why this is on the Staff Lounge. I'd like it moved since I find it essentially entirely about someone's personal opinion and quite soapbox-like. This should be on your user page. If the community would like your stance on the issue or your rationalizations about how you were involved in this, they can inquire on an individual level. Having this on our most prominent Wikibooks page is inappropriate. -withinfocus 01:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. This comment is certainly more verbose then the average staff-lounge post, and people do already complain about the length of the staff lounge as it is. However, considering recent events, the negative attitudes that have consumed many of us, and the unfortunate propensity we have all shown as a community to assume bad faith when the going gets tough (even if we do assume good faith when everything is perfectly fine), such a clam and collected explanation of one part of the events is likely the catalyst that we need to begin the healing process. I never doubted Rob's intentions, although I will certainly admit my (rabid) disagreement with the whole process from the beginning. I also would like to post a public apology to Rob, while I have time on this little soapbox because some of my comments to him, while not intentionally so, did come across as overly hostile and even threatening. It was certainly not my intention to be viewed like that, and perhaps I took for granted that everybody here should go to great lengths to assume good faith in all my posts. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 02:04, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Staff Lounge is not meant for personal essays but community discussion. If someone wants to justify their actions then they can do so in a more private place. We're not supposed to have soapboxes anywhere in Wikibooks although we usually don't mind on User pages. This can be done somewhere else, even on the Arbitration talk page if we have to. Besides being plainly against our policies here, this can be a very argumentative issue (as in I and others could criticize several statements in this "essay") and should not be brought up on a page totally meant for community discussion. Opinions like this could be argued for some time, something I don't want to see any more of since this talks largely of past issues. The community does not need sob stories and apologies; you can do that personally. -withinfocus 03:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I think a good bit of what happened on Tuesday had to do with conflicting personalities and misunderstandings of intent, and while I agree that soapboxing is in general not a good idea, those conflicting personalities and misunderstandings of intent did become a community issue, and so some discussion along these lines is perhaps appropriate in this particular situation. The lack of more public discussion before a number of actions (including Robert's, Xania's, and my own) is pretty much what got us here in the first place, so "better late than never" might also apply. The one main advantage I can see to having a "standing arbitration commitee" would be to keep this sort of thing off the Staff Lounge altogether, but since we don't have one (and perhaps shouldn't have one), here seems a good place to discuss it. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 16:52, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Maybe Staff Lounge isn't the best place for this kind of discussion but given recent events I think this can be forgiven. I would like to also say that although I have opposed SBJohnny's recent proposal that shouldn't stop the rest of the community from voting (which now seems to have stalled). The decision shouldn't need to be unanimous and I will support SBJohnny if he gets a sizeable number of favourable votes (which appears to be the case). Also does anyone know of a quick way to sign posts because Italian keyboards don't have the tilde key! Xania ^talk 17:26, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

(Xania, have a look at w:it:Template:Benvenuto... we have the same button on the edit window) :P. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 18:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks SBJ! Never saw the button until now. That'll save a lot of copying and pasting for sure. Xania ^talk 00:14, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

While Staff Lounge tends to be more a a short question/response (aka more like the help desk) or a short announcement, it is also one of the few places that tends to have the full attention of Wikibooks users. I don't know where else to realistically post this. Textbook-l doesn't get nearly the same coverage either, and perhaps it should have been there. Posting something like this on my user talk page (while many people to for some reason or another read that nearly as a public forum) wouldn't simply show the hows and whys of what happened. And this, for whatever reason, seems to have become such a huge issue that it has nearly shut down the rest of Wikibooks altogether. There are much bigger issues here than trying to smooth down the feathers of a few users, and this is something that clearly got way out of hand. I also tend to be rather wordy (I know that!), but there was some huge misunderstanding in part because some people didn't get all of the fine details when instead they jumped to conclusions... including myself. --Rob Horning 00:16, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

For all intents and purposes, the textbook-l is basically a dead medium. Efforts in the past to advertise the mailing list (including posts on the staff lounge, and a note in the newsletter) were failures. While it does get used on occasion, I dont think it's reasonable to expect any messages to be posted to the mailing list, or to expect that a message so posted will be read by anybody. ---Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 00:37, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I signed up for the mailing list and intend to discuss import site-wide things there. I hope you and others will too. --Iamunknown 06:45, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I certainly will discuss things as they come to my inbox, but if you are starting a discussion and it is your intent for a large number of people to read/respond, then textbook-l is not the place to do it. I could probably count on two hands the number of active wikibookians that make use of that list. You would get far better coverage on staff lounge for most discussions. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 17:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My thoughts on Arbitration Committee proposal

It's a good idea, but for now we don't need it, maybe in the future. A mediation group would be a good idea, though, I'd be able to help out with that. Does anyone else agree?? --SunStar Net 23:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

There has been a dispute that has upset several of the best people in Wikibooks (on both sides of the dispute). A formal procedure would allow everyone involved in a dispute to know where they stand. The previous dispute was worse than it might have been because there was no formal procedure, people fell out with each other when any procedures were operated and started warring over procedure as much as the original dispute. So, I dont agree, we need an arbitration procedure now, before the next dispute. RobinH 12:13, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Not being involved in the dispute, I'm a bit blind to that action, but I think that as soon as a formal procedure is in place, people will start to use it, which is a bad thing. In our 4½ years, we've had only a handful of disputes that would be considered serious. All other times, we've been able to work through the issues and come to a consensus. If we establish a formal tribunal, some of the worktogetherness will be lost. Gentgeen 23:54, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

What actually happened is that the admins who were trying to deal with the dispute started on each other because there was no procedure. This is crazy and has led to the demoralisation of some excellent Wikibookians. If we avoid this issue of creating proper procedures we will find that whenever a fierce dispute occurs it will damage the whole project again. RobinH 10:45, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

So many good points here, it's unfortunate that we are in our current position. User:Gentgeen is right, that people will likely turn to a formal arbitration committee immediately, rather then working through the full Wikibooks:Dispute resolution proceedure. Who will want to take the time to get community concensus when an arbitration hearing will do the work immediately? On the other hand, User:RobinH is right that without a formal proceedure, everybody will have their own opinions on how to handle the "serious" issues, and those differing opinions will lead to new disputes between people trying to solve the old disputes. I think, unfortunately, that formal arbitration is a necessary evil, and the effects of over-use of the system are insignificant compared to the problems it will solve. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 00:48, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

A stipulation for arbitration should be that everything in dispute resolution has been tried and failed to produce a resolution. Arbitration is not generally over-used on our sister projects, and I do not believe it would be over-used here either. I think Wikinews has had an arbitration process in place for about a year and only ever used it twice. -- xixtas ^talk 03:16, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with this stipulation and have added it to Wikibooks:Arbitration_Committee and to Wikibooks:Arbitration. RobinH 12:08, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] See also

Wikibooks:Arbitration

Wikibooks:Arbitration_Committee

Wikibooks:Dispute_resolution