Wikibooks talk:Arbitration

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection

	Archives
	/Archive

[edit] Appeal

The current proposal suggests that only people who are not part of the dispute can appeal after a verdict. I feel that the defendent should be allowed to appeal if he/she loses their case. A decision is never final and appeals are always allowed in real world situations. We may feel that it's just wasting more time but we have to be fair and those who feel like abusing such an appeal tool would quickly lose interest if there are no signs of ever winning an appeal. Xania ^talk 00:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with this entire notion. The idea of an arbitration is to be final, and there is no sense having it at all if it's just another step that doesnt lead to a conclusion. Arbitration with appeals would just be another insufficient avoidance of the problem. If people are at such a strong disagreement that concensus and mediation have both failed, it is unlikely that the parties involved would "opt" to follow an arbitration decision that isn't binding and is open to appeals. Arbitration decisions should be absolutely final and binding, or else we can just solve our problems in a different way. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 00:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The idea is that the only appeal is to community consensus, and that the appeal would be initiated by the community, not either party. I actually think this is implicit in any process we would create whether explicitly stated or not. The arbitrators serve at the discretion of the community. Xania, if a party really has been wronged, someone will bring an appeal on their behalf. Admittedly, it would be very hard for an appeal to succeed under these terms. This section is an attempt to respond to the concerns expressed by Darklama. Perhaps we could call this something other than appeal. "Community review" or something like that. I think that it is unlikely to ever be invoked, honestly. With the knowledge that the potential is there, the arbitrators will do their best to synthesize the will of the community (which has a forum to be heard under the proposed format) into their decision. --xixtas 03:44, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I revised this section to express the intent a little more clearly. --xixtas 03:59, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I understand the goal here, but I still think it's a bad idea. If we are going to do something serious like arbitration, we need it to be the end of the process.

Consider a situation with two disputants that has degraded beyond a peaceful and productive conversation. The previous steps of this proposal fail, and the two disputants are entered into arbitration. One of them is going to "lose", and the other is going to "win", and it is unlikely that the loser is going to be particularly happy about it. What is to stop the loser from endless petitions and repeated calls for votes and discussions? What mechanism is there to finally make the dispute go away?

Consider the same situation, where the community hears the appeal and reverses the arbitration. Now the "winner" becomes the loser and vice-versa. Is the situation over? If it is over, then the community is the "last word", and we don't need arbitration in the first place. If it is not, and there is yet another appeal, then we've created an endless cycle that produces no conclusion, and causes people to become increasingly combative.

I want a way to bring out-of-control disputes to a final end. I want a way that we can finally say "it's over, now we can get back to our other business", and most importantly I want a guarantee that the endless politicking, fighting, and speading of negative feelings is not infinite. The books here are the most important thing, and if we let ourselves get tied up in an endless judiciary system, we will have lost the time and the energy for our books. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 04:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate where you are coming from. But this is an attempt to forge a middle ground, where the actions of the arbitrators can be overturned but only by consensus of the whole community. Such an arrangement seems implicit in any arbitration proceeding anyway. If the community as a whole contests the decision, it cannot stand. I would be happy enough leaving the community review an implicit right rather than an explicit right, but several users have spoken passionately about the need for community oversight. The proposed solution seems like a workable middle ground to me. Do you honestly think that given the way the arbitration process is set up that there is any likelihood that this provision would ever be invoked? This arbitration process is designed to find moderate solutions that are well grounded in fact and community consensus, and have a number of checks and balances to make sure that happens. If a decision is overturned by community consensus, that would be the end. If the community fails to reach consensus to overturn the decision, then the decision stands. The end. There is no appeal. So the only thing left is the inevitable angry letters to the stewards and Jimbo. If someone wants to lobby for another user to appeal on their talk page, so what? Let 'em. We might want to put some restrictions in place to prevent monkey business. We're obviously not all going to agree on everything, (there are things I don't like about the proposal as is, I would like separate position pages for instance) but finding a common ground to stand on is important. --xixtas 18:47, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

This all just seems to me like a solution to a problem that we can avoid entirely. If the community at large gets the final say in the matter, then avoid arbitration, and get the community involved after the other steps (discussion and mediation) have already failed. I would rather not have arbitration at all then to have an arbitration whose decisions were not binding. Saying that the community is allowed to be involved in an appeal means that many people will be involved in every appeal. If this last issue has taught us nothing, it's that everybody with a voice is willing to jump up on a pedastool and use that voice, often at the (unintended) expense of prolonging conflict. If we say that the community can, it is most assured that the community will, and then why should we waste time at all with arbitration? --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 20:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

At Wikipedia, the community could, but it doesn't. After some success, I believe Wikibookians will come to see the value of the arbitration process just as Wikipedians do. We have seen the alternative, and I don't think anyone was pleased. Regardless I've scratched the section on review and replaced it with some cautionary language in the introduction. --xixtas 03:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)