Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee

RfC: Ability of Jimbo Wales to amend or grant appeals to ArbCom remedies

At Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy#Appeal of decisions, it is stated that:

Appeal of decisions

Any editor may ask the Committee to reconsider or amend a ruling, which the Committee may accept or decline at its discretion. The Committee may require a minimum time to have elapsed since the enactment of the ruling, or since any prior request for reconsideration, before reviewing it. Remedies may be appealed to, and amended by, Jimbo Wales, unless the case involves Jimbo Wales' own actions.

This RfC seeks the community's opinion on the following question:

As Wikipedia approaches its 15th birthday, is it still appropriate for Jimbo Wales to hold the power to amend or grant appeals to remedies set by the Arbitration Committee, an elected body?

Jimbo Wales's additional ceremonial role in appointing the members of the Committee is not within the scope of this question.  — Scott • talk 13:42, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

• Has he ever actually used his ability? And how many times has he declined to use his ability (i.e. Rejected appeals)? –xeno^talk 14:53, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
• It's clear to me that there ought to be some way of appealing to someone other than sitting Arbcom members. Whether Jimbo's talk page is the right venue is more doubtful, but I would oppose removing this provision without supplying an alternative.—S Marshall T/C 15:15, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
• I'd say that some sort of supermajority admin vote might be justified as an appeal. Something around the 3/4rs mark in favour of overturning. We cannot remove appeals without an alternative. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 15:32, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
• Either way, removing that means amending the arbitration policy. And that isn't easy.--Müdigkeit (talk) 15:46, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Ratification and amendment Once adopted by the Committee, this policy will undergo formal ratification through a community referendum and will enter into force once it receives majority support, with at least one hundred editors voting in favour of adopting it. Until this policy is ratified, the existing arbitration policy remains in effect.

Amendments to this policy require an identical ratification process. Proposed amendments may be submitted for ratification only after being approved by a majority vote of the Committee, or having been requested by a petition signed by at least one hundred editors in good standing.

I doubt arbcom would be willing or able to approve the submission of a proposed amendment before the new year, even if you had a proposed amendment. So my suggestion if you really want to do this is

• 1st come up with a proposed amendment
• 2nd find 100 en-Wikipedians in good standing, willing to sign such a petition
• 3rd get ready for the opposition once the proposed amendment is put forward for ratification.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:36, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove Jimbo's authority, but replace it with something else first. It's far past time for one man to able to overturn the arbitration committee. However, there needs to be a safety valve for the rare cases when 1) the Committee gets it wrong in a big way, 2) it is unlikely that they will consider an appeal or treat an appealing party fairly, and 3) "waiting for the next election before appealing" would do more harm than an immediate appeal. We should have a larger RFC to consider possibilities. Here is one possibility that comes to mind:

• Allow appeals to an ad-hoc committee made up of all past and present ARBCOM members and bureaucrats (plus Jimbo) who are are "un-involved" and in good standing and who choose to participate in a given case, provided that the case is "sponsored" by at least one more eligible Wikipedian than the number who voted against the appealing party in the most recent ARBCOM action. In other words, if I am appealing a decision I lost 6-4, the case would have to be "sponsored" by at least 7 eligible Wikipedians (i.e. past or present ARBCOM members, past or present bureaucrats, and Jimbo) before it would even get out of the starting gate. Even then, the ad-hoc committee would need to be formed, it would need to accept the case, and eventually vote on it.

Whatever safety valve is put in place, I would anticipate that the 3 conditions above would very rarely all be met and as a result appeals to a "third party appeal board" would almost always fail. However, there needs to be a way to appeal and the proposal I offer above seems more "democratic" than having this power in the hands of a single individual. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 16:16, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment Per xeno, I'm unclear as to whether this addresses a practical or a theoretical issue. If theoretical, this RfC seems pointless. Coretheapple (talk) 17:00, 19 December 2015 (UTC)(Am aware of the GMO appeal, but unclear whether Jimbo has ever actually ruled one way or the other on arbcom decisions) Coretheapple (talk) 18:21, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
• Comment - First, this isn't a well-formed RFC. However, second, regardless of whether the policy states that the WMF can review or reverse ArbCom decisions, the WMF can review and reverse ArbCom decisions, as a matter of corporate law, because the WMF owns the servers and has ultimate control. So appeal does exist to the WMF. Jimbo's talk page is as good a place as any to state an appeal to the WMF, but it should then be presented as an appeal to the WMF, not to Jimbo himself. Third, if, as it appears, this does have to do with the GMO case, the real problem there is not that there was anything wrong with the decision. In my opinion, the decision was suboptimal, but more or less reasonable. The real problem is that the GMO case divides and polarizes the community even more than most ArbCom cases (and the ArbCom accepts cases that divide and polarize the community and so cannot be decided at WP:ANI), and that many editors are unhappy about it because there was no possible decision that would leave everyone satisfied. In conclusion, the WMF does have ultimate authority. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:53, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Jimbo's talk page is the last place I'd go to communicate with the WMF. There's a whole listing of the WMF bureaucracy at wmf:Staff and contractors -- and even if you guess wrong and contact the wrong person it's been my experience they'll refer a question to the right person. Per WP:CGTW #6, Jimbo's talk page is for grandstanding wiki-political rhetoric, not anything particularly useful. (Except for the rare occasions when someone simply wants to ask him a actual legit question.) NE Ent 16:01, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
• As a general comment, I think that the idea of the alternative appeal going to the WMF, with Jimbo serving as a sort of figurehead instead of as the actual entity that can overrule ArbCom, is a good approach to be taking. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:12, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
• Comment I am the editor whose posting on Jimbo's Talk page probably generated this discussion. Whilst this discussion may or may not be needed, there is no doubt it is prejudicing my appeal. I respectfully request the OP that this RfC is temporarily withdrawn and redacted until Jimbo has made his decision on my appeal, and then re-posted.DrChrissy ^(talk) 20:47, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
• The final appeal should be to a person, both in form and in reality. The WMF may in practice have the technical ability to over-ride arb com by doing whatever it wants to the computer files. It has the technical power to over-ride all WP policy also, if it wants to use it, up to the point at which the Board would presumably stop it, for that's where the actual final authority is, not in the programmers or the executive director. That doesn't mean we should say in policy that it is permitted to do this on the enWP. DGG ( talk ) 22:11, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
• I would like to expand on Robert McClenon's well-thought-out "the WMF owns the servers and has ultimate control" comment. If things became very very bad (far worse than any on the present WMF members would ever allow), we as a community do have the ability to essentially fire the WMF. The way to do this would be to [A] create a new site to replace the present Wikipedia, [B] copy all of the current Wikipedia content over to the new site, and [C] convince the vast majority of editors, administrators, and readers to move to the new site.

A and B are easy. Dozens of sites have done that already. See Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. We even have a FAQ explaining how. See Wikipedia:FAQ/Forking.

C is very, very hard. The WMF would have to do something very, very bad before the majority of admins, editors and users would be willing to leave. This is not going to happen over some Arbcom decision that some folks dislike. Charging $29.99 per month to access Wikipedia would do it...

An example of a website where this happened was Digg. First, the Digg legal team made a decision about DRM and copyright violations that was badly out of touch with what the community wanted.[1][2] Next, Digg failed at keeping paid spammers from influencing what content made the home page, with the result being that ordinary users never made the front page, but by paying the right person well over $1000 you could be on the front page at will.[3] This in turn was followed in by Digg failing at keeping political POV pushers from controlling the results.[4][5] All of this was made far worse by dig rolling out new untested versions of their base software that made it easier to game the system, and stonewalling user complaints about the new software.[6][7] The end result of this series of missteps was most of the user base abandoning Digg and moving to Reddit.[8]

None of this is likely to happen here (although the bits about the legal team digging in their heels about DRM and the software team digging in their heels about rolling out unwanted software make one pause), but in theory we could be on a new Wikipedia with a new name and new management a year from now if the WMF does something that we as a community simply cannot tolerate. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:14, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

The idea of more than one Wikipedia, or of a Wikipedia War Between the States, is so bizarre that I am not sure I can function for the remainder of the year. Meanwhile, I think Mr. Chrissy may have a point about this RfC prejudicing his completely hopeless appeal to Jimbo, so perhaps this can be tabled for the moment. Do I hear a second? Hearing none, the motion is adopted. Coretheapple (talk) 23:06, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Parli Pro was never your thing, was it? Carrite (talk) 16:18, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

How did you guess? Coretheapple (talk) 16:51, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

New information here says I was wrong to close this without waiting for Scott to have his say. Scott, I'm apologizing for jumping to conclusions and for making a decision that was yours to make. However, I still agree with Coretheapple that if this discussion unfairly impacts other discussions and that postponing the discussion a few days or weeks will cure the unfairness without causing worse problems, why not table it? I'll say it again: I was wrong to make that call - the call is yours to make. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 00:32, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Ok - as the RfC has been reopened (hopefully temporarily). It is precisely the type of comment made above by Coretheapple that is the reason why this thread should be withdrawn and redacted for the moment. Coretheapple states that this thread should be tabled. That is fine, but they then go on to state that my appeal is "completely hopeless". Why put this negativity into the discussion? They are prejudicing an accepted method of my appealing an ArbCom finding. I reiterate that I have already appealed to ArbCom on the basis that it is unacceptable for them to issue a topic ban for an editor when the editor has not even edited in the topic area; ArbCom have not yet replied. That is the basis of my appeal to Jimbo - there has been a complete absence of evidence of me editing the topic area, let alone being disruptive. I also reiterate that I have indicated I am happy for Jimbo not to make any decision until after this matter is dealt with by ArbCom. It might be entirely unnecessary for Jimbo to comment on this ArbCom decision, but the comments unfolding in this thread are most definitely prejudicing my getting a fair appeal.DrChrissy ^(talk) 01:22, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Personal (not Arbcom) opinion:There seems no reason why we cannot debate Arbcom appeal mechanisms at the same time as someone seeks to have an actual appeal heard. Any outcome of this discussion is unlikely to prejudice any decision by Jimbo on your appeal. -- Euryalus (talk) 06:31, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Dr. Chrissy, all I'm saying is that Jimbo doesn't care if you were treated fairly. It's hopeless in the sense that you are unlikely to even get a response from him. (I hope he takes this as a challenge, if he reads this, and proves me wrong.) He takes a bureaucratic approach to things and rarely upsets the apple cart. So therefore, unless someone can point to a case where he has intervened to overturn an arbcom decision, this strikes me as a theoretical argument and a waste of time. But if it is going to be conducted, first someone should attempt to extract from Jimbo whether he plans to intervene in your case or not, rather than his handling this kind of thing as he usually does, by being mute. Good luck with that. Coretheapple (talk) 15:00, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you mean now. Thanks for the clarification. Apologies for over-reacting...a bit of cognitive bias on my part, hopefully understandable considering what is going on at the moment. I do not watch the Talk page so I am not aware of how many appeals are lodged there and how many of those Jimbo comments on. Thanks also for the comment below my appeal.DrChrissy ^(talk) 16:29, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

I saw enough of the GMO arb, which I commented on, to understand how it's possible that they screwed up with you as well. However, people go to Jimbo for "justice" and most of the time he doesn't even bother to answer. Coretheapple (talk) 16:51, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

It's worth a shot. This is no trivial matter, in my view. One involved admin was continually given a pass by ArbCom members on being named a party in the case, despite a number of requests from myself and others. The fact that said admin was handed an interaction ban during the case, after repeated abuses, says a lot. Jimmy, I appeal to you directly: if ever there was a time to step up, this GMO case is it. Jusdafax 17:03, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't think the presence of an admin makes this more enticing for him to intervene, if anything less so. Keep in mind too that his intervention might well boomerang, and he could make things worse. That's why except for one occasion some months ago I never ask him for anything on that page. I view him more as expedient and rather self-centered and not a wellspring of justice. Coretheapple (talk) 17:16, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

• I think the broader issue of whether a body should exist to appeal ArbCom decisions (and if so, in what form) is worth discussing. Should such a body have the authority to completely overturn decisions, or should such a body be solely responsible for ensuring the committee is following its own policies and procedures? After 15 years, yes, Jimbo's role in the project has considerably decreased, and we should look into alternatives. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of the WMF Board of Trustees hearing an an appeal of an ArbCom case, however. I suppose it's possible technically, but I doubt it will ever be done effectively. Mz7 (talk) 20:39, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

  I can think of one type of occasion, but's more along the line of a forced intervention than an appeal from an editor. It would be very ugly and it's almost certain to never happen: If the WMF has reason to believe that the ARBCOM decision was tainted by corruption (I'm talking real-world blackmail/bribery here) or some other factor (an ARBCOM account was compromised and taken over by someone else) AND they have good reason (such as a gag-order from a court due to a pending criminal investigation, or simply advice from WMF legal) to not tell the remaining ARBCOM members what is going on. In such a case they might globally-OFFICE-ban all editors suspected of corrupting the case and order the remaining ARBCOM members to vacate the entire case and, if they wished, start over de novo. Again, outside of the alternative-universe-with-an-evil-ARBCOM trash-fiction novel that I'm not going to write, I can't think of any case where this is even remotely plausible. But as a hypothetical situation, it is remotely possible. I'll place my bets on the Zombie Invasion From Mars happening first though. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:15, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

• Speaking personally, i.e. not for Arbcom, I rather agree with S Marshall's comments way up thread. There should be some way to appeal arbcom decisions, and if that way is not Jimbo then Jimbo must retain us role until his replacement is established and ready to go. There should be a very high bar to acceptance of an appeal, so it doesn't just become a standard step for those who are never wrong in their own eyes.
  I've supported the idea for some time of arbitration cases being heard by a subset of arbitrators, if so an appeal could be made to the remainder of the committee without the bureaucracy associated with some suggestions here. Alternatively, an appeal could be heard by three former arbitrators in good standing, but certainly in the short term there is no urgent need to replace Jimbo imho. Thryduulf (talk) 10:21, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Off-topic here but I want to comment on your suggestion of a subset of Arbitrators handling a case. At best there are only 15 members and often 2 or 3 are technically not active, leaving say 13 active. Some resign and the number drops. Others though formally not active aren't actually very active. A subset of this is going to be pretty small. Even with 15 if you have 2 subsets the maximum number will be 7, so someone could be site banned by 4 Arbs.Not something I'd like to see. Doug Weller (talk) 19:48, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
• In response to the concerns above over whether this is a well-formed RfC – the formal ratification and amendment proceedings are the last step in any arbitration reform. Informal RfCs are useful to establish the community's position on a few issues and to function as a makeshift idea lab. If there is a general consensus here that change needs to occur (i.e. in a replacement of Jimbo for arbcom appeals), we should first solidify what change needs to happen (through more informal RfCs) before taking a formal ratification vote. I agree with Thryduulf that there's no rush. Mz7 (talk) 18:34, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
  • There's one step in between an RfC and a ratification vote that you didn't mention. Under the relevant section of the Arbitration Policy (quoted above by Smallbones), there would first have be either an approval by a majority of the Arbitration Committee, or a petition "signed" by at least 100 editors. Both of these things pre-suppose that there is a specific policy change for which ArbCom approval or 100 "signatures" are being sought. I agree that an RfC could be useful in formulating a specific proposal, though what I see so far is a few different ideas being thrown around (including by the OP) with no consensus developing on any of them. But RfC's are open for at least 30 days (right?) so there is still time. Neutron (talk) 19:03, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure where you think you've seen me put forward any ideas, because I haven't. But you're right that this is intended as a discussion exercise to gauge community feeling. If there seems to be any obvious avenue for movement after a month, then more specific RfCs can be posed.  — Scott • talk 20:43, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
      • Ok, I struck that. I guess I inferred from your question that you were proposing that appeals no longer go to Jimbo. But you're right, you didn't actually propose anything. That may have something to do with the sort of aimless wandering that this "discussion exercise" has been doing so far, but obviously it's up to you. Neutron (talk) 20:51, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
• Comment. In answer to questions above, there is no list kept of appeals from Arbitration Committee decisions to Jimmy, but I'd guestimate that in the past ten years there have been maybe a dozen or so. I am not aware of any instance in which Jimmy has reversed an ArbCom decision. There was one instance in which Jimmy modified a decision, by stating that an editor who had been banned indefinitely could appeal after a certain period of time provided he met certain conditions (but it is not clear how much of a modification this was as a practical matter, since the Committee would surely have considered an appeal after some period of time whether or not expressly stated). I don't have a strong opinion either way on this proposal, but to answer another point raised above, if any change is made, it should clearly not have any prejudicial effect on any appeal that might already be pending. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:22, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

• I would propose the following:

Appeals to any arbitration decisions may be made to a body that includes all current and former arbitrators except:
-banned or blocked arbitrators
-arbitrators whose rights were removed under a cloud
-inactive arbitrators 
-arbitrators involved in the decision, if there are at least 10 arbitrators avaliable otherwise
To make an exceptional appeal, one of the following two processes must be met:
First, a binding decision exists that should be appealed
Then
1. a user can send the appeal text not including sensitive information to someone per e-mail if sitebanned, or directly at the
following page: WP:Arbitration Comittee/Requests/Exceptional appeal.
Any user in good standing who thinks an exceptional appeal seems to be reasonable may support the appeal.
If 50 users in good standing or three sitting arbitrators support the appeal within two weeks, the current arbitration committee is 
being informed.
If they(the current arbcom) decide not to amend the decision according to the appeal,
they have to send it to the body of current and former arbitrators mentioned above. This body may reach a decision, which may include
sanctions to
appeal supporters as well as arbitrators. If the body comes to the conclusion that members of the current Arbitration Committee have
abused their position, they may remove them from the committee. This may trigger an emergency election if there are too few members
left.
2.3 sitting arbitrators can also appeal a decision. In this case, the process in 1. is followed, beginning with a decision of the 
current Arbitration Committee to amend the decision according to the appeal or not.
If the appeal would have to include private information not to be released to the public in the appeal text, or if the appellate body 
is incapable or has rejected the appeal , and if there is serious misconduct of arbitrators that cannot be solved otherwise,  
please contact
legal@wikimedia.org.

This would ensure that arbcom decisions would remain final under normal circumstances, and that very problematic arbcom decisions or outright corruption could be addressed.--Müdigkeit (talk) 10:48, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

That is an extremely elaborate way to ensure that editors who would be far better off just dropping the WP:STICK never do, and can carry on in a way that ensures that the maximum number of other editors continue to be aggravated for the maximum length of time. Former Arbs second-guessing sitting Arbs? Canvassing for 50 votes? Outright corruption? Sanctioning sitting Arbs because you don't like a decision they reached? Cases that drag on for a couple of months followed up by another month or two of bickering over appeals? Dragging Wikimedia Legal into enwiki's user conduct disputes? I'm having difficulty thinking of ways to more effectively remove the last traces of sanity from the Arbitration process. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:08, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

I do not think current arbitrators should be part of any group hearing appeals, because they would be passing judgment on their own actions. I also do not think former arbs should be involved because after their term ends, their "mandate" from the community to decide cases also ends. (Leaving aside any short-term transition rules for completion of cases pending at the end of a term.) They should not be in a position of overruling current arbs. In addition, some of the former arbs are former arbs because they lost in a race for re-election, and/or their term ended and then they ran again in a later year and lost. In their case, it makes particularly no sense for them to be in a position to overrule current arbs. So I don't think the proposed "body" is a good idea. There also was a similar proposal earlier on this page, but it also included bureaucrats. That also is not a good idea because that is not what they were elected for. As for what the solution should be: If we had a "GovCom" (an elected body separate from ArbCom) that was already doing other governing-type things, I would suggest adding the "appeals" function to that group's responsibilities. But I am not going to propose adding a new elected body just for this, partly because it would send a message that appeals are encouraged, and partly because (based on past discussions) I see no chance of such a proposal being approved by the community. Neutron (talk) 16:45, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Remove any and all authority from Jimbo Wales. Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit and owns WP thus no one should benefit personnel like extra authority founder or not. Wales is a board member only and not an exeuctive of the WMF. Grant the authority to the Executive Director or his staff designate. Spshu (talk) 22:33, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

• Pointless discussion. Wales is, and ever shall be, THE FOUNDER and will have more wiki-cred that any arbcom. Because he also has excellent political instincts, he rarely to never has or is going to cause a ruckus by getting involved some petty arbcom dispute. (Five million articles and 113,670 active users means, that, no matter how important a spat may seem to the handful of editors involved, in the big scheme of things, the results /remedy of a particular arbcom case just aren't that important.) NE Ent 16:06, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
• It should be removed from policy because it only unnecessarily confuses people. As recent attempt of appeal demonstrates, co-founder Wales is not going to get involved with Arbcom matters, probably due realization that he has no mandate for that.--Staberinde (talk) 18:42, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
• As I stated elsewhere, I agree that we should remove the authority from Jimbo. He has never used it and never will so leaving it in the policy is just a means for people to gravedance with comments like "Take it to Jimbo!". Maj Turmoil (talk) 20:59, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Joining

How does a user join? Are there any requirements? 174.113.214.250 (talk) 13:05, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Joining the arbitration committee is done by election, see the most recent election results here Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:29, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

You can also note the candidate requirements from the most recent election here Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:32, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

The IP editor should particularly note that in order to run for ArbCom, or even to vote in the election, a registered account with a certain number of edits is required. Neutron (talk) 15:55, 24 December 2015 (UTC)