Wikipedia:RfC Committee
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The idea[edit]
To create a committee that closes content or policy based Request for Comments (RfCs from now on). This new committee would be a sister committee to the existing Mediation (MedCom) and Arbitration (ArbCom) committees. Its role wouldn't be to decide content or policy in general, or overrule consensus decisions made on article talk pages, policy talk pages, noticeboards or elsewhere. It would however close content and policy based RfCs. In closing RfCs, the committee would look at strength of arguments and not just determine the result by counting heads. In the case of content based RfCs, the committee would attempt to ensure the outcome is correct, or at least academically respectable.
The committee would also take on a coordinating role for content and policy based RfCs. This could include stipulating the length of time they would be allowed to run, and moving discussions which have become side tracked. The committee would have to coordinate with its sister committees, ArbCom and MedCom, and with other processes, such as Featured Article Review, relevant wikiprojects, and so on.
Structure[edit]
In order to avoid placing too much responsibility in the hands of too few, the committee would consist of two subcommittees, one which deals with content, and another to handle policy. Members of the committee would be involved with only one of the subcommittees.
Selection[edit]
Members of the committee would be selected by a vote, similar to selection of arbitrators. Candidates would specify which subcommittee they were standing for.
Improvements[edit]
Behind this idea there are a number of goals:
- Greater fixity. At the moment, ArbCom, which is a committee primarily focused on user conduct disputes, can decide to impose a process that decides an outcome, which is then fixed for a specific length of time, such as for example the Ireland naming dispute. This new committee would to a large extent take over this role, and hopefully prevent circumstances where for example an article is almost continuously being renamed.
- Ensuring that contentious RfCs are closed by a panel of Wikipedians.
- To refocus ArbCom on a purely user conduct role.
See also[edit]
Notes[edit]
- Just in case the boilerplate {{essay}} notice at the top of the page isn't clear enough, this is just an essay, not a proposed policy.
- In this essay 'Request for Comment' and 'RfC' refer to content and policy based Request for Comments, not user conduct. The new committee would not have any involvement in user conduct.
- This essay was prompted by a comment made by Iridescent in the 2010 ArbCom election, and comments by Jclemens on the ArbCom mailing list. However, that doesn't mean this essay represents the view of either Iridescent, Jclemens, or anyone else for that matter.