QUOTE(Herschelkrustofsky @ Sun 17th July 2011, 4:54pm)
The ArbCom, having tested the wind and smelled the aroma, will now back away from any discussion of Cirt's activities, especially since he has demonstrated a sincere commitment to apologize for his POV pushing each time he is called on it, before he resumes doing it.
Yes. Eventually they may do something, if pushed hard enough. And when they do something, it is too much.
It is as if they were given blasters with three settings: Admonish, Desysop, and Ban. They have no concept of creating easily enforceable remedies, they wouldn't know one if it bit them on the ankle.
They admonish, then, with no care for actually determining that the editor or sysop actually understands the issues and will refrain from the activity in the future. They rarely suspend tools, i.e., order the sysop to restrict tool usage, and they certainly don't set up enforcement provisions for this that are not in themselves disruptive.
So an admin apologizes. They often don't even bother to look for that! Great! So, were I an arbitrator, I'd ask the sysop for suggestions on what to do if an agreement is violated, how it will be interpreted. I'd ask the editor to name what seems to be mostly called a mentor on Wikipedia, someone trusted by both the editor and ArbComm, to intervene if the editor violates the agreement, with an ad hoc ruling. And I'd allow any admin to enforce that decision, immediately, under Arbitration Enforcement rules, all subject to appeal through some reasonable appeal process. If this was a sysop, the status would be suspended, i.e, there would be an order issued, probably by the mentor, to cease all tool usage as described, immediately, and if this was violated, tool removal would be immediate. The steward would simply look at a small set of references to the policy pages and to the agreement by the sysop involved.
For something like an example of how this might work, see the
standard stop agreement that I agreed to as part of my current request for custodianship, stalled because of SBJ's opposition. In it, I make, effectively, all other Wikiversity my mentors, should they choose to act. A similar agreement could cover adminship on Wikipedia, with a named mentor, who would have the right to name additional mentors, and provisions could exist for ArbComm-appointed mentors if the position becomes vacant, i.e., the original mentor is no longer active.
Truly resolving disputes on Wikipedia requires flexible options, but those have generally been considered ineffective or abandoned or impossible. Lack of imagination, lack of willingness to try new solutions.