Review Board, Proposal to oversee checkuser, oversight, and the ArbCom Options

[Cla68]

If this was brought up in another thread, my apologies, but in case it wasn't, Coren is proposing to establish a review board to oversee checkuser, oversight, and ArbCom actions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Review_Board

In just two days the proposal has received a lot of attention on its talk page. I'm reserving judgement for the moment, although I'm generally in favor of anything that provides more oversight over WP's administration than currently exists.

[GlassBeadGame]

If this was brought up in another thread, my apologies, but in case it wasn't, Coren is proposing to establish a review board to oversee checkuser, oversight, and ArbCom actions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Review_Board

In just two days the proposal has received a lot of attention on its talk page. I'm reserving judgement for the moment, although I'm generally in favor of anything that provides more oversight over WP's administration than currently exists.

It won't work. It needs to be independent of the community. This will only provide another layer and opportunity to recapitulate the dysfunction. Solutions will only come with the humility to accept that the project needs skills, knowledge and perspective only found in the outside wider world. This is a concept that is completely alien to web 2.0 that sometimes I think I'm the loneliest person not just on Wikipedia but on Wikipedia Review as well. I might as well sit here and watch the show while these vines grow over my head.

[Cla68]

If this was brought up in another thread, my apologies, but in case it wasn't, Coren is proposing to establish a review board to oversee checkuser, oversight, and ArbCom actions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Review_Board

In just two days the proposal has received a lot of attention on its talk page. I'm reserving judgement for the moment, although I'm generally in favor of anything that provides more oversight over WP's administration than currently exists.

It won't work. It needs to be independent of the community. This will only provide another layer and opportunity to recapitulate the dysfunction. Solutions will only come with the humility to accept that the project needs skills, knowledge and perspective only found in the outside wider world. This is a concept that is completely alien to web 2.0 that sometimes I think I'm the loneliest person not just on Wikipedia but on Wikipedia Review as well. I might as well sit here and watch the show while these vines grow over my head.

You're right, a better solution would be a committee of non-editors.

[Achromatic]

You're right, a better solution would be a committee of non-editors.

So, basically a committee where 75%* of admins would be eligible?

(*not actually a verified amount)

[Milton Roe]

You're right, a better solution would be a committee of non-editors.

So, basically a committee where 75%* of admins would be eligible?

(*not actually a verified amount)

[Hell Freezes Over]

It won't work. It needs to be independent of the community. This will only provide another layer and opportunity to recapitulate the dysfunction. Solutions will only come with the humility to accept that the project needs skills, knowledge and perspective only found in the outside wider world.

I agree. Several people have suggested that the Foundation hire external contractors to act as checkusers, in which case we hopefully wouldn't need a review board. I know the proposal had high-level support, but it went nowhere, presumably because of money.

In the absence of that, we have to find a way to make the review board independent of the people it might have to investigate. The only viable way to do that is to have it elected by the community alone, with no arbcom involvement, and to ensure that no-one who's been on the arbcom, checkuser, or oversight mailing lists is allowed to stand. But both these proposals have been rejected so far.

[Lar]

It won't work. It needs to be independent of the community. This will only provide another layer and opportunity to recapitulate the dysfunction. Solutions will only come with the humility to accept that the project needs skills, knowledge and perspective only found in the outside wider world.

I agree. Several people have suggested that the Foundation hire external contractors to act as checkusers, in which case we hopefully wouldn't need a review board. I know the proposal had high-level support, but it went nowhere, presumably because of money.

In the absence of that, we have to find a way to make the review board independent of the people it might have to investigate. The only viable way to do that is to have it elected by the community alone, with no arbcom involvement, and to ensure that no-one who's been on the arbcom, checkuser, or oversight mailing lists is allowed to stand. But both these proposals have been rejected so far.

I said on wiki already that I disagree about (2). Require a hiatus, perhaps, but trust the community to elect good folk.... barring anyone who has ever been a CU strikes me as a bad idea. I've just now on wiki said I think you're right about (1) though... I'm not seeing how there is sufficient separation of powers if ArbCom is involved in selection.

[everyking]

Definitely a positive step and I hope it gets implemented. I also hope to see more thinking of this sort from the new arbs. Some rule about incompatible functions would be good; obviously you shouldn't be a member of the review board if you also occupy one of the functions that the review board is tasked with overseeing. I'd actually like to take that a bit further and say that some other functions should be incompatible, just to address the problem of power concentration; if you want to be a bureaucrat, you shouldn't be a checkuser or an arbitrator, for example.

[Lar]

Definitely a positive step and I hope it gets implemented. I also hope to see more thinking of this sort from the new arbs. Some rule about incompatible functions would be good; obviously you shouldn't be a member of the review board if you also occupy one of the functions that the review board is tasked with overseeing. I'd actually like to take that a bit further and say that some other functions should be incompatible, just to address the problem of power concentration; if you want to be a bureaucrat, you shouldn't be a checkuser or an arbitrator, for example.

Can you elaborate on why? 'crat seems a pretty harmless role really.

Ombudsman == NOT a current CU or OV
This review board == NOT a current CU or OV or AC (even if the remit is narrowed to exclude AC activities)

[Cla68]

It won't work. It needs to be independent of the community. This will only provide another layer and opportunity to recapitulate the dysfunction. Solutions will only come with the humility to accept that the project needs skills, knowledge and perspective only found in the outside wider world.

I agree. Several people have suggested that the Foundation hire external contractors to act as checkusers, in which case we hopefully wouldn't need a review board. I know the proposal had high-level support, but it went nowhere, presumably because of money.

In the absence of that, we have to find a way to make the review board independent of the people it might have to investigate. The only viable way to do that is to have it elected by the community alone, with no arbcom involvement, and to ensure that no-one who's been on the arbcom, checkuser, or oversight mailing lists is allowed to stand. But both these proposals have been rejected so far.

I said on wiki already that I disagree about (2). Require a hiatus, perhaps, but trust the community to elect good folk.... barring anyone who has ever been a CU strikes me as a bad idea. I've just now on wiki said I think you're right about (1) though... I'm not seeing how there is sufficient separation of powers if ArbCom is involved in selection.

You all are right on. Unless the proposal removes ArbCom from the selection process, I can't support it.

[UserB]

I agree. Several people have suggested that the Foundation hire external contractors to act as checkusers, in which case we hopefully wouldn't need a review board. I know the proposal had high-level support, but it went nowhere, presumably because of money.

In the absence of that, we have to find a way to make the review board independent of the people it might have to investigate. The only viable way to do that is to have it elected by the community alone, with no arbcom involvement, and to ensure that no-one who's been on the arbcom, checkuser, or oversight mailing lists is allowed to stand. But both these proposals have been rejected so far.

Yeah ... the problem is that power corrupts. Adding another layer of power isn't the solution.

I am much more in favor of dissolving arbcom and having cases heard by randomly selected juries selected from a pool of any willing admin. That resolves the need for a review board too - if there is an allegation of checkuser abuse, the jury can sort that out.

[everyking]

Definitely a positive step and I hope it gets implemented. I also hope to see more thinking of this sort from the new arbs. Some rule about incompatible functions would be good; obviously you shouldn't be a member of the review board if you also occupy one of the functions that the review board is tasked with overseeing. I'd actually like to take that a bit further and say that some other functions should be incompatible, just to address the problem of power concentration; if you want to be a bureaucrat, you shouldn't be a checkuser or an arbitrator, for example.

Can you elaborate on why? 'crat seems a pretty harmless role really.

Ombudsman == NOT a current CU or OV
This review board == NOT a current CU or OV or AC (even if the remit is narrowed to exclude AC activities)

As I explained, it's about concentration of power. Users can become virtually invincible by acquiring various functions, even if it's just a matter of stature and influence rather than the exercise of serious responsibility. But even if we don't agree on that, I think pretty much everyone could agree that membership on the review board should be incompatible with the functions that the board is tasked with overseeing.

[Lar]

I agree. Several people have suggested that the Foundation hire external contractors to act as checkusers, in which case we hopefully wouldn't need a review board. I know the proposal had high-level support, but it went nowhere, presumably because of money.

In the absence of that, we have to find a way to make the review board independent of the people it might have to investigate. The only viable way to do that is to have it elected by the community alone, with no arbcom involvement, and to ensure that no-one who's been on the arbcom, checkuser, or oversight mailing lists is allowed to stand. But both these proposals have been rejected so far.

Yeah ... the problem is that power corrupts. Adding another layer of power isn't the solution.

I am much more in favor of dissolving arbcom and having cases heard by randomly selected juries selected from a pool of any willing admin. That resolves the need for a review board too - if there is an allegation of checkuser abuse, the jury can sort that out.

Why just admins? Some of WP's wisest folk are not admins. I almost would say go pure random not just willing (self selection bias)... I believe Kelly Martin has expounded that here.

I would tweak so that some sort of metric is used where the more recent edits you have, the more likely you are to be selected so you're not randomly selecting folk who are gone, or very sporadic or whatever.

[Sylar]

May I ask, who the fuck cares? (Well, that answer should be obvious.) Wikipedia is just some shitty volunteer MMORPG/Internet encyclopedia.

[Moulton]

Are people really seriously looking into the radical notion of introducing such unheard of features as Due Process, Evidence-Based Reasoning, Civil Rights, Separation of Powers, Checks and Balances, Presumption of Innocence, Trial by Jury, and Ethical Governance?

Surely you don't expect adolescent Wikipedians to learn to adopt such restrained practices after becoming intoxicated with the Machiavellian power of Lord High Executioner and Pogrom Manager?

[EricBarbour]

This is absurd. No doubt, Gerard and FT2 and a few others are fighting behind the scenes to oppose this initiative. I predict that the resulting "review board" will be made up of admins with entrenched power-bases enwiki. Yes, they SHOULD use outsiders for a review board. But it will upset the "balance of terror", and a lot of arrogant people (you know who) won't accept being overruled by outsiders.

May I ask, who the fuck cares? (Well, that answer should be obvious.) Wikipedia is just some shitty volunteer MMORPG/Internet encyclopedia.

And you're one of its top paladins. Or perhaps just a bad case of roundworm.

[Coren]

This is absurd. No doubt, Gerard and FT2 and a few others are fighting behind the scenes to oppose this initiative. I predict that the resulting "review board" will be made up of admins with entrenched power-bases enwiki. Yes, they SHOULD use outsiders for a review board. But it will upset the "balance of terror", and a lot of arrogant people (you know who) won't accept being overruled by outsiders.

I don't think we're at the point where outsiders would be a workable solution, strictly speaking, but the selection process has no requirement of being an admin or even an editor with more than one edit to their name. Nothing prevents the community from filling the candidate pool with external consultants (and I could see a good argument being made for having at least part of that board seats filled with professionals with little or no involvement in day to day affairs).

But, for the record, FT2 is pushing for this just as hard as I am (and, indeed, had a hand in crafting the proposal), and David Gerard has yet to chime in on it at all.

-- Coren

[CharlotteWebb]

Why just admins? Some of WP's wisest folk are not admins. I almost would say go pure random not just willing (self selection bias)... I believe Kelly Martin has expounded that here.

I would tweak so that some sort of metric is used where the more recent edits you have, the more likely you are to be selected so you're not randomly selecting folk who are gone, or very sporadic or whatever.

That's a reasonable idea and definitely worth a try. Just put some kind of random-user-generator on the toolserver. Obviously the source code would have to be open for scrutiny, and the queries would have to be logged so we'd know if people don't just keep rolling till they get boxcars.

Or imagine being able to drop a note at User_talk:JuryBot saying "give me 12 for the 'Episodes and Characters VII' case" or "turns out FrenchInhaler is too busy, give me 1 more for same".

You could theoretically instruct it to avoid users who, even if uninvolved in the dispute, have editing patterns which betray a significant interest in "episodes and characters" or significant interaction with any of the involved parties.

Or given the nature of this case the bot could randomly pick a preliminary pool of 120 active users, rank them according to some kind of inclusionism/deletionism/mergism score and then formally select the 12 who appear to be in middle (or every 10th one evenly spaced, etc).

Possibilities are endless and the selection does not have to be instant. Obviously it would require continuous perfecting but any randomly selected bad pool would still be fairer than a self-selected bad pool.

The goal is to leave nothing any one user could do to make their self more likely to be selected for a certain case (only less so by venturing too close to the dispute).

May I ask, who the fuck cares? (Well, that answer should be obvious.) Wikipedia is just some shitty volunteer MMORPG/Internet encyclopedia.

And you're one of its top paladins. Or perhaps just a bad case of roundworm.

I guess that's a very roundabout way to say "troll".

This post has been edited by CharlotteWebb: Tue 23rd December 2008, 4:49pm

[Peter Damian]

[...] sometimes I think I'm the loneliest person not just on Wikipedia but on Wikipedia Review as well. I might as well sit here and watch the show while these vines grow over my head.

Jonah chapter 4, verses 6-11, yes? God makes a vine grow over Jonah's head while Jonah waits for the destruction of Nineveh.

But in the end, God spares Nineveh. Just as the vine grew over Jonah's head, without Jonah labouring for it or tending, so Nineveh has grown up, with more than 120,000 people.

[Doc glasgow]

Are people really seriously looking into the radical notion of introducing such unheard of features as Due Process, Evidence-Based Reasoning, Civil Rights, Separation of Powers, Checks and Balances, Presumption of Innocence, Trial by Jury, and Ethical Governance?

Yes please. Let's have all of these.

(And while we are at it, can we have a flag, airforce uniforms and a national anthem too?)