Moulton arbitration request Options

[michael]

There's currently a request at WP:RFAR to review Moulton's indefinite block. I'm a bit confuzzled. No arb has yet voted on whether to accept it or not, and I know they're active - the Episodes and characters RFAR just went from evidence fo voting. Will he win a reprieve like Ferrylodge? Or will he be sunk like Iantresman?

[Amarkov]

Well, the arbitrators are starting to reject it, pretty much saying "no, it doesn't matter if the RfC was unfair".

I don't get all the "Moulton thinks Wikipedia is online journalism" stuff. The verifiability policy is pretty clear; demanding that things be verifiable is the way in which Wikipedia should try to get at the truth. From where did the strange idea here come, that trying to publish true information is bad?

[Moulton]

Well, the arbitrators are starting to reject it, pretty much saying "no, it doesn't matter if the RfC was unfair".

Note how this ties into the Durova case, because, while my RfAr focuses attention on the rigors of diligent and conscientious due process for all, the respondents are simply saying, "It doesn't matter that we routinely short-circuit due process, we desperately wanted this guy banned and that's the desired and essential bottom line of this RfAr."

I don't get all the "Moulton thinks Wikipedia is online journalism" stuff. The verifiability policy is pretty clear; demanding that things be verifiable is the way in which Wikipedia should try to get at the truth. From where did the strange idea here come, that trying to publish true information is bad?

To my mind, that's a key question for ArbCom to address. I clearly stated my primary objective in the RfC as "achieving a respectable level of accuracy, excellence, and ethics in online media, especially when the subject at hand is an identifiable living person." The adversarial editors had to dance around their reasons for rejecting that sincere and good faith objective of mine.

Essentially they are saying that I failed to discover an effective way to achieve that goal within the rules and constraints of the Wikipedia system, as they administer them.

Which is true.

One possibility is that it's simply infeasible to achieve that goal within the operable constraints of the system.

Even those who spot errors in their own profiles can be reluctant to address them. In April this year, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and academic Douglas Hofstadter told the New York Times of his Wikipedia entry, "[it] is filled with inaccuracies, and it kind of depresses me." When asked why he didn't fix it, he replied, "The next day someone will fix it back."

If Hofstadter's prescient analysis is right, it would confirm that my expressly stated objective is infeasible.

With respect to my request to ArbCom for a review of the formulaic script that short-circuits the rigors of due process, Kirill opines:

Nothing here that indicates potential for improved behavior.

This post has been edited by Moulton: Thu 6th December 2007, 3:16pm