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Revision as of 15:58, 7 December 2024

This Arbitration Committee has been mentioned by a media organization: Ramey, Corinne (May 7, 2018). "The 15 People Who Keep Misplaced Pages's Editors From Killing Each Other". Wall Street Journal.

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Recruiting new arbitrators

Although this might be a topic more suited for Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration Committee Election, it has fewer than 30 watchers, so I'm starting a thread here (and it can be moved elsewhere if desired). A number of current and past arbitrators have expressed a need for more arbitrators to take on certain tasks. Previously I started the Misplaced Pages:Arbitrator experiences page to collect links to descriptions of the work done by the committee, to help potential candidates better understand what they will need to do. Is there interest in having a more targeted pitch to prepare candidates, and that can talk about particular challenges that need specific skill sets? Beyond availability of time (which is a hard thing to manage with Misplaced Pages's volunteer environment), spreading the workload seems to be an ongoing problem. Are there any ideas about how to attract users willing to do some of the less desirable chores? From the outside, it's easy to see the drawbacks; from the inside, though, is there a way to sell the upside of being an arbitrator? isaacl (talk) 18:46, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Historically, the committee has tried and failed at having specific roles, such as WP:AUSC and WP:BASC. I had no involvement with AUSC, but I was on BASC in 2014 and it worked like this: an appeal would come in, and either one arb would reject it out of hand, or one or two arbs who may or may not be on the subcommittee would comment on it, it would sit there for a while, then maybe one more arb would comment on it and eventually someone who again, may or may not be on the subcommittee would action the result and reply to the appelant. This process often took close to a month. Shortly after my term expired I proposed reforming the subcommittee to something that actually worked, but, to my surprise, we wound up getting rid of it. As of last year it worked essentially the same way, just without the pretense that there is a subcommittee. Just Step Sideways 19:06, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

A subjective impression of mine is that arbs who focus on back-of-house tasks tend to be less visible and possibly as a result tend not to be re-elected as frequently. I opposed getting rid of the BASC, preferring to reform it into something that required fewer emails prodding other arbs to actually make a decision one way or another so things didn't drag on for months, but that was not the consensus of the 2015 committee. I get the impression that there still isn't great workflow management because nobody has been able to get past the intertia. I wonder if there is a sweet spot for changes to things like this - not too early in the year so new arbs know how things currently work, but not so late in the year that enthusiasm for innovation hasn't waned? Thryduulf (talk) 19:35, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

We are currently bouncing around half a dozen ideas to improve workflow. Each has their pros and cons though. I'm definitely interested to hear thoughts from Arbs who were on the Committee during the subcommittee times, because one idea is to institute a sort of tracking subcommittee to ensure we don't lose things. Not saying I endorse it or oppose it, we are in the ideation phase here and need honest feedback. I've elaborated on other ideas at ACE and will probably elaborate more here as things continue. CaptainEek ⚓ 19:43, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Workflow discussion is great, and I've tried to encourage it before (as well as in my thread regarding IT support). If you prefer, I'll leave this thread for that, and start a new one regarding recruitment. isaacl (talk) 20:08, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps this is the year that this will change, but I've been of the opinion that the best way to recruit more candidates for ArbCom is to have more admins (since that's who the community has, to date, shown a willingness to elect). In terms of the good things about being an arb: you can make close connections with your fellow arbs, you get to have conversations you wouldn't otherwise (this for me is one of my favorite parts of being an arb), and you can leave the committee with CU/OS if you want. But I think if we can fix the admin pipleline issue (and the October admin elections are promising in that regard) I think ArbCom is suddenly in better shape since a person who is like "I don't really have the time but if no one else runs I will" doesn't have to run because others do, where as now I think some people who are in that category of time end up running rather than waiting for a better time. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:20, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I started to write something about the administrator elections, as I agree about needing a flowing pipeline of expertise, but deleted it as I wanted to focus on the recruitment aspect to fill immediate needs. Each year we seem to hear, well, we could have used more people doing X. I think we should be more active in letting the community know about those needs up front, both for candidates to know and emphasize in their statements, and for voters to consider. isaacl (talk) 20:27, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Something I've thought the committee could use is a coordinator, or maybe two coordinators. No special authority or anything like that, the job would just be to keep track of current committee business and prod the committee, or specific arbs if they aren't particpating, to keep things moving forward. Some arbs have done this in an unnoficial capacity in the past.

I also think procedures could maybe be changed to automatically declare an arb inactive on any matter where they have not particpated in seven days, even if they are otherwise active. This would possibly avoid the sort of things we've seen where ARCA threads and even proposed decisions languish for far too long due to low particpation from arbs who are still listed as active overall. Just Step Sideways 19:12, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

RRfAs

Could all arbitrators please attend the current recall RfA and inform the community that: your role involves an oversight role of administrators. Recalls and admin behaviour might be submitted to ArbCom, so you will not be commenting on or publically evaluating RRfAs during your ArbCom tenure. Cheers, SerialNumber54129 22:11, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129 Speaking for myself, I had recognized that RRFA editors might end up before us, and thus consciously have not engaged with the facts of any particular RRFA. That is much in the same way that I don't engage at AE as a sitting Arb, because we might hear an appeal from it. Is there some particular aspect of the current RRFA that has prompted this request? CaptainEek ⚓ 22:22, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

ArbCom members remain members of the community while on ArbCom, and have just as much right to discuss RRfAs as anyone else, though they then take the burden on themself of whether they might need to recuse at a later date. There is nothing different about RRfA than any other discussion elsewhere. Izno (talk) 22:54, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm with Izno on that point. I don't think we have to force Arbs to not participate at RRFA. They just take on the risk of recusal. CaptainEek ⚓ 22:58, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

You are as usual dead right Cap'n. But it seems important enough to post about. Let us flaunt our neutrality like Switzerland 🤪 SerialNumber54129 22:59, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I thought that was odd as well, but not to the point where it was worth making a big deal about it. Anyone who has been on the committee can doubtless recall a time where the shied off from commenting or taking action at an ANI thread or whatever because the issue might end up before the committee later. As Eek said, you can make the other choice and then you need to recuse if and when it does reach the committee. Of all the things that were said at that RFRA, this is hardly the weirdest. Just Step Sideways 22:58, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Add subst: to /alert templates in the Templates section of contentious topic pages?

In the Template sections of the contentious topic pages for specific topics (example, they're all defined here) all of the /alert templates are templates that should always be substituted. I suggest those be changed to include the subst: so that people don't make the same mistake I did by just copy and pasting it.
It should be as easy as changing all 3 instances of {{tlx|Contentious topics/alert...}}} to {{tlxs|Contentious topics/alert...}}}.
I'm near certain this is an uncontroversial change that I could just request, but I'm asking here instead (without the edit request template) because these instructions are part of seemingly all WP:CT/... documentation/supplement pages. – 2804:F1...0C:E4C5 (::/32) (talk) 01:38, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

 Done, thanks for the suggestion. SilverLocust 💬 09:15, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

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