Wikinews talk:Requests for arbitration/Brian New Zealand vs. Amgine/Proposed decision

I don't understand all these layers of templates, they cloud the issue. -Edbrown05 06:50, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree, I find it very formal. This may be useful on 'pedia, but I think its overkill here. Bawolff ☺☻[[image:smile.png]] 05:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
 * However, there is a very good reason why. All decisions made here (or on WP) are used for guidance in future activities on the site. Making those decisions, and the way they were achieved, in a way which is ready for archiving will also make them more accessible for people in 3 months or 3 years to find the evidence, the arguments, and the decisions. -  Amgine | talk en.WN 05:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I find that the templates clarify the roles of the various parties and provide clean work areas for the various stages of the arbitration process... The /Workshop pages are basically glorified discussion pages where anyone -- involved parties, arbitrators, or just interested folks -- can enter the discussion and provide input to the committe... The /Proposed decision page (this page) will remain relatively clean with only those elements which actually have a chance of succeding are presented (really, an arbitrator can place anything here, but it helps to have the wording worked out before placing proposals on this page). Arbitrators only should edit this page as this is where the actual decisions will be voted on. When our decision is reached, the adopted elements will be placed on the main page of this arbitration -- where it is clear what the arbcom has decided. As I've said, it's important that our decisions be clear and to the point -- with little room for interpretation. Our decisions will be the basis by which policy is interpreted and applied.

Let's give this a chance, please. I think if we proceed slowly and deliberately and let the templates guide us, our final product will be clear and easy to understand. --Chiacomo (talk) 05:19, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

A bit more commentary: the formality is a bit overkill for this. If it were only going to be this case, I'd suggest doing away with them. But I agree with Amgine and Chiacomo that it is a good thing to keep a standard form for these decisions, so that they can be easily archived and referred to. While I hope you won't need to look back at them much, and probably you won't need much in the way of formality for a while, it's probably unrealistic to expect you won't ever. I don't intend to push Wikipedia's way of doing things on you, it's been useful to have a standard structure to refer back to, as well as to make sure all the relevant bases are covered rather than accidentally missing something in a more freeform process.

Of course commentary and explanation aside is good too, and for a committee that doesn't get 15 cases a month, desirable to give more time to each!

I also recommend keeping the final decision page clear until all the proposals have been discussed and voted on as a committee, to make it more clear what the committee decides as a committee and what is proposed and discussed by individual members. On WP it gets cleaner as it goes along -- the workshop is a free-for-all -- everyone's ideas get play, and wording gets changed and debated. The proposed decision is the ones that are ready to be decided on, though minor changes still happen, and the final decision is presented once after everything else has been hashed out and the committee decides it's finished. The Workshop page is a fairly new thing on Wikipedia, but it's helped to make the process more transparent and give more chance for community input -- though some cases where there isn't much dispute go straight to proposals on the proposed decision. It's your call if you want to follow this, of course, but I think it's turned out to be a useful system. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 06:09, 15 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I find the decision-making style runs counter to Wikinewsie desire for immediacy. This is a community that is less deliberate than an encyclopedia. When an issue arises, it is with alacrity that it should be resolved so that the more pressing matters [news] can be the focus of time spent in the news room. -Edbrown05 05:27, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
 * We're not bogged down because of the templating system -- we're bogged down due to lack of participation. Let's try to push each other more if we feel we're not moving quickly enough. --Chiacomo (talk) 05:46, 19 March 2006 (UTC)