User:FT2/Arbcom the punchball

This page is an educator on the Arbitration Committee.

Tens or hundreds of thousands of people edit English Wikipedia each year, including many FAC writers and almost 2000 administrators.

Even so, and despite annual explanations of the workload and requirements of the role at each Arbcom Election, few people who haven't served, have any real idea what ArbCom handles for the community.

Arbcom is the punchball

Yes, that's for real. Regardless the historic reasons dating back to a small growing wiki-community, the current reality is that ArbCom exists so the editing community can work.

Some simple math:

• English Wikipedia is a "top 7" site and has 3 million articles, with some 100,000 active editors. If 99.9% of those are benign or able to be handled by community process, there will be a few hundred who aren't or can't. People who think nothing of blackmail, threats, socking, gaming, and find others of like mind.

• Even in a 99.9% good community, the community stays that way primarily because Arbcom handles a large part of the s**t in the background and when issues do become a problem they can be escalated to the Committee to handle and allow the community to focus on content.

The "dark side" of how some people act is not usually believed by most editors until (if elected) they actually experience it for themselves, and this page isn't about pulling punches. Among the denizens of the Internet are some virulent, deceitful, vicious, implacable, twisted, relentless, abusive, tendentious, retaliatory, sociopathic, fanatical, and aggressive individuals. The community might be large enough to absorb them... except on topics and themes they want to war over. Unfortunately that can actually mean virtually any topic that has an article.

Every year certain themes come up:

• Arbitrators and ex-arbs explaining how much workload and hostile aggression the role will entail, and the high burn-out rate.
• The community (or parts of it) suggest:

1. Ways to get round it that ignore the basic problem itself and hence usually are not workable, for reasons Arbitrators know and most users haven't the knowledge to realize;
2. That Arbcom isn't needed or takes on too much dominance, often claimed by users who aren't aware how much the community is shielded from problems this way, or who feel "somehow it will be taken care of on-wiki by the wider community". Bad news: in many cases it can't and won't.

The wiki-editing world can often be nice and its users often idealistic, seeking to volunteer time to provide free knowledge and resources worldwide. That's what most would like. It can also be an aggressive war zone when contentious issues arise, which we know and accept. It can also very occasionally be hellish, which most don't. The community is protected to a very large extent from the most serious impact of the latter by its Arbitration Committee (and to a lesser extent its Checkusers and Oversighters) effectively enough that to an extent, many don't realize what's there and being kept away from disrupting it. Even so enough gets through to keep the admin team busy and routinely cause upset to some editor or other. The difference is that the most serious matters can be delegated or escalated, removed from the community, which can then edit more and manage less.

Within the community, Arbcom is the punchball. It draws the heat from many of these matters, handles the issues that logistically cannot be handled in a public venue (harassment, privacy, and allegations that would identify people). Those who volunteer are some of our best, as rated by the community, and they pay a high price. Many will cease editing temporarily or permanently, or burn out, from the role; a number never make it past 6 months or a year. This page explains why, and why despite this the punchball is probably needed so the rest of the project can go about their project matters in their desired way.

What Arbcom handles

Arbcom handles tens of thousands of emails, dozens of serious and often highly contentious and politicized disputes between factions of users and admins, all "last resort" matters where a user wants to be sure they got a fair hearing from the community or checkusers, all final appeals and unban appeals, all harassment cases, most pedophilia advocacy (ongoing pedo sock farm handling usually being delegated to ex-arbs), a lengthy list of tendentious "hard banned" users and sock-puppeteers which keeps growing and which would heavily disrupt the community if not pruned and checked, and a wide range of supervisory and advisory matters.

Arbitrators, who are volunteer users like anyone else, are usually hit hard when they first meet this full-on after election. The best advice to an incoming arb is simple: plan to drop absolutely every other activity on-wiki for 3 months, until you have a handle on the job. Expect harassment and threats. Expect abuse. Expect malicious claims and blackmail attempts from a few malicious people. Expect deep thanks from users who have been able to be helped, and from the community that hopes you will help it in difficult issues. Expect to emerge from it either burned out, or more somber, hardened and wiser. Expect internal near-civil war 2 or 3 times in the year, when a tough issue or heated words cause a divide. Expect colleagues who will act professionally and appropriately despite that, which is a rare thing and one of the main benefits of the rigorous checking done by the community.

What Arbcom doesn't handle

Arbcom is not an executive body. It does not control editing, editorial balance, or bias on Wikipedia. In fact it usually does not handle cases unless very weighty or privacy related. Other than supervising WMF tools and the occasional proposal, Arbcom does not usually act other than in response to a member of the community or third party specifically asking for help, review, or input in a matter.

The annual life-cycle of ArbCom

1. Shortly after the start of the election, front-runners will start getting emails from banned users sounding out the likelihood of an unban if the candidate is appointed.
2. Election results shortly after the election, followed immediately by "new joiners"
3. Honeymoon period for a few weeks, unless some major case comes up
4. Stress, burnout, and workload will start to tell on some privately, within a month (primarily due to the relentless email load).
5. By May perhaps 1/3 to 1/2 of the new intake will have considered resigning, and some will actually have stepped down or retired.
6. By June there will have been one, perhaps more, major internal schisms and civil wars over some matter or other.
7. By October those who have not been burned by the workload or other sources of attrition are mostly seasoned. With 2 months until the next change of tranche, arbs often find themselves working with renewed energy to hear cases and fit in as many remaining activities and other matters as can be fitted before December (and/or retirement).
8. In November Arbcom Election starts.
9. By December Arbcom's business comes to a near halt, because many will be leaving, and the Committee is rightly reluctant to make major decisions on cases and issues given that a tranche of new arbs who will have to work on them will arrive in a couple of weeks time.

Experience and learning curve

Arbcom members are as diverse as the community. Some will want to be hardline on all abuse, some softball everything, for example. More subtle distinctions are drama avoidant or "grasping the nettle", draconian or repeat chances, and the like. The same applies to many issues.

Arbcom is an excellent educator if a rough one - users who arrive not quite prepared will learn a lot from their peers on the job, as they see cases happen and how others view them. The immersion in the peer decision-making process is a very quick educator and most arbs fit into their role very quickly.

One common trend is that the range of human nature (good and bad) begins to be seen and understood better and cluefulness is gained if it was missing in some area before. This means seasoned arbs both AGF and "discuss first" more easily, and also call a halt to games more readily too in the face of a game player or a repeated story that doesn't stack up. There is more experience to work from and they have become seasoned in the role.

Arbcom's internal culture

In general, Arbcom has a very high standard internally. Rumors to the contrary, arbs spend most of their time trying to help resolve user problems and issues. Three major problems arise with this, probably to the frustration of anyone who has ever served on the committee.

1. Committees are tied down by their own nature. They are consensus bodies that cannot move unless a sizeable number of members agree. In Arbcom's case there are a dozen or more members, each of whom are volunteers, have multiple tasks, may be firefighting or away or sick, or may be burned slightly and tired. Consensus seeking is difficult because at any given time these conditions may affect a number of arbs. As a result urgent, or very serious, or very quick matters get attention, but other matters have at times failed to get more than a limited response -- even though individual arbs may be pushing or themselves frustrated by it. It's the nature of committee consensus to be vulnerable to this problem.
2. The committee is voted by the community and reflects the community. In issues where the community is divided, so often will the arbitrators be. Despite this they have to find a "best solution", that's their job. It is often not easy, and a compromise or a "step at a time" approach may be all that can work exactly as in the wider community. It can be highly stressful to feel frustrated by ones peers from a solution one feels right. This again stems from Arbcom being representative, with all the benefits and difficulties that may imply.
3. People handle stress differently. Sometimes there will be strong words and hurt feelings. It happens. Not often, and that's a testimony to the quality of community voting. But a few times a year, it will.

Cases themselves have changed over time. At the start most Arbcom cases were simple matters, now largely handled by the community, and rulings were correspondingly simple. Its case workload is now much tougher and larger, and cases now tend to include a high proportion of much more serious matters, large scale disputes, and "politically charged" issues (in the sense of being fraught with drama creation, very heated and divisive, and involving active members of the community).

So why would anyone be an arb?

Most arbs are not "hat seekers". If any were, the job would rapidly discourage them. The reality behind the scenes is that most (to date and at 2010) are there because they honestly want to make it better and to help. They see a problem and would like to fix it.

It's very tough. But it can be rewarding.

Realism is essential.

Why write this? Because people volunteering should know what the job entails, and those not volunteering should perhaps be a little more understanding of the dynamic, and a bit more somber when considering the role and those who offer to do it.

Post-script for conspiracy theorists

• Arbcom is not a spokesperson for WMF or Jimbo. WMF and AC cross-communicate only as needed, on the few occasions a legal or public facing issue comes up relating to the local project, and for many years now Jimbo has very much taken a back seat and can be weeks or months between commenting on the arbcom mailing list (he usually does so to add a voice of wisdom or seek input himself)
• Arbitrators do not spend their time taking sides. They have more serious concerns to address. The internal dialog in a case, no matter how intense, is almost always purely about trying to reach consensus how best to meet the community (or an individual user's) request for help in a matter, and to balance the delicate and often heated principles, claims, pressures, and concerns that are usual in most cases.
• Any other conspiracy questions, see #1 and #2.

See also

• Wikipedia:Arbitration
• Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee elections
• Wikipedia:Dispute resolution