Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-233706-20150624014033/@comment-8-20150703132216

First of all TheChickenLawyer, please don't use the n-word here. I understand that you are using it as a black person and in the same context as it's often used in lyrics, but it is not appropriate in any context on Wikia.

Believe it!: I've been one of those volunteers, I was on the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee before joining Wikia. That's not a role I would recommend to anyone. But saying that, we already do use volunteers to resolve disputes: admins. And if that doesn't work, we allow disputes to go to a higher authority: the community.

Of course many people going through that system will not be satisfied with the result, they wouldn't be if staff looked at every case. They are always going to be biased in their own direction (we all are) and see things differently than others.

That's also why requiring the user to prove their case isn't enough. You need both sides of the story, and a lot of looking at contributions and history to get the full picture. What the user thinks is irrelevant might be the thing that gets to the root of the dispute.

Anyway, I feel this thread is winding down now, so I will be moving on. But I will say that I got curious, and looked into the two main disputes mentioned here. And, as it happens, I see the bans as valid, and the reasons for them understandable.

Believe it! and TheChickenLawyer if you want to hear more on this, we can talk either in a new thread on my wall (one each) or privately via Special:Contact. (Others, if it goes to my wall, please don't join that thread, I would prefer it to be one-to-one)

I'm bowing out of this thread now, I have explained the reasons for us dealing with disputes the way we do, even if you don't agree with those reasons. I'm actually writing this at 32,000 Ft over Iceland, and I want to see if chat works up here too ;)