User talk:Badbilltucker/Admin Oversight Board

Note that "oversight" on Wikipedia refers to the removal of specific revisions from page history, for purposes of e.g. hiding personal information. (Radiant) 12:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Point noted. I was using what struck me as being the more common general usage, like when a police board is said to have oversight over the activities of the police. My apologies for any confusion that I may have mistakenly fostered. Badbilltucker 14:27, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps "Admin Review Board" to avoid confusion? ---J.S ^(T/C) 20:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Not to go all legal or anything, but a neutral review board for a certain position and/or occupation (of course, we're not paid, but it's the closest thing :) is an ombudsman. Perhaps Administrator Ombudsman would be a more suitable title? Anthøny 21:28, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

My thoughts

It seems to me that this proposal is redundant to a number of other processes.

• Request for Comment - an administrator's behavior can be reviewed in a request for comment, just like any other user. When users are acting in good faith and are open to solutions this type of proceeding usually resolves disputes.
• Mediation Committee - Again, in the instance that a admin's behavior is in question, mediation can be used to find a solution.
• Binding Arbitration - Finally, if nothing else works there is the Arbitration Committee which is empowered to remove administrator privileges, if the need is there.

Given the above, what more would your procedure offer? Yes, the above process is slow, but it also serves to eliminate many of the frivolous complaints. ---J.S ^(T/C) 20:57, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

While it may be redundant, the essential purpose proposed is that it would be, as it were, separate from the admins. I know that there are over 1000 of them, but people have already created conspiracy theories involving larger numbers than that, so it might be possible for one to develop here as well. The essential "nut" of the proposal is that, hopefully, any attorney thinking of filing formal legal charges against a specific admin for a client who may have been blocked, suspended, or otherwise believe themselves mistreated might be less likely to do so if the admin were found to have not acted improperly by a group of non-admin editors. Considering the mess that such a lawsuit would make of wikipedia when and if it is every filed (and I am personally virtually certain that sooner or later it will be, America being as thickly populated with lawyers as it is), I think that maybe a small process like this one, which hopefully would be set up in an appeals process like that used by the US Supreme Court, to handle appeals of earlier decisions only, might be enough to prevent that from happening. If the attorney were to think that the judge would be likely to view the decision of the AOB as being a fair one, it is that much likely that the lawsuit would ever be filed. And preventing the filing of the lawsuit in the first place seems to me to be possibly one of the most important things that could happen. Badbilltucker 14:50, 23 January 2007 (UTC)