Private Arbitration at sythe.org

I think it would be hard to get two users, one accusing the other of scamming, to cooperate with each other long enough to agree on an Arbiter. Usually, after a scam, the victim is blocked, and PM's are ignored. Thus, staff would end up being the default arbiter of most cases, and the opportunity to argue the proof would take longer to review than the report itself.

Moreover, in the rare case where an arbiter can be agreed, each side has an incentive to choose a friend to support their case. In the court system, the jury is required to be impartial, and are interviewed to insure minimal connection to either side; on a forum, that sort of separation is impossible to expect. Bribery, too, is a lot easier, given the ease with which MSN allows covert communication.

 

This would be a great idea and i support it this will help with allot of fake accusations. But what if the person that has been accused of scamming purposely does not agree with an Arbiter or even stay in communication with the victim?

 

In the real world, the issues are dynamic and complex. There's usually not a clearly innocent or guilty party, and even when there is, there can be a disagreement about what compensation is owed.

Here, you have to assume that in most cases, one of the users is a scammer, and will have acted intentionally and is fully aware of their fault. They're not going to want to sit down in a negotiation, and select their executioner unless they think they can corrupt or stall it. If they do not have someone to bribe, and the system does take more time, staff will still be the natural choice: we're easily trusted, and are more likely to have the approval of the party scammed, and we have lots of reports to answer, so we probably won't get to it as fast (winning the approval of the scammer).

It's hard to find proof of corruption; there are often ambivalent reports, and it would be difficult to fault a judge for his opinion or his insistence that further proof would be needed, even if those judging his decision disagree with it. I occasionally disagree with the rulings made by other mods, but I obviously don't therefore assume that their decision was corrupted.

 

I suggest this should only be done, if the person who is accused of scamming wants to dispute. A large portion of people so far have said that this should be pre-arranged, but in most cases its a hit-and-run situation.

On another note, this system could be used to dispute infractions in addition to bans.

 

I agree with macroman, many scammers doesn't evevn care if they get banned or not, they can easily create new accounts.

I don't get the "middleman" part, does he decide if the scammer is guilty or not? or the final decision is still made by a mod?

 

I think this is a very good idea. The only problem would be how to find these mediators that would not have an opinion based on friendship, or dislike towards another Sythe user. I was scammed $300 today, and the user blocked me. He's getting away with it because nobody can be bothered to even talk to him, and there's no obvious proof. This system would decrease larger scams by a lot. I definitely agree with it.

What some people don't understand on this thread is; this would probobly only be in the case of big scams - not the everyday pin scam you see on sythe.
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Heres an idea...

 

Its an interesting idea but, does sythe have the manpower to do it for everyone who asks for it? because i mean someone within the staff would have to be the judge, or atleast oversee it, and with the ammount of scams that go on it could get a bit hectic.

 

Alright. The idea is pretty good. What I want to suggest is this: we can base this system on the middleman system. There can be officials, and unofficial ones. To become an official, you must go through an application, and be approved by a head of arbitration.

 

But un-official that's just like say regular members can solve disputes, which is unfair.

 

This is certainly ideal for all business matters and needs to be implemented. If any thoughts/specs are needed please contact me.

Email: [email protected]
MSN: [email protected]

PM works as well.

Also agreed. Either official or unofficial, they'll be needed. Everyone benefits off the proposition

 

Personally I think in an ideal world this would be great, but judging from personal experience the scammer will deny everything or just leave and stop posting.

Its a nice idea though.

 

I like this system,but one again there are big flaws such as bribery and choosing a friend as a judge.

 

Did you get the idea from Wikipedia's dispute resolution process?

 

Also, I don't think that it's a bad idea for dispute resolution (after someone is banned), but it should not be used to *decide* whether someone should be banned for scamming in the first place; that judgement should reside with the staff (who should also have the authority to override any decisions made by arbiters if they feel the need).