The WikiDrama Committee is about to rule!

Once again, the Arbitration Committee gives more weight to the notion that they should be renamed to the "WikiDrama Committee", this time by showing a strong interest in accepting Yet Another Pointless arbitration matter related to IRC. Despite the best efforts of many people to try to calm the situation down (efforts that were largely working), the Committee has already once done its best to keep the dispute hot and bothered through its ill-guided and vainglorious declaration of jurisdiction over IRC. While I'm sure their declaration made the recently elected powergrabbers happy (they now have Even More Power) and did at least a little to satisfy the bloodlust of the witchhunters, it did nothing at all to resolve any dispute, which is the stated purpose and function of the Committee. Now the Committee has been asked (by Irpen, who has the distinction of being the loudest known Wikipedian) to reconsider this matter. Apparently the witchhunters were not fully sated by the previous action and require yet more blood. The Committee is not able to recognize that these people will not be satisfied until they have control of all the power nexi on Wikipedia, and are going to continue their "scorched earth" tactics until they have succeeded. The end result will, eventually, be something which does not very much resemble an encyclopedia.

That the Committee is even contemplating stirring the pot even further is clear evidence to me that the Committee is no longer serving its designated purpose. Jimbo ought to and should dissolve it. The problem with doing that is either (a) Jimbo would have to resume his role as the sole settler of disputes on Wikipedia (something which I doubt he is wont to do) or (b) appoint a new committee to serve the same purpose, and any such committee would either be filled with the same useless dramaseeking reprobates that fill it now, or else be filled with people who would loathe the job because they would be subjected to constant attacks by the witchhunters.

The only way I see out of this mess is for the Arbitration Committee to firmly and decisively tell Giano and his friends where to stuff it. If they fail to do so, they will set Wikipedia's community on a clear trajectory to failure by sanctioning these witchhunt that will eventually expand to consume it entirely. I notice today that Giano is now calling for David Gerard's head (ostensibly for using checkuser on him, which, given that Giano has recently pledged to disrupt the wiki, created multiple accounts, and possibly been subjected to impersonation, would be well within the scope of the general principles for the use of checkuser), and some anonymous coward (my guess is Giano, but it could just as easily been any of the other members of the witchhunt coalition) has declared that Steve Dunlop should be removed as a checkuser ombudsman for having the temerity to conclude that my use of checkuser on SlimVirgin was consistent with policy.

Should the ArbCom accept Irpen's case -- at all -- it will destroy what little respect I had for the Committee, and I will feel no compunction to observe their decisions, advice, or statements at all. I would likewise encourage all other Wikipedians to contemn their rulings, disregard their edicts, and use their own common sense in deciding how to conduct themselves on Wikipedia.