Yesterday I wrote a pretty lengthy piece on theIP ADR Blog about the joke-theft controversy raging in Los Angeles (Funny, that was my joke) as covered by L.A. Times staff writer Robert W. Welkos. 

(MAJOR ASIDE:  You may be getting your news on the 'net, but remember that quality journalism continues to flow from the keyboards of dynamite reporters like Welkos, who, with co-writer Joel Sappell, gave us the brilliant six-part Scientology series in 1990, to the considerable risk of both men. Without newspapers, the blogosphere would pretty much fold itself up around yesterday's virtual fish and die there). 

Having now buried the lede, I give you the burning ADR-Internet question of the day that concluded the IP ADR Blog's post, Disputing Humor:  Comedy, Folkways and the Internet. .

A Conflict Resolution Process for the Future

Can we bring collaborative, value-creating dispute resolution norms and processes to this new culture? In other words, given the opportunity to create an entirely new way of resolving conflict in an entirely new culture, could we devise a system that is more self-determined, faster, cheaper, easier and softer on the people but just as hard on the problem as the old system was?

Could we abandon the adversarial paradigm because it's too expensive and cumbersome for the size and type of disputes that arise on the internet?

Could we build into that system the principles of accountability, forgiveness and reconciliation that are lacking in the present system -- a system that too often leaves people feeling so unresolved, so angry or bitter or frustrated?

I have no idea.

It feels good, though, to have finally formulated something of a question out of the chaos.

Please come on by and scrawl grafitti on our wall.