[WikiEN-l] Voting is evil (was CheckUser policy)

[Jack Lynch]

I just want to mention that while I usually do not, in this case I
find myself agreeing w the 2 above arbiters, altho regarding mediation
I feel Kelly is spot on, that informal mediation works far better than
Mediation Commitee mediation, which often, in my experience, involves
nothing more than a link to a page where the 2 users are expected to
sort things out on their own, w no formal structure or assistance from
the mediation commitee.

We need MC reform as well as RFA reform as well as RFC reform as well
as AFD reform... pretty much all of the wikipedia name space process's
need work. Not to give too many pats on the back, but the system that
currently seems to be working best is ArbCom...

Jack (Sam Spade)

On 11/8/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/8/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Mediation is intermittent at best, and (from what I can tell) almost never
> > achieves a positive outcome, but that's nothing compared to RfC.
>
> Mediation is more successful than you may realize, in part because
> successful mediations often occur in relative obscurity.  A problem
> that once existed went away, without an RfC or RfAr being filed; as a
> result, only the editors involved in the dispute know about the
> mediation or the resolution, and they often don't talk much about it.
>
> Note that I'm specifically not referring to mediation under the
> auspices of the Mediation Committee, which has, indeed, been
> notoriously unreliable.  I'm referring more to informal mediations
> conducted by a variety of informal mediators who get involved via talk
> pages, IRC, IM, email, and any number of other methods to settle
> disagreements between editors amicably.  I've done at least a dozen
> such mediations (only one since being appointed to ArbCom, though) and
> most of them have been at least moderately successful.  The more
> public ones are the ones that have failed, usually because by the time
> the dispute is loud enough to be noticeable generally, the parties are
> too pissed at one another to ever settle their dispute.  Many
> mediations merely consist of discovering an edit war and, instead of
> doling out punitive blocks (as so many admins on Wikipedia are wont to
> do), diagnosing the problem, talking to the users in question, and
> resolving the dispute.  Often it's not hard to do this, but most of
> our admins never try.  It's so much easier just to go "3RR, block
> block block".
>
> > Article RfCs are numerous, and rarely attract the attention of more than one
> > or two outside editors.  Frequently they attract no outside interest at all.
>
> Indeed.  I've only rarely seen article RfCs attract significant
> attention.  Shameful, since articles are what Wikipedia is supposed to
> be all about.  There are too many people who are part of Wikipedia for
> the community, instead of for the encyclopedia.
>
> > User RfCs are a mess - in theory they are a platform for addressing and
> > solving community issues.  In practice, they are often venues for warring
> > camps to air grievances, and for certain notorious individuals (who feel
> > they don't get enough attention) to use as soapboxes for their own
> > speechifying (i.e. yet another "outside view").  Obvious trolling is rarely
> > addressed - the complainants outline their case, and a dozen or so regular
> > editors vote in support.  The troll provides a lengthy response, and three
> > or four troll buddies/generall trolls/people with grievances against the
> > complainant line up and vote in support of him, or add another "outside
> > view" that has little to do with the case at hand, and is mostly about their
> > own issues with the complainants.  Nothing changes, and everyone goes away
> > bitter.
>
> This definitely describes several of the RfC's I've been involved in
> in some way lately.  I agree that this serves no purpose.  I'm also
> tired of hearing editors state "In my RfC my opinion got more
> endorsements than yours did, therefore I won and you must shut up."
> (Yes, I've heard things like this said.  It's stupid.)  RfC is
> emphatically not supposed to be a popularity contest, although I must
> admit it has turned into one.  Of course, the same can be said of
> RfA/RfB.
>
> Kelly
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