From: Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Voting is evil (was CheckUser policy)
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org>
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<bd4c411e0511080908o221dd0c3pf49dc8752a348315(a)mail.gmail.com>
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On 11/8/05, JAY JG <jayjg(a)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.
I would have to agree with that. In addition, how can you judge the
"success" of a mediation? Two users who are in dispute are unlikely to
become best of friends quickly. I consider any mediation successful if any
one of the involved parties gains even an iota more respect or understanding
of the other person, or if we have progressed, even if a tiny bit, on the
article matter. There are so many complex issues in mediation that it is
extremely difficult to achieve "total success". Even in the rare occasion
that they do occur, they are not well-publicized. It is human nature to
focus on the things that need fixing; thus, we all hear about failed
mediations, but we rarely hear about successful ones. (Analogy - look at the
news today. It's filled with "bad" news. However, there's plenty of
"good"
news out there; it's just not as newsworthy.)
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".
True, the MedCom has gained a rather unfair reputation of being unreliable.
I would note, though, that under our new chair, Redwolf24, we have
progressed greatly. In addition, if you drop by the MedCom first, we will
often provide you advice regarding your dispute - i.e. Redwolf24, acting on
behalf of the MedCom, has both rejected cases and referred them to the
ArbCom. This can often provide an opinion on your dispute - whether or not
the dispute can be handled under the dispute resolution process or not,
whether it should jump directly to the ArbCom or not, etc. Correct me if I'm
wrong, Arbitrators, but you all are more likely to accept cases that have
gone through Mediation or at least attempted mediation. In addition, if a
mediation recommends a case to the ArbCom, policy suggests that Arbitrators
accept it.
Thus, the MedCom can do more than mediation - we can be the starting stone
of the dispute resolution process (besides RfCs) and can also offer a
perspective on your dispute. Finally, as I stated above, even if the two
parties gain an inch more of respect or understanding, I consider the
mediation to be worthwhile and successful to an extent.
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.
The problem with article RfCs is that people probably find it boring to
particpate in a subject area that they are not familiar with. Under the
current system, there's little to be gained by participating, and lots to
lose. This must be changed.
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.
True - we must remember that Wikipedia is *not* a democracy. The masses are
often wrong, and RfCs often turn into a slinging battle of words, pitting
one group of users against another, when both already loathe the other side
before the RfC. In addition, it is extremely rare for a RfC to resolve a
dispute - someone who has a RfC filed against him/her is highly unlikely to
listen to the outcome of the RfC. After all, nothing's binding, and the
"outcome" (i.e. "voting") is often disregarded. Thus, user RfCs are
extremely ineffective.
Of course, the same can be said of
RfA/RfB.
Again, true - several RfAs (not all of them or even a majority, but a
significant minority of them) have recently turned into slugfests, complete
with sockpuppets, POV warriors, and whatnot. And I sympatize with you on
your RfB- I'm sure that such a process can be very stressful.
Kelly
It is clear that reform must be made in the dispute resolution process. It's
better to do it now, rather than later. SV recently set up a page,
[[WP:Dispute Resolution Reform]] ([[WP:DRR]]) - should we start
consolidating discussion on one page regarding the entire dispute resolution
process?
Thanks.
Flcelloguy
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.
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