[WikiEN-l] Oversized criticism sections and WP:UNDUE (was: Notability and ski resorts)

[Carcharoth]

On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 10:32 PM, Surreptitiousness
<surreptitious.wikipedian at googlemail.com> wrote:

<snip>

> Yeah, or I could have a life.  We're here to write an encyclopedia, not
> propose more and more ways of how to write an encyclopedia. Maybe we
> could just go back to the old system where people propose things at the
> village pump, that way people wouldn't waste too much time. I'm hard
> pressed to imagine an idea that has not, at some point in time, already
> been proposed. But then I am becoming aware I am part of the problem.

The point was that a little bit of effort organising the rejected
proposals, would save time in the long run. If we (the community)
leave a whole mass of things unorganised, it's not surprising that it
looks like a mess to someone who comes along and looks at it in an
attempt to understand what happened here.

> Feel free to categorise all those proposals.

I did start at one point, but it needs to be a group effort.

<snip>

On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 10:32 PM, Surreptitiousness
<surreptitious.wikipedian at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Carcharoth wrote:

>> What about the alternatives to the ACPD that were set up at the time?
>> Do any of them show any signs of life either? My big point at the end
>> of all that was that if several such bodies were given the chance to
>> grow and develop, surely one of them would succeed. If the answer is
>> in fact that *all* of them failed, that will be depressing.
>>
> Do you have medication? I think the only one that looks like it may have
> any sign of life is an attempt to merge centralised discussions with
> mediation.

I think increased publicity and participation and open
(non-privileged) mediation is a better way to go than closed
(privileged) mediation. Have facilitators for guiding the development
of policies and guidelines, but don't mix them up with content
mediation. Similar skills, but totally different aims and approach.

> At least that's what I think Wikipedia:Community
> Facilitation is, and I say that as someone who I think threw out a
> proposal for facilitators on this list. I think what you find is that if
> you plant your seedlings too close together, they all become thin and
> wiry and unproductive, and eventually get swamped by weeds.

Nice analogy!

> You need to actively thin out and select the most promising plants. Nature
> by itself is startling in the way it works.If I was selecting on Wikipedia, I'd
> select Wikipedia:Requests for mediation as the one to formalise, but
> that probably seems too obvious. It's certainly the one with the most
> chance of becoming ingrained in what we do. And it feels like an
> intuitive fit with how we work. Why we needed an advisory council, I
> have absolutely no idea.

Because you need wide input from across the project, rather than
something like this becoming the personal fiefdom of any one or two or
three or any small group of people who self-select for the role.

> We had a damn good mediator in Ryan
> Postlethwaite, and I think we could have success in sending policy
> issues to mediation, and let Ryan facilitate. He's bloody good at it.
> Who knows, in a year's time we could be electing mediators to steward
> our discussions, and arbitration might find itself on a steadier course too?

Letting any one person, no matter how good, mediate or facilitate core
community issues, is a recipe for disaster. You need to have a wide
range of people with different backgrounds, and even in cases where
only one person is involved, you need different people and not just
one person. That is, in fact, what you have on the Arbitration
Committee (people from a wide range of backgrounds). I think people
underestimate just how diverse ArbCom is.

Look at how the Macedonia, West Bank, and Ireland naming situations
were resolved. You had people guiding and facilitating the discussions
(and ArbCom helped to a certain extent in pointing the way for some of
those frameworks to be set up, and calling for uninvolved admins to
help facilitate the discussion - or to put that another way, the
pre-ceding ArbCom cases, in my view, prepared the ground for a proper
resolution to the disputes). But the key was not just the people
facilitating the discussions. The real key, in my view, was the
increased participation from a wider range of people. This,
ultimately, handed down a *community* decision, with the authority of
the community behind it, rather than a small group arguing on a talk
page.

It is nearly always increased participation by previously uninvolved
long-term Wikipedians, who are prepared to take the time to read about
an issue, and give their opinion on it, that resolves some of the
intractable issues around here (not always, as sometime deep splits
remain no matter how much of the community you involve). Conversely,
the disputes that end up as ongoing incivil and argumentative and
tendentious discussions tend to drive people away, and discourage
uninvolved editors from getting involved.

i.e. Protracted disputes create bad editing environments. Facilitation
can improve that and restore the editing environment needed for calm
and rational discussion to lead to consensus on an issue. That calming
of the editing environment is what both arbitration and mediation do,
albeit in different ways.

Carcharoth