On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 4:05 PM, Al Tally <majorly.wiki(a)googlemail.com>wrote;wrote: I have not said anything was "wrong with the wiki," only that there should be a mailing list for dealing with dispute resolution. Can you clarify your question a bit? -Stevertigo

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 4:41 PM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net> wrote: Great. One of us should ask the techies to get it set up. [To Alex] Entire revolutions can occur the wiki without coming to a user's Indeed. Ostensibly, the list would deal with not just specific dispute resolutions, but with dispute resolution itself - how it works, etc. These concepts haven't changed much since late 2003, and as such there may need to be adjustments - people have ideas I'm sure. And of course, dealing with both specific cases and with general concepts in the same context makes it a bit of an integration issue. And that's another answer for Alex's question - integration based on a particular concept. If the concept was Electric Trains, then of course a separate mailing list wouldn't be justified. -Stevertigo

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 5:05 PM, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net>wrote;wrote: I nominate Fred for one. Angela for the other. -Stevertigo

Contact a server admin on IRC in #wikimedia-tech Fred

2009/6/27 stevertigo <stvrtg(a)gmail.com>om>: I never said it was necessary, I just said that's the way it is. Unless you can describe a problem with a current system, I see no reason to change it.

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 5:08 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: You could start a thread called "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and there we can debate whether the axiom applies to anything other than appliances. :-) -Stevertigo

I think this is a good refinement of the idea. Fred

2009/6/27 stevertigo <stvrtg(a)gmail.com> Stevertigo, from experience I know it takes some time to set up a mailing list (we're talking weeks, not days). Why not start one on Google groups and see how many people sign up? Risker

It is Wikimedia business. It would not be appropriate to involve a third party. Fred

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 5:23 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: Hm. So you are saying that "definitions have consequences?" Speaking of definitions: You also previously used the term "problem:" Every edit conflict is a "problem" and DR itself is almost the same as it was 5.7 years ago. You also used the term "current system:" It is my understanding that a "convention" is not a "system." -Stevertigo

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 5:42 PM, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote: Great comments, Risker. For one, we don't always do things to "solve problems" - sometimes we do things because they are experimental or synergistic. Content disputes? is there a reason why we would want people to discuss Excellent point. In a certain way, it seems that there must be some limitation upon what depth content disputes may be discussed on list. In another respect, a certain integration between talk page and list discussion may help to 1) abstract conflicts from being localized to unseen talk pages, and 2) bring abstract general-interest attention to specific talk pages. In reality, this is the way wikien-l used to work, before it got all abstractified and focused exclusively on talking about what newspapers are saying about us. Behaviour disputes? How will a mailing list address these better than Indeed, the list should not replace anything else. Rather it should give people an eagle-eye view of disputes, and from this vantage this offers a certain extra dimension to using RFC's, etc. Interpersonal disputes? Again, how is a mailing list better? and what Very good point. Again, as far as specific conflicts go, it would be more of an announce list. As far as general discussion goes, well this aspect at least to my mind is quite necessary, as general discussion on talk pages is not useful to anyone. -Stevertigo

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 6:20 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: My goal is total and complete synergy. -Stevertigo

It would allow subscribers to keep track of what is going on. It would not try to engage in dispute resolution but discuss it and point to it. Fred

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 6:20 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: I don't see Fred's ideas or insights as being particularly in conflict with the idea I proposed. In fact, as I proposed it, I didn't get into any particular details. I simply assumed that if people agreed on the general scope, they could also agree on the scope such a list might have. Indeed, someone who might be interested in getting help for a particular edit conflict and might want to drop a note to the mailing list might like not getting their head bitten off by someone on this one. -Stevertigo

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 7:30 PM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net> wrote: Well, I took his meaning to be something like "go Google yourself," albeit put in very nice terms. Your further insights on this matter would be most welcome! -Stevertigo

On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 12:52 PM, Risker<risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote: I believe mailing lists are handled by cary actually, but it doesn't matter if anyone doesn't have time because you just log it in bugzilla and when someone has time they will do it.

My understanding is that the list would not be a forum for dispute resolution, but rather a forum for discussion of dispute resolution (and of ongoing disputes on enwiki) - and so the problems posed by only one party to a disagreement subscribing wouldn't be a hinderance to operations on the list. AGK

A mailing list need not have a specific goal (and indeed it rarely does); rather, it is simply a forum for discussion of a given topic - which is often quite loosely defined. Consider this: which problem is WikiEN-l trying to solve? It's not; the list exists simply as a place for collaboration and discussion that would not be handled as well on-wiki. As a rule of thumb, I prefer on-wiki discussions for consensus-building, but I *do* think this list is a good idea - if for no other reason but to see how well it works. On another note: to safeguard against having this list sit uselessly if we end up discovering we don't want to use it, we could agree to consider in, say, three months whether the list ought to be closed down or not. We already have quite enough lists that are barely (or not) used. AGK

on 6/27/09 10:10 AM, Fred Bauder at fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net wrote: Would you be a bit more specific, Fred; do you mean discussing the process of dispute resolution? Marc

On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 7:38 AM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net> wrote: I don't remember that Jimbo email. Can you give us a link, Fred? -Stevertigo

On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 7:33 AM, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net>wrote;wrote: I has already been stated twice or thrice in this thread that general discussion of "dispute resolution" itself would be within the scope of the "dispute resolution" mailing list. Several have voiced support for the use of this list for any range of legitimate dispute resolution issues --large and small. AGK gave a very straightforward rebuttal to the idea that a list need be confined in accord to narrow frameworks. In any case it does not make too much sense to prejudice a concept with loaded questions about its scope before it has even been tested in the field. -Stevertigo

On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 9:56 AM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com&gt; wrote: In my view, the problem needing a solution is to get people with an authority over disputes to make the lower tiers of dispute resolution correct --such that they be actually usable and that people will innately know how to "use them.. correctly." It is the *customer that is always right, Charles. Not the vendor. CM: "Blind men and an elephant.. different people come up with different aspects of dispute resolution they think could usefully be discussed on a list" - This is exactly how mailing list technology works. CM: "You would undoubtedly get advocacy; would you not get canvassing? Discussion of intractable edit wars? What is and is not pseudoscience? Second-guessing appeals and clarifications? Speculation about matters in mediation?" AGF and NOT generally answer these as well. But again, as with other stated concerns, I do not see what value there is in being afraid of what may be said by someone. People are intelligent enough to deal with whatever comes up, and no amount of pre-programming is going to substitute for intelligence. CM: "If it descends to "X is a disruptive editor so something should be done" one can expect some fairly primitive knockabout." Is primitive knockabout any worse or better than organized and modernistic knockabout? -Stevertigo

On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 10:24 AM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com&gt; wrote: Technically speaking, I was being a bit ironic in referring to mailing lists as "technology [that works]." Maybe my irony was too subtle. Solzhenitsyn. Consider that with each new context, the same ideas will be reanimated to see if they actually work in the new context, even while they failed in the old. I like your point about electrons (now) being less useful than chalk (then), as it goes to the real issue of interaction in being: Interaction in the context of human being requires human expressiveness through gesture and.. well.. being. Electron interaction concepts can be quite different and less conducive to the things which make beings happy. -Stevertigo

Precisely the kind of thing we might discuss. Fred

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 6:25 PM, Thomas Dalton &lt;thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: My arguments tend to be more rational than "logical." Not all "conflicts" rise to the level of "wars." So not all edit conflicts are "edit wars." The latter term has implications that transcend most "conflicts between editors" or "editorial conflicts." The technical usage of "edit conflict" to mean a state wherein a session has been interrupted by changes by another user, in a certain way usurps the canonical (common English) usage of the word "conflict" for a technical purpose. And even in technical context, its a bit of an outdated misnomer: * Outdated, because since section editing was implemented five years ago, they rarely happen. * Misnomer, because those "conflicts" are technical and not "edit"-orial, and anyway are not so much "conflicts" as they are "interrupts." (Note that other wiki software have these handled via simple usage of session lockouts. Not to say that such would work for us, though). If its got a simple technical solution, its probably not the "conflict" we are talking about. This should correct not just your terminology, but our general conventional misuse which I too once or twice have been a party to. Its been a while since Ive had an "edit interrupt" myself. Edit conflicts (not "wars") however occur hourly. :-) -Stevertigo