On Tue, 2004-01-20 at 21:20, Anthere wrote:

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen a écrit: > > Okay. I an committed. I will post this.

This was courageous. I am glad you finally left your silence.

Thank you. I subtly dislike e-mail bc of its lack of immediacy; a BulletinBoard would be much better.

Hi Jussi.

I entirely agree with you. Btw, Angela has started looking for a bb to be set up yesterday night (well today early morning :-)).

I doubly agree with you, as I had a lot of pain accessing Wikipedia myself. I could not at all during 24 hours. That made me double difficult, to connect to the web site, to be able to sent you, and the five, then four, then three, then two others mediators who did not provided an email adress, a wikimail. I also took time to write to Dante, to suggest him to offer an email adress.

I just wanted to get things rolling.

It is not funny to have to go to a user page each time you wish him to follow what is happening, especially when the server is so slow.

For that reason, and your yesterday email actually, I stopped doing so. I stopped forwarding emails. You may ask to the other mediators to forward you the discussions if you feel like it.

So, yes, I understand you.

<snip>

And the conclusion I want to draw from that, is that we have to make every effort to assure that it does not fail,

but >is such

a wonderful success that it need not, and indeed can not be revoked. Every institution that fails its charter is

a >millstone

around the neck of further attempts at founding such at a later time.

I entirely agree with you Jussi.

...

What is the problem ?

There is no problem. The silent observer bit was mostly to lend an enchanced perception of legitimacy to the process, and though extremely useful IMO, is _not_ at all crucial.

The silent observer is not burried :-) Ed expressed his interest for such a process, mentionning he was thriving on feedback. I mentionned how teaching the experience would be. However, I still believe that the system might help legitimacy as well, if we are two or three people together, to reinforce one another, to help, to collaborate, to keep the mediator on the right tracks.

But a silent one, who would report to the big chief Jimbo, as if were were under constant supervision like kids ? No thank you. I do not believe in this kind of operation.

<snip>

My latest bout of inactivity was brought on by a juxtaposition of the server problems, and some personal matters which I will not speak on publicly.

I am glad it was not a silence on purpose :-)

Ed (This was a problem BTW, that the proposed silent observer institution would have partially addresssed.)

The silent observer is not burried as I said above :-) Ed in particular was interested in it. Nothing is ever lost :-)

The ideal situation would be such that we have a

group >of mediators

with which it would be possible to just draw lots for the mediation assignment, and always come up with a winner. This means that the question of who we have on the mediation committee is not totally irrelevant.

True. Which is why I think my suggestion to only be involved with cases that implicated non native english people, was not entirely irrelevant, as I had the feeling I could understand how far in conflict a misunderstanding could lead.

Since you ask that I should not do that, I wonder who will in case there is need to take care of a conflict, if there is one, with someone hardly speaking a word of english, but speaking french, or someone like HeKeIsDa a few weeks ago on meta.

Are you claiming that you would be more relevant in this case than I ?

> Anthere: I would be much more comfortable about contributing > in the meditiation group, if you were not a member of it! > > PLEASE anthere, think long before getting offended by the > previous sentence! I think you can perform a valuable part > in forming the limitations of the mediation group, but I > honestly don't see that you can offer anything positive to > it's developement as a member of it.

I am currently failing to see how I could not be offended by this statement, as you provide no justification for such a comment. In any cases, you might have noticed that my name was not in the current list. So, feel free to join if this is the main point stopping you. If the developpement of such a project shall be impaired by my presence, I will certainly stop participating in it. I think I gave my reasons for participating to its development, and those who read them should understand the limits it will inherently put.

Okay. In clarification, In _most_emphatically_ endorse your input into the development of the mediation process, without which the institution would be at an even more half-finished state than it is currently. What I meant was just to express plainly that you should not actually be chosen as an actual mediator in any disputes. The justification for this is purely your command of english, and no other factor.

Part of the problem here lies in the unfinished and unclear mandate of the mediation & arbitration committees. Are they to be purely actors in the process of wikipedia editing, or are they eventually to develop organically into political bodies of their own right?

The matter of arbitrators being selected by a vote yearly, would suggest that morphing into a political actor is not totally untenable.

If the mediation committee changes into a political body whose function is not solely to effect acts of mediation, your presence on it would be most valuable, but I personally doubt whether it would be useful for it to thus transform itself.

I thank you for that statement. But do you really think I am not aware of that, of the fact my poor english puts obvious limitations to what I can do ? Do you really think other mediators do not know that also? And that editors noticed nothing ? Seriously ? :)

I do deeply think that editors and mediators should have their say in who should be part of the committee. However, I do not think that just a person has a veto power (but Jimbo, or perhaps the chair leader though that is controversial). And none of the last discussions on the topic suggested so. Consequently, I do not consider you thinking I must not be part of it is enough to automatically exclude me. However, since you raised the topic, and question the wiseness of my participation, I suppose the discussion should be public.

So, to defend my point, here is what I have said from the very beginning (that is, to Jimbo privately in october, in a mail I sent to the list in december, and in the past days committee discussions). I hope this is the last time. I'll do it very short. We need mediation on the french wikipedia. And imho the english wikipedia needs a new mediation/arbitration process. I am interested in mediation itself. I want to learn more about it. On the french wikipedia, I only learn by trial and errors. Here, I can learn by watching people practicing it, and discussing it with them. I can also perhaps give ideas and make other people benefit of what I know myself. I want to help set the process itself. When it is done, I want to make mediation a true activity on fr:, not what it is considered right now : troll feeding. I am perfectly aware of my limitations, which is why I mentionned I could help in conflicts involving non-native people, in particular french. I hope you will agree that if french speaking people are involved, my being french might help clearing misunderstandings. I suppose I could also help a bit for conflicts based on contents in topics I know well. And that is probably all about it.

What is the big deal ?

Mediators whom people think can't help, just won't be picked up, neither chosen by disputants, nor suggested by other mediators. And at any time, a disputant may refuse a mediator who is suggested to him.

So where is the problem ? I do not speak well enough => My help is not requested => I am not messing things => you should not feel like I will damage the whole process

Here is a thought I propose to you. 2 days ago, someone reminded me of this

"I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem"

Let's focus on this Cimon please. We are all different, and we will ever stay different. We are not good in everything. But we all are good in at least one thing. Each of us brings a different piece to the puzzle. I know I am great at bugging people :-) (ask Erik in doubt). More seriously, what about considering mediation not *just* as a distinguishable unit, one mediator, two disputants, but rather as a more holistic process, where each individual has a different input ? You mention that you do not know one, do not trust another, can't figure what a third is doing here, plainly state that the existence of a forth might be preventing you to join etc...

But have you considered that it is the whole that might be the best ? That these are our different personnalities which will perhaps make a difference ? That is not seeing us as separated mediators, but just as people who want things to work better ? And who want to do that together ?

> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen (aka Cimon Avaro)

I am sorry you feel so disinchanted

...

I am sorry if I left you with the impression that I am disenchanted.

This is not the case at all. Although the mediation & arbitration process and institutions have had bit of a handbrake start, I am sure the motor will start revving on all cylinders eventually.

To your opinion, who tried to get it started precisely ?

With the greatest of respect; as always,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen (aka Cimon Avaro)

Let's meet in front of our groupleader then Cimon :-)

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