User:Elonka/DR draft

Background

Historically, Wikipedia administrators were most often advised not to get involved in complex disputes. The traditional view of admins was that they were simply "mop and bucket" janitors, there to deal with the most disruptive editors, and to refer all other disputes along to Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. In Wikipedia's earlier days, there was a good pipeline for complex disputes, that would work their way up the chain through RfC and Mediation to ArbCom.

However, in 2006-2007, it became clear that the dispute resolution system was not scaling to keep up with Wikipedia's rapid growth. ArbCom cases were getting backlogged, the Arbitration Committee was overloaded with multiple other things besides just ArbCom cases, and cases started getting more complex and involve larger numbers of editors. Some disruptive editors also became savvy to the dispute resolution systems, and just as in an Arms Race, they developed tactics to push their POVs, which would often skate just outside the existing dispute resolution systems. The wiki culture also became very protective of article-writers, such that policies were often not being enforced in an evenhanded way. Behavior that might get a new editor blocked immediately, might be tolerated for months (or years) from a longterm editor, as they learned how to work the system, and exploited the culture's protective nature, which made established editors "difficult to block".

In late 2007, as a result of one of the complex cases involving Israeli-Palestinian disputes, ArbCom decided that a more complex solution was needed for a complex situation, but also realized that they didn't have the time or attention to put together a proper proposal. So a decision was made as part of that case to put together a separate Working Group on ethnic and cultural edit wars. ArbCom empowered this Group to take several months to analyze the situation, and put together suggestions on new solutions.

This guideline is one of the results of that Workgroup's efforts. It incorporates analysis, brainstorming ideas from within the group, tribal wisdom from experienced administrators, and some suggestions from other Wikipedians who have spent time analyzing the situation.

A common thread in many of the proposed solutions was, "ArbCom, though created with the best of intentions, is often extremely slow, requires enormous amounts of paperwork, and puts an undue burden on many good editors over periods of months, to deal with a single bad editor." The proposed solutions generally agreed that Wikipedia's existing policies were adequate, but that enforcement was a problem. Many Wikipedians understood intuitively that the way to go was to further empower administrators to deal with disputes, but there was disagreement on exactly how that power was to be used, and there were strong concerns that any new power given to administrators, had the potential to do more harm than good.

This guideline is an attempt to codify the best parts of the proposals, to:

Teach administrators how they can better deal with complex disputes;
Give admins slightly increased power in dealing with those disputes; and
Create an oversight system to deal with cases of mistakes and/or abuse.

We understand that this may not be a "perfect" solution, but we think it's a substantially "better" solution than what we had before, and hope that everyone will give it a chance.

If any Wikipedian has further suggestions on how this guideline can be improved, we encourage discussion and constructive criticism.

Article parole

Uninvolved administrators, when dealing with a complex dispute, may choose to implement new restrictions on the article:

Restricting specific editors from:
- Editing an article
- Posting on its talkpage
- Editing in a topic area

Restricting the article in some way, short of actual protection
- Restricting who can edit it
- Restricting what kind of edits can be made (such as which sections)
- Restricting what kind of sources can be used
  - Perhaps make a subpage, "/Allowed sources", where the editors list all of the approved sources for the article. If anyone wants to use a new source, they must first propose it on the talkpage and get consensus for it before it can go into the article

When an admin imposes such a restriction:

For editor-based restrictions:
- Be sure that the editor has been formally warned on their talkpage that this might be coming. Ensure that they're given a clear chance to moderate their own behavior.
- Place a clear notice about the restriction, on the user's talkpage, and the article talkpage (for topic-wide restrictions this may not be feasible)

For article-based restrictions:
- Place a clear notice about the restriction at the top of the article talkpage (for topic-wide restrictions this may not be feasible)
- Be clear on the scope of the restriction, and its duration
- (possible) Notify a central authority about the restriction (something like "Wikipedia:Administrator-imposed restrictions"?)
- Be clear on the penalties for violating a restriction
- Write it as though you're not going to be the one enforcing it, so some other admin coming along should be able to read your restriction, and know the proper way to handle it. Should a restriction be escalated to talkpage? Topic-wide? Should the user be blocked? For how long? Etc.
- Be clear on the restriction's expiration or followup date, so you or another admin can review if/when it needs to be lifted.
- Notify the other editors on the talkpage how they are to request admin intervention (at ANI) if the restriction is violated (they'll probably be the first ones to notice).

Place a banner on the article itself, notifying everyone that the article is under certain limitations, and either list them there in the banner, or have a link to talk which details the restrictions

(optional) If feasible, try to get another uninvolved admin to review the restriction and signoff on it. If they disagree with the restriction, discuss lessening it rather than lifting entirely, to avoid any perception of "wheel war"

(another option) perhaps have one admin place the restriction, and a different admin decide on length of restriction?

Example article notice

From the Sri Lankan dispute resolution system:

Wikipedia:SLR/bluebox

Tag teams

A particularly tricky type of dispute to analyze is a "tag team" situation, where an organized group of editors may be moving from article to article to bias the articles in their favor. Especially in infrequently-visited areas, it may be difficult for the "usual" editors to build consensus against these teams.

Tag teamers may have very organized methods, whereby one member of the team acts as an advance scout on an article, attempts to bias it in their favor, and then if the scout is challenged, the scout rapidly mobilizes their allies to come in and "prove consensus".

As an uninvolved administrator, you may arrive at an article, and see what appears to be 10 editors all agreeing with one another, and one or two lone disputants, complaining very shrilly that they are being ganged up on. Since most POV warriors behave the same way (complaining that they are being ganged up on), it takes some skill and experience to tell whether the isolated disputants are the problem or the victims (or a bit of both!).

And even if you do determine that there is a tag team situation in process, it can be difficult to deal with this, because it will make it look like you, the admin, are "overriding a clear consensus." However, keep in mind the core pillars of Wikipedia. A tag team cannot come in and build consensus to say that "2+2=5", and neither should a team be allowed to build consensus to force an article into a non-neutral or unsourced state.

If you feel that you are dealing with a team, you can still use some of the above methods: Assess the participants, check their history.

Also, it might be worth asking the "minority" disputants to provide specific examples of where they feel that they were overruled in an inappropriate manner. If you can identify specific situations on the talkpage where a team of editors was obviously pushing a biased point of view, in a way that was bullying a minority group of editors who were fighting for neutrality, you may have a case for sanctions against the majority editors.

Identifying tag teams

They show up without being invited

Tag teamers seem to quickly show up at dispute locations, but without any discernible on-wiki method of having been informed. If an editor has no history of ever editing an article, never had it mentioned on their talkpage, and no request for comment about the article was ever posted at any of their WikiProjects or RfC locations, the editor was likely contacted off-wiki. If multiple such editors seem to show up at around the same time, there was either some off-wiki canvassing going on, or the team members routinely scan each others contribs to see where they can help a teammember.

Tag teamers tend to all agree with each other
Tag teamers will also support their teammember, even in the face of egregious policy violations. They "never see wrong" in a teammember's actions.
Their "opponents" may be editors with no history of problems, who are suddenly portrayed in a light as though they are a lone wolf fighting against established consensus
The tag teamers may have similar userboxes, especially nationalistic or confrontational userboxes which support or oppose a controversial cause.
Tag teamers may show evidence of tag teaming, or other suspicious behavior, elsewhere
To admins: Listen to the comments of the editors who have actually spent time working on the article, meaning those that have made substantial edits. Are they complaining that "a bunch of people showed up out of nowhere"? Do these kinds of complaints seem to be occurring at other articles/AfDs where the team members are working in concert?
(optional) Ask the "established" editors on the article, to compile a list of the editors who they feel have "jumped in" in an inappropriate manner. Ask those editors if they can explain how they heard about the discussion.
Check the contribs of those accused of tag teaming. Are they actually working on articles, or are they just jumping from talkpage to talkpage?

Reporting a tag team

If you feel that you have identified a tag team, request assistance at WP:AN to get another uninvolved administrator's view on the situation. Be able to provide the following information:

Core members of the team
A few of the articles affected
Brief description of what bias or agenda that you think that the team has.

If multiple uninvolved admins agree with your findings, try issuing restrictions on the team members. Suggestions:

Advise them to use on-wiki methods of contacting each other, which do not run afoul of WP:CANVASS.
In certain poll situations, it may be appropriate to treat the opinions of the various team members as meatpuppet comments which only count as one editor.
Perhaps place topic restrictions on all members of a team, such as 1RR on the team as a whole, instead of per editor.

For non-admins

Requesting administrator intervention

If you believe you know of an article which could benefit from administrator supervision or intervention:

First, check to see if you have already tried other steps in Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. Wikipedia only has about a thousand active administrators, but over 2 million articles, with new articles being added at a rate of thousands per day. The administrators are often stretched very thin, so please be sure that you have made at least an attempt at resolving things through other means, especially via a note to a relevant noticeboard, or an RfC, or attempting mediation.
If you still feel that an administrator is essential, be aware that the administrator's job is not to "make a decision" on how the article should be worded. Instead, the admin's primary purpose will be to examine user conduct issues, to ensure that Wikipedia policies are being maintained, and to give advice on how editors can better work together on the article.
To request an administrator, post at WP:AN or WP:ANI (which one?)
- List the article(s) affected
- List the main participants
- Describe briefly, in 100-250 words, the nature of the dispute
- Explain what it is that you think an administrator might be able to help with

Dealing with restrictions you disagree with

If you see that an administrator has placed restrictions on an article or editor, and you disagree with those restrictions, deal with it the same way as though they had issued a block or page protection. (If you are an admin, Don't wheel war, ever). But do talk to the issuing administrator, and ask them for clarification.

Anyone, admin or editor, may also choose to appeal any administrator action to a reviewing authority:

(need info about reviewing authority)

ANI?
WP:AE?