User:PaleoNeonate/Procedures

Procedures related to disputes

Note: This is a reference work in progress. Comments and fixes are welcome. It may be possible to propose it as a guideline in the future, but is in early phase and mostly a quick reference essay at current time.

Wikipedia is a large project, and personal relations, although usually restricted compared to on social networks, are unavoidable, because they are part of working together building the encyclopedia. Disagrements can occur, as well as conflicts.

There are a number of procedures available to address the problem and it is easy to be confused about which to use at a particular time. This attempts to propose a mostly chronological, step-by-step, or gravity-level-sorted, condensed list of the procedures involved.

• The Tea House (WP:Teahouse) can be a place to ask questions about what procedures are available, or to invite non-involved editors who may like to help or look at an article, etc. It has a relaxed atmosphere where experienced editors can comment, usually without dramatic consequences. It is not necessarily the place to bring attention to disputes, although when uncertain as to what should be done, it can be useful.

• For blatant vandalism (which is rarely linked to content disputes), it may be proper to report at Administrator Intervention Against Vandalism (WP:AIV). Make sure to first warn the editor on the talk page for reverted changes. Gravity-escalating templates may be useful to do this (WP:WARN, WP:WARN2). After three or four warnings of blatant vandalism, an AIV request is more likely to result in a block for the vandal.

• In case of editing conflicts, the first procedure is usually to attempt to reach consensus (WP:Consensus) on the relevant article talk page, while avoiding edit warring (WP:Edit warring). Warring can be a valid reason for undesirable administrator intervention, and a loss of time for everyone. Editors who are disruptively edit warring may be reported at the Edit Warring Administrators Noticeboard (WP:AN3, but see the warnings at the similar WP:ANI discussed below). In cases where you are the only one to disagree, consensus may still already have formed among other editors, and continued additions or reverts to articles may be considered warring. Also see the three-revert rule (WP:3RR) for more information. Some articles may be under special discretionary sanctions (WP:ACDS) with more restrictions, such as one-revert rule (WP:1RR).

• If consensus cannot form (i.e. not enough participants, too many with conflict of interest (WP:COI)), possibilities would be third opinion (WP:3O) or request for comments (WP:RFC) to obtain the input of uninvolved editors. If consensus was already reached, intervening visitors may confirm this. Otherwise, they may become part of the consensus forming process. The use of undisclosed extra user accounts (WP:SOCK) is forbidden and can result in being blocked. If it is strongly suspected that an editor engages in sockpuppeting, or that a previously blocked editor whoes block has not expired is strongly suspected to be back, it may be reported at Sockpoppet Investigations (WP:SPI).

• If the discussion strays away from article content, or in the case of a dispute with a particular editor, it is recommended to use user talk pages rather than more public article talk pages. As per WP:ASPERSIONS, it may be uncivil, and perhaps even considered as a personal attack, to start sermoning and disclosing all wrongs the other did, in public space. It is also unacceptable to disclose personal information of another editor (WP:OUTING). One should also avoid canvassing (WP:CANVAS), that is, faking conensus, by inviting selected people who are likely to be on our side. It is highly recommended to attempt to remain civil and polite. Discussing about other editors is discouraged.

• Mediation (WP:Mediation) can be attempted to gather the attention of someone who will try to guide the discussion and consensus forming process. For mediation, all parties must first agree to participation. Cases may last weeks, sometimes months to resolve.

• If a dispute cannot be resolved, another possibility would be at this point to use the dispute resolution process (WP:DR). There are several categories of dispute resolution procedures, the aforementioned Request For Comments being part of those.

• As a last resort, not recommended because content disputes will be considered inadequate for this process and because there is the possibility of also being the target of sanctions (WP:BOOMERANG), would be reporting at an Administrator's Noticeboard. For edit warring, there is WP:ANEW, and for miscelaneous incidents, WP:ANI. This requests for administrator intervention, by pointing out serious enough incidents. This may mostly be useful when other than for blatant vandalism, a particular editor is interfering to the process, and perhaps not here to build an encyclopedia (WP:NOTHERE). It may also be used to report outing attacks (WP:OUTING) and persistent disruptive editing (WP:DISRUPT). Some editors who are familiar with an administrator they know and trust will sometimes prefer to notify them before going to ANI. However, individual administrators will not usually act, other than counsel, if they consider themselves involved or if the case is not blatently clear. The time of administrators is also precious, their extra tools are often described as a cleaning mop. Attempting to get individual administrators involved in private could also be construed as canvassing (WP:CANVAS). When reporting a an editor to an administrator's noticeboard, except for sockpuppet investigations, it is important to notify the involved editor. It is also important when doing so to point directly at the relevant evidence, and to clearly specify which rules are being broken, to minimize the work of those who will investigate the case. In the case where the involved editor was subject to specific sanctions (such as a topic ban, 1RR or 0RR rule) and violated those, or when an article is subject to discretionary sanctions which are not being followed, editors can be reported at Arbitration Enforcement (WP:AE). Similarly to for AIV reports, where warnings should first have been issued, users should also be warned about the discretionary sanctions before being reported at AE. Some templates can be used for this, like {{Ds/alert}}.

• There exists arbitration (WP:ARB), which even administrators can use to reach consensus. Similar to the aforementioned formal mediation, cases can last a while. It is through this process that discretionary sanctions (WP:ACDS) are established. It is not a violation of WP:OUTING to report personal information to WP:ARB through their off-wiki mailing list if it is necessary.

To do

1. Integrate, on importance of communication and consensus building:

• WP:CONSENSUS (policy)
• WP:BRD (explanatory supplement)
• WP:ENGAGE and WP:DISCUSSFAIL (essays)
• WP:TEAMWORK