Wikipedia:Requests for comment/How to present a case

Please note that this guide is descriptive, not normative. That is to say, it explicitly does not deal with the ongoing controversy over how the community and those involved in RFCs should behave. It is based on empirical observation of what arguments have worked and which ones have not, as well as upon discussions with editors about what they pay attention to.

There are three very important things to realize about RFCs:

1. They are a request for comments, to the entire world, not a court hearing;
2. Product is much more important than process.
3. If they do not resolve the situation, they may lead to ArbCom cases (see ArbCom's guide to arbitration).

Almost everything you need to know about making or responding to an RFC is an extension of one of those three facts.

The absolute best way to fare well in an RFC is to not do things wrong. If you are trolling, actively POV pushing, or generally being an asshole, there is no guide in the world that can help you. Don't do that.

The perception of your case

At any time, there are twenty or more active cases in Arbitration, almost 200 closed ones, a stack in mediation and a handful of RFCs under way. Individuals cannot keep close track of all of these. If you mention anything to a user not intimately involved in the current process, they are not likely to remember particular details.

Write your evidence and your proposals so that they help jog everyone's memories. Assume that every time a user pulls up the RFC page, or the discussion page, they won't remember what was concluded last time or elsewhere. They are not clueless – but they need information.

What users will and won't look at

RFC pages, and their discussions, can become very long. Nobody has time to read through 100 KB evidence pages, and they especially don't have time to reread them after they've forgotten what was what.

Don't let your page get to 100 KB. Be concise, be direct, be clear. You do not need to cross every t, dot every i, and show every single instance of an issue — doing so can be counterproductive. Pick the clearest examples you can, and present them with as little commentary as is necessary.

Context

Users do not read up on disputes that might reach RFC eventually. It is very unlikely that they know the history of the dispute when they arrive. Try to provide key context where appropriate. Examples of key context may include any realated RFC/AFD/etc, agreement on part of the problem and specifying where discussions broke down, or a known history of viewpoint advocacy by members of specific nation or other group. Point these things out to them.

If you point to an edit that comes after a month of heated discussion, it may not make sense to someone who was not a part of that discussion. Take care with evidence that requires context. If there is better evidence for the same point, use that instead. Otherwise, be ready to explain the context. Note that the more explanation a piece of evidence requires, the less likely anyone is to have time to pay attention to it.

Meta-discussion

Questions about the conduct of RFCs – the process in general – are best taken to a sympathetic forum elsewhere, as if they are placed on the talk or RFC page they may have an unfortunate appearance of wiki-lawyering and prevarication.

Requesting Admin intervention instead

In some cases an individual, or a small number of individuals, are being disruptive. It may be more appropriate to go to Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents to requesting a warning, topic ban, block, or page protection. Much of the advice given above about RFCs also applies to writing a request for Administrator intervention. The advice below is mostly relevant to requesting Administrator intervention. (It probably be rewritten to explicitly address Administrator requests rather than RFCs.)

Expertise of the users

Most users are not subject experts, but some are. This is why RFCs, unlike ArbCom cases, may come to conclusions on the basis of article content. In practice, users are likely to be cautious about basing a ruling on the ground that one side is right in a content dispute. There are exceptions to this—in general, we have looked unfavorably upon people who are using Wikipedia as a platform for advocacy, as well as people who accuse Wikipedia of offering safe haven for a conspiracy to suppress their point of view.

Wikipedia is not collectively hostile toward the documenting of minority views—only toward those who break fundamental Wikipedia principles (such as neutrality and personal attack policies) in their edits relating to such views.

Content issues are complicated and take time to figure out. Other approaches may be indicated. Instead of making the argument that somebody is advancing a nutty conspiracy theory that has no credibility, find statements on talk pages where they express a desire to advocate a cause, instances of them removing well-sourced information, instances of them accusing those who disagree with them of conspiracy, and other more concrete and self-explanatory things. Almost none of the cases which fail resolution at RFC and become Arbitration cases have actually required careful attention to content issues in order to get the necessary result.

Effective arguments

The community generally believes that the Wikipedia method works; that Wikipedia is, on the whole, a successful project, and that admins are generally trustworthy. They explicitly choose any outcome that will result in Wikipedia working better.

Pursuing arguments that oppose Wikipedia's basic principles, suggesting the existence of a massive cabal of rogue admins, or treating the dispute resolution process as if it were an end in itself will not work.

It is mistaken to argue on the assumption that an RFC functions like a court of law. See Wikipedia:Wikilawyering.

Arguing about flaws in the Mediation and RFC process is usually a waste of time and will make editors, admins, and eventually Arbitrators look dimly upon you. Take the time that you could spend arguing about the details of the process and apply it to trying to gather useful evidence. The first to try to rules-lawyer the arbitration process invariably loses — because they wouldn't be rules-lawyering if they had a case, and the same may be taken to be true of RFCs, with the addition that rules-lawyering an RFC tends to predict the progression of the case to ArbCom and might reasonably also be used as a cue to take it there, rather than waiting for tardy responses to be completed.

Discussion

Clear and persuasive presentation of evidence will almost always be more effective than whatever is said on the talk pages. Almost nothing useful ever comes out of any argument between and among parties on the talk pages. The chance of any argument being made on other pages getting noticed or being cared about drops dramatically the longer or the more numerous those arguments get. If you must engage in discussion, short and simple and on the RFC talk page is probably the most effective approach.