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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Scope

I'm not exactly sure how a wikiproject an improve dispute resolution.Curb Chain (talk) 22:31, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

DR philosophy - peace at any cost?

In my DR work at 3O, DRN, MedCab (there is no cabal!), and various other DR venues, I sometimes have to ask myself this question: If I have to chose between, on the one hand, settling a dispute purely for the sake of ending it and, on the other hand, settling it in a manner which conforms to policy or, if policy does not apply, the manner which is best for the encyclopedia, which should I choose? Say two editors are in disagreement over an edit. One says that version X is the best, one says version Y is the best. I take on the process, introduce myself, and ask both to explain why their version is better. Overnight, while I'm sleeping, they begin moving towards a compromise on version Z, and would be there if they weren't both overlooking an obvious and very minor rewording of Z which would make it acceptable to them both. The problem is that Z is clearly objectionable under Wikipedia policy — let's say as an original research synthesis of versions X and Y — which they do not realize or prefer to overlook. Z cannot be reformed to avoid the policy problem. Should I:

  1. Merely encourage them to choose and implement Z by suggesting the rewording?
  2. Encourage them to choose and implement Z by suggesting the rewording, but tell them that it can only be an IAR local exception due to the policy violation and will probably be removed as soon as some third party comes along and sees it?
  3. Throw a monkey wrench in the works and point out that Z is unacceptable under policy and should not even be considered?
  4. Point out that Z is unacceptable under policy, should not even be considered, and that I'll prevent an IAR local exception from being formed by reverting it if they put it in?

As a general Wikipedian, a plain-vanilla editor who happened to stumble onto the discussion, I'd certainly jump in with both feet and upset their consensus–cart (and would do so anyway if it were one of the "legal" policies such as contentious BLP information or a copyright violation, instead of "just" OR), but if I'm wearing my dispute resolution hat at the time, what should I do: go for peace at any cost or do something that upholds Wikipedia policy but will likely extend the dispute and disruption? My answer: I'd go for the sure settlement unless I am certain that I am going to be able to come up with something else which will settle the dispute while upholding policy. That's because at the end of the day, the ongoing dispute and disruption does more harm to Wikipedia than an edit that will eventually be discovered and repaired. But your mileage may vary, so what do you think? Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 22:25, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I've changed your list to numbers for ease of reference. (I used to keep forgetting this myself, even though it's easier to type.)
Your attitude seems to be typical of the WP ethos in practice, whatever the theory may say. I can't say I approve of the attitude that someone else will eventually sort it out. It's not universalizable, for a start (i.e., if everyone took that attitude, nothing would ever get sorted out). There are a couple of points that suggest problems can be expected to worsen:
  1. The edit rate has not increased since 2007. If anything it's declined. How can a constant edit rate maintain an ever-increasing number of articles?
  2. It was predicted recently that India would overtake the US in a couple of years in number of internet users. If you compare a country where thousands killed in religious riots are par for the course with one that has only the occasional bombing or assassination to deal with, you might well expect a substantial increase in "problem editors".
Peter jackson (talk) 11:39, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
I just chanced upon this project and reading the above comment on religious riots seems a bit prejudiced. From what I read of Religious_riots_in_india, I'm sure the US and allies' invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have lead to the deaths of far more people in the last ten years. My biggest problem with editors is the ones who want to scream antisemite at anyone who includes critical info on Israel or tries to make articles on US/UK/Israeli critics of Israel BLP-compliant. I have wasted hundred of hours with them, while a long list of articles on libertarian topics I'd rather being doing have remained unedited or uncreated. And just wait til/if Israel bombs Iran before the US does. So let's not make generalizations we then have to have a dispute about. :-) CarolMooreDC 15:16, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
Statistics aren't the same as generalizations. Peter jackson (talk) 10:57, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Peter, and Carol, if we are discussing a search for genuine solutions, we really shouldn't confuse matters by dealing with any one particular dispute, let alone one involving these particular countries on such topics. It tends to give the impression one want to arevise or adopt policy in order to get a preferred result on a particular issue. DGG ( talk ) 00:38, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
You are correct and my answer should have read more like that, though I think mentioning prejudice is relevant. Of course, I gave specific examples belong only because I wanted to show three very different kind of articles where the same problems arise. Sometimes it's better to be general, sometimes specific, and one doesn't always get it right. CarolMooreDC 00:10, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

My personal take on the issue is option 3. We as mediatiors should not subvert Wikipedia policies to resolve a dispute. If policy is very clear on a point, then outright ignoring that one policy to satisfy someone else isn't appropriate. The only time I've ever done so (to my knowledge) is the Abortion MedCab case, and it was more because of the appearance of several policies contradicting each other, thus requiring an IAR approach. But this should be the exception rather than the rule. I think that this project should be used as a think tank to start with. Let's get a few ideas out there (the good, the bad and the awful) and mull things over together till we come up with some good ideas. I don't have all the answers after all. Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 00:44, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't referring to any particular dispute. Peter jackson (talk) 10:45, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Dispute in itself can be positive, healthy and vital to the creation and maintenance of a balanced and accurate encyclopedia. What is harmful is a) stifling dissent, debate and dispute; b) allowing disputes to become personalised or aggressive or to spill out into inappropriate areas; c) ignoring a dispute so it remains unresolved or ends inappropriately; d) becoming involved in a dispute rather than mediating it. I would be interested in looking at ways in which we can encourage positive dispute, and ways in which we can discourage or prevent negative behaviour which derails the dispute. Moderating a dispute, to me, is to allow the dispute to take place in a calm and civil environment where everyone has space to give their views, and where participants are guided to an appropriate solution, which would of necessity include informing them of policies and guidelines. If neither X, Y or Z are appropriate solutions, then keep on talking. Dispute resolution is not a race, and it has to be accepted that reaching a solution may take a long time, or not even be possible this time round. SilkTork ✔Tea time 12:11, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
I entirely agree with SilkTork and believe that the project should deal with policy and behavioral issues, rather than content issues—i.e. mediate the dispute, not get involved in it. Regarding moderation, the toughest thing here IMO is getting both parties to accept a moderator, even an uninvolved one (as opposed to a mediator, a moderator takes a more active role by asking the questions). I am not sure therefore that moderating is viable or desirable (too much getting involved), but it would be a good idea to try it out and see how it works. —Ynhockey (Talk) 12:41, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
The specification of the project seems to cover 2 different things, discussing the system & possible improvements, & actually doing things in particular disputes. And of course there's also the distinction between content & behaviour. I suppose it would be possible to split the project into 2 or even 4 projects. Certainly I don't think content problems should be ignored. Peter jackson (talk) 11:09, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
In my day job I would normally be very concerned about separation of duties, but this is en-wikipedia; for all our bureaucracy we still have groups which perform task X whilst simultaneously discussing the best remit or process for X or for the group as a whole. The only place we really take separation of duties seriously is at WP:INVOLVED, and even infringements of that may be overlooked if the admin's stance on content was right. On the content/behaviour distinction, there may also be cases where "content" and "behaviour" are clearly distinct, but all too often they are entangled - POV/neutrality disputes turn into grudges, and grudges turn into pedantic disagreement on other pages, and so on and so on, but if you take the problem to one of the existing venues somebody is bound to say "We can't look at that aspect of the case here...". bobrayner (talk) 14:59, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Peace at any cost?

My personal opinion is that...

  • En.wikipedia isn't finished yet and won't be finished for quite some time; outside of disputed content there's lots more prosaic work to do;
  • The main constraint on this improvement - the main input into the wikipedia project - is the time and goodwill of competent editors;
  • Editors can often burn a lot of that time and goodwill on a disagreement over something relatively small (even just one word in the lede of a controversial article).

Therefore, disputes can be a serious obstacle to the further improvement of the encyclopædia as a whole. If we can stop two active editors from bickering over one thing, they could go fix a hundred other things. Therefore it may sometimes be appropriate to compromise on the "wrong" version, or to infringe one of our lesser guidelines if it forestalls another drama-board thread, although this may be a false economy if it enables another dispute (perhaps involving other editors) further down the line. Several times, I've burnt a whole day - or more - trying to get to the bottom of some meatpuppetry or ballot-stuffing &c on some poll concerning a dozen words in a perennially controversial article - how much other content could have been improved by me and by the other involved editors, in the time that took? bobrayner (talk) 11:04, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Groups of biased editors vs. policy

In the last 3 years these three articles have wasted at least 15% of my total editing time in disputes because of the problem of biased editors willing to ignore policy and create big fights to push their POVs. Just a few details of well know types of problems that we have to deal with:

  • Libertarianism - my major area of interest was constantly assaulted by ever shifting groups of competing factions; I was pretty good at finding compromises among them, but it would take so much nonsense to get among people who really didn't understand the subject matter I finally gave up.
  • Gilad Atzmon - the well known British former Israeli jazz musician's article actually is edited by Brits who bad mouth him on the internet and have (and probably still do) engage in protests against him as an "antisemite", which in their minds excuses all sorts of violations of policy, including sock and meat puppets. It's been a real fight to get in his replies to various charges (which are repeated over and over by various sources) in the past; and now there's a whole new onslaught since he published a book praised by high profile academics.
  • Death of Caylee Anthony has had a lot of input from people who obviously think she's guilty despite the verdict and I'm still working on getting in more of the exculpatory evidence that led to a verdict of innocent because it should be there, especially under BLP (especially when the person keeps getting death threats). (The two worst people left after someone else did an ANI I participated in and around same time I questioned the dubious User name of another. Sometimes dispute resolution and policy boards at least do make people look at their own questionable behavior.)

Dealing with these recalcitrant people with strong POVs is so frustrating. I've probably used every means of dispute resolution at some point. I've now used the new Dispute Resolution board a couple times and found it very helpful so YEAH! for that. So just saying that some means of dealing with groups of POV editors would be helpful. CarolMooreDC 23:54, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the survey is. But the carrot of dispute resolution needs the stick of blocking. Unfortunately the best way to deal with this is to block such groups of editors from editing when it's shown they all support putting in the same crappy info or reverting perfectly sensible info. Not that it will happen that often, but even one block a month of 3 people doing it would at least make people a bit more aware. (Note that I just learned one of the worst POV pushers in any area of interest to me was blocked indefinitely because they pulled their nonsense when playing with the "big boys" instead of us peons. Hope their request to unblock fails. If so, I'm sure their sock will be back soon enough.) Is their hope for wikipedia? Without verifying people are who they say they are after, say, their first block, so that the worst actors are weeded out? Dang. Frustrating. CarolMooreDC 05:40, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
  • To respond to TM's point in the OP, my view is the same of that of Steve Zhang in his comment on 25 November. Disputants should never choose between settling a dispute and resolving it in line with policy, because no part of the DR system allows a dispute to be considered "resolved" if the outcome does not accord with policy. If the outcome of a particular case was so, the result would be quashed by the community as incompatible with our practices and policies. AGK [•] 19:30, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
"should", not "would"; that's part of the problem. Peter jackson (talk) 11:02, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Communications

See also Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Content dispute resolution. Peter jackson (talk) 11:42, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

And Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Dispute resolution. Peter jackson (talk) 11:44, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

And User:TransporterMan/Sandbox/3. Peter jackson (talk) 17:40, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I've now posted notices of this page on the talk pages of all who participated in the middle one of the above, apart from those who've already appeared here, a bot, an IP and a not very relevant notice. Peter jackson (talk) 18:22, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Awesome. I think I should work on the front page of the project, indeed it looks crappy at present. Perhaps send an invite to current and former arbs as well as members of MedCom? Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 21:32, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
Yes, let's invite the neutral editors at all the relevant DR pages - that's a given, really. Also, we could do with a logo. Does anyone want to trytheir hand at making one? We'll most likely use it on templates and userboxes as well as the main project page. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ♫ 01:59, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
A new logo? Nah, I think this one will work just fine. Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 02:10, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Now done the other RfC, skipping a banned editor. Peter jackson (talk) 11:39, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Ideas

Alrighty all, ideas. Feel free to chip in any ideas you have for improving DR. Content or conduct disputes. Any at all. My main idea at present is a easy to access and understand reference desk style board, that lists the least and most active disputes on our various DR pages. We could use a skilled bot operator with this one. Come now, ideas. Don't be shy :) Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 12:46, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Some time ago during the CC ArbCom case, I made the suggestion that we can make good use of the editing history of articles and their talk pages. One can copy the state of one or more articles before some problems arose, to some special DR page and then let the involved editors start editing from there. If we have made a rough analysis first about problematic behavior, then one can watch if the editors are now able to avoid problems. Count Iblis (talk) 16:51, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
So a do over? Sounds promising. User:Fred Bauder Talk 21:56, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
We need to think about motivation, both rational and irrational. One major motivation is suppression of an opposing point of view, however, another maybe simply promotion of an ideosyncratic point of view. It strikes me that such tactics only work in isolation apart from community view. Perhaps a flying squad of editors could actively jump in when editing disputes develop, rather than letting the regular crew slug it out. User:Fred Bauder Talk 22:31, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Interesting idea. Would it be possible to code a bot that can flag possible disputes? Maybe based on reverts, or on keywords in talkpage discussion? I seem to remember there was a research project that did something like that a while back. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 02:12, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking some more about my dispute bot idea, and I had a bit of a eureka moment. What if we just get this bot to do all of our organization for us? We could use this bot in conjunction with a talk page banner to both find new disputes, and organize the dispute notice board that Steven Zhang has been talking about. Here's how it would work:

  • A bot would patrol Wikipedia looking for disputes, using an algorithm based on reverts, or on dispute-related language on talk pages. If the bot finds a probable dispute, it tags the talk page with a banner. This banner would also flag the page for human review, in case the bot made a mistake.
  • This banner template could also be added manually, in which case there would be no need for human review.
  • Pages with the banner on would be listed by the bot at a central dispute noticeboard, separated by category. So there would be a section for new disputes needing human review, new disputes not needing human review, disputes taken to WP:3O, disputes taken to WP:DRN, etc.
  • There would be a field in the banner template where a one-line summary could be provided. This summary could be listed at the dispute noticeboard for easily identifying disputes.
  • If a dispute gets listed in one of the dispute resolution forums then the bot could automatically change the talkpage banner to |3O=yes, etc. This would in turn update the listing at the dispute noticeboard.
  • The bot could automatically de-list disputes if they become stale, or if they are marked as resolved at one of the dispute resolution forums.

This would have several advantages over the current system. The most important of these would be that users involved in a dispute have a lot less to do to get their dispute noticed. If the patrolling bot flags it, then they might not need to do anything at all. Even if they have to do it manually, there would be no need to read all of WP:Dispute resolution, find the noticeboard that's the best match, read their rules, and work out the syntax of their submission page/template. All they would need to do would be to add the text {{dispute resolution requested}} (or whatever) at the top of the page. And users more familiar with the system could add things like a summary, the users involved, etc.

Also, if we could get the various noticeboards on board, we could make this the primary way to list a dispute. That is, instead of the bot checking WP:3O and then updating the talkpage banner if it finds a dispute there, it could check the talkpage banner, and if it finds |3O=yes, then it could list it at the WP:3O page itself. Please let me know what you think of my little eureka idea. Any suggestions/comments/praise would be most welcome. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 09:36, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I found the research project that I was thinking about. See the Signpost coverage here and here for a summary and for links to the project's website. I made a quick scan of one of their papers, but I didn't see any mention of whether the source code is available. Maybe we could ask the researchers for help? — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 10:26, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Certainly WP:DR is very unclear on what methods should be followed where, so a simple one-size-fits-all initial approach might help (though some people said that was what {{WP:DRN]] was for). A few thoughts:
  1. People are liable to edit-war the tag away if you don't have a sytem for dealing with that.
  2. One problem with the existing sytem is that appeals for community involvement often get little or no response.
  3. After-sales service. Actually enforcing any decisions reached.
Peter jackson (talk) 14:09, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree that we should work on resolving disputes through structured, civilised discussion as opposed to trying to suppress the issues. I also think that these are all very good ideas that we definitely need to work on. One of the key issues I see at the moment is the shortage of users active in dispute resolution (as well as the lack of eyes on disputes). When disputes sit there and rot, tempers can flare because of it. I like Fred's idea, combined with Strad's idea, and mine, should work well together. I think adding a link to some page on Dispute resolution in the talk page header template may make DR more accessible, but in my opinion the thing we need to address first is the lack of users active in dispute resolution. Ideas to centralise DR and have task forces swoop in on disputes is a good idea, but won't work if we have enough people to attend to the issues.
As some of you may know, I've been in discussions with the Wikimedia Foundation on the possibilities of undertaking a fellowship, focused on improving dispute resolution, mainly for the purposes of improving editor retention. I think we have all seen a dispute that was left stagnant for too long, or was poorly handled by a mediator, resulting in users storming off the site. I think that a DR system that works properly could lessen the frequency of this occuring.
The two things that we need to address are the structure of DR (which we have been discussing above), and the size and skills of those working in DR. From my experience (what I've observed as well as personally) most users stumble into DR and learn through trial and error. While this works occasionally, other times it can make the dispute worse off, and I think it may be beneficial for users new to DR to hit the ground running.
I hope to combat this a few ways. Firstly, I want to do a survey of the Wikipedia community, and have been discussing this with the Wikimedia Research Committee. I hope this will achieve two things, 1) Get the views of the community on DR, how they feel about it, the issues they see, what works, and their experiences with DR, as well as 2) See who is interested in helping with DR, and participating in face-to-face and on-wiki workshops. I may also seek input from a real-life expert at dispute resolution, find their views on what they think could be improved with our dispute resolution systems.
These in person workshops are something I've also discussed with WMF. I would imagine we could compile a list of techniques to use in various situations, assemble test cases and case studies of past disputes and methods that have been used. I find that people learn better face-to-face, but theres that personal, collaborative aspect to it as well. I'm rather passionate about DR, as it shows, and really think this is a good idea if we can get enough people on board.
I'd appreciate input from all here. I really think with our collective minds we can make DR a lot better than it is at present, and at the same time, decrease the amount of users that leave because disputes are left to rot, or because of improper DR. Let's work on this together.
What I'd like to hear from people here is ideas for questions for the survey. Additionally, we perhaps should compile a list of all the DR forums we have (as we will need to offer the survey to as many people as possible to get a wide sample). Boards such as WQA, DRN, RSN, etc, as well as MedCab, MedCom, ArbCom etc.
Looking forward to all of your thoughts, Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 23:14, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Is my thread TL;DR? Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 00:42, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
  • The idea of a bot-assisted list of disputed articles is bold, but I think it's good. A bot which watches edits and looks for "dispute-like behaviour" could be very prone to false-positives unless it focuses only on revert-warring. However, some kinds of false-positives might benefit from community attention anyway (ie. an article on some controversial person in the news which will get a lot of back-and-forth editing).
  • However, it could be quite difficult for many people to accept the possibility of binding decisions taken on such a list. If editors opt-in to some form of DR then, fine, make it binding - but where editors and articles are involuntarily drawn into some form of DR, imposition of binding decisions by a third party is a tough one. No?
  • Now, if we want community involvement / more eyes on some collection of disputes, how would we frame it in order to draw more editors in? bobrayner (talk) 02:07, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Binding content DR will be a tough pill to swallow. I have heard of binding mediation in the real world. It works one of two ways, either a) Parties sign an agreement from the outset that the result of the mediation will be legally binding or b) The parties sign such an agreement once the mediation has concluded. I don't think it will be overly viable here. Binding content DR should probably be reserved for disputes that can't be conventionally resolved, generally naming disputes. Other content issues that can't be resolved through discussion is generally due to POV pushing, or other bad conduct.
As for how to get others interested, I think a survey would see just how interested editors are. We should pool ideas on questions to ask. :-) Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 02:18, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
To follow forward on some of the latter points...I think that it may be time in Wikipedia's lifecycle to require some sort of binding DR. Whether this was binding mediation; an elected/appointed editorial board or boards, if we want to divide it up by subject matter (i.e., ArbCom for content); or something else I'm not thinking of, I think it's time we moved towards actually solving problems. Now, I'm not saying that we should go the Citizendium route, and actually lock articles down under the control of "experts"...but barely restrained anarchism simply has a limit to how far it can go. The thing is, there is simply too much at stake in making a Wikipedia article look the way you/your employer/your interest group/your country wants. So long as there is a dispute in the real world between Palestine and Israel, there will be a dispute here, and this issue matters so much that there will be people and organized groups willing to commit real time and money to getting the message to read "their way". Given the fact that Wikipedia is the primary place people turn to for allegedly "authoritative" or "neutral" information about the real world, it really does matter whether a Wikipedia article, for example, calls someone a "terrorist" or "freedom fighter" or "militant" or "rebel" or whatever. These problems cannot ultimately be solved by our normal processes, because those with a real-world interest (especially if they have real-world funding), will always be able to outlast those of us doing this in our free time. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:25, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

There are two possible methods we could use for binding content dispute resolution, a "Content ArbCom" or binding RFCs. I prefer the latter option, becuase it seems a bit bureaucratic, but agree something is needed to be done. Our DR processes were never designed for the sort of editing we have nowadays (POV pushing, etc). Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 02:31, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Someone else may have suggested this idea before and my mind has simply stripped away all memory of it not originating solely in my head (and apologies if that is the case) but wouldn't one simple way of promoting DR be to include a reference to it in the default editnotice for at least article talk and user talk edit pages (I'm not in favor of adding it in other namespaces because that suggests that DR can be used to settle disputes in, for example, AfD discussions). For example:

This is a talk page. Please respect the talk page guidelines, and remember to sign your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~). If you become involved in a difficult dispute, please consider dispute resolution.

Or was it there at one time and taken out? Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:59, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm getting deja vu! I just started a thread on this very subject at the bottom of the page. Not sure if the wording was in any particular template before, but I just had a little look through the edit history of Template:Talk header and I couldn't find it. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 16:28, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
self-whack! Damn, shoulda read through the bottom of the page. Didn't mean to steal your thunder, Strad, sorry about that. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 17:42, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
  • {{Talk header}} is really outdated, and I agree that it at least needs a link to information about Dispute Resolution - although personally, I would go further and make that a focus of the template. Anyway, I added a link, and left a comment at Template talk:Talk header because the addition of the link was previously objected to (although only on the grounds that it would expand the already-bloated template). On the separate topic of "Content ArbCom", such a think is abhorrent to me. On the issue of "binding mediation or RFCs", I'm more receptive to that, and would also note User:Ryan Postlethwaite/Mediation-Arbitration Referrals Subcommittee which the MedCom worked on a while ago; that proposal may be a good starting point, especially in the context of the new Wikipedia:Binding RFCs. AGK [•] 19:41, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Idea: Method for consensus building

While this would only be one tool in a dispute resolution toolbox that this group is considering, I wanted to bring attention to Wikipedia:Method for consensus building (a.k.a. WP:CONSBUILD). This recommendation includes templates to help declare positions and proposals as talking points in a discussion page. It has simple guidelines for reaching consensus. Probably most significantly, it proposes a way to reach consensus even when a "spoiler" attempts to filibuster a discussion. Comments? Suggestions? Ikluft (talk) 00:19, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Looks interesting. Part of the issue I see with the templates, however, is the potential for editors to feel their views are being misrepresented, ie. template says 8/10 agree with something, when 3 of those 8 are actually holding a different viewpoint altogether. Interesting read, though. Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 00:23, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Just reading the lead, I think you have to immediately link to and summarize Wikipedia policies as expressed in Wikipedia:Consensus, not just make it a "see also."
Especially important to emphasize is Wikipedia:Consensus#Consensus-building_by_soliciting_outside_opinions. Many editors think consensus means ONLY consensus of whoever comes to the page which may be a biased sample. It's the sort of thing that makes many editors stop editing (something I just ran across a little while ago). So more info on which boards can be used how for consensus building helpful.
And make sure everybody understands policies and others (mis)understandings of it. As I just wrote to the individual above who later did come back to such an article: It's always good to check policy yourself rather than believing what other editors say. Sometimes they are wrong, sometimes policy has shifted since they last looked, sometimes they are emphasizing part of policy and ignoring the rest, and sometimes they are just plain full of it. (I recently had a big brouhaha with someone who thought you only "reverted" others material if that material had been entered in the last 24 hours. It took him following me to a policy page for me and others to find out he totally misunderstood the policy he was hurling accusations about.) It's a mad house out there! :-) CarolMooreDC
Trying to keep things simple and respond to your suggestion to link more significantly to Wikipedia:Consensus, I added the {{conduct policy list}} on the right at the top. Ikluft (talk) 02:15, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I know I didn't respond to everything you asked. It's important to keep the text as simple as possible. So maybe a more specific infobox than {{conduct policy list}} with a custom set of links may be better. But I'd prefer to shorten and simplify text rather than add a bunch more. Ikluft (talk) 02:21, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Every one of the templates forms a place where discussion and response can be added. I'm sure you're right that misunderstandings can take place anywhere because we're all human. Editors can and should respond with an objection if a resolution template is posted prematurely. Undoubtedly it will happen. But as with the current situation, then the discussion isn't over. Ikluft (talk) 02:15, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I think the problem with any system is the unbearable ease in which it can be abused when more focus is given to procedure than to conduct. Wikipedia seems to be at a point where its top heavy procedural guidelines are easily manipulated by either side of a dispute. In most cases I've seen, not enough attention seems to be given to the aggressive attitude overpowering issues. I know it's all covered in the conduct guidelines, which I believe are of the more concise writings on collaborative success anywhere (I noticed the word behavior wasn't received well in the template talk page but I think using it as a deterring term would help drive a point home sometimes).
At any rate, I'm wondering if it's enough anymore to merely display the guidelines prominently. Considering behavior is the root cause of protracted disputes, most of which might find elegant solutions if aggression becomes less widely tolerated, then perhaps a group of editors/admins who specialize in discerning and dealing with problematic conduct can also be considered as part of the needed solution. The interesting thing about this area is that it's much more easily enforceable than content issues because it mostly rests on psychological advantage. It is relatively easy, for the most part, to compel someone to change their tone by "outing" it as the problem, in a way that suggests no tolerance for it.
We seem to be in need of a group of leaders who are perceptive enough to recognize problematic behavior in its early stages, and apply an authoritative block on it before it grows. And to do so in a way that exudes goodwill and collective concern, that most editors would not feel comfortable in challenging. It may be a daunting proposal for the project and it certainly wouldn't be free of drawbacks. But I'm not sure procedural steps alone can be effective enough without an effort of this type. --MichaelNetzer (talk) 03:52, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
You make good points. A major issue with DR at present is this sort of behaviour, where parties dig their heels in until one gives up, ie they "win" by default. I've thought of two potential ways of dealing with this, but they're still early ideas. We could implement a three strikes rule, say, User X violates 3RR once, they are warned, twice, blocked for a week, three times, restricted to 1RR, with different remedies for different issues. Another possibility would be the extending of the ability to topic ban to administrators (that is, without ANI). Or we could implement some sort of "time out", a user is being disruptive within a mediation discussion, so they're kicked out for a day. I'm not sure. That's all I can conjure out of my head right now. Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 04:02, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Seems that the way you're concentrating on DR is unique and refreshing, Steven, especially in the effort to educate young editors on the good-natured approach to interpersonal relations that WP promotes. That's one side of the coin, while the other is what to do about veteran editors who've mastered the art of violating these pillars while dragging disputes into endless uncivil arguments that are seemingly tolerated because of their focus on content. It's in this area that I think WP needs some innovations that go beyond known admin tools and privileges, which don't seem to hold much clout anymore. I find too many cases where editors are willing to become topic-blocked for a short time in order to score a win in an argument. The proposal WP:Town sheriff is a classic example of failure in trying to apply conventional tools.
I'm thinking of something that needs no special privileges nor official sanction from WP. A group of editors/admins, perhaps mostly in good standing (though a previous record of some violations wouldn't necessarily exclude anyone in and of itself). A body of independently empowered mediators who intervene in heated disputes to diffuse them. Not by applying pressure of possible sanctions through admin clout, but rather by identifying the aggression that's feeding the flames, and trying to put it out with the soothing power of compelling good-natured discourse - much like a water-hose applied with the force of a fire engine. Because the problem seems to escape the discipline of existing tools, we may need to approach it in a bold and creative way that can have a hope of changing the spirit of things on the ground.
It would need some operating tenets, goals and mission statement that could hold such a group together (though I think all these already exist in the guidelines). A sub-project of this one - or maybe its own project - that can hope to attract a body of editors/admins willing and able to participate. But it would need no official sanction (though that would be welcomed) nor any special powers or privileges. It can even attempt to establish some test cases immediately, even before becoming formally organized (trial and error are keys to innovative design). It's the rough direction I've been thinking about and I understand it's a little bit outside of conventional parameters, but I thought it might be worth voicing. --MichaelNetzer (talk) 12:50, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
That is an excellent idea. I agree that dispute resolution is indeed a two-sided coin, and some of the issues that we have at present with our processes is that it was not designed to deal with gaming of the system, something that unfortunately is common nowadays. Various proposals have been proposed or tried, without success. Your approach seems like a good idea, however we would need the, lets say, "army" of experienced mediators to make such a proposal work. This is something that we lack at present. While there are a small amount of users that regularly work in dispute resolution, an even smaller amount are what we could call "experienced mediators", in the sense that they would know ways to see through this sort of gaming of the system, and how to overcome those issues.
I still think that a survey of the community is the best way forward first. It would accomplish two things, 1) Get the views of the community on DR, what issues they see, what can be improved, their experiences with DR etc and 2) Find out who's interested more in participating in dispute resolution. I've created the template for the survey, which is located on Google Docs (anyone can edit it). If anyone has issues, ping me. I'd also like to know who'd be interested in coming to in-person meet ups to teach users interested in the process some techniques to use to resolve disputes, but we first need to see how many users are actually interested in participating in dispute resolution. We should do this concurrently with the creation of a bot. I personally think Cobi would be the best person to ask about this, as this bot would function in a similar way to ClueBot NG, though instead of looking for vandalism, it looks for disputes.
All in all, my point sort of is, we need to build the ranks of those active and experienced in dispute resolution before we can do much else. It's all good and well to create task forces to tackle disputes, but won't do much good if there's no one in those task forces :-) Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 20:42, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree this is all a good start and there seems to be enough of an initial interest. A bot to track disputes makes some sense for direction. A few recent issues I've been involved in stretched out into long debates that seem to have left everyone a little exhausted and now waiting for uninvolved parties to weigh in. But no one is stepping up from the outside to make a decision one way or the other. It leaves everything at square one again. I would have liked for things to soften up a little more. It did happen to a minor extent but not enough to tip the scales. We'll see how things go here and maybe some of the field experience out there will help contribute something. -MichaelNetzer (talk) 00:03, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Yup, behavior is the root of all evil. I have a dual perspective, as a competitive person who enjoys digging my heals in for a good fight, and as a feminist who recognizes I must moderate my behavior which is more typical of the young male majority that populates wikipedia and whose aggressive, competitive tendencies tend to scare away less aggressive people. I did recommend people from the Gender Gap mailing list come here and this general topic is discussed constantly on that list. Perhaps one or two people from there could join that list and get some insights or encourage more participation here. :-)
Part of the solution is better training in this area (especially through a good video or two on wikipedia). Anyway, a current project of mine is putting together Compilation of info on how to train new/potential editors; different existing Wikipedia sources and a few outside ones. Not sure yet where best place to share it is.
Getting people to online or in person trainings would be a great help. I could still use one myself :-) CarolMooreDC 21:24, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I can't imagine ever getting over how fine a statement WP guidelines are on people getting along in collaborations. Nice to see them compiled the way you and Steve have done it. BTW, I think you can stop any fight just with your sense of humor, Carol :-)--MichaelNetzer (talk) 00:03, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I have an adoption program that I've tweaked and rewritten over the years (I swiped an old version from someone else back in 2008), and I've found it useful to show new users the ropes on Wikipedia. I think there's a lot of value in growing our DR ranks. In-person I think builds that collaborative environment as well. I hope that with the survey one of the results will be we find out where most editors who are interested in DR are located, and from that perhaps organise a few meetups. I initially thought, one in London, three in the States (NY, LA and DC) as well as Wikimania 2012, but it really depends where everyone is located, and where the interest is. For all we know we could have 50 experts in mediation in Uruguay. Priority 1 for me is the survey at present, so I'd appreciate input on that where possible (I fixed the link up top). Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 22:20, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

That's great! Maybe you could somehow link to it via Wikipedia:Mentorship or create a more general program that would not necessitate you adopting more people than you can handle. Plus I just noticed the inactive Wikipedia:WikiProject User Rehab. Obviously it's better to train early so one doesn't end up there, should it ever be re-activated. (And should it?) CarolMooreDC 00:18, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
I know it's already linked to from the Adopt-a-user resources page, and several people have swiped mine in the past too :P. But perhaps we could place it somewhere more visible. I'd like to create a few lessons on article writing, something lacking from my adoption program as admittedly it's not my forte. Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 00:24, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Dispute-flagging bot

I thought it was best to open a new thread about my bot idea, as it seemed to be getting lost in the discussion above. To recap, this bot would patrol Wikipedia and flag possible disputes based on reverts or talk-page keywords, and add a banner to the associated talk pages. Peter jackson mentioned the possibility that editors could edit-war away the tag, and I have thought of a solution - instead of the tag saying "this page is tagged by a bot as possibly under dispute" or similar, it could just label the topic as being possibly controversial, in the same vein as {{Controversial}}, {{Calm talk}}, or {{Controversial (scientific)}}. This weaker wording would still suit our purposes just fine, and would be less likely to be disputed by talk-page participants. Even if it did get removed, I don't think it would be the end of the world, as one of the participants could just list the dispute at a noticeboard, as happens in the current system. We could make similar templates added by humans have a more explicit wording. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 14:39, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Even the word "controversial" can provoke edit wars and other drama, because there will always be people who are quite certain that the subject isn't controversial and that it's being distorted/attacked by the "other side" (whether rightly or wrongly). Talk:Neuro-linguistic programming has 163 mentions of "controversial" in the last 2 months - it generated some fairly hefty threads.
  • I think that listing on another page in wikipedia-space (which is not specifically about that disputed topic, and which is not contested by warring bands of A versus B editors) would act as an "anchor".
  • However, it might also help if we emphasise that the tag was applied according to some bot's algorithm, rather than a human being - controversial articles can get very adversarial and an edit not made by an adversary is much more likely to stick.
Do we have a friendly & willing bot-writer? I have some coding experience in other areas but know nothing about bots on wikipedia. bobrayner (talk) 14:55, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
You're right, we wouldn't want the listing to disappear just because one editor thought calling the topic controversial was obviously not true. I like your idea of having an anchor on some Wikipedia-space page. (Maybe this could be Steve's centralized dispute noticeboard?) This would call for a re-jig of my original idea, but we can work that out as we go along. At the same time, I think this bot would probably be most useful for out-of-the-way disputes which would otherwise get missed, rather than the permanently controversial ones that everyone knows about. Still, tags on these articles could always be edit-warred away too. About the bot operator, we could make a request on bot requests, and see what the pros have to say about the matter. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 15:22, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

This bot is an excellent idea. The anchor listing will be more important than the tag that no one will be able to enforce it staying there. Looking forward to seeing it around. -MichaelNetzer (talk) 00:06, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Just a thought here; I'm not sure how it relates. There are already dispute tags. It may be interesting to examine, for example, Category:NPOV disputes. Peter jackson (talk) 10:58, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Well, the NPOV tags are tagged as definite disputes by a human, but if no-one delists them then there's no way to tell if they're stale or not. On the other hand, bot-flagged disputes would not be definite disputes, and should be flagged as something different. If bot-flagged disputes get reviewed by a human and turn out to be real disputes, then maybe we can use some of the categories that are already in existence. I think the key point here is that we need to differentiate between active disputes and inactive disputes. Inactive disputes are just another editing problem, on par with copy editing for weasel words. Active disputes, on the other hand, bring the danger of causing editors to storm off the project, so we should place a much higher priority on them. We should probably make it another goal of this project to look through all of the articles in Category:NPOV disputes and see which ones are actively being disputed. The rest could be converted to some other tag, maybe a weasel words tag, or maybe a new one. Maybe the proposed bot could help with this task as well. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 13:06, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
One reason I had for suggesting examining that category was that you'd see there are thousands of them (and also many are years old). Peter jackson (talk) 10:56, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Visibility of dispute resolution

While I was looking around for example talk-page templates for my previous post, it occurs to me that we have a lot of templates that point to guidelines and advice, but that they may not necessarily point to dispute resolution in particular. For example, {{Controversial}}, {{Calm talk}}, or {{Controversial (scientific)}}, which I linked to above, have links to WP:BOLD, WP:NPOV, WP:V, Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot, Wikipedia:Etiquette, and WP:CITE. These are all important principles and guidelines, of course, but I think probably the most important thing for new editors to know is that they should get help if they get into a dispute, and get help early. I propose inserting links to Wikipedia:Dispute resolution in all similar talk page templates, and to include wording like "use dispute resolution early" or "get outside help early". A great place to do this would be at Template:Talk header, and indeed I see Steven Zhang requested this last month, but it was put on hold pending consensus. I'm sure we can work out some good things here, so let me know your thoughts. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 15:05, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Go for it. CarolMooreDC 21:26, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Binding RFCs

FYI all, I've written up a proposal for some binding content DR, you can find it at Wikipedia:Binding RFCs. Feel free to edit it, and comment as you wish. Regards, Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 11:07, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Interesting comments

[1]. Peter jackson (talk) 11:15, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Dammit, we should have called ourselves "WikiProject Invent 100 New Forms Of Dispute Resolution". I knew we were going wrong somewhere. </sarcasm> — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 12:47, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
To parse the comment a bit more which wasThanks for the link but frankly I think this sounds like a pretty awful idea. Wikipedia's problem is not that it has too few dispute resolution mechanisms which aren't visible enough, but rather that it has too many which are too visible, and which tend to suck in previously uninvolved editors and cause disputes to escalate. Best of luck though. One of those clever statements that sounds "deep" but actually says nothing. A detailed review of which ones are too visible and cause problems would help, though I can think of a few. The problem is more that people do things like go straight to ANI when they should start with Wikiquette assistance. Getting people to go to and study the main dispute resolution page so they know their sliding scale of options is very important. It took me a couple years but boy was it worth it... sometimes... CarolMooreDC 05:32, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
Well, taking it at face value, I think it's a more extreme example of the sort of attitude shown by TM and Bob above. This user seems to be saying it would be in the long-term interest of the encyclopaedia if everyone else just got on with improving the rest of the encyclopaedia and left the disputants to fight it out. Peter jackson (talk) 17:43, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
The notion that such a practice would be in the long-term interest of the project is really quite wrong, although I do not dispute that in a small number of cases, dispute resolution is used to play WikiLawyer and gain the upper hand. AGK [•] 19:26, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
I wish we could just come up with a system to appoint permanent NPOV admin oversight to the most problematic articles (as disputes arise) to point out when either side in a dispute is either being uncivil or violating policy in a really obvious fashion. When you have to quote "such and such policy" with a link three times in one discussion section and the person replies that you are just making up "such and such policy" using its name, you have pure obstructionism. But good luck getting anything done about it at ANI or RfC user. If only wikipedia could sell advertising and hire people for that thankless task who they could fire if they were too inept or POV... Sigh... CarolMooreDC 20:53, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks everyone for saying what I was trying to say. On reflection, pointy comments like mine above aren't actually going to get anything done about the situation. I think what we really need is some way to get the number of mediators to scale with the number of disputes, or the number of active editors. If we can think of this in terms of systems then we might have a better chance of keeping up with the sheer number of disputes involved. Disputes are only going to become more common as articles become more fleshed out, after all. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ♫ 23:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
It would be great if we could just get more informal mediators. I think that will be my next step in the contentious article I'm in now. In the past, in this or a similar article, the mediator just wasn't on top of the issues, but they still managed to encourage a more constructive atmosphere. Just knowing those neutral eyes are watching keeps many (not all!) editors more in line. Please, put ads on wikipedia and hire a bunch of skilled ones! :-) CarolMooreDC 04:48, 2 December 2011 (UTC)


I concur with all those that detail the need for more users active in dispute resolution (let's call them mediators) Indeed, it has been something I've been rather active in working on over the past few months, as some here will be aware.

As I have observed personally, the lack of mediators has a noticeable effect on disputes and editor retention. Experienced mediators who handle disputes well will generally resolve them, leading to users being satisfied with the outcome, and staying to edit Wikipedia, often having learned something. An inexperienced mediator may mishandle things, perhaps mishandling the situation, which I think we have all observed in the past and people can leave over it. Lack of intervention or support in disputes can have the same effect.

My personal attitude on dispute resolution is at times more of a structural one, and was part of the initial idea I had when creating the dispute resolution noticeboard. Not to deliberately point out errors of other forums, but I think the strength of DRN is the prescence of structure. In my mind the questions require the filer to think about what they're posting, as opposed to a long rant which is hard to read and hard to get an understanding of the actual dispute at hand. The other strength of DRN in my mind is the visibility. Part of the problem with some other forums, like MedCab, is the fact there's no central listing of all the active disputes. This has been addressed at DRN, and we're working on it with the DR central proposal. I think we really should try focus on these moving forward, but realise I may do a fair bit of the heavy lifting.

I've mentioned in-person workshops before. It's something I've been discussing with the Foundation, because my personal opinion is centralised DR + more mediators + training to make them experienced mediators = more disputes resolved successfully, less people leaving over DR = increased editor retention.

What they're looking for at the moment is a baseline. We need raw stats. How many users active in dispute resolution, how many disputes we tend to get over a period of time, how many are resolved, how many are escalated to other areas, how many go stale etc. We need to take a look at all the DR boards. If we can compile a list, and perhaps use this tool to see who contributes to the various DR forums the most, and from there gather a rough list of mediators. Perhaps a central list that people can add themselves to, similar to the volunteers list at DRN and MedCab could be created somewhere?

I still think the survey is something that needs to be worked on. That's the best way to get a large sample of the community as to their views of dispute resolution. I'd appreciate suggested questions to ask. I'm currently waiting on an update from the research committee, due to all the nuances that offering such a survey brings, but it's definitely still something that needs to be worked on.

So, in short, I think the ways for us to move forward are

  1. Draw up a way to centralise DR to increase visibility, and make it more simple.
  2. Survey the community to find out their experiences with DR and the strengths and issues they see with it, so we know what we need to work on.
  3. Work on ways to empower mediators with skills and tools they can use to tackle disputes in a more effective way (This is the training bit)
  4. Come up with ways to address civil POV pushing as well as other issues with DR that are so far unresolved (though I imagine that more will come from the survey.

Input will most be appreciated. Again, apologies for the TL;DR post.

Regards, Steven Zhang Join the DR army! 05:22, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad to see a systematic approach. As a person who has had to go to WP:SPI, WP:BLPN, WP:Wikiquette assistance in last 10 days and still needs to go to WP:RSN because of biased editors on a BLP, I would love to be able to go to one place to deal with all the issues. When I do bring in neutral parties, they usually agree with me since I am quite a bit more neutral than other editors who dislike the subject of the BLP. And obviously I'm a stubborn glutton for punishment. CarolMooreDC 05:35, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
"I wish we could just come up with a system to appoint permanent NPOV admin oversight to the most problematic articles (as disputes arise) to point out when either side in a dispute is either being uncivil or violating policy in a really obvious fashion." (Carol) Arbcom's discretionary sanctions seem to approximate this. And there's Wikipedia:Town sheriff. Peter jackson (talk) 11:11, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
Jayron: I have mentioned WP:DRN a few times on wikiprojects I visited. Probably when we run into other's disputes we should suggest it. Noticeboards may give an idea of articles which need further dispute resolution, so checking those out and recommending it would help.
All: Hmmm, it does seem that more mediator/moderator types intervened in couple disputes brough there before which is good. While some disputes like WP:BLP or WP:RS might be best at the specific board, when those are mixed with various NPOV issues might be best at WP:DRN. Unfortunately, with some of these editors one just ends up with a trail of noticeboards where other users told them they had it wrong and they just keep on doing bad edits/reverts til finally you have enough evidence to take one or more of them to ANI. Something they might be reminded if if too obstreperous :-)
Peter: I forgot about the town sheriff which I initially didn't think was as good as just encouraging admins to give short blocks more freely. But in my old age - couple months later - the idea looks better. CarolMooreDC 04:24, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

And User_talk:Ludwigs2/Archive_18#Decisions_on_WP. Peter jackson (talk) 15:42, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

And [2]. Peter jackson (talk) 17:42, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

And [3]. Peter jackson (talk) 17:48, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

And User:Brews_ohare#Something_about_Wikipedia and the next section. Peter jackson (talk) 17:58, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

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