Wikipedia: Mediation Committee

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de:Wikipedia:Vermittlungsausschuss nl:Wikipedia:Vrijwillige bemiddelaars The Wikipedia mediation committee was set up by Jimbo Wales in January 2004 to assist in resolving disputes between users. It is part of the dispute resolution process on Wikipedia. If that process fails, the dispute will be resolved by the Arbitration Committee.

The role of the mediation committee is explicitly to try to resolve disputes to the mutual satisfaction of all, and not simply a first step towards banning or for vetting candidates for the Arbitration Committee to ban. Mediation is instead an honest attempt to resolve the problem. The disputants -- the users in conflict -- should understand that any concerns they have will be given a fair hearing.

The way in which this committee works is still developing as the work proceeds. It has been discussed in the past on the Wikipedia mailing lists by emails, and on the mediation bulletin board.

See: Wikipedia:Dispute resolution, Wikipedia:Mediation and Wikipedia:Requests for mediation

Contents

1 What is a mediator?

2 What mediators are not

3 Who are the members of the mediation committee?

3.1 Active
3.2 Inactive

4 Who is the chair?

5 What will happen when you ask for mediation ?

6 Who will mediate?

7 How does one become the member of the committee?

8 Nominations for mediator

9 Some external mediation organizations

10 See also

What is a mediator?

Quotes:
"To be a good mediator you must be a good listener." "You have to listen to not only what is being said, but what is not said -- which is often more important than what they say." — Kofi Annan: Center of the Storm, documentary film, by David Grubin, 2003.

Article:
Seven Guidelines For Handling Conflicts Constructively by Thomas Jordan

DVD:
Law Commission of Canada Community Mediation: Two Real Life Experiences by Stéphane Drolet, National Film Board of Canada, 2003

What mediators are not

Mediators are not Emissaries. It is not the job of mediators to pass messages between individuals who are not able to communicate. Mediators work to establish the trust and common ground to allow communication to happen.
Mediators are not Private Investigators. Mediators do not "work for you," nor will they work to build a case against someone or research the facts in an article. Mediators will examine the facts surrounding the dispute in an attempt to understand what each party is looking for and to determine what may end the dispute.
Mediators are not Psychologists or Social workers. Mediators will work with both parties, and therefore cannot counsel or give advice to either party involved in the dispute.
Mediators are not Advocates. Mediators will not take sides or promote one person's point of view or request over those of another person. If you want a person to do that, request an advocate at the Association of Members' Advocates page.
Mediators are not Security Guards. Mediators are not there to protect an article or talk pages and will not watch for improper behavior or violations of rules or guidelines. Nor will they report any incidents or document what happened in an incident report.

Who are the members of the mediation committee?

The current members are:

Active

Ambi - Rebecca - misfitgirl AT gmail.com
~~Anthere - anthere9 AT yahoo.com~~
Bcorr - Bcorr AT umich dot edu
Cimon Avaro - jheiskan "AT" welho "DOT" com
Danny - daniwo59 AT aol.com
Ed Poor - Edmund.W.Poor AT abc.com
Grunt - crazyr2 AT shaw DOT ca
llywrch - Geoff Burling - llywrch AT agora.rdrop.com
moink - Theresa Robinson - theresa.robinson AT gmail.com
Neutrality - Cavs4 is my AIM. My email is BenLocke ("a.t.") gmail (.dot.) com
sannse - sannse AT tiscali.co.uk
Stevertigo - Email
TUF-KAT - tucci528 AT yahoo.com

Inactive

Angela - beesley AT gmail.com - unlikely to have time to mediate in December.
Dante Alighieri dalighieri "at" digitalgrapefruit "dot" com (on sabbatical as of Nov 16, 2004)

The first members were appointed by Jimbo Wales in December 2003. VancouverGuy was also appointed, and Alex756 agreed to be the committee's advisor, but both later left Wikipedia, Alex756 temporarily. Ldan is not currently active on the committee.

Who is the chair?

Bcorr is the current chair. Former chairs were Danny, TUF-KAT and sannse.

The role of the chair, or co-chair, is one of coordination and facilitation, not of supervision. The role does not imply hierarchy or authority within the committee but allows a sufficient degree of formality so that we have a way of saying "Here's the outcome of the mediation".

All mediators can participate in any committee-related tasks, not only the chairs. Mediators are independent in their choice of whose case to mediate, and how to mediate.

Typical roles of the chairs include ensuring that mediators are trained and standards upheld, that mediation requests are answered and that everyone is consulted on important decisions. They may also acy as spokesperson for the committee for formal announcements (for example, to announce the failure of a major mediation and the transfer of the case to arbitration).

Appointment to the chair position is rotating every few months. Any member of the committee can apply to be co-chair, and will have be approved by the other members.

I hereby resign from the mediation committee. What I am seeing recently is a mob mentality spurred on by overzealous RC policemen, which will make it impossible to conduct successful mediations. If that is the case, there is no reason for me to even try. Danny 01:14, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What will happen when you ask for mediation ?

It is very important to us that you are welcomed and feel that we care about your problems.

Before any mediation can start, several points will be taken into consideration

A mediator will check that other alternatives of dispute resolution have been tried;

The mediator will check your motivation as regards mediation, then will check whether the other disputant is willing to proceed in that direction as well.

These two steps are very important as no mediation can occur if both parties do not feel there might be a solution through that processus. Mediation is a voluntary process, that can succeed only if both disputants are willing to give it a try;

You will then have to agree both on a mediator to facilitate your discussions. Take your time, this choice might be essential. You need to feel you can trust that person;

All along these various steps, we recommend that you do not hesitate to ask any questions as regards the procedure itself, and in particular your rights as regards privacy issues. Anything that said during the mediation will stay private, and will not be used against you later on.

It is very important to us that you feel the process is fair. Keep in mind that you may at any time quit the process if you feel it is going wrong, change mediator or request help from more than one mediator if you think that might help. The mediators are here to help you communicate with the other parties, not to judge you. In particular, they will not have any power of final decision over an article or over banning.

Who will mediate?

The current committee feels that it would be best that the disputants have maximal input on that matter. It is strongly suggested that the disputants express their preferences.

We suggest the following options:

Any of the disputants may suggest one or several mediator names when requesting a mediation. If all parties agree on a mediator, and the mediator agrees as well, then he or she will take care of that mediation;
If none of the disputants suggested a name, a mediator may step in and propose his or her help. If all parties agree on working with the person, then he or she will take care of that mediation;
If no one steps in, the committee will suggest a name.

At any step during the mediation, the committee may suggest another person if thought preferable. In the last two cases, decisions over the chosen mediator will take into account history of relationships between disputants and mediator, as well as mediator availability.

How does one become the member of the committee?

Read through the Wikipedia:Mediation pages and familiarise yourself with the procedure of mediation to see if it is something you would like to do.
Add your name in the nominations section below.
There is no strict voting procedure, but other users may comment on the nomination if they wish.
A user shall become a mediator after an unspecified period of time as long as there is no opposition from the Mediation Committee, no veto from Jimbo, and general agreement from the community.

Nominations for mediator

User:Habbit Even I'm quite new to Wikipedia (~150 contributions as of 26/Sep/2004), I already know what's like to be involved in a big article dispute (see Talk:Ruffini's rule), and I'd like to help any Wikipedians involved in one of these to get along and solve it friendly for the sake of Wikipedia.

Mediation can be a very time-consuming process. Since you've only made three edits in the last month, do you think you spend long enough on Wikipedia to be able to handle a mediation case? Angela . 22:25, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

Usually, I'm as busy as a student can be, but I nearly always have time for Wikipedia. Last month I had my initial 1st term tests, so I couldn't do anything, not even write to Wikipedia. Furthermore, I've been "waiting" for your first responses, as I didn't know what to do. About handling a mediation case, there's always a first time, and I'll put my best efforts on it. Habbit 16:36, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hello Habbit. In addition to Angela's question about the time commitment, I was wondering if you've read through Wikipedia:What is mediation? Wikipedia:Mediation, and Wikipedia:Dispute resolution -- which is a way of asking if you are aware of the commitment this would take to abiding by the processes laid out there, and if you know what those processes are. Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 00:26, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I've read those documents and I'm aware that mediation doesn't imply any power: I'm not trying to get any. I only want to help people who can't solve their arguements but would like to do it friendly. However, I won't "master" mediation reading some documents: as I've told Angela, there's always a first time for anything, and I think I'll learn with time, which is also a thing I have plenty of. Habbit 16:36, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Andre (talk) I've been a Wikipedian since June 2003 and an administrator for about a month. I would like to try my hand at helping disputes diffuse smoothly. I have read all the associated documents and hereby put forth my nomination.

Mediation committee:

I'll support this application. -- Grun t ҈ 15:52, 2004 Nov 14 (UTC)

Support sannse (talk) 18:17, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Happy to. Ambi 08:35, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Outside opinions:

User:Snowspinner. Let me start be acknowledging the most obvious objection here, which is that I have been more than a little aggressve at times against people I have felt are trolls, and that I at times interpret policy as giving admins more leeway than other people do. That said, I am not especially interested in mediation about admin conduct or editing habits. If asked to mediate in one of these cases I would still be willing to, but I don't think many people would suggest me as a mediator for that, and I don't think that I would jump up and volunteer in those cases.

What I would like to mediate are content disputes, particularly NPOV disputes. I've done a number of these before, most notably and successfully on Lyndon LaRouche, but also on Micronation. In each of these cases, the disputes were long-running disputes that had led to multiple page protections and arbitration requests. I feel like this was some of the best work I've done on Wikipedia, and I would like to do more work of this sort. Snowspinner 19:02, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

Shane King. It seems likely one or two of the mediation commitee will end up on the arbitration commitee and hence have to stand down, so I thought I'd throw my name into the ring as a possible replacement. There also seems to be more bad blood than necessary flowing around the place right now for various reasons, and I'd like to be part of the solution. I try not to get too involved in the controversial articles, so I think I'd be in a good position to mediate disputes there. Let me know if you think I'd be suitable for this, because if not I'd like to know what I can improve on. Thanks. Shane King 22:59, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)

Whosyourjudas. I would like to throw my hat in the MC ring. I've been a Wikipedian since August 2004, and would like to become more involved in the community. I would like to help other users to get past their disputes, as there is little that is less fun and more damaging than an escalating argument. While I generally avoid very controversial articles, I worked toward NPOV on God to success. I've also gone through other minor disputes, and would now like to help others get through theirs. I hope I am seen as acceptable (or better); if not, please let me know what I can improve on. Thank you. --Whosyourjudas (talk) 19:53, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)