Wikipedia:Mediation Committee
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The Mediation Committee (or MedCom) is a panel of editors who resolve disputes about the content of Wikipedia articles by providing formal mediation. The MedCom was established with the Arbitration Committee in January 2004 by Jimmy Wales and is the last stage of formal content-dispute resolution on the English Wikipedia.
Formal mediation and the Mediation Committee are governed by the mediation policy. The aim of the Mediation Committee is to resolve disputes that concern the content of Wikipedia articles to the mutual satisfaction of all. Mediation is not arbitration because it is entered into voluntarily by the parties to the dispute and does not result in binding resolutions. Formal mediation is not the same as informal mediation because it follows a more rigid process and is different in other ways.
To contact the Mediation Committee privately by e-mail, use this utility while logged into your account. To ask for formal mediation of a content dispute, see Wikipedia:Requests for mediation.
Members
A sortable table listing all Committee Members is available at Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Members.
Active mediators
The following members of the Committee are actively mediating cases or are active on other MedCom matters. Mediators who will be active in the immediate future but are currently unavailable (for instance, because they are on a wikibreak) are listed separately. List is accurate as of 1 September 2011.
- Active
- Andrevan (talk • message • contribs • count • logs • email)
- Anthony Appleyard (talk • message • contribs • count • logs • email)
- Feezo (talk • message • contribs • count • logs • email)
- Tristessa de St Ange (talk • message • contribs • count • logs • email)
- Sunray (talk • message • contribs • count • logs • email)
- Xavexgoem (talk • message • contribs • count • logs • email)
- Wgfinley (talk • message • contribs • count • logs • email) – Chair
- Inactive
- None.
- Emeriti
Emeriti mediators
The mediators emeriti are members of the Committee that are declaredly not mediating cases or otherwise routinely active on the on-wiki business of the Committee. Most are inactive having gone on to other duties or to focus on other areas of the encyclopedia, and many have been elected to the Arbitration Committee or the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation. All mediators can move themselves from emeritus to active (or vice versa) status at any point, and emeriti mediators may retain their subscription to the Committee's mailing list (where many continue to give valuable input to discussions) and their right to vote on nominations.
Committee members who are taking a temporary leave of absence, such as a temporary wikibreak, may choose to list themselves as away instead. An index of all Committee members and their current activities is at Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Members. A list of the emeriti mediators is at Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Members/Emeriti.
Chair
The current Chair of the Mediation Committee is Wgfinley (talk · contribs · email).
The role of the Chair of the Mediation Committee is not one of leadership or oversight of the other members of the Committee, but rather of co-ordination and representation. Broadly speaking, the Chair maintains the mediation processes (especially requests for mediation) and represents the Committee's interests and consensus where needed (such as determining the consensus of the MedCom with regards to the nominations process). Election of the Chair is held as needed on the Committee's internal mailing list.
The duties of the Chair can also be carried out by other members of the Committee when the Chair is unavailable. Typical duties include, but are not limited to:
- Wikipedia:Requests for mediation: Accepting and rejecting requests on the Committee's behalf, ensuring required details are provided in requests, ensuring Committee policies and procedures are carried out, notifying parties of case status, alerting Committee members of unassigned cases, etc.
- Wikipedia:Mediation Committee: Ensure proper formatting of new membership nominations, maintain archives of past nominations, promote or deny nominations (as the Committee directs), maintain the lists of active and emeritus members
- Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration: Monitor arbitration requests and represent the Mediation Committee's interests where necessary, making referrals of failed mediations where decided by the Committee as a whole, and protecting the integrity of the Mediation Committee's proceedings (for example, the privileged nature of mediation)
- Internal: Maintain the internal mailing list and internal process pages
- As spokesperson: Act as the official voice of the Committee for formal announcements (for example, the results of mediations, transferal of cases to arbitration, new Committee projects, etc.).
The Chair will often initiate discussion on the mailing list in the event of an important or controversial decision, rather than immediately acting as the representative of the Committee as he or she does normally. The Chair does not have any authority to direct or control other members of the Committee, and cases are not assigned to mediators by the Chair. A guide to the procedural side to the role of the Chair exists at Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Chair/Guide for chairman.
The previous Chairs of the Committee, from the one who most recently to least recently served, were: AGK, Xavexgoem, Seddon, Ryan Postlethwaite, WJBscribe, Daniel, ^demon, Essjay, Redwolf24, MacGyverMagic, Jwrosenzweig, Danny, Bcorr, Sannse, and TUF-KAT.
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Click [show] to display the timeline of Mediation Committee Chairs
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Appointments process
The Mediation Committee is self-perpetuating, so new mediators are appointed with the consent of a majority of the Committee's existing members. In order to be appointed, new mediators must file a nomination or consent to be nominated by a member of the Committee and must submit that nomination using the prescribed format. Members of the Committee will be alerted to the nomination by the Chairman and will then participate in the discussion to form a consensus. Nominations last no less than one week and no more than four, and can also be participated in by editors who are not members of MedCom.
After a reasonable time, the Chairman closes the nomination and evaluates whether there is an adequate level of support for the nomination. Whilst non-mediators are invited to comment on the suitability of a candidate, only the opinions of Committee members are counted when the Chairman determines the outcome of the nomination. Emeritus members of the Mediation Committee retain the right to vote in nominations. There is not a strict minimum amount of support necessary for a nomination to be promoted. But the Committee does enforce a "two oppose rule", whereby nominations that attract opposition from two or more mediators must fail. Jimmy Wales retains the right to veto nominations to the Committee, although he rarely comments on nominations.
There are no formal minimum requirements of candidates, but appointment to the Mediation Committee is an appointment to an official Wikipedia committee and so require that candidates be:
- Trusted members of the English Wikipedia;
- Experienced editors: As many of the disputes that reach formal mediation are complex, mediators must have a sound knowledge of article development, editorial collaboration, and dispute resolution.
- Of suitable temperament: Candidates should be seen to always interact and collaborate positively with other editors. An editor with a corrosive personality would have great difficulty in fostering agreement between parties in a mediation case.
- Experienced in Wikipedia dispute resolution. In addition to being generally experienced, nominees should be able to demonstrate a strong history of resolving disputes on Wikipedia. Real-life experience in resolving disputes is also a highly attractive feature in a candidate, but would not in itself be adequate because Wikipedia dispute resolution is in many aspects unique.
Self-nominations from prospective mediators are always welcome. Current Committee members are often on the lookout for strong candidates to nominate. Editors who have not been so approached should by no means presume that their nomination would fail, but should feel welcome to ask a mediator if they are unsure whether they are suitable. If you want to submit a nomination, go to Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Nominations/Submit a nomination.
Current nominations are displayed below (when there are any). Old nominations are archived at Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Nominations.
MediationBot
The current Bot Operator of the Mediation Committee is Anomie (talk · contribs · email).
The processing of requests for mediation and of some other aspects of the Committee's business is assisted by MediationBot (talk • contribs • tasks • flag log • actions log • block log • other logs • count) , an automated Wikipedia bot. MediationBot is operated on behalf of the Mediation Committee by User:Anomie and is part of the Anomie family. The bot is only used for Mediation Committee business and the current version was approved for operation in February 2011. For a more detailed description of what MediationBot's tasks are, see its user description page.
Other versions of MediationBot, operated and written by other Bot Operators, have previously ran:
- The first User:MediationBot, which is now User:OldMediationBot, was coded and launched in July 2006 by Tangotango, Misza13 and Pgk;
- User:MediationBot1 was launched in November 2007 as a rewrite by ST47 of the old bot (which had become slightly unreliable).
The Mediation Committee expresses its thanks to all these users for their efforts in developing and producing the bot. If you have any comments, concerns or suggestions about this bot, please feel free to leave a message at Wikipedia talk:Mediation Committee. If MediationBot malfunctions at any point, please shut it down using the instructions at User:MediationBot#Emergency shutoff and also leave a note on the Committee's talk page or on its operators' talk page.
Mailing list
The Committee maintains a private mailing list, called mediation-en-l (abbreviated to medcom-l), for internal discussion between its members. Editors who wish to contact the committee in private should direct their messages to the mailing list through the form at User:Mediation Committee.
Policy
The Mediation Committee policy documents how the Mediation Committee, its mediators, and the formal mediation process operates. This policy is maintained by the Committee and is considered an authoritative codification of how Committee matters should be conducted.
See also
- Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Policy, the Mediation policy by which the Committee operates.
- Wikipedia:Requests for mediation, the page on which requests for the Committee to mediate a dispute are presented.
- Wikipedia:Resolving disputes, Wikipedia's page describing the process by which disputes are to be resolved on-wiki.
- Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal, a "gathering area" where informal mediators are invited to take cases. It provides informal mediation.
- Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee, the MedCom's sister Committee. The ArbCom handles user conduct issues, as opposed to content disputes.
