Wikipedia:Mediation Committee

Please see /Committee_meeting for a suggestion of an IRC meeting of past and current mediators.

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 message board, which no longer exists.

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

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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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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

• Andrevan - andrevan AT gmail.com
• Bcorr - Bcorr AT umich dot edu
• CatherineMunro - catherine.munro AT gmail.com.
• Cimon Avaro - jheiskan "AT" welho "DOT" com
• Danny 20:53, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC) - daniwo50 AT aol DOT com
• Ed Poor - Edmund.W.Poor AT abc.com
• moink - Theresa Robinson - theresa.robinson AT gmail.com
• Stevertigo - Email
• TUF-KAT - tucci528 AT yahoo.com
• Jwrosenzweig - my username (which appears to the left) @yahoo.com
• Improv - pgunn@dachte.org

Inactive

• Angela - beesley AT gmail.com - unlikely to have time to mediate in December.
• Anthere - anthere9 AT yahoo.com - unlikely to have time to mediate while on the board, but still interested of course.
• Dante Alighieri dalighieri "at" digitalgrapefruit "dot" com - on sabbatical as of Nov 16, 2004

Former members

• Ambi - elected to the Arbitration Committee in December 2004
• Grunt - elected to the Arbitration Committee in December 2004
• Neutrality - elected to the Arbitration Committee in December 2004
• sannse - elected to the Arbitration Committee in December 2004
• llywrch - Geoff Burling - llywrch AT agora.rdrop.com - resigned

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?

Jwrosenzweig is the current chair. Former chairs were Bcorr, 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 act 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.

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 process. 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 a member of the committee?

1. 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.
2. Add your name in the nominations section below.
3. There is no strict voting procedure, but other users may comment on the nomination if they wish.
4. 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.

Once accepted, the mediator is welcome to join the mediation mailing list.

Nominations for mediator

Humblefool

I've ended up coming across this after hearing much about it at RfC and finally a post on the mailing list. I do believe that I could be of help to the Mediation committee, if only to help deal with some of the backlog. I would point requests for some prior exprience with the processes of the Wikipedia dispute resolution process to User:Iasson's RFC, which was only opened after discussion with said user, and handled with some care to not drive away a user, unfortuantly, these attempts failed, and Iasson is now calling all admins vandals that work against the spirit of Wikilove. But I tried, ya? Just kidding. Please consider my offer with a smile and gentle words. humblefool® 00:01, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Mediation committee:

• This isn't a rejection, but a note that currently the committee seems to have a lot more members than it does action. I'm not sure if nobody is interested in taking things to mediation or not, but we might have more mediators than we need. --Improv 17:53, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I guess I'd have to agree with you, but it'd be nice if a member of the Mediation Comm. would archive some of the old requests. Consider the request withdrawn. (Now what tdo I do with it?) humblefool® 03:07, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As long as he spends more time Mediating than Meditating, sure. Andre (talk) 02:57, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)

Whoops. humblefool® 20:58, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Outside opinions:

Sure, I haven't seen any reason to object. --Michael Snow 06:58, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

WGFinley

I wandered into the arbitration area and saw the many cases that went there and then saw the backlog in mediation. I'm a big believer in trying to get the parties to resolve the issue themselves before escalating. By trade I was a claims adjuster for 10 years, I was on my local school board for 2 years (during a lengthy collective bargaining disagreement) so mediation and trying to find common ground is a big part of my life. I'm very logical in nature, try not to get emotional and have a way of cutting through the bad blood and attacks to get to the matter at hand. Please kindly consider my offer. Thanks!! --Wgfinley 09:05, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Mediation committee:

Outside opinions:

Coolcat

I can stay calm, make parties that are throught to throught talk (IRL). I have been working with multiple contraversial articles, some have very slow progress, but I think there is some progress. Best way to prove is if I get a case. That way I can shouw you what I am made out of. Thank you for your time. Preferably some article I never touched or people I've never met (for best results). --Cool Cat ^{My Talk} 07:03, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Mediation committee:

Outside opinions:

Oppose. Based on my experience today, this user advertises him/herself right now as a Mediator without qualifying that s/he is an informal one. Fails to even accord the most cursory research of disputes s/he intends to mediate; for e.g. aggregated my dispute with Sam Spade — to whom we already have an actual Mediator for, Danny, with another editor Sam Spade is in dispute with, without even checking to see that the disputes are unrelated and I, in fact, have never heard of the other respective party. Language and disposition appear, at best, lacking maturity, and at worse, abrasive and invasive. That said, Sam Spade has accepted this informal mediator, so if the other party that Sam Spade is currently in dispute with as well (but, again, entirely unrelated to myself), also agrees, then the Committee will be afforded a chance to observe the nominee's skills. El_C 12:06, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• I was trying to help. The other party is listed in another dispute in Administrators noticeboard. I assumed you were related. -I do not have to be on the list to help people out. I am sorry I have waisted your time. -Cool Cat ^{My Talk} 20:44, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • No harm done. I, nonetheless, urge you to research future disputes you wish to involve yourself in intensively and extensively rather than 'assume' as the resulting errors (which are entirely and easily avoidable) significantly damage your credibility as a prospective mediator. El_C 23:58, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oppose. Mr. Coolcat has attempted to establish himself as a mediator of disputes in which he has a very strong POV; examples include: Talk:Nagorno-Karabakh, Talk:Armenian Genocide, and Talk:Greco-Turkish relations. Attempts to force format of talk and resists requests to cease. See current discussions on my talk page (and elsewhere, including archives of preceding talk pages), as well as User:Coolcat/mediat which he likes to transclude into talk pages. Uncool. — Davenbelle 19:06, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

• I know noting regarding Nagorno-Karabakh. I did not talk about Nagorno-Karabakh in discussion. --Cool Cat ^{My Talk} 20:44, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• I voiced that opinions should not bet a part of Armenian Genocide article and establishing the article as a solid fact requires concrete documentation from archives. Just google for it and first 10 is pro anti genocide websites. Both sides of the conversation will dispute some of the top 10 pages. There is lots of propoganda on both sides that I do not want to be a part of the article. Apperantly that makes me a horrible person. --Cool Cat ^{My Talk} 20:44, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• As for talk, you are talking how horrible of a person I am, I am making suggestions how to improve the article. --Cool Cat ^{My Talk} 20:44, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Greco-Turkish relations my contributions are vissible, non to article as it was locked before I arrived, my suggestions are out there. I lived in both countries and I know about their relationship somewhat. --Cool Cat ^{My Talk} 20:44, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Some external mediation organizations

• The Association for Conflict Resolution
• US Dept. of Agriculture Mediation Program
• National Association for Community Mediation
• New York State Dispute Resolution Association
• Conflict Resolution Network Canada
• Mediate.com
• Online Journal of Peace & Conflict Resolution

See also

• Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee
• Wikipedia:Requests for mediation
• Wikipedia:Requests to be mediator/archive
• Association of Members' Advocates