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Possible users to be added to mediation

There were two major discussions ([1] [2]) over this issue in the past couple months with dozens of users involved, so six is two few for mediation. Many of those users probably thought the issue was resolved and don't know this is still going on. I went through those discussions and made a list of users who seemed most active (at least three or so substantive comments) in the discussions. I have no idea what side each user was on, I just scrolled through looking for repeating usernames. It would be best if we could notify these folks and see who wants to be involved, then add a general notice on the articles.

NYyankees51 (talk) 03:50, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to send out a notification of the case to their talk pages. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 04:15, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah by all means add more people. I just picked the most active people in the most recent discussions. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:07, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to contact the people on the above list later tonight. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:07, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All contacted. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:46, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for doing that. NYyankees51 (talk) 23:35, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No problem :). I'm going to send a reminder message and also contact User:Collect as I remember they were interested before. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:10, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Andrew c's thoughts

I haven't really had the time I'd like to devote to Wikipedia, so I'm not sure if I can participate at a level that I'd really like. Also, this really reminds me of the Roman Catholic Church vs. Catholic Church debacle which ended up resulting in a move via mediation (which I was not involved in). And I was bitter about the whole process because I felt a very small group of editors worked behind closed doors to come up with a binding resolution with no real way to appeal or object after the fact of it's move. I don't want it to come to that, but if that is the dirty tool we must use in order to restore some sort of article naming parity due to a rogue admin's bad closure, so be it. -Andrew c ^[talk] 20:23, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It would also be nice to resolve the things that caused these long winded move discussions in the first place. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:30, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Notification

Every editor who has edited either pro-life or pro-choice over the past year (or the talk pages of those articles) has now been notified of this mediation. HuskyHuskie (talk) 00:14, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Was that really necessary? You realize that one of the canvassing criteria at WP:CANVAS is "Scale", which prohibits "posting an excessive number of messages to individual users"? You sent a message to nearly 250 editors on July 4 between 12:33 and 15:49 UTC (with a 1-hour break in the middle). It took you over 2 hours of posting as fast as you can to post a message to that many people. Not to mention, many of the people you posted to had already gotten a message about this discussion from another editor 3 days earlier. This seems extremely inappropriate and disruptive. —SW— ^comment 03:26, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No it's not. For a discussion of this gravity, we need the widest range of input possible. And it's inappropriate and very disruptive for you to assume bad faith in this, especially when he spent two hours doing it. NYyankees51 (talk) 03:44, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the problem either. (I had been involved in editing the article a while back and wasn't caught up in the original sweep - I'm quite grateful.) That said, let's not raise the temperature by throwing charges of disruption around.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 03:51, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Edit conflict

Sigh. Look, I personally think that WP:CANVASS is the biggest load of horse manure we have around these parts, and you've just given me one more reason to think so. Here's my thinking:

I've come across more than one discussion that was "invalidated" because an editor was accused of being "selective" in who he notified (Vote stacking). Best way to avoid that is to cast a wide net.
This subject has been of great importance to a significant number of editors over a long period of time. But many of them have thrown up their hands in the past and said that they couldn't stand to deal with the bullshit any longer, and may no longer be following these talk pages. They still have opinions, and in fact, it is exactly these people whom we need to reach, to let people on both sides of a contentious issue know that there may be a chance for the topic that frustrated them to be resolved.
The notion that it is somehow "disruptive" to post a large number of messages absolutely astounds me. What's the logic there? If I post the exact same message to, say, five people, that is "non-disruptive", but to 200 editors it is? Why? Each individual editor had exactly the same message. If it was not disruptive to five people, how is it disruptive to 200? Am I disrupting the individual editors or am I disrupting Wikipedia? Is it because the units of disruptiveness accumulate somehow? I just don't get it.
Your point about posting this to editors who had already been notified is a valid point, I guess. I hadn't really thought of it as being "disruptive", though it was obviously unnecessary. On the other hand, what kind of damage do you suppose it caused? I will grant you that if this was a regular problem (editors receiving multiple notifications of the same discussions) that it would really suck. I should have been more careful.
You sent a message to nearly 250 editors on July 4 between 12:33 and 15:49 UTC (with a 1-hour break in the middle). It took you over 2 hours of posting as fast as you can to post a message to that many people. So what? I'm not trying to be combative, I just don't get why this matters. Are you saying that somehow this would have been more acceptable if I had done this over a 24- or 48-hour period? If so, why?

My personal belief is that there should be no limits on notifications; if there was some freedom on this matter, we wouldn't have so many decisions revisited time and time again because "consensus" was achieved with a grand total of eight editors. But the fact is, WP:CANVASS exists, and I always make a sincere attempt to follow it. I submit, however, that what you have pointed out here makes it clear (to me, anyway), that the policy is internally contradictory. If we want to require messages to be neutral, transparent, and non-partisan, then we can't also limit the quantity, because when you do that, you have an impact on the message itself. It is simply a fact that a larger sample is more likely to accurately reflect the general population. What if the government decided that Gallup is "disruptive" when it polls 1,000 people and says that it can only poll 200 in the future? Would Gallup's results be as accurately a reflection of the general population as before? And if you tell me that you don't value having a representive sample of opinion, please tell me why. HuskyHuskie (talk) 04:08, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 41: / Line 41: @@
 ::No it's not. For a discussion of this gravity, we need the widest range of input possible. And it's inappropriate and very disruptive for you to assume bad faith in this, especially when he spent two hours doing it. [[User:NYyankees51|NYyankees51]] ([[User talk:NYyankees51|talk]]) 03:44, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
 ::: I don't see the problem either. (I had been involved in editing the article a while back and wasn't caught up in the original sweep - I'm quite grateful.) That said, let's not raise the temperature by throwing charges of disruption around.[[User:VsevolodKrolikov|VsevolodKrolikov]] ([[User talk:VsevolodKrolikov|talk]]) 03:51, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
+Edit conflict
+::Sigh. Look, I personally think that [[WP:CANVASS]] is the biggest load of horse manure we have around these parts, and you've just given me one more reason to think so.  Here's my thinking:
+::*I've come across more than one discussion that was "invalidated" because an editor was accused of being "selective" in who he notified (Vote stacking).  Best way to avoid that is to cast a wide net.
+::*This subject has been of great importance to a significant number of editors over a long period of time.  But many of them have thrown up their hands in the past and said that they couldn't stand to deal with the bullshit any longer, and may no longer be following these talk pages.  They still have opinions, and in fact, it is exactly these people whom we need to reach, to let people on both sides of a contentious issue know that there may be a chance for the topic that frustrated them to be resolved.
+::*The notion that it is somehow "disruptive" to post a large number of messages absolutely astounds me.  What's the logic there?  If I post the exact same message to, say, five people, that is "non-disruptive", but to 200 editors it is?  '''''Why?''' '' Each individual editor had exactly the same message.  If it was not disruptive to five people, how is it disruptive to 200?  Am I disrupting the individual editors or am I disrupting Wikipedia?  Is it because the units of disruptiveness accumulate somehow?  I just don't get it.
+::*Your point about posting this to editors who had already been notified '''is''' a valid point, I guess.  I hadn't really thought of it as being "disruptive", though it was obviously unnecessary.  On the other hand, what kind of damage do you suppose it caused? I will grant you that if this was a regular problem (editors receiving multiple notifications of the same discussions) that it would really suck.  I should have been more careful.
+::*''You sent a message to nearly 250 editors on July 4 between 12:33 and 15:49 UTC (with a 1-hour break in the middle). It took you over 2 hours of posting as fast as you can to post a message to that many people.'' So what?  I'm not trying to be combative, I just don't get why this matters.  Are you saying that somehow this would have been more acceptable if I had done this over a 24- or 48-hour period?  If so, '''''why?'''''
+::My personal belief is that there should be no limits on notifications; if there was some freedom on this matter, we wouldn't have so many decisions revisited time and time again because "consensus" was achieved with a grand total of eight editors.  But the fact is, [[WP:CANVASS]] exists, and I always make a sincere attempt to follow it.  I submit, however, that what you have pointed out here makes it clear (to me, anyway), that the policy is internally contradictory.  If we want to require messages to be neutral, transparent, and non-partisan, then we can't also limit the quantity, because when you do that, you have an impact on the message itself.  It is simply a fact that a larger sample is more likely to accurately reflect the general population.  What if the government decided that Gallup is "disruptive" when it polls 1,000 people and says that it can only poll 200 in the future?  Would Gallup's results be as accurately a reflection of the general population as before?  And if you tell me that you don't value having a ''representive'' sample of opinion, please tell me ''why''. [[User:HuskyHuskie|HuskyHuskie]] ([[User talk:HuskyHuskie|talk]]) 04:08, 5 July 2011 (UTC)