User:SebastianHelm/principles

As a mediator, it is important for me to have principles. Many of them are common sense and some are Wikipedia guidelines. However, inspired by Gandhi's Experiments with Truth, I set myself a number of of not so obvious principles that challenge me. This essay is about those that I would commend to others.

It is now (2018) over ten years after I started this project, and I can say that it worked out well. I find Wikipedia a useful tool for self-improvement, since hindsight is 20/20: One can go back to any interaction with others and reread it at one's leisure. Often, this opened my eyes for a better way to express my intention. Moreover, revisiting my words raised my awareness that they are lasting, not just ephemeral sounds.

Promises[edit]

This section contains promises to all parties I interact with. Please take me up on them. If you feel I didn't follow any of them, please write so on the talk page. This is important for me as a chance for personal growth, but also to show others if and how far they can trust me.

Confidentiality[edit]

Generally, I want to act towards others in a way that I don't give them a reason to regret their good actions. (This has been misunderstood, but I haven't come up with clearer wording. See the pertinent discussion.) Since I always think it's good when people are open to me, I do not want you to ever regret anything you told me confidentially. This includes not using such information without your explicit approval.

For e-mail, I adhere to the following privacy principles:

If you give me your email address I will not give it to anyone without your permission.
If I want to send email to you and someone else, and I don't know if the other person has your email I will put you on BCC.
If I accidentally get someone's email address (e.g. with a forwarded mail) I will use it only if that doesn't compromise the person who gave it to me.

PINOT[edit]

PINOT is the acronym for the principle Private Information - No Offense Taken. This principle means that you can tell me whatever you want privately. It could be the worst insult, and I will never take offense. If I don't like it, I just won't take it. It's that simple. You wouldn't take another person's dirty facial tissue, either. But usually I find some use in what you have to say. This principle is also a reminder for myself to not shoot the messenger.

The only thing I will hold against you is if you lie to me. (And no, this is not a backdoor. If you say "you're an a**hole", it's clearly not a lie. It's an opinion, not a statement of fact.)

I often go beyond that. E.g. I promise to not take anything as an offense that you write on this page's talk page.

If a couple more people like this principle then we could promote it like 1RR.

Verifiability[edit]

Dealing with ethnic conflicts and terrorism, I hear a lot of accusations. Some of them may be true, many aren't. While I listen to them, I let them not impact my judgment in mediations. I see this as a logical extension of our policy WP:V.

Without reliable citations, I will not take statements like the following as facts:

"Late last year a newspaper claimed that ..."
"Minister So-and-so was quoted in newspaper X that ..."

Vague citations like that are a red flag for me. I regard anything that contains nothing but such vague citations as propaganda. Don't bother presenting that as evidence to me. It only makes me sad and angry and will not convince me.

Don't re-revert[edit]

If someone reverts any change of mine, I won't re-revert it, but discuss it with them first, and wait at least 24 hours for their reply. (See Proposal.) An exception to this is vandalism by a vandalism-only account.

This used to be 1RR, but I changed it to the "Don't re-revert" when I noticed an ambiguity in the Interpretation of 1RR in discretionary sanctions.

A4GF[edit]

"Allow for good faith". The change from “assume” to “allow for” means that one can allow for more than one possible explanation for another user's action. This is more effort since it requires some mental flexibility; it's not for people who say “I can't think such-and-such”.

Acting according to this principle consists of two steps: (1) Actively look for an explanation that does not have to assume ill will or stupidity, and (2) act such that your action is appropriate for all plausible explanations found.

I find this a worthwhile exercise that helps me understand other people. (Of course, the time spent on #1 has to be appropriate; I wouldn't search long for explanations such as those at Friends of gays ..., although even that is a good use of one's time, if the alternative is getting angry or frustrated.) Condition #2 limits my possible actions, but I never found myself in a situation where no possible action was left.

In one way, A4GF is less than WP:AGF, since it allows for alternatives, where AGF is rigid. However, it allows me to fulfill AGF's intention in more situations – in situations where ill will or stupidity are a likely explanation. In those cases, condition #2 supersedes the choice between blind trust and breaking the principle. (By “breaking the principle”, which one could also call “hypocrisy”, I mean not acting according to something one declares a principle when reality contradicts the assumption of a principle. For AGF, that contradiction is obvious when dealing with vandalism, but many people give up much sooner, or simply call an edit they don't like “vandalism” to rationalize their abandoning the principle.) Building more flexibility into a principle prevents it from breaking; although it also takes more dedicated work and introspection to avoid the temptation of twisting it for one's own convenience.

By the way, while I wrote the above, I also wrote this, and after I saved that edit, I noticed that my first sentence was not exhibiting my version of AGF, since it is quite severe and does not actively look for a good faith explanation of the people I criticized. I later realized that a more effective reaction would have used Compassionate Communication, directly addressing the concerns in a way conducive to a reduction of the conflict. Thus, the assumption of good faith does not have to be limited to what the other said, but can extend to what values they uphold.