Wikipedia talk:Association of Members' Advocates/Archive 6

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Archiving

Archived anything from 30 July 2006 to 12 January 2007 into /Archive5). If you don't like it, revert it... but discuss first! --Neigel von Teighen | _{help with arbs?} 11:09, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Removal of advocate

I removed User:Punk Boi 8 as an advocate for Futurebird's request. He is under a mentoring relationship and does not have the experience or maturity to be an effective advocate. Additionally, his prior history shows that he will take on a task like this and then leave it without commenting or help for some time. See:

• 14 Oct 2006 - lists himself as mediator but never edits the Case page, the involved editors' pages, the talk page of the article needing mediation, or the article.
• 15 Oct 2006 - lists himself as Advocate but all he does is tag the article for POV check

Could another advocate take over responsibility for this case? Thank you --Trödel 19:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks ofr your diligence in spotting this, Trodel. Someone should pick it up from the "New" pile soon. Thanks again, Martinp23 19:59, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Context: User:Punk Boi 8 = User:Nathannoblet from #Don.27t_you_guys_screen_your_advocates.3F above. Hesperian 05:37, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Problems with the AMA

I'm posting this here in the hope that the AMA will reflect upon the criticisms I am about to delineate and make a sincere effort to address them. What I'm about to say is going to be harsh, but I am consciously making an effort not to single out any AMA member in particular; I do not wish for anyone to take these criticisms personally.

To put it plainly, I believe most arbitrators hold the AMA in very low regard, myself included. ("The AMA is worse than useless - they are an impediment" are the exact words I used to describe it on the arbcom's mailing list this week). I formed this opinion based on observation of previous advocacies. Admittedly, some of these happened a while ago (around 2005 or early 2006), and I remember few of the specifics. However, the general feeling I came away with was that AMA members were not interested in presenting a coherent arbitration case, and instead choose to grouse about the mechanics and rules of procedure used by the arbitration committee. Such advocacy was always dismissed out of hand as the pettifoggery it was, and in the process, I have acquired a particularly low opinion of the AMA.

In addition to that problem (which I consider absolutely paramount), there are several other problems I think should be explicitly noted. I, and many (most? all?) other arbitrators consider Phil Sandifer's guide to presenting an effective arbcom case (Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/How to present a case) to be the last word on the subject. (We did assist him in writing it, after all). In a recent private discussion, one arbitrator commented that that essay should be required reading for AMA advocates. However, based on Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates/Meeting/December 2006, I have come to suspect that most AMA advocates do not have a basic understanding of how the arbitration process.

To quote Phil's essay - "There are two very important things to realize about the Arbitration Committee and its members: 1. They do not have much time, and 2. They care much more about product than process." And yet, as I read the AMA-ArbCom Co-Op proposal, (in the "Other Business?" section), it seems that the AMA is naively unaware of this fundemental precept of the arbcom - that we already have enough on our plate without having to coordinate and attend organized meetings with the AMA (not to mention the rather non-trivial matter of a complete lack of interest on the arbcom's part in doing it - owing to, as I previously mentioned, a very low opinion of the AMA).

The 'Advocees demanding wikilawyering' section describes people who want AMA members to "make their (incorrect) point of view be accepted". My criticism on this point has to do with the section heading -- calling this practice wikilawyering is to misunderstand what wikilawyering is. Advocating or not advocating a client's wrong position is not wikilawyering; grousing about the process is. (See Wikipedia:WikiLawyering for a fairly good defintion of the term.) Being that the AMA has been previously criticized for wikilawyering, I would hope that its member would know what it is (and is not) when they see it.

Another problem I have with the AMA as I read this meeting report is an overemphasis on trivialities: two sections on elections, and one each on the AMA bot, IRC channel, membership roll, logo, and a hypothetical "bar" to pass to become a member (which, given my previous criticism of its members not understanding the arbitration process, I find rather galling). However, no where do I see anything relating to my primary criticism - which is that the AMA's advocacy is insubstantial. This seems to me to be putting the cart before the horse.

Finally, recently the arbcom was asked what status, if any, the AMA has in an arbitration case. The answer is that its advocates have no special status - that they are the same any other third party in an arbitration case. I hope my comments here have made the reasons for this evident. However, if the AMA were to puts its house in order, and start being an asset to the arbitration process rather than a liability, I think the arbitration committee might (emphasis - *might*) be willing to reconsider this, if it saw potential benefits to the option. However, as I said, this is predicated on the AMA reforming itself first. Raul654 05:01, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

If I may respond, most of these problems are due to the fact that in the past, many members of the AMA were causing havoc by bringing cases that were far too young in the WP:DR process to MedCom and ArbCom. This, in turn, was mostly due to two things: 1) Advocates who did not have enough direction or practical experience and 2) the fact that the AMA was practically inactive and running "on its own" without any sort of supervision or direction. People were "signing up" with no communication between members and no idea of what to do, the request system was horrific, and the previous Coordinator had resigned months earlier with no acknowledgment from the Association. (This is the state I found it in when I joined.)

Recently, with many Advocate efforts, there has been a resurgence in membership, structure and zeal, and now the AMA is back on its feet. We've kept the same goal (helping disputes on Wikipedia) yet have a very different way of going about things, and as a result we have already relieved ArbCom of dozens of cases by reducing the escalation of conflicts. I'm not saying that it's perfect yet, but we're getting better and I agree with Addhoc in that if you believe we need more time, we'll take it. The AMA is not looking for any special sort of status within ArbCom. We are looking for a working relationship to help fix problems. If it came off as anything else, there was either a misunderstanding or a mistake on our part.

I also completely agree that we need to add more material to our required reading, and also believe that we are moving in the direction of having minimum membership requirements for the sake of experience. Are there any materials other than the one that you mentioned that would be of use to us?

As for "wikilayering," I was the one who chose to robe the request to discuss said topic in that term. We've gotten a large number of cases where the advocee was making demands on Advocates as if they were lawyers (talking of demands and rights with full courtroom melodrama). It seemed like an appropriate word to use at the time, and its definition is not written in stone. (In fact, it's part of a project that anyone can edit, and lexical drift happens ;-) ).

Since October, I've been a bit tied up due to the birth of my daughter and switching jobs, so I have not been able to give this my all (so is the nature of volunteer organizations) and as such, these issues have slipped. As I'm able to reclaim a few more hours here and there for working on the AMA, I'll do what I can to ensure that they are addressed adequately. (AMA Cordinator) אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) 22:05, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Raul654 and thanks for your comments. In my own, very limited, experience of advocating, cases that involved negotiation, mediation or admin input, were more successful than those which went to ArbCom. Regarding the ArbCom essay, I would suggest that it should not only be required reading for advocates, but also their advocees, if the case involves arbitration. Regarding the suggested coordination meeting, I would comment this idea came about through some recognition of the problems you mention. If the AMA has to reform first, then ok, at least that gives us the necessary impetus. Regarding the correct usage of wikilawyering, I would comment that in many cases, someone, for example, involved in external link spamming would hope that his/her advocate would be able to argue the true meaning of WP:COI was completely different to that intended by the community, so that by my understanding would be covered by the term. However, overall I broadly agree with your comments. My own assesment is the AMA currently does useful work for the community as part of the dispute resolution process in the phases prior to ArbCom. Addhoc 13:15, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

While no AMA Advocate has ever effectively presented his client's case to us, I stand ready to accept a competent Advocate as "mouthpiece" for their user client. I am also prepared to ignore and poke fun at Wikipedia:Wikilawyering. What is needed for effective advocacy is to focus attention on the relevant (relevant in terms of Wikipedia policy} issues and evidence. I typically spend hours locating diffs which demonstrate user behavior. An effective advocate would be advancing relevant diffs in a usable form and making proposals on the /Workshop page which could actually be used in the decision. I stand ready to discuss matters with the Advocates at any time. Fred Bauder 19:04, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

AMA as an asset to the arpitration process

The one most important way as I see it that AMA advocacy is an 'asset to the arbitration process' is by relieving their caseload by helping resolve problems at a prior level of dispute resolution. As I have stated elsewhere, consensus is a core value of the community and by resolving issues prior to arbitration, eliminating the need for a given dispute to reach the lofty tower from which the ArbCom hands down its decisions, the AMA can thus preserve the core value of consensus edits. When a dispute is resolved in earlier less formal stages, it is done by consensus, and the resulting edit is likely to be more stable, and closer to ideal than a resolution which was arbitrarily imposed. Arbitration is not a consensus process, as the disputants do not get to in any way decide the outcome. Their only consent is consent to abide by the arbitrary decision.

So AMA resolutions at a lower level, taking place in an atmosphere of mutual respect serve the community better, and are more desirable in that

1) they are consensus processes -- WP:BURO

"Disagreements should be resolved through consensus-based discussion, rather than through tightly sticking to rules and procedures."

2) Resolving conflict at early stages lowers the level of stress on the community (stress and the ability of the community to tolerate it is a finite resource, as are keystrokes) thus allowing more keystrokes and stress to be devoted to making a better/best encyclopedia also a core value of the community

3) most importantly with regard to the ArbCom, less work to do, less cases to arbitrate, better quality of arbitration/more time to add content to the encyclopedia (because none of us are here to process endless disputes, we are here to write an encyclopedia. The community, such that it is, and its procedures exist as a means to the end goal of writing an encyclopedia, and all community processes must have the goal of writing an encyclopedia

WP:NOT: "Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia and, as a means to that end, an online community of people interested in building a high-quality encyclopedia in a spirit of mutual respect."'

4) No cabal

"There must be no cabal, there must be no elites, there must be no hierarchy or structure which gets in the way of this openness to newcomers." Jimbo Wales

De-escalating disputes is more open and less hierarchical, more welcoming to newcomers who may be simply misguided or inexperienced.

It's time the ArbCom and the AMA stop stepping on each other in their attempts to assist users. Both groups have their place and certainl need to learn to co-exist more functionally. User:Pedant 19:09, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Inasmuch as every Wikipedian who attempts to resolve disputes, every good-faith request for comment, every mediation cabal session and every good-faith editor on Wikipedia is an asset to arbitration, yes, AMA is an asset to arbitration. Don't get puffed up; AMA doesn't own the position. --Iamunknown 19:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Problems and possible solutions regarding AMA involvement in arbitrations

Spurred by Raul, I thought I would lay out what I see as the primary problems with AMA interaction in arbitration proceedings. I may follow up with some solutions later, but would love to hear people's thoughts.

General statement In the best possible world, an effective advocate could do a few things to assist parties considering or involved in arbitration proceedings.

1. Counseling: Many advocees don't have a good understanding of the advocacy process. Ideally, advocates can offer timely advice on (1) what the process is all about, (2) the nitty-gritty of presenting the case statement and evidence, and (3) possible strategic options.
2. Advocacy: Ideally, an advocate could actually present evidence, offer proposals in the workshop, and try to direct the arbitration to an outcome favorable to their advocee.

In practice, both of these goals are difficult, for reasons that include the following.

Steve's thoughts: (This is the best format that I could think of to organize my thoughts, so I hope it isn't disruptive). These two points are strong and, off the top of my head, I cannot think of any others that wouldn't fall into those two categories. אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) 22:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Problem 1: Lack of advocate expertise Arb Comm is a very distinct process, and there is no guarantee that the advocate any particular requestor gets will be good at handling that process, either in terms of expertise or advocacy style.

Steve's thoughts: Now, is this where we should investigate minimum membership requirements for practicality's sake? אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) 22:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Problem 2: Inconsistent advocacy styles I've talked about this before, and it's to some degree inherent in a volunteer project, but our styles range from consensus-builders, like me, who will often advise their advocees to try to compromise, to advocates (you know who you are), who tend to be much more aggressive, sometimes even regardless of the merits of their advocee's position. Again, which kind of advocate you get is just luck of the draw.

Steve's thoughts: Should we come up with a standard questionnaire or sequence of procedure to act as a guide or rule of thumb for all Advocates? אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) 22:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Problem 3: Time IMHO, this is the biggest problem. Martin can offer more accurate statistics, but my observation is that it's not unusual for requests for advocacy to take days or even weeks to get filled, and then many advocacies are still slow processes, with the advocate and advocacy trading messages once or twice a day. If the arbitration has already started, that's way too long -- what a party in arbitration really needs is a few hours of solid attention, probably on a combination of IM and Wikipedia, to plan strategy and gather evidence, and he or she needs it within the first few days.

Steve's thoughts: This is an important issue, but is one that is not easily solved. Given the completely volunteer nature of the AMA, in general the "easier" or "interesting" cases are generally snapped up while the cases that require more effort are left for weeks at a time. I cannot see how an Arb case could be effective if there is no "one on one" time between Advocate and advocee. אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) 22:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Problem 4 - Advocees The last problem is that we don't get the easy cases. Editors with realistic expectations and strong cases (1) typically don't end up in front of Arb Comm at all and (2) typically don't ask for an advocate when they are there.

Steve's thoughts: Agreed. Most of the cases that immediately want to go to ArbCom that I have seen have not even gone through 2 steps of WP:DR. In short, the advocee who falls into the ArbCom category is generally, more times than not, ignorant of how the system works and we need to be more diligent in explaining it to them. אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) 22:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Thoughts? TheronJ 14:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm one of the "trouble-advocates" that usually takes arbitration cases (I like them, don't know why... maybe masochism). Some thougths: it would be interesting to see our AMAT program working and creating a team of arbitration-specialized advocates. That can get rid of most of these problems, I think. I start the proposal now... --Neigel von Teighen 14:46, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Neigel, exactly what I thought ;-). It's probably not a *big* problem if we get the ball rolling rather than waiting for antoher meeting. TheronJ - I agree with all of your points, and it may be helpful for advocates willing to take ArbCom cases to make themselves available on IM (or IRC - #AMA-Wikipedia is free to use, if someone's there to set it -m). Of course, having an ArbCom taskforce isn't instantly going to solve the problems, but it will help all of the AMA to monitor the cases going to ArbCom, and pick up hints from where we're going wrong, as well as making sure that all those involved know the system.Personally, I'm one of those who thinks advocates should stive for compromise, by way of informal mediation and advocacy, but other have different ways of doing things. As TheronJ notes, we only get the hard cases (at least, at ArbCom level), where we're called upon to assist someone already heading for an unfavourable ruling. Our other cases, for the most part, are fairly trivial, and we seem to get quite a few from new users, who just need a helping hand - this makes it a very steep learning curve indeed. Finally, you can see how long cases are listed for here, by checking through the history. Thanks Martinp23 15:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I just have proposed "The Arbitration Team" at Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates/Teams. Take a look and, if you want, join it! --Neigel von Teighen 16:57, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Assigning an advocate at random seems inappropriate. A user is better off with nothing. Assigning an advocate without time to represent his client is also inappropriate, at a minimum it would take ten hours or so just to become thoroughly familiar with most cases. Counseling is very important. If your client is in the wrong, they need to admit it and change their behavior, not just continue to edit war and complain; although there are exceptions, some folks can get away with more than others. They also need to not continue to do whatever nasty thing they are doing on the arbitration pages, personal attacks, etc. I suppose some knowledge of how current arbitrators are likely to vote would be useful as well as some insight into how and why past cases were decided they way they were. I suggest signing your posts to the arbitration case in this form: [your username], advocate for [your client's username]. Fred Bauder 19:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Usually, assigning an Advocate is not so random as whoever is currently not on a case or busy. :-) I do believe that the team structure may work better in that regard, but in the end it will be ultimately what reaches you guys. What do you believe would be the best way for us to better get to know the whole of the members of ArbCom? (Also, not meaning to be rude or disrespectful, our standard terminology is "advocee" rather than "client" as we've had problems with the whole courtroom motif in the past that we are, sometimes, still diligently trying to stamp out. :-) ) אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) 22:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

(Finally, it seems we have a meeting!) The teams would be again a solution to the "random" assignment: the advocee would have to search the team he think is better for his/her case and the probabilities to have a better choice will be increased, I think. Thoughts? --Neigel von Teighen 10:45, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Suggest AMA policy that Advocates answer Advocee's emails & posts

I have had two Advocates now. The first one did not answer any of my emails nor answer my posting, nor respond to my questions. I gave up and dropped out of the AMA program as my stated abjectives in my application were clearly not going to be fulfilled.

My case was reopened and I was notified by another AMA member that he was my Advocate. I requested that we be in contact only by email because of my high profile, being the focus of a heated Arbitration case. He agreed and told me to have a cup of tea while he looked into my case. He then publically solicited opinions about me from many users also in the Arbitration. Those people publically replied. I sent him at least five emails. He did not answer them. I posted several times on his page with no response. Going to his page, hoping to see a response, I saw he had removed my name from his list of cases and removed my posts. I went to my AMA page and saw that he had withdrawn from the case. He did not inform me of this, he never asked my opinion about anything nor given my any feedback. He still has not answered my emails. He did not even notify me he had withdrawn.

I recommend that AMA have a policy that Advocates contact their Advocees, especially that they answer the Advocee's emails. Neither of my former Advocates did. The greatest help and source of information I received in this latest AMA episode was some general information and advice by email from someone else's Advocate who saw my plight because of the public posting of my Advocate on other users pages using my name repeatedly in headings and edit summaries.

I truly thank this other Advocate for his words to me as he is a most kind and helpful person --- the sort of person that is an ideal Advocate, an Advocate that treats the Advocee as a human being.

From my two experiences with AMA, I would never recommend AMA for a person anxious and unsure of what to do, or one who truly needs help. The only Advocate that I would ever trust is the helpful one described above. For the record, the kind, wonderful AMA Advocate is Neigel von Teighen. You need many more humane Advocates like him. Please give him a Gold Star! Sinxerely, Mattisse 14:37, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not responsible for any absurd comment on me. Mattisse, this discussion here is mainly because of my worst perfomance ever: Nobs appeal... very far away from my old days like the Charles-Darwin or Polygamy cases --Neigel von Teighen 14:48, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I did not mean to make an absurd comment. Like a fool, I made my post without reading the one above it. I did not realise this discussion was about you. I was looking for a page to give feedback to AMA and could not find another. (I have posted on this page before for the same reason.) Please accept my apologies. (I guess I have blundered again.) Sincerely, Mattisse 15:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry. The discussion is not about me, but I originated it... --Neigel von Teighen 15:09, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

As it happens, I was the first advocate, thanked for my involvement on the 8th day and of the case and dismissed on the 9th. Addhoc 15:22, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry AddHoc. I got so anxious that you never answered any of my emails or subsequent posts and felt desperate. I regret my rudeness to you sincerely. Always checking for emails was becoming exhausting plus being stalked, but I reacted overly and did not appreciate you enough. To you also, I deeply apologise and hope you will not always think ill of me. Sincerely, Mattisse 15:50, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

• As it happens I was the second advocate. I don't quite match up what she says about my performance and what actually happened - though I concede I was of little help. However, I do recall a series of lengthy and exhausting emails - often several a day (to at least two different email addresses which she appeared not to consult that frequently - and to which apparently some of my emails got "lost"); I recall several explanations of why I could no longer commit the time needed to deal with her problems; and I recall advising her to be more open and honest and less dissembling and deceitful in future. I apologised to her at the time for attempting to assist her in the complex situation she had got herself into. I regretted it then, and I regret it again now. SilkTork 15:03, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

• Advising me "to be more open and honest and less dissembling and deceitful in future" was not helpful as I had no idea of what you meant. Usually I am accused of being too forthcoming. Sincerely, Mattisse 13:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Requesting advocate

Hi, how do i do this, do i go thru administrator or here, I am lost. Way too many places to post and then nobody wants to get involved. User_talk: BoxingWear

Go to Category:AMA Requests for Assistance; that's the place to do it and, with our loved AMABot, the "alert" will be sent to all of us. Good luck! --Neigel von Teighen 10:48, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

AMA effectiveness

There is currently a discussion Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#AMA_advocates'_status_in_cases where the point is brought up that Advocates are not helpful for arbitration proceedings. I'm curious as to what advocates think about this. JoshuaZ 03:19, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I think some very good points are brought up there. I don't think anyone should see h(im|er)self in a "lawyer" type of role here-a lawyer is generally required to represent his or her client pretty uncritically, and while advising the client, to follow the client's instructions even if it's ridiculous. That might work in a real courtroom, but here, it should be a more informal relationship. Speaking for myself, if my advocee is acting in a way that's going to end badly, I'm going to tell them so. If they want to persist, I can't stop them, but I'm not putting my name to it, even in an "on behalf of" type way. Hopefully, after getting advice not to touch the stove, ignoring it, and getting fingers burned, they'll learn to think a little more carefully before acting next time.

I'm a practicing divorce attorney. Clients come and go, but other lawyers/the judges/the court staff are always around. I wouldn't hesitate to tell a client "You will never get that from a judge." In fact, I think that is why the client retains me, to have someone who is "on his side" tell him what he can (and can't) realistically expect from negotiation and litigation.

Furthermore,if I over promise, I will face a very unhappy client when judgment is given. My practice is to moderate my client's expectations rather than excite them.

An important part of my role is to dampen unskillful emotional behavior -- rarely persuasive or good advocacy. The clients talk frankly (and emotionally) to the attorneys, the attorneys talk professionally to each other (contrary to TV dramas) and seek compromise, settlement. I always encourage settlement rather than appearing before a judge. I've learned, it is difficult to predict what a judge will do. He is human and as subject to delusional thinking as any of us.--Raymm 21:52, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

As to ArbCom, the goal with ArbCom cases should be true of advocates or anyone else-you do not want things to end up there in the first place. Part of the job of any good advocate will be to steer his/her client away from behavior that will land a case in front of the ArbCom, and to help the member in resolving the dispute without getting to such a drastic point. I see no problem in encouraging the client to use other means of dispute resolution, as a third opinion, article RfC (NOT user RfC), or request for mediation is often a good way to prevent escalation of a problem to the point that people get in trouble over it.

Of course, sometimes people (whether the advocee, others involved, or all of the above) are genuinely recalcitrant and unwilling to abide by the way we do things here. In that case, after rational discourse, discussion with the problem editor(s) about the problems, and community input have all failed, a binding decision from the ArbCom may turn out to be the only realistic solution. Everything should be tried before escalation to this point, and I would hope the ArbCom would reject any case as premature in which there's any realistic hope of peaceful resolution. However, if it gets to that point, I think a comparison to attorneys is appropriate here.

While a lawyer has a duty to represent his/her client with competence and skill, that is only a part of the overriding duty the attorney has as an officer of the court. A lawyer is required to defend the client against accusations of breaking the law, but if the lawyer actively assists in that client's crimes, the lawyer is culpable as well. Similarly, everyone here (be they an advocate, a mediator, an admin, or even a member of ArbCom) is first and foremost responsible to be a good member of Wikipedia. Any other responsibilities given to or taken on by that person are subordinate to and only valid so far as they further that important primary one. As that applies to advocates, while an advocate might defend an editor who has broken the rules before ArbCom, present evidence of provocation and mitigating factors, and assist in showing evidence against others involved, that advocate must not cross the line into breaking the rules or damaging the project under the pretense of "representing a client". I believe this would be an important thing for an advocate to remember at any stage of resolving a dispute-and any advocate who doesn't remember this would be worse then unhelpful, they would in fact be contributing to the problem. Seraphimblade 11:03, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

What is missing in arbitration cases is skilled presentation of evidence and argument. Usually both parties think what they are doing is good for Wikipedia (and their cause) so its not like you are representing an axe murderer. Fred Bauder 14:02, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

You're right Fred. Specially on the evidence argument. I try to make my advocees understand that the best is good evidence rather than lots of it; but what kind of argument would you see? I was warned very long time ago (I think it was in my 2nd case) because of being too overlegalistic, but I'm sure you want something solid enough... --Neigel von Teighen 15:00, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I think of the workshop page as akin to the closing argument in a court case. It's where the evidence is digested to arrive a series of findings of fact that, if well-written and to the point, make the outcome almost obvious. in some cases, only the arbitrators make significant contributions to the workshop, for example Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Elvis/Workshop. In other cases the parties get deeply involved. Look at some workshop pages, and see which proposals ultimately make it into the final decisions, and generate useful commentary that helps the arbitrators analyze the cases. Much workshop participation by the parties is self-serving, argumetative or retaliatory, which is certainly not helpful to arriving at a favorable conclusion. Third parties, whether declared advocates or just interested editors, are welcome to offer and comment on workshop proposals. I think if you read a few cases you'll be able to get an idea of the kinds of proposals that end up being usable and the kinds of proposals that do not. Thatcher131 16:26, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm currently on this workshop, feel free to look around. Although, I don't like it: I prefered how it was before Workshop was created, but well I must live with it ; ). My concern is mainly on the statements; what do you expect from an advocate on them... or do we just not write statements? Ah, and thank you for your time here; this is what we (and me) really needed! --Neigel von Teighen 16:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

p.s.: I think there may be a problem. trying to instill fear into the conciousness of advocates is a bad idea. Saying:

" If the lawyer actively assists in that client's crimes, the lawyer is culpable as well. Similarly, everyone here (be they an advocate, a mediator, an admin, or even a member of ArbCom) is first and foremost responsible to be a good member of Wikipedia.”

The reason I say that is because, I can just see someone saying. This advocate made a bad faith nomination for ARB com and should be punished. When, in fact, the advocee agreed and in your mind, the advocate, your gathered evidence showed a strong possibility of injustice that could only be resolve by ARBcom. I agree that:

“Part of the job of any good advocate will be to steer his/her client away from behavior that will land a case in front of the ArbCom,”

But if the situation is the opposite, and you think the conduct of others towards your advocee was wrong, I believe, if ever this was to become a guideline for advocates, it could be used against them. In the sence where, why did you try bringing this ARBcom?

Hence, I do not totally agree with the statement that advocates must:

“… that advocate must not cross the line into breaking the rules or damaging the project under the pretense of "representing a client".”

Yes, in principal it makes sense, but up to what level is damaging a project and violating rules? Is calling an RfC or going to Arbcom a violation of rules, as some of use would try to allude?

Finally, if an advocate wishes to use professional advocacy techniques used by lawyers I personally see no problem with that. Perhaps, we should even have a moral spleen rule for advocates. In the Cplot case for example I was privileged to information showing the IP address from personal emails. Up to what point should I have released this information. Prior to going to RfC, during Arbcom, during the sockpuppet Check user test? Surely, even though I have clearly voiced an opinion that my advocee should stop sockpuppeting, as a lawyer or advocate I would not want damaging evidence to be released until the main issue is resolved. (In that case, it was the issue of being unfairly blocked even prior to doing sockpuppetteering.) Again, I believe that threatening advocates that they may be breaking wiki rules is a good thing if we want to avoid more Arbcom’s but I might not be a good thing for everything. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by CyclePat (talk • contribs) 18:49, 25 January 2007 (UTC).

Good points made, I think. (I was just throwing ideas around of course, but from the negative reactions that ArbCom's seemed to have in terms of previous advocates, it would certainly seem that there should be some kind of changes.) I wasn't trying to say that an advocate should never take a page out of a lawyer's book, either-many of the ethics rules that apply to attorneys would also apply very well to advocates, for example. I think the roles are similar in many ways-going to court, to your average citizen, is a complex, confusing thing, with laws and internal rules and all sorts of thing that the person going in has never even heard of. The lawyer, however, knows how those things work, and can explain that to the client and give good advice based on that knowledge. I think we should be looking to do much the same-Wikipedia can be complex and confusing at first, it certainly was at first to me!

I also think you may've misunderstood about "if a case goes before ArbCom"-I acknowledged that sometimes, people are genuinely recalcitrant and just won't quit causing disruption, and ArbCom really is the only thing that's going to solve the problem. (If that weren't the case, we wouldn't need ArbCom in the first place!) If that happens, it happens-the blame still ultimately lies with the person(s) who made the choice to misbehave and keep misbehaving. However, in the majority of disputes I've seen, things can be settled peacefully before such drastic measures are necessary, and it should certainly be our goal to do that if it is indeed possible. No one in their right mind wants to end up before ArbCom, advocate or otherwise.

As to the IP address, it's not entirely to me to answer when you'd be expected to reveal that, of course, but as to when you should have revealed it, my answer would be never. This is not some case where someone's life is in danger or the like, and I can't think of very much that would happen on Wikipedia that would justify revealing someone's sensitive personal information that was given in confidence. Seraphimblade 21:28, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I would like to use this process

Unfortunately, you seem to have made the process too difficult to follow. Thanks.--Filll 05:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

If you want, you can just go to the member's list page, and ask for help from someone listed there as available. What do you think is too difficult? Seraphimblade 05:45, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the instructions and it just seemed like a lot of effort and rules and confusion. However, I might just be impatient or clueless or both.--Filll 16:09, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Well I made a request. Let's see if I get a response. I am hoping I do.--Filll 21:28, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

AMA Teams (AMAT) has begun!!

To all our fellow advocates:

AMA Teams has begun! If you are interested in building a theme-specific team or in joining one, just go here. The idea is to create volunteer teams so people know what advocates are "specialized" on which topics and find one that best fits his/her case. Of course, you can join more than a team or no one. For more information on AMAT, contact AMAT Interim Coordinator CyclePat.

And, if you're interested in joining an Arbitration-related team: please help us in building our "Arbitration Team"! For more information on this team, contact me. --Neigel von Teighen 15:33, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Ali Akbar ibn Hussain

I seriously need someone’s help to solve a problem that I have with Park3r. He/She doesn’t discuss his/her problems on the discussion page of the article [1] and because of that I can not explain to him/her anything. I have requested [2] the editor many times but her/she refuses to listen to me and keeps on reverting the page. Can someone please try to talk to him/her and explain him/her that if he/she wants to do something to an article on wikipedia.org, then he/she will have to first talk about it on the talk page of the article so other editors can also get involved? Salman 22:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Opening request for another user

Frater Xyzzy is blocked and asked me to open an advocacy request for him. Is this permitted? Or is there an alternate way for a blocked user to open a request? Please answer on my talk page. Jefferson Anderson 17:24, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Meetings

Hi everyone. I've (pending discussion) closed down the meetings system in the AMA. All of the pages are still there - the old main meeting pages all being redirects to the main AMA page now, with the details in the history. This is less than ideal, so anyone with a better idea to arthive the pages, please do it. In any case, we need to discuss this - based on community criticism of the AMA, I'm trying to reduce bureaucracy qucikly. I suspect that discussions can take place as and when they arise on this page (or the co-ordinators' noticeboard), without the need to wait until the next meeting (a system I find overly clumsy). If you disagree with what I've done, please don't revert just yet - discuss first! Thanks, Martinp23 19:13, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Community perception of the AMA

There seems to be a community perception that the AMA is doing more harm than good. Here are some ideas on what we could do to improve things.

1. Reduce bureaucracy: A high bureaucracy/results ratio has been the doom of several recent wikiprojects. I don't think that the bureaucracy is choking AMA yet, but we probably should think about what works and what doesn't.
2. Track and publicize successes: I know that advocees often rate their successes. Maybe if we had a page showing some statistics (average wait; percentage of advocacies where advocee filled out survey; average survey results; etc.) by month, we and the community could get a better idea whether we were doing any good.
3. Better result tracking: I would personally like a system where the advocate also rates the outcome of the advocacy, as does a coordinator or the community. I'm not sure what to track yet, but I think the advocate often has an idea what happened (i.e., the advocacy "failed", "partially succeeded", or "succeeded", and, in each case, why).
4. Better advocate training and management: This involves more bureaucracy, but we currently don't have a system in place to evaluate advocates prior to joining, train them after joining, or to evaluate how they're doing after tim.

Thoughts? Thanks, TheronJ 19:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

1. Better communication with Advocees. My case has been "under investigation" now for a few months, and my newest Advocate told me to stop bothering him, that he would contact me. I believe that was in January. I have not heard from him since. Sincerely, Mattisse 15:07, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

A long time ago, I planned to run for AMA Coordinator (when there were no deputies), but I never talked about because more important things were to solve first. My "project" was to have a Coordination composed by a Coordinator, Vice-Coordinator and a Deputy and the rest of advocates distributed in teams leaded by consensus. Plus, meetings as the most important way to discuss issues. Coordination would have to coordinate this descentralized AMA; evaluation would be have done by the teams. Those were my past ideas. --Neigel von Teighen 12:09, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• I don't think it's the structure and bureaucracy that's the problem. The history of AMA in arbitration cases is poor, and some of the advocates see their job as uncritically supporting the user not helping the user to learn why what they do is a problem. This is a function at least in part of the name: advocate implies Wikilawyering. Guy (Help!) 08:29, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Guy, I'm tired of telling arbitrators the same: Instead of talking, why not do the following? I'm currently in the Armenia-Azerbaijani case advocating for User:Dacy69; I invite you and all arbitrators to criticize my job (mercilessly, of course) at the end (on the "Arb-Team"'s talk page). And then, maybe with all of us. Arbs must understand that AMA passed from being a mere "name" (The former "Office of Member's Advocates" or OMA) to a growing-up collaborative association that seeks to be a stable part on the Disputes Resolution System! Honestly, you'll have to deal with more and more advocates and a solution will have to be given... AMA-ArbCom cooperation, as I always said. --Neigel von Teighen 14:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

(In re Guy) The whole point of an advocate (okay, IMO) is to provide assistance to a regular member, particularly with navigating the sometimes complicated, unclear, and underavailable DR process, but IMO especially where they face an uphill climb versus an administrator bringing an action or up against the pro-admin tendency of the ArbCom. It is not to play parent or admonisher, but to support the member, aid them through the process, and aid with presenting their side of the matter. Otherwise, we may as well just dissolve into WP:ADOPT or something. Bottom line is, WADR, I really don't think ArbCom is the best group for determining what sort of help a member needs when there's a case brought against them. The goal of advocacy is not to set the user straight, but to help them acheive a good outcome from the DR process.

Like it or not, ArbCom proceedings in particular, with all the deliberations, accusations, questioning, demand for evidence in particular formats, and etcetera trappings, are an awful lot like judicial proceedings. The only thing that tends to be lacking -- because the ArbCom vilifies it with the pejoratively-used term "wikilawyering" -- are arguments of merit on policy, or about misconstruction of statements or actions, whether actions are within policies and guidelines or warranted by circumstances... etc., etc. But unfortunately, ArbCom proceedings are not about whether the accused was right, or justified; they are about who the ArbCom likes more. A little rule of law would be a Very Good Thing. Alas.

I joined AMA because it was a group of advocates, not a group of reeducators. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 20:30, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Keith:

I also joined the AMA because I saw how sometimes a part of a dispute would have to face an uphill battle, where they eventually just quit Wikipedia, tired of the disputes of this place. Indeed it is not fun to go to war alone. I feel that most of the people I've been helping have been very grateful for my assistance. I did not want to advocate people to win cases. My so far only ArbCom case as an advocate was lost miserably, yet I believe that I at provided useful assistance to the part who needed it, and that was what I hoped to do.

I haven't taking on any case since then. I probably spent 20+ hours just on that case, and I don't have that much time any longer to fight for something that is just trivial and unimportant and could be solved in 20 minutes if the parties had assumed some good faith. Eventually my advocee was banned from editing the article in question (perhaps rightly so), and that's the last I've heard from him. Was the whole thing rewarding for me? I have to admit that I often felt that I was working against both the advocee, the ArbCom, and the other part. I didn't feel there was any guideline on how I should act as an advocate in an ArbCom case. I've realized that it is much more difficult than I thought to be an advocate. You get an advocee who tells you "see the talk page -- User:X is just rude all the time" , and you find yourself wading through 300 Kb of talk pages. And when you (after several hours) miss something out, your advocee tells you that you are not a good advocate.

Guy: I try to inform my clients about how they possibly breach policies. Yet I absolutely don't want to take on a role of being the one who "sets him straight". That's certainly not what an advocate is for! Isn't that what ADOPT, RFC and the AN are for? As an advocate I take pride in being of assistance to the advocee first and foremost. "An advocate is one who speaks on behalf of another". (albeit it goes wihtout saying that advocate should inform his advoceee if this behaviour will lead him to difficulties)

I agree with Theron that it might be benefitial to keep a better record on what the AMA is good at, and what it might not be good at.

Theron, Nr #2: None of my advocees filled out the survey. In one case, my advocee was blatantly wrong in his beliefs (in regards to our policies) and after I informed him about that, I never heard from him again. Other advocees have been "red link" usernames who were never that active. And sometimes the advocee just wants you to help him out, and doesn't regard your relationship as finished at any given moment.

Theron, Nr #3: I think it would be useful to facilitate better communication between advocates (is this done or IRC? I never go there). I also think it would be very useful to be able to read other advocates experiences of cases.

I am sorry that this post got so long. I just wrote down all my thought. I hope you found some part of it useful.

Fred-Chess 23:11, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrators must understand that we're necessary because of the systems characteristic's. And also understand we just don't only work on ArbCom cases, there are also advocates doing their jobs in MedCom and we never received a complaint from there... Even more: MedCab asked us for advice and co-op when it was created. If mediators have thanked us our job, why arbitrators just don't like to accept that we work in arbitration cases?

You talk about wikilawyering... When we accept a case we do it because we believe what the advocee asks is right and fair; yes, we're humans and we can end defending a reiterative POV-pusher by mistake... to know what cases to choose and which not is a matter of experience and trial. My first cases were dissastrous, but I honestly think my last one was very good and that I helped ArbCom to not include a user into a dispute that he clearly wasn't part of. I do believe we can do good work and that we don't are useless...

We believe in defending people; because people must have a way to understand our complex arbitration system and feel they are not alone.

To understand eachother and avoid these discussions, we must start to cooperate. --Neigel von Teighen 09:45, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Advocates aren't necessary, (IMHO, the Help Desk could take over about 85% of the advocates' function) and I suspect that in arbitrations, they're usually not even helpful. Hopefully, they're helpful in other circumstances. TheronJ 13:39, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I have a "theory" and it's this: since the introduction of "Workshop" in arbitrations, parties had to enter more directly into the dispute. This implies to use proposals, comments an everything to push their vision and guard themselves from a punishment. And, of course, advocates accepting arb-cases must enter that game... I have advocated in arb-cases twice before "Workshop" existed (that time I was more in mediation and negotiation cases) and I honestly think it was much better for all of us and surely for arbitrators too: the parties had only to write a statement, present evidence and had the chance to comment the others evidence... discussions were on respective talk pages and were not considered in the arbitration case. It was lighter, better and also much quicker; we advocates did just evidence-backup with more evidence or clarifying the advocee's and contacted arbs when necessary. "Workshop", instead, was and keeps being a bad idea, at least at how it stands now: dispute are driven into the arbitration... and advocates must enter the dispute... and then it's very easy to be an obstacle. I would really appreciate to reform or to vanish Workshop. --Neigel von Teighen 19:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Reply to Community perception of the AMA

Speaking as a multiple victim of AMA, I would like to encourge AMA to stay out of Arbitration. The last arbitration, Starwood Mediation, was rendered useless by the Advocate. The Advocate got the last remaining sockpuppet off the hook by (probably) advising him not to edit since January 15, therefore avoiding his being banned. Thus, although all the other sockpuppets are banned, the one that had an Advocate remains loose and undoubtedly will crop up in the future to cause future trouble (having had multiple sockpuppets/meatpuppets for over a year). The Advocate was just too much trouble for the Arbitrators to bother with, considering all the Starwood complications, so no one dealt with it. In this case, the Advocate, in my opinion, has done disservice to the Wikipedia community and the well-meaning people involved. My Advocate never did get involved in the Arbitration as he had the good sense (I hope that was the reason, rather than just forgetting about me) to realise that an outsider who had not experienced the abuse of the Starwood sockpuppets/meatpuppets for six months could not jump in without doing damage. Sincerely, Mattisse 12:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Matisse, you saw what I did during the Starwood case and you must honestly say that I made it well with User:Jefferson Anderson. But, I agree with you: it would have been very good if your advocate would helped; my plans were to coordinate us both. --Neigel von Teighen 19:10, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you did very well by Jefferson Anderson as you prevented him from being banned/blocked as a sockpuppet/meatpuppet. I suppose that is good, although he has not edited on Wikipedia since January 15, claiming to have "left" Wikipedia, in the middle of a Suspected Sockpuppet investigation of him and Frater Xyzzy, after which Frater Xyzzy did get blocked/banned. There was a huge fracas over Jefferson Anderson's trying to delete his talk page -- but I believe it was protected from deletion as "evidence" if he ever does come back and is detected. So, I guess that is a success. After all the sockpuppets were stopped, and Jefferson Anderson was gone, there was not much to arbitrate as that stopped the stalking etc. So, nothing got settles and everyone wasted their time. Sincerely, Mattisse 19:42, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I notice the person commenting just below me is the person who put my case "under investigation" in January and from whom I have not heard from since. Sincerely, Mattisse 19:42, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Suspected sock puppets/Jefferson Anderson This is why Jefferson Anderson left Wikipedia. The writing was on the wall. And actually you probably helped me in Arbitration (or at least you were part of the reason I did so well there) by offering to email User:999 when he called me a group of incarcerated inmates and you said the truth was far sadder. He was blocked for that comment, you email offer was removed from the Arbitration record. That was the beginning of the falling of the house of cards. The Arbitration turned out the best possible way for me. If I had an Advocate I probably would not have fared nearly so well. I am free and clear now. All is well. It could not have turned out better. And although Jefferson Anderson is not blocked/banned the evidence is there waiting if he should return. Sincerely, Mattisse 23:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

First, before I say anything else, I am speaking for myself and I am not saying anything in any official manner with my position as the Coordinator of the AMA; I am leaving my position aside for a moment and speaking as an individual. With that out of the way, I must say Matisse, that overall you have not lent yourself to be helpful with the Starwood case, your Advocate, or anyone else within the AMA that you have interacted with. On the contrary, nearly every person who has touched your case has become almost immediately frustrated with your approach, attitude and demands. In repeatedly emailing me with things such as "Every day is agony" and various descriptions of how Wikipedia is ruining your life (which I, personally, find difficult to understand) I must admit that I, as a human being, have become nothing more than flustered at times, especially when my requests (which were for your sake) to calm down, take a step back and relax were staunchly ignored, along with my suggestions for reasonable plans of action that had reasonable chances of dealing with some of these issues. Volunteers only have so much zeal. :-) Now, speaking as the Coordinator I can tell you that we did what we could at the time you were having these problems given our resources at the time. We're currently in the middle of trying our best to improve our resources and abilities, so I find your discouraging comments only a reason for us to try harder to attain these goals. אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 04:17, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've been doing just fine for several months now with no advocate, ever since the sockpuppet ring that had been going since Spring of 2006 and be blocked/banned. No problems whatsoever. In fact, quite the opposite. I am curious though, how the investigation is going, and what my last advocate did with all the evidence about me he asked for from the sockpuppet/meatpuppet ring. Sincerely, Mattisse 19:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and what Neigel von Teighen offered to email now banned forever User:999 - his offer was deleted as inappropriate. This was after User:999 called me a group of incarcerated inmates, and Jefferson Anderson's Advocate said the truth was sadly the opposite (???) and offered to email User:999. What was THAT about? Sincerely, Mattisse 19:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The offer to User:999 was made in the middle of the Arbitration, in the Arbitration. Sincerely, Mattisse 19:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I have already asked for pardon because of my stupid idea, Mattisse. --Neigel von Teighen | _{help with arbs?} 08:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• Steve, I read your comment above: "I must say Matisse, that overall you have not lent yourself to be helpful with the Starwood case, your Advocate, or anyone else within the AMA that you have interacted with. On the contrary, nearly every person who has touched your case has become almost immediately frustrated with your approach, attitude and demands."

Since this is the only feedback I have received in four months from AMA except "sit back and have a cup of tea", I must assume that my case "under investigation" is a farce. Hopefully AMA will be gone shortly and that will take care of my case "under investigation". I did not ask you to step in and "investigate." Why did you if I am such an awful person? Further, I reiterate that I did very well in the RFC/Mattisse and the Starwood Arbitration largely because other editors stood up for me and helped me out in many other ways.

I asked all my Advocates several times to give me feedback about my behavior and how it might be contributing to my problems. In fact, I believe that was in my original request also. None of them did, except you on this talk page now. Why did they not give me the feedback that I requested and why did you not give me the feedback before that which you gave me above. If my first or second or third advocate had honored my request and told me that my "approach, attitude and demands" were in need of change, that would have been helpful. Instead, no one explained anything. There was not the honesty I requested or expected. Sincerely, Mattisse 15:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Historical?

Being bold. Marked this project as historical on a suggestion resulting from an MFD. Please discuss and revert if necessary. --Tony Sidaway 17:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Did revert. The project is certainly not inactive and historical. We can certainly discuss here whether it should be, but such tags should be placed following the actual occurrence, not in an attempt to cause it to be so. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Well now we have multiple, fractured places to discuss this, but in any case I'll repeat. It should indded be historical. It is far away from the only goal we have here, that of improving articles. - Taxman ^Talk 18:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Discussion on AMA

It appears to me that the following problems have been brought up:

• Lawyering
• Inexperience of some members
• Bureaucracy
• Please add anything I missed

I have some suggestions on how to solve these, but would like to hear what some others think first. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I just directed a lot of discussion here... (sorry about that). après moi, le déluge! --Kim Bruning 18:14, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe tied up with the Inexperience aspect, apparent misunderstanding/misrepresentation of function with people believing this organisation can rule on issues. Apparent non-neutrality of advocates who end up just inserting themselves into the dispute rather than providing advice to the individual seeking help (assuming this isn't supposed to be rent a goon). Apparent belief that someone following advice of an advocate is in someway exempt from "the rules". --pgk 18:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I better clarify, I haven't seen AMA in action that much, these are just things I've seen in a couple of instances. --pgk 18:24, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The project always seems to drift towards lawyering. Considering that "advocacy may require directly involving oneself in the article involved in a dispute", this doesn't seem surprising. A new project focusing instead on informing users about policy and whatnot (like a more personal Help Desk) sounds more appropriate. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 18:23, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

That is, almost something like Wikipedia:Adopt-a-User, but less scary. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 18:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd generally tend to agree there. I've tried (generally successfully, so far) to stay out of personally getting involved in disputes, and try to play an advisory role instead. I can also certainly see the issue with "But the advocate said to do that!"-although one hopes that encouraging a new user to engage in disruptive behavior would, ultimately, be seen as more disruptive then the behavior itself. I think, in a lot of ways, it could probably be a lot looser, call for a lot less personal involvement of advocates in a dispute, and instead focus on an advisory role, and doing something people should be doing anyway-helping new users get accustomed, giving them a hand with translating the multitude of policy and guideline acronyms, learning to communicate effectively with other editors, and warning them when something they're thinking of doing is a Very Bad Idea(tm). Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

JzG decided to push through on MFD. --Kim Bruning 18:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks like that's going to make this rather a moot point anyway. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 02:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

What's good for the goose]... >Radiant< 08:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

In my relatively brief experience with the AMA, I notice that some of the requests seem to have come from folks who may have blundered into difficulties, others from possibly genuine trolls. One suggestion would be to have some rules about the types of cases we take and continue, including, potentially:

• Take cases as a group, and excercise judgment as a group in the kinds of cases we take and the kind of help we give, rather than making such matters individual decisions. Limit our help to advice and mentoring (or some limitation) in cases where we perceive serious problems. We are not lawyers and don't have to give every client all our efforts no matter what.
• Require that advocees cooperate with us, and perhaps not engage in blatant disruption while in our care, in order to continue advocacy.
• Have a mentoring system for new advocates. Best, --Shirahadasha 21:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

MfD outcome

This page was nominated for deletion on 29th March 2007. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

--NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 00:36, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

As a member of AMA I motion for an official AMA meeting. We should review the MfD, summarize the key issues and issues that where presented. We should come up with possible solutions and decide on what actions, if any, should be taken. We may be able to easilly resolve the disputes and issues. --CyclePat 05:59, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

A meeting would be appropriate. Let's make this happen. אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 17:44, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Where and when? --Kim Bruning 17:59, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

What would be good is to have a 1 to 2 page exucutive summary of the MfD prior to starting. We need to know what that issues where and how we can solve them... what the solutions proposed where and we need to allow for poeple to discuss further. I think we may need 1 person to summarize the key issues. 1 person to summarize the key proposed solutions. 1 person to evaluate the benefits of the solutions and 1 person to evaluated the cons. I think one person could actually do all of that in 4 hours. But why bust our brains? I further propose that the meeting be held in a similar fashion as our anual meetings! (help me out here I can't remember exactly how, but I know it had it's own page right?) (p.s.: A little busy this week with Holy week) --CyclePat 04:58, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I have rediscovered a proposal I did on Dec 2005. It does not include the teams idea I "developed" after, but it may help. It's at User:Imaglang/AMA proposals. Keep in mind that as a very old page; but maybe someone can use it for something useful. --Neigel von Teighen | _{help with arbs?} 10:21, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

AMA Reform Proposal Withdrawn

(Withdrawn. See [3])

Now that the MfD is gone (for now), I'll now describe my AMA Reform Proposal.

This proposal in a nutshell: Association of Members' Advocates conceptual reform into a "federal" system based on autonomous teams.

Proposal in depth: The idea is to descentralize, clean up and crop the AMA but also to create a flexible structure capable to support a potential growth in the number of advocates and cases. I think "lighter troops move quicker than a heavy one", so a team politic should be applied inmediately. Teams would have to organize themselves (however they like) and manage requests by themselves; direct consequences of this would be: faster request answering, more accurate service, and no more backlogs at a "central" request system. Teams should principally be based on "specialities" (Arbitrations, mediations, COI, NPOV or also, teams on controversial topics that recurrently fall into disputes like Creationism, etc.) and no matter of there are two teams about the same topic.

The direct consequence is the abolishing of AMA Deputies and AMA Interim Teams Coordination. Deputies mantainance duties will be executed directly by teams and these will be able to decide to elect a Team Deputy. But, if a team decide to have one, it will be the team's responsability and the team's bureacracy, not AMA's. (So, any MfD or concern about bureaucracy should be done against a part of the system, and not affecting the whole).

Advocates will have to be in a team, but free to join all the teams (s)he wants to. This is a point some have already presented their concerns on my user talk page. The main reason is that all agree in descentralize, but descentralizing must be a total reform, not partial. The current situation describes what happens when you have an attempt descentralized system (current AMAT program) combined with a centralized system: only one team and no interest on switching to AMAT. I highly recommend to keep only one system, not two in parallel, and think we should adopt a descentralized one.

AMA Coordination will be in charge of one coordinator and maybe a vice-coordinator, but no more than two: as teams begin to work, coordination's task will be reduced into:

1. The "Miscellaneous" request system: The request system will be categorized according to the teams, but advocees that believe no team's profile fits into their case will have to put it in that category. AMA Coordination will have to derivate those requests to a team (if possible) or assign it to an advocate, after no advocate has taken it for a reasonable time (say a week).
2. Teams Coordination & System mantainance: Administrate. This means, to keep an eye into teams that grow to big and split them down, merge teams too small and too related, moderate the meetings... I.e.: to mantain this federation. This means, to not let the system be reduced into a team's monopoly, but also to avoid AMA's atomization. Related to this, Coordination will be the official "negotiator" with MedCom and ArbCom.

Implementation Schedule: Obviously, this cannot be applied as fast as I would like. We need a program to follow. Proposed:

1. Consensus building on this reform. (Obvious)
2. Consensus decision on setting Steve's (titular Coord.), CyclePat's (Team's Coord.) and Deputies' ends of term to Dec 2007 or the accomplishment of some stages of this schedule, whatever happens first. This is to ensure we don't fall into an anarchy during the process.
3. Putting all advocates into a team. The most difficult step: Currently, we have the Arb-Team. We'll create a "Buffer" Team with all those people not belonging to any team. From there, advocates will have to begin to create groups. During the existence of "Buffer" Team, any new AMA member should have to decide: 1) to join "Buffer" 2) to join any other team created...
4. When having a reasonable amount (and diversity) of teams, all advocates reamining in "Buffer" will be expulsed from AMA for considering them to be inactive.
5. Descentralizing request system. This can be done parallelwise to the first teams creation.
6. Testing period. After a reasonable amount of time, discussion must be held to define if AMA will follow this new descentralized model or should return to the old system.
7. If advocates support, AMA will definitely make the step from "Unstable" into "Stable Release" (Open-Source users will understand me well). Resign of all AMA Coordinators and election of one/two Coordinators (or maybe, we want to reelect Steve and one of the former Deputies... that would alright too).

--Neigel von Teighen | _{help with arbs?} 10:55, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Discuss your ideas here, please. --Neigel von Teighen | _{help with arbs?} 11:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how this does anything to stop the Association of Member Advocates from Wikilawering and making the weaker argument the stronger. I see that expressly written into it is a position of authority for a member that should be dealt with strongly and aggressively. Hipocrite - «Talk» 12:12, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

It should help this way: teams will be a way to give advice and also learn from all advocates' experiences. Yes, this assumes we haven't learned any experience in the past. I agree that this "system-change" won't automatically select what advocees are trollers or not. For that, I would like to see AMA Guide to Advocacy improved... But I wanted to start with the structure problem; does anyone could help with the other big problem we also have? --Neigel von Teighen | _{help with arbs?} 13:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Less structure, less legislation. People in AMA should be reviewing requests and helping drive them through the necessary steps to resolution, not fine-tuning administrivia and voting everyone into a deputy position. Please, lets get rid of the deputies and the formalities. Improve the guide, merge the handbook into it, and shorten it. As a group we ought to share what we learn with each other, and keep better track of what we do. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 16:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how this reduces the role of AMA as a sock puppet enabling service. Sincerely --Mattisse 16:23, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

First to resposond ot Mattisse, we are not a sockpuppet enabling service and I'm slight miffed at the lable (to me it boarders on WP:CIVIL, please take more care as you could offend people and additionally I drop cases that are filed by sockpuppets).

Second to respond to Neigel the "teams" idea might be a good one but requiring team member ship is overally burecratic (and agaist Wiki policy). That could very easily cuase us to be MfDed again, (and with that kind system in place any who did nom us would have a VERY valid reason to have us nuked).

Now to respoond to Keith, I was about to prepose that the deputies resign and the possions be done away with by the end of next week (sooner if a strong consonsenus is reached). And that the Co-ordinators job be to assist other advocates and step in when an advocate has issues with his/her "case" and to investigate any wrong doing by an advocate if there is any. Really that is all the Co-ordinator needs to do. The merging of the Handbook and Guide is a GREAT idea and should be done soon. Less formalites and more focus on helping wikipedians in resolving issues at the lowest possible level is the best way to go.

I would reocend that the request system stay in place and the AMA alert system remain (so we cna be notifed of pending "cases") but pages like meeting page and maybe the co-ordinators desk be MfDed (We have the talk page on the AMA main page to use if ewe need to generate consuses otehrwise it is really not needed and if we do drop the depuies and lessen the job of the co-ordinator then the desk is not needed either).\

as for "term Limits" that in its self can also be cited as burecratic. I propose that the AMA co-orinator remin until he or she resigns which is simple and to the point since with my proposal the Job would be no big deal and really all he or she woudl be is a custodian (for lack of a better word) of the AMA. And either get a new coordinator by way to Consunses or someone volenteers to fill the job. That way we are not voting and we don't have a burecratic process. Æon ^{Insanity Now!} _{Give Back Our Membership!} 17:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I think it makes most sense to focus first on cleaning up more recent changes than basic provisions that have been around since inception. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 20:17, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The Deputies are a recent thing it used to be just the co-ordinator. mostly most of hte issues come from some of the new ideas that came about (Teams, Deputies and the reaular meetings). Æon ^{Insanity Now!} _{Give Back Our Membership!} 20:28, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... OK, I withdraw my proposal: Aeon, you're right: it maybe against Wiki-policy... and maybe to have a "non-team structure" together with "team structure" could work. But we need to strengthen up the Handbook, the Guide (merge them if necessary); that's our prority --Neigel von Teighen | _{help with arbs?} 10:08, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm ok So lets start with the depties, I here by resign as Deputy CoOrdinator of the AMA. Now For the Handbook i'm a little weak in writing things such as that but I agree that should be the first thing done (After the deputies finsh resigning (Cuts the red tape somewhat right off the bat)) Æon ^{Insanity Now!} _{Give Back Our Membership!} 19:22, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Mediation cabal assistence and the shaving of yaks

Perhaps some of the mediation cabal KISS principle "experts" could have a look at this process and help tidy things up?

After the first Esperanza deletion request, people got terribly caught up in Yak shaving, with a net result of exactly zilch, after which Esperanza got killed for good in the 2nd request.

So the choice is yours. Tidy up drastically, or go the way of the Esperanza.

Help is available for this, if you're willing to listen. (though I'm not sure how many AMA people are currently willing to listen, of course. :-) ).

--Kim Bruning 17:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

We've been in this situation ever since the second coordinator election. In fact, as I recall, that election itself took forever to hammer out. And then things on that end went idle until a new crop of people flew in and did more of the same. Now... if "tidying up" is a euphemism for "stop speaking for other members who want you to help speak for them in difficult situations", then, I guess it's gonna be a long summer. There's "AMA's gotten too bureaucratic" and then there's "Advocacy is bad". - Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 20:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I think he I see what Kim Bruning is saying if you look at what we are doing now as to how we did htings in the past we HAVE become more burecratic. Getting rid of the Deputies, possily doing away with the teams, distilling down the co-ordinator's job discription and MfDing a few pages that have no real value for the AMA and merging the handbooks and guide to advocay will be a fairly large step in the process and really should be done first. As for the Advocacy is bad that is rather general and in order to fix it we would need clear examples. Æon ^{Insanity Now!} _{Give Back Our Membership!} 20:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Ironic: AMA gave MedCab advice when it started and now they could return us the favor. Great! Ah, I no longer support this opinion by me against MedCab formation in Dec 2005... (I was a cabalist for some time after my resignation to AMA in early 2006... and turned to be the worst mediator you could ever think of). --Neigel von Teighen | _{help with arbs?} 10:17, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

They did? Hmmm, can you provide some diffs? It'd be interesting for historical reasons. :-) --Kim Bruning 00:31, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

It will be difficult to find them, because it was a discussion by the ends of 2005... I don't have enough time to do that search during these days. But, I think the discussion was in this page and in Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal and maybe also in a meeting... or maybe on my user talk page too. From what I remember, I was the only one "against" just because I didn't like the idea of "informal mediations" because it hadn't any guarrantee that the process would be neutral. Time proved I was wrong. --Neigel von Teighen | _{help with arbs?} 10:15, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Short proposal on AMA restructuring

• Work out clearly what this initiative is to achieve in terms of purpose, product and outcome. Consider this question - is the existence of a formal association necessary for these three points? If so, what elements are essential to this? This leads on to the next step:
• Analyse existing processes (both in service delivery and administration), and apply Occam's razor to each of them: determine the simplest and most time-effective method that each step of the AMA system could be accomplished by. Even better, work out whether you can actually get rid of any steps entirely. A simplified framework will not only render the charges of pointless bureaucracy advanced by some people completely null and void, but also make the process of quality control far simpler - the denser the "paperwork", the more opaque its content.
• Determine what attitude the AMA, as a whole "brand image" if you will, is intending to put across. Is it to secure rights for users involved in disputes, or is it to advise them? My view is there is a dichotomy here, as the securing of rights is not always reconcilable with acting a method of advise. Personally, I feel that the latter is the AMA's strength, and most of the cases where people have accused the AMA of malpractice are instances where the advocate has concentrated on the former element.
• I might suggest that unbiased representation and provision of expertise on behalf of a requesting user would be far more effective as a stratagem than a commitment to due process, justice, etc., all of which are largely trappings of the legal world.

Just my view. Feel free to ignore it if you like. --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 22:10, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Or you could all give up on WP:AMA and join WP:ASSIST instead. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 23:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Give Nicholas a chance at trying to fix things this side. :-) --Kim Bruning 00:33, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Besides, there's no need for the two to compete, and that'd be counterproductive. Why can't it be collaborative? If someone comes here and just needs some help and advice, send 'em to WP:ASSIST, if someone goes there and needs more active intervention, they get sent this way. Why not? And why couldn't people be part of both? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:37, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know whether it's a good thing or a bad thing that you created WP:ASSIST in march 2007 just shortly after the MfD nomination of WP:AMA. But, I do consider this first edit you did to WP:ASSIST to be an unexpected attack on the AMA. In particular, I think we can say taht a statement such as "Editor Assistants are intended to take over the role of the now-defunct Association of Members' Advocates" was pre-emptive and perhaps a sign of deep political machinations. This has reduced my trust in your ability to follow WP:AGP or WP:CON and provide us with any unbiased and arms lenght opinions which should be constructive for our association. I could eassily see the participants of WP:ASSIST being an AMAT but I couldn't see everyone from AMA being an ASSIST member. --CyclePat 05:19, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the conspiracy theories are for. At the time, it looked quite certain that the MfD was going to result in disbanding. (If ^demon would've been a little quicker in typing, it would have, it was that close). And yes, it is something I hacked together very quickly, so that those who still needed help wouldn't be left hanging, and yet wouldn't be seen as an attempt to circumvent the disbanding. I made no secret of that either, I said that at AN, I said that at VP, I said that in the MfD. However, given that this did not occur, I see nothing wrong with the two working together. (By the way, on the subject of assuming good faith...) Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:24, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

As a member of both organisations, I can say that I would not have joined WP:ASSIST if I felt there were any "political machinations" involved. Halfway through the MfD, it looked like the AMA was going under. A replacement was needed, so some editors worked very hard to get WP:ASSIST on its feet. But I believe that the eventual outcome is the best possible thing for all parties. The co-existence of the two organisations will force both to improve their working methods, and will hopefully save AMA from the threat of a second MfD. I intend to continue working with both organisations, and hope that both will survive in the long term. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 12:36, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Not sure where to post this. I'd like to discuss the MfD at whole. As I see it, the community declared that they do not want advocates. Advocates are per definition speaking on behalf of someone else, without regards to the advocess guilt or inocense. Apparently neither the community nor the ArbCom think that this is benefitial for Wikipedia.

Suppose that the AMA reforms in such a way that those who are so called sockpuppeteers and vandals (as pre-determined by the community) no longer will get help by the AMA, then what kind of advocates are we, and who are we going to be advocates of? Maybe rename the AMA to the Association of Selective Member Advocates?

Seriously, I don't see what the purpose is of the AMA if they are not appreciated by the community as advocates. I would really appreciate feedback on this issue.

I can envision that a workable use for the AMA is to have advocates appointed by the ArbCom in ArbCom cases and that other functions of the AMA could be superseded by WP:ASSIST or the help desk. That would be one way to go. (IMHO the AMA must first and foremost strive to meet a need of the community, or it will soon have to cease to exist. Other issues that are being discussed here, such as b'cracy, the coordinator's role, the structure and hierarchy of the AMA, and the experience and competence of the advocates are all secondary. Personally I think that Steve has been an excellent coordinator, and that the structure of the AMA is formidable. )

Fred-Chess 12:56, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Hm... AMA has always been "selective". I select the advocee I want to help. The problem are we, advocates, not requesters. There always be sockpuppeteers around; they're always around everywhere trying to get a little advantage. I think we must bind ourselves to a reasonable self-policy/self-compromise of not accepting cases that seem suspicious. Teams could help to reduce this problem as, if a certain team members makes a wrong decision, the others could talk with this advocate and see what's happening.

ArbCom appointing for arbitration cases could be a good idea, but considering the current unfriendly relationship we have with them, I doubt they would collaborate.

AMA role in community is to give help to users in our complex "judicial" system. That's our mission. What help? Support (when legitime) and advice. If AMA gets deleted, then WP:ASSIST would also, as this later wants to take the half of AMA's role... --Neigel von Teighen | _{help with arbs?} 13:18, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't quite agree with your last statement here (if AMA gets deleted, then WP:ASSIST would also). WP:ASSIST has deliberately been constructed in such a way that it is unlikely to get accused of Wikilawyering and fighting the advisee's corner against all odds (not that I think those problems were ever prevalent in the AMA anyway, but they were raised frequently in the MfD).

In response to Fred Chess's comment above, I take the point that many of the community are uncomfortable with the fundamental idea of advocacy, but I think it's a bit strong to assert that "the community declared that they did not want advocates". Firstly, a large part of the community did not take that stance, hence why the MfD was closed with no consensus. Secondly, although the MfD showed that many users are critical of the ideas of the AMA, it also showed that a lot of legitimate users (not sockpuppets or POV warriors) have been genuinely helped by the AMA.

I'd also disagree with the conclusion that restructuring and "the experience and competence of the advocates" are secondary issues. We need to restructure; we need to have entry standards for advocates, and exclude any who are highly inexperienced or who have a record of being confrontational; we also need to discourage off-wiki communication between advocate and advocee, as it creates a cliquish, Wikilawyerish sort of atmosphere.

I agree with Neigel von Teighen that the idea of having advocates appointed by the ArbCom is also a bad idea. Wikipedia does indeed have a complex, bureaucratic pseudo-judicial system, and the role of AMA advocates is to provide an independent source of advice and support that serves individual users, rather than the system. As such, there's nothing unhealthy per se about AMA advocates sometimes fighting the corner of an ordinary user against an admin, or about the ArbCom disliking us. It's in accord with the principles of natural justice that those on the bottom rung should get some help against the system, and should be assisted in understanding it. Possibly WP:ASSIST will do that better than the AMA, and be less confrontational about it. But neither organisation is defunct, and I don't believe the community has rejected the idea. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 17:00, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I also have to agree With Walton on this one. Having the ArbCom appoint Advocates would be a bad idea. There will always be thouse that game the system, can't advoid it, can get around it, all you can really do is be carefull and try not to feed it. Æon ^{Insanity Now!} _{Give Back Our Membership!} 18:25, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Decentralization

Current situation

1. AMA is a sociological group. There are users that only take email advocacy, some that do arb-com, some that don't really participate except for once in a blue moon and even some that are sometimes disruptive. Most AMA members are not necessarily worried for the concerns of other members. Because of this the AMA may currently be defined as a Secondary group. We are a group of different characters established to perform certain functions and will generally establish a temporary relationship.
2. AMA fits loosely within the definition of a team. This is because it only has a couple loosely defined roles. (ex.: coordinator and AMATs). It however becomes apparent, after looking at wikipedia's definition of team, which states "hold themselves mutually accountable for common purpose, goals, and approach", that AMA is not necessarily a team.
3. Within the last year we have observed the creation of the AMATs (AMA teams). Unlike the AMA, AMATs, as per it's team theory, has more "sharply defined roles, either cooperative or collaborative." In fact, with the creation of the Arb-com team and it's sub-deputy assistant and assistants, I believe it safe to say that the AMAT is more of a team and still heading in this direction, if not already there. According to google's define function, it is said that "a team comprises any group of people or animals linked in a common purpose. A group in itself does not necessarily constitute a team."
4. AMA and AMAT is a [Self-managed teams]
5. WP:ASSIST is more of an action team for immediate responses. Which, I believe should be considered "emergency" situations.

Theories that apply

1. AMATs is a virtual team and AMA may fits loosely.
   1. virtual team Critical success factors. (ie.: Leaders set high standars)
2. Decentralize

Statement of problem

1. AMA, though it is more of a group, loosely falls more under the definition of aBasic Networked Team. The creation of WP:ASSIST suggests that perhaps the AMA should be more of an "action team".
2. Pesky tasks such as those attributed during our MfD to the AMA as having been a failure involve managing sockpuppet cases and arb-com. (ie.: Perhaps AMA members are not experienced enough for sock-puppets and should a team take over?)
3. AMA may face future Mfd, how can we maintain a similar system.

Solutions

1. AMAT offers the possibility to create an action team similar to WP:ASSIST. In fact I believe WP:ASSIST should be an AMAT, which would help complete the AMA group.
2. AMAT is ideal for handling pesky tasks. As per wikipedia's article on Teams: "Teams are especially appropriate for conducting tasks that are high in complexity and have many interdependent subtasks." I propose teams should be utilized to support regular AMA members when necessary.
3. Dencentralization of users into team blocks will create a network of users who are more familiar with each other. This will create a groupe of members that are closer to Primary group. Furthermore, should the AMA ever face a devasting MfD, team members and their direct connections are less likely to be immediatelly desolved by the clossing down of AMA.

Conclusion

All of the afformentioned solutions provide excellent ideas for helping out the AMA. --74.101.14.217 07:05, 5 April 2007 (UTC) (Previous statement was done by --CyclePat 07:09, 5 April 2007 (UTC))

Interesting and good summary. I really like the idea of a networked (I call it "federal") AMA with teams as its simplest cell (currently, AMA is built upon advocates). But it may increase bureucracy... yes, theoretically, this new bureaucracy would be teams' problem, but in fact, WP community will associate it with AMA and a MfD will be there again. We must descentralize, but how?

Second: we need to set priorities. What will be discussed first? I think the handbook is the first and that the new AMA structure should resemble the handbook's ideas and principles. --Neigel von Teighen | _{help with arbs?} 10:23, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

It still doesn't address the issue of people, though. You can have the best system in the world, but when people aren't doing the job for whatever reason, the end result is the same. There's an AMA currently "under investigation" that hasn't been touched since 2/21 (to add a notice) and really wasn't looked at at all after it was filed. The request itself was highly improper (it wasn't filed by the user named), and both the user who filed it and the user named therein have since left WP one way or another. The advocate currently claims he is busy IRL, which he has been for quite a while. The failure, therefore, is with the people who choose to be advocates and either don't know how to do the job, or don't really have the time to do it. Therefore, there needs to be a fundamental change in recruitment policies, so the advocates have the time and skills to do the job. If I have an issue with a user that I want resolved through AMA, I shouldn't have to wait 2 weeks just to get things started. MSJapan 12:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Response to above comment: (perhaps a distraction but dully noted) As per my summary above, your afformentioned exemple demonstrates the disatavantage of the AMA being in it current status. That is, being more of a social group instead of a team. Team theory add more accountability and foster a better productivity and responsibilities. --CyclePat 16:53, 5 April 2007 (UTC) original signed by 74.101.14.217 16:51, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't mean to be rude, but I think that everyone has kind of lost sight of the bigger picture of what's currently broken at the AMA - considering the minutiae of teams, recruitment policies, etc. strikes me as "fiddling while Rome burns". The main problem is two-fold: on one hand we have the Esperanza problem, where the AMA appears to exist in part merely for its own sake rather than achieving much; and secondarily, that some advocates have behaved in a manner that is anathematic to Wikipedia philosophy by behaving inappropriately for whatever reason (e.g. the disruptive behaviour in ArbCom cases noted by Raul). Indeed, I would like to point out further to some of the comments above - such as those by Neigel - that it is absolutely imperative that the lumbering, bureaucratic administrative structure is dismantled and reformed as soon as possible into something that is actually sensible for the purposes of undertaking the AMA's objectives, in order for this project to survive. I believe there is no question that unless this is remedied, the AMA really will end up with the same fate as Esperanza, and that the issues over quality control and behaviour of advocates cannot ever be addressed satisfactorily as long as this excessively hierarchical structure exists to obscure what is actually going on. Simplicity, transparency and focus on what actually needs to be achieved is the keynote of what needs to happen. --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 19:51, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I'm still trying to find the "lumbering, bureaucratic administrative structure" seeing that as the Coordinator (the only real "administrative" position other than Deputies who help out with specific tasks), all I seem to be doing as of late is fielding email questions about the AMA, checking up with Advocates as they need help, and fixing templates and other bits of code in the request system. There is no more "hierarchy" to the AMA than that: A bunch of Advocates doing their thing and a Coordinator with a bucket, mop and toolbox to clean things up and fix the leaks. If, by virtue of being Coordinator, I'm at the top of this machine, then the entire hierarchy is no larger than a speed bump.

What I -do- see that the AMA needs, however, is:

1. A better set of member credentials to ensure that editors who are familiar enough with Wikipedia policy are helping out; and
2. A more solid way to work with ArbCom.

Putting together a group of people who made it their business to better work within ArbCom's frame of reference was a very large step in that direction, but we still have a long way to go. What else, in essence, should be done? אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 03:43, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

As proposed at WP:RM

As proposed at WP:RM. Wikipedia:Editor assistance → Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates/Teams/Editor Assistance —(Discuss)— As described in this edit, WP:ASSIST falls under the WP:AMA as an unbrella action team to quickly respond to wikipedians questions. There is no need to have two actions teams and we should utilize the {{AMA}} template —CyclePat 17:58, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Please ('Discuss here) --CyclePat 18:16, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the proposal. Incidentally: does CyclePat speak for all of AMA? --Kim Bruning 20:09, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

There are many people who would like to be identified as providing editor assistance, but would not like to be associated with all of the functions and premises of the AMA. Therefore there is a need for a separate template. DGG 22:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Cycle, I have deleted the link to this phantom team. The team should be created if and only if it accomplishes with our AMAT standards: Proposal & 3 members minimum + the obvious condition: that Editor Assistance members want to be part of AMA. --Neigel von Teighen | _{help with arbs?} 17:09, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Recommendations on restructuring AMA

Crossposted from User_talk:Aeon1006 --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 04:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Dear Aeon: Thank you for your message. I do believe it is possible to fix the AMA in its present state, and my views on how to do so are as follows:

1. Drop the formalistic structure immediately. The AMA does itself no favours by appearing "opaque" to the rest of Wikipedia, and - I believe - wastes a huge amount of time on activities that accomplish nothing towards the goal of delivering advocate services; what this means is the AMA ends up existing merely for its own sake, rather than its stated purpose on Wikipedia. The whole business of pseudo-legal ideas, elections, vast lists of minutiae as formal "meetings", formal authority, bizarre constellations of "teams" with strange acronyms, etc. needs to be killed off rapidly. As I noted on the AMA talk page, these issues were in part the reason that Esperanza met the fate it did, and need to be got rid of not only so the system is more efficient, but also so the perception of the AMA by the rest of the Wikipedia community is no longer one of a secret clique that serves no purpose other than to provide a club for its members. Transparency is essential in any dispute resolution initative.
2. Cease being an adversary of the ArbCom. A number of arbitrators have expressed an extreme dislike of the AMA based on past dealings with advocates in arbitration cases, and indeed Raul commented on the MfD to that effect. The AMA has carried on a consistent policy of thumbing its collective noses at the arbitrators, an extremely unwise course of action that is liable to lead to the arbitrators eventually losing patience and seeing that the initiative is indeed deleted and salted for good. Often, this combative attitude towards the ArbCom has been in the name of justice and "due process" - two terms liable to raise the ire of any Wikipedian, and even more so an arbitrator - and, although I am not specifically defending the ArbCom, I have worked with many of the arbitrators for a number of years here on Wikipedia, and I consider they would not show a dislike of the AMA unless they have a good reason to do so.
3. Actually look at what is happening in the advocate cases. Further to my remarks above about the AMA getting wrapped up in its own organisational folderol, it seems the AMA is spending more time on its own internal squabbling and setting of formalisms than actually checking to see if its advocates are doing their job properly. A concerted effort needs to be made for people to check the quality of work being done, whether the advocate is actually working on the case or has instead "dropped the ball", check that the advocate is being sensible and is not "wiki-lawyering", etc. This must not be implemented as a formalism; instead, all AMA members should, from time to time, have a good look at the cases, and watch for this - the Coordinators should be ensuring this is happening, but appear not to be doing so at the present. It takes only one bad advocate to create a bad name for the organisation as a whole. This is not, however, to be taken in support of restrictive advocate selection - it's just people have to keep their eyes open and maintain common sense about what is acceptable.
4. Define clearly what an advocate should actually be doing and make sure, further to the above, they are sticking to it. It must be made clear to advocates that they are there to represent and advise the user, but not there to act as lawyers, nor to defend the indefensible. Although I can see logic in the idea that everyone has a right to representation, the idea that even the patently guilty should be defended is one carried over from law, and not one that belongs here on Wikipedia. In this case, the arbitrators are perfectly justified in being irritated at AMA advocates officiously trying to gum up the works of arbitration when defending users who obviously need punitive action to be brought against them for the good of the community. In short, the AMA absolutely must work with the community's interest in mind as well, not just that of its clients.
5. Simplify the request process. Although the new-version request page is not intrinsically difficult to follow, the overall appearance of it is one of unnecessary complexity, and I found from my work at the MedCab that getting users to jump through convoluted hoops in order to request assistance will achieve nothing other than a ream of paperwork and endless administrative work. It needs to be succinct and actually glean from users what is needed to carry out the case in a concise manner.
6. Permit "ordinary people" to implement changes in the AMA - the suffering of the submission of proposals before anything is changed, and officious attitudes held by its coordinators on the subject, is utterly pointless. I would implement the {{sofixit}} idea instead, in that people just fix whatever is broken. This reduces the task I have described above of rehabilitating the AMA down to something possible, rather than something that would inevitably fail due to the insufferable stream of proposals that would be needed. Indeed, this is an issue that annoys me personally as I am extremely tempted to jump in and fix these things - but I know if I was to do so, I would not be well-received, due to this rigid structure of authority and pseudo-democracy.

I hope this outlines a potential strategy on what needs to be done. Should there be any way I can help with this, please do let me know. Yours, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 03:24, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

NicholasTurnbull's proposal

The following is for expressing support, opposition or for discussing the NicholasTurnbull proposal immediately preceding this section.

Support

I support the above proposal in all respects. The AMA was incredibly effective when it was absolutely informal. Our effectiveness and community acceptance as a useful entity have declined in an almost direct relationship to our accumulation of process and bureacracy. I believe a move to reduce formality to the very minimum is what is needed. User:Pedant 18:52, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Most of this sounds excellent, but I think ordinary WP editors involved in a dispute do and should have the right to obtain assistance, and that there should be people prepared to give it. The assistance has to be honest, and in most ArbCom cases, the best assistance and advice that can be given will be to apologize , compromise, and promise to reform. But if there is a serious contention, there should be counsel. (The model isn't lawsuits, but administrative hearings.) But AMA should not only include people willing to do this. But, as you say, this and all other points can be worked out as we go along. The last think WP needs at this point are more administrative positions. DGG 08:30, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Great list. I changed the bullets to numbers so as to facilitate referencing the points. I am in particular agreement with No. 4. Anchoress 02:31, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

It is my view that AMA, as discussed above, it a network/group of people that wish to help out other. We are not a team... Teams, such as Arb-com or the teams sections of AMA have specific mandates and requirements. If a bunch of wikipedians want to get together and put their name down on a list to offer help then they can do that. It appears that WP:ASSIST, and other groups do that. --CyclePat 03:26, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Also... be WP:BOLD. Make the dam edits and if people disagree then they'll make a hissy fit and consider you an ass. Perhaps I may agree with you. When I formed the AMAT I didn't wait around I just did it. I seem to be finishing most of my comments with quotes. So like Nike says "just do it." --CyclePat 03:30, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, the Boldness part of the advice is good, at least. Now for the Revert and Discuss parts ;-) --Kim Bruning 21:19, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

My one proposal for AMA improvement

Since everyone else is doing this, I thought I'd better chip in... My one proposal is that the policy on off-wiki communication (e-mail, IRC, etc.) between advocate and advocee should be changed. Such communication should be strongly discouraged. This would emphasise the fact that advocacy is not a lawyer-client relationship, and the advocate isn't there just to work for the interests of the advocee, but to resolve disputes fairly by listening to both sides. I think it's more conducive to this atmosphere if the majority of advocate-advocee communication is available on-wiki for anyone to view. Obviously off-wiki communication would not be prohibited (such a ban would be impossible to enforce anyway), but it should only be used in cases where confidential personal information is being imparted; it shouldn't be used to shroud the advocate-advocee relationship in secrecy. I will say that in all of the cases I have taken as an advocate, I have never had to communicate off-wiki with any of my advocees, nor would it have enhanced the dispute resolution process if I had done so. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 11:41, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

We had this discussion at the last meeting. I opposed it. Give me some better reasons and perhaps I will support it. The only reason I see why we should not use email is a perhaps a solution to try and encourage members to leave a trace of the cases they have helped out with. (Which probably helped save AMA in the MfD). Hence, there is no real reason to use the filling system except for maybe saying... A case of blah balh has been assigne to advocate so and so and it's status is... Really when you think about it. advocates can do that all they want. In fact if the system was entirelly email there probably wouldn't be a problem either. What you are talking about is to have a system to meet your desires. You may wish to explore this by going to the teams section. Right now we could really use an Emergency Action team. Assides from that. What needs to be done is to get everyone working on the same page. As Boomer said in an article on the Alliance Party in Canada "it's time to come back to the fold. Let this be a formal olive branch to those treasonous, mutinous bastards." [4]

p.s.: I don't agree with removing email... --CyclePat 03:16, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, you're entitled to disagree. Although I'm not sure if your comment on "treasonous, mutinous bastards" is meant to be directed at those of us who have joined WP:ASSIST, given your recent attempt to force that organisation back into the AMA fold. I may well take your advice and join a team. But the reason I am arguing for a no-secrecy rule is to improve the image of the AMA. During the MfD a lot of users referred to the AMA derisively as a "troll/sockpuppet support service" and "wikilawyers". Although these comments weren't particularly fair in the light of the actual functions of the AMA, they did highlight the potential problems that stem from secret communication between advocate and advocee. The advocate's role shouldn't be to assist the advocee in defeating their opponents, or to give them confidential advice on gaming the system. It should be to negotiate informally between both sides of the dispute, and give open advice to both sides of the dispute. In most cases, that's how the AMA does work. But we have to improve our image among the wider community, and getting rid of secrecy would help that. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 14:25, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Communication has to be in-wiki. Mediations were also off-wiki before and both MedCab and MedCom have decided to open discussion to everyone. --Neigel von Teighen | _{help with arbs?} 14:44, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. But clearly, as shown by CyclePat's posting above, some members of the AMA aren't prepared to adopt a no-secrecy rule. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 16:38, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Mediations are still often offwiki. This has never changed. IRC is a very useful tool, because people can respond to each other more readily and naturally. Skype works even better. And of course, settling a dispute while relaxing at the local pub over a cool tall glass of beer works best of all. ;-) --Kim Bruning 21:16, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

If the point of advocacy was to promote the AMA, and to advertise our successes, it might be good to preclude off-wiki discussion. However, the AMA exists almost solely ,In My Opinion, to help editors resolve conflicts, as quickly as possible, in order to avoid edit wars and to return everything to the ideal state: We are here to produce the best encyclopedia possible and all activity that helps that goal is good and all activity which does not is bad. User:Pedant

continuing: It is sometimes disruptive to the community to discuss conflicts on-wiki, and it can also be easier for an editor to accept that they are actually wrong in a private discussion, without the entire community jeering and throwing spitballs. Regardless of any 'rule' we make to keep communications on-wiki I intend to allow consultation and resolutions of my cases to take place in private. In fact, I intend to disregard any rules whatsoever if I feel that they impede a swift and fair resolution of a conflict. All of my most successful cases have been cases handled in private. User:Pedant 19:02, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Discussion on changes within the AMA

There is further discussion specifically going over Nicholas' suggestions going on at Wikipedia:Association_of_Members'_Advocates/Meeting. אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 16:12, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Request for help

I have a sensitive issue that I would like to discuss privately. If you have a few minutes to help with a serious dispute, would you please email me? James S. 21:52, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Please reign in CyclePat

Please reign in CyclePat, who still trying to force WP:ASSIST under the umbrella of AMA. He is proving utterly deaf to warnings and pleas from us. There is not a single ASSIST editor that wants to merge, and it is getting silly. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 10:55, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure, we will use our much-feared wikilawyering-fu to subdue him. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 15:53, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Very seriously, there are too much totalitarian moves from AMA to abduct EA, not only by CyclePat. Either we begin to make things reasonably or AMA will suffer a serious problem. Please, advocates, stop bullying EA and try to solve things here, instead of disrupting thing there. --Neigel von Teighen | _{help with arbs?} 16:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed with Nigel. People, you are cutting your own throats with a very blunt razor: that can be painful. Leave everyone else alone, put your own house in order, stop playing silly buggers with process for the sake of process, stop trying to grab projects that have nothing to do with you and want nothing to do with you, and you might just avoid another MfD. Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 16:12, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Look, now AMA has lost the monopoly it had. Let's compete as in free market and let the people decide who's the best, OK? And be aware, advocates: we have advantage now only because we're older and people know us more than EA, but it won't take too much time that advantage is lost! Work, not words and foolish merging moves. And again, good luck to our "rivals"! --Neigel von Teighen | _{help with arbs?} 16:29, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I think we need to not think of other initiatives as "rivals", and instead just take the view that every initiative on Wikipedia has its own niche. Remember, after all, that the more alternate mechanisms and initiatives available for a particular class of problem, the less catastrophic weak points are in each of the initiatives. This redundancy means one initiative can cover for another when a failure occurs; and not only that, but people working on the different alternatives can collaborate and share ideas as well as workload. Come on, guys, let's see this as positive, not a matter of competition! Bearing this in mind, there's no such thing as "abduction"; if people want to work across multiple initiatives, then we should be applauding this, so long as we remember not to try and propose silly merges. --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 02:48, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

:-) --Kim Bruning 12:28, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Argh... no one understands me... I don't want to rivalize. Maybe I must stop saying silly things. Cheers, and good luck! --Neigel von Teighen | _{help with arbs?} 14:41, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Old Welcome Message

I know that I resigned from here a couple months ago, but going through my userspace I found the old welcome I was using. I've moved it to Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates/AMAW if you still want to use it, otherwise just ask someone to delete it. Cheers everyone! -Royalguard11(Talk·Review Me!) 23:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Recent Changes

Where should we discuss recent changes? Please move this comment to the appropriate location if need be.

• I don't agree with the recent change to the list for membership.(As redirected here). The old version is better in so many ways and a little bit more politically friendly.
• I don't agree with these recent changes. It issolates WP:AMAT trying to make it a seperate entity when in fact it belongs to AMA.(Changes to the AMA template)
• As I have mentioned... AMA is currently a group of people gathered to help out. However, the teams idea may be a good one. Having a team will... actually do the opposite of what people are asking. In fact there will need to be more team leaders, more politics, etc... Though admirable, I think we should talk about how to try and implement this. --CyclePat 01:24, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think who un-linked AMAT just forgot to delete teams' pages. I don't see any reason behind that. Like you, I'd like to continue AMAT, but people seem to have changed their minds... very quickly, indeed. --Neigel von Teighen 09:50, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Communications and How teams or sub-coordinators can help!

If you take a look at my contributions from 3:55 until 4:55 (That's 1 hour), I was able to contact about 24 users. The question was simple. Are you still an AMA member? The issue has to do with the AMA membership list. Since the list changed I feal it is important to get a hold of the people that where on that list. However, it is rediculous to assume that one person could or should be able to contact all the AMA members if we ever needed to so. I therefore support the idea that small units, or a group of no more 10 users should be directed or coordinated by one person. This will facilitate communication. It only makes sense in the event that some catastrophic AMA failure arives. Also, it will provide better guidance for new AMA members that wish to help out and need some mentoring or assistance. They will essentially have someone whome they can trust and directly communicate with for assistance. --CyclePat 05:07, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I like the idea, but I think we are the only two that continue defending the teams program... --Neigel von Teighen 06:02, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

project wikilawyer

I've just spent the last hour reading the various rules, guidelines and seemingly endless endless pages of other guff. Why does this "association" exist? It justs seem to provide a formal basis for being a wikilawyer. --Fredrick day 14:06, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Great, you have appeared inmediately after I've made a big change here. Have you looked to the "Constitution"? If you consider there's something wrong, change it as it were a regular article! --Neigel von Teighen 14:13, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

see Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates/Guide to Advocacy User:Pedant 19:15, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

First case

Hi. I'd like to take on my first case, next week. If you can recommend a good one for me, that'd be terrific. --Dweller 15:38, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Edit war against me-Help please!

On the page of Ashkenazi Jews, which previously had no photo of chosen people like other people have, i made this photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ashfamo2.JPG It was always deleted by the user Homo Sapiens, It was becaused i inserted an Einstein photo with a tounge out, but i replaced it at a normal one. Homo Sapience started an edit war against me, by deleting my photo all the time claiming it "was no good", until another administrator Liftarn told him it's vandalism and its not the forst time hes doing it so he stoped. Then his friend Metzenberg inserted a new photo instead of mine. I understand that its every editors right to insert somthing new instead of old, but i also used this right to do that and returned mine, and explained why. his photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ashkenazi_collage1.jpg featured many unrecognizable people who are more politicised than gave contrebution, and the trick is to do a photo of people recognizable by all, "the faces of the nation". I offered him a compromise, by doing a three-row image that will feature people from both of our images, but he ignored me and started an Edit War against me. I tried to get a compromise all that time, but it didnt work. Metzenberg started a "cat and mouse" game, Who will get to the 3-revert limit first lost for the day. I said i don't like this game, and keept asking for a compromise, but he ignored and keept the war. He tried to prevent me to put my photo in many ways. He claimed my photo was "sexist because it didnt feature any woman", but i explained that i chose by contribution and not by sex. Then he started editing my photo, and deleted the "i created it myself..." licence and puted a "no licence" claiming its "not known where i took the photos from", while i excplained they were all a free domain taken from wikimedia. Then he keept puting a no licence on mine image saying "its not known where the photo is taken from", and i gave him a link to the photo from the Russian Wikipedia where its shown its a free domain. When he saw that he just cant win, he brought Homo Sapience to help him (2 people-6 reverts. me-3). I keept trying to get a compromise, but it didnt work. I admit, i broke the 3 revert rule. Then the administrator Shirahadasha had seen that i broke the rule, and she gave me a warrning that i will be blocked for that, but i also asked her to learne the case, and she did. She did an excelent job by stopping an edit war and temporrary protected the page from editing. And also i thank her for explaining me some stuff on rules of wikipedia, and teached me to use the four tildes to put a signature on talk pages. Now its under control thanks to her, but she couldn't keep the page protected from editing forever. What should i do when after a time those two will continue? I'm a new user, i came to contribute and not to have an edit war. I have wrote two articles, made a few images and fought wandalism against soma Nazi who wrote Zieg Heil in the Russians article. I dont want it all to be so dirty. I came to conribute i dont understand those populistic ego-games. Evidence: The Ashkenazi Jews talk-page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ashkenazi_Jews A historical Homo Sapianse talke page where you can find down there the warrning from Luthran its wandalism, 4 messegese before the end in the "your not the boss" topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Humus_sapiens&oldid=128309459#Ashkenazi_Jews_photo

please help. M.V.E.i. 19:22, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Case closed

Please will someone check that I've closed this case correctly. Thank you. --Dweller 10:57, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

See little activity

I see little activity, and little reform. Is anyone still active here? Else I'll mark as historical. --Kim Bruning 12:51, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, marking now. --Kim Bruning 18:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Why was this page marked as historical? I have an open and active case[5] that is making slow and steady progress now that I waited months for an AMA's assistance. I also acknowledged my AMA's helpfulness when I was awarded this barnstar[6] for building consensus. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 18:39, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

That's quite a long period of time before you answered, isn't it? --Kim Bruning 19:42, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Five days? No. I've been receiving AMA help for five months[7][8]. The slow, steady, and continuing progress cured the previous stalemate and illustrates the virtue of diligently and patiently building consensus. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 21:52, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe Kim, that due to the complexity of the AMA network you may have insulted a few people by suggesting that the AMA is now dysfunctional. May I suggest for you to go and try breaking up something else instead of a constructive group of editor that wish to collaborate. --CyclePat 05:05, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

The recent deletion debate shows that quite some people dissent that this process is in fact constructive. Has anything changed since then? >Radiant< 08:05, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

After 24 hours of no reply to Radiant, re-marked as historical. --Kim Bruning 07:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Kim, there's some sort of activity at the Message Board... Maybe not enough, but it's something. --Neigel von Teighen 13:11, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Since this is disputed I hav etagged it for MfD which I feel is the better option for closing this down. Æon ^{Insanity Now!} 17:32, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

And as the Mfd was closed as improper, I've removed the tag and returned the page to its previous state. KillerChihuahua^?!? 19:11, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Several SYSOPs hav esiad to go ahead an EA it so I did. Æon ^{Insanity Now!} 02:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Come on everyone, this is historical - no-one uses this anymore. AMA has died. Ryan Postlethwaite 03:59, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand what is going on here. Is this project dead or not? -- Kendrick7^talk 19:08, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Sadly, Kendrick, AMA is dead. --Neigel von Teighen 13:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC)