UDWiki:Administration/Policy Discussion/UDWiki:Mediation

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Summary of Purpose

Arbitration was/is meant for the purpose of settling disputes, for wikis this is meant to be edit disputes but for this wiki it is frequently personal ones that have nothing to do with the wiki's day to day functioning or article completeness. The goal of this policy is to change the Arbitration system to only pertain to Edit Conflicts and Content Disputes of articles, a way to create articles based on a consensus system instead of requiring Vandalism cases to settle simple article content disputes. Arbitration is meant to lower drama but is, instead, frequently used as a stepping stone to banning users who have done nothing wrong and not performed in bad faith, it's reworking can only serve to improve it's purpose and lower the amount of hostility and threats on this wiki.

Two Notes


Arbitration

While the wiki community attempts to work on the basis of encouragement and cooperation, there are occasions where wiki users find themselves unable to reach accord. In the event of this happening, the Arbitration Team may be called upon to intervene, and attempt to find a reasonable compromise that, while perhaps not satisfying both parties, may at least assist in defusing the situation, thanks to the unbiased third party.

Guidelines for Arbitration Requests

In assisting in Arbitration, we generally suggest that both parties agree to the Arbitration. This is not, by any means, a requirement, but we do require that both parties be, justly, represented in proceedings.

Any Arbitration request should provide at least the following:

  • The aggrieved parties. Either person vs person, or [list of people] vs [list of people].
  • The reason for the arbitration. This should very specifically be without reference to people, as that information has already been provided. It should be a short paragraph indicating the causes of the aggrievement, and why both parties feel it requires arbitration. Arbitration is for Content Disputes and the reason should reflect that.
  • Any pages affected by the aggrievement. This should be a simple list of links.

Once the Arbitration commences, the Arbitration Committee will request statements regarding the disputed edit from all parties involved. Any evidence to back up one's statement should be provided in link form. The Arbitrator will then consider the case, and reach a conclusion and determine what changes will be made to the article. It is the Arbitrator's duty to make sure all aspects of an Arbitration case are both speedy[1] and public[2], not doing so is grounds for appealing or overturning the decision.

Note: by requesting an Arbitration, all parties are expected to follow the decision of the Arbitration Committee. Not doing so may result in a warning.
Note: Arbitration is for Article Content Disputes[3], not personal ones[4]. Arbitrators are expected to attempt to reach a middle ground that will please both parties, it is considered binding with the assumption that the Arbitration Committee did whatever they could to reach an acceptable middle ground.


Notes/Footnotes

  1. Note 1: Speedy as a time frame means arbitrators must be available to arbitrate as soon as possible. The case should not take more than a day, if a user does not reply in that time frame they are choosing to waive their ability to reply. Arbitrators who can not rule within 12 hours of the case starting will be replaced by someone able to rule immediately and removed from the list of active arbitrators. No case should be longer than a day and a half, ever.
  2. Note 2: All discussion involved in the arbitration must be done on UDWiki:Mediation/Arbitration and should be easily visible.
  3. Note 3: The arbitrators ruling can not effect the users, only the disputed article's content, anything else is beyond the scope of the case and is Administrational in nature.
  4. Note 4: Personal Disputes will go to a subsection of UDWiki:Mediation, made just for that purpose, that is to be outlined in a future policy.

Important Pages


Voting Section

Voting Rules
Votes must be numbered, signed, and timestamped. They can take one of two forms:
  • # comments ~~~~
    or
  • # ~~~~

Votes that do not conform to the above will be struck by a sysop.

The only valid voting sections are For and Against. If you wish to abstain from voting, do not vote.

For

  1. For Scanned it, saw it prevented crap seen in case with Grimch and Max Grivas, so I'm voting for.  Nalikill  TALK  E!  W!  M!  USAI  22:46, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
  2. For -   AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 22:50, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
  3. For - Whitehouse 23:24, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
  4. For Only cuz of the speedy part. Omega 00:15, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
  5. For - A definite improvement on Arbitration. --Midianian|T|T:S|C:RCS| 00:33, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
  6. For - DanceDanceRevolution 01:36, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
  7. For - sure why not... --THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS DORISFlag.jpg LOE ZHU | Яezzens 03:50, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
  8. For-1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. Out of about 31 completed cases(All of Wikigate is being lumped into 1 case), only three of those have anything to do with the content of an actual edit or project page. The issue though is pretty much things like Wikigate in which Arbitration was used for the sole purpose of getting users banned without any real vandalism or suppressing their views/comments, something that can be a big issue on a wiki which is meant to be the views of the community as a whole. As is the system is used more for that purpose than it's actual purpose.--Karekmaps?! 12:02, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
  9. For Apart from anything else, having acted as an arbitrator in a couple of cases now (both more conflict of personaltities than anything else) I would much prefer to have a seperate, possibly less formal arena for conflicts of personalities. --SeventythreeTalk 21:58, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
  10. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ #nerftemplatedsigs 21:49, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  11. For --Zod Rhombus 04:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
  12. For --Michael Jandran 09:09, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Against

  1. From my reading of this, this is heavily weighted against sysops and the guidelines are less than clear.--The General T Sys U! P! F! 22:39, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
  2. I don't see the need for this. People need to come down from their pedestals and actually make an effort to agree. This is unnecessary red tape. --Cyberbob DORIS CGR U! 00:07, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
  3. Sure the current system causes drama, but I think it actually works well. Drama exists everywhere, but at least the current system can handle it.--ShadowScope 03:28, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
  4. I'm not convinced that such a seperation is necessary. Why make the process even more complicated? Also, since the wiki is all about edits, even personal disputes come down to edit conflicts on some level... But more pragmatically, many "personal" disputes also involve -- to some degree or other -- edit disputes as well. Therefore, I believe this seperation could actually be counter-productive. --WanYao 06:47, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
  5. What they said. --Bullgod 10:51, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
  6. Needless burecracy..--User:Axe27/Sig 04:40, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
  7. While there is a need for something like this, i feel that it falls short in several key areas.
    1: It fails to spell out the limits of accepted solutions via the process, so if all the arb committee decides be be a bunch of dicks, the people in the case would be royally screwed. Penalties must be both spelled out and weighted. Additionally, there should be a list of forbidden sanctions, such as forced apologies (Its happened, Zaruthustra copped a ban for not apologising to Amazing), restrictions on posting in the UDWiki and Suggestions namespaces as well as administrative penalties such as warnings and bans. This has not been done, and thus it does not recieve my vote.
    2: An appeals process, where both new and previously existing arbitration rulings can be appealed and possibly overturned.
    3: This is just me, but id rather people not be able to put themselves forward on the list of arbitrators. Id rather some sort of peer review of them first. Nowhere near as important as either of the previous, but still...
    4: The time limit on the cases makes it possible that a person could start up an arb case against someone who is out of contact for the weekend or something else equally probable. This is fucking that person over as they cannot respond to the case as they dont know it exists, they lose their right to reply and the case gets speedied off and when they come back a few days later they find they have been hung, drawn and quartered for not participating in a case they didnt know exists. Since you havent specified that both parties must agree to the case beforehand, this is possible. Also, even if they do both agree to participate, if there is some kind of emergency and one participant is therefore unable to participate (Say, family emergency or house burning down), they are fucked. Id much rather letting the case sit for a week before being dropped entirely in the event of such things.
    5: Id luike there to be some particular emphasis on the fact that the arbitrators are not by any means obligated to slap a judgement down on both parties. Its ridiculous how many times the person in the right who has done the right thing is slapped with penalties for bringing the case to arbitration, especially posting restrictions. Sanctions should only be as much as needed, no more, and should not be spread around both parties in an attempt to show everyone how even fucking handed you are.
    I had some more, but i cant think of it right now. If i recall it i shall continue adding it to this numbered list, which is up to 5 at the time of original posting. (Note added. Just saying that this vote and all contained therein strikes against the whole idea, instead of just the half of the idea posted here. Pretty much everything here is applicable to this section alone, but its worded funnily for either of them. Given the fact that if this passes, the second half will not be long in the coming, im just getting it all out now so it all makes sense. I hope this clears up the confusion some of you might be feeling regarding this vote.)--The Grimch U! E! WAT! 22:27, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
  8. As Grim. --Funt Solo QT Scotland flag.JPG 22:51, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  9. The timeframe for making an Arbitration case is a problem for me. I generally tend to visit the wiki very often through the weekdays while at work. However, on weekends there is no guarantee that I will be on. This makes it, in my opinion, intolerable to just speed things along. You have to have some sort of representation: like what Boxy did in this case at the very least. Still, I would prefer if the person could represent themselves. If this policy does pass, I will more than likely be forced to put up an amendment to the policy regarding timeframes and representation. --Ryiis 22:52, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
    Representation is still required, it's in the first line in the blue.--Karekmaps?! 05:31, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
    I think the point that I was trying to get across was that I would prefer if the person could represent themselves if they wanted to - instead of a case being moved along before they had a chance to say something. This is taken directly from the first footnote: "The case should not take more than a day, if a user does not reply in that time frame they are choosing to waive their ability to reply". If someone can't make it on during the weekend, does that mean that they waive their right to speak? No, the only way that should happen is after an extended period of time, or if they have declined to participate (by stating so anywhere on the wiki). --Ryiis 15:56, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
  10. Sometimes users are mistreated by other users. The mistreated user can often end the abuse by going to arbitration. If this policy passed, they could not do that, which would mean the abuse would continue. --Toejam 22:18, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
  11. Subclauses such as "case should not take more than a day" assume a lot of time is available to users to sort this stuff. It's probably best kept looser than this--Crabappleslegalteam 04:01, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
  12. Against --Squid Boy 11:50, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
  13. As Grim, especially points 1 and 3. --Ducis DuxSlothTalk 13:57, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
  14. I want to vote keep for this but the time limit is just too short... people do have a life outside the wiki and requiring a response this quick does not allow that! Point 4 should at least be outlined before i would feel completely comfortable voting this into policy.--Honestmistake 12:52, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Voting closed. Policy fails, 12 For to 14 Against. --Funt Solo QT Scotland flag.JPG 10:52, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

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