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Earlier responses to older quiescent RFC

I am not sure there is a problem. This seems to be the product not of breaches of policy but of behaviour that is not actionable any way. I don’t think that nerfing wikipeidas because a particular clan does not think its powerful enough to enforce policies that do not exist in order to protect a given POPV is the right way to address any real issue (and I am not sure there is one). The fact we have boards for all breaches of the rules I think means we don’t need any for rules that don’t exist. I also do not think that enforcing guidelines as if they are policy is a good idea.Slatersteven (talk) 14:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia's dispute resolution mechanism works perfectly fine. It massages egos nicely, gives people a chance to throw their anger around, and gives everyone a well-earned break from the boring business of trying to produce a good encyclopedia, allowing them to have a bit of a fight instead. It even gives people the opportunity to play online at being prosecutors, judges, lawyers and politicians. In all these things it excels. (One little thing it doesn't do is resolve disputes, but most people would probably agree that we wouldn't want that.)--Kotniski (talk) 14:49, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Dispute resolution works fine when admins are willing to dig into the details, make decisions and take actions. DR fails when lazy admins want to blame people for arguing without looking into what the argument is about. Sometimes one side is right and the other is wrong. Jehochman ^Talk 16:00, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

So the problom is not lack of notioce boards but admin 'lazyness' I don't see how making even more work for them will help.Slatersteven (talk) 16:26, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Problems with WP:Dispute Resolution policy page

Boldly adding this section for minor issues with the way the page explains policy, that may not be worth bringing up elsewhere. (Though I will link to this discussion from that talk page.) I know I go there frequently and am mentioning past problem and things I identify looking carefully now. In order of how these sections/issues listed on the policy page.

Wikipedia:Dispute#Ask_about_a_policy: I often do that at the policy talk page in the most general terms, including when the policy is not clear. Very often the editor I'm in dispute with comes along and either opines it is wrong to do that And/or gives their specific intepretation, trashing me implicitly or explicitly as an antisemite or an anarchist or a capitalist exploiter or whatever, pretty much souring my attempt to clarify the issue. Yet no one seems to know on these talk pages that my question is according to policy and following me and trashing me is not.
Wikipedia:Dispute#For_incivility also has to mention ability to go to WP:ANI for severe cases. (I can see I should have gone to WP:ANI a few times when I went to Wikiquette.)
Wikipedia:Dispute#Informal_mediation - Having had problems trying to get any mediation in past in a couple articles, I think maybe we need a Request for Informal Mediation board to cut through the bureaucracy of Cabal and formal mediation. Though it would have to have strong warning to mediators about possible WP:POVs/WP:COIs on subject matter or involved editors.
Wikipedia:Dispute#Conduct_a_survey is a little confusing. Where, just on article talk page? Should specify polls and survey's should not be used as personal attacks against editors. Also, it seems like it should be a much earlier suggestion and not way down under formal mediation. People also could get confused with Request for comment. So clarification needed.
The Section Wikipedia:Dispute#If_the_situation_is_urgent should be listed #2 not #3.
In section above I just read for the first time: The Administrators' Noticeboard is not the place to raise disputes over content, or reports of abusive behaviour. Administrators are not referees, and have limited authority to deal with abusive editors. So what does abusive mean if not defined per the above as personal attacks? And once it is defined, is there no way to deal with it??
Generally, unless I missed it, there is the lack of an explicitly explained option for dealing with groups of editors who are abusive of policy/generally pov pushing and abusive towards other editors who may disagree with them. Be they obvious meatpuppets or just people who share the same strong POV. (More doubtless below on that).

Will throw in any more I thing of with [added later] note. Thanks CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:25, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Problems with RFC/U

I'd say that the major problems with RFC/U are:

They are hugely time-consuming for everyone and painful for the "target". (Also, as frequent Wikipedia:Too long; didn't read violators, too few people read the presented diffs, which do not always line up with the assertions made about them, and even fewer do their own research to see whether these diffs are anything like representative.)
There's no way to prevent bad editors from using this process to harass others.
There's no way to reform the (fill in category of "bad" here) editor.

I don't think these problems are solvable. We have (mostly) solved the previous problem, which was that nobody outside the dispute showed up.

A very partial solution to #3 is the involvement of more bold admins, specifically of the type who are willing to write closing statements and, when appropriate, announce blocks and topic bans.

Perhaps someone else will have other ideas. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:56, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you very much. I'd like to have a lighter weight process that could be used as a first step before RFC or RFAR. The proposed Wikipedia:Advocacy/Noticeboard should be considered as such an alternative. Jehochman ^Talk 16:01, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

if there is a problem with a unwieldiness then having behaviour specific notice boards won’t solve the problem. Perhaps we need A User Conduct Noticeboard.Slatersteven (talk) 16:25, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

A general "user conduct" noticeboard might be worth exploring, actually, if it was sufficiently distinguished from WP:ANI by not being framed as a demand for Admin Action Now. If it served as a general place for people to go and say "I have this-and-this problem with this user or group of users", without necessarily even needing to specifically diagnose or declare any breach of policy (if they just describe facts), that could help get more input for disputes that may be resolvable by focussing on content and some gentle education (often the poster as well, I'd guess). it would also help shift some of the stuff away from ANI which doesn't quite really belong there, but doesn't necessarily fit comfortably anywhere else. Rd232 ^talk 18:07, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) We don't necessarily need more "process", but we need to address behavioural problems at an earlier stage, initially quite informally (without threatening blocks and sanctions and stuff). And we need to get clear in our minds the distinction between what should be two quite separate issues - the resolving of disagreements about what goes in the encyclopedia, and the reforming or (eventually) elimination of users whose behaviour causes problems. I would apply the phrase "dispute resolution" to the first issue only, although in practice what we call the "dispute resolution process" seems (in as much as it can be said to have any logical focus at all) to involve itself mainly with the second issue.--Kotniski (talk) 16:32, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

We already have a de facto "lighter weight process before RFC/RFAR", namely ANI. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 16:49, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Content disputes

An old truism is that almost every behavioral dispute on WP is really a content dispute at its core. Any serious attempt to overhaul DR should face that fact squarely. Keep in mind that any mechanism for imposing actual binding DR on content will be massively gamed, to the point that creating one may well be a terrible idea. However, 1) other forms of DR can take content issues into account more than they do now; and 2) there may be some content-neutral ways to dampen these disputes that we're currently too wimpy to use. An example of this might be banning heavily disputed articles from mainspace completely, kicking them to article incubation until consensus emerges that the article-in-development (possibly an abridged interim version) is fully conformant with relevant WP content policies including sourcing, neutrality, etc. We are no longer so short of content that we have to use mainspace as an incubator. There are really no articles we can't do without for a while, no matter how notable the subject is. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 17:05, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

We already can lock heavily problom pages. Also which of teh combating parties decides which abridged version is kept? or will that become just anotoher bone of contention.Slatersteven (talk) 17:28, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

RFC/U's official stance that it deals with behavior rather than content may not be helping us here. If you have (for example) a POV pusher, you probably have both behavior and content issues, and it's hard to solve one without addressing the other. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:52, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Slatersteven, I'm talking about the long-term political and nationalistic disputes that keep NPOV tags on articles for years on end. We have NOT been willing to lock or displace those articles, which is why the wars over them continue to rage. WhatamIdoing: there would only be an abridged version if the disputing parties could develop one that they agreed was neutral. Otherwise there would just be a template saying that the article was unavailable pending content development, or even just a protected redlink. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 06:17, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I doubt that there are many cases where a possibly imperfectly neutral article is better than no article at all (bathwater and babies spring to mind). I also don't agree that the "disputing parties" necessarily have to agree on a version that they think is neutral (in many cases, any truly neutral version would be rejected as POV by both sides of the dispute). We need to have truly neutral, but well-informed, editors to mediate and if necessary decide this kind of dispute (and not allow such people to be driven away or drowned out by the noise of thr partisan disputers).--Kotniski (talk) 11:47, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

And all POV pushers bleive they are truly neutral and its the other side. I think hoping that we will only have truely neutral and well informed users is a pipe dream.Slatersteven (talk) 13:54, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Of course they do. If they thought their position was anything other than perfectly reasonable, they would change their positions. It's important for us to remember that.

Kotniski, I think there are times when no article is clearly preferable to an "imperfectly neutral" one. For example, I'd hate to see us keep "imperfectly neutral" articles written by a plaintiff about whomever he's suing. I'd hate to see us keep "imperfectly neutral" articles written by a bitter ex-spouse about a notable person. We shouldn't keep the "imperfectly neutral" articles about companies written by disgruntled ex-employees, or about products written by competitors, either. While it's usually possible to salvage something, it is sometimes hopeless. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:20, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

(undent) I think this is a great idea "We need to have truly neutral, but well-informed, editors [group] to mediate and if necessary decide this kind of dispute" A group of editors like an arbcom who are willing to address difficult content that have failed all other mechanisms of dispute resolution. It emphasis that we wish Wikipedia to be written by impartial Wikipediabs not WP:SPA. This committee would review relevant information posted to it and investigate the literature rather than look at behavioral evidence. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:52, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. It's the only thing I can see that might work. Peter jackson (talk) 11:21, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The mediation committee could be equipped to do this. Xavexgoem (talk) 16:53, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I would support giving the mediation committee the teeth it needs to more effectively enforce mediation (ie. rearrange it as a content ArbCom, have an election of members). The difficulty is mediation is not currently making content calls and it is none binding. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:12, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Except that such a group that's also willing to work for free is impossible to obtain. Tijfo098 (talk) 07:39, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I would disagree with that point; practically everybody on wikipedia works for free, many doing jobs that the majority would consider tedious or acrimonious. Personally, I'd love to help fix contested/controversial articles in new areas that I haven't touched before. Such a task might attract the kind of people who currently hang around at places like WP:3O or certain noticeboards. bobrayner 13:13, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

90% of the content dispute is perpetuated by the behavior of 10% of the editors in that dispute. It's fairly rare that all editors will come to DR out of confusion on how to proceed; more likely, it's because they're having difficulty with a small group of editors. It may only be 1 editor, but the other side of the dispute will often confuse the attitude of that one editor with all the editors on his or her side (WP:AGF problem), and emotions run high as a result (WP:COOL). The behavior of editors is almost always inseparable from the actual content dispute. So I'm of the opposite opinion: most content disputes are behavioral disputes at their core.

However, I don't think this usually applies to non-contentious subjects. Math, for instance. But for nationalist (etc) disputes, yes, this is usually the case. I have ideas on how to work with nationalist disputes (muh specialty), if anyone wants to hear. Xavexgoem (talk) 16:53, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

"most content disputes are behavioral disputes at their core". Well, yes, in the sense that, if everyone acted reasonably, it would be sorted out. The trouble is that, in many cases, in order to sort out whether people are behaving reasonably, you have to study the content issues anyway. Peter jackson (talk) 18:18, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that "most content disputes are behavioral disputes." I've gone on and on with reasonable people til we can up with something or someone gives up. It's the ones who start screaming insults because they can't get their way that are the problem. CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:48, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I've never done one, and in the case of obnoxious editors it's not worth it since their behaviors get them scolded fairly easily. But now I know what to do about the more subtle types, especially admins, who give you trouble. I'm good at keeping list of complaints, or at least lists of where and when to find them, so I'm sure I can do good ones if I try and it would be interesting to see what happens, should I become sufficiently motivated in the future.

Re: Xavexgoem writing: "I have ideas on how to work with nationalist disputes (muh specialty)," I guess this article is a place to do it. Start a section. CarolMooreDC (talk) 20:40, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

A couple of thoughts:

Totally removing a heavily disputed article from article-space until a dispute is resolved might be throwing out the baby with the bathwater; because any single article that attracts multiple POV warriors &c is probably a few rungs up the notability ladder, and writing new noncontroversial content, perhaps by committee, is unlikely to deliver swift results back into article-space. First and foremost, we're here to deliver an encyclopaedia. However, I would support a similar process whereby just a stub is left, or just the uncontested sections, or we simply revert back to whichever previous version lasted more than a week and then lock it, whilst the community (or people chosen by the community) work outside article-space to fix the controversial stuff.
It may be possible to draw a distinction between (A) articles which are intrinsically controversial and bound to attract long-term POV wars, and (B) articles which are "just unlucky" because certain problem editors take an interest in them. With an article in group A (let's say an article on 20th century disputes in the Balkans, or a 21st century president of the USA, &c), if you waved a magic wand and removed every involved editor, within 60 days a new set of POV warriors would have turned up, and the content disputes would have evolved into a fresh set of behavioural problems. That would not apply to articles in group B (I won't give examples because pointing fingers at specific people is unhelpful here). It may be worth having an article-focussed process for dealing with group A - a process which goes beyond indefinite semiprotection and exhausting talkpage debates - but we still need to rely heavily on a user-focussed process for disputes in group B.

However, those are just my thoughts, and they're worth exactly what you paid for them. bobrayner (talk) 16:01, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

ArbCom/AE

See fairly recent discussion at WT:Arbitration Committee. Various divisions of power have been proposed.--Kotniski (talk) 11:57, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Noticeboards

WP:Wikiquette: Why give people a break and complain about their bad behavior there, when a) people feel free to bring far less significant and even trumped up behavioral issues to WP:ANI and b) nothing comes of even complaints of bad behavior there, unless the person gets so obnoxious at Wikiquette they end up with a block. (And I'm thinking of a number of visits over last couple years.) CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:51, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

General discussion

I don't care for our "dispute resolution" system because it's just inefficient. If people in a dispute can't calmly talk something out like rational adults, how would a month-long AN/I thread help reduce drama, etc.? I mean, AN/I isn't even supposed to be for most disputes, but people drag them there anyway.

3O fortunately doesn't usually drag itself out for a long time, but it's really a shallow step in DR. I think we should definitely advocate this for most small-scale disputes, but it's not going to put a dent into a massive discussion.
Personally, I find WQA a joke. Whatever happened to "comment on the content, not the user"? It's often a place for people to toss around accusations and argue that someone else is being a dick. We need to grow up.
MedCab doesn't see nearly enough participation from the conflicting users; e.g. Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2010-08-01/ESR meter has been open for more than five months with almost no activity whatsoever, and certainly no further communication from the users involved. I'm inclined to assume that the dispute is over now, even though I have no idea what the issue even is (something about links?).
I don't know about MedCom. I like the organization, but it's sort of bureaucratic (ArbCom-ish style) and I can't tell what's going on. For example, Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Monty Hall problem appears to still be open, but for more than one year! I mean, really?! It might be easier to just delete the part of the article that's being disputed at this point, I think. All I see from the recent discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Monty Hall problem is people make accusations and arguing about each other.
RfC is what I would go to if a nice talk page discussion resulted in an agreement of disagreement. From what I've seen, RfC is more open and efficient, if not suffering from occasionally too-long and disorganized sections.
I don't get the point of RfC/U, etc. It might be fun to pile on criticism of a user to eventually get them sanctioned, blocked, or banned, but it's certainly not the professional way to do it. I mean, think about how ... degrading it is for people to endorse a viewpoint essentially saying "you don't know how to work collaboratively". IMO, we should be more willing to just lay out editing restrictions as a last chance and then indef users. For heaven's sake, just because you can't be fired doesn't mean you can be rude to someone on the Internet.

/ƒETCH COMMS / 21:14, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I've occasionally seen RFC/U produce significant changes in user behavior. In one case, for example the user didn't realize that his "occasional" rude edit summary was far more than occasional, and on being presented with a series of diffs, was enlightened and promised to stop. In another, the user really didn't understand what the problem was, and during the RFC/U, somebody explained the policy in a different way, and the user finally understood the problem and stopped the behavior (or promised to, at any rate). I think the success stories tend to be the simpler cases.

More commonly, however, that doesn't happen. Some RFC/U discussions are really about two sides, equally convinced of the Truth™ of their position, beating on each other perhaps in the hopes that the other side will get disgusted and quit, and refining their slogans for AN or ArbCom if they don't. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:49, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

About WQA: I've tried to help there, and I've lurked there, and a good number of the "wikiquette" problems and accusations elsewhere of "personal attacks" amount to "Waah, he disagreed with me!" (As a matter of fact, there's one such complaint on my user talk page right now: One person advocated for a topic ban against an editor for not following the steps outlined in an essay he happens to agree with. I replied that while the newbie had problems, the community didn't actually punish people for not doing things in the manner that he personally thought was "proper". This has apparently become a "personal attack" in his mind—no insults, no belittling, no threats, just straightforward and direct disagreement with the substance of his previous statements. That's all it takes to get a complaint about personal attacks.)

I don't think there's any hope for really solving this problem. Wikipedia is attractive to teenagers and other immature people; we will always have some of this. And a good many of them will show up at WQA, or make unsupportable claims on other pages.

I suspect that what most people want from WQA is some empathy and validation of their feelings: "I'm sure that was unpleasant for you, and I'm sure you're a good person, even though it wasn't bad enough to actually break our policies or trigger any sort of punishment. Just make sure you keep setting a good example, and everything will be fine." WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:09, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I think one of the issues with wikiquette is its so easily circumvented (as your Huge great wobbly danglios post shows). This in turn casues (stiflled moan) new users to mis-understand what is and (if I may turn over I like it better that way) is not allowed.Slatersteven (talk) 15:23, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

MedCab will always have problems with mediators dropping out. Sometimes that stalls a conversation (sometimes that's a good thing), and the case sits on the open list because the mediator doesn't close it (and sometimes it remains open because the problem might return). I've seen this work more than a few times... sometimes you want to end a dispute, not necessarily form a consensus (i.e., leave it in WP:SILENCE). Xavexgoem (talk) 17:07, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Here are some general problems/observations I have seen with dispute resolution on-wiki in general:

To actually try and get to the bottom of disputes or problems takes lots of legwork. Many times, most editors do not wish to do the work necessary to accomplish that. This is most certainly true with WP:RFC/U or any type of mediation or even (failed) arbitration attempt, where it takes legwork to concisely identify the problem, clearly identify previous steps of resolution, find out what worked or didn't work and caused certain things in the dispute to work or not work, and how to move forward. That is the main reason why so many prefer just to simply dump everything to WP:AN or WP:ANI in hopes that 1) the easy way out (via admin actions like a block or a straight-up ban vote) occurs or 2) try and get others involved, which more often does not work because people expect new people who come into a discussion to be partisan and already have a side picked out.
For a while now, I have advocated renaming "Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents" to "Community forum" because that's what it basically is if anything else; people take all their problems there as opposed to other forms of dispute resolution or other appropriate noticeboards because of the clear lack of structure. However, I can sort of see how that may not work, as users will take their problems to the main "Administrators' noticeboard" since the term "administrator" implies authority - the name or such a noticeboard is essential for users to take their problems to someone in some authoritative position; no matter how much we try to downplay the roles of administrators here, people are going to think that.
Shooterwalker makes an excellent point above as to how most disputes are divvied up on Wikipedia, for the most part; there is obviously some overlap in most cases between pure content disputes, policy/guideline disputes, and user conduct issues. I think, in more instances than not, we see some implementation of John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory come into full practice, where disputes degenerate into childish name-calling, naive mind-reading of opposing sides, and raw debate without any attempt at resolution instead of collaboration (mainly because "We Are Right" - one of the reasons why MedCom is a joke). That's all I have for right now; I'll add more when I come up with more observations. –MuZemike 21:03, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
Why can't uninvolved admins just move inappropriate WP:ANIs to the appropriate forum?? CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:56, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
I've not been directly involved in the formal dispute resolution processes, outside of keeping a watching eye on AN:I, but it seems to me that these processes inflame issues more than they do resolve them. It's important to have a place where people can formally vent about their frustrations with other users and feel listened to, but at the end of the day if someone 3RRs or uses abusive language or otherwise breaks our behaviour policies, and seems likely to do it again, they should be preventatively blocked. And if two editors can keep up a dispute without anyone breaking a behaviour policy, then the system is working as intended and we don't need a formal process for that. The only formal process in the dispute resolution system, other than a venting space, should be a standardised system for reviewing blocks and ensuring that blocks are only used preventatively, and not punitively. - DustFormsWords (talk) 05:11, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

And why do you think it's only behaviour policies that matter? Suppose two (or, as in the more problematic cases, more than two) editors are keeping up a dispute, not blatantly violating any behavioural policy, but having no regard for our more fundamental policies on neutrality, verifiability etc. What do we do then to uphold our standards?--Kotniski (talk) 07:58, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. Peter jackson (talk) 11:15, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Something else I'll add that really has been a problem on some articles is WP:SOAPBOX. Just blah blah blah on and on and on with one's personal opinions about why the article should say this or that with never a proposal or a reference offered. (Often it's to prove the other editor who is providing such substantive material is wrong.) There really has to be at least a warning under Wikiquette about this sort of thing, which is easily proved through the number and size of such WP:Soapbox postings. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:06, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Comment from Shooterwalker

This page is becoming a mess... I think a good way to organize this discussion (or future discussions) would be conduct vs. content vs. policy. A few quick comments...

Content I get the feeling that Wikipedia was designed for small scale content disputes... because this is what we do best. Multiple people edit an article and work it out over time. People can revert truly bad edits. There are rules against edit warring that force people to discuss it. And if two users can't settle it... we can get a third opinion, or consult a policy, or do a full scale RFC. I'd give us an 8 out of 10 on content. But it's not 10 out of 10 because of the next issue...
Policy/Guidelines Some content disputes become bigger than one or two articles (and some user disputes become bigger than one or two users). We should see policies and guidelines as a way to build a social contract between users... an agreement for how to handle a contentious area in the future. But the people who are most likely to lose from creating a new guideline are the people at the fringes. If there were a guideline based on common sense, the fringes would never get their way. When an issue has NO guideline, the fringe can occasionally get their way through canvassing, wikilawyering, sneaking something through, argument ad nauseum, and a host of other WP:GAMEs. The problem is so many policy discussions (to add a policy, change a policy, or even remove a policy) are easily pushed into "no consensus". When you need 80% of people to agree on something, you only need a few people at both extremes to come together in mutual disgust for a settlement, to continue the battleground for a whole nother season. I'd give Wikipedia a bare pass on policy discussions... possibly even a fail.
Conduct Which brings me to conduct. Wikipedia is good at dealing with your average internet troll or vandal. You can see when someone is plainly acting with bad intentions. But we have trouble dealing with the fanatics. The ones with the "best intentions" who wield a sword of truth against the enemies of Wikipedia. They're always technically acting in good faith to "save Wikipedia", even when they're ignoring WP:consensus, playing WP:GAMEs to get their way, and creating a WP:BATTLEGROUND. We could teach a robot to spot curse words. But we frequently see people make these borderline comments comparing their opposition to Nazis, which inflames the dispute... and yet they have enough allies to say "actually they have a valid point about the Nazi thing". If these "good faith warriors" have been around long enough to make a few friends, it's hard to so much as get a consensus to WARN them in a way that encourages them to improve. So they get lots of cover for months or even years, until their "good faith crusade" has done enough damage that we are suddenly horrified and we ban them.

If I had to sum it up, I'd say we need...

A stronger inclination to warn editors and put down probationary sanctions. "Maybe you're a good editor overall. But if you ARE a good editor then you will promise to not do this again."
Better ways to deal with factional disputes... whether the factions have dug in on either side of a policy dispute or either side of an RFC/U.
Another step beyond RFC (or even just a modified RFC) for policy or conduct issues that have been through multiple RFCs with no consensus. Something that weeds out the fringe opinions or at least gives them less sway over the whole process.
When an AN/I has gotten out of control (non-neutral admins, fringe voices dominating the discussion or arguing ad nauseum, tag teams), a more orderly process for settling it. I know we have ArbCom, but we don't always need all that agony.

Shooterwalker (talk) 21:37, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Previous discussion

It's interesting nobody seems to have noticed this: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Content dispute resolution. No comments have been added on the main page or talk for over a year, but it's never been closed & archived. Of course the current discussion is broader. Peter jackson (talk) 11:55, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I guess these things always fizzle out with nothing ever being changed. If there's no concrete proposal then obviously nothing will happen, but if anyone does make a concrete proposal it will always get bogged down in discussion over detail (or simply jumped on by those whose minds are not open to the idea of change) so that again probably nothing of any significance will happen. --Kotniski (talk) 12:36, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Ha, I'd forgotten about that, despite participating in it. However, it's not quite true that nothing came out of it: my proposal there eventually was implemented as the Comment Request Service. Rd232 ^talk 21:20, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

But only after you proposed it again elsewhere. In fact I'd forgotten you'd proposed it there in the first place. I suspect Kotniski is right. WP's enormous size makes it very hard to reach "consensus" on any serious change. Maybe WP will slowly deteriorate till one of its competitors poses a serious threat and forces it to change or go under. That might be a long time. Peter jackson (talk) 11:26, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Yees, but change often happens in increments, with groundwork being laid before eventually there's a tipping point and something happens. One of the things I've repeatedly suggested, but haven't be able to make happen, is to get more use of a collaborative wiki approach to discussion: i.e. the collaborative drafting of a Shared View on Subject X, instead of sometimes dozens of not dissimilar individual views. That would certainly help with the scaling issues, which is particularly noticeable in certain RFCs. Currently we have Endorsements of individual views, which helps, but it's just not as effective as the usual Wikipedia drafting/editing/revision approach to articles. Rd232 ^talk 12:42, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I seem to remember someone (Brews O'Hare?) suggesting something similar. Peter jackson (talk) 18:21, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Where do you make concrete proposals that can lead to policy changes, besides existing policy pages (if then). CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

If it's sufficiently worked out, you could start at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). At an earlier stage, Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab). Peter jackson (talk) 11:22, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Do you mean the community composes the argument in favour and the argument against a given proposition, Rd232? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 08:11, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Comments from AGK

My comment relates mainly to content dispute resolution, which is where my interests primarily lie, and not to those media (such as ANI, AN3, and RFC/U) that are reserved for user conduct grievances.

I contest that the present structure of the content-dispute resolution process is fundamentally sound; it does not require significant alteration. In my experience (for whatever its worth is), most content disputes reach the advanced stages of dispute resolution not because the previous attempts at resolving them were flawed, but because they received sub-standard attention previously (because of the chronically-undermanned nature of most DR media) and are only taken seriously when

The organs of dispute resolution on Wikipedia play a vital role in preserving the quality of our articles. If more editors recognised this and devoted more hours to staffing such utilities as third-opinions (which in my view has huge potential to be developed as a point of first-contact for disputes that are in their earliest stages to be assigned assistance), the Mediation Committee (which badly needs new members), and the Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal, we'd have made a good start.

For my comments regarding non-content-DR: User:AGK/Arbitration and content. AGK [•] 23:09, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree in principle, but how d'you make it happen? Peter jackson (talk) 18:23, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The skeptical view

My opinion is that dispute resolution in Wikipedia broils down to "whoever has most time on their hands wins, unless banned/blocked". 95% of the disputes I've seen have been resolved in one of these two ways. The processes at WP:DR mostly don't work at all. Tijfo098 (talk) 07:48, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's largely my view too. Although it's not just time on one's hands, it's also arrogance (and skill at making one's arrogance less obvious). --Kotniski (talk) 08:44, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with both of you. Someone passive aggressive with a lot of time on their hands will generally win and probably do a lot of damage. Someone passive aggressive will find themselves on the margin if they aren't around to constantly push their narrow POV. Someone with lots of time on their hands who is pretty cooperative ... well that's just an exemplary Wikipedian. Shooterwalker (talk) 13:45, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, though numbers also count. Peter jackson (talk) 18:24, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Draft Withdrawn Proposal: "Gang of Nasty Editors" (or "Group Behavior") Noticeboard

From Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Advocacy/Noticeboard (and it was just deleted):

Comment: And maybe there's a "perceived need" because the current bias is against single editors, allowing gangs of editors to get away with harassment and constant false allegations about current alleged editing or views without providing relevant evidence and even despite wikiquettes against them for their behavior. Wikipedia already has ways of dealing with one editor that are effective if enough neutral editors get involved. If Wikiquette, RfC/User, WP:ANI are allowed to be used to deal with groups of editors, their descriptions need to make that clear. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:35, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I think RFC/U on groups of editors is one possibility worth discussing at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/dispute resolution. Currently such things are only really handled when it gets to an Arbcom case. Rd232 ^talk 15:18, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Assuming current Wikiquette, RfC/User, WP:ANI are not changed to specifically mention groups of editors, which probably would be better, I think we need a board where we can list two (2) editors and at least three (3) bad behaviors like incivility, harassment, edit warring, etc. each (or blocks etc for such bad behavior). Also relevant would be evidence of WP:Canvassing, WP:Single purpose accounts, WP:Sockpuppets, WP:Meatpuppets, questionable talk page discussions, etc. Plus there obviously has to be some evidence of the same clear editing goal/POV, probably hardest part, but one place clear editing opinions might count.

I've been involved in at least three articles over the last couple years where I easily could have used such a board to save literally hundreds of hours of time dealing with all sorts of bull-oony.

Noninvolved admins would have the power to block one or more offending editors from the article in question for whatever period of time was seen as necessary. This is just up for discussion and suggestions here, not yet a formal proposal which can be done elsewhere.

Since people make jokes about Cabals, plus some eytmological issues, I think it would need some other description than that. Maybe just "Group Behavior Noticeboard." CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:17, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Um, there's a reason I mentioned RFC/U! Criticisms of the deleted Advocacy board would apply to this too; see points 2 and 3 of my Summary of Issues near the bottom of the MFD. Rd232 ^talk 21:47, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

So you mean these comments:

There is a substantial sense that one reason for creation is because WP:RFC/U is too much work. Well there's a good reason it's a bit of work: to reduce frivolous complaints and abuse. The slower, more considered process of RFC/U also reduces the structural advantage that WP:BATTLE editors have who keep track of every little actual or perceived miss-step by opponents, and can use this to overwhelm freeform noticeboard discussion in a way they cannot at RFC/U.

I personally would prefer to just see Wikiquette, RfC/User, WP:ANI/etc as relevant be more explicitly open to criticism of groups of editors, and not even necessarily with comment on what POV they're pushing (since both sides sometimes get out of hand), as long as there are actual diffs to real problem. Or, as it seems, do you think only RfC/user appropriate for that purpose? Would you suggest scrapping this proposal and working up one like that here and putting it up as a proposal by the appropriate proposal method? (Which I'm still unclear on.) Thanks. CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:40, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

You quoted my Point 3, but part of Point 2 is also relevant: "The loose freeform format makes it highly likely that the effect often seen on noticeboards, where relatively small numbers of people can easily overwhelm a discussion, will make the board a weapon for advocates, not against. This is different from WP:RFC/U and other venues where more thought and wider and/or deeper scrutiny is likely, including often scrutiny of those commenting." I'm not sure if boards can handle the complexity of groups; it's hard enough with one person, and that's why it doesn't usually get handled before Arbcom gets involved. Extending RFC/U would be the best option, and relatively simple, I think, the biggest hurdles being (a) how to name cases (currently they're based on the person's username) and (b) complete lack of experience of how to operate them, which can easily blow a new process off course with bad experiences at the beginning. Anyway, I think it's worth a try, so I'd just start a new section with a draft proposal. (I find it helpful to formulate both a very general vision of a proposal and a fairly specific possible implementation, as without the latter people find it hard to get a handle on and without the former people tend to object to specifics and lose sight of the basic idea and the possibility of better variations than initially proposed.) Rd232 ^talk 23:35, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

You convinced me. Withdrawn. Will have to do a RfC/U one of these days and see how the process works :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 00:45, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I've just run across a very early proposal with similar goals (but different implementation). There's information at Wikipedia:Quickpolls. I don't know if I think it's a good idea... but it's often useful to know what's been tried before. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:31, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

A short exegesis on the problem

Wikipedia as a community has a peculiar social dynamic, which is the root of all these problems:

Rules are poorly defined and constantly being reinterpreted to fit problems-of-the-moment
Authority is decentralized and diffuse, with no system in place to ensure consistent application across time or sitation
Anonymity and fluidity of identity tends to reinforce small-group identification (when one feels one can't trust most people, one comes to rely very heavily on the people that can be trusted)
Discussion style privileges diatribes and authoritarian assertions - as other have pointed out, often the key to winning arguments is to declaim your position loudly and persistently enough that others give up
The nature of editing privileges what I can only describe as group beat-downs: most article problems are decided by a group of editors simply overwhelming the input of another editor. This is even true in positive cases, e.g. where a number of editors show up at a page to shut out someone who is POV-pushing, in the interests of NPOV.

In short, Wikipedia runs somewhere between Old West individualism (including occasional showdowns and gun fights) and est training seminars. truly fascinating from an analytical perspective.

The problem with dispute resolution on wikipedia is that every form of dispute resolution - except arbitration - begins from the presumption that editors are operating in good faith with respect to the encyclopedia and seriously interested in resolving the dispute at hand. Often this is true, but in intractable cases (in my experience) both these presumptions are false. In such cases at least one side of the dispute is intent on advocacy of some sort, and usually the entire debate has become personalized such that no one seriously wants any resolution except the complete defeat (and hopefully blocking or banning) of the other side. In those cases dispute resolution is a waste of time. Wikiquette and RFC/U have a similar problem - in those few cases I've been involved with the editor under examination either refuses to participate, refuses to acknowledge any wrong-doing, or uses similar tactics to avoid taking any responsibility for his/her actions (thus obviating any possibility of improving the editing atmosphere). The whole process dissolves into another waste of time, or gets transferred over to ANI or arbitration to become a matter of punishment rather than correction.

Arbitration, on its side, never resolves disputes. The best that can be hoped for from arbitration is that the worst troublemakers will find themselves locked out of participating so that others can do productive work.

I started drafting a project a while back that I haven't gotten back to finish; here might be a good place to restart it. It was the Town sheriff project. basically it riffs off the Old West analogy I made above. An editor chosen from a short list of volunteer editors hangs his/her badge over a page or topic area and gets both special rights not normally granted to sysops and special responsibilities and restrictions not imposed on normal editors. You can read the (currently incomplete) details over there, but in essence they would act like town sheriffs everywhere - with legitimized authority to enforce peace as and how they see fit, so long as they stay within the community sanctioned limits of that authority. A town sheriff of this sort could clean up something even as intractable as the global warming debacle in a matter of a couple of weeks, merely by making it so difficult and unrewarding to make trouble that 'making trouble' would no longer be an effective or useful editing tactic. Look it over and see what you think; I'll spruce it up in the meantime.--Ludwigs2 22:49, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Chill block idea

[Later note: this later becomes discussion of existing rules on [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Cool-down_blocks].

The other idea I had that would work well with your idea would be to have a "Chill block" (which is explicitly forbidden now under WP:Dispute). It only would be proposed and enforced under very strict guidelines, only last 24 hours, stay "on your record" only a month or so, and be announced with a big smily face and flowers and ice cream or whatever. They would be imposed on whoever the "sheriff" - or "Chill Enforcer" or some other amusing title - thought was appropriate in a talk page or other controversy; "Chillers" only would be a limited number of trusted individuals, possibly elected every six months. I know that as a new editor it would have made me feel that "adults" were paying attention, if it was imposed fairly on myself and others; and ever more so now! And I think it might chill people and make them think twice about flaming, ganging up, etc. since this way a block is almost assured, as oppose to the current Russian Roulette of blocks. CarolMooreDC (talk) 23:22, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Why is it that as soon as we start talking about dispute resolution, the subject turns almost immediately to blocks? As a last resort, certainly, that should be an option (or a first resort against newcomers who have clearly come to cause only trouble), but it can't be the main tool for resolving differences. Even if someone is being obnoxious on one talk page (as some of us were yesterday) the primary solution isn't to talk about blocking them - that would just let their resentment brew, instead of allowing them the Wikipedian's best cooling-off option of going and editing some other page for a while - but for the sheriff, local mediator or whatever (any admin or established editor can do this, they don't have to have a badge, though a badge might help) to work to get the discussion back on topic. If someone still refuses to cooperate they can be asked to leave that discussion for a while. Only if they still disrupt will a block be necessary. But as regards dispute resolution, we must also address the situation where there is disagreement about some aspect of article content, no-one is being particularly unreasonable, but still nothing resembling consensus emerges.--Kotniski (talk) 06:56, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Kotinski, you're probably going to hate me for saying this, but here goes. Yes, you're right, there should be some effort to engage editors into more productive behavior first. But on pages that have gotten out of control - by which I mean pages where disputes have become entrenched and personalized (or worse, have gotten tangled up in real-world ideological disputes) - it's a waste of time. Editors in those situations simply are not interested anymore in reasonable interactions or encyclopedic editing; they are engaged in feuds. It's an unfortunate fact of human nature that it is impossible to stop a feud through an appeal to reason or civility or common sense, because the first principle of a feud is that the people on the other side of the feud are not worthy of civil treatment. They only way you can stop a feud is to make acting on the feud more trouble than it's worth.

The advantage of cool down blocks (when applied properly) is that they do no real harm to the editor - they just stop him/her from editing for 24 hours. that doesn't hurt normal discussion one bit (since normal discussions generally take place over the course of days anyway). what is does do is prevent stupid arguments from developing and/or escalating. For example: someone says something nasty, someone else responds with another nasty comment, they might get in a second round, and then both of them get to sit on their heels for a day while the nasty comments are summarily deleted from the talk page. If they are still angry when they come back and make a new round of nasty comments, they find themselves sitting on their heels for another day, while their new nasty comments are deleted again. They will both realize in very short order that no matter how they feel, mouthing off nets them nothing except 24 hours on the sidelines, and then they will learn to control their tongues. Will it make them more reasonable editors? maybe not. will it make them like each other? almost assuredly not. But it will make them more civil editors, because venting the inner brat is just not worth 24 hours on the sidelines.

The problem with ugly debates on wikipedia right now is that there's no real penalty for being (pardon me for putting it quite this way) a whiney, spoiled, obnoxious bastard. This is particularly true if you've been around for a while and have some friends who are willing to stick up for you no matter what you do - editors like that can behave like absolutely horrid little beasts with almost complete impunity, because they and their friends can tangle up any efforts at punishment in an endless, painfully vituperative bureaucratic debacle (... try to say that five times fast). However, if you put the decision in the hands of one sheriff with a clear mandate and let him/her deal out short blocks like candy for every minor behavioral infraction, then inside of a week you'll find every editor on the page treating each other with the utmost respect and civility.

Sad but true: good cops (like good fences) make good neighbors. --Ludwigs2 08:18, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, I don't disagree with you entirely, since there no doubt comes a stage (as I implied in my scenario above) when handing out block(s) is the only option left. But my vision of dispute resolution is more about not letting it get to that stage. Once a violent feud or other ongoing obnoxiousness has developed as you describe, the system has already seriously failed. My emphasis would be on having sheriffs (or whatever we call them) intervene as early as possible when it's clear that dicussion is starting to go off the rails, their principal task being to direct (moderate, chair) the discussion to ensure that it stays focused and civil. The fact that they had the power to block people if necessary (and the fact that everyone was aware of that) would certainly give them authority and allow them to perform their task more effectively (like the various weapons carried discreetly by police officers in certain countries), but I don't see the exercising of that power as the principal duty in this (hypothetical) job description.--Kotniski (talk) 10:17, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Note that I agree this is more to be used for your more hard core situations as described above, not for your normal brief minunderstanding type dustup, though people may try to apply it for that. And that's why you need complaints about at least three incidents of bad behavior. If it's one really bad one then WP:Wikiquette or WP:ANI or whatever is appropriate. CarolMooreDC (talk) 13:54, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Why would this work better then the curretn system?Slatersteven (talk) 14:15, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

@ Kotinski and Carol: I agree with you. Unfortunately, the nature of Wikipedia means that we often get editors coming to edit who are already steeped in real-world battlegrounds - there's no opportunity to catch the situation before it becomes a dispute, because it was an intractable dispute before it got here. This is what happened with global warming and happens on most pages related to Israel: editors come to wikipedia battle-scarred from other internet fora, armed to the teeth, and wearing their POVs on their sleeves. The way I see it, sheriffs are last ditch before arbitration, when the community has tried gentler forms of resolution and failed, and everyone reasonable is completely fed up with the situation. I just (cynically, perhaps) believe that there are always going to be situations like that, which will not respond to anything less.

@ Slatersteven: there's a gaping hole in the current system. as I said, you have:

normal dispute resolution, which deals with content but only works when all participants act in good faith.
arbitration, which works whether or not participants act in good faith, but refuses to discuss content

A sheriff as I've outlined it can step into talk pages and articles where content is being fought over and deal with bad faith actions directly, forcing content discussion to be civil and reasonable without the need for long debates or weighty decisions on the matter. S/he just wades in, puts a stop to the silliness, and then keeps a watchful eye to make sure everyone plays nice. Really, the real purpose of a sheriff is to show people the value of civil discourse: once things get cleaned up and editors get a taste for what it's like to work on a page where everyone isn't constantly trying to disembowel each other, they'll like it (most of them anyway) and they'll start to export that civil attitude to other pages they work on. That's the theory, anyway.

--Ludwigs2 17:09, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Let's assume, then, that this solves the civility problem; but what if the disputants, even when they start talking nicely, can't reach agreement on whatever it is? Even if everyone was really striving in good faith to represent accurately what the sources say, there could still be genuine disagreements that need resolving - and in practice you don't even get that - we all know about the rampant POV pusher who has learnt to be perfectly polite. Is the sheriff going to start telling people "please don't argue along those lines, as your reasoning is inconsistent with Wikipedia's concept of reliable sourcing", or are they going to be satisfied simply that people are not throwing insults at each other?--Kotniski (talk) 18:11, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, first off, establishing civil discourse will solve more problems than you realize: a lot of times POV pushers work by keeping everyone on the page too irritated to realize that the POV pusher doesn't really have an argument. once the irritation factor is removed, the pusher doesn't really have much to say, and the problem resolves itself without further trouble. beyond that (the way I see it) the sheriff would have a few more tools in his workbelt. S/he wouldn't render judgements on policy issues, but s/he'd have the power to quash off-topic diatribes, to refactor and restructure discussions to make them easier to follow (grouping things properly, removing redundant arguments, etc), and ultimately to put his foot down and say "You all have been going around in circles on this long enough. find a compromise or take it to mediation/arbitration. Right now." If it goes to mediation or arbitration the sheriff could follow it there and keep doing the sheriff thing, which would make med/arb a heck of a lot simpler and more effective.

in my view, the sheriff's job is protecting the conversation from all the conversational nonsense that people engage in: personal attacks, stirring up emotions, confusing the issue or creating distractions, endless repetition of circularized arguments, policy bombs and other overly-bureaucratic rigidity, tag-teaming and meat-puppeting, and other gambits that serve to kill productive conversation in its tracks. Sometimes this will result in a decent productive conversation, sometimes in the recognition that there's not really anything to talk about, sometimes in the acknowledgement of a stalemate. The goal is merely to cut through the endless steaming mudpile of polarized talk page discussion and reduce the conversation to its simplest, quietest form, so that people can move the discussion on in whichever way it needs to move on without constant rehashing or wikidrama. --Ludwigs2 19:38, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, that all generally sounds like something that would be good to try to introduce. Not sure how we go about introducing it - perhaps getting the community to accept something on a trial basis at some of the more notorious (but not unsalvageable) locations. An example from my own current experience - but not only current, it's been happening on and off for years - is the seemingly endless German vs. Polish disputing at, say, Talk:Recovered Territories. There seems to be no chance of this ever developing into a well-written, neutral and accurate article (and staying as one) unless an outsider with a firm hand and sharp teeth comes along to get the discussions - and editing - back on an even keel.--Kotniski (talk) 20:03, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Couple points:

Having come in as a POV pusher who took more than a year to GET that Wikipolicies come first, I do think I could have benefited from a few "chill" warnings or even blocks from Neutral editors. When you only get them from opposing editors you just don't take them as seriously, except as threats; not as, hey, take 24 hours and read some policy. (Which would be a good thing to put in the friendly chill block message.)
The most obnoxious editors generally are obsessed with one thing, usually deletion or addition of some narrow range of material they want out or in and they're hell bent on that. They usually don't know or care to understand policy or discuss it rationally. So only a bit of a friendly "CHILL - wake up - pay attention - cool it" notice will get any attention at all.
I see it as an early motion, even before Wikiquette, if enough editors meet the very strict criteria quickly enough.
I suggest we start a BRAIN STORM. Make a list of categories below and put all our ideas in and then when run out give them a zeros, one or two points and see which come up highest. Categories should include, but could include more than: Reason need this policy; Name of block; Name of person administering block; how those persons selected; criteria for administering block; nature of block: i.e., length, if can contest, how long stays on record, what it counts for in future (ie ANIs?), etc.
Then we go through and express our views on these; then we somehow give numbered weight to the different preferences; and then come up with a formal proposal agreed to by those who largely agree with the idea. Only after that do we create a proposal page. No jumping the gun til we're ready; but not allowing it to drag on forever :-)

Thoughts?? CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:51, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

@ Carol: hmmm... It sounds to me like you're suggesting a milder version of what I've been talking about. maybe we could make the project a two-tiered thing, with full town sheriffs who deal with problem pages and lesser deputies which are much more limited in what they can do, but have a broader mandate to do it. and I wouldn't worry about the truly obnoxious editors. part of the beauty of the chill-block system is that if someone is unremittingly obnoxious, they will only be able to be obnoxious once or twice a day. If they want to come back day after day after day to do something obnoxious and get chill-block after chill block for it, that's their business. it's minimal damage to the encyclopedia, and not very satisfying for them; we can hold out the hope for a while that they'll lose interest in being obnoxious and either go away or decide to start participating better.

@ Kotinski: I guess I should finish the project draft and offer it up at pump policy as a new idea, with a suggestion that we give it a trial run. give me a couple of days on the first. --Ludwigs2 04:11, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I want to develop a proposal for something mild that people would not freak at. If it works well, something broader might be tried. KISS principle aka: K.I.S.S. :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 20:35, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

FYI (or reminder), in my yet to be created brainstorm, the policy that needs changing is Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Cool-down_blocks which reads: "Blocks intended solely to "cool down" an angry user should not be used, as they often have the opposite effect. However, an angry user who is also being disruptive can be blocked to prevent further disruption." Something to think about. CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:34, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

So you're proposing that someone can be blocked simply for being angry? I can kind of see how that might be rather easily gamed...--Kotniski (talk) 23:12, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

My problem is that people right now are allowed to insult other editors freely against WP:NPA without even being admonished, not to mention blocked - even after multiple editors on different articles report the same individuals to Wikiquette and WP:ANI within a few days of each other! (A simple search of WP:ANI and WP:Etiquette archives and come up with various examples.) I can see two policy pages have conflicting advice which is why I'm now going to create a new section analyzing the problem and suggesting solutions that actually are minimal word changes that will encourage more blocking for personal attacks. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:40, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Policy does not need changing, just must become more consistent. So I just added to Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Cool-down_blocks policy from Wikipedia:NPA#Blocking_for_personal_attack So that it now reads (change in Italics:

Blocks intended solely to "cool down" an angry user should not be used, as they often have the opposite effect. However, an angry user who is also being disruptive or engaging in engaging in personal attacks may be blocked to prevent further disruption or attacks.

This is second mention in the article and may be deleted on those grounds, but thought I'd give it a shot. If wikipedia policy would just follow that, 2/3 of my problems would be solved. CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:56, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

See, my worry about that is that there's not sufficient controls on it. I suspect this change would just make BAITing easier and more effective (e.g., you'll see an increase in blocks on new users and fringe editors, and a decrease on its use on established editors, since they now no longer need to go out of their way to get someone blocked, but just need to tweak them into anything that can be interpreted as a personal attack (and from my extensive experience, BAITers pretty much try to spin anything that's not explicitly ass-kissing as a personal attack; I've been accused of personal attacks for pointing out - nicely, mind you - that someone was factually wrong about some claim they were making). The use has got to be restricted, and has to have some controls built into it against misuse, otherwise it'll just perpetuate the ugliness.

I've been thinking about it, and what I've come up with so far is to redo the sheriff thing so that there are certain things (like chill-out blocks) that sheriffs can do at will on any page, and other things that they can only do if they are 'elected' to deal with a particularly problematic page. That way it's a power that they have to sign up for explicitly, explicitly agreeing to rules and restrictions, and one that can be taken away from them if they abuse it. I don't think it should be a normal part of blocking policy, because there are too many admins I've run across who are agenda-driven, and it would be too easy for an agenda-driven admin to watch a page like a hawk and chill-block everyone from one side of a dispute for every minor slight they can manage to find. --Ludwigs2 20:15, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I think you're all making good points here but IMHO a huge part of the problem is that sysops are not respected as moderators of behaviour. Nor are we properly tasked with that responsibility. In fact a big part of the problem is at this stage there's almost an internet meme that "all wikipedia admins are evil and should be ignored/attacked/insulted". Another part of the problem is that some sysops don't even understand WP:CIVIL themselves and either choose to ignore situations where help is needed and requested or think "it's not a big deal". Or worse still know that blocks for civility violations create too much dramahz to bother.
An associated problem I've encountered particularly in nationalist disputes is that problematic editors game WP:UNINVOLVED by personally attacking admins who are enforcing WP:DR or WP:5. Thus it becomes murky whether said sysop can deal with those editors any further. And thus a new sysop is needed a) to deal with the attack and b) to 'police' the area generally.
I would fully support either some sort of "sheriff system" ala Ludwigs' (or a new category of sysop between admin and 'crat who is elected specifically for this role). If we followed Ludwig's suggestion the policy would need to be very clear and very simple: Sheriff's would be uninvolved in the content area they 'police'. And would have to have the power to block if they themselves are personally attacked for simply 'doing their duty'. Their blocks should only be over-turned by a consensus on WP:AN or by ArbCom. Their role would be clearly defined to moderate behaviour and policy violations. They are answerable to the community and ArbCom--Cailil ^talk 23:02, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, the extra mention of NPA got deleted. Maybe will refer to this whole discussion on the talk page.

Various points above make sense from your experience. On the other hand why have WP:NPA or WP:Harassment if you aren't going to enforce them? The whole problem is alluded to in today's New York Times article on lack of women on Wikipedia. One of several factors possibly discouraging women from editing was the necessity to be “open to very difficult, high-conflict people, even misogynists." I don't know how much energy I'm going to bother to give to trying to correct it except to have a big box on my main space identifying articles I've had to stop editing because the sexism is out of control but appeals for help for personal attacks, etc. go unheeded at relevant boards - and hope NYTimes finds the page. Of course that probably will get me blocked for incivility. CarolMooreDC (talk) 02:04, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Something that would often be preferable (and possibly more effective) than Blocks is simply the removal of offensive, or otherwise disruptively off-topic, comments. That would send a clear message to everyone about which direction the discussion is going in. I think it's also necessary for sheriffs to be allowed to make edits to the article - in particular to be exempted from 3RR - since disruptive behaviour often involves not only talk page behaviour, but also direct editing. If we know that disruptive edits are going to be rolled back, then protection can perhaps be avoided and the normal process of uncontroversial editing would be able to continue.--Kotniski (talk) 11:24, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

FYI, I actually did beef up Template:Be_civil (below) after this discussion - Wikipedia_talk:Civility#Template:_Be_civil. Though one individual wants the whole thing deleted. So feel free to go to discussion page(s) and support it. I know once I put it on the article I'm taking a break from because of extreme incivility all hell will break loose. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:44, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Please stay calm and civil while commenting or presenting evidence, and do not make personal attacks. Be patient when approaching solutions to any issues. If consensus is not reached, other solutions exist to draw attention and ensure that more editors mediate or comment on the dispute.

I think this “town sheriff” idea is definitely a good idea in general, but it’ll need to be implemented very carefully. Around a year ago I was part of a mediation case in which Ludwigs2 was the mediator, and acted as a sort of unofficial town sheriff for a little while. For as long as it lasted, it definitely helped everyone focus on content instead of personal disputes. However, I think a big part of why it was helpful in this situation is because Ludwigs2 took the idea of neutrality with regard to content very seriously. For someone who uses this power less responsibly than Ludwig did, I could easily imagine sheriff power being abused.

For example, imagine a situation where a group of like-minded editors are the dominant group on an article, and they choose a sheriff who shares their point of view. Since this group is the dominant group, it could appear that there’s a consensus for this particular person to be appointed as the sheriff, despite his lack of neutrality. Then, through non-neutral enforcement, this sheriff could continue to drive off everyone who disagrees with this group, ensuring that there’s no one left to complain about how he misused his power. Having the sheriff meet the criteria as an uninvolved admin is only the beginning of what’s necessary to avoid this problem, because some admins have strong opinions about content (and enforce policy unevenly) even in topic areas where they haven’t been directly involved.

As a side note, if this proposal gets implemented, I think the appointing of a town sheriff is something that should become standard practice when discretionary sanctions are authorized on an article. There are two reasons for this, and the first is just that the sorts of long-term disputes that necessitate discretionary sanctions are probably the exact same sort that would make a town sheriff beneficial. And second, a problem I’ve sometimes noticed is that even when discretionary sanctions are authorized on an article, all admins end up falling into two categories: those who aren’t paying enough attention to what happens on the article to be aware of when an editor does something sanctionable, and those who are paying attention but are too involved to sanction anyone. If the behavioral problems are complex enough that they require some amount of explanation, when unvinvoled admins are contacted in their user talk they often aren’t willing to examine the situation carefully enough to do anything. The problem I’m describing isn’t just speculation; I’ve seen it several times.

When this happens, what it amounts to is that having discretionary sanctions authorized on an article produces no benefit whatsoever. But the appointing of a town sheriff could be a way around this problem, since the sheriff would be an admin whose job is specifically to pay attention to when someone is causing disruption on an article, and apply blocks when necessary. This would put them in an ideal position to apply discretionary sanctions also. --Captain Occam (talk) 12:05, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Before I realized that my main concerns right now can be addressed by a community consensus to more liberally apply current policies on blocking for personal attacks and incivility, I did list a number of criteria any proposal should fulfill, to be further flesh out with possible details in a "Brainstorm" format. I'm glad to see Ludwigs2 was a good mediator and definitely share concerns about potential abuse of any Town Sheriff idea. Before it leaves his page I think those supporting the idea have to flesh out alternative details either in a brainstorm or at least a summary section on where the proposal stands now. CarolMooreDC (talk) 12:46, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Consistent enforcement of civility

You might have noticed this already, but I’ve made a proposal about something related to this in Jimbo Wales’ user talk. My proposal is a lot different from Ludwig’s, but it’s still intended to address the same basic issue, which is inconsistent enforcement of the civility policy. I think one of the causes of admin laziness and inconsistency is that at present admins are only accountable to ArbCom, and since ArbCom is pressed for time, it generally takes a pretty long series of severe abuses of admin powers before ArbCom desysops anyone. My proposal would be to have a new body independent of ArbCom that’s devoted to evaluating admin behavior, and can therefore do this more quickly than ArbCom can, which would hopefully motivate all Wikipedia admins to act more responsibly. Of course, my proposal and Ludwig’s aren’t mutually exclusive, and the best idea might be to implement them both. --Captain Occam (talk) 13:07, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

My first question is - why weren't you blocked for trying to criticize another user off wikipedia?? (I got blocked - in part - for doing it on a site I thought was connected to wikipedia.) Plus I thought running off wikipedia to criticize it in general was a no no. If not, I have a blog entry I want to make :-)

As for ArbCom, is it my imagination or could they not even get enough volunteers to run for office last time? You and Ludwigs2 should get together and put together a proposal on this page and go through regular channels. At this point just getting some fairer and more consistent way of imposing short blocks for incivility would make me happy. (But also realize that if people keep posting nutty stuff with crappy or no sources, eventually the most level headed person will lose their temper!) CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:09, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

My letter to The Economist wasn’t criticizing a specific other user, it was just criticizing how disputes on Wikipedia are resolved in general. I don’t think there’s a rule against criticizing Wikipedia off-site; if there is, I’ve never heard of it. Isn’t off-site criticism of Wikipedia one of the purposes that Wikipedia Review is for?

I’ll support Ludwig’s sheriff proposal if he decides to move forward with it, as long as he can come up with a way to prevent sheriff power from being abused the way I expressed concern about. The proposal I mentioned in Jimbo Wales’ user talk isn’t something which could be implemented by the community, though, because part of my proposal calls for this new administrative body to be appointed directly by the Board of Trustees. Only Jimbo and the other trustees have the authority to implement something like that, if they decide it’s a good idea. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:54, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

At this point I've lost track of his proposal in all the back and forth. If it really is together, maybe he could put it in a box and label it "official proposal." CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:16, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Considering the explorations of gender gap (and sexism) on wikipedia (see Jan 31 New York Times article and especially excellent Prof. Justine Cassell's contribution on problems on wikipedia at NY Times today) - considering all that, we don't need a sheriff - we need a BIG MAMA. Or a Goddess with a whip. Or just a whip mistress. In any case, if there's a sheriff, it should have an image that's female. Don't get me started.... Anyway, this is a serious issue for making Wikipedia more credible. CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:31, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Carol, with respect to your brainstorming thing, I can say that there are a handful of practical requirements for fair and effective civility enforcement (none of which currently pertain on wikipedia). they are as follows:

Clearly defined rules. it's far more important that rules are clearly defined than that they are well-designed. clear definition allows for equal application, so even if you have a stupid rule (e.g., "one cannot say the word 'Fuck' on project, unless it's capitalized and single-quoted"), the stupid rule can be applied evenly and fairly so long as it's clear.
Memoryless application. Like parking tickets, enforcement of civility should be forgotten by the system as soon it's completed. Like parking tickets, it should be a social engineering tool designed to poke people into not doing things that make others' lives difficult, and nothing more than that.
Accountability. granted that being a sysop is already a thankless task, there should be clearly defined penalties to sysops for abusing the system. a sysop who uses the tool on only one side of a dispute, or excessively heavily on an individual, should lose the right to use the tool and maybe should have an automatic desysopping discussion begun. Given that wikipedia has high transparency, that should be enough to quell the worts abuses

cover those three, and you're a long way to establishing a fair system.

{Insert} - Good terms to describe more generalized things I described above! By the way, here's an example of a gratuitous block for a relatively innocuous one time comment: User_talk:Malleus_Fatuorum#Blocked. CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:49, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I'll finish up on the project page today (assuming nothing intervenes), and then I'll put it up over at pump (policy) for discussion and start stumping for it. --Ludwigs2 17:11, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

How's that going? I got distracted by the whole Women in Wikipedia thing (articles, lists, organizing) but have listed this RfC as something women should look at. So don't close it too quick, cause I still would like to see what simple proposal re: blocks we can do. (I'll have to do a lot of re-reading since I have forgotten many points by now. Don't get old. ) CarolMooreDC (talk) 00:35, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Punitive blocks pre-endorsed by the community

Alternate proposal: change policy to explicitly permit punitive civility and WP:NPA blocks, but only if they are pre-endorsed by the community at WP:ANI or perhaps WP:WQA (or possibly somewhere else if volume becomes an issue), so that we can be sure in advance that the community thinks the incident or pattern of behaviour actually merits sanction. This prevents individual admins applying arbitrary yardsticks (in both blocking and unblocking), and gets past the problem that allowing time for community discussion about such behaviour makes it unlikely for any resulting blocks to be short-term preventative: so permit punitive blocks for this (intended to be long-term preventative). Community discussion (rather than individuals jumping to the block button) also gives a chance for people to apologise and be given a chance to amend their behaviour (and of course if they keep repeating the behaviour after apologising, people will notice and begin to discount that). Rd232 ^talk 16:54, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you're suggesting - create a set of offenses for which people can be blocked explicitly to punish them? I'm not opposed to the punishment idea intrinsically, but as put I don't think this solves the larger problem of inconsistent application - this still relies on individual admins to interpret when a block should be made, and may lead to an oppressive majority' situation in which the community starts pre-sanctioning blocks that will ultimately bias the encyclopedia. --Ludwigs2 18:23, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

No, it wouldn't "create new offenses", and it wouldn't allow individual admins to make punitive blocks in this area (they could still make blocks they feel they can justify as preventative, as now). It would only provide for punitive blocking where it is demonstrated in advance that the community feels it is justified because of a particularly egregious single incident or a lesser series of incidents. In practical terms, this would work like ban discussions: someone proposes a block as a sanction for behaviour X, and the appropriateness of the proposed block is discussed, taking into account context, past behaviour and any remorse. Rd232 ^talk 19:04, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm. But how often would it not be the whole community but only a biased part of it that would respond? Many serious ANIs seem to get pretty much ignored except for participants. (Or as I just put at Civility talk "(usually in my experience because a little gang of buddies of the "flamer" comes in and trashes the complainant)." A group of 10 self-regulating editors who can be easily removed in context of your three criteria above might be better. Relevant discussion at Civility by the way: Wikipedia_talk:Civility#Enough_is_enough. CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:55, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Serious ANI threads get ignored when they're complicated and hard for observers to get a handle on. Civility issues are generally simpler I think, it's just an issue of differing judgements. Anyway, the consequences of gaming here are less severe than elsewhere, because we'd expect blocks to be short, and behaviour relatively easily remediable; it's not like banning people or stacking an AFD. Rd232 ^talk 20:14, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

We clearly need stricter controls on punitive blocks, not a loophole for further abuse.--Cube lurker (talk) 20:22, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
- You're not getting it: punitive blocks are not currently permitted at all. The problem is that civility and NPA enforcement is more or less impossible without some element of punitiveness (with the aim of long-term prevention of problems; currently "preventative" is always understood as short-term), so what you get is individual admins making judgements about what they can acceptably label "preventative". Much better to accept punitiveness, with the caveat that such punitiveness is retained in the hands of the community, not individuals. That should much reduce the phenomenon of individual admins making judgements: because there will be an actual viable alternative for dealing with this issues. Rd232 ^talk 22:09, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
  - Currently punitive blocks are not authorized, however they are permitted.--Cube lurker (talk) 22:21, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
    - If there is a distinction between the two, then I've just explained that distinction as part of my justification for this proposal - so what exactly is your point? Rd232 ^talk 22:49, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
      - That the solution isn't to make it easier for admins to make punitive blocks.--Cube lurker (talk) 23:17, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, I get Rd232's points. But the "punitive" idea obviously will be resisted. That's why calling them chill or cool down blocks and delivering them in a positive fashion useful. Rather than have the community "decide," why not have requests for such blocks go to Wikiquette, decisions be made fairly quickly one way or the other, and then if there is are sincere and major objections from community (like if it is shown complainant has misused diffs, etc.), then it is over turned. CarolMooreDC (talk) 03:29, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

the problem arises because we make too much of it as a special case, instead of treating it as routine, like 3RR. Many otherwise good editors have had a short block on two under 3RR, which in general is applied in an even-handed manner. And in general they have learned from it to be more careful. A few have not, those few are dealt with further as individual cases. By making this a matter for elaborate procedure on highly-watched pages, we usually apply civility blocks under two cases: as part of a content dispute that has escalated, or to people who are for the moment unpopular. doing either of these is wrong. Our practice of trying to win content disputes by trying to get someone to commit inexcusable behavior is pernicious; it leads to more improper behavior than there would be otherwise. I think of 3rr bloc as as both preventative, and also as a clear and serious warning , and so should this. Sort of like a traffic violation. DGG ( talk ) 06:08, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

well, yes, that's the sort of direction I'm going in, though I would hope that with time we'd get a good effect from people being nearly given blocks and then changing their behaviour, and others seeing emerging standards and amending their behaviour too. Rd232 ^talk 12:03, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Carol asks "how often would it not be the whole community but only a biased part of it that would respond?" Well, as the community consists of 144,845 active editors, the basic answer is never. No "consensus" is of more than a minute fraction of the community. How many even vote in Arbcom elections? Peter jackson (talk) 09:45, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

It's long been accepted that an adequately large and reasonably representative sample of the community may represent the community at any given time (unless or until it is shown that the sample is/was biased). Rd232 ^talk 12:03, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

On this whole proposal, again, I don't like the idea that the question of "blocks" is somehow the key to dispute resolution. Nor would I like to see editors encouraged to spend their time discussing each other's behaviour, or the appropriateness of each other's being blocked, rather than spending that time working on the encyclopedia. If someone resolutely refuses to conform to our interactional norms they'll get blocked, but that doesn't solve the wider issue of what to do when editors disagree about what the encyclopedia should say.--Kotniski (talk) 13:16, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

The proposal needn't actually result in any more blocks than at present. It's a process that would give some mechanism to start establishing (through practice) practical standards of behaviour in relation to civility/NPA, violation of which will reasonably consistently result in blocks - thus ensuring that most of the time people stick to those standards. This should make it easy to prevent content disputes causing interpersonal disputes and driving away non-WP:BATTLE editors. Rd232 ^talk 17:20, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I like the analogies to 3rr and traffic tickets and they should be worked into any proposal. Also, blocks for personal attacks are very relevant to dispute resolution because personal attacks a) they start and aggravate disputes and b) show bad faith that there will be serious dispute resolution. CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:47, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Wanted to comment on a few idaes... Another admin-like position is a bad idea and unlikely to attract consensus. Creating another admin board is too far removed from the problem and again too bureaucratic. We need a solution that can work at the grass roots level without having to create another noticeboard or position (unless it directly hits the heart of the dispute in a very clear way maybe). A procedural rule like "3PAR" would go a long way: if you make three personal attacks and you refuse to strike them out and/or apologize for inflaming the dispute, you get blocked, no matter how borderline or how much you're just responding to someone else's attacks. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:22, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Just found Wikipedia:Editing_restrictions/Civility_restrictions which was a relevant 2008 proposal. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:46, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.