Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Candidates/PhilKnight

PhilKnight

This is the talk page for discussing a candidate for election to the Arbitration Committee.
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Performance as a mediator

The candidate seems to have had a long involvement with WP:MEDCAB and WP:MEDCOM. His experience there would therefore seem to strongly recommend him for a position as an arbitrator. However, in the one encounter I have had with PhilKnight, with me as a disputant and PhilKnight in an unofficial mediator role, I was underwhelmed. I see that he is well-meaning but I was left with the impression that his lack of content creation skews his perspective against content contributors in favor of Wiki policy enforcers. I realize my role in the dispute may color my view or perhaps the episode is not generally representative of his contributions. I'm therefore curious and it would be germane to his candidacy to know about how people feel about PhilKnight's performance as a mediator. Maybe PhilKnight could also provide examples of contentious mediations he has conducted that highlight his strengths and the way he would operate as an arbitrator. I'd also like to ask PhilKnight what he thinks about the mediation process. In his view is it effective? If he believes it is, how would he explain the tendency for editors to bring so many disputes to ANI first? Lambanog (talk) 16:43, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I started mediating cases in 2006 for WP:MEDCAB, however I don't have many recent examples. Instead, I suggest you look at the discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Arbitration Enforcement/Israel-Palestine articles, which I set up and subsequently closed. Regarding your questions, I think mediation is effective for content disputes between parties that are prepared to compromise. I think disputes which go to ANI are usually situations where one party believes the underlying problem is conduct, as opposed to content. PhilKnight (talk) 21:35, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

@Lambanog, could you provide a link to the case, I tried looking but couldn't find anything. DC T•C 08:40, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

My dispute with the other editor occurred mostly at Talk:List of Philippine restaurant chains. Another editor and PhilKnight have become the de facto substitutes while the editor I had a problem with has deftly left it to them to handle things while going on to cause further dismay elsewhere. Lambanog (talk) 13:01, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

i too would second Lambanog's request for examples of PhilKnight's mediation skills in heated disagreements. in all the instances i have come across of phil's involvement in contentious discussions, he seems to often take sides, even sometimes appearing as a source of division, as opposed to mediating and promoting cooperation. mediating disputes where the participants are willing to compromise is one thing, but these are not generally the types of disagreements which will end up at arbcom. WookieInHeat (talk) 16:45, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi WookieInHeat, this is an example of a mediation, which resulted in the {{wordstoavoid}} template. PhilKnight (talk) 16:55, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't eactly call that a complex and difficult mediation, or even a particularly "heated disagreement". Got any more? Franamax (talk) 21:54, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I haven't made any claims in regard to the descriptions in your above post. However, I can give examples of relatively straightforward disputes I've helped with such as Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-08-30 Democratic National Committee and Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-06-09 Zero Mostel. PhilKnight (talk) 23:08, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Where did you take my questions to?

You left only small part of the discussion (my first questions and your first response) on the project page and wrote that you removed the rest here-where exactly? It is very severe in my eyes that you remove this content so close to the voting itself (even if you removed here, which you didn't) -right now I don't know where it's, so I treat it as a deletion-restore it a.s.a.p to the project page.--Gilisa (talk) 07:33, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi Gilisa, the questions and answers were move to Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Candidates/PhilKnight/Questions by the election coordinators. PhilKnight (talk) 09:08, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, apologize then.--Gilisa (talk) 09:36, 30 November 2010 (UTC)