Wikipedia talk:Mediation

Need info on informal mediation

I was offered and took some informal mediation and when had problems asked on Mediation Request if it went by the same rules, etc. But got no response. Since evidently people DO offer informal mediation here, don't you need something about that? Thanks. [Also asking at dispution.] CarolMooreDC (talk) 02:14, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Proposed as a policy

I think this could be a useful addition to the dispute-resolution process policy family. This page previously contained Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Policy; now that it is free, and this brief outline of the mediation policy exists, we have a very relevant and concise summary of the mediation process generally (rather than in the context of specific organisations, as, say, the pages Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Policy and Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal are written). My proposal is that we mark this as a policy on the grounds that it documents current community practice for content-dispute resolution. AGK [•] 12:09, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

• Agree - this can be marked as policy. PhilKnight (talk) 13:09, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
• Agree. I especially like the "Each mediator is granted the freedom to develop his or her own method of mediating a dispute they are called into." bit :-) Xavexgoem (talk) 13:16, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks, guys. Any more opinions? If this becomes one of those RFC's that receives almost no attention, I'm going to be bold and mark this as policy on the basis of silent consensus :P. AGK [•] 18:04, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Control of mediation

Though I don't want to make the additional change until the mediation community has the opportunity to mull over the new Control of mediation section, a corresponding change also needs to be made to WP:OWN to include an exception for mediation pages. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 18:24, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Policy or guideline?

I'd like to propose making this page a guideline rather than a policy. I would like to note a few things:

• Wikipedia has to think carefully about what it should be a policy or guideline, and keep the number of policies to a minimum;
• Guidelines contain advice; policies contain material that is unarguable except in a handful of cases;
• This page did document the important differences between WP:MEDCOM and WP:MEDCAB; it also gave information on other informal mediation;
• MEDCOM's procedural and usage policy is covered at Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Policy;
• MEDCAB is now marked as historical;
• The remaining information here is mainly advice and guidance; it covers the case where Any Wikipedia editor can act as a mediator to a dispute
• This is important information, but is better suited to guideline status because it can take a myriad of forms.
• In other words, having a policy is useful where you can point to it to avoid further disruption. It's very unlikely to be the case here.

If there is material here which is suited to policy, perhaps we could redraft the page with this in mind. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:18, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. — If nothing else, the provisions of this policy which empower administrators to assist in the control of enforcement of rules established by mediators need to be policy, and I suspect that there's more than that, but I haven't looked at it with that in mind. I also feel that your analysis of guidelines as advice and policy as rules may or may not be true in theory, but in practice the line is not that sharp. I appreciate that you may be trying to move back to the ideal, but the genie's out of the bottle. Essays give advice; policies are policies and guidelines are junior policies, ones that you can't get sanctioned for violating quite as quickly as you can the "real" policies. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 01:06, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't have a strong view either way, but I do firmly echo TransporterMan's remark that editors and administrators acting as mediators must have some protection in policy for the unique neutrality of their role. If nothing else, editors who try to mediate a dispute need to be able to point to the mediation (contra the formal mediation) policy in order to credibly say "I am mediating, not becoming involved." AGK [•] 00:03, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

I would say that an administrator who has participated in a dispute as a mediator has become involved, as mediation is not an administrative function, and the mediator is often going to become invested in the dispute. As for the RFC more generally, I don't think this really meets the criteria of a policy, the only two parts that really do are the part defining the voluntary nature of mediation, and the part authorizing administrative action for those who continue to participate in mediation, but do not follow the rules. I think labelling it as a guideline makes more sense, as it creates a flexible framework more then a set of strict procedures that all editors must abide by.Monty₈₄₅ 05:15, 7 September 2012 (UTC)