Wikipedia talk:Mediation Committee/Archive/10

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Jurisdiction

I'd like to propose that "jurisdiction" be replaced at Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Policy (WP:MC/P in the two places it appears. The word is not appropriate outside a) actual legal matters and b) ArbCom (which is modeled on a court and actually uses this term intentionally and consistently because it was required to do so). The WP:MC/P usage is inconsistent and inappropriate.

The present wording, in relevant part (emphasis added), is this:

Responsibilities and jurisdiction

The Mediation Committee exists only to provide a recognisable body of users who are authorised to be mediators in disputes brought to formal mediation. The Mediation Committee is not an editorial adjudicator nor a Wikipedia governance body. The Mediation Committee will have jurisdiction over its pages (any Wikipedia, talk, and Category pages relating to Requests for mediation or the Mediation Committee).

The proposed wording is this:

Responsibilities and scope

The Mediation Committee exists only to provide a recognisable body of users who are authorised to be mediators in disputes brought to formal mediation. The Mediation Committee is not an editorial adjudicator nor a Wikipedia governance body. The Mediation Committee will have control over its pages (any Wikipedia, talk, and Category pages relating to Requests for mediation or the Mediation Committee).

The entire third sentence (in gray above) could actually be dropped (not really part of the proposal); even ArbCom does not stake a claim like this at WP:Arbitration/Policy#Jurisdiction, though it does assert, in situ, some narrowly defined editorial control in a few places, like certain sections of case pages, and at Template:Editnotices/Page/Template:Ds/alert.

Detailed rationale:
  • WP:Consensus may be formed by the community anywhere. This is a bedrock principle of Wikipedia. When a matter that is out-of-scope or off-topic for the forum in which it is raised, it will usually be referred to the more appropriate venue. But this is not required by policy, and with the sole exception of ArbCom, which has a strictly defined actual jurisdictional range, it's not because of a jurisdiction boundary.
  • As far as I can tell, the word seems to have been imposed at WP:ARBPOL from above by WP:OFFICE as part of WMF's formal definition of ArbCom's role. WP:AC/PR also uses it one time, correctly to refer to "permissions by the WMF" outside the scope of en.wikipiedia consensus. This external rationale does not apply to WP:MEDCOM.
  • Outside the context of ArbCom, "jurisdiction" is just not Wikipedian language: Searching for this word on "Wikipedia:" namespace pages shows that it's quite consistently used only in reference to ArbCom, and to genuine legal matters. Even ArbCom itself does not usually use this word, e.g. at WP:ARBCOM, WP:RFARB, WP:ARBGUIDE, WP:AC/DS, WP:AC/H, WP:AUSC, etc. It only appears at WP:ARBPOL and WP:AC/PR, as noted above.
  • In particular, it is not used on any other WP:Dispute resolution pages like WP:3O, WP:DRN, WP:AN, WP:ANI, WP:AE, WP:GS, etc.
  • It's a recipe for WP:WIKILAWYERing. There are various ways this could be WP:GAMEd, even up to vexatious WP:ANI filings claiming "violation of jurisdiction" if someone seeks a remedy in the wrong place. Even more seriously: Because consensus can form anywhere, there is no basis for a lawyering "jurisdiction" complaint if, e.g., some aspect of a dispute at MedCom seemed to be outside MedCom's scope; but use of this word may directly inspire disruptive attempts to evade consensus, on the grounds that MedCom "didn't have jurisdiction", when in reality all it did was decide to relax its own scope slightly. MedCom's scope is not imposed on it externally, but is subject to its own discretion.
  • The usage at WP:MC/P is not even self-consistent from one occurrence to another. In the heading, it refers to the scope of the requests MedCom handles, but in the third sentence, it's referring to whether MedCom has final say over its own pages, something totally unrelated to scope of requests.
  • The latter usage appears to stake an inappropriate WP:OWN claim (inadvertently; I alleged no bad faith of course). I'm actually deterred from simply WP:BOLDly making the proposed change and seeing if it sticks, the way I might on any other page on WP; the wording seems to imply I could be subject to some kind of sanction if I did.
  • The second sentence actually directly contradicts the usage of "jurisdiction" in both cases: "The Mediation Committee is not an editorial adjudicator nor a Wikipedia governance body"; thus it cannot logically have a jurisdiction. By contrast, ArbCom is an adjudicator, and does have one.
  • MedCom does not use "jurisdiction" on any of its other pages, like WP:MEDCOM, WP:RFM, WP:RFM/G, WP:RFM/T, User:Mediation Committee, User:MediationBot/Rejected message, etc. It seems likely to have been an arbitrary copywriting choice that simply looked good at the time.
  • WP:Wikipedia is not a moot court; we need to avoid legalistic language and concepts in a consensus-based environment, as a matter of WP:Common sense as well as bureaucracy-avoidance.}}

The proposed change would not affect in any way MedCom's actual scope.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:22, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

PS: In the second case of "jurisdiction" I suggested "control", but it could be something else, e.g. "final say".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:00, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

I've notified the members of the Committee of your proposal. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:34, 12 August 2015 (UTC) (Committee chairperson)
  • Support. I agree with the proposal to change "jurisdiction" to "scope" in MedCom policy. However, I do not see a reason to delete the third sentence: "The Mediation Committee will have..." This defines MedCom's responsibility for controlling the content of policies and activities related to mediation. In practice, any editor may propose changes to policy, but MedCom has the final say on changes. That seems entirely appropriate to me as we are the sods that have to administer the policy. Sunray (talk) 22:27, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
    • Sure; I've clarifyed above that it's not really part of the proposal (and that the second "jurisdiction" would be better as "control"), but something to think about. It's just kind of weird that MedCom is making "we control these pages" claims that even ArbCom isn't making about their own pages. But for all I know that's an argument for updating WP:ARBPOL to do likewise. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:56, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Support - I don't see any harm in changing 'jurisdiction' to 'scope' and 'control'.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 02:49, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Guide, section Binding mediation, "outwith"

When reading this page, I didn't understand the phrase, "that would be outwith the" and had to look it up. I would like to recommend changing it to "that would be outside the." Bubbecraft (talk) 05:21, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Good catch, thanks. Fixed. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 05:49, 2 October 2016 (UTC) (Chairperson)

Expand scope out of mainspace

Consider this a draft WP:PROPOSAL I might raise at WP:VPPOL if the initial reaction here is positive.

We have a site-wide dispute resolution problem that has been apparent for many years:

  • ArbCom will not hear content dispute cases, in mainspace or out of it, only behavioral ones, both inside and outside mainspace (i.e., it addresses all disputes over WP:POLICY pages and other projectpages as behavioral matters).
  • MedCom will hear only content-dispute cases, but only if they are in mainspace.
  • WP:RFCs on such matters have a strong tendency to be too thinly attended to generate a clear consensus, and/or to be overturned by a counter-RfC not long after the original.
    • While consensus can change it should not be engineered to change back and forth by competing interest groups, which becomes easier and easier as the size of the editorial pool declines.

This has several consequences:

  1. There is no effective venue for resolution of long-running, rancorous conflicts over policy and guideline wording and interpretation, among other internal content matters.
  2. While the WP:CONLEVEL policy was intended to provide a resolution algorithm (in short, small knots of editors are not permitted to make up "anti-rules" against site-wide consensus like policies and guidelines), this policy is in practice ignored with impunity, and admins appear to be at a loss about how to enforce it, or whether that is really possible.
  3. Because ArbCom and the processes that lead up to it are entirely behavior-focused, and resolve matters with warnings and sanctions, the underlying disputes are never resolved. What happens instead is that whichever party or camp is better at playing politics will be handed the keys, and those who are less crafty and more emotive will be removed from the field, regardless of the merits of either side's position on the issue at hand.
  4. This leads to a culture of WP:GAMING the system, very long-term WP:CIVILPOV strategy, and entrenched WP:FACTION formation, especially as the editorial pool distills more and more over the years, even as WP's world importance increases and external interest in manipulating its output and processes rises.

The obvious solution to me is for MedCom and the mediation processes that lead up to it to accept content dispute mediation requests regardless of namespace, especially since the bulk of these conflicts are between individuals or small groups of editors (or an individual or small group versus everyone else).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:39, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Dispute resolution RfC

Hello. You are invited to comment on this RfC, which seeks to reform certain aspects of Wikipedia's dispute resolution processes. Biblio (talk) 15:49, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Template nominated for deletion

Template:Mediated has been nominated for deletion. As this falls in your purview, please comment on the discussion, which can be found here. Primefac (talk) 00:36, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Mike_Buchanan_(politician)

I am requesting that the edit of this page be mediated as there is personal danger of violence. I am not allowed to edit this page and cannot follow the link on the previous page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FeminismDestroysBoys (talk • contribs) 00:20, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

I will be responding to your email inquiry rather than posting an answer here. For the Mediation Committee, TransporterMan (TALK) 02:37, 17 December 2017 (UTC) (Chairperson)

Long edit summaries

Everyone involved in dispute resolution needs to be aware of this discussion and survey. Edit summaries have been recently increased from about 250 characters to 1000 characters. See my !vote here about that issue, but your opinion may, of course, go the other way. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:35, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Could Medcom be history?

I didn't realize that there still was a Medcom. Had assumed it abolished years ago. Certainly doesn't get much attention these days. GoodDay (talk) 20:11, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Nope, we're still around. Since the creation of the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard we've morphed into a resource for the very most complicated and/or extended disputes. DRN is set up to only handle disputes which can be resolved in a couple of weeks and, moreover, anyone can be a moderator there while MEDCOM's mediators have proven track records and cases can take as long as necessary. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 02:30, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

VPP discussion

Watchers of this page will likely be interested in this thread I just opened at VPP: Is it time to close WP:RFM? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:27, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

RFC

I’m afraid I’ve felt it necessary to propose the formal closure of this project. The discussion is at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#RFC:Close MedCom?. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:52, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

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