Talk:Dispute resolution process

This discussion was moved from the Knowledge base changes article

I agree with Tanstaafl that our biggest problem is lack of contributors, since a wide base of editors would quickly resolve disputes, either through timely correction of bad writing or content errors or by other editors adding input to the discussion. I did some research using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About as my starting point, and found a section on Handling disputes and abuse that we can use to form our own dispute resolution process. Here is how Wikipedia handles editing disputes:

Unresolved disputes between editors, whether based upon behavior, editorial approach or validity of content, can be addressed through the talk page of an article, through requesting comments from other editors or through Wikipedia's comprehensive dispute resolution process.

The "requesting comments" link says, Requests for comment (RfC) are the open part of the dispute resolution process, by which editors can seek broad input regarding disputes over article content, user conduct, and Wikipedia policy and guidelines. Here is an outline from the dispute resolution page, which is tagged as "an official policy on the English Wikipedia."

1 Avoidance 2 First step: Talk to the other parties involved 3 Second step: Disengage for a while 4 Further dispute resolution 4.1 Informal mediation 4.2 Discuss with third parties 4.3 Conduct a survey 4.4 Mediation 5 Last resort: Arbitration 6 Requesting an Advocate (at any time)

The above outline basically expresses my point of view, that a dispute resolution process should start with the individuals talking to each other and backing off from further editing, then advance to informal mediation, discussion with third parties, and request for mediation. Arbitration, in which an individual or committee will consider the case and issue a decision, instead of merely assisting the parties in reaching an agreement, should only be taken as a last resort. More references: Wikipedia:Edit war; Wikipedia:Why Wikipedia is not so great with sections on Quality of existing entries and Collaboration practices and internal social issues. Alice Wyman 13:00, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe 1-4 are essentially what we allow for already. Of course, we don't conduct surveys, but discussion on talk pages would allow for such a thing to happen. 5 is what I'm proposing, but I worry that if we put in arbitration as an option but don't have any standards for the arbitrator to go by, it could seem like the arbitrator is solely speaking his or her own view, or even worse, showing favoritism.--Np 20:54, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I know you're proposing arbitration but it's a heavy-handed method no matter how unbiased the arbitrator(s) may be, which is why it is left as a "last resort". Dispute resolution is a delicate area and it takes time in any open society or organization. I'm proposing that requesting comments from other editors and/or a formal mediation process take place first, as a required step before arbitration, and that both mediation and arbitration are steps that the parties must request. If you just want to stop an edit war, can't you set up a "maximum revert" quota (Wikipedia uses three reverts, in whole or in part, to a page within 24 hours) and institute a block for further edits against any user where the quota is exceeded? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three-revert_rule#Enforcement Alice Wyman 21:51, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Edited to restore Alice's comment, which got accidentally removed when editing jobs crossed in the mail. AnotherGuest. 8 Dec 06

I agree that arbitration is heavy-handed and a last resort. I'm just unsure whether anyone would be interested in commenting on a dispute who wouldn't already comment on the talk page.--Np 03:44, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Temporarily stopping the edit war only buys more time. That should be something that anybody could ask a SysOp to do (though they might say no, apply a limit on the number of reversions, temporarily block the feuding authors from editing the article, or protect the page). Perhaps we could use the following process once it deteriorates to a edit war.

1. A SysOp tries to arrange formal mediation by a neutral person that the authors agree on. The mediator might solicit comments from editors, helpers and/or users, conduct a survey etc.. If the SysOp can't arrange mediation they will wait at least two weeks for things to cool down and see if the problem resolves itself before moving to the next step.

2. If that fails (for whatever reason) the SysOp will ask the different authors to produce independent versions of the same article, create a thread to discuss it in the appropriate general forum (so that its limited to only registered users), and ask the most well known helpers (that hang out in that forum) to critic them. The SysOp should provide at least a week for the authors to create their own version, and at least a week for any registered user to critic the articles (and apply social pressure). If a author refuses to provide their own version of the article than they will be permanently blocked from editing the article.

3. If that fails to resolve the dispute the SysOp will create another thread in the same forum and have a formal poll for at least a week to pick the winner. Once the winner is chosen the thread will be locked. If the SysOp isn't a forum moderator they will ask a moderator to create the poll and lock the thread afterwards. It is the SysOps (not the moderators) decision when to declare the winner. If a author refuses to accept the decision than the SysOp should ban them for the appropriate amount of time. That might be permanently.

This is expensive, slow, and might not pick the best choice but one way or another it would force a resolution without any suspicion of favoritism by the other editors. Whatever we decide should be sanity checked against a couple of different cases. It might not always be multiple authors reverting each others edits. It might be one-sided with one author changing the text and everybody else just reverting his changes because they thought they were inappropriate. This occurred in the anti-virus article where somebody essentially kidnapped it to argue at great length against running anti-virus software. Tanstaafl 08:12, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Regarding your first point, on asking a Sysop to limit reversions or lock down an article in response to an edit war: We'll need to set a policy on limiting number of reversions, probably by voting on it, since it's not something that a Sysop should decide on his own, in my opinion. Since we're such a small group, the limit would probably need to be much stricter than 3 reverts per 24 hours as in my Wikipedia example, which includes a HUGE pool of editors. In our tiny little pond, maybe three reverts per week to the same article would work better, but it needs discussion, as does the penalty and duration of the sanction (blocking the editor, protecting the page or whatever).

I agree with your proposal in general and I especially like the idea of asking the disputing authors to create different versions of the same article and to gather opinions on the forums. I've proposed new articles in the past by placing the article on my User:Alice_Wyman/Proposed_article page, and then linking to the proposed article on a discussion page. I've also PM'ed people on the forums with a link to the article to get more feedback. I also like the idea of potentially moving mediation a or arbitration off the KB and onto the forums, especially in cases where the dispute is over technical content, since the forums have many more potential contributors. To add to your proposal:

• I would specify how the formal dispute resolution process is initiated. I think that at least one of the editors participating in the disputed edits should request mediation before the Sysop is involved, unless the conduct becomes so egregious that intervention has been requested by two or more observers to the dispute.
• Once formal mediation is requested, all parties in the dispute should agree to take part in the dispute resolution process before it can proceed. For example, No one should be "forced" to produce a proposed version of the disputed article. If two or more proposed articles are produced, it will go to dispute resolution. If only one party produces a proposed version of the article, that version will be accepted, and it will be assumed that the party that did not produce a proposed article has conceded. In that case, the conceding editor should be banned from reverting the article to the disputed version; however, he should not be prevented from future "constructive" edits.
• Once the dispute resolution process begins, the parties should agree to stop all editing of the disputed portions of the article. until the dispute is resolved. Another option would be to "lock down" or place the article off limits to all edits, even from parties not involved in the dispute, as a means to encourage quick resolution through social pressure (this would be an extreme measure which should probably be decided by consensus or vote, e.g. an "articles nominated for lockdown" process). The discussion should then be moved off of the article Talk page to a separate "dispute resolution" page or to a forum thread if one or more chosen mediators don't have a KB account.
• I don't think that the Sysop should limit the pool of KB editors or forum members who would comment on the proposed article versions, since this can also be considered to be part of the mediation process. Gathering comments and ideas from registered forum members may encourage the disputing editors to come to a resolution on their own.
• If the parties still cannot resolve the dispute, only then should the Sysops as a group select a "arbitration panel" (optionally, the panel may already be in place, as a standing "Arbitration Committee") or another option would be for the disputing parties to choose their own panel to decide the matter.

I know that the above is going into way too much detail and it goes without saying that this is a slow and "expensive" process, in that it takes up a lot of user resources. The most important part of the process is that it should be as free as humanly possible from "political" considerations such as protecting bruised egos, coddling new editors or backing up prolific editors to keep them contributing, currying favor with a forum Moderator or popular forum member (one of the downsides of going to the forums) and the like. Another important consideration is to keep the Sysops out of the actual decision-making process as far as possible, to avoid the criticism that they are abusing their power. Alice Wyman 16:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The devil is in the details :) I'd like to create a dispute resolution process article that merges both of our ideas, prominently label it as a unapproved draft thats being discussed, and move the above comments to its discussion page. You could then take a turn editing it and then we/everybody would continue this discussion in that articles discussion page. Is this acceptable? This discussion is starting to get lengthly, so it seems appropriate to move it to another place. Tanstaafl 23:48, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'm just disappointed that more people haven't contributed to this topic. Alice Wyman 02:18, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Appeals edit wars and reverts

I suggest the appeals section state that you can appeal to another SysOp if you were blocked/banned for resuming an editing war, and you think they made the wrong conclusion about your edits/reverts. You could not appeal whether the action was appropriate, merely whether the SysOp made a good decision in deciding you resumed a editing war. I think this would be a good check and balance. Tanstaafl 17:56, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe the appeals section should be left out for now, since I don't even know what actions the SysOps are authorized to take against other editors except for banning vandals (can vandals "appeal" the ban?) and if their authority is spelled out anywhere. I also think that a true "appeal" involves contesting an action to a higher authority, not asking one SysOp to reverse the action of another SysOp, although this can always be done informally, I guess, or you could call the process something like "Request for reconsideration" instead of "appeal". Alice Wyman 23:57, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The article now states, in the "criteria" section, Editing conflicts should be prevented from escalating into to editing wars, either by peer pressure or by SysOp intervention in the event that KB rules and policies are violated. ... In the next section, it says, .... the formal dispute resolution process is started whenever a SysOp imposes restrictions, as put forth in Rules or other KB policy statements, I think that the specifics of SysOp action against editors is something I don't want to get into in this article since it is one of the "Unresolved issues". I think that it is enough to state that the SysOp can take whatever actions are set forth in rules and policies without getting into the details. On editing policies in general (three-revert rule, etc) these should broadly apply, not just to disputes between two or more editors. For example, the case of a single editor who keeps reverting edits by different people, in which case there is no dispute with any one particular individual... the person is reverting ALL edits by anyone and everyone, because he thinks he "owns" the article. That's not really an "edit war" unless you interpret those actions by a single individual as a war against all other editors. Alice Wyman 23:57, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

We haven't even defined "edit war" or set specific policies on maximim reverts within a timeframe... three reverts in a week may be too tight of a restriction, I don't know... but then we haven't even defined what consitutes a "revert"! Is it simply restoring an article to a previous version, or could it include removing some newly-added material while adding other material? There's also the case of an editor changing one section of an article, then going back a short while later, before anyone else edits the article, and changing another section, then a third..... Would this be three reverts, or just a single revert, if each change involved removing some material? What about if an editor reverts an article, then changes it back after second thought or when another editor objects? Does this wipe the slate clean? Alice Wyman 23:57, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Some thoughts from reading through the article

• It's long, people aren't likely to read through it all and keep it all in. Could it rearranged per audience? For example, have a section on what to do if someone's in a dispute, have a section for what an arbitrator should do, etc.
• The terms "mediator" and "arbitrator" are going to be confused.
• "The arbitrators' only duty is to pick a winner by a majority vote." What?

I was skeptical we would have many arbitrators available and concerned their capabilities might vary a lot so I wanted to stack the deck by reducing the number/type of judgments they had to make. I was also attempting to make it clear that this was not identical to Wikipedia's Arbitration which apparently can decide almost anything and impose it as a binding solution. Tanstaafl 00:59, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I was actually thinking that this referred to the "poll" option, and was confusing mediator with arbitrator.--Np 03:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

• I'm concerned that mediators/arbitrators will be hard to find, considering how many users will interested in doing it, not conflict-of-interested, and not Sysops.

A mediator can be anybody other than the SysOp running the resolution process. Its really a question of is there any uninvolved person that the feuding editors can agree on. I suspect how hard it is to find an mediator will vary a lot with the people involved. I think that arbitrators will be very hard to find given our small community so I expect polls would actually be the final resort, if a dispute ever gets that far. Are you suggesting we drop the arbitration option? Another possibility is you could have (just) SysOps be the arbitrators. That causes some problems (potential criticism of abuse of power), but it might be workable if we made the last resort be a poll unless the majority of the feuding editors agree on arbitration (i.e. the SysOp running the dispute resolution process no longer gets to decide what to do if the feuding editors can't agree). Tanstaafl 00:59, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

• It may be useful to create a template for articles under dispute to attract more opinions.--Np 03:40, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I added some definitions to the article along with info on arbitrators' duties and other tweaks. The article is long but "the devil is in the details" as mentioned, and it needs to be very specific so that anyone who decides to formalize a dispute can see what is involved. Reading through the article may itself encourage people to resolve disputes informally. In any case, it's not a support article and doesn't need to be read through to the end. People may choose to only read those portions that interest or apply to them. I also edited the article to add SysOps can be chosen as arbitrators, as long as the SysOp wasn't actively editing the article. Since editors also have the option to have the dispute settled by a poll in the forums instead of through arbitration, it shouldn't be a problem. On the template, maybe you could expand on that. If you just want an example, why not use the Lost bookmarks article and it's discussion page? I wouldn't mind. Alice Wyman 13:32, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand what you're getting at by template either. Are you suggesting an additional step where the template is used to try to resolve issues before a mediator is involved by soliciting opinions from other editors? That sounds more like a public announcement from a SysOp stating there is a problem and asking other editors to help the community by getting involved. Or were you thinking of a template for the text in the thread when people are encouraged to comment on different versions of the article by the feuding authors Tanstaafl 00:59, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking of a template that would show on the actual article that said "there's some talk about changing stuff in the discussion page, go see there if you're interested in this article and want to give feedback". This would not be an additional step, rather it's part of "Other editors should be encouraged to participate in the discussion and add suggestions via the article's Talk page". The template could also put the article in a category so it's articles under dispute are easy to keep track of.--Np 03:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh. Sounds like a good idea. Shame we don't have a way to make it also show up via "special pages" too. Tanstaafl 13:37, 18 December 2006 (UTC)