Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Dispute resolution/Archive 2

I'm going to confine myself to content disputes, as that's what it's all about: building a better encyclopaedia. Behaviour disputes are important only because they affect content. Peter jackson (talk) 14:54, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

(Good plan; in fact I think the term "behavioural dispute" is much overused - what affects content (and disrupts the proper resolution of content disputes) is bad behaviour, not the "behavioural disputes" (i.e. discussions about the appropriate way to deal with bad behaviour) themselves.)--Kotniski (talk) 15:02, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

There are 2 different types of goals you can set yourself:

1. reduce the problem
2. solve it

Many proposals seem to be trying to do only 1, or at least have no serious chance, in my view, of doing 2. While I can understand that people are interested in those, I'm not too much so myself, as they leave the underlying problem still there. In particular, I don't think any amount of purely behaviour-based proposals will solve it. Peter jackson (talk) 14:58, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

AGK says above that the existing system, if operated properly, would actually solve the problem. Though I think that's probably so in principle, think what it would require in practice:

1. large numbers of people turn up at all disputes when asked, that is, enough that the warring factions are massively outnumbered so that a consensus can be established by reasonable people
2. admin are prepared to enforce that consensus if needed
3. in articles in a permanent state of war, the aforementioned large numbers of people would have to stay around permanently

Does anyone think such a massive cultural change is likely? Peter jackson (talk) 15:03, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

So, if the current system can't work, what changes could be made, within the basic principles of Wikipedia, to solve the problem? I can think of 2 possibilities:

1. define policies and guidelines like RS & DUE so clearly & precisely that admin can actually enforce them
2. have an elected content Arbcom

I suspect 1 is unrealistic, so I provisionally propose 2. Peter jackson (talk) 15:07, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

There's something to be said for that, certainly, though looking at the way our current ArbCom works (or fails to work) I fear it wouldn't be much practical good for content disputes - ArbCom takes decisions over weeks and months, while content is most successfully developed on the fly, with successive tweaks by many editors on an ongoing basis. I see much more traction in the "sheriff" proposal above - someone (maybe elected, maybe simply any admin, or any other editor that no-one objects to) who will be there at the editing/discussion coalface in real time, steering, mediating, enforcing, perhaps deciding "what consensus is" (which as we know, includes rejecting invalid argumentation). An elected ArbCom-type body (I propose ArbCom itself, for simplicity) would be useful as a second instance, to review possibly inappropriate actions by the sheriffs.--Kotniski (talk) 15:24, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Figuring out others' content disputes in an area you are interested can be confusing, frustrating and tedious. Doing it in areas totally out of your area of expertise or even bore you stiff is even more difficult. Just try responding to a bunch of WP:RSN requests for a week or so.

Bad behavior is just easier to understand and interpret and deal with, and is still biggest problem I've seen. Cool people down and they might actually listen to and understand each other. What gets me is when there's really a small difference and people refuse to listen to you about how small it is and scream and yell and jump up and down. Absurd! CarolMooreDC (talk) 20:30, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

K, I wouldn't object to the idea of the content Arbcom delegating authority to town sheriffs. But, although in theory you may be right to say that deciding "consensus" on the basis of rejecting invalid arguments is already part of the system, in practice it's rare. Peter jackson (talk) 10:09, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Carol, as I said above, I don't think concentrating on behaviour can solve the proble, though it can no doubt reduce it. You might like to think about this. One form of behaviour people might want to treat unfavourably is refusal to compromise. Yet WP:NPOV says that policy is non-negotiable. That is, if one party to the dispute really is following NPOV, which does happen sometimes, then their refusal to compromise is actually mandated by policy. So you can't deal with that sort of behaviour without being prepared to sort out the content issues, which I agree with you can be hard. Peter jackson (talk) 10:25, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

The WP:NPOVN board actually often can be helpful in sorting out POVs of facts, if they aren't too boring or too complicated. CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:26, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Often, I dare say, but not consistently. Peter jackson (talk) 11:52, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

If, as I expect, WP continues to deteriorate & 1 of its competitors eventually becomes a serious threat, & if the community fails to agree a solution, there's always the possibility that the WMF Board, faced with loss of support, might impose its own solution. Peter jackson (talk) 15:10, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Solve behavior issues and get people to chill and listen to each other and this might not be necessary. CarolMooreDC (talk) 20:33, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

IF we may speak frankly: one of my motivations is I'd like to encourage 10,000 of those hundreds of thousands of educated, internet savvy baby boomers who will be retiring over the next 10 years to sign up and edit. But more adult ways of behaving and dealing with issues, dominated by thought and not testosterone, really are necessary. It's almost an embarfassment to direct people here, with the warnings you have to give them, the way some articles and issues go. They'll ask why any one would bother. CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:25, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The official numbers of disputes are as follows (from categories):

• NPOV: 6306
• accuracy: 3286
• controversial topics: 1791
• obsolete information: 900
• coat rack articles: 35
• BLP: 3

Grand total: 12321.

People might like to consider whether particular proposals could actually cope with this. E.g. would there be enough town sheriffs? Peter jackson (talk) 15:18, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Probably not; but would there be enough elected arbitrators either? Imagine how long it would take ArbCom to get through that number of cases... --Kotniski (talk) 15:26, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Clarify. Arbcom cases ever done or proposed? Or what? Where can we see list of articles to get a quick overview of what issues are? CarolMooreDC (talk) 20:32, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I presume those are figures from the various subcategories (and subsubcategories etc.) of Category:Wikipedia disputes.--Kotniski (talk) 21:29, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I just took the figures for the top subcategories, as they're there. Of course this is only what Americans would call a "ballpark" figure, which is why I called it "official":

1. it includes cases where someone wrote an article, someone else tagged it (rightly or wrongly)& nobody's been near it since
2. there may be some overlap of subcategories
3. there are no doubt untagged disputes too

Depends what exactly is a "dispute". Peter jackson (talk) 10:13, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

• Deletion discussions (AFD, CFD, etc) tend, by their nature, to be disputes. There are about 100 new AFDs each day - I'm not sure about the others. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:34, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

They really a only disputes when theres some activity on talk and one of the people involved in it, or someone who take some side in dispute, even if they don't write on talk page, decides to delete it. Otherwise it can be policy related - or in come cases just someone's idea of having fun by shooting down some elses work, even if policy compliant. But there sure are a lot of them. People could just spend all day working on that; I just wasted an hour after seeing your post! CarolMooreDC (talk) 20:55, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

They don't seem to fall obviously into any of the headings above. Peter jackson (talk) 11:27, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

One of my pet peeves is that we have so many places to discuss things, and surely we can't rationalise some of the boards. One of which is the Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts board. I worry that by focusing on citing problem behaviour (aka a "wikiquette alert") as opposed to what to do about it (mediation or dispute resolution) is not the best approach - and that realistically the board's function could be encompassed by mediation on the one hand, or WP:AN/I on the other. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:30, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

• As far as I can tell wikiquette alerts are almost entirely useless. I agree that this is the kind of problem behavior that needs to go to a board about solutions. I would honestly get rid of it. But I would also support your ideas if they had a consensus, where Wikiquette would lead to either a warning, an admin incident, some form of mediation, or a dismissal only in incidents where neither party has done anything wrong. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:27, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Recapping some of the central problems...

1. Editors who are not there to resolve the dispute in good faith (except for "complete defeat of the other side")
2. Editors who inflame the dispute using personal attacks... and dismiss any criticism by saying the other side started it.
3. One or two... except they have more time on their hands than the civil people trying to moderate the conflict and find a resolution.

I believe a solution to these needs to be at the grassroots level, with policies and procedures that can be applied and interpreted clearly by anyone. The 3RR is an example of this. It has a chilling effect on edit wars and is an unambiguous line that makes it impossible to excuse.

(As an aside... I know the 3RR leads to people occasionally WP:BAITing each other to do three reverts. But first, no one is forcing you to take the bait. And second, those that are eager to take the bait are usually editors who have been getting away with the three problems I mentioned above. It's unfortunately hard to catch someone being disruptive at dispute resolution, so you have to catch them on a more trivial offense. Doing a better job of deterring the truly disruptive will make it less necessary to catch them on technicalities.)

I would suggest we put together another similar heuristic or rule for people who inflame discussions. For example:

• The "three no consensus rule". Any issue that is raised three times with no consensus should only be raised again by editors who are willing to participate in mediation.
• The "three dissent rule". Any person who finds themselves on the wrong side of the consensus on the same issue three times should take a break from that issue.
• The "three personal attack rule". Any person who makes three personal attacks gets blocked... no matter how borderline, no matter how much "the other guy started it". (Unless the strike out the incivil comments and/or apologize.)

These are only suggestions. But hopefully they offer a useful starting point. The most valuable thing is that they have a chilling effect on bad behavior. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:42, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't like the consensus/dissent rules because a couple times I've run into situation where a group of POV editors have a consensus vs. policy (including blatant BLP violations), are told they are wrong through Rfcs, Noticeboard visits, editors temporarily coming by and telling them they are wrong -- and they still insist their consensus is the real and only one. I think better enforcement of Refusal to get the point after there have been a number of community comments which people go against should be enforced in these cases.

Three personal can be too many, if it's a bad attack. And what if it's a tag team effort of attacks? This also brings up the issue of being able to block groups of editors which was discussed ad nauseum recently else where - I think at the talk page of the deleted Advocacy Noticeboard (but I did save the text). So perhaps THAT also has to be worked into any proposal.

Also, one way to somewhat separate this "cool down" block and to set a community standard and to keep track of abuse would be a board where admins had to list diffs that led to the block. Some thing like: User:XXYY Block: 24 hours Diffs: [1], [2], [3].

By the way Sue Gardner and friends are getting very serious about solving the various problems and since as some women in NY Times and even more on the Gender gap Wiki e-list I'm read public archives of have noted, hostility/incivility/stalking/harassment vs. men and especially women is number one thing driving women especially away once they manage to come here in the first place. So I think it's important to keep working to come up with good proposal that will have the least resistance when brought to whatever that larger proposal group is. (Linked to somewhere above.) CarolMooreDC (talk) 00:51, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree with your first point. Peter jackson (talk) 11:09, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I've found that slapping a {{hidden}} tag on a derailed argument is a big red flag to the participants "Hey, that ain't cool". I hear talk of "sheriffs" with blocking powers, but there are other tools for "policing" bad behavior that don't require an admin bit. Nifboy (talk) 21:57, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with this solution, and even more with the overall idea. We need grassroots level solutions. Things that average Wikipedians can do that have a cooling effect on inflammatory behavior. Shooterwalker (talk) 23:03, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
• Just one more thing people have to become more assertive in using. Of course, even as a wild taurus the bull, it took me a while to get assertive on anything except actual editing and defending edits. Three and a half years to do my first WP:ANI or Wikiquettes. Of course, a big problem is there is no real training and the various links on how to do things can be confusing and contradictory, even in WP:Dispute. If hiding personal attacks isn't mentioned in WP:Dispute, you might see if you can get it in there. But of course doing so in articles can lead to even more disputes, as I've seen. Sigh. The only solution is an evolutionary leap to higher consciousness (and lower testosterone ;-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 00:32, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
  • To be devil's advocate though... I've seen people either remove or hide edits, only to be accused of "censorship". Don't get me wrong... sometimes people really do just try to hide people they disagree with. But sometimes it's the refuge of the best wikilawyers who know how to code a personal attack in a (barely) civil tone. Nothing worse than a revert war over whether a comment was trollish or not. Shooterwalker (talk) 04:27, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
    • And of course there is this policy Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#Others.27_comments. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:55, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
      • Yeah, which more or less codifies it. "This generally does not extend to messages that are merely uncivil; deletions of simple invective are controversial. Posts that may be considered disruptive in various ways are another borderline case and are usually best left as-is or archived." I see why the rule is in place. But I think it's outlived its usefulness and needs to be rethought. Shooterwalker (talk) 05:43, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
        • • The only other time it's been used successfully was for totally unreferenced soapbox, especially when the arguments already had been rejected by multiple RfCs with lots of community input. Some people just don't give up. CarolMooreDC (talk) 05:46, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

The following defaults apply:

1. sources are reliable
2. views are significant
3. sourced material is relevant
4. statements in sources are opinions, not facts

These can be overridden if

1. an uninvolved administrator rules (subject to appeal to ANI or some other suitable venue) that it's totally spurious, akin to vandalism
2. or a clear consensus emerges after the widest possible consultation, including any of 3O, projects, NB & RFC that may be relevant

This is somewhat artificial & may go against some existing policies, but it might make it easier to get consensus if everyone understands it's virtually impossible to suppress opposing views. Peter jackson (talk) 12:05, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Simple rules like these could actually be enforced. Administrators could warn/block people who delete sourced material or attribution. Likewise, consensus, once reached, could also be enforced. And, if the article has to be protected, the administrator would choose, or if necessary create, a version complying with these rules.

Anyone interested in trying to bake this a bit more? Peter jackson (talk) 14:33, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

The biggest problem is it can lead to extremely long articles. Sometimes you have to cut, if only from 3 sentences to one. (Which I was forced to do after someone deleted the whole thing. But I'll fight for that one very notable sentence.) Sometimes the only answer is patience til people don't really care anymore if things get added or taken out, as long as they aren't totally policy violating, of course. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:38, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it will lead to extremely long articles as the default. But if it's made clear to people that they won't be able to suppress opposing views, it's possible they may negotiaite a shorter version. At present, negotiation is based on war much more than law (that works better in English English). Peter jackson (talk) 15:55, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

"patience til people don't really care anymore if things get added or taken out" just means the more fanatical side wins. Peter jackson (talk) 15:56, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

If it's the fanatic for sticking to wiki policy, it's ok :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:12, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

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.

It would make disputes much more like a contest of ideas than the typical brawl or lynching if the community were to collaboratively construct the argument in favour and, seperately, the argument against a proposition (pronouncement, sanction, award, etc.). It would be a radical change of practice, but I think we should try it on one process to see its effect (say, RfA or AN/I). --Anthonyhcole (talk) 08:54, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this is something I've tried to do on some occasions in the past - though not particularly successfully, people on Wikipedia (like in real life) often find it hard to acknowledge that there are valid arguments on both sides of an issue, or simply don't have much interest in preparing the question properly before starting to answer it. But for complex questions that need wide but informed input, it really should be done this way (the matter I remember trying - and failing - to do it with was the question of what titles to use for articles on kings and queens). I don't thinnk it's necessarily suitable for interpersonal things like RfA or ANI, though - those are the sort of off-topic squabbles that ought to be consuming less of people's energy, not more. --Kotniski (talk) 10:34, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I can see it applying in several areas; though whether and, if so, how and where to trial it will need wide discussion and deep thought. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 10:53, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

It's worth noting that there is an example of this in action at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Proposal to require autoconfirmed status in order to create articles/Collaborative views. Sadly, the shunting off of the collaborative views while editors continue to pointlessly pile on additional individual views to a massive RfC is emblematic of the problem. Rd232 ^talk 03:55, 3 May 2011 (UTC)