Wikipedia talk:New admin school/Dealing with disputes

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Contents 1 New lesson page for the school 2 blocking consensus 3 Too general 4 WP:BLP 5 tl 6 Consider WikiProjects as a dispute-resolution resource 7 Some thoughts

[edit] New lesson page for the school

This page was created on April 27, 2008, ported over from the discussions by the Working Group on ethnic and cultural edit wars. It's had some first pass reviews by members of the Group, and now it's time to open it up for review by more members of the community. It is not yet linked in to the school.

The page is definitely very long, and should be broken up into smaller sections. For now, I figured it was easier to review if it was all in one place. Though if someone wants to take the initiative and start improving the formatting, feel free. :) --Elonka 16:01, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] blocking consensus

Under triage, there are some things about admins forcing use of the talk page.

Ut oh! This turns out to be a very dangerous thing to do, as admins can very easily end up contributing to edit war and filibuster campaigns. Wikipedia_talk:Disruptive_editing#Blocking_consensus.

We've been doing some flowchart research at Wikipedia talk:Consensus (also check the archives perhaps), and have found that forcing people to talk pages first can theoretically place the process in an infinite loop. (In practice, that means filibuster, wikidrama, and people walking out in frustration, because in reality human beings are not obedient little robots who go around in circles forever :-). The one thing that won't happen, however, is consensus.

I understand what the paragraph is trying to say, and that is actually a good idea, but the way it is worded now could easily be misread. Perhaps better wording could be thought of?

Perhaps a better idea is for admins to actually only block the reverters, but not those making controversial edits. The should definitely be careful with page protection. They should never revert edits themselves. If they're not careful, they can easily knock out the prerequisites for Consensus, or even for the somewhat more hardy BRD.

At that point, normal editors can't edit and gain consensus, mediators can't edit and gain consensus, and other admins won't wheel war, and so also can't gain consensus. Whoops. That can't be right! :-)

So I'm scratching my head how to word that better. The current wording I put in is totally ugly. ^^;; --Kim Bruning (talk) 23:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I reworked it a bit. Feel free to continue tweaking. I think it's great that we're using the "healthy article" technique, to work on advice about getting editors back to healthy editing. :) --Elonka 11:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Y'know, the more I think about it, the more I'm liking this "health" analogy. Seeing articles like parts of a living system. If someone is sick, it's very rare that you "shut down the lungs" in order to fix the heart. Instead, doctors tend to make gradual tweaks. A medication here, physical therapy there, etc. So an article in "dispute", can be seen as an article that's "sick". Following along with that analogy, administrators aren't janitors, they're doctors, coming in to take an article's "vitals", make a diagnosis and suggest cures. The goal is to get the article back to its healthy state, as the editors, the lifeblood of Wikipedia, flow through, bringing nutrients and taking away waste.  :)

Could we maybe get some of the wiki-artists to supply images? Like the Wikipedia globe, with a thermometer in its mouth? Admins with stethoscopes?  :) --Elonka 11:09, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Too general

One problem with this proposed resolution dispute procedure is that it is too general. Elonka based this proposal on her successful engagement with one of the many nationalism/ethnic disputes that trouble Wikipedia, but rewrote it in more general language. As a result, it overlooks the more common problem of dealing with fringe viewpoints, which can be just as contentious yet have a different underlying dynamic. However, if this issue can be handled in this essay then I believe this guideline for handling certain kinds of resolution will be quite useful. -- llywrch (talk) 00:32, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Correct, more is needed on dealing with the trickier disputes, and debate on those is continuing at the WorkGroup wiki. Llywrch, since you're a member, you may wish to pop in there and take a look? My ported page here, was more intended to be "Here's the tribal knowledge of how to deal with disputes so far" Or if there are existing methods for dealing with FRINGE folks now, by all means feel free to add a section. --Elonka 08:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

In re dealing with FRINGE folks, to the best of my knowledge the Best Known Method for dealing with them is to follow the existing procedure for content disputes to the letter until either (a) they go away, or (b) an uninvolved Admin bans them. (I wish I knew of a better.) The main difference between nationalism/ethnic disputes & with FRINGE people is that most nationalist/etchinic advocates are reasonable (they just need to be educated about how to behave), while FRINGE types assume that they possess THE TRUTH(tm) & the only reason their views are ignored is due to a conspiracy -- which justifies whatever tactics they use. -- llywrch (talk) 16:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP:BLP

I've added a triage section, and a broader section, on responsibly dealing with living persons disputes, with a focus on the idea that we first, do no harm. FCYTravis (talk) 03:30, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] tl

Boris Johnson, when out making a last-minute pitch for votes in the London Mayoral elections yesterday, was asked what the secret to getting voters' attention was. "Brevity", came the reply. Splash - tk 12:12, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

See above. --Elonka 15:30, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Consider WikiProjects as a dispute-resolution resource

While I’m not an admin, as an editor with a fair amount of experience in dealing with these situations, I’d like to contribute a suggestion not currently mentioned: Consider drawing on the support of a relevant WikiProject, particularly when the issue is over content or sources. Broadening the participation with editors knowledgeable about the topic and perhaps familiar with a wider array of sources can help resolve some disputes between a pair of editors or bring cavalry to the rescue of beleaguered, frustrated editors dealing with tag-team POV-pushers. In fact, one way to avoid a perceived need to “lock down” an article while a dispute is being resolved can be to suggest a “change of venue” to a neutral WP talk page. While these talk pages and editors aren’t always contention-free, the more experienced “leaders” in the project can usually be counted on to help keep things balanced (especially if the project coordinator(s) are asked for such support in a head’s up). Something to consider. Askari Mark (Talk) 02:52, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Definitely, and that's one of the steps at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution, isn't it? Or if not, it should be.  :) --Elonka 19:35, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

It is at DR, but since we're discussing "new admin school" here, it might be worth an explicit mention. I more often see concerned editors, not admins, popping in asking for help, and I've rarely seen an admin make the explicit recommendation amidst an ongoing disruption unless they're an active participant in that WP. Askari Mark (Talk) 23:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Some thoughts

I like this page, a few quibbles, but overall very good. Now, a difficult question: is it acceptable to politely point out to admins currently dealing with disputes that they are doing things wrong and should do things this way? Changing the culture is often the hardest step. Once enough people handle things this way, others will follow their example. Carcharoth (talk) 10:46, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Can you give some specific examples of things being done "wrong"? We might want to work in some more information to this page on "things to avoid". --Elonka 19:34, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Specifically, accusations of sockpuppetry and meatpuppetry without due process or backing up claims with evidence. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Matthew Hoffman and the way things were handled at User talk:כתר. You could ask User:Jehochman to say something about sockpuppet cases and the way to handle them. He seems to have a good handle on how to deal with that sort of thing and avoid drama and possible injustices. This page only mentions sockpuppets and meatpuppets once. Carcharoth (talk) 09:40, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that a page on dealing with sockpuppets would be a great addition to the Admin School, though it might be a bit beyond the scope of this "dealing with disputes" page. I heartily agree that more education is needed though. I recently had to deal with my first major sockpuppet case, and I found myself really struggling with figuring out how to properly tag the accounts, which ones needed to be blocked, and for how long. I got by with asking a few other admins how they had dealt with things, but they all tended to do it a bit differently. WP:SOCK was a bit vague on specific measures, and I've been tweaking it a bit. And Category:Sockpuppet templates has a bewildering variety of options. If someone would like to create a new page, perhaps Wikipedia:New admin school/Dealing with sockpuppets which would expand on the information already at WP:SOCK, I am sure that many admins would find it useful (I know I would!). --Elonka 14:21, 4 May 2008 (UTC)