Wikipedia:Requests for mediation

Step 4 of: Wikipedia:Conflict resolution

Welcome! Thank you for coming. Sit down and have a cup of tea. We'll be with you momentarily. Have a deep breath or three.
...
There, that's better.

In short, what is mediation ?

The whole point of mediation is to get people to talk, listen, try to think things through logically and reasonable (emphasis on reason) so that some compromises can be reached to everyone's satisfaction. Alex756.

Mediation is the activity in which a neutral third party (the mediator) assists two or more parties (the editors in conflict) in order to help resolve their conflict, with concrete effects, on a matter of common interest.

During mediation, each party can have a break, sit down with the mediator and the other party, have the opportunity to explain his/her situation, listen to each other, work together to achieve an agreement and make a consensual decision over the issue at stake.

What types of conflict may be solved by mediation ?

Who are the mediators ?

Mediators are people who are volunteering to get involved in mediating user Wikipedia:disputes.
They are regular trusted editors, approved by Jimbo and the other members of the commitee, here to help you.
But they are

without any actual power over the final decision, and
without any power to vote for or recommend a ban or any other punitive action.

See Wikipedia:Mediation Committee.

What happen doing mediation ?

You may ask for mediation here (see below), or on the mailing list. You may suggest a name, or the commitee will appoint a mediator to help you. In every case, both parties must agree with the mediator chosen.

This may be done through various means, like email, irc, phone... What is said during mediation sessions is private, and won't be disclosed without agreement of all parties. In particular it won't be used in any further conflict resolution proceedings (arbitration). You will be able to speak freely and fully.

Mediation is voluntary. Any settlement reached must be agreeable to both parties.

From time to time, progress bulletins (if warranted) might be issued.

What happens if mediation fails ?

You may (or the other party may) ask for arbitration, which is the next step in Wikipedia:Conflict resolution.
Keep in mind that mediation is an alternative to having an Wikipedia:arbitrator decides your case in the name of the community. I.e., another than you will decide which title is more NPOV, when content must be kept or deleted, when to ban you etc..., and you won't have the choice !
It is of your best interest to solve a dispute through mediation rather arbitration, because it is you (the disputants) who agree together of a solution.

For more information

You may wish to consult the following introductary link before formally asking for mediation : Wikipedia:Mediation (what is mediation)

Requests for mediation

It is always preferable for both parties to the dispute to request mediation. If possible please agree between you to request mediation before adding a request to this page. However, if you feel unable to approach the other party or feel that a mediator is needed to get an agreement to mediation then please ask.

It's important that this page should not become a second version of Wikipedia:Conflicts between users.

Lizard King + UtherSRG

I would like to have mediation to resolve the ongoing disputes between Lizard King and myself (UtherSRG). Primary realm of conflict is on articles include Yeti, Talk:Yeti, Bigfoot. - UtherSRG 21:39, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)
- Hello UrtherSRG. Have you asked Lizard King if he/she would be willing to try mediation yet? -- sannse (21 Jan)

User:Lord Kenneth + Jack

For a second time I place a complaint about User:Lord Kenneth Jack 08:56, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)
- Anthere's answer snipped by Anthere
  - Comment snipped by Jack himself. Anthere (sorry, you can read the page history for it, but I no longer wanted to represent myself by what I had said, so I removed it from hereJack 09:26, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC))
    - sannse's reply snipped by sannse -- sannse 10:21, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
      - LOL. Shall we delete the whole paragraph Jack ? Anthere
        Well, I am still requesting mediation with kenneth.. Jack 13:22, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

user:Mr-Natural-Health + community

I would like the mediation comittee to see if they can perseude user:Mr-Natural-Health to work with myself and many other users on alternative medicine and a number of related articles. In any situation where Mr NH has disagreed with anyone else, he starts dishing out insults, listing out names on conflicts between users and reverting out work. theresa knott 20:30, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Copied from user_talk:Mr-Natural-Health

In order to try and sort out the conflicts that you keep having between myself and other users, I've put your's and my name up to the mediation comittee. The idea is that some of the trusted wikimembers who are not particulaly interested in medicine (and are therfore likely to be as unbiased as possible) try to resolve the conflicts. The process is new, but I believe that we both have to agree to undergo the process. I respectfully ask therefore that you go to Wikipedia:Requests for mediation and state wehether you are or are not prepaired to agree to the process. Thank you. theresa knott 20:37, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Copied from user_talk:Theresa knott

No, I do not think so. -- Mr-Natural-Health 04:51, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

So what happens next ? Will someone else have a go at getting him to agree or do we go straight to arbitration? theresa knott 09:28, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for trying so politely Teresa. Jussi-Ville Heiskanen has approached Mr Natural Health on behalf of the committee at this point. -- sannse 10:28, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I am the second party to this dispute.

Let me recap my position. My primary problem is with Alternative medicine rather than with Medical Scientism, although that also is a problem area. AM is apparently a controversial area as AM has been edited on a daily basis for the short time that I have been here. I feel that this circular editing process is the normal course of business for AM. And, I have accepted that process. I personally have added 13 citations to research studies complete with online hyperlinks either to the public abstract or to the full text of the research study, four hyperlinks to relevant web pages, and one book reference to support the ten general arguments in support of AM. I do not recall the opposition having supported a single one of their claims with a reference. Basically, I was happy with the AM article as it was. And, I was resigned to the fact that others would be continually editing the article making those going in circles changes that I have come to accept as a part of controversy in Wikipedia.

So, as my last comments regarding ghostwriting in AM were accepted without them being deleted; I started a brand new article called Medical Scientism. A number of problems developed. Namely it was protected so that I was not in a position to improve this article. So, from my point of view a number of individuals, including User:theresa knott were basically harassing me. So, I started working with theresa knot on the talk page. Over the weekend, I completed my documentation of my position on MS in Talk:Medical Scientism.

So, I returned to the AM article on Monday and found that User:David Gerard had been playing dirty with Alternative medicine, to-wit:

David added Off-topic POV comments in the research design sub-section, declared that there was an edit war, and then had Alternative medicine protected. Those off-topic comments were written by a third party. They are off topic because I had writen in page history, the subject of that sub-section was clearly research design concerns. Therefore, any additions or changes have to be written from a medical study research design perspective. They were not, nor did I believe that they could be restructured due to their POV content, so I 100% deleted that one small paragraph for the 2nd time. This is standard operating procedure as most of all my edits have been repeatedly deleted 100%.

The precise comments added by Daivid were:"Some alternative medicine techniques are closely tied to religious or philosophical beliefs. Practitioners of these techniques may resist scientific scrutiny, fearing that negative experimental results will be used to question these underlying beliefs."

From my point of view, there was no edit war because nobody was repeatedly making 100% restorations of two radically different versions of the AM article. In fact, nobody had been editing it at all. Certainly, not me as I was busy with Medical Scientism.

So, my primary beef is now with David Gerard rather than with theresa knott. But, certainly quite a few individuals have step forward to harass me in my efforts to improve the articles that I have been editing. I am also extremely annoyed at people moving my comments. I put my comments where I wanted them for a reason. In the latest move, they said that they moved my Wikipedia:Conflicts between users conflicts, but they clearly added a lot of material from elsewhere which was not from my listed conflicts. Further, they put my conflicts on the very bottom of this page so that visitors would first have to page to through a lot of unrelated garbage to see my list of conflicts.

This is what I call harassment.

As far as me dishing out insults, I feel that those people are overly sensitive especially in light of the dirty tactics being employed by these very same people. -- Mr-Natural-Health 04:53, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Mr-Natural-Health's characterisation of events is not quite what happened - have a look at the page's history, and particularly the comments for edits. The insert above was written by someone else and cleared by Mr-Natural-Health with the comment "(Any characterizing AM of techniques is POV. If you cannot frame your comments in English as a research design concern then they are out of place in this section. Therefore, 100% deletion is in order)". My single edit to the article was to revert it. I asked for protection of the page because it was pretty clearly an edit war.

Mr-Natural-Health is writing articles on topics that certainly warrant articles. Unfortunately, he appears to have a proprietary attitude to articles he started, and trouble accepting edits from others. See also Talk:Medical Scientism and Talk:Evidence-based medicine. - David Gerard 09:17, Jan 22, 2004 (UTC)

Mr-Natural-Health, Would you consider mediation of these matters? Fred Bauder 06:45, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

From an edit summary on this page by Mr-Natural-Health: "I agree to arbitration in Wikipedia:Requests for mediation" -- sannse 11:06, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

That's very good news. To the mediation committee - what happens next? Will someone contact me? Or should I should I approach someone from the committee? To Mr Natural Health - I 'm sorry that you feel you are being harassed. I can't speak for anyone else but it certainly was not my intention to harass you, or cause you to feel unwelcome. My interest is the same as yours. I want to improve the article. The thing is, from my POV you have taken a combatant stance. You appear to me to view the articles you edit as belonging to you rather than the community, and take any change as a personal criticism. You also tend to lump everyone together as your enemy and call them "medical scientenists" (or some such thing - I'm not sure of the spelling) this has led you to be very rude to people. It's no good saying that they are oversensitive as an excuse. theresa knott 14:11, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

As far as this ownership nonsense goes, I do not engage in that anymore than the next person does who periodically checks up on the current status of their past edits. Considering the volatility of Alternative medicine this is a requirement unless you want RK to delete all your improvements.

I consider answering these mickey mouse kinds of comments a total waste of my time. -- Mr-Natural-Health 14:54, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

In articles like alternative medicine there is the PRO and the CON side. I am clearly part of the PRO alternative medicine people. And, the CON side is clearly populated by the Medical Scientism people. From your prior biased comments in numerous places you clearly are not neutral in your position on alternative mediciene. -- Mr-Natural-Health 14:59, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Progress Bulletins

User:JackLynch has withdrawn requests for mediation with User:RK.
Uncle Ed has agreed to facilitate initial discussions between Danny & User:RK on unspecified issues.
- But neither side has approached anyone on the committee with specifics or with offers to accept mediation, so I guess it's not going to happen. Unsolved Equation 17:04, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)