Wikipedia:Requests for mediation

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 dispute) in order to help resolve their dispute, 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.

Mediation should not be confused with meditation, although some of the latter might be a good idea for overwrought editors.

Which types of conflict may be solved by mediation ?

Who are the mediators ?

Mediators are people who are volunteering to get involved in mediating user 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.

After a mediation has failed, the committee can recommand the case for arbitration though.

See also

What happens during 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 such as 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 ?

Disputants may (one or both parties) ask for arbitration, which is the next step in dispute resolution.

It is important to insist that disputants should themselves fill a request for arbitration. It is not the role of a mediator to do this on your behalf.

The arbitration committee will vote on whether to accept your request, so be prepared to defend your case. They may decide that mediation has not been pushed far enough and refer the case back to mediation. In this case, you may either drop the issue and learn to live with the conflict (agree to disagree), or return to mediation and request help from another mediator (it may be granted or not), or ask help from an advocate.

Note that in any case, an advocate may help you to fill up your request and defend your case in front of the arbitration committee.

Keep in mind that mediation is an alternative to having an arbitrator decide your case in the name of the community. I.e., other than the disputants will decide determine a commonly beneficial solution (what we could call a win win solution while arbitration is a win lose solution). It is in the best interest of disputants to solve a dispute through mediation rather than arbitration, because it is the disputants who agree together to a commonly beneficial solution.

For more information

You may wish to consult the following introductory 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.

See Wikipedia:Old mediation requests for past requests.

Please place requests at the bottom of the page, and date your comment

John Kenney and Daeron

Hello, I'd like to request mediation with respect to articles regarding the western half of New Guinea. Specifically Papua (Indonesian province), but other pages as well. Daeron and I (and Wik) have been revert warring and arguing about this stuff on talk pages for some time. At this point, I think both of us are so fed up with each other that the intervention of some third party is necessary for any progress to be made. As it is now, we seem to be simply going in circles with one another. I have no particular preference as to mediator. john 04:56, 10 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Initial contact by sannse (talk) 17:32, 10 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Daeron has declined mediation at this time. -- sannse (talk) 22:10, 12 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Where did he do this? john 22:14, 12 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Im sorry, I should have said: via e-mail. However Daeron has since replied again and I'm not quite clear on his meaning. I will update here as soon as possible. -- sannse (talk) 23:10, 12 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

User:GrazingshipIV, User:Hcheney

I am requesting mediation with this user do to accusations made by him against me. He has made baseless accusations that I engaged in inapproriate behavior regarding an admin vote. I request Bcorr as mediator. GrazingshipIV 01:44, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

GrazingshipIV, thank you for your faith in me as a mediator. I should note that I'm going to be in California from May 13 through May 22, and will have less accessibility to Wikipedia than usual. However, if Hcheney accepts and GrazingshipIV still wants me to act as mediator, I will be willing to serve as mediator. Also, I did a quick check of both talk pages, but didn't see what is at issue. It would be very helpful if either or both of you could please add a few links so I can see what has been happening, and then I can propose a way to move forward. Thanks again, BCorr|Брайен 02:16, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

I accept mediation, but would have preferred to have handled this bilaterally outside of Wikipedia. I feel Bcorr will be a very acceptable mediator. --"DICK" CHENEY 12:39, 10 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

This is the source of the conflict Bcorr X GrazingshipIV 02:24, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you both for being willing to work with me to mediate your conflict. I propose that I create a topic (thread) on the mediation message board, and if there is no objection, I will get things going this evening. You can set up an account on the message board here if you don't already have one. Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 13:54, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

I have created the topic (thread) on the mediation bulletin board here. Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 23:47, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

User:Kevin baas, User:Charles Matthews, Dwindrim

See /Archive 6.

Issue of Anthony's reverts and alleged trolling

The arbitration committee has decided to refer the issues of Anthony's reverts and alleged trolling are referred to the mediation committee. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Anthony DiPierro for details. Martin 00:36, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Initial contact by sannse (talk) 21:45, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC) at User talk:Anthony DiPierro and the talk pages of those who commenting at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Anthony DiPierro. Any other interested parties are also welcome to comment here.

I agree to mediation on these issues subject to approval of the mediator, the method of mediation, and a more detailed specification of the subject of the mediation. anthony (see warning)

Thank you Anthony. I've waited before responding in the hope that someone else would come forward to act as the other party in this mediation, but so far that's not happened. It seems the mediation committee needs to discuss if and how we can fulfil the arbitration committee's request in this situation. Sorry for the delay -- sannse (talk) 15:34, 1 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Has anybody asked Kingturtle about being the other party? He was the one collecting most of the evidence. I don't know how much of the community considers this to be a current problem (well, I'm sure Wik still thinks Anthony is a troll). But I would say that many of us have learned to work with Anthony, as well as him learning to work with us. Anyway, to the extent that I might be a party (since I had a couple disagreements with Anthony), I consider those issues satisfactorily resolved and see no need for mediation. --Michael Snow 18:52, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Michael, I've left a message at User talk:Kingturtle -- sannse (talk) 19:46, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Llywrch and Zestauferov

There has been a long-running feud between the both us, the details I will not recount here because I don't see how Mediation would resolve matters. However, there appears to be a development that Mediation might help with. Zestauferov wrote the following at Talk:David Rohl:

Well maybe (but any brief look at the biography I wrote 08:11, 27 Dec 2003 will answer best whether I know anything about his life or not), and perhaps you should read what people actually write in their messages and deal with those issues instead of angling the subject slightly. Whoever made you a mediator? For both of Our own healths Llywrch I recommend that neither of us actually make any direct comments to each other ever again. Please notice that I did not direct my last messages towards you, so why do you feel the need to direct any messages to me? If you don't reply to this posting I will take it you agree on a permanent cease-fire. Thankyou.

While I would like to accept this offer of a cease-fire (I have no problem with ignoring anything he writes), I feel there are couple of points that Zestauferov did not consider that would make any such cease-fire ineffective:

As an examination of the context of his post will show, he q

uestioned the motives of what I had wrote in the article David Rohl, making accusations I felt I must need answer. Because of this, I feel accepting this offer of a cease-fire implies that I must never respond to any criticism he makes of what I write, which is an unfair restriction on me -- as it would be on him. We need to find a point where both of us can hold the other blameless.

And lastly, & perhaps most importantly, is the fact each will end up editting articles that the other has contributed to. Unless some way for us to work together is found, then this cease-fire will not work.

Undoubtedly there are other practical points that need working out, but the fact there is some kind of common ground here leads me to suspect that Mediation may work in this case. -- llywrch 23:13, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I have left a message for Zestauferov asking if he is prepared to accept mediation. Angela . 09:30, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

Replied. Follow-up by sannse (talk) 20:49, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Religious Controversy on Japanese and English Wikipedia

Hello, My name is K.M. I am attacked by many people who has traditional religion. In Japanese Wikipedia, I'm stigmatized by Japanese administrators because I doubted to violate Japanese Copyrights Law, and I am blocked for a month. Added to this, they delated all of my contributions with no discussion. Now, I can't comment on these, and anti-Jehovah's Witnesses write slander of Jehovah's Witnesses. I think these are one-sided and I want to appeal Japanese Wikipedia to Japanese Court about them. And I think that all of the articles about Christianity in Japanese are POV. Please advise. K.M. 13:16, 14 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I state his statement is based on misunderstanding from three reasons.

The direct reason of his brocking on ja.wiki was his reverting on discussion pages. He tried to erase others' comments opposed to him.
No one accused his faith. Anyone except him joining to discussion admit this is matter of transferrence of copyrighted product without permission.
At least two contributors who accuse his copyright violation claim they belong to the same denomination of him, and the materials they refer are available to the member of this inner group. KIZU 21:38, 14 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of the merits of KM's claim, this is not the place to do it. The Japanese Wikipedia needs to be able to solve its own problems through discussion, consensus, relentless edit-warring and flaming. This doesn't really need mediation, though, it needs a consensus on how to work with Japanese copyright law. Tuf-Kat 21:45, May 14, 2004 (UTC)

Progress Bulletins

Mediation regarding the names of various places in and around Poland and Germany has begun.
- Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed has accepted TUF-KAT's request to mediate. One party to the dispute has accepted Ed Poor as Mediator.
  - Mediation on the matter of place names in Central-Eastern Europe has stalled. Any participants interested in resuming the process should contact User:Ed Poor (see Archive 4)

Mediation discussion between Lir and Bcorr has ended unsuccessfully with Lir's posting to the mailing list on March 31, 2004
- Mediation discussion between Lir and sannse has ended unsuccessfully -- sannse (talk) 19:43, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Mediation has ended successfully between GrazingshipIV and Kingturtle on March 31, 2004 with the following message:

Kingturtle,

Thank you for participating, a lot of my concerns have been remedied about you and your actions. The disagreement is in the past and I look forward to having a positive interaction with you in the future.

Bcorr,

Thanks for doing this, I think we accomplished something and this beats the hell out of the other conflict resolution methods. Thanks

-GrazingshipIV

Mediation at the article Charles Finney remains open as one participant has not yet returned to Wikipedia. sannse (talk) 20:20, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

User:172 has declined mediation with User:Sam Spade

User:Lir has requested mediation with User:172. No mediator has yet agreed to mediate in this case.

User:WHEELER has requested mediation with User:172. sannse requested clarification of the situation on 18 Apr 2004, the request was withdrawn 22 Apr 2004 due to later developments. Request archived.