Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Coordination Desk

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This is the Coordination Desk of the Mediation Cabal. If problems arise concerning a case or if you simply want help, this is the place to come (though the Mediation Cabal talk page could work, too). If you want things to be more private, you can e-mail one of the coordinators, though visiting us in IRC would be best at the #wikipedia-medcab IRC channel on Freenode. If you have a complaint about a mediator, you can also come here, though things may be best handled privately through e-mailing a coordinator or through IRC.

Archives
Complaints through June 2006 (June 2006 - December 2006

Current Coordinators

Cowman109^Talk
Keitei (talk)

1 Discussions

[edit] Discussions

[edit] Janjua

Hi, can I request help in having a mediation for the article Janjua talk page. A user using sock puppets keeps deleting sourced material. Can you help in resolving the dispute on the talk page which is escalating into abuse after the user in question has been answered with references and sources. I fear this may require an arb com eventually..... Thanks for the help in anticipation and happy holidays in the mean time :-) --Raja 17:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Hm, I can't quite pinpoint the dispute by glancing over the article and its talk page, but nonetheless the best way to ask for help from informal mediators would be by following the directions here. I hope that helps! Cowman109^Talk 21:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 2006-10-17 appropriateness of Maomé.jpg in Muhammad

This mediation has been inactive since 11 December; the mediator's User page says he has retired. --SteveMcCluskey 15:12, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

What should we do now?Proabivouac 01:57, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Well it seems that things have indeed stalled in the mediation, and it is probably confusing for a new mediator to jump into a case where someone else has already done a lot of work - if you feel that informal mediation may still benefit you, I would recommend filing a new request for mediation just so a new mediator could start with a clean slate to work from, otherwise I would recommend the Wikipedia:Mediation committee for formal mediation. Cowman109^Talk 03:12, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2006-12-17 Leeds United A.F.C

Hi, I know people are busy over the Xmas period, but is anyone on the mediation team picking up this issue? Thanks! Coopuk 11:09, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Well there is no 'team' exactly, as anyone could volunteer to try to help out. A better place to request for help would be Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal, however, so it has a wider audience. Cowman109^Talk 05:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What to do when one party deletes the case?

At first glance, Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/User:Lucky 6.9 reverting his own Talk page appeared to be a low hanging fruit like the cases which I had closed that day. (Those were requested by newbies who let me close their cases quietly, after I talked with them privately.) However, this case showed a pattern of unusual behavior by the requestee. So I took it as a regular mediation case. I asked the requestee to accept me as a mediator. The requestee replied with “WTF???”, deleted the case and blocked the requestor indefinitely. I brought this up on WP:ANI, but instead of undeleting the case, people there started bashing the one admin who said he would investigate the case, and he apparently gave in to peer pressure. There were other parties in the same situation as the original requestor, but only one of them spoke up on WP:ANI. The case has been archived now. (I wrote a more detailed description in reply to a question here.) My questions are:

When is a mediator a mediator? Only when they is accepted by all parties?
Should a mediator remain neutral under all circumstances? - more specifically:
When the requestor gets blocked without appropriate explanation, should the mediator continue investing the case? If so, should the mediator speak for the silenced requestor?
What to do when one party deletes the case?
Does the fact that everybody ignores a request to undelete a mediation case mean that nobody takes the Mediation Cabal seriously? Should we do something about it?

— Sebastian 16:33, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, that page appears to be a special circumstance as Lucky has been harassed by such trolls lately. But nonetheless:

It's hard to get a definitive answer as there is no set procedure for the Mediation Cabal. Medcab is a very informal process and some mediators might just jump right into trying to solve the problem and others may try to first gain individual acceptance by those involved in the case. The idea is basically that Medcab is a group of volunteers who can try to help with most issues requiring some sort of dispute resolution without the fear of the binding resolution of arbcom, and it's more relaxed than the Mediation Committee.
I feel that there are, as I said before, special circumstances where neutrality becomes an issue such as if the case is not exactly suitable for mediation for one reason or another, and at times there may be mediation cases where all people want is a third opinion. If that is the case, if it is made clear that the mediator is no longer a neutral party, I personally think it's fine that they act in whatever way seems proper. Another note would be policy - if one editor's edits that are being disputed simply contradict policy, such as verifiability or no original research, the mediator should of course point this out if it is clear that mediation is unnecessary where one user is clearly in the wrong while not insulting the user either in order to keep up the positive environment.
For this case in particular, I'd say let the ANI report takes its course. From the looks of things the user who filed it was indeed a sockpuppet of an account trolling Lucky 6.9, so this case seems outside of what the Mediation Cabal should be dealing with anyway unless it proves the user was acting in good faith. We're not advocates, you must remember, but we're meant to be mediators.
It would be best to consult with the deleting administrator, but in this case things seem fine. Sometimes cases in general may be deleted, I believe. For example, one time I deleted a case concerning a biography of a living person as the mediation case was showing up in google search results at the top of their name. It does make me hesitate that a party in this case deleted the case himself, as I would personally prefer administrator actions concerning oneself done by an uninvolved administrator, but from the ANI report, Lucky's actions seemed fine.
The Mediation Cabal does indeed have no higher authority. I certainly hope we are taken seriously as we had handled pretty much the entire influx of mediation requests for quite some time until the Mediation Committee got back on its feet. The administrators involved in the ANI report though have access to the deleted history, and looking at it myself, while at a glance it seems fine, the discussion on the ANI report does clear a lot of things up.

I hope that clears things up, as well! Cowman109^Talk 17:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply! This was not what I was hoping for, but I can live with it. — Sebastian 04:52, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why is my case still listed under "needing mediators"?

I accepted it several days ago and I just did a hard refresh, but it still shows on Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases under the first headline. Did I overlook anything, or is there a flaw in the software? — Sebastian 04:52, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

The bot that updates the lists runs very erratically. --Ideogram 05:18, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - that's it! Until now it always was very fast, so I forgot the notice over the list that says "Automatic listing of new cases to this list may have a delay of several days". — Sebastian 05:46, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dina - the Ecole Polytechnique Massacre article

I applied for a mediator on Jan 1 but no one from Wikipedia has responded. Dina, at the Ecole Polytechnique Massacre article, is abusing her power and removing many of the changes I have made in this article, making it extremely biased. She has so-called editors on her side who are unwilling to consider other perspectives, even though they know it must be true, that the man. Marc Lepine, got a raw deal in society as a working class man. Dina, the Wikipedia admin in charge, apparently, is going to prevent me from making any changes at all pretty soon, so I need someone to step in on this one. What happened? What kind of organization is this Wikipedia? 81.76.91.141 10:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Case 2006-10-27 Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority

I am somewhat disappointed with the lack of assistance I received on the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapit Transit Authority cabal case. While I recognize that this is a volunteer organization, the mediator assigned to my case, Stifle did not offer any mediation. Prior to his acceptance of the case, the parties involved had all made clear our positions and arguments on the matter. I was infact waiting for him to make comments/suggestions to move the discussion past the sticking point and reach compromise, but instead he said nothing and closed the case after one week for inactivity. In addition a second Cabal case had been opened, but when it was closed, the opener of the second case Amazingracer was not invited to the first case (he was not on the original list of parties). I expressed my frustration at the closing of the case without sufficient assistance from the mediator here, and Stifle re-opend the case but still as of now has not provided any additional assistance.

Ultimately the one user holding the position against the rest of us (Kokayi) appears to have disappeared. I am not sure how to proceed, but there were several things he wrote in the article which I would like to revise/remove. Since he doesn't appear to be actively editing should we just ignore his former objections and proceed? Biomedeng 14:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure of the specifics, but it looks like that Kokayi hasn't edited since November.. were they the only party that had an objection to something? If that is so, then there shouldn't be anything holding you back from making an edit to the page. I'll look over the talk page of the article and see if I can help out of anything else shows up, but at the moment it looks like nothing would be wrong with making edits that only one user objected to if the user is no longer around... just in case, making note on the talk page of the edits you intend to make maybe a day at least before making them to make sure there are no objections would be a good first step, and then things can work from there. Cowman109^Talk 21:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Yes Kokayi was the only one on the other side of the argument. I'll follow your suggestion about making a note on the talk page. Should I just close the cabal case? I again would like to express my frustration with the lack of mediation I received. Biomedeng 15:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll handle the closing of the case, don't worry about that. I'll see if I can add a few more guidelines for mediators that explicitly give examples of when cases should be closed and how people should go about doing that to prevent further issues with communication in the future. Cowman109^Talk 17:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please Stop This Person From Lying About Me!!!

Fresheneesz posted the following: "remove link avidor obviously put there under an anon IP)"[1]. It's not true. Fresheneesz[2][3] should not be permitted to accuse me of doing things I have not done...Especially when I am no longer editing anything...Avidor 23:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Um, this isn't really the place for this... you should either speak with him about it or try an RFC or some sort of dispute resolution, but the Coordination desk is for issues within the mediation cabal.. Cowman109^Talk 02:29, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-01-04 Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism

This mediation case was closed by the Mediator: Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-01-04 Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism. The mediator, User:Alan.ca, deleted all the evidence presented when he closed the case.

Many people went to great effort to record the reasons for their decision on the question of whether to participate in the mediation or not. Now the reasons have been removed, giving a very different impression for the mediation record than the reality of why the users declined to participate. In this case, this may be important information as there is an ongoing Arbitration case that references this mediation and involves almost all of the participants, including the one who requested the mediation. I question whether this normal procedure as cases that have been closed still remain available for viewing uncensored and for referencing, for example Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-11-03 Starwood Festival.

Is this standard procedure for the Mediator to delete all comments when a case is closed?

Sincerely, Mattisse 21:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Note - Here's the diff for Alan.ca's deletion of the discussion: [4]. If you look at the history, you'll also see that Alan.ca reconfigured the discussion at an earlier stage to move two responses to his statements to the bottom of the page [5], which, while not as serious as deleting everyone's statements, did confuse things a bit and made it seem that those responses were directed not to him, but to other contributors to the discussion. ~ Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 21:45, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Note Responding parties declined the mediation process, but proceeded with attacks against the requestor on the mediation page. As the requestor was not afforded the opportunity of an informal mediation at MedCab, I removed the comments by the respondents from the MedCab page. I, however, did afford the respondents the opportunity to state, in summary form, that they had declined mediation. This summary was left intact when the case was closed. Alan.ca 08:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Note Jefferson Anderson, the party requesting the medication process, also did not sign acceptance of mediation as you requested he do. Since he became the subject of a Checkuser request in an Arbitration case on the same subject as the Mediation, he has not posted under the Jefferson Anderson user name. However, you left his version intact on the mediation request and appear not to have AGF for any of the other parties expressing views in the mediation request -- not a good sign for a mediator. If you look at Jefferson Anderson's contributions, you will see that his last day of posting (January 12) was spent in harassing a person added to the Arbitration until other users stepped in to stop him. Sincerely, Mattisse 13:45, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template completion

Hi, I have been mediating a few cases here and I often notice requestors do not complete the template fields for article, requestor, parties. Should they be completing this section? If we would like them to complete it we may have to consider modifying the instructions as it seems very few are understanding it is their responsibility. Alan.ca 08:12, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

That's fine. As a suggestion, use a edit summary that shows you're not a party to the case. "Template update: I am not a party to this case." might work well. ~Kylu (u|t) 05:49, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Excellent suggestion Kylu, how do we go about changing the instructions in the new submission template? Alan.ca 15:29, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm using the following abbreviation now, MTU: to represent MedCab Template Update. Maybe we should establish some templates for user pages. Does anyone have a better edit summary suggestion? Alan.ca 15:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
- Well, we want the process to be as simple as possible - lots of times we have requesters who aren't too familiar with all the wikicode (or whatever the term for all that is). It isn't and probably shouldn't be necessary for requesters to add that information. I think the main important one would be the tiny part about who is mediating a case. I'm up to any suggestions, of course, and anyone else is welcome to throw in their two cents/pounds/yen/rubles. Perhaps this could be plopped on Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal instead for that? And I admit I'm kinda confused about the confusion of someone being a party if they edit the case page - the Mediation Cabal is not like the Arbitration Committee in that you would be added to the party list if you edit the case page. Cowman109^Talk 16:19, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mediation Cabal Coordinators

At the moment, the active coordinators are:

Cowman109 (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves)
Keitei (talk • contribs)

I'm moving to "inactive coordinator" for a bit to concentrate on article writing. I expect that there won't be any situations requiring me to "tie break" between them, but if one arises, they're welcome to leave a note on my talkpage: I have a RSS feed for the page.

If workload demands it, they may decide to replace me completely with others. Please don't give them a hard time, guys. :) ~Kylu (u|t) 05:49, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your assistance at MedCab Kylu, good luck with your edits! Alan.ca 15:30, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Process for adding balancing view or neutral view in Mediation Cabal case ?.

I tried to edit the entry for Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2007-01-23_Killed_in_Action to at least balance up the claims e.g. view history at, [6] but this was reverted with claims that this was not the truth and it was vandalism. The original cabal request was posted with claim in the edit summary claiming I am an "anonymous user". As I am a registered user with hundreds of edits under my belt as this case I feel is not filed in good faith. As the claims stand it is also shot through with what I'd call personal attacks. Unless the case is presented in a neutral way, I feel that there is a "first-mover advantage" which works against resolving this situation fairly. That this mediation cabal case has been picked up by a low edit count editor I am uncertain how they will refactor the case summary (through looking at their contribs). Thus how do I get a more neutral case summary before accepting mediation ? Do we simply consider the mediation case as an article and edit it or do we wait for the mediator to refactor and then accept on that basis ?. Ttiotsw 06:21, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Well it would probably be inappropriate to alter his case summary as the submitter was clearly upset about it, so I would suggest simply responding in the discussion section where the mediator who decides to take the case can see it. Cowman109^Talk 21:35, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question

While i have retired is anyone going to have problems if I mediate a few cases. G e o. Talk to me 03:14, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I think we'd rather you didn't. --Ideogram 14:10, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unacted upon case

--K. Scott Bailey 16:55, 23 February 2007 (UTC)This case was submitted yesterday, but has yet to be acted upon, or even changed from "new" status.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2007-02-22_KarlBunker_Issuing_Improper_Warnings

It takes some time for mediators to open a case, often several days or even weeks. You have to be patient. --Ideogram 22:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh. I was under the impression--per statements on the main Cabal page--that it would be set to "open" within 15 minutes or something like that.K. Scott Bailey 01:09, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

No, it appears on the list of new cases within 15 minutes or so. --Ideogram 01:12, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What to do if one party accommodates to mediation and the other pushes even harder?

In Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal#Success conditions and mediation strategies, it appeared that I have a problem which other mediators don't seem to have. Could an experienced mediator please take a look at it? Thank you! — Sebastian 18:43, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re-opening a closed case

I attempted to step in to help out with the Zeno's Paradoxes case from last December after the first mediator was unavailable. Unfortunately, the user who brought the case, Steaphen (talk • contribs), decided to leave Wikipedia for a time and did not respond to my message. Ideogram decided to close the case, a decision with which I concurred. However, I received an e-mail from Steaphen yesterday saying that he would be willing to give mediation a chance. Is there any problem or objection to me re-opening the case? Additionally, if the case is reopened, I could probably use a second mediator on it; there are quite a few interested parties and it might get a little hairy. Thanks in advance for your help. --JaimeLesMaths ^(talk!edits) 00:57, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Any case can be reopened at any time by anyone, as long as all the participants are willing. --Ideogram 16:20, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I've reopened the case. --JaimeLesMaths ^(talk!edits) 02:21, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

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