The decay continues......now it's bye bye MedCom

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CrowsNest
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The decay continues......now it's bye bye MedCom

Post by CrowsNest » Sat Oct 13, 2018 2:46 am

Next waypoint on the chart of Wikipedia's long slow decline, is a proposal to get rid of MedCom, or Mediation Committee. This is a non-binding dispute resolution process where, if all parties agree, content disputes could be hashed out in a structured way, overseen by mediators, taking weeks if deemed necesaary. The reason is simple, it hasn't accepted a case since 31 July 2017. Prior to that, 2015 was the last time they saw any serious workload, and even that was just five cases. One followed in 2016, and two in 2017.

The Wikipedians are laughably claiming the reason MedCom is no longer seeing any work, is because other methods are now adequately resolving disputes. As if. The truth is way darker. MedCom is a throwback to a more innocent time, when people thought Wikipedia dispute resolution would be about deep deliberation and strength of argument, and a strong Administrator corps would ensure fair play.

If it was ever really the case, Wikipedia Administrators are nowadays often the stupidest, least patient, least deliberative and even least honest people in the room. No surprise then, that the majority of ordinary editors have taken their lead as far how they participate in dispute resolution. In that environment, they have nothing to gain and everything to lose from agreeing to mediation.

People are still requesting mediation of course, but it does them no good when the majority of parties refuse to participate (Rule 5), or the minority that refuses represents a major viewpoint (Rule 6), or the dispute is being litigated in another less adequate forum (Rule 8), which are all reasons a case can be rejected.

Obviously it does no harm to keep it as an option even if it isn't being used. Unsurprisingly, the Wikipedians are finding a bunch of nonsense ways to claim this is not the case. It gives false hope, apparently. Quite.

With the editor population depleted to just those who can stand to be in that environment, or worse, revel in it, the Wikipedia of today doesn't do slow and deliberative, or mutually respectful cooperation. It does fast and dirty. Whatever gets the few remaining drones back to the coalface as fast as possible. They'll even execute one as an example to the others of the futility of expecting due process, if need be.

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Re: The decay continues......now it's bye bye MedCom

Post by LargelyRecyclable » Sat Oct 13, 2018 4:48 am

CrowsNest wrote:MedCom is a throwback to a more innocent time, when people thought Wikipedia dispute resolution would be about deep deliberation and strength of argument, and a strong Administrator corps would ensure fair play.


Bingo.

Editors fall into two camps, those who know how to leverage the internal mechanisms of Wikipedia and those who don't. Those who don't won't seek mediation because they don't know how it all works, or that it even exists. In the off chance they end up there the chances are they are dealing with someone who knows the system well enough to say "no thanks." If the editor knows the system from the start they will leverage the networking they have done over the years to have their "opponent" disposed of at ANI or ArbCom.

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Re: The decay continues......now it's bye bye MedCom

Post by sashi » Sat Oct 13, 2018 2:13 pm

It would be interesting to read comment by someone who knew the history of the Mediation Cabal --> Arbcom --> Arbcom + Mediation Committee --> [s]Arbcom[/s]

Most outside observers aren't too impressed with ArbCom... they appear, via NYB in particular, to be part of the en.wp communications arm.

Isn't Brad a New Yorker, too? (§) ^^

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Re: The decay continues......now it's bye bye MedCom

Post by Kumioko » Sat Oct 13, 2018 3:39 pm

Eliminating things like this is a sign of the atrophy of the project that's for sure. The less editors there are to maintain the projects, the less need there is for something like this. It's the same with the WikiProjects. There used to be hundreds of active WikiProjects working to collaborate and build up Wikipedia and now there are only a handful of active ones.

The Arbitration committee is even reducing the number of people and pretty soon my guess is that will go away as well.

Hasten the day!
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Re: The decay continues......now it's bye bye MedCom

Post by Graaf Statler » Sat Oct 13, 2018 5:32 pm

But what will be left, Kum? The Dutch community has managed to switch off MoiraM trol bot (Not to mix up with the American gender Moira.) and has switched the Ymnes/Mdd copy past article factory off, but still they have to listen to the Meta fox hunters as we have seen in the last Paul Bedson arbcom message.
And even then, if arbcom break free or disappear, what will be left? Because as the situation is, the Dutch arbcom is under the Duch arbitragewet, so is the Dutch wikipedia not independent, and that can have huge legal consequences for WMF.

What is left if arbcom leave is a project what conflicts in every way with the European regulation and what nobody can and will fix. Dimi, our man in Brussel once wrote we go underground on his Twitter, but who will be interested in a illegal border blaster? And how long will it take before some European judge puts them on black? And don't have the illusion the English wiki is safe, because of the "European part" what is in it.
Dimi is speaking of a "reality gap", what has to be fixed, but in my opinion is there a huge problem where I have no answer for because every "fix" should undermine the complete European legal system, and is that there "reality gap". What is not gonna happen, the EP was clear about that.

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Re: The decay continues......now it's bye bye MedCom

Post by Kumioko » Sun Oct 14, 2018 12:42 am

Nah. The problem is that Arbcom really doesn't do anything now other than provide a fake sense of having something in place. Whats the point of having an organization to go to that reviews bans and blocks if they always say now.

What is the point of having a group make determinations about problems if they make the process so complicated and the results so hazardous no one wants to even use it. Arbcom has become about as useful as having Jimbo as an appellate point of contact. The last time he used his admin tools Bush Jr. was still the president.
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Re: The decay continues......now it's bye bye MedCom

Post by Graaf Statler » Sun Oct 14, 2018 9:59 am

Arbcom, the Dutch arbcom is a Who Stole the Tarts court out of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Arbcom is a part of the problems and one big katalysator, and for sure if arbcom is involved you know a conflict escalate total. And the biggest fool or troll find his right there. Arbcom is able with one message to generate a conflict what will last for years, and cost dozens users.
Arbcom is complete corrupt, I have posted a picture of five arb's who had mute me partying on the new years party of WMNL. In the Dutch sector you can find it. And on Augies board the insane and complete corrupt cases against me in advantage of the complete lunatic Ymnes with the help of Natuur12. But there it is not about. The sooner the blow themself the better it is, and in that way arbcom did a fantastic job.

It is about a lousy American foundation what doesn't respect the laws and regulations of my country with a big mouth, there it is about. A arrogant foundation who things we are waiting for there trash and gender bull. Well, I have news for them, we are not.

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Re: The decay continues......now it's bye bye MedCom

Post by CrowsNest » Tue Oct 16, 2018 6:57 pm

The proposer said this on Wikipediocracy....
It’s a typically depressing conversation of an entrenched WP process that has outlived its usefulness, but I knew it would be going in.

What’s ridiculous is the way it’s few adherents are going to great lengths to make it sound like the last five years or so are just a temporary “slump” and it will suddenly be relevant again any second now. All I am proposing is that we admit the obvious, that it is redundant and irrelevant. I didn’t even get into how deeply flawed it is otherwise because that isn’t the point but it would be equally valid to propose closing it because it is entirely out of step with how WP is supposed to work. For example:
-The committee decides on its own membership
-They pick their “chairperson” in an entirely opaque process on their own privileged mailing list
-They wrote their own policy on what they do and how they do it

In short, they are operating entirely outside of community input or supervision.
But again, I didn’t make this focus because they don’t actually do anything anyway.
The good people of Wikipediocracy have not invited him to admit what is actually obvious - Wikipedia has no need for mediation, because everyone there is a fucking asshole. Ever tried to mediate with a fucking asshole? Impossible.

He's making a big deal out of how the people in the committee are self-selecting, without asking himself why nobody else on Wikipedia wants to do the job (he is clearly trying to suggest this is an evil cabal, when clearly it is merely a case of these being the only people who are still stupidly assuming mediation is a thing that can be used on Wikipedia).

It makes me laugh how these shitbirds are allowed to swan into Wikipediocracy and make claims like everything they do is done with community supervision (and so presumably consent). Well, who the fuck is supervising Fram? Or Bishonen? Or IRC? Fucking nobody that I can see.

There are people all over Wikipedia who are operating to their own rules, selecting their own leaders, doing their own thing and fuck the community if they disagree. They're just not stupid enough to admit it. Many are Administrators.

I say good luck to anybody looking to provide "input" to Wikipedians that they do not want to hear. An instant no warning indefinite block is the least you can expect. Community input (in the form of policy) says that's a bad thing. I don't see this shitbag inputting that to the fucking assholes.

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Re: The decay continues......now it's bye bye MedCom

Post by ericbarbour » Fri Oct 19, 2018 4:29 am

CrowsNest wrote:The good people of Wikipediocracy have not invited him to admit what is actually obvious - Wikipedia has no need for mediation, because everyone there is a fucking asshole. Ever tried to mediate with a fucking asshole? Impossible.

You got it. Mediation was a joke, and little used or even noticed, since it started in 2003. (The editor who started it was banned in 2007 as a "sockpuppet". lol.)
In a VERY early thread on Wikipediocracy I said the following:
"The Mediation system is a joke. A JOKE. Utterly useless, in fact worse than useless. Disputes brought before MedCom usually devolve into an ugly editwar, whereupon admins run around harassing and blocking, which often leads to arbitration being forced on the disputants. Worse than useless, because it gives outsiders the misapprehension that Wikipedians "care" about avoiding conflict and chaos."

"Did you know that the longest-serving Medcom member is that little shit AGK? Since 2007, in fact. That is one guy I would NOT want mediating anything. He is constitutionally incapable of negotiating settlements or controlling the juvenile anger of others -- he can't even control his OWN juvenile anger.

"Note the requests for mediation. Nearly all of them are rejected, routinely. What good is that?

"And look at the list of former "mediators". A mixed bag of:

"good, reasonable and honest people (Rosenzweig, Bcorr, Sannse, Wordscribe)
"incompetent bureaucrats (Anthere and WJBscribe, of course!)
"and complete assholes who came to Wikipedia purely to use it as a wargame (Daniel, Deskana, Essjay, KillerChihuahua, Ryan Postlethwaite, Will Beback, and now that little prick Roem).

"Does that sound like a "mediation committee" to you?? Would you like to be "mediated" by the likes of Will Beback or KillerChihuahua?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... cted_cases
And THAT is why so many real disputes end up in front of the ever-comical Arbcom.

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Re: The decay continues......now it's bye bye MedCom

Post by CrowsNest » Wed Nov 14, 2018 11:17 am

Beeblebrox wrote:It only took one entire month to come to the perfectly obvious answer that never should have even been debated, but as with any entrenched process there are always those who will come up with any reason the can to keep it. it seemed like a lot of the opposition was emotionally invested in keeping it open whether it actually did anything or not.
Firstly, bravo for a classic example of an asshole Administrator in full flight.

Second, let's take a moment to celebrate his complete inability to see the consequences of this attitude that if something on Wikipedia isn't being used, it has to be discarded. This mindset will be crucial in the destruction of Wikipedia. Now a there is even less likelihood that anyone who has skills in mediation, will see a role for them in the project.

Editors deep in the mire of complex and multi-party content disputes, now only have the likes of Beeblebrox and the other AN/I thugs to assist them in getting to a workable solution.

Translation: Hey, good faith editors of Wikipedia, YOUR ARE SO FUCKING SCREWED.

If your haven't realised it already, escape is your only option. The building is on fire, anything of value can and will be recovered, but the world really doesn't need people who stayed until the bitter end, trying to rearrange the furniture. Or rather, in this case, see the furniture as fuel for the fire. Their inability to find a proper place in the world of knowledge, is why they became squatters at Wikipedia in the first place.

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