Wikipedia talk:Dispute Resolution Improvement Project/Newsletter

I think it's noteworthy the Mediation Cabal achieved a 100% success rate in the May 2012 analysis. Presumably, this reflects the high quality of volunteers MedCab attracted, who will hopefully continue to offer their services through the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. PhilKnight (talk) 19:45, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My own experiences with wiki, however limited and perhaps extreme, might provide a worthwhile perspective on DR at wiki. They at the very least cover nearly the entire gamut of DR mechanisms available. First, the shear number available for ostensibly aggrieved editors to shop is alarming though perhaps not surprising for something the size of wiki. More importantly, the different rules and makeup of each and every is something which provides a sizable advantage to the party with greater inside familiarity in any kind of dispute. This naturally creates a distinction and discrepancy between the haves vs. have-nots, since the sure-fire way to "win" anything when the decision mechanism is "consensus" is inherent to membership in an aristocracy built via quid pro quo. This further removes the discussion from the technical merits of any matter into the pointless (to the outside) realm of petty politics. This is probably reflected in the survey which shows hardly any difference between widely diverging DR processes, given the depth/level at which the pervasive and influential political mechanism works.

That said, this doesn't mean reform is futile, only that it needs to be targeted to how everything actually works instead of how it's perhaps assumed to work. If the politics is a given, and goal is still quality content, many things can be done in practice to mitigate the influence of the former while still attaining the latter. For example, one idea could be have-nots instructed or otherwise given more effective tools to use against wikicrats, couple of which are detailed in my post here. But more importantly, the simple acknowledgement by those disillusioned by the second of the chasm between content editors in the vast long tail at wiki, and an incestuous self-important inner circle would go a long way. IOW, DR at wiki needs to remember who it's working for and towards, and it's certainly not those who've seemingly made a career of building a bureaucracy. Agent00f (talk) 01:35, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]