Dispute resolution (essay)

See en:Wikipedia:Conflict resolution for more on the various steps suggested on the english wikipedia.

Dispute resolution is the process of resolving disputes between parties. It includes litigation, arbitration, mediation, conciliation, and many types of negotiation.

The below page focuses in dispute resolution through mediation. As a reminder, mediation is the activity in which a neutral third party (called the mediator) assists two or more parties in order to help them achieve an agreement.

The mediation differs slightly from the conciliation in this that the parties seldom, if ever, actually directly face/talk together in the presence of the conciliator.

On the contrary to real life, most wikipedia editors never meet physically. Most of the disputes occur on talk or article pages, though they can spread on user page, mailing lists, irc... as well (see forest fire.

On the contrary of real life, people in conflict can't meet each other around a beer, or for a good hit and run session. For the most agressive ones, this will often result in breach of civility, or edit war.

Given the collective nature of the project, most disputes have a great impact on the whole wikipedia community. Not only do disputes tend to spread on many pages, but some editors join the fun, depending on their own opinion on the matter, or their personal relationship with one or both of the disputants, further fueling the crisis.

Steps in dispute resolution

There are basically five steps in conflict resolution

Stopping the fighting

In real life, the first level of dispute resolution is fundamentally a physical response to the conflict. Stopping the fight is meant to separates people and to keep them from hurting each other. On Wikipedia, it will essentially focus on keeping people from hurting themselves through verbal attacks, and preventing them from hurting the content (page protection or temporary blocking).

Examples of verbal attacks

• Use of loaded language (words with a very heavy emotional charge, such as nazi)
• Name calling (nazipedia)
• Call for a ban
• Lies
• Ad hominem : If you were not so stupid, you would have no problem seeing my point of view
• Strawman (attacking an exagerated or caricatured version of the other, for example, exagerating so much a position, that a comparison can be made between Hitler and an opponent)

Settling the issues

At that level, the resolution engages the mind. It involves from the mediator a logical analysis of the underlying interests of the parties, and how they relate to the conflict-generating issues between them.

That is the article fix !

Most of the time, mediators do not seek to go any further, as they are happy they fixed the article. In all appearances, the conflict is solved. However, it often is not, which will be often proved when a similar type of conflict erupt between the editors 2 weeks later.

Resolving the underlying reasons that generated those issues

Unless resolved, these issues will continue to generate the same type of issues.

In short, do not fix the article, fix the people !

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A check list for the mediator

• Stay calm, and write in a quiet way
• Ask disputants to explain why they are here
• Explain that you would like to hear each side of the story
• Let the person vent frustrations
• If on irc, do not break the discussion unless necessary
• do not give advice
• do not take sides
• do not make judgment, do not blame or make someone look ridicule
• do not solve their problem for the disputants, let them solve it themselves
• Establish some ground rules, such as no name calling
• Practice active listening : the mediator rephrases what the disputant said to the disputant himself. He just says to the disputant what he understood the disputant said. He may add some summaries, such as "you felt angry/frustrated/confused when UserA wrote that". Active listening has several interests :
  • the disputant cools down when he makes the effort to listen to you
  • the disputant can check that you really understood what he meant. If not, he may rephrase. This avoid misunderstandings.
  • the disputant will likely open himself, and say more. Sometimes, when people are in conflict, they can contradict each other, denying what the opponent say. This will tend to make them silent, but if they feel someone is listening to their concern, they will explain more what they think, feel and wish.
• To help the disputants, summarize what has been said, clarify, restate information

Ask questions, such as

• Explain to me the history and the facts of the situation ::this should be based on facts, not on opinions -> user A wrote I was an lier;
• Tell me what you want to achieve here in the mediation ::the disputant is positioning himself; Does he want just to have a link or an opinion included in an article, or does he wishes to get apologies from another user is just a different business:
• Tell me what happened and what effect it had on you

Let the user vent his unhappiness. If the user was told he is a lier, what did he feel when that happen ?;

• Tell me what you think should be done today

Even if the goal is for example to settle the issue of a link being placed on an article or not, perhaps the user first want to solve first the issue of having been called a lier;

• Tell me first how you think we should go about resolving the problems that we are dealing with

Here, you ask to the editor to suggest a resolution procedure;