Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal

WT:MEDCAB

New sections at bottom, please.

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Chairing duties required at WP:IDTF (Ireland disambiguation task force)

I'm not sure this is the best place to put this, but what we don't want to is put up a template for a format MEDCAB dispute resolution. We do need help however.

We are looking for someone who:

Is a neutral party who not been involved with the 'Ireland naming' issue before on Wikipedia, or has substantially edited on Irish political matters. Minor declared edits should not be a problem.

Someone with a neutral and dispassionate view to the idea of change.

Someone who has no particularly strong views on the outcome either way (although I am sure we all respect it as hard to be completely NPOV on this matter).

Someone who accepts this could be mostly 'donkey work', but accepts that dispute resolution skills could possibly come into play - although this is not what is being requested: we essentially need someone willing to chair certain matters and help move things along.

To begin with, we need someone to chair an 'input session' from all parties involved. We have not yet fully agreed how it will work, and all suggestions are welcome. We respect your time, and any desire you might have to pass on the mantle. I am making this MEDCAB request with the backing of a only a few editors (although around 8 have given their support for a neutral party's involvement), but nobody has expressed disapproval over making this request, so I have gone ahead. Presumably, with a neutral chair, others will become more involved.

State of play (and a personal note):

I created this taskforce as an WP:bold act. I didn't poll for it, as people were objecting to more debate on this matter at the time (there had been a number of failed polls for change at Republic of Ireland and WP:IMOS), and although I knew there would be some opposition alongside the support for an unpolled taskforce at this time, I didn't foresee the quick MfD that happened: the MfD is still running, although this is very much towards 'keep' at this stage. A significant support is there, and some editors have moved towards accepting it under various discussed terms (I have halted the opening 10-vote proposal, for example, to dispel fears of forum shopping). However, people are clearly not happy with one partisan person leading the way, hence the various discussion (including some on my talk page) which has lead to this request.

Related main articles:

Please sign below if interested. Regards, --Matt Lewis (talk) 23:23, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

* Comment: The discussion on the best way forward is still ongoing with a neutral editor one of the possibilities. Some of us think that an editor with knowledge of the issues (in a fraught area), but who has respect within the group and is willing to be neutral, would be a better idea (and thought we had expressed that clearly). Such a person may not be found but there is one candidate. If a mediator is brought in they should be free to structure the process themselves and the terms probably need to be agreed by the various editors involved. Best to wait a few days and then see what happens. If there is no "internal" candidate then (with some alternations to the brief) then this request would have my full support. --Snowded TALK 23:36, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That 'candidate', User:BrownHairedGirl, suggested a neutral party herself, and has not contibuted to the debate for a few days now. I have said many times that I find her stated initial negativity towards change, her stated bias towards the status quo, and also (now I must mention it) her previous involvement with involved editors like Sarah777 and Irish issues in general (not to mention that she has suggested a neutral party is needed, and has not put herself forward) make her an excellent contributor, but completely unsuitable as a chair. Surely these things have to be chaired by neutrals. --Matt Lewis (talk) 23:50, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have you gotten anyone yet? I'd take it on. I've never even been to Ireland let alone edited an Ireland topic here ever. fr33kman ^{t - c} 14:01, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for mediator school

Hi all! I wondered what people thought to the idea of a new dispute resolution and mediator school? I have started a draft of some stuff here. It is only a draft suggestion but I think a place to start from and to at least show the idea. If people wanted to take a look and then comment here (or there) of the validity of the idea and/or the content of the school, that'd be great. Thanks! :-) fr33kman -s- 01:35, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Added user talk links above.) fr33kman -s- 17:14, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Moving longer disputes away from WT:MOS

We recently had a long dispute over recommending against curly quotes (“”) in article-space at WT:MOS#Quotation marks and quote formatting. We didn't reach any resolution, but we stopped anyway, because long contentious arguments tend to interfere with the noticeboard and help functions of that page, and it didn't look like we were getting anywhere. I recommended people take it up at some dispute resolution page, but that didn't happen. I'm scratching my head; I think it would be a mistake to bring it up again at WT:MOS, but this isn't just about making editors happy, it's about making it easy for information to flow in and out of Wikipedia and making it easy to find it. (To pick out one point of many, most people won't register that they saw curly quotes, and if they try to find what they just read in curly quotes, they'll search for straight quotes, and not find it.) I'm asking for suggestions on which dispute resolution forum to use. I'm putting the change to curly quotes in this month's WP:Update; it wasn't in WP:MOS before, at least recently. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 20:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, nevermind, all seems to be well at the moment. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 03:15, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]