[WikiEN-l] Re: mediation committee - being arbitrator as well as mediator

Sun Feb 6 10:21:03 UTC 2005

Rebecca a écrit:
> On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 09:13:02 +0100, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>>Our new mediator, Improv, is willing to make things move, and planning a
>>meeting with a whole lot of things to discuss. Planning a meeting on irc
>>is tough; so possibly, some of these things can be discussed on the new
>>mailing list ?
>>Thanks to him anyway :-)
> 
> 
> That's not a bad idea, but note that some of us who've spent a lot of
> time thinking about some of the problems with mediation, such as
> sannse and I (who've both written fairly long responses on the
> matter), are no longer mediators, and thus wouldn't have access to the
> list - whereas we would probably be able to attend an IRC chat.
> 
> -- ambi

The problem is that it seems organising an irc session seems VERY difficult.

On the other hand, what I can see is that currently, mails are sent to 
people who resigned from the committee and perhaps do not care at all of 
these mails, while possibly other persons are not reached. In sending 
the recent mails, I also noticed an adress not valid anymore. Finally, 
each time you want to send a mail, you need to dig in all email 
adresses, which is frankly very boring to do (to the point you may end 
up not writing at all).

Hence, my suggestion for a redirection mail address.
Finally, a mailing list was set. Fine as well.

Note Ambi, that if you are no more part of the committee, normally you 
should not receive any more mails. So, between not receiving mails and 
not be able to read archives from a mailing list, there is not much much 
difference :-)

In any case, I *think* that this list should not be used for mediation 
cases themselves, for which it is really best that privacy is seriously 
ensured. Any mediation case should only be discussed with personal mail 
adresses, NOT mailing lists.

This list should rather be for organisational discussions and the rule 
of thumb would be "do not say anything on it, that you would be severaly 
unhappy if it becomes public".

Now ambi, I'll be frank.
First, Sannse and you are not the only ones who have given a lot of 
thoughts on the matter. I already mentionned how pissed off I was that 
all the comments we made after the creation of the mc have been dumped 
when the forum was closed. My memories of that time was basically taht 
dozens of hours of thinking and typing have just been put in the trash. 
The rest of discussions were on private mails, so are lost just as well.
And when I say pissed off, consider it an understatement.

If we set a mailing list, at least, we know the information will NOT be 
lost entirely. We know that new members will be able to read discussions 
afterwards.

Private mails are lost. Forum talks are dumped. Irc logs are not always 
published and restrict the discussion to those available and those with 
irc access. Not everyone unfortunately.

I would not oppose at all if older members of mc were part of these 
discussions and consequently members of this new mailing list. But it 
really depends on what other mediators think of this.

Now, *you* decided to quit the MC. You had the choice. When you were 
elected to be on the AC, you resigned from the MC. I think you should 
consider whether it is wise to be part of the two groups at the same 
time. If you wish to 1) be on the mc mailing list 2) be part of irc 
discussions on the topic, and why not 3) going on mediating between people ?

In this case, you would still be a mediator without being one ? You 
would be a mediator and an arbitrator ?

I think we need to be consistent and separate both activities.

Anthere

PS : if previous mediators now arbitrators still are involved in 
defining what mediation is, should be and how conflicts should be 
approached and fixed, I would love that previous arbitrators, such as 
The Cunctator, still be involved in arbitration as well.