I'm a mediator - it's my trade on the project. I'm on the
Mediation Committee and I help coordinate the
Mediation Cabal. Admittedly, I'm not much of an article writer; the articles I do spend significant time on relate to current events in Central and South America.
My only proposal is this: we ought to have better communication between
dispute resolution folks. The chatter between ArbCom and MedCom, for instance, is quite slim. Many of the solutions that ArbCom drafts do not take into consideration the opinion of editors who have experience mediating between parties in content disputes. As a result, we throw people back into the editing environment with a solution that may not work, causing further frustrations. Discretionary sanctions and mentorships have their place, but we should use them only when if we're confident of the result.
Drama ensues when ArbCom hedges, and it can't be in a position to hedge when there's no recourse for a bet gone bad. We have folks on the
soft security side of things who know better than anyone on the project how to judge and handle disputants. We've had a lot of experience.
