Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Mattisse (talk | contribs) at 16:04, 22 October 2009 (→Statement by Mattisse: reword for accuracy). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

I think the best way forward here is for there to be a delay of a week (during which time Mattisse and everyone else should be patient and wait - with injunctions to enforce that if needed), while her mentors prepare a report for ArbCom on how successful they think things have been so far, and what changes they are proposing to make (they could look at Moni3's proposal, among others, and also suggest changes to who the mentors should be). Once that report is ready, others can comment on it. That will be far more productive than trying to deal with things at a clarification request and have ArbCom voting on different alternatives.

— Carcharoth, Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification#Arbitrator_views_and_discussion

Statements made on Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification#Request_for_clarification:_Wikipedia:Arbitration.2FRequests.2FCase.2FMattisse

Response to Carcharoth by SilkTork

For clarity, Moni3's proposal was a development on Geometry Guy's essay into looking at structuring the process as the advisors had already become aware that there were problems with the reporting - User_talk:Mattisse/Monitoring/Archive_3#Monitoring_goals_and_ideals. I feel it is important to mark this, as the impression being given is that the advisors have not been considering the issues.

My observation of the current process is that confusion is arising because there has been no regulation on who offers Mattisse advice. There appear to be a number of people willing to offer advice, but it is difficult for Mattisse (or myself) to know who to listen to as some of the people trying to assist Mattisse have not been formally recognised by ArbCom or Mattisse. It might assist matters flow more smoothly if people who wish to formally be part of the assisting process be ratified by both Mattisse and ArbCom in advance. Too many voices can create such noise that the right signals get lost.

I also have observed that when people have reported potentially problematic edits by Mattisse that if they have been offended by the edit, their wording can be coloured with their emotion, and that this has caused problems with a side-discussion of the motives of the messenger rather than dealing with the edit in question.

I have also noted that while side-discussions remain in open view that bickering continues even when Mattisse has been admonished for her edit, and she has made no further edits in the arena in question. This is clearly not helpful. The plan is to assist Mattisse become aware of which of her edits are problematic and to guide her away from such editing so she can concentrate on her productive work. The intention of the plan is not to hang Mattisse's dirty washing on the line, or to be a public stocks. Indeed, the less drama the better. People closely involved in issues around Mattisse and Mattisse herself do not respond well to drama, and there is a tendency for things to spiral out of control. The aim should be to deal swiftly and discretely with matters, and then move on - an appropriate record having been made of the incident.

With these views in mind I will comment on Moni3's proposals and offer some of my own.

Moni3's proposals:

1. User:Mattisse/Monitoring is the only place where complaints about Mattisse should be registered.

   Agreed

2. The page should be displayed at the top of Mattisse's talk page, which I believe it is now.

   Agreed

3. Mattisse shall not refactor anyone else's comments to the User:Mattisse/Monitoring page or its talk page. Any of her mentors or Mattisse herself can move comments or complaints from her talk page to User:Mattisse/Monitoring. Any reformatting necessary for the User:Mattisse/Monitoring page or its talk page should be completed by a mentor.

   Not agreed. As the purpose of the plan is to assist Mattisse herself to edit with confidence and without issue, I don't think it would be helpful if someone else edited Mattisse's own subpages on her behalf. Mattisse should have ownership of her own plan, and of the structures she puts in place to assist her with the plan.

4. Assign at least one mentor who has had significant problems with Mattisse's behavior in the past.

   Not agreed. I feel this might cause Mattisse to lose confidence in the plan, and has potential for discussions to become unnecessarily heated

5. The User:Mattisse/Monitoring page shall be archived no less than 7 days after the first post about a complaint.

   Not agreed for reasons given above

6. Adopt the layout created by SandyGeorgia that was moved to User_talk:Mattisse/Monitoring/Editorial_comments as laid out below, and place specific instructions about what is expected from a complainant to the page, from Mattisse, and from the mentors.

   Not agreed as it is too bureaucratic, and with the best will in the world, if someone has been upset by an edit Mattisse has made, they will have difficulty reporting it in a neutral manner - we have already experienced the flack that can result from wording that was felt by the poster to be neutral, but which was received as problematic.

My proposals:

1. Alerts on User:Mattisse/Monitoring should be links to the problematic edits only - no additional comments. If mentors/advisors need more information they are to contact the alerter directly.
2. Once alerts have been dealt with, the alert and any related discussion by the mentors/advisors is archived
3. That an individual should volunteer/be appointed to act as mediator in situations where someone who has a legitimate interest in a problematic edit by Mattisse is not satisfied or is concerned by the response to the edit. I am willing to put myself forward on the understanding that I do not expect to devote time to answering queries from people who are simply curious (I will expand on this if necessary).
4. That only those assigned by Mattisse and ArbCom should refactor or protect subpages set up by Mattisse
5. That only those assigned by Mattisse and ArbCom should offer advice on subpages set up by Mattisse for the purpose of receiving advice

Re monitoring formats by Philcha

There seem to be several parallel sets of discussions, which have little contact with each other: at Clarification#Proposal_for_Newyorkbrad, by Moni3; at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification#Response_to_Carcharoth_2, by SilkTork; one by SandyGeorgia, containing hypothetical examples at User_talk:Mattisse/Monitoring/Editorial_comments#Sample_of_how_proposed_process_would_work and at User_talk:Mattisse/Monitoring/Editorial_comments#Second_sample_of_how_proposed_process_would_work; and one that has grown out of discussions at User_talk:Mattisse/Monitoring#Draft_report_form and User_talk:Mattisse/Monitoring#Proposed_structure. I apologise if I've missed out any other discussions and their contributors. As far as I can see, all are based on a proposal originated by Moni3 on 6 Oct 2009 and still share the major elements, although differences of emphasis have developed and the various discussions have explored various approaches to minising the impact of foreseeable problems. I suggest we need a single place for further discussion of format and procedure, where contributors to the parallel threads can pool ideas.

Response to Carcharoth proposal by RegentsPark

Sounds good to me. The unnerving speed with which the things develop is definitely one of the problems here so a short time out is a good idea anyway but I also ike the idea of compiling a mentor report on how successful the process has (or has not) been and on how the current problems can be better addressed (re the moni3 proposal). --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 02:28, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Response to Carcharoth new proposal

I don't think Moni3's proposal as presented is workable (as discussed here). I believe that a simpler structure, that allows for complaints but restricts judgmental comments about Mattisse's actions from non-mentor editors is a preferable process. Quoting arbcom decisions is, IMO, overly bureaucratic, and suggesting course of actions is likely to be inflammatory. A good example of what should be posted is Unitanode's posting (here) and, IMO, an excellent example of how the process actually worked well (Mattisse got good concrete and actionable advice which she acted upon). This is true despite the fact that the discussion spiraled out of control because of comments from other editors and because Mattisse was too quick to rush to her own defense. If Mattisse can promise not to respond to complaints, and if outside comments can be kept at a distance, this mentorship is both workable and working. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 01:12, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Statement by John Carter

I personally see two weaknesses with the present system. One is that, right now, in a lot of cases, Mattisse's contact with her mentors is more or less limited to comments interchanged away from any of the real "action". To the best of my kowledge, there isn't that much real "regular" contact between her and them. Possibly having Mattisse say what areas she expects to be involved in for a while, even if only in comparatively vague terms if that is as specific as she can be, would make it possible to check to see if there were someone active in that area who would agree to be a mentor with whom she would have regular contact and who would more easly by able to see if any conduct issues arise, might be useful.
Also, there is a bit of a problem in that, right now, Mattisse chose all her mentors. While these are presumably individuals whose word she would trust, it also might produce results which are in a sense unbalanced in her favor. If there would be any way for an outside body to maybe recommend mentors who might in some cases be more directly relevant, which Mattisse could either accept or reject, preferaby only with a good reason, that might help as well.
I too have come to the conclusion that, whatever the intentions, the lack of structure of the current method is problematic. I doubt very seriously ArbCom intends to make this sort of resolution at all standard, given the amount of work and number of people involved, but there might arise the possibility that it wants to take some sort of similar approach regarding another issue later. If that is the case, I might ask them to suspend taking any judgement on Mattisse until we either have a system in place which is workable, and could thus presumably be copied in any similar situations in the future, or it decides that there is no way in which such mentoring is ever likely to work, and suspend it on that basis.

Response to Silk Tork's propsal

I actually like this proposal quite a bit. My one suggestion might be that in addition to the link to the questioned edit of Mattisse the poster might be allowed to indicate which policy or guideline they believe it violates. There is always the possibility that something Mattisse did is questioned by others but not actually in violation of anything, or that a link to only a single statement might not be enough to convey a violation involving more than one edit. In such cases, when the nature of the complaint cannot be simply provided with a single link, I think it would still be a good idea to restrict the editing that can be done by the complainer anyway. In such cases, one of the mentors could converse with the complainant off the page and add material they deem necessary to understand the situation. John Carter (talk) 15:56, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Statement by salix alba

I generally agree with most of the above, and I support the other mentors who have more time to devote to this. With regards to moni's point 3, we have had some problems with refactoring of the page. Generally what seems to happen is that mattisse acts in haste in stressful situations which causes later complications. Generally what we are doing here is trying to slow things things down a bit. Maybe what we would want is "re factoring of the page should only happen with agreement between Matisse and at least one mentor". A seven day archive policy seems a nice simple straight forward policy, exact rules seems to be a good thing here. Maybe three days could be good to quickly close discussions. --Salix (talk): 17:08, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Mattisse

Actually, there was a misimpression that I was doing this, as stated on Geometry guy's talk page and Karanacs has apologized acknowledged to me that she was mistaken for blaming me for archiving or otherwise removing posts from the monitoring page. I only removed posts just before the lockdown of the page by Moni3 as I was attempting to gain control of the page.

Comments from Philcha

I've posted some at User_talk:SilkTork/Report. It might be best to handle discussion there, and show results / consensus here. --Philcha (talk) 18:00, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Report to ArbCom

Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Mattisse closed on 1 July 2009 with this plan approved to govern and guide Mattisse's future editing with the continued assistance of those mentors or advisers mentioned in the plan.

As part of the plan Mattisse created User:Mattisse/Monitoring as a place where mentors/advisers may discuss her behavior and give their advice, as well as any measure that may need to be taken to help Mattisse cope.

In July Mattisse made some comments on the Advisory Council on Project Development - a potentially problematic area. She talked through the issues on her talkpage - and - and aired her views without incident.

At the end of the month Mattisse made this comment which was brought to her attention.

At the start of August Mattisse was challenged, and dealt with the incident in a level headed manner - .

Mattisse was again challenged regarding an edit she made - - and this was also talked through so it didn't spiral out of control.

Another challenge met.

On 28 August Mattisse was blocked for two weeks. The matter was discussed by those named on the plan here, with some discussion on her talkpage.

On 16 September Mattisse requested those named in the plan to watchlist the Monitoring page, after which there was almost daily discussion on how best to use the page in administrating the Plan.

Two incidents have been reported to the Monitoring page and dealt with: User:Mattisse/Monitoring/Archive 1 and User:Mattisse/Monitoring/Archive 2.

A review of these incidents may lead people to different conclusions.

My view is that while Mattisse can be unwise with some of her comments, she is subjected to more scrutiny and criticism that most editors. Much of the drama resulting from her edits comes from people around Mattisse spinning the incidents into conflict.

Specific problems

• Too much conflicting advice from people not listed as being part of the plan.
• Over-reaction by various people - including Mattisse's own advisors.
• Mattisse not making enough use of the people listed on her plan BEFORE reacting to a situation.

Solutions

1. For clarity, there should be single place, User:Mattisse/Monitoring, for editors to register alerts and concerns as part of the mentoring regime. (This does not - and cannot - preclude the use of normal procedures such as AN/I, Requests for comments, etc.)
2. A link to this monitoring page is displayed at the top of Mattisse's talk page.
3. Alerts on User:Mattisse/Monitoring should be links to the problematic edits only - no additional comments. If mentors/advisors need more information they are to contact the alerter directly.
4. Once alerts have been dealt with, the alert and any related discussion by the mentors/advisors is archived
5. That an individual should volunteer/be appointed to act as mediator in situations where someone who has a legitimate interest in a problematic edit by Mattisse is not satisfied or is concerned by the response to the edit. I am willing to put myself forward on the understanding that I do not expect to devote time to answering queries from people who are simply curious (I will expand on this if necessary).
6. That only those assigned by Mattisse and ArbCom should refactor or protect subpages set up by Mattisse
7. That only those assigned by Mattisse and ArbCom should offer advice on subpages set up by Mattisse for the purpose of receiving advice
8. That Mattisse should seek advice before posting in what may be a problematic arena, or in response to a challenge. If in doubt if an arena is problematic - seek advice.