Wikiversity talk:Community Review/Ottava Rima

Should we [ keep or delete] the text copied over from User:Abd/Community Review/Ottava Rima. I think it is unnecessary to keep because most if not all of it is a duplicate of whats already been discussed elsewhere in the review and at User talk:Abd/Community Review/Ottava Rima, the copied sections at this review have had zero responses, and discussion should be focused in one place. -- dark lama  16:14, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. Those sections are, in some cases, the only ones with detailed evidence about some of the charges. I have started adding diffs where they were missing, but my time is short right now, I don't know how far I'll get and how quickly. I stopped developing this because the community had ample evidence of incivility in recent traffic, it was hard to miss!, and because Ottava appeared to resign, which did not actually happen, since he is now attempting at meta to get the tools back. Bummer. He'll fail, there, They Do Not Do That when a site has active 'crats, but, it's all more mess.


 * Changing the section headers breaks all references to them from history. Bad idea unless necessary. However, unused sections could indeed be collapsed. Better than removal.


 * I wish SBJ had been a little more patient, because the original CR design would have, indeed, if the community cooperated reasonably, channeled discussion into first considering evidence and only *then* making proposals when the evidence was considered done. I agree with Ottava that proceeding to a !vote on a conclusion without first having what ArbComm calls "findings of fact" is not a great idea.


 * On the other hand, SBJ apparently felt immediately motivated to get it over with; Ottava was rampantly uncivil, like nothing I'd seen before, all the restraints popped, and this kind of incivility turns people off when they see it, and they do not necessarily easily figure out who is behind it, they will assume that, if it is tolerated, it's a Bad Place, and, indeed, one of the long-term problems is that anyone who confronts incivility is easily seen as ... uncivil! They aren't being "nice." So communities tend to shoot the messenger, and I've seen this in way over twenty years of on-line community experience.


 * But that is not really relevant to the conclusion here. It was obvious, blatant, not reversible without Ottava turning over a new leaf, unfortunately. --Abd 20:58, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I think it's better to keep it in one place. --SB_Johnny talk 22:19, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe that the section headers should be changed since this is more of a "public" community review rather than Abd's little subpage (which we grant some leeway to since it is in userspace) and thus these headers must adhere to w:Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. We should take out some of the unnecessary adjectives and adverbs, and then fix the links from history later. TeleComNasSprVen 22:23, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * . I only undid your edit because it removed a large section (11k+) with an edit comment that did not explain that, and the section you removed is under discussion here. I'm perfectly happy with changing headers if it's reasonable and an an improvement. --SB_Johnny talk 22:38, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh good gravy! Sorry TC, but that was actually a browser problem on my end. You didn't remove 11kb, so I was probably seeing darklama's edit all over again. --SB_Johnny talk 23:24, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

The whole thing was kind of ripped out of context by SBJ. The intention was to break the Community Review down to a specific series of charges or issues, and each issue has a presenter. The presenter puts up the charge ("Summary") and an evidence section and the respondent has privileged position to respond. Then others may also make comments in their own sections. These are not threaded sections. Then there are comment sections that would be threaded discussion. And then sections designed for use after discussion to propose findings and remedies. Kind of a mini ArbComm structure. User RfCs on Wikipedia also follow something similar, with privileged sections that nobody else edits. These, when the structure is respected, are the sanest places on Wikipedia. Which isn't saying much..., That the names were in the sections was a more structured form of "Comment by SoAndSo" in those Wikipedia processes. I've noticed many times that when simple section names are used, like "Comment," then if there are multiple sections gathering comment, one cannot tell from the edit summary what section was edited. I was trying to set up something that would be, in fact, easier to use, though it looked more complicated at first. Fewer edit conflicts. Etc.

TCNSV, the summary of a charge is a decision for the one presenting the charge! If a section has been edited, changing the headers confuses the history and access. There should be a good reason. Not a terrible problem at this point. But the whole division into summary and evidence sections has been lost. I'll review it, but having someone edit my presentation of charges and evidence, removing and assigning headings, strikes me as a bit iffy. If we had clerks tasked to do this neutrally and helpfully, not a terrible idea, but how something is headed can affect how it is read. Every detail of those headers was there for a reason, I worked on it for a while. --Abd 03:36, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Revert warring over my sections?
Two editors changed the headers and presentation of my summaries and evidence. This is a Community Review, and courtesy is generally extended to authors of charges in a review to present those charges as they choose. Charges are not necessarily neutral. POV is being asserted, sometimes, in claims, claims can be opinions, can even be biased. Refactoring discussions in a situation like this is an intrusion on author rights (not legal rights, this isn't about license, but about rights to present evidence and argument as the author chooses, not as someone who might not have the same intentions chooses.

When I saw SBJ's first revert, I had been about to revert the prior edit myself. It was way too much to change without prior discussion, and.... nobody asked me. Now, I see that there was some insistent editing going on here. Stop it! First of all, let me defend my own section, SBJ. I would not revert war over it, myself, rather I'd ask for custodian action to prevent improper editing of my material, if someone will not let me present that material as I choose. Let me decide if that's needed, though I appreciate -- very much -- your intentions.

I'm concerned that we may have some new participants here who do not understand much about Wikiversity traditions. In any case, I will review the material tomorrow, I hope, and may rewrite that whole section, setting up space for comment, etc. I'd put this off, because it looked like Ottava was resigning and so it wouldn't be necessary. --Abd 03:54, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Removal of custodian rights
I'd like to respond here to some of the comments that I've seen on a number of different pages. Custodianship is a position that requires the trust of the community. When this trust drops below a certain threshold it is appropriate for the community to decide that it is time to remove the tools. In this case the lack of confidence in Ottava Rima continuing as custodian had reached a critical mass among long time contributors. The concerns they expressed had not been addressed and the discussion of the problematic behavior had reached an impasse. I'll certainly consider the suggestion that future discussions of this nature should remain open for a longer period of time, however I do not feel that it would have made a difference in this instance and I also firmly believe that the closure was in the best interest of the community as a whole. I would welcome a discussion on setting guidelines for time limits or other aspects of community reviews. These were originally intended (in part) to facilitate solutions to tense situations but often seem to degrade into a messy tangle of accusations without resolution. This (imho) is toxic to building a cohesive community that can collaborate on innovative learning projects. --mikeu talk 14:10, 29 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Going forward, I would like to see less reliance on Community Reviews and more reliance on Action Research. —Caprice 15:41, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Standard wiki process involves resolving disputes, in theory, in levels. Wikipedia is more complex than Wikiversity, and, in theory if not in actual practice, has levels, and there is some overlap. Escalation to a stage involving more users should, in theory, be preceded by stages involving fewer:
 * Direct discussion between two editors.
 * Group discussion of those involved, say with an article, on the article talk page.
 * Request for comment (article or specific issue)
 * Consultation with third editor, attempt to mediate.
 * Formal mediation.
 * Request for Comment (User)
 * Arbitration Committee.


 * The increasingly common use of noticeboards on Wikipedia as if they were part of dispute resolution process is the entrenchment of an error, is part of the Wikipedia Problem, preferentially involving administrators as if they were to be arbiters of disputes, when often they are quite unskilled at this, and make decisions based on shallow opinions, when admin involvement in the process, as any kind of privileged action, is only relevant in the lowest levels, i.e., admins are, presumably, third parties, presumed neutral. Often they aren't neutral... but it's gotten very difficult, there, to fix this.
 * Likewise the Arbitration Committee isn't really part of dispute resolution process, it is part of decision process, specifically decisions about policies and principles and editorial behavior. Its decisions about policies and guidelines, however, are commonly ignored, and only its decisions about blocks and bans are considered writ.


 * Wikiversity has no formal mediation process, and has no Arbitration Committee, so all on-wiki process is advisory to the custodians and bureaucrats who have the power and responsibility to make specific decisions. Community Review is the top-level advisory process, and it's been confused with local Requests for Comments, which are sometimes treated like and turned into quite the same as a Community Review through use of the site notice. That's a process error, removing the distinction that would otherwise be useful between an RfC and CR. Ordinarily, only Community Reviews that meet certain requirements should be announced in the site message. Requests for comment should have tighter requirements to be listed there. In WV policy, only a Community Review can collect consensus on desysopping. We definitely need more attention to guidelines for how to handle all this. The present system allows a single sysop to make a decision both about filing an RfC or CR, and placing it in the site message. That's not proper, there should be some level of consensus that broader discussion is needed for broader participation to be solicited. And that is not a difficult problem to resolve, once we attend to it. --Abd 17:33, 29 November 2010 (UTC)