User talk:Isaacl/Community

Professional mediation

Thank you for writing this page, which contains many good ideas worth discussing.

One of them is Professional mediation. Between 2007 and 2009, mediation at Wikipedia was de facto my job, for which of course I received no payment. But I found it one of my most rewarding jobs. Then I considered making mediation my career and consulted a professional mediator, but the reply was that it was not as rewarding, because in real life cases fall in two distinct categories: Those that matter, and those from which one can earn good money, because at least one of the parties is an inveterate squabbler. (One example for the latter was two neighbors squabbling over how the hedge between their gardens should be cut.) So I stuck to mediation at Wikipedia. Since I was a volunteer, I of course chose to spend my time with the first category.

Professional mediation could provide an incentive for mediators to tend to the second category. For a number of reasons, however, I'm not sure if a full-time position would be effective:

1. Having to deal 40 hours a week with endless meaningless altercations will probably lead to burn-out or frustration for the most patient of us, as it did for the mediator I consulted.
2. Mediation only works sustainably when both sides have respect for the mediator, which means that the mediator not only needs to know WP's rules better than both parties, but also needs to have a respectable knowledge of the subject area. That requires more dedication than needed for the garden hedge case.
3. There is no incentive for the mediator to invest extra work so as to create lasting solutions.

An alternative might be a reward, awarded when, after a reasonable time (such as 6 months) it has become apparent that the quarrel has abated. However, such an unusual system of remuneration would probably not be understood and respected by everyone – unlike in the case of running the servers, which you cite as a comparison. ◅ Sebastian 12:55, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

The issues in question apply even more so to volunteer mediators, which contributes to why some disputes never get settled or escalate. Most paid jobs involves a lot of drudgery, and being paid is the compensating incentive. Their degree of success and resulting reputation will help ensure if the mediator can continue in the job or get future jobs. As with everything, I don't think this is foolproof, or a magic wand. It's just a way to get someone to take on thankless cases regularly. isaacl (talk) 14:29, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I overlooked your reply. For me, your reply mainly addresses item #1, and you have a point there. What remains is the insight that the job would need to be really well paid.

Your reply to #3 may have a grain of truth, too. But how would you measure the “degree of success”? You might define something like (rate of conflicts that got resolved with the help of the mediator)/(rate of conflicts that got resolved without the mediator). But (even aside from such questions as what counts as one conflict, and whether a conflict is resolved when it reappears a number of months later, possibly with a shifted focus and/or involving users with different user names) is that really a fair – or even a useful – measure? I see it rather as an incentive to attach my name to conflicts that are likely to be resolved without much of my effort.

Similar considerations apply to the resulting reputation along your reply. But my point #2 wasn't just meant as a parallel to #3. It has to do with focus. For me, in 2007-9, I focused on a limited number of conflicts, which earned me the respect of many of the people I mediated, which in turn allowed me to help resolve a high percentage of the conflicts. While I personally found that rewarding, it would not have been a sustainable strategy in a paid job. Any superior, when asked to defend the decision to hire me, would have had a hard time explaining that I got far fewer disputes resolved than expected from a professional mediator in other walks of life. Let's say I resolved 24 conflicts a year, then each issue would have cost Wikimedia half a month's salary. Which hiring manager could defend that? ◅ Sebastian 11:32, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Taking labour negotiations as an example: if a mediator gains a reputation as favouring labour or management, then they'll find it harder to be accepted as a mediator by the disadvantaged side. The community can look at a mediator's results and decide if the decisions (both outcomes and timeliness) seem reasonable. isaacl (talk) 16:32, 13 January 2022 (UTC)