[I've put this on the Charter board, because ultimately I think it will require a solution that concerns the basic, cross-project principles; conflict is ultimately a problem that involves every governance aspect of CZ.]
Clearly, we have a problem about talk page conflict. But what
is the problem, precisely?
I have already
gone on at very great length earlier about what the problem is. But I mostly considered some examples and drew some generalizations based on those few examples. I said that the causes of talk page conflicts were a tendency to lose the thread of the discussion (and move toward broad issues of controversy), the desire to be right, and plain old rudeness; and that Partisanship Will Find a Way. But I still did not say what the
problem itself was.
With more perspective, I think I've done a better job, below, getting at what the problem is. See if you agree with me.
But first, let me give some
sample (i.e., possible) answers:
- Behavioral issues: in some cases, editors are, or authors are, upset, leaving, and being treated shabbily.
- Operational issues: we sometimes fail to reach resolutions of talk page disputes efficiently.
- Policy issues: we sometimes break rules such as professionalism and neutrality; we engage in a pattern of discussion that essentially represents a failure to respect policy.
- The Basic Issue: we get into acrimonious conflict. This is bad in itself, and the more of it, the worse.
There are probably some more answers, but these ones indicate that the problem is actually multifaceted, and we may benefit by having the answers to several questions, which I will take up immediately after asking them below.
What, at root, is the problem we're trying to solve?We may have different theories about this, but I think the root problem is conflict of a certain kind: when one contributor wants to do A (for example, have the article make a certain claim), and another wants to do not-A, and neither will back down. The immediate impact of conflict is typically a verbal exchange on the talk page, often angry or contemptuous.
Who exactly is affected by the problem?All contributors are affected. The actual participants, whether authors or editors, as well as bystanders.
What is their response (i.e., emotional reactions as well as actions)?Beyond the angry or contemptuous exchange itself, everyone feels frustrated. Authors thwarted by editors feel underappreciated and disrespected. Editors under pressure from authors feel stymied and disappointed. When authors go head-to-head with authors, or editors with editors, not only is there often a general sense that one is not being respected adequately and that one's points are not fully appreciated, there is a feeling of helplessness in that there is no established method, that one can trust is
fair, of resolving disputes.
As to actions, there's fight and flight. Some people will simply back down in the face of most opposition. (These are "the meek," and they will inherit the wiki.) Many contributors will attempt to be polite in how they engage in conflict, and sometimes there are people who are polite on both sides--and they actually work things out themselves, so that one comes to agree with the other, or they reach some compromise. Frequently, however, there is one person (and not infrequently two) who make things worse, in various ways--I won't bother enumerating the ways, as they are many. Then, some bystanders seem to be positively attracted to strife, and they join in and make things even more unpleasant.
Conflict will drive some people away, either because they don't want to deal with what they regarded as time-wasting unpleasantness in the first place, or because (after things have gotten bad) they have had their fill of insults and innuendo. This applies especially, but not only, to people who don't get their way. Even people who do get their way, just not fast enough, can give up and leave.
In short:
(1) Conflict causes people to treat each other poorly.
(2) Conflict causes some people to leave the project altogether.
(3) Conflict tends to undercut the motivation of people to contribute.
What adverse aspects (or immediate effects) are there of the problem, in terms of the processes or content of the project?With people leaving the project and the general community dismayed at conflict, content development can suffer. Moreover, the failure to address confict constructively acts as an impediment to smooth community relations--which, in turn, makes it that much harder to collaborate.
The above
personal and
community problems tend to overshadow what might be a more fundamental problem: namely, the failure to credibly solve the source of conflict in the first place. Conflict tends to die out after the
grounds for conflict are removed--after a definitive decision has been reached. Actual progress sometimes can't be made until after a conflict is resolved; failure to resolve the conflict itself tends to be a roadblock to progress.
Given the answers to all these questions, what is the best solution to the problem?I think it is important, in solving problems, to attack the root of the problem as aggressively as possible. I think the root of our conflicts (and of conflict generally, perhaps) is quite simply the failure to resolve the underlying disagreement in a credible, mutually agreeable way. So the problem of conflict can be resolved ultimately by credible establishing avenues for, indeed, resolving the underlying disagreement.
Let me underline something: usually, the reason for conflict on the wiki is not
just some irrational personal friction; it comes down to disagreements about
content and about
policy. In short, we disagree about how a particular article shall read, and we disagree about how we should proceed in general. Personal quirks can exacerbate the ill effects of these disagreements, but the
problem is the disagreements themselves!
What we need, then, is a method, or methods, for resolving those disagreements. We need to focus on clarifying
how all inter-contributor disagreements should be resolved. Then, when that's clarified, rather than bickering on talk pages, as soon as we recognize that we indeed have a disagreement, the appropriate decision-making process kicks in.
(I would, by the way, prefer to call this a "decision-making process" instead of a "dispute resolution process," because it is possible for well-meaning, polite Citizens to have a disagreement without having anything so ugly as a "dispute" that needs "resolution." Two people with a disagreement may know one of them must give way, and they may be happy to give way if the decision is made according to a just, regular process. In that case, they really don't have a dispute; they simply need a decision made.)
What's up next, then, is a proposal for a unified decision-making process--one that incorporates the decision-making bodies and processes that we already have in place, of course.
