Talk:Wiki Dispute Resolution/Introduction

What this book will not be

 * This book will not be a place to address or seek redress for grievances on the various wikis.
 * This book will not expose individual users to recrimination or blame. It will be about principles, not personalities.
 * This book will not blame the problems of wikis on a specific class of users, it will assume that all users -- with very few exceptions -- seek to improve the project; they merely disagree on how to do this and what constitutes "improvement." --Abd (talk) 16:16, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * However this book might need to be moved to Wikiversity, if it intends to do any original research. I wonder if there is any existing peer-reviewed research on the topic of wiki dispute resolutions that could be cited and used as referenced to ensure verifiability. --dark lama  16:43, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm unclear about this, but I concluded that "verifiability" includes anything that can be directly verified. I don't see that Wikibooks has the requirement for, say, peer-reviewed secondary sources that exists at, say, Wikipedia, and plenty is written with no references. Doing Recent Changes Patrol here, I see reams of material that is basically made-up, ad-hoc, without being derived from a peer reviewed secondary or tertiary source. The fundamental policy is actually neutrality, that applies to all WMF wikis.


 * Here is what I have in mind for this book. First of all, it's a book, not a "class" or "resource." It could be printed and published as such. I'm not quite sure why Wikibooks adopted the OR policy, because a huge amount of what is published in the real book world is thereby excluded. Rather, the focus seems to be on textbooks, a special class of book, and textbooks are expected to follow what is widely known. They can present controversies, as controversies, they shouldn't take sides. I do have in mind a book that is like a textbook; it would refer to plenty of published material, but much of this material isn't "peer-reviewed." For example, how are disputes resolved in other peer organizations? What is the decision-making structure? Describing it can be neutral, but often there is no independent secondary source on it, the descriptions are from publications of the organizations themselves, or published accounts from individuals. The OR policy reads:


 * Original research refers to unproven facts and to theories that have not been subject to peer review and has not been published elsewhere. It also refers to peer reviewed material where Wikibooks is used as the hosting site for the location of original publication. In principle, original research is not encouraged at Wikibooks. In practice, however, Wikibooks takes a permissive stance by allowing specific types of contributions that, strictly speaking, could be considered original research. This practice allows for the fact that Wikibooks might be the first place that certain knowledge is put into print. Moreover, authors may add content based on repeatable information from their personal experiences or from common knowledge they have "off the top of their heads." When adding unsourced information to Wikibooks, though, remember to avoid content that isn't well supported in subject literature, or that other contributors might disagree with. In the event a dispute about unsourced claims does arise, the questioned claims must be cited or removed.


 * This is the problem, Darklama. This book is about facts and situations, that can be verified. "Well supported in subject literature" is subject, itself, to interpretation. Suppose some conclusion is obvious to anyone familiar with the "subject literature," but is not specifically documented or stated in that literature. I have only one problem with the policy as stated, and it's a serious one, that, if that policy isn't changed, I will not work on any book of this nature here: I've bolded it.


 * That requirement essentially gives veto power over content to anyone who finds it inconvenient. The standard should be consensus, not a rigid requirement of removal. Wikipedia is schizophrenic about this, and the unclarity causes great disruption, as people may write material based on one interpretation, and then it's removed by others based on a different interpretation, which, even if that process doesn't lead to major dispute, has still wasted what could be many hours of editor labor. We should, where possible, be able to know, reasonably well, in advance, whether or not work is acceptable.


 * The problem really reduces to dispute resolution. I.e., the subject of the book. This is the safety net: content is determined by consensus, in the end, with escalation from small group to larger group if needed. There is a great deal of knowledge that exists among wiki users that is not documented anywhere. Those who know the wikis know the facts about them. Those facts are subject to various interpetations, and experienced wiki users have written a great deal about the issues. If the book presents only a narrow slice of opinion, it will be a failure. The goal of the book is to educate interested people about wiki dispute resolution: the theory of it, the implementation of it (policies and guidelines and actual practice), and how to follow it successfully, with success being measured by consensus and acceptance of some desired change -- or preservation of the status quo under those conditions.


 * This can be controversial, but, to borrow some language of a friend in the voting systems world, we will eat our own dog food.


 * I'm perfectly happy to move this to Wikiversity. The book will involve what Wikipedia calls "original research," but nothing will be in the book without consensus. That means that any "original research" in it would have to be attributed, probably. Attributed opinions can be verified. Because the above quoted paragraph about OR seems to say one thing and then contradicts it in the last line, I'm now concerned about the idea of leaving it here.


 * I suspect that last line. So the bulk of the paragraph encourages someone to put together and obtain consensus on what might better be called "synthesis," and then it's automatically removed if anyone objects, if a specific source showing the explicit "theory" reported must be found? I'm not going to do that work under those conditions! I can do it on Wikiversity, no question. But I had in mind a more neutral work than what is required at Wikiversity, truly more like a textbook.


 * Here is something else, from the bottom of the OR page:
 * Information that has not been published in an external academic media, but which is still independently verifiable is acceptable here on Wikibooks. This can include new uses for a particular product, new methods for performing a common task, or exposition of hidden (undocumented) features in existing products. Frequently, this information is already common knowledge.
 * There we go. I'm already getting ideas for another book, Election methods, a huge field where there is a great deal of common knowledge, easily verifiable, that hasn't been published in the peer-reviewed literature, but which is well-known among experts and students of the field, and which is independently verifiable. It's been a huge problem on Wikipedia, with Wikipedia bleeding articles written in the early days, by experts, as they are discovered by people who Don't Like a Voting Method or Voting System Criterion, and who then successfully AfD it, even though everything in the article is verifiable. The basic problem is that Wikipedia relies upon secondary sources to determine Notability. If it doesn't enjoy sufficient secondary sourcing, typically more than one, it's considered Not Notable, even if it is something that every expert knows. I don't think Wikibooks has that problem at all. And thus a book on voting systems, neutral and verifiable, can be written here, and published here, just as it could be by any publisher. I'd draw the line at presenting new "invented" voting systems, not known to others, not discussed outside. Those could be covered at a parallel (and linked!) resource on Wikiversity. --Abd (talk) 19:25, 10 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I think concluding that verifiability includes anything that can be directly verified is a reasonably good conclusion. I believe your quoting Original research which is only a proposed policy and lately it has felt like there might of been a shift towards the proposal lacking consensus either way, which leaves only WB:NOR. I mostly favor Original research myself, but I try to respect whatever consensus happens to be at any given time. Wikibooks does not require citations be references in the same way as Wikipedia does. Often works used as references for writing a book are collected together on a single page/module within a book using a bibliography style.
 * To clarify, my concern is this book could become a primary source of information, which people seem to consider problematic. A few books have been deleted due to a consensus at requests for deletion because a Google test showed that there were very few results or that Wikibooks was the primary and only source that other websites referred to. I am also concerned that this book could involve presenting new ideas or might use multiple secondary sources to make new conclusions that push or promote a particular POV.
 * I believe Wikibooks' rules are probably not as strict as Wikipedia's and I believe at times there is room for works that might be called original research at Wikipedia to be included at Wikibooks. Please don't take this the wrong way, my input is intended to be a cautionary warning, there may be some ways for this to work at Wikibooks, just if your not mindful of Wikibooks' requirements and careful this work might eventually need to be moved to Wikiversity to survive. Right now though you have time on your side because this is a new work which are expected to be given time to grow and mature. --dark lama  21:38, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Darklama. I think that the dislike of Wikibooks being an "original publisher," i.e., a primary source for some theory, as an example, is related to trying to keep it from being a coatrack for every fringe theory out there. However, if something turns out to be marginal here, there isn't any harm at all if it's moved to Wikiversity. I'd hope that the book is of sufficient quality that it's supported here, though. It's also possible, as I mentioned, that there might be a book here that is more solid in terms of sourcing and a very high level of consensus, plus a resource on Wikiversity that covers all kinds of wild stuff. (And a note here: for all kinds of new ideas, look at [[Wikiversity:, etc. The two can work together, I'd think.)

So a basic text here, let's call it a "wiki dispute resolution cookbook." There are plenty of known techniques that people can try, and, guess what? If you toss the ingredients in the pot, cook it as described, and be sure to stir carefully, take your time, and it works. That's the ultimate verification, isn't it?


 * Obviously, we wouldn't want the Wikibooks version to contain half-baked ideas that don't work, that just waste everyone's time! We'd want something that has solid experience behind it. Now, imagine, Darklama, that we might solicit participation from experienced users on the various wikis. What actually worked for you? We might collect -- this might be done on Wikiversity -- personal stories. I can provide some from my own experience where using simple techniques actually resolved disputes, and editors who were behaving like they really wanted me to disappear, and who thought I was out to wreck the place, ended up being friends and supporters. I'd say there is a crying need for this book! There is a lot of literature on dispute resolution process, and there is a recent book on wikis that includes a lot of guidance on this. --Abd (talk) 00:04, 11 September 2010 (UTC)