Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-07-01 Montenegro national football team

Mediation Case: 2006-07-01 Montenegro national football team
Please observe Etiquette and Talk Page Etiquette in disputes. If you submit complaints or insults your edits are likely to be removed by the mediator, any other refactoring of the mediation case by anybody but the mediator is likely to be reverted. If you are not satisfied with the mediation procedure please submit your complaints to Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal.

Request Information

 * Request made by: PhilipR 23:36, 1 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Where is the issue taking place?
 * Montenegro national football team


 * Who's involved?
 * PhilipR, one or two other users who found my subheading useful enough to start populating it, and User:Philc_0780 who's appointed himself Wikipedia Police and taken to reverting all of our edits.


 * What's going on?
 * Because Montenegro will soon have a national soccer team, I think it's useful and encyclopedic to have a list of top-class Montenegrin footballers who could play for the team.  Others find this useful too, since they've added to it.   Above-named user has taken it upon himself to revert these changes.


 * ''What would you like to change about that?
 * I'd prefer that the above-named user unilaterally decide to work productively to build consensus as I've sought to do on my end.  Failing that, I'd prefer to put an end to his reversions.

In the bigger picture, I'm sick of the working principle of Wikipedia being "The squeaky wheel gets the grease." In my view, the fact that above-named user has copious amounts of free time to revert others' work is not sufficient grounds to allow him to do so. But one dogmatic and intransigent user usually wins out over two or three with only a minor emotional investment in the issue at hand. That remains true until one of the "casual users" takes a stand. I'm taking a stand.


 * Would you prefer we work discreetly? If so, how can we reach you?
 * User_talk:PhilipR is fine.

Mediator response
Hi! I'm TruthCrusader, and I am willing to try and help. We can continue this on the article's talk page. TruthCrusader 18:27, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

No activity. Closing case. --Ideogram 03:10, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Evidence

 * Original addition
 * Reverted by Philc with partial explanation
 * PhilipR offers to yield to consensus, but doesn't consider it reached
 * NickC adds to the disputed section
 * Conscious adds a header and renames it to something far more assertive than the original title
 * Anon user makes a couple of tweaks

More to follow if anyone wants to go to the trouble....

Compromise offers
This section is for listing and discussing compromise offers.

I've tried to deal with this in dialogue. I'm more than willing to yield to a consensus, but Philc confuses his own intransigence for consensus. One person cannot by definition determine a consensus. If consensus is that this section is unencyclopedic, I'll remove it. - PhilipR 23:43, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps leaving text in and marking need for sourcing would be a viable compromise.  I should note that Philc's requests for sourcing are generally valid. The specific players' pages cite their Montenegrin birth, and birth has always been sufficient to determine FIFA eligibility absent a contradictory regulation (e.g. once you've played for another country, except for continuation situations like this one or Soviet Union/Russia/Ukraine, you may not play for anyone else), so perhaps those sourcing issues should be debated at the players' pages if there are serious questions about their place of birth. I'm in the process of looking up better sourcing regarding FIFA regs. To my understanding, though, the general Wikipedia remedy for inadequate sourcing is to request sourcing, not to remove the text except as a last resort (after it's clear that the assertion won't be sourced). Am I misunderstanding WP culture/guidelines? Cheers, PhilipR 02:17, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion


It seems that this whole article is a Crystal Ball, and therefore should probably be deleted. But the most practical thing would be for everybody to back off, clear the page, and start adding facts when and as they occur. Surely these keen fans of Montenegron{sp?} soccer can wait a week or two? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_crystal_ball} --Michael Johnson 13:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)


 * No, the team exists, it is just not fully set up yet, not organized, and has played in no competitions. However UEFA and FIFA have stated there will be one, and are assisting in the set-up. Philc  TECI 14:55, 9 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Nethertheless, it seems the speculation about the possible makeup of a possible future team is the cause of the conflict here. Such discussions may be entertaining down at the pub on a Friday night, but are they suitable for an encyclopedia? If all contributors stuck to established facts, I doubt this mediation would be needed. --Michael Johnson 22:52, 9 July 2006 (UTC)