Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Nominations/Drew R. Smith


 * ''The following discussion is preserved as an archive of an unsuccessful nomination to join the Mediation Committee. Please do not modify it.

Drew R. Smith
 Nominated: 12:24, May 14 2009 (UTC) view edit watch Your statement on why you want to be on the Mediation Committee. I want to be on the mediation committee because I enjoy solving conflicts between two parties. I have been helping out at WP:EAR since I joined wikipedia. D rew  S  mith     W  hat I've done  12:24, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Questions from Committee members:
 * What are the core principles of Mediation Committee mediation?
 * I believe they are fairness, the ability to listen, and the ability to see boths sides of an issue.
 * Discussions during formal mediation are privileged; they cannot be used against the parties in later proceedings (e.g. RfArb/RfC). Why is that important?
 * The priveliged nature of mediation allows editors to feel secure in the knowledge that what they say during mediation cannot be used against them at a later time.
 * What prior experience do you have in resolving disputes on Wikipedia? Please provide links, and how will these experiences help you to be an effective Committee member?
 * I have helped out at WP:EAR practically since I joined wikipedia. An example of a succesful resolution is here and here.

Another example of resolution is the Haunted Castle Article which nearly ended in disaster, but I requested that the blocked user be taken off indef and put into mentoring instead as the user demonstrated a lack of knowledge on wikipedias policies. This can be seen here User talk:Popartpete.

Some other examples of me helping other editors, admittedly not dispute resolution per se, but relevant nonetheless.

My talk page and my response on his talk page

and

EAR for will to power. Attempts were made to contact both offending editors here and here. Later the discussion, or lack thereof, was moved to here and both users temporarily blocked.

Mediation Committee:
 * Oppose. Seems well-intentioned, but has either not completely embraced our core policies, or does not fully understand them. KillerChihuahua?!? 10:36, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I'd have to oppose also. You seem to have made a great start at Wikipedia and are the sort of editor that is likely to make a good mediator, but you don't have much experience on the project yet. That makes it difficult for us to judge how effective a mediator you'd be and whether you have the level of community confidence we look for in those looking to join the committee. The examples you give aren't very extensive and involve user conduct issues rather than disputes about article content. As Medaliv, who gives good advice below, suggests you might want to check out MedCab. You might also find it useful to keep an eye on WP:RFPP for pages protected due to edit warring and offer to help users talk through the disputes affecting the article in question. I hope you aren't be too discouraged if the outcome of this request isn't what you were hoping for - it's not that we have any issues with your contributions to Wikipedia, just that it's too early for us to form a view as to how effective a mediator you will be. WJBscribe (talk) 10:47, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Membership of the MedCom requires extensive experience with complex enwiki disputes and with tough mediation situations; unfortunately, you don't seem to have that yet. In fact, I'd venture to say that you're quite a bit short of the requisite experience levels. If you are interested in mediation, I would strongly suggest you look at taking a case from the Mediation Cabal; and try also to get some serious editing experience under your belt. Sorry, but I think it's much too soon; try focusing on editing (and perhaps a little light DR work) for now. It's an oppose from me for now. AGK 16:21, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Community opinions:
 * Drew asked me to drop by and give an opinion. I'll say this much- in my experience with Drew, he's shown himself to be an affable and very helpful editor assistant. Drew's enthusiasm at EAR has been great to see, and since his arrival there things definitely appear to be picking up. I definitely give him my moral support in this decision to run for MEDCOM. That said... with deepest apologies to Drew, I do not believe he has been around long enough to really have the experience to take on the cases MEDCOM handles. While I don't mean this to suggest that there's a minimum membership time period or edit count that should be considered before a MEDCOM candidacy, the problem is without something more substantial than a month's involvement mostly in EAR cases, it's extremely difficult to see how he'd fare in situations mediating the more serious content disputes that MEDCOM tends to review. I'd strongly suggest that if he's really interested in this level of mediation, he not only take an interest in WP:MEDCAB and the various content noticeboards, but also get involved in article writing to an extent. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 13:52, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * CommentI have been involved in writing articles. There's a list of articles that have been written by me on my user page. I also have one DYK (May 3, 2009) and two more in the works. D rew  S  mith     W  hat I've done  14:16, 14 May 2009 (UTC)



Discussion and comments:

Decision of the Mediation Committee: Not promoted per the two oppose rule.
 * For the Mediation Committee, Sedd&sigma;n talk 17:01, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * ''The above nomination to join the Mediation Committee is preserved as a discussion archive. Please do not modify it.