Wikipedia:Mentorship Committee/Proposals

The Mentorship Committee is an informal, self-selecting, self-organised committee set up to mentor people put on probation or mentorship by either the Arbcom or the Wikipedia community, or to help out users who request a mentor. A bot will be run in a channel on freenode to watch over the contributions of selected users. Our goal is to make ourselves a pool of available mentors, and to utilize a bot in #wikipedia-probation to watch over specific people. It is to be noted though that we are not every Wikipedia mentor, just as the Mediation Committee does not include every Wikipedia mediator.

Voluntary vs. involuntary mentorship
The Mentorship Committee may handle two different kinds of mentorship - voluntary and involuntary. In voluntary mentorship, a user may ask for a more experienced user's help. This sort of relationship may form informally, or formally through the Mentorship Committee.

The other kind of mentorship is involuntary. In this case, the mentorship is over a user who was placed on probation as an alternative to a long-term or indefinate ban.

These two situations are handled differently by the Mentorship Committee.

Voluntary mentorship
Sometimes, a relatively inexperienced user may desire help from a more experienced editor or editors. The Mentorship Committee would be happy to help. To ask for a mentor, simply put your request on Mentorship Committee/Requests, following the instructions there. Please try to include a detailed description of the sort of help you are looking for, so that we can find the best mentor(s) for your needs.

Voluntary mentorship has no definite time period, and may end any time the mentoree asks it to, or the mentor finds that the mentoree no longer need so much help. Unlike involuntary mentorship, the mentor should not patrol the mentoree's edits for breaches of policy, but rather provide assistance and advice, and politely point out relevant policies when needed. It is not the mentor's role to report breaches in policy — the mentoree is often a new, inexperienced user, unfamiliar with all of our policies.

Rather than requesting mentorship, it may be easier to simply be adopted, and requests for a mentor may be referred there.

Involuntary mentorship

 * The committee is here to monitor and act upon an editor who is under probation.


 * Mentorship is different from probation, and mentors are not necessarily administrators with the power to block anyone. They may act as an advisor and advocate.  Depending on the case, they may also be given permission to revert or refactor edits of the mentoree.


 * Probation is a privilege, as compared to being outright banned. If the same deeds are done which caused the probation, it shall be considered a blockable offense.


 * If the Arbcom assigns someone else mentorship, we will not interfere.