Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Critical Race Theory

Parties selected for mediation
I don't understand why only three registered users were named by User:Davidwhittle as parties to this mediation. It seems to me that all the editors who commented on at Talk:Critical race theory should be parties. Unless David meant for this to be an WP:RfC/U. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 13:29, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not that experienced in Wikipedia dispute resolution, but the parties I named are the ones that I believe are not cooperating in good faith to improve the article, but rather are pushing their own POV, and otherwise contributing to the issues I cited that are not helpful to improving Wikipedia. Davidwhittle (talk) 18:13, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Reason for rejection
I do not understand why the reason for rejection was stated solely as being due to my declining to participate.

The reason I declined, as I indicated on the project page, is that I have not been involved in any discussions or editing of the article in several weeks, so any complaint about the positions I took are stale and I am not involved in any ongoing content dispute at the present time in need of resolution.

Further, my reading of the rules of the mediation process, as Malik suggested above, are that mediation is confined to content disputes, not the issues the editor listed as issues. There certainly were content disputes on that article at the time I was editing it, but he did not list them here, nor were they limited to the editors he listed, nor was there any previous attempt to use conflict resolution that I was informed of.

So I believe this mediation request should have been rejected on the basis of being inappropriate to this venue, rather than due to my declining to participate. I raise this only because I think it is important for the Committee to not imply - or infer - any unwillingness on my part to cooperate with a legitimate attempt to resolve legitimate content disagreements, which this was not. Please consider restating the reason for rejection. Thank you. Tvoz / talk 19:00, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * If the request were framed in an appropriate manner, and if all of the other involved parties agreed to mediate, and if all of the other parties reached an amicable solution - would you be willing to sign off as being comfortable and supporting the results even though you were not a participant in the mediation? -- The Red Pen of Doom  20:46, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, I can't really speak to that at this point because I don't know what issues he'd be raising here to be mediated - I haven't been involved in any content disputes there in weeks, so I don't know what we're talking about. I don't think I should be named as a party to a mediation when I'm not presently involved in a dispute, but my intention in declining was only to sever myself from it and to point out that what was brought here was not, in my view, something that is subject to mediation, not to stand in the way of other people participating in a legitimate mediation. Tvoz / talk 00:26, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification. We will see what the initiator does when he returns to editing. -- The Red Pen of Doom  00:45, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Closure Summary
I have revised the closure request slightly because Malik also stated he felt not all involved parties were invited. That is also a valid reason for the case to be rejected. I have added this as part of the reason. For the Mediation Committee, WGFinley (talk) 12:44, 3 April 2012 (UTC)