Wikipedia:Perl Mediation/Bad Mediator

Objection to jbolden

You are unfit to mediate this discussion. Contrary to Wikimedia:Mediation policy, you assert that compliance is required in this article; in the original mediation article, you advocated a position in the dispute; and you claimed agreement when there was none, thereby violating the notion that consensus is required.

All of those things are clearly against mediation policy, which states that you may only suggest, not impose; that you may not advocate a position in dispute; and that you are supposed to find consensus, not declare it. Granted, you may simply have been confused, thinking that agreement of one person against Barry constituted agreement of everyone else, but when you were made aware the dispute was not resolved, you did not retract, even when Barry started complaining that his edits to the effect of your decision had been reverted: they were reverted because you were incorrect, there was no agreement, despite your claim to the contrary.

And then you removed my objections about all this, falsely asserting that I was trolling.

I state again: if this is not the proper forum for objections to the process, as you clearly stated that it is, then you should explain that further. Or you should respond directly to my objections. That you keep removing my objections, which contain a clear record of misdeeds, only demonstrates that you are not acting in good faith. And removing my objections, which do not violate any ground rules set up, nor any Wikipedia policy, but then retaining Barry's comments, quoting them yourself, when they constitute a direct violation of one of your ground rules, only highlight that even more.

I am doing my best to ensure the Perl article is a good one, and I think you are a terrible danger to that, worse than Barry, because with him, at least we can forge a reasonable consensus, but you have a demonstrated record of bypassing consensus and dictating content. And it is my right to object, and to do it here. If this were not true, surely you or Durin would have informed me of this by now, pointing me to some page that shows me where I've gone wrong, and you would have used it as evidence to get me blocked, as you are trying to do. Simply calling me a troll and removing my objections is insufficient: quite clearly, the record shows there is a real problem here, and it won't go away just by you removing my objections from the Objections section. Pudge 20:55, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I replied [1] to your first objection. Since then you have been unacceptably rude. This one is a little better so I will attempt again.

If you object to me as a mediator I've informed you about the appropriate methods of complaint are. You either discuss with Durin or ask the mediation committee to take the case. I will set up a seperate page for either of these two purposes. I will not have this discussion interfere with the mediation process.
If you object to the rules I am impossing you can take it up with Durin. If he rules in my favor then you can file RFC against me, him or both. If he rules in your favor I'm gone.
I will happy accept polite, reasonable discussions to make minor modifications to the rules as I've established them. This is meant to be a mediated process and if everyone would like some changes that's fine.
1. A complete overhaul is out of scope.
2. You are free to establish your own subpage in User Talk:Pudgenet outlining all the reasons why a complete overhaul should occur and I will allow a link to it.
3. I will not allow you to interfere with productive discussion about the mediation process by objecting to whether there should be such a process. Mediation is one of the two established process prior to arbitration. My primary obligation is to either resolve the underlying issues or create a situation where the issues are clear enough for simple arbitration. Right now this case is far too murky to go to arbitration.
Comments on talk pages that contain both insults and content can be deleted, and will be.
And frankly the subcase which is getting closest to being ready to go to arbitration is a ban on Pudgenet for interfering in a mediation process.
For the last 6 hours you have gotten a taste of what Barry has had to put with for 3 months. I hope this has given you some insight as to why the people who have examined this case found this behavior unacceptable.

jbolden1517 ^Talk 21:26, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You did not address my first objection. You said you can enforce our agreements, but that is not what you are doing: rather, you are enforcing the process itself, which you are expressly forbidden from doing. You are locking the page *because*, in your words, we would not cooperate with you.

I was not unacceptably rude on this page, that I can tell. I raised perfectly valid objections. Do you find me saying you are wholly unfit to be mediator uancceptably rude? Because that's the only thing I can guess you are referring to, and if that is what you mean, you are incorrect: that is not rude, but a reasonable statement of opinion. If you took it personally, that's only more evidence of your unfitness. As to the rest:

No one ever stated or implied that my objection to you as mediator was not appropriate for this page. You made it clear you did not like my objections by removing them, but that in itself is not a statement that the objections should not be here. This is the first you've stated it, so don't blame me for you lack of communication.
This is a joke. Durin is not here to mediate every little thing, as he made clear to you. And that you are threatening to quit if you do not get your way is absolute proof, if any more is needed, that you simply are unfit to mediate.
Again, you never stated ANY of this before. These are all new rules, new statements, that you are holding me responsible for ex post facto. That's quite unfair and unreasonable. Hold me accountable for rules that are stated up front, but not for ones in your head that you do not communicate.
That's irrelevant to this discussion. Skipping.
Again, you never identified before just now that any of this was interference. Indeed, when I asked before if this was considered interference -- objecting to the process itself -- I was told that no, it was not, by Durin. He said, "interference with the mediation process is a form of trolling." I objected, saying, that is not reasonable if by "interference" you include voicing concerns, and he said no, he did not. And now you are telling me that it is. You really want to take me to arbitration for abiding by the word of the person you brought in to help out?
I thought personal attacks were off-limits? Violating your *own rules* now?

On a more positive note, thanks for not deleting me this time and actually explaining. I am not sure if that is, exactly, a step in the right direction, but it's something.

Pudge 22:09, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple times I've told you how to go about replacing a mediator. Ranting on the mediation page is not one of them. You posted the above after you were informed it was out of process and off topic. I've moved the discussion here where you can feel free to write whatever you like.

Again you prove yourself unfit to mediate. I was not ranting, but raising legitimate objections. You seem incapable of speaking about me without falsely characterizing what I am doing.

Further, I don't care to follow any process for replacing a moderator. I could have done that, but why should I? I was objecting, as is my right. You never informed me that I should not do so, until after you several times removed my edits without comment (except for, again, falsely characterizing my actions a "trolling").

And despite your implication, that I responded to you in the place your comments existed at the time surely cannot reflect poorly on me, in any reasonable way. Nice try though.

If you had any remote sense of responsibility, there's no way you would continue this process, because you've proven, over and over, you are unfit, with many willfull violations of Wikipedia policies, going back on your own word, deleting objections when you simply didn't like them and trying to block people who disagreed with you, threatened to quit if you didn't get your way, and more. You have become personally involved, and that means, by definition, you are incapable of mediating. And if you had an OUNCE of sense in you, you would resign immediately. Pudge 03:35, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

page locking

You should point to the Wikipedia document that gives you the authority to effectively force mediation by locking the page, and explain how this does not conflict with the principle that mediation is voluntary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pudgenet (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia:Protection_policy#A_temporary_protection_is_used_for:

Enforcing a "cool down" period to stop an "edit war," upon request.

jbolden1517 ^Talk 00:37, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First, once again, you are making up rules as you go along. Your edit summary for this move said, "moving comments by editor who has refused mediation to appropriate page," but that is a blatantly untrue: it was on the appropriate page. Nothing stated or implied by your rules, or any other rules, says that just because *I* choose not to participate in the mediation process, that I cannot ask for clarifications on the page where clarifications are specifically called for. Once again, you prove your inability to be a mediator -- in this, or any, dispute -- because you cannot put your personal feelings about me aside.

Second, there was an edit war? I saw none. The edit "warring" was basically absent, and the "warring" I saw was only on your mediation page, not in the actual Perl article. The one exception is where you incorrectly declared agreement on a point in which there was none, and Barry went ahead and posted something he should not have (not that it is his fault, since you incorrectly told him he could), and it was reverted. That hardly constitutes a war, let alone one that requires cooling off, especially since it was your fault.

Third, you specifically said the page was locked not because of "edit warring," but because we did not cooperate with the mediation process. The page you linked to had nothing to do with your stated reason for locking the page: non-cooperation with mediation. So if you are changing your story, you should also change the text on the other page, where you wrote something that disagrees with what you state here, or else say what non-cooperation with mediation, as opposed to edit warring, justifies page locking.

Further, now that you are attempting to answer questions, perhaps now you could answer my other concerns: to wit, most importantly, why you continue to incorrectly assert that you have the authority to enforce the results of mediation.

Also, please tell me why you refuse to quit this mediation process, when you have violated so many of the rules: again, advocating positions, declaring consensus that did not exist, and enforcing the outcome of mediation are all expressly forbidden. And targetting me personally (as you continue to do, as you removed my comment that would have been allowed from anyone else), trying to get me banned for behavior the admin said was perfectly acceptable (and indeed, in one case, he approved of it both before and after I did it!), and threatening to quit if you did not get your way, are clearly actions beneath the stature of any respectable mediator. And that's the point: you are not respected in this process, which means you cannot possibly do the job. More than half the people who have responded to this process (three of the five) have given you a vote of no confidence. So why not just quit? Is your ego so huge that you can't bring yourself to admit failure, even when there is no hope of success?

This is not a personal attack, it's an honest question about the process: how a mediator conducts himself, how well he is accepted by the participants, whether he is respected, whether he shows reason and bias, and so on, is a legitimate issue, and it is incumbent upon you to answer these questions. Not for me, but for the other participants who have similarly expressed a lack of faith in you, including the ones who are so disrespectful and contemptuous of your process that they are just ignoring the whole thing.

You may think I am alone, but no, I am just the vocal one. You may think I am way out of line, but you're wrong; Durin would have blocked me long ago otherwise, but despite your pleadings, he has not done so; that speaks volumes about your judgment, or lack thereof (and again, this is not an unreasonable personal attack, because the judgment ability of a mediator is perfectly fair game for criticism). Pudge 04:54, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

jbolden1517 removed from cabal

For reference: jbolden has apparently been removed from the Mediation Cabal. See Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Pudgenet/Workshop. -- Earle Martin [^t/_c] 17:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to disappoint. Kim's no arbiter he's the original founder of medcab and thinks that gives him permanent jurisdiction. He has about as much authority over medcab as my daughter. jbolden1517 ^Talk 00:30, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're just making friends all over the place, aren't you? No matter how you want to spin it, you've given up and left an exasperated message on your user talk page. You didn't assign a replacement mediator, and note at the bottom of your talk page that the Perl mediation was resolved. Apparently, it's all over, but nothing happened and the situation is much worse, making it a big waste of time for everyone just as Pudge claimed it would be. Had you acted dispassionately and neutrally, that might not have been the case. Either way, you're gone. Scarpia 15:29, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]