User:Durin/Conflict management
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For any long time editor of Wikipedia, conflict will happen. However, conflict does not need to degrade into argument. We all have different views on things. If we were all in agreement on everything in Wikipedia, I'd be very concerned about the people contributing to the project and the content that has been contributed. I've observed a number of users who have wiki-stress graphics (example: Image:Wikistress3D 3 v3.jpg on their user pages. To me, this is somewhat silly and to a degree goes against one of the underlying principles of Wikipedia; you don't own your contributions. Let go of what you do. Do it with a glad heart and send it out into the ether. Count on it being changed. You can monitor an article, help nurture it, prevent vandalism to it, but you do not own it. As soon as you click the "Save page" button, your contributions "belong" to everyone else just as much as they do to you. Reeelllaaaaxxx!
[edit] Rules of thumb
My general rules of thumb to manage conflicts are:
- Be polite. If you act angry with someone, they are likely to get defensive. If you are polite, tensions have a much greater chance of staying low. In the vast majority of cases where people find themselves getting very upset with somebody in an electronic forum of any kind, they will find themselves having significantly more polite decorum if they happen to talk with that person over the phone or in person. So, treat these communications as if you were in person with the person whom you are having a conflict.
- Be patient. This is a text medium; there are severe limitations to effective communication. Misunderstandings can and will happen as a result of these limitations. You suffer from these limitations just as much as the next person. If you find something someone said to be very upsetting, take a step back and ask for clarification. Quite often, they didn't intend the meaning that you got from it. Likewise, understand that others may rapidly become upset at something you write; don't respond poorly to other people's attacks. You may have done a poor job of conveying your intended meaning.
- Get to the core of the dispute. Frequently, conflict can be resolved by effective identification of the root cause of the conflict. Everything else in the conflict is usually just a symptom of the core disagreement. Resolve the core, and the symptoms usually go away if you've followed the first two rules of thumb.
- Don't change things in conflict. If something is disputed, do not get into a revert war with someone over it. Revert wars are pointless; they can revert you just as readily as you can revert them. Instead, try to reach consensus with those with whom you disagree. If you can't reach consensus, have a belief in eventualism. Wikipedia will (hopefully) be around a lot longer than either you or the person you disagree with. Maybe at a later time there will be more information available to allow yourselves or future editors to come to a mutually agreeable conclusion.
[edit] Avoid burnout
Wikipedia isn't life and death. If someone took away your ability to use and edit Wikipedia tomorrow, your life would go on. You'd get over it. In the grand scheme of things, Wikipedia just isn't very important to our day to day lives. If you find yourself getting too deep into the trenches on things, just back away. Think of it this way; if you were in a major argument with someone over something on Wikipedia, you'd drop it in a heartbeat if you suddenly found out your mother/father/wife/husband/son/daughter had been in a serious accident and was on the way to the hospital. How much does an argument on Wikipedia really matter? Virtually nil. Keep that perspective, learn to step back when you need to, and don't let yourself suffer stress from this. You'll just burn yourself out. That doesn't help you or Wikipedia and makes you far more likely to get into arguments.
[edit] Some conflicts I've been in
- In August of 2005, I placed an image (Image:Matha s.gif) (along with a few related images) for deletion because I felt it violated copyright [1]. The image was an exact copy of an image from the website of Prentice Hall. I could not confirm if it was indeed a reduced size image of the original bookcover, and thus felt it should be reviewed by an admin. Subsequently, User:DreamGuy and I came into conflict regarding this image's status as a {{bookcover}}. In the course of the conversation and in edit summaries, DreamGuy said I was "not listening", "not making sense", "wasting people's time", "in denial", "not using logic", "not using evidence" and "being stubborn". Some of the discussion may be found at User_talk:DreamGuy#Re:Fair_use. From his view of things, I think he could only say that I said he wasn't using evidence. If I hadn't been polite, the situation would have become worse. If I hadn't been patient, I could have easily become offended at his comments and responded accordingly, with a similar attitude. I identified the core issue at hand; he felt it was a book cover and I felt it wasn't. He showed why he thought so, I showed why I didn't think so. Since neither of us was swaying the other's opinion, I ended the conversation.
- In June of 2005, I commented on a VfD page regarding what I felt was policy by bruteforce. The entire discussion can be seen at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Fairfield high School. I got into a discussion on this point with User:Tony Sidaway (an administrator). I thought the discussion was interesting and had I strong interest in the subject would have researched extensively to gain some credible data regarding voting histories of people voting pro-school and compare that against people who were voting anti-school. The discussion became too long to be appropriate for a VfD, so I exited the conversation despite Tony's desire to continue.
- In May of 2005, I placed Gordon Springs, Georgia up for VfD (Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Gordon Springs, Georgia). Following the closure of this VfD (result was keep), I began a conversation at Talk:Gordon Springs, Georgia. User:Bkonrad (an administrator) responded and we had a two day long discussion on the various points that were raised. I enjoyed this conversation for the most part, as there was considerable interplay of evidence and logical thought put into the discussion. Despite that, I began to realize we were not making sufficient progress to result in any motion on the subject. The article itself was on such a minor subject that I felt it just wasn't worth the debate effort anymore. I had thought there might be room for scalability to apply to other similar articles, but that was becoming obvious that it wasn't going to happen. So, I exited the conversation. I think we had a good debate without getting angry with each other, which easily could have happened.
None of these conflicts caused me any particular stress. I've never purposefully insulted anyone here, and don't intend to. Neither should you!
