Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal

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This page will never be Wikipedia policy. It is, by design, entirely informal. The Mediation Cabal provides informal mediation for disputes on Wikipedia. We cannot confirm or deny our existence. Actually the "Cabalists" of the Mediation Cabal do wish to help you, but problems are much easier to solve when you can laugh about them.
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The Mediation Cabal is a bunch of volunteers providing unofficial, informal mediation for disputes on Wikipedia. We do not impose sanctions or make judgments. We at MedCabal are not at all official and are just ordinary Wikipedians. We facilitate communication and help parties reach an agreement by their own efforts.

By contrast, the official Dispute resolution groups are:

For direct assistance, you can contact us on our talk page, or, if you want more discretion, on the #wikipedia-medcab IRC channel on Freenode, or, for the most discretion, send email to one of our coordinators. (See list below.)

[edit] How to list a MedCab request

I. Before requesting help:
II. Add request:
  • Insert
    {{subst:Medcab-request}}
    on top of the disputed article's talk page.
  • Save the page.
 Special case: If the disagreement crosses multiple articles, place it on the talk page with the most general name. Then, copy the template as it is appears after saving the page. You can change the case name, but be sure to use a neutral name agreeable to everyone.
III. Create the case page:
  • The resulting box at the top of the article should contain a link to "Click here to create the mediation request for this article.".
  • Click that link to create the article's case page. A preloaded form and some instructions will appear.
  • Fill out the information. Keep it as brief as possible. Try to present the information in a way that only describes the disagreement. To make it easy for everyone to participate and cooperate, avoid arguing for one side or the other.
  • Save the page.

Cases are listed by a bot. Your case will be added to the list during the next scheduled update. It may take a short while for a MedCab volunteer to take on your case. Please be patient.

[edit] Cabalists

Cabalists magically rise to the call of informal mediation simply by having the case page on their watchlists. There are no official members. We are always happy to find new volunteers.

If you want to help mediate, just pick a case from the list and adopt it. Be sure to read our suggestions for volunteers. Feel free to ask for advice and assistance at the MedCab talk page. Also check out Wikipedia:Catalysts, which provides some sound advice and a framework for informal assistance.

It's perfectly acceptable for multiple volunteers to work on a single case. An additional opinion and pair of eyes can be very helpful. New volunteers may want to work on a case with a more experienced volunteer.

[edit] Coordinators

The Mediation Cabal coordinator(s) are:

If you have any concerns or otherwise need assistance from the coordinator(s), you can send them email or ask at the MedCab talk page.

[edit] Case list

The Wikipedia-wide open tasks list, {{opentasks}}, contains the oldest five cases needing mediators. You may update it if you like.

Purge the cache of this page

MedCab main page Discussion page Case page Suggestions for mediators Volunteers
Cases needing mediators

When people create a new case, it will get automatically added below. If you volunteer to help out a case, please change the template status field to "open."
Open cases

To put cases on this list, you must change the template status field to "open." Put all comments on the case pages themselves or in the template comment field.
Old cases
  • Volume I - Cases closed prior to December 2005
  • Volume II - Cases closed in December 2005
  • Volume III - Cases closed January to early July 2006 (partially overlaps Closed cases category)
  • Closed cases category - Cases closed from July 2006 to present (organized by dates the cases were opened due to the naming convention).