Grants:IdeaLab/Harassment must be treated by experts, not by anyone

statusinactive

Project Grants

Harassment must be treated by experts, not by anyone

summaryHarassment must be treated by experts, not by anyone. Solve these problems only with the self government of the community means to entrust very delicate and complex issues to inexperienced and unqualified persons. In these matters experts are called facilitators.

targetWikipedia in italian

amount6.000 USD

grantee• Luca Polpettini

contact• Luca Polpettini

volunteer• 5.175.48.17• Riki62

this project needs...

volunteer

created on23:01, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

round 2 2016

Friendly space expectations

Project idea

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

Solving harassment issues only with the self government of the community means to entrust very delicate and complex issues to inexperienced and unqualified persons. So they increase the conflicts instead of solving it.

Users and admins often misrepresent and do not understand policies and guidelines of Wikimedia, because they don't know the philosophy behind. Usually they live in environments where rules are completely different, or have legal rules. Wikimedia policy are others than legal rules.
Only very few users actually know policies and guidelines of Wikimedia.
So usually they know just few policies, and apply them arbitrary and in a despotic way.

What is your solution?

Use facilitators to solve conflicts and harassment issues in community pages where users talk about harassements (as Utenti problematici or Richieste di pareri/Comportamenti degli utenti).

At the beginning they take part in every talk in those community pages. This is not a problem, in Wikipedia in italian those pages are rarely used. They lead users to conflict resolution using their know-how.

I think those are required powers for facilitators: they can revert and edit discussions by users (they are the experts!), users can't revert and edit discussions by facilitators (they aren't the experts!), facilitators can't ban users but can unban users (they lead the community to conflicts resolution).

Goals

Decreasing and solving conflicts in community, between users and "factions", and increasing the quality of Wikipedia voices because users are not afraid to "tell the truth".

Get Involved

About the idea creator

My contributions on Wikimedia: Global user contributions | user: Luca Polpettini. Wikimedia Italy member since April 2016. I'm among the most active volunteers of WMI.

Participants

• Volunteer in any way 5.175.48.17 10:59, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
• Volunteer That's a very good idea Riki62 (talk) 12:01, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Endorsements

1. Very good idea! I'm very interested, how the italian community will react to this chance! --Kritzolina (talk) 05:26, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

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Project plan

Activities

• submission of the project at Wikimedia Italia and italian Wikipedia community
• creating pages on it.wikipedia.org explaining the project and what is the facilitation
• facilitation activities on community pages (as Utenti problematici or Richieste di pareri/Comportamenti degli utenti) on it.wikipedia.org for 6 months using on line tools
• (optional) facilitation training for Wikimedia Italia admins and community
• (recommended) creation of a Template to write his own name, biography, links to social accounts, and promote it to reduce anonymity: anonymity encourages harassment and makes facilitation harder

Budget

6.000 USD for a pilot project of six months in Wikipedia in italian.

Community engagement

• it.wikipedia.org community involvement through submission and explanation of the project to it.wikipedia.org community, and creation of related pages on it.wikipedia.org
• facilitation activities on community pages, to support the self government of the community, not to replace it: facilitators will demonstrate how to resolve conflicts instead of increasing (as often happens on community pages), so users can solve on their own conflicts in the correct ways
• the support of expert in community management make users less afraid of harassment, so the voices quality increases: they will not be afraid of "tell the truth"

Sustainability

After a pilot project of six months, it.wikipedia.org community can integrate permanently this project, and Wikimedia Foundation can support it.

Measures of success

• Decrease of conflicts on community page where people ask for help against harassment, and decrease of the number of bans, which are used today to govern the community since there are no experts in conflict management
• Better quality of Wikipedia voices, because users aren't afraid of harassment: they can count on support of experts on community management
• Better press for Wikimedia projects

Project team

Creator: Luca Polpettini. I'm in charge of this project.

Partnership: IAF Italian chapter. IAF is the International Association of Facilitators.

In contact with facilitators of RIVE, the Italian association of eco-villages.

Community notification

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