Wikipedia:Guide to Advocacy
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Contents |
What is advocacy?
Advocacy is that process in which an individual provides assistance to a particular disputant or group of disputants. This assistance generally includes, but is not limited to:
- Providing links to and explanations of, Policy (particularly pages like Wikipedia:Conflict resolution, Wikipedia:Tutorial, Wikipedia:Help desk, M:Foundation issues, etc...)
- Involving oneself in the article and user talk pages in question, Wikipedia:Conflict resolution process (assuming it is necessary) and seeking out additional assistance as necessary.
- Being an example of policy accordance and civility, especially when involved in advocacy of an "official" nature.
What is an advocate?
Disputants, individually or in the group scenario mentioned above, may decide they would like some general assistance, or that their point of view is best represented by an "advocate". The advocate can work with the member to help them to better present themselves in mediation or arbitration, or in order to solve other problems. The advocate may speak for the disputant to help to present the disputants point of view in a clear, concise manner to help facilitate the discussion process in mediation or arbitration or other matters.
Avoiding the need for Mediation and Arbitration through preventative problem solving and instruction is obviously optimal. The advocate is a facilitator. Advocates are volunteers who are willing to serve in this capacity. They can be contacted here on Wikipedia through the voluntary association known as the Association of Members' Advocates.
Anonymity
Advocates may be anonymous when they privately help a member. If they appear in the mediation or arbitration process as publicly acknowledged representatives of the disputant(s), the advocate will formally become a "representant" of the disputant(s), and their usernames will then be publicly announced.
Basic principles behind advocacy
Advocates should try to present the disputant(s)'s point of view in a detached, rational and succinct manner. Often disputants are having difficulty in expressing their problem, and in this case it is good to present them with your interpretation of their position or question in order to clarify if this is indeed the case.
Advocates are most useful to the dispute resolution process when they are able to provide authority to back up their disputant(s) perspective(s), and thus they should be knowledgeable in the following areas:
- Copyrights
- Warranty Disclaimers
- Policies
- Dispute resolution, mediation and arbitration rules and policies
and all such similar information that is available in the Wikipedia namespace.
Advocates can also help a member to navigate through a dispute resolution process that has become rather complex.
Advocates as counselors
Advocates can be useful in mediation by discussing their disputants point of view with them, reviewing the evidence and helping the disputant to gain or maintain perspective on the evidence and related policies.
This should be done in a non-judgmental point of view as it is not the advocates job, at least initially to judge the disputant, but rather to better understand their perspective with the presumption of the reasonableness of that perspective. As the advocate learns more about the disputants interactions he or she may naturally form their own opinion about the merits of the disputant's contentions. In this manner, if the advocate is open and willing to listen, the disputant may begin to see that their perspective on the situation is not the only way to look at it. It is at this point that the advocate may find it useful to try and introduce the opposing sides perspective to the disputant and to try to get the disputant to better understand the opposing point of view or views.
Helping a user experiencing difficulties to better understand their circumstances and options, as well as applicable policies, is a primary task of an advocate.
The advocate is not a substitute for the mediator however, and because of that difference the advocate may be able to discuss the issues with the disputant in a way that allows the disputant to better understand their own position without feeling compromised by the "impartiality" of the mediator. Of course even an advocate will have a point of view about the disputant's position but that should not stand in the way of an open and frank exchange going on between the advocate and the disputant, this is one of the main benefits of advocacy outside the role of an advocate as the disputant's representative (representative advocacy in contrast with the advocate as counselor).
As mediation is consensual the advocate should also try to explain the benefits of reaching a mediation settlement with the disputant and the adversary. Should a matter go to arbitration the disputant has lost control of the outcome and they should understand the consequences of that loss of control before giving up on mediation as a mediated settlement may help preserve the disputants editing privileges and prevent a temporary or permanent ban as imposed by the arbitration committee.
Representation by an advocate
Advocates are also expected to make representations of their disputants' positions, and provide evidence as needed, to mediators and arbitrators.
Though advocates are most widely recognized for publicly representing an individual, an advocate may also represent the interests of an individual in a way that circumvents personal aspects of a conflict, and provides parties to a conflict an opportunity to explore the interests apart from ideas about the other party in a conflict. Some advocates affect change without ever calling attention to their role in catalyzing change.
By way of example, a person drowning may praise rescuers who threw a rope in a raging torrent, but never realize that the group who threw a rope in the water stood idle until an unknown advocate offered the group a rope and a plan for saving the drowning person.
Effective representation during an arbitration
An arbitration case often involves considerable uncertainty regarding what the issues are, even regarding which users are properly involved in it. Often evidence presented is voluminous and irrelevant. An advocate can help the Arbitrators by pointing out which issues are significant and which evidence is a good example of problems. In addition to preparing a statement on behalf of the member and gathering evidence an advocate may also propose principles, findings of fact, and suggest remedies on the /Workshop page. This page also offers an opportunity for comment regarding suggestions.
A request for arbitration usually focuses on a user and their actions which are supposedly creating problems. The case itself may focus on the user who made the request or other users involved in the conflict. They may also need representation. For example if the conflict involves edit warring, all those involved in the edit warring will be considered potential defendants.
It is possible to carry your concerns with the progress of an arbitration case into the mailing list and onto the talk pages of the Arbitrators as well as onto other fora at Wikipedia. This is sometimes effective with some Arbitrators and sometimes counterproductive.
Generally, claims that the Arbitration Committee has no jurisdiction over a matter or that evidence ought not be considered are ineffective as are requests for recusal which are not well founded.
The advocate as community representative
Another important role that an advocate can undertake is to be a voice of the community attempting to improve the dispute resolution process to develop relationships with mediators and arbitrators so as to be able to discuss issues, suggest changes and participate in further development of a fair process that respects such principles (generally speaking) as due process, fundamental justice, or fairness.
Advocates may otherwise represent the interests of a community without taking a stance as a spokesperson for a community. In an environment that attempts to collaboratively represent the combined knowledge of the human community as a whole, an advocate may employ strategies that expand the concept of community by compromising or challenging ideas that otherwise attempt to define boundaries arbitrarily formed by a collective of authors, each of which is necessarily attached to a limited point of view. In general, communities worldwide often benefit from the assistance of advocates whose help was never recognized, and whose methods are sometimes not apparent to the community whose interests benefited from advocacy. In Wikipedia, this approach might be applied by refactoring articles without stating an interest in advocacy or in any viewpoints described in the articles.