User:ConMan/Involvement

Involvement is the state of a Wikipedia user in relation to a situation after that user has participated in the situation. It is, approximately, an internal analogue to a conflict of interest.

Examples of Involvement

Some examples of how a user can become "involved" in a situation include:

• A user who makes a non-trivial edit to an article may become "involved" in that article.
• A user making a comment on an article's talk page is similarly "involved" in the article.
• An admin who uses their admin powers during a dispute between two or more users may become "involved" in that dispute.
• Users who comment on an ArbCom case, request for comment, mediation case, or other dispute resolution process may become "involved" in the dispute.

Dealing with involvement

Depending on their level of involvement, the actions of a user involved in a situation may be perceived to be "tainted" by their involvement, and hence liable to be in breach of one or more Wikipedia policies or guidelines. For example, if an admin who is one party in a dispute blocks another party, or protects the article at the centre of the dispute, then other parties may bring the admin's actions into question, on the basis that as an involved party the admin actions were biased and were used to swing the dispute in the admin's favour. In these situations, the admin may want to explain the situation at the administrators' noticeboard, and ask for an uninvolved admin to make the judgement on the action necessary.

Alternatively, if a dispute over an article has been highly polarised, the users involved in the dispute may feel that they are unable to reach a consensus without the opinion of an uninvolved user. This may be an acceptance that extended involvement can result in tunnel vision, and a corresponding inability to view the situation objectively.

Problems in declaring involvement

Involvement is a nebulous concept, and it can be difficult to determine at exactly what point an uninvolved user becomes involved, and furthermore how their involvement affects how their actions are to be interpreted. For example,

• Is it necessary to declare your involvement whenever you mention the situation somewhere, no matter how relevant it is?
• If an article is under a probation that allows "an uninvolved admin" to impose sanctions against edit warring editors, does imposing such a sanction then involve the admin, and does that prohibit them from taking any further admin actions on that article? If so, then does that mean that after enough sanctions are imposed there are no admins willing to take action on that article, and hence relinquishing control of the situation to the disruptive editors who caused it in the first place?
• Does the opinion of an involved user have any more or less weight than that of an uninvolved user?

While the answer to the last one should be no, in fact all three cases are somewhat murky areas, and as the number of Arbitration cases, conflicts of interest, single-purpose accounts and noticeboards increases, so does the gravity of the situation.

The simplest answer is to look at the similarity of involvement to conflict of interest, with a nod to Wikipedia:Ignore all rules. Involvement in a situation does not preclude a user from participating in it, or an admin from imposing sanctions where a user is in breach of policy, but at the same time they must take care to avoid their involvement from affecting their judgement. In particular, it is helpful to document any actions with reference to all relevant policies and/or guidelines, and if they are uncertain about whether they may be acting subjectively, or if they are worried about appearing to be subjective, then they should invite discussion from uninvolved parties.

Places to seek uninvolved input

• Wikipedia:Help desk
• Wikipedia:Village pump
• Wikipedia:Dispute resolution
• Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard or one of the other policy-related noticeboards
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
• An appropriate WikiProject or regional noticeboard

All users are reminded, however, that the opinion of an uninvolved user may not necessarily go in their favour (hence the point of them being uninvolved), and posting requests for "uninvolved assistance" in multiple places in order to get a desired result may be seen as canvassing or forum shopping.

See also

• Wikipedia:Assume good faith - involved users usually think they're doing the right thing
• Wikipedia:Tendentious editing - but involved users often find themselves doing this
• Wikipedia:Neutral point of view
• Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot