User:Darkfrog24/Slowdown

(English) This is an essay. It expresses the opinions and ideas of some Wikimedians but may not have wide support. This is not policy on Meta, but it may be a policy or guideline on other Wikimedia projects. Feel free to update this page as needed, or use the discussion page to propose major changes.

This essay describes a proposed conflict resolution technique.

All of us share the goal of providing our readers with quality content, but we sometimes disagree about the best way to do that. Sometimes spirited discussions are productive and fun and sometimes they are not, but on smaller projects, frequent posting can clog the recent changes function and distract or bother other participants. If you are worried your discussion with another Wikimedia contributor might cause a disruption, here is one technique you can try:

Under SLOWDOWN, every participant in a specific thread is limited to two posts per calendar day.

To request slowdown, you may place the following template at the top of the thread:

<--Template here-->

The advantages of SLOWDOWN are as follows:

• Spacing the discussion out lessens its impact on other parts of the project.
• Spacing the discussion out the posts prevents recent changes and page histories from being dominated by one discussion.
• The wait time allows participants' thoughts to settle in their heads, so the resulting posts are calmer, more focused or more artistic.
• The wait time gives participants psychological permission to spend time on other parts of Wikinews.
• If the discussion has only two participants, then even if just one chooses SLOWDOWN, the other almost always ends up slowing down too.
• It allows everyone to cool the heck on down without having to shut the heck on up.

SLOWDOWN is not binding and choosing not to participate in slowdown is not a violation of WN:ETIQUETTE or any other guideline or policy. It is merely something that contributors may ask for out of respect for each other and for the subject under discussion.

Since the point of SLOWDOWN is to prevent a conversation from disturbing others, please respect requests from Meta-Wiki who were not involved in the discussion.

Works well when...

• When there are only two people in the discussion.
• When
• When