Wikipedia talk:Mentorship

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I don't think that the label "Involuntary mentorship" is quite right, although for some of those involved in one they may fee; that they are involuntary since it is usually offered as a "take this mentorship or it's likely you'll be banned" proposition. Unless someone can come up with a better label, I would suggest changing it to "Negotiated mentorship" or something similar.

I think that you also need to note that for both types of mentorship there needs to be a very clear understanding from the very beginning on what is expected during the mentorship and what the responsibilities of each individual are. I think that the main reason that Netoholic's mentorship failed is that everyone—ArbComm, each mentor, and Netoholic—had different ideas and expectations of how that mentorship was supposed to work and what the results were supposed to be. BlankVerse 08:53, 30 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I just posted this at Wikipedia talk:Editor review, but I have been trying to find places to refer another editor for assistance with some sort of guidance, mentoring, or coaching (call it what you will), suitable for someone who is relatively new. There does not seem to be any sort of equivalent to Editor Review or Admin Coaching for less experienced wikipedians. Editor review might be too harsh a process for someone trying to learn in the early stages, and Admin Coaching is far down the road. Whether or not "Admin Coaching" is intended to help editors become admins is beside the point; the name probably discourages editors who are not looking to be admins yet, but to be editors. If people could brainstorm for some sort of voluntary "wikicoaching" or "wikimentoring" program, it might help develop and assist a lot of new users. Agent 86 04:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So what's the difference between Mentorship and Adopt-a-user? --lEoN2323 21:45, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, it does sound the same. It could be easier if Menotrship was devoted to "involuntary mentorship" and Adopt-a-user was devoted to "voluntary mentorship". It certainly would make it sound more appealing to volunteers, as it wouldn't make them appear (at first glance) to have been forced into it by a violation. Just a random idea.

--HAL2008 20:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The community should be able to place a user into mentorship, as an example, I'm about to unblock a user if they agree to mentorship. I've added this in here. Mercury 12:20, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any obligation for the Mentor to disclose the relationship when advocating? If not there should be. I was involved in an awkward situation this morning in which I mistook a mentor for a sympathizer of an editor I believe to be behaving inappropriately. A trip to ANI could have been avoided if the relationship had been disclosed by the Mentor when acting as advocate. --Pleasantville (talk) 19:41, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't get it. Mentoring is (usually) an informal thing- we have no need to be aware of mentorships or treat anyone any differently because of them. Even when someone is forced into being mentored, this means they need to change their own behavior accordingly. The rest of us don't particularly need to care about it. Friday (talk) 19:43, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the merge template that's been on the page since last July, evidently the merge didn't go forward. I think the problem probably was due to the dual nature of this page. While "voluntary mentorship" obviously dovetails with Wikipedia:Adopt-a-User, I don't think the involuntary type fits there at all. Perhaps the voluntary part of this page should be removed and hatnote disambiguated to Adopt-a-User, leaving just the involuntary portion- at which point this page should probably be renamed something like WP:Editing moderation or some such. —Ashanda (talk) 07:12, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was placed under mentorship in August 2007 - readers of this might be astonished by the venom released by an editor seeking (perhaps demanding?) the details of a fairly blatant Conflict of Interest, but there we go. Lifelong compulsory mentorship - I'm not complaining.

In essence mentorship works extremely well - I've never been asked to stop doing anything (that I can think of?) and I'm empowered to ignore all complaints raised against me, because of course they should, naturally, go to my mentor.

Unfortunately, harassment of me has been replaced by harassment of my mentors. The first one was indef-blocked (perhaps understandably) as a sock-puppet - the following three were severely harrassed on and off-wiki. Things deteriorated severely after that and I'm now able to abide by the conditions imposed only by refusing to say who is mentoring me. PR^talk 12:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Copied from Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Privatemusings, based on Lar's response here.

The original RfArb clarification thread setting up this mentorship is here. The previous history of Privatemusings at arbitration can be seen here.

"I suggest some lessons be learnt from this. Does having three mentors work? Should there be a code of conduct for mentors? Is it acceptable for mentors to resign and then comment extensively at and endorse an RfC on the former mentoree? How much influence should a mentor have? I'm not necessarily disagreeing with what people might answer to these questions, but I think the whole process of mentorship needs to be looked at, including the advantages and disadvantages of informal and formal mentorships. In this case, the mentorship arose from a RfArb [clarification] - two of the mentors explicitly stated here [at the RfC] that they had been appointed by ArbCom - whether that was intended to add weight to their comments or make the history clearer, I don't know, but it may have the effect of adding weight to the comments of the mentors. My point is that at times the mentors may have appeared to be acting as proxies for ArbCom (monitoring and reviewing Privatemusings), rather than as mentors." Carcharoth (talk) 21:25, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Messages left for User:Lar, User:Durova, User:Jayvdb, User:FT2 (to keep the arbitration committee in the loop) and User:Privatemusings. Durova and Lar and FT2 have all left views at the RfC, while Jayvdb's views seem to be expressed here. I've placed this note here at the talk page of Wikipedia:Mentorship for the record, but, given the comments about not picking at scabs and allowing wounds to heal, I suggest that it might be an idea to lead by example and allow this particular wound to heal. In other words, don't comment extensively, but make brief comments (or keep the comments general rather than specific) and then move on, indicating, if necessary, any desire to revisit the issues in a month or so. Carcharoth (talk) 13:14, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Brief comments only:

Mentorship has been used for a wide range of circumstances, and especially when the user is likely to be a net positive contributor, but has behavioral habits that are a serious concern and where guidance/education, reflection, "sanity checking" or third party input will be more useful than outright blocking. A mentor is intended to provide a mixture of oversight, double checking, and coaching, in an informal friendly manner. The exact mixture depends on the case itself.

When a mentor is formally appointed, or agreed to as part of dispute resolution or unblocking, they may also serve as the community's way to keep an eye on developments and act as overseers for the wider community (ie, those users who commented at a specific instance but do not then track it over the following weeks or months). If problems persist, their input can be vital as closely involved, experienced, neutral parties, to understand what's going on and assess the options going forward. In this way, they act as part of dispute resolution when a behavioral problem needs extended input, and in such contexts they would usually have weight - if an experienced user who has worked with and tried to help the user learn by "taking their side" and working with them, feels progress cannot be made, that is often a red light others need to be aware of, or at the very least a change of mentor may be recommended.

In exceptional cases mentors are tasked with judging sanctions such as blocks or warnings as well, or explicitly reporting on problems. This is usually the case when a user with serious disruptive issues also makes good content contributions, but the problems seem to stem from great lack of self control. An example might be a very strongly opinionated contributor to The Troubles who edits fine - but now and then launches tirades or engages in unacceptable personal attack on other editors. Another example might be good quality editors who keep falling into heavy duty WP:NPA/WP:AE spirals and are getting close to wearing out communal patience. A further kind of case is when the mentorship may be strained, and the mentor needs to be a user who will remain fair, balanced, seeking the best, and unlikely to be swayed by this. In such cases coaching is needed, but the mentorship may need to be a balance between help and guidance, explaining how to handle concerns ("let me handle it if you have a problem") and acting as the "main point of handling" of any issues. A longer term working relationship is often important for these kinds of cases, because the judgement of how to say something, and what action is needed, may not be best judged by uninvolved admins. Also because such users may have impulse control issues over their words and interactions, and the coaching aspect is delicate; well-intentioned intervention may cause them to "spiral" with unfortunate consequences.

Mentor selection is usually, although not in every case, a mutual agreement. The exceptions tend to be cases at Arbitration where a difficult user may present unusual problems, may be likely to object to disproportionately many mentors (or will only accept mentors who will "soft pedal" the problem behavior), or where mentors are needed who are judged capable of handling the specific issues involved. Although mentors are chosen by arbcom, consensus, or mutual agreement, with a view to stability, experience, and likelihood of being fair to the user, it cannot hurt to clarify the expectations held of them. Then again there are few if any cases of bad mentoring conduct, so some may feel this is unnecessary bureaucracy - the creation of rules for a matter that is mostly commonsense and which has not been problematic so far. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 09:13, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've been trying to work out exactly what this page is for. It is linked under "remedies" in the dispute resolution template, but I get the impression that it has fallen into disuse. It was used to list people under involuntary mentorship, but that part doesn't seem to have been done recently. Maybe this page should be used more for that again? This page also seems to clearly lay out what the difference is between voluntary and involuntary mentorship. It helps if arbitration cases that involve enforced mentorship explicitly link to this page, as some people may confuse voluntary and involuntary mentorship, not realising that mentors appointed by the Arbitration Committee have a lot of enforcement power (according to this page). The cases that link to this page are somewhere in this list. I suspect there are other cases where mentorship was enforced that are not linked to here, though. So I searched through Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Completed requests and found the following cases where mentorships ended up in the final decision (one, the Everyking2 case, did not have "mentor" in the description at 'completed requests', so possibly other cases involved mentorship that are not documented here - for example, the Privatemusings mentorship is not noted at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Completed requests because the mentorship arose in a clarification after the case closed):

• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Privatemusings (Clarification request in August 2008. In October 2008 the mentors resigned and an RfC was opened - ongoing)
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Great Irish Famine (article mentorship documented here)
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Marcosantezana (mentorship remedy passed here, but editor in question stopped editing during the case and has not edited since)
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Dyslexic Agnostic (mentorship remedy is here - mentorship failed, account now banned)
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Neuro-linguistic programming (article mentorship remedy passed here)
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Maoririder (mentorship remedy is here, no further documentation, account was banned a few months later)
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Coolcat, Davenbelle and Stereotek (mentorship remedy is here, some documentation in the logs of blocks and bans, editor later renamed and still editing - unsure if later restrictions or mentorships came into effect)
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Netoholic 2 (mentorship remedy is here, not sure of later history, user still editing but has been inactive most of this year)
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Everyking 2 (mentorship remedy is here, seems to have worked, was lifted four months later)
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/RickK vs. Guanaco (Jimbo-imposed mentorship, noted here, though the account in question was indefinitely blocked two years later)

Possibly someone might like to document these Arbcom-enforced mentorships to see how successful they were or not, and if any lessons can be or were learned. The concept of 'article mentorship' seems related to 'article probation', but maybe slightly different. One page I did find, which was interesting, was Wikipedia:Mentorship Committee, which I'd never heard of before. I can understand why it was marked historical, but I will link to it anyway as part of the history and as a way for people to find further examples of mentorships that may or may not have worked. Carcharoth (talk) 14:07, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree this page badly needs some updating, I know User:Ryan Postlethwaite, User:Elonka, User:Durova, and User:AGK are highly active in the theoretical underpinning of DR, maybe you could work with some of them (and any others of course), to shape this page? I'll help as I can, but I will admit that I usually oppose mentorship situations as too likely to fail. MBisanz ^talk 20:44, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Correction, the PM mentors resigned in October 2008 rather than November. ++Lar: t/c 01:42, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Corrected. Carcharoth (talk) 03:15, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

More difficult to track are the mentorships imposed by the community and Jimbo. One Jimbo-imposed mentorship is mentioned at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/RickK vs. Guanaco. The community-imposed mentorships (some would be voluntary as well, but kind of agreed on the back of a community discussion) would probably be documented at the archives of WP:CSN, WP:MENTCOM, WP:AN and WP:ANI. Maybe other places as well. The ones I remember are one that Mercury took on (see here) and one involving Palestine Remembered (see here). It would be good to document some of those, but more important is probably laying out what powers community-appointed involuntary mentors have, as these are appointed by a very different process to ArbCom-appointed mentors. Carcharoth (talk) 14:13, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, one more thing. The current link to "community" here (added by Mercury) is to ANI. Is that an appropriate venue for the community to impose involuntary mentorships? Would WP:AN (the administrator's noticeboard) be a better venue than the incidents noticeboard? Carcharoth (talk) 14:18, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously I agree that all should be tracked while in effect, and I also think AN is a better forum for discussions, as opposed to ANI. MBisanz ^talk 20:50, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some mentorships listed at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions. e.g. "PHG is restricted to only using widely-available English-language sources, unless working with an ArbCom-approved mentor." and "Papa Carlo [...] will be mentored by John Vandenberg." The PHG one resulted from an ArbCom case. The Papa Carlo one resulted from a community discussion (though no link provided). I also re-discovered that Wikipedia:Probation used to exist as a separate page, but got removed after discussion with ArbCom (see also this talk page discussion) and then redirected four months later to Wikipedia:Editing restrictions. Probations are now described and listed there (in theory). What seemed to have happened is that the probation list got out-of-date, and it was decided that the existing arbitration pages covered things enough, but then Wikipedia:Editing restrictions seemed to have taken on the role of documenting probations. Putting aside the question of whether Wikipedia:Editing restrictions may also be prone to falling out-of-date (though that documents community-imposed restrictions as well as ArbCom ones), the question here is whether the ArbCom-enforced probations should be documented here, or within the ArbCom pages? And whether the community-imposed mentorships are best documented at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions? Or is a separate page sustainable? My feeling is that the involuntary mentorships feel like editing restrictions (though in theory they are meant to be more flexible), while the voluntary ones don't need documenting (though a page explaining the difference is useful). Therefore I propose that community-imposed involuntary mentorships be documented at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions, and that ArbCom-enforced mentorships be documented where needed (though a separate listing, rather than having to search through all the cases) would be helpful for anyone wanting to see what ArbCom-imposed mentorship involves on both sides. I'll drop a note to Thatcher, Jehochman and Newyorkbrad, who were all involved in the above. Carcharoth (talk) 14:41, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not too keen on involuntary mentorship, here. Durova^Charge! 15:47, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The list is for editing restrictions. Some special cases may make mention of a mentorship, as does PHG's, but I do not think we need to list every mentorship here. Wikipedia:Editing restrictions was originally set up by User:Kirill Lokshin. I populated much of the original content, and the clerks and community have been maintaining it since. Mentorship and probation should not be conflated. When somebody is on probation, we may use the word "mentor", but perhaps we should choose a different term, such as "supervisor". Jehochman ^Talk 20:00, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Would you be interested in joining this project? We need more editors who share a burden for rescuing promising editors who have gotten into serious trouble because of behavioral issues. IF (a fundamental condition!) they are interested in reforming and adapting to our standards of conduct, and are also willing to abide by our policies and guidelines, rather than constantly subverting them, we can offer to help them return to Wikipedia as constructive editors. Right now many if not most users who have been banned are still active here, but they are here as socks or anonymous IPs who may or may not be constructive. We should offer them a proper way to return. If you think this is a good idea, please join us.

This project can be part of the mentorship process, and it should be listed at the bottom of the DR template. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:14, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This really is something I should've noticed sooner: somehow this essay had been mistakenly added to the DR template. Other than WP:ADOPT, which is intended for new users, there really isn't any formal structure associated with mentorship: no 'association of willing mentors for dispute resolution purposes' exists from which to get mentors. To the extent that mentorship is related to DR (which is debatable) this page is already subsumed by other more developed pages. This essay has no formal standing, and needed to be tagged as such. Its inclusion in the DR template was disrupting dispute resolution by misleading people into thinking a ready supply of mentors existed. Have also filled in the essay with missing information whose absence was doing damage to mentorships. Durova^Charge! 15:10, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to mention ATP mentor training here because it may be (or become) useful for mentor training. One could, for instance, offer a special learning trail for Wikipedia mentors. Mentees may tendentially be adolescents or young adults (can somebody confirm or disprove this?), consequently pedagogical aim and information might be useful for mentors and mentees. One could imagine that mentoring by Wikipedia authors might become popular in the sense of an insiders' tip: There are many adolescents for whom such a mentorship could be a significant personal benefit (World population: 0-14 years: 27.2% (male 950,127,898/female 894,359,186)). --fasten (talk) 18:38, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The following passage was recently added under the heading What mentorship is not:

Mentorship is not psychotherapy. Mentors do not help editors process their emotions or teach them social skills. They do not deal with editors' stress for them or negotiate with other editors on behalf of a client. See WP:Wikipedia is not therapy.

Mentorship is not a master-slave relationship. Mentors do not tell editors exactly what to do, what to write, or what to say. They do not control editors, and they are not responsible for mistakes made by editors.

Mentorship is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. Being involved in a mentorship relationship does not exempt editors from the usual rules or the usual consequences of their own behaviors.

If this needs to be on the page then surely there's a less confrontational way of phrasing such concepts. Durova³³² 21:53, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This section, while interesting, is also rambling and strays from its point into analogies that are never fully explained as to how they relate to mentorship. The last paragraph makes an attempt at this, and, in my view, is the only part that could, with some editing, be truly appropriate in this particular essay. Therefore, I recommend the author of this new section split it off into their own essay, which they can link to from this one. -kotra (talk) 00:11, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How does Wikipedia:Pedophile topic mentorship relate to this essay? It appears to have spun off from Wikipedia:WikiProject Pedophilia Article Watch, in effect superseding its parent project. One problem with this, however, is that the project template, Wikipedia:Pedophile topic mentorship/template links to this essay page piped from the phrase topic mentorship. The reason this is a problem in my view is that the current essay seems to deal with mentorship of users and does not seem to translate easily into mentorship of articles. __meco (talk) 21:48, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is there no list of mentors available for editors in need of a one? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:40, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This help request has been answered. If you need more help, please place a new {{help me}} request on this page followed by your questions, or contact the responding user(s) directly on their user talk page.

No reply since May of last year????? Flabbergastting !!!!! SergeWoodzing (talk) 20:55, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Adopt-a-user/Adoptee's Area/Adopters, or post a request at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. Dru of Id (talk) 02:20, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all,

Following a village pump proposal discussion I implemented a new tool Followed users which lets you view the most recent edit by a selected list of users that you follow. One important application of this is to allow mentors (both voluntary and involuntary) to follow their mentees and review their work in a timely manner. It's especially useful for users mentoring several other users. I'd like to get more people to try it out and let me know at my talk page if you find it useful or have suggestions/problems. Thanks! Dcoetzee 02:58, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Some of us need help and need to be able to look for helpful, experienced WP people who can interpret the needs of WP and our own good faith goals in such a way that we can contribute effectively and valuably and with a minimum of friction. Is this supposed to be inspiuring to that end, or is the intention to scare us away comfortably as prejudged probem people? Where is the good faith in presuming that anybody who needs help is likely to be manipulative and self-centered etc etc etc? SergeWoodzing (talk) 21:03, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Serge, this essay is scary. It has been heavily revised by user:Tenmei, an extreme case where mentorship was mandated by WP:ARBCOM, and then subsequently banned. The essay previously looked like this. I think we should return to that version.

Wikipedia:Adopt-a-user is the friendly mentoring system, where lots of good faith and inspiration can be found.

Involuntary/mandated mentoring/monitoring is a poorly described process, reserved for situations where the community has run out of good faith yet still wishes to 'keep' the wayward contributor. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 21:45, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! SergeWoodzing (talk) 23:22, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is the wikilink to Stockholm Syndrome really appropriate?--Gilderien Talk|Contribs 21:48, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, not really. I removed it. --IamNotU (talk) 19:01, 18 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I would like someone to help me out with AfDs — maybe help me do post-mortems after they close, and give advice on how I could have done better. AfDs are where I run into most of my problems with other editors, or perhaps I should say, it's where they usually run into problems with me. Leucosticte (talk) 02:53, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all,
Following a suggestion by BDD, I've made small updates to the wording on {{Mentor}} and {{Mentee}}. These used to be for new admin mentorship, but that has been gathering dust for years, so we might as well use them for more general mentoring. All comments/complaints welcome... bobrayner (talk) 09:57, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I really like the mentor program but agree with this editor (below) that the Unintended Consequences section is off topic and out of place.

This section, while interesting, is also rambling and strays from its point into analogies that are never fully explained as to how they relate to mentorship. The last paragraph makes an attempt at this, and, in my view, is the only part that could, with some editing, be truly appropriate in this particular essay. Therefore, I recommend the author of this new section split it off into their own essay, which they can link to from this one. -kotra (talk)

-- — Keithbob • Talk • 17:20, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the strange text that was added, twice, over the objections of other editors, by a now-blocked user, see these edits: Special:Diff/366940838/386876768. I also removed the link to "Stockholm syndrome" for "advocate" that seemed out of place and was also objected to earlier. --IamNotU (talk) 19:00, 18 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Participants here often work in many areas and have plenty of experience to share. Well, these are just some of the considerations at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.

So, please consider taking a look at and watchlisting this page:

• Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Optional RfA candidate poll

You could be very helpful in evaluating potential candidates, and maybe even finding out if you would be a suitable RfA candidate.

Many thanks and best wishes,

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 05:57, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Can a mentorship be used as a sanction?CycoMa1 (talk) 14:32, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think "sanction" is the right description. Mentorship is a way to support an editor with their edits. There have been situations where requiring an editor to have a mentor has been discussed. Generally, though, it's only seen as viable under very specific circumstances. If you're thinking about your specific situation (and if you are, please don't discuss it here), my solely-based-on-instinct guess is that requiring a mentor wouldn't attain consensus support as a mitigation method, due to its overhead for everyone. isaacl (talk) 15:45, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]