Wikipedia:Confidentiality during mediation

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The following is a proposed confidentiality agreement for use by the mediation committee.

  • I will keep all correspondence between us private except with full agreement of all concerned - specifically, nothing said in private during mediation will be used in any future arbitration. This applies to private e-mail, the mediation IRC channel when used privately and private sections of the mediation bulletin board.
  • If I believe something should be shared with the rest of Wikipedia, I will do so only after receiving permission from you and any other relevant participants.
  • I expect you and any other participants to follow the same rule of confidentiality with regards to each other.
  • This confidentiality will *not* apply in extreme cases of actual threats to any person or to Wikipedia.
  • While confidentiality *will* apply to personal insults these may result in mediation being terminated and are strongly discouraged.
  • I reserve the right to break confidentiality if any participant seriously misrepresents the content of a mediation.
  • If you feel you have cause to break confidentiality with regards to another participant this should be done only after discussion with me.
  • I may discuss parts of the mediation with other members of the mediation committee on occasion. If I do so, they will be bound by the same rule of confidentiality.
  • Any part of the mediation that takes place in public, for example on Wikipedia (especially on talk pages), on the mailing lists, on IRC (or other chat programs) in channels or conferences which are open to the public, or on the public section of the mediation bulletin boards, is not confidential. Also while I would consider such discussion to be outside the scope of the arbitration committee, I cannot guarantee that they would agree with me.
  • You retain the right to make any part of your conversation with me public - except where it infringes on the confidentiality rights of any other participants. Once you have made part of our discussion public I am no longer bound by confidentiality with regards to that text.
  • At the end of mediation I will make a public statement. At a minimum this will say: "my mediation with *** and *** has ended. We did/did not come to any agreement." Any additions to this will be by agreement of the participants.