Wikipedia's Mediation Committee (MedCom) has heard five cases in the last three years (seeWikipedia:Requests for mediation/Tasks), leading some users to question its usefulness. Eliminating the function has thus been proposed in aRequest for Comment (RfC) at "Village pump (proposals) § Close MedCom?" (permanent link). Reasons cited by the proposer include:

• very few cases are submitted, let alone successful;
• the requirement that the parties go through other methods of dispute resolution first, i.e. mediation is intended to be the last resort for content disputes;
• the voluntary nature of mediation (all parties have to agree to it and decisions are non-binding) further reduces its effectiveness;
• MedCom's sole purpose, content dispute resolution, has been supplanted by other processes; and,
• basically one user (the chairperson) is actively working on the committee.

Supporters of closing MedCom have said that it is largely inactive, ineffective, and inefficient, as well as overly bureaucratic. On the other hand, one of the opposers,TransporterMan (who chairs the committee), argues that MedCom still plays in important part, though less frequently today than in years past, because it is better equipped to deal with complex cases that take a long time. This argument has been cited by other opposers of the proposal. As of publication, there are currently about 33 votes in favor and 11 against with a few neutrals.— P

Reforms toproposed deletion (PROD), one of which is the elimination of the process, have been proposed in a five-part RfC on the Village Pump (policy) at "RfC: Proposed deletion policy" (permanent link). Two parts have been closed already while the rest is now overdue for closure.— B,K

• Also mentioned in this month's columns 'In the media' and 'Op-ed', potential issues of bias regarding the article for Nobel Prize winnerDonna Strickland sparked multiple discussions among Wikipedians both on- and off-Wiki.— B
• Notification ofpending changes reviewers when thepending changes backlog is high has been proposed at the village pump. Though the original RfC was only about an opt-outsolution (oh no... guess I've been doing too much AfC review), an opt-in counterproposal has gained significantly more consensus inthe discussion (permanent link).— P
• Onthe talk page ofNCGAL (permanent link): Should articles likeUnited States presidential election, 2012 be moved to2012 United States presidential election? Users in favor of the change supported its more natural wording, while opposers argued that the current system makes such articles easier to find in the search bar.— P
• Vandalism to the page atToday's featured article has led toa proposal (permanent link) topending-changes protect such articles. This protection level was chosen over semi-protection to allow IPs to make constructive changes to these articles.— P
• As the USmidterm elections approach, users aredebating (permanent link) changes to the notability criteria for candidates for elected office (in all countries).— P
• Aproposal at the village pump (permanent link) is seeking to redesign the page protection padlock icons to improveaccessibility and provide a fresher look. Specifically, the redesigned icons are more visible, satisfyminimum color contrast requirements, and include visual aids in each lock to help with deciphering their meaning at a glance. As of publication, the proposal has been met with general support, just as it receivedin the idea lab (permanent link).— N

• Thanks for the note about the PROD discussions, of which I was not aware until now. Seems the biggest non-snowball issue is the questions about whether to notify or not to notify, to which I say there should just be one easy answer... someone should just writea bot to take care of the notifications for everyone. –wbm1058 (talk)21:00, 28 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Having any topic the subject of "a five-part RfC" strikes at the very heart of what's wrong with Wikipedia: the very laudable goal of being completely transparent and consensus-driven results in pages and pages of text that simply cannot be read and considered in full by any of the participants, much less the sorry sod who has to close the discussion. Wikipedia should not be available only to pensioned retirees.--~TPW01:38, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• I may have been the first editor to recommend the abolishment of Medcom, about a year or two ago. Interesting, that the community has picked up on the topic.GoodDay (talk)16:59, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• After reading this article I'm not sure if I had forgotten Medcom existed, or was never aware of its existence to begin with. -Indy beetle (talk)05:50, 2 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]