Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-03-21/Arbitration report

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Report On Lengthy Litigation

By Michael Snow, 21 March 2005

Following his offer to serve as a sort of self-appointed prosecutor of arbitration cases (see archived story), Snowspinner last week kept up his pace of bringing new requests. With the Arbitration Committee having spent a couple of months clearing out its caseload, his work seemed to be building it back up again somewhat.

Picking up on an earlier arbitration case whose aftereffects continue to produce tension, Snowspinner submitted a new request last Saturday against Everyking. The request focused on the fact that Everyking had been blocked repeatedly for continuing to make reverts dealing with Ashlee Simpson, in violation of the previous ruling.

The request was accepted, although Everyking complained that the previous steps in resolving disputes had not been tried. Snowspinner contended that Everyking's "hostility and aggressiveness" about the subject meant that "there is no reasoning with him." Anthony DiPierro, the subject of an earlier request for arbitration brought by Snowspinner, echoed Everyking's concern and asked for Snowspinner to be barred from making additional requests, saying "he instead seems to intentionally get involved in conflict and arbitration."

In response, Snowspinner then volunteered to submit his own conduct in pursuing arbitration for review, through the "inspired lunacy" of requesting arbitration against himself. The arbitrators declined to consider this matter, with mav commenting that some kind of official prosecuting position might actually be worthwhile.

Disposing of two easy cases

More of the focus seemed to be on processing new arbitration requests (several other requests were rejected), as the arbitrators only closed two fairly simple cases last week, and most of the more complex matters remained under consideration.

Based on complaints by several users, the Arbitration Committee accepted a case a couple of weeks ago against JarlaxleArtemis, a relatively new contributor. Among the issues involved were some personal attacks, as well as uploading and incorrectly tagging a variety of images, some of them likely to have problems with copyright. The case was closed last Friday with a fairly brief ruling.

Concluding that these actions were out of ignorance, the arbitrators required that before making any further edits, JarlaxleArtemis review the relevant policies (No personal attacks, Image copyright tags, and the Copyright FAQ), then post a statement that he had read and understood them. He promptly prepared a brief statement to that effect, and has continued to edit Wikipedia without serious incident. In connection with this, JarlaxleArtemis is on a type of parole for the next three months to cover any future violations of these policies.

The arbitrators also closed another case due to lack of evidence. In the Noah Peters case, Apollomelos had asked for the Arbitration Committee to review the situation involving a user with various sockpuppets who was already informally banned for vandalism. The accounts were blocked again indefinitely around the time of the arbitration request, so apparently nobody felt the need to pursue the matter further to get an official ruling.

Other new cases opened

Due to the presentation of a substantial amount of evidence in the 172 case dealing with the user making the initial request, Netoholic, in response to a suggestion from arbitrator Neutrality the Committee decided to split the matter into a separate case. Neutrality is recused from both cases, but along with Snowspinner was involved in presenting most of the evidence about Netoholic.

Also, the arbitrators accepted a case involving Iasson and his alleged use of so-called "public accounts". These are accounts for which the password is made publicly available, somewhat similar to the action of CheeseDreams during her last arbitration case.