Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-06-06/Arbitration report

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The Report On Lengthy Litigation

By Michael Snow, 6 June 2005

The Arbitration Committee continued to steadily accept new cases but only issued a ruling in one matter last week. To keep the growth of its caseload in check, the committee may close some cases without a decision if the dispute is no longer active.

Last Thursday, the committee concluded a case involving LevelCheck, deciding to have this account blocked indefinitely as a disruptive user and possible sockpuppet. The evidence presented showed that LevelCheck had, ever since the creation of the account, started or gotten involved in a variety of disputes, especially by controversial actions dealing with categories, templates, and redirects. The arbitrators concluded based on LevelCheck's "inherent familiarity with Wikipedia procedures and policies" that the account was likely a sockpuppet.

Meanwhile, arbitrator Neutrality moved to close two cases in an effort to clear out disputes that have gone stale and no longer warrant being handled through arbitration. The first was the case against Wareware, who has not edited since a month before the request was made, and this matter in fact appears set to close. Neutrality also recommended closing the case involving Instantnood, indicating that "this is generally a content matter and the dispute seems to have died down." At last check, this motion still needed the support of one additional arbitrator for the case to be closed.

New requests

In a request carried over from previous weeks, the stalemate over Netoholic's request for arbitration against Cantus was broken and the case opened based on a 5-2 vote. Another request, with multiple users complaining about the behavior of Zivinbudas on Lithuanian subjects, was opened on Thursday. Two additional cases were opened on Sunday: a complaint by ChrisO against Argyrosargyrou for edit warring on articles related to Cyprus, and one by Meelar and Firebug against Mlorrey regarding a dispute over gun control articles.

Finally, on Sunday Everyking submitted a request for the Arbitration Committee to review his case. The decision in that case, issued April 5, banned Everyking from editing articles related to Ashlee Simpson for a year, but provided that he could apply to have this sanction lifted after two months. The two months having expired, Everyking asked for the ban to be removed.

Also this week: Downtime — Passwords — Content arbitration — Brockhaus — Features — Top 100 list — T.R.O.L.L. — Press coverage