Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-08-01/Arbitration report

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The Report On Lengthy Litigation

By Michael Snow, 1 August 2005

The reappearance of two users who had completed their arbitration bans, but returned to their old ways, kept the Arbitration Committee busy last week.

The users in question were Irate, who had been banned for three months on April 17, and Plautus satire, who came back after a one-year ban. Plautus satire was banned in March 2004 in one of the first rulings ever made by the Arbitration Committee, and the one-year time period had been reset in July 2004 based on a brief reappearance as User:Energybone.

The name says it all

As the decision in Irate's case rested on his use of personal attacks, the ruling did not subject Irate to a personal attack parole directly, but provided that the arbitrators might impose one upon his return if the behavior repeated itself. When Irate returned to editing, complaints soon resumed after he filed requests for comment against three of his earlier opponents. This prompted the arbitrators to quickly reopen the case and the parole, allowing Irate to be blocked for up to a week for any personal attacks, was imposed on Monday.

By this time, Irate had already been blocked after a revert war over the requests for arbitration page. After the parole was official, Snowspinner reset his block for a week for engaging in personal attacks on his talk page while blocked (blocked users can edit their own talk pages). Finally, Jimbo Wales intervened after a conversation via IRC, in which he said Irate had indicated a belief that Wikipedia's rules were "rubbish" and that he would continue "following" them as he had in the past. After this, Wales blocked him indefinitely, saying, "We've got an encyclopedia to write, and we should be very very sorry to those who have had to put up with him for this long."

An unwelcome comedy

The return of Plautus satire, described by the arbitrators last year as "a highly disruptive influence on the community from nearly the same moment this user joined Wikipedia", prompted relatively quick action. His ban expired on Wednesday, and by the next day the arbitrators had reopened his case. In one of the more expeditiously handled arbitration cases, by the end of the week they had enough votes to re-impose the one-year ban.

Arbitrator Raul654, who recused himself from the case, reported that Plautus satire had actually sent emails to several people shortly before his return, pointing out that his ban would soon expire. Upon returning, he promptly sought out his former adversaries and left messages on their talk pages, then tried to blank an earlier request for comment about him. A violation of the three-revert rule here got him blocked, leading him to launch abuse at various parties, much like his previous pattern that led to the original ban.

By Sunday, the case was ready for closure as the arbitrators had already settled on renewing the one-year ban, although longer bans were considered. Fred Bauder argued, as he had last year as well, that for this case the Arbitration Committee should disregard its self-imposed limit that penalties should last no longer than one year.

One case accepted

Only one new case was accepted last week, a third request for arbitration involving Everyking. The request, made by Snowspinner, did not relate to Everyking's previous cases surrounding articles related to Ashlee Simpson, or his current mentorship. Instead, Snowspinner complained about Everyking's actions on the administrators' noticeboard, which he said amounted to "attacking admins he doesn't personally like" without regard for "consensus, policy, and civility".

Everyking characterized it as a personal dispute between the two, saying that for his part Snowspinner had failed to moderate his controversial actions as an administrator, so Everyking declined to moderate his words. He also objected to the participation of arbitrator David Gerard in the case, arguing that he should be recused.

Also this week: Editor's note — Features — Profanity — VfD — T.R.O.L.L.