Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-07-16/Arbitration report

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The Report on Lengthy Litigation

By David Mestel and Newyorkbrad, 16 July 2007

The Arbitration Committee closed two cases last week. No new cases were accepted, although several new requests for arbitration are currently being considered.

Closed cases

In these cases, the Arbitration Committee announced its final decision last week:

• NYScholar: This case involved the actions of a number of users, including NYScholar and Notmyrealname, in relation to the Lewis Libby article and particularly whether that article should discuss the religious affiliation of its subject. In its decision, the Arbitration Committee recognized the sensitivity of this issue, and granted all involved editors an "amnesty" for past edit-warring, but provided that further misconduct may result in sanctions imposed by an uninvolved administrator.

• Hkelkar 2: This case involved the actions of, among others, Rama's Arrow, Bakasuprman, Dangerous-Boy, and Sbhushan. The dispute arose when Rama's Arrow blocked several users for long periods, alleging that they had acted as meatpuppets of a banned user. While the case was pending, Rama's Arrow elected to be voluntarily desysopped. In the final decision, the Arbitration Committee confirmed Rama's Arrow's desysopping, but noted that he was welcome to seek adminship again through RfA at any time. The committee urged the editors involved to enter into mediation regarding any unresolved content disputes, and emphasized that administrators involved in a dispute should not exercise admin powers such as blocking against others involved in the dispute, but should ask an uninvolved admin to review the matter. The committee also endorsed the principle that off-wiki e-mails should not be posted on Wikipedia without, at least, the consent of the sender. Finally, the Arbitration Committee stated that "all parties are reminded in the strongest possible terms that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a forum for conspiracy, personal attacks, nor the continuation of ethnic disputes by other means."

Evidence phase

These cases are in the evidence stage of consideration, during which editors may submit evidence and workshop proposals for consideration by the arbitrators:

• COFS, a case initiated by Durova based on a discussion at the community sanctions noticeboard. The case involves allegations of tendentious editing by various editors, sockpuppetry, conflicts of interest, and other user conduct issues on Scientology related articles.

• Great Irish Famine, a case initiated by SirFozzie, involves allegations including misuse of sources and harassment relating to Great Irish Famine and other Ireland/Northern Ireland articles.

• Attachment Therapy, initiated by Shotwell, alleges that other editors have engaged in POV pushing and tendentious editing on attachment therapy and related articles.

• Pigsonthewing 2, initiated by Moreschi, concerns the conduct of Pigsonthewing, including a series of conflicts between this user and other editors involving the use of microformats on Wikipedia and other matters.

• Vision Thing, initiated by Infinity0, concerns alleged edit-warring on anarchism, anarcho-capitalism, and related articles. The dispute has already been the subject of a prior arbitration case, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Infinity0, involving some of the same parties.

• Armenia-Azerbaijan 2: A case alleging misconduct by various editors, some of whom were previously placed on revert parole in an earlier case, on articles relating to Armenia, Azerbaijan, the conflict between them, and related matters.

Under review

The "under review" category refers to situations where the arbitrators are examining a party's compliance with a prior ArbCom decision, without opening a full new case to address the matter.

• Certified.Gangsta-Ideogram: A review of the Certified.Gangsta-Ideogram case. Ideogram and Sean William allege that Certified.Gangsta engaged in tendentious editing since the main case was closed and violated a revert parole imposed in the decision in that case.

Voting phase

In these cases, a proposed decision has been drafted and is being voted on by the arbitrators:

• Zacheus-jkb: A case involving the actions of -jkb- and Zacheus. -jkb- alleges that Zacheus has published personal data on him, and has made legal threats. Zacheus denies the allegations, and Thatcher131 alleges on the talkpage that -jkb- has himself revealed personal information on Zacheus. In the proposed decision, the Arbitration Committee would admonish both editors for their previous misconduct against each other but note that the problematic conduct seems to have stopped, and warn the parties not to resume practices such as posting identifying information about other editors or making personal attacks.

• CharlotteWebb: A case arising from the revelation by Jayjg, who has checkuser access, that CharlotteWebb had edited from TOR proxies. This occurred during CharlotteWebb's request for adminship, which then failed to reach consensus. In a proposed decision submitted by arbitrator Kirill Lokshin, the Arbitration Committee would note that CharlotteWebb remains a user in good standing and is welcome to resume editing, and would advise or remind Jayjg to seek to resolve this type of dispute privately before making public statements alleging misbehavior. Other arbitrators have not yet commented on these proposals.

• Abu badali: A case alleging that Abu badali has disruptively tagged non-free images for deletion, even when a valid fair-use justification exists, and has harassed editors who have complained about this behavior. Abu badali denies the allegations. The proposed decision submitted by arbitrator Fred Bauder would place Abu badali on probation for one year. Arbitrator voting on the remedy and some of the findings of fact underlying it is split.

• Piotrus: A case involving User:Piotrus and other editors on Central and Eastern Europe-related articles. In the case, multiple parties have accused one another of edit-warring, incivility, unethical behavior, and biased editing. Arbitrators have proposed remedies ranging from granting amnesty for prior editing problems on these articles to placing "all articles relating to Eastern Europe, broadly defined, on general probation and parole" to banning M.K from these articles for one year. Voting on the proposed remedies is divided.

• Paranormal: A case involving the actions of various users, especially as regards bias and attribution, on "articles on paranormal and pseudoscientific topics", such as parapsychology and Electronic voice phenomenon. Remedies including limiting editors on articles relating to the paranormal to one revert (other than of simple vandalism) per week, and cautioning Dradin and Kazuba, have been proposed.

Motion to close

An arbitrator has proposed closing the committee's consideration and finalizing the decision in this case:

• Miskin: A case involving the actions of Miskin, who was blocked by Swatjester for one month (later reduced to one week) for an alleged violation of the three revert rule following an earlier history of blocks. In a proposed decision submitted by arbitrator Mackensen and having majority support, the committee would advise Miskin to seek consensus on an article's talkpage if his initial edits are reverted, and advise Swatjester to take the length of time since previous blocks into account in deciding on the length of a later block and to treat all editors violating the 3RR fairly.

Also this week: From the editor — Board elections — F1 trademark — New bureaucrats — Rescue squad — Book review — WikiWorld — In the news — Features and admins — Technology — Arbitration