Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Sdrqaz (talk | contribs) at 22:35, 13 February 2024 (→‎Amending the scope of appeals considered by the Arbitration Committee: Oppose one, support one). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Arbitration Committee proceedings

Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

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Motion name Date posted
Amending the scope of appeals considered by the Arbitration Committee 5 February 2024

Motions

Amending the scope of appeals considered by the Arbitration Committee

Motion: appeals of CheckUser blocks generally not heard

1) The Arbitration Committee resolves to amend the scope of block appeals it handles, thus updating the guidance from previous motion in 2015, as follows:

The Arbitration Committee hears appeals from editors who are (a) blocked for reasons that are unsuitable for public discussion, or (b) blocked or banned by Arbitration and Arbitration Enforcement decisions. Examples of reasons that are unsuitable for public discussion include blocks (i) marked as an Oversight block, or (ii) based on CheckUser evidence, and where there exists disagreement between checkusers as to the interpretation of the technical evidence. It is expected that blocks marked as a CheckUser block are by default appealed on-wiki; however, the Arbitration Committee may hear appeals of such blocks if there are compelling reasons to hear an appeal in private.

For this motion there are 13 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 7 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Support:

  1. I was uncomfortable with this at first, as the Arbitration Committee still needs to be a private place where editors can go to in case of actual checkuser abuse, instead of going straight to the Ombuds Commission. However, contrary to oversight blocks, checkuser blocks can usually be reasonably appealed on-wiki and this motion does leave a door open to "compelling reasons" against the default. Also, the Arbitration Committee can still (and must still) review checkuser activity and complaints about functionary tool misuse – it just wouldn't do so directly in response to every appeal by a blocked user anymore. This is similar to how the blocking policy (WP:BP § Unblock requests) recommends a discussion at WP:AN if the administrators cannot come to an agreement instead of requiring an AN discussion for every unblock request at CAT:RFU. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:42, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I am very pleased to see these motions posted, and thank Maxim for their work on this. This version is strongly my first choice. I think it should require more than an unsuccessful appeal to clearly open the path to an ArbCom appeal - to do otherwise would I feel limit the impact of the change, as someone could make one trivial unsuccessful on-wiki appeal and then legitimately feel they can make an appeal to ArbCom, which is only a slight change to the status quo. Requiring disagreement between checkusers as to the nature of the evidence (or some other compelling reason to hear a private appeal) allows us to redirect these cases back to the on-wiki processes. firefly ( t · c ) 19:28, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Per my comments in the discussion section. Maxim (talk) 13:26, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  4. --Guerillero Parlez Moi 13:36, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  5. This change is beneficial, not least of all because if checkusers can review checkuser blocks, that will streamline and simplify the review instead of having it done by committee for each request. This change allows for situations where ArbCom should review, but is not necessarily the first step in that process. - Aoidh (talk) 15:07, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Primefac (talk) 12:36, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  7. This strikes the right balance for me. It doesn't make sense for 15 editors to hear every CU block appeal, and under our current procedures (which have been streamlined in recent years!) all but the most trivial appeal generates a minimum of six emails—that's well over 1,000 emails a year and a significant chunk of the arb workload but most of these appeals are clear cut and don't need 15 pairs of eyes on them. Any checkuser can review the evidence a CU block is based on, and this leaves the door open for edge cases, such as where there is additional evidence that can't be discussed in public or (rarely) where there might be misuse or abuse. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:29, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Z1720 (talk) 19:05, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Appeals should be directed to where the evidence is held. This advances that presumption. Cabayi (talk) 20:05, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose:

  1. I've oscillated between having this as my second choice and outright opposition, but ultimately, it doesn't sit right with me. The Arbitration Committee is responsible for supervising the use of CheckUser and Oversight and, by extension, their operators. I deeply appreciate the time spent by my colleagues on and off the Committee to provide feedback on this measure – I sympathise with much of it – but this move to decrease our workload risks limiting the avenue for appeals to us too much. As the Committee acts as a collective instead of as individuals (needing greater deliberation to act, rightly or wrongly), its ability to carry out independent review is simply stronger. I favour the option below instead. Sdrqaz (talk) 22:35, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain:

Motion: ArbCom is no longer a first-resort appeals mechanism for CheckUser blocks

1.1) The Arbitration Committee resolves to amend the scope of block appeals it handles, thus updating the guidance from previous motion in 2015, as follows:

The Arbitration Committee hears appeals from editors who are (a) blocked for reasons that are unsuitable for public discussion; (b) blocked or banned by Arbitration and Arbitration Enforcement decisions; (c) subject to a block marked as an Oversight block; or (d) subject to a block marked as a CheckUser block and who have previously made an unsuccessful on-wiki appeal. As the Committee will accept appeals that cannot be discussed in public under clause (a), clause (d) does not preclude an editor subject to a CheckUser block from bypassing the on-wiki appeals process, provided that there are compelling reasons to hear an appeal in private. In addition, under clause (a), the Committee will hear appeals of blocks marked as a CheckUser block where there exists disagreement between checkusers as to the interpretation of the technical evidence.

For this motion there are 13 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 7 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Support:

  1. Second choice to "1)", "appeals of CheckUser blocks generally not heard". ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:50, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Second choice to the first motion above. While this is certainly an improvement over the current process, it also raises some concerns. - Aoidh (talk) 15:07, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. See my vote above. I'm aware that this is probably not going to pass, but I believe that the retention of the Committee as a body to provide independent review is an important principle. Sdrqaz (talk) 22:35, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose:

  1. While this approach would be an improvement over the present, I prefer motion 1 instead, per my comments in the discussion section. Maxim (talk) 13:26, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. The bar for review is far too low here --Guerillero Parlez Moi 13:37, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain:

Arbitrator views and discussions

  • I'm proposing these two motions, following internal committee discussions and consultations with the functionaries, to limit the scope of appeals that ArbCom considers. In short (I promise this is a condensed version), ArbCom presently will hear appeals of CheckUser blocks, although they are appealable at talk page or over UTRS. In practice, this means that ArbCom considers about 50 appeals per quarter; of these, roughly 40 are of CU blocks (the remainder generally being out-of-scope appeals). Most of these appeals are denied, and those that are accepted will tend to be on last-chance/standard offer basis. This practice means that a significant portion of Committee emails and time is devoted to hearing such appeals, despite the fact that in principle such appeals do not necessarily need Committee intervention (i.e. they can be, and in many cases are, equally handled at talkpages and UTRS). The current practice is notably different from most, if not all other Committee functions, which can only be reasonable handled by the Committee.
    I'm not immediately entering a vote, pending comments, but I am so far strongly learning towards the first motion ("generally not heard"), because I don't see the usefulness of ArbCom as last-resort appeal mechanism for otherwise ordinary CU blocks. Since the BASC disbanding, we don't act as a last-resort appeals mechanism, and a carve-out specifically for CU blocks seems inconsistent and unnecessary. Maxim (talk) 16:41, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd love it if we could add the idea of based on CheckUser evidence, and where there exists disagreement between CheckUsers as to the interpretation of the technical evidence somewhere to motion 2. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:53, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I added in the line, and hopefully it's not too clunky. Maxim (talk) 17:02, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • @ToBeFree: I'm trying to decide between the two myself. Could you explain why the first one is your preference as I'd have kind of expected it to be a rationale for somebode for whom the second motion is their first choice? Thanks, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:04, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure. I fear that the second motion ("1.1") is of little effect: Making an unsuccessful on-wiki appeal takes five seconds of pasting {{unblock|reason=your reason here}} onto your talk page, and if something similar has ever happened during the current block, even if that was two years ago, then we're a valid venue of appealing and can't really complain about the user coming to us with a trivial matter that could easily be discussed on-wiki. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:24, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've tweaked both motions with Maxim's permission to clarify the intent - a block being a CheckUser or Oversight block does not require the use of a specific template, simply a clear an unambiguous statement that the block falls into one of those categories. For instance, UPE blocks based on private evidence submitted to paid-en@ are frequently marked as "Checkuser block based on ticket:12345" without one of the specific templates. I don't think this is ever seriously disputed, but it's worth being clear on the point. I've also tweaked the capitalisation of [Cc]heck[Uu]ser to align with what I believe to still be current style practice. firefly ( t · c ) 19:12, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Noting that per our guidance something needs CU data to be a CU block. If it's just offwiki info it should be, for instance, a paid editing block with a link to a ticket rather than a CU block, per se. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:18, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That is a good point - those would almost certainly fall under clause (a) "unsuitable for public discussion" anyway, but it is worth bearing in mind here. I don't think any of my wording changes muddies that water, but please do edit if you feel otherwise :) firefly ( t · c ) 19:21, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Community discussion

For convenience, here is a side-by-side diff of the two versions of the proposed motion. It's broken up into sections to try to align analogous portions.

−
The Arbitration Committee hears appeals from editors who are (a) blocked for reasons that are unsuitable for public discussion, or (b) blocked or banned by Arbitration and Arbitration Enforcement decisions.
+
The Arbitration Committee hears appeals from editors who are (a) blocked for reasons that are unsuitable for public discussion; (b) blocked or banned by Arbitration and Arbitration Enforcement decisions;
−
Examples of reasons that are unsuitable for public discussion include blocks
+
−
(i) marked as an [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Oversight blocks|Oversight block]], or (ii) based on CheckUser evidence, and where there exists disagreement between CheckUsers as to the interpretation of the technical evidence.
+
(c) subject to a block marked as an [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Oversight blocks|Oversight block]]; or (d) subject to a block marked as a [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy#CheckUser blocks|CheckUser block]] ''and'' who have previously made an unsuccessful on-wiki appeal.
−
It is expected that blocks marked as a [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy#CheckUser blocks|CheckUser block]] are by default appealed on-wiki; however, the Arbitration Committee may hear appeals of such blocks if there are compelling reasons to hear an appeal in private.
+
As the Committee will accept appeals that cannot be discussed in public under clause (a), clause (d) does ''not'' preclude an editor subject to a CheckUser block from bypassing the on-wiki appeals process, provided that there are compelling reasons to hear an appeal in private.
−
+
In addition, under clause (a), the Committee will hear appeals of blocks labelled as a CheckUser block where there exists disagreement between CheckUsers as to the interpretation of the technical evidence.

isaacl (talk) 18:55, 5 February 2024 (UTC) updated 19:25, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just noting that since this diff was posted I have tweaked the motion text slightly - the change is not substantive, merely clarifying that specific templates are not needed for a block to be "marked as a CU/OS block" for the purposes of the motions. The core differences shown here remain accurate. firefly ( t · c ) 19:13, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I updated the diff, with the minor change of using spaces instead of underscores in the wikilinks, in order to improve the layout of the side-by-side diff. isaacl (talk) 19:32, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you @Isaacl, that diff is very helpful. Thryduulf (talk) 19:37, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not entirely sure the "disagreement between CUs" language is necessary. How often does that happen? Why do we need policy for it? What do we do currently when we disagree? How often are these disagreements visible to the blocked users? I've been doing this stuff for a while, and I've never found myself having to do anything more than having an email conversation with the other CU. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 20:54, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The short answer is that such a clause would be very rarely used—it's there in case there is a difficult or unusual situation. To elaborate, I went through our appeals records for 2022 and 2023 (these are the most thorough years). I counted two instances, each year, where ArbCom overturned a block on the grounds of the block being faulty, although there is a bit of a gradient between "faulty block" and "last chance unblock". The middle ground of this gradient is "I wouldn't have felt have confident blocking, but I don't feel confident enough to unblock", and when a committee starts voting, the outcome may be similar to that of a coin flip (and I couldn't tell you if that's a bug or feature). One particular appeal, which was received in 2020 and was a particularly contentious case internally, is something inspired this "disagreement between CUs" clause. Keep in mind that the dynamic between two CUs, versus one CU and ArbCom is not going to be same. There is a power imbalance: instead of two individuals discussing, it's an individual and a committee which can, in theory, vote in whatever way it wants. It seems important to highlight that ArbCom will explicitly be a venue to deal with the particularly difficult cases; the only other viable alternatives for such a discussion, should it need to happen, would be checkuser-l or the CheckUser wiki, and those seem much less suitable to adjudicate or help adjudicate an appeal in comparison to arbcom-en. Maxim (talk) 01:58, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As a general case, isn't ArbCom the proper place for all irreconcilable differences between admins regarding blocks? --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 17:08, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Block reviews go to AN. What would end up at ArbCom would have to involve something closer to misconduct than to differences of opinion. Maxim (talk) 17:18, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As Maxim notes, I think the standard for what ArbCom would still hear fall short of "irreconcilable differences" instead just being "differences" which normally would go to a community forum. But also the fact that we have data that can't be talked about directly onwiki does mean that reviews are going to take a different shape than normal blocks. That said I had said at the start of this effort that your feedback was going to be important to me @Jpgordon given the work you already do around unblocks. So if you think that ArbCom won't need much involvement, that's important feedback but doesn't say to me the motions need changing. Just sets expectations that ArbCom's involvement will truly get lessened. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:29, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just nitpicking, perhaps -- my feeling for policy language is finding the point of "necessary and sufficient", probably veering toward an excessive conciseness. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 17:52, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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