Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard

This noticeboard is for announcements and statements made by the Arbitration Committee. Only members of the Arbitration Committee or the Committee's Clerks may post on this page, but all editors are encouraged to comment on the talk page.

Announcement archives: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7

Clerk promotion

We are pleased to announce that Salvio giuliano (talk · contribs) has been promoted to a full Arbitration Committee Clerk position, effective immediately.

We thank Salvio giuliano and all of the Clerks for their assistance to the Committee and its work.

For the Arbitration Committee, Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:30, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Checkuser practice regarding the association of IP addresses to accounts

A concern was filed about a checkuser confirming on an SPI case that an IP address was associated with a specific editor. The request was subsequently withdrawn following discussion between the concerned party and the checkuser. Nonetheless, it is important to note that, while checkusers are normally reticent to make such direct links, there are valid reasons within the privacy policy to do so under certain circumstances. Those circumstances can include editors logging out to behave disruptively. The practice of declining to publicly link such activities to an account is merely a tradition, and checkusers may do so if discretion warrants it.

For the Audit Subcommittee, bahamut0013^words _deeds 15:38, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Archived discussion

Happy-melon Oversight resignation

The Arbitration Committee has accepted Happy-melon's resignation from the Oversight role. We would like to extend our thanks to Happy-melon for his service in this role, and we are pleased that this resignation is prompted by his desire to focus on his role as a MediaWiki developer, where we expect his future contributions will benefit far more than just the English Wikipedia.

For the Arbitration Committee, Jclemens (talk) 13:38, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Archived discussion

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration Enforcement sanction handling closed

This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above.

Users Dreadstar, Sandstein, and Ludwigs2 are encouraged to read and reflect on the remedies applicable to them. All administrators who intend to enforce or undo an action linked to an arbitration remedy are advised to read the principles and remedies of the case.

For the Arbitration Committee, NW (Talk) 19:16, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Archived discussion

Arbitration motion regarding Russavia-Biophys

Following a request for clarification filed at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Amendment on 21 April 2011, the Arbitration Committee has resolved that:

Remedy 8 ("YMB29 topic banned") of Russavia-Biophys is terminated, effective immediately. YMB29 is placed on a one-revert-per-day restriction in the relevant topic area ("articles about the Soviet Union and former Soviet Republics, and all related articles") for a period of one year. YMB29 is reminded to abide by the principles discussed in the decision, as well as all applicable Wikipedia policies and guidelines, in his future editing, and that he remains subject to discretionary sanctions under the terms of related decisions should he violate them.

For the Arbitration Committee, AGK [•] 12:18, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Archived discussion

Committee procedures relating to Ban appeals and to Discretionary sanctions

The Arbitration Committee has added the following provisions to its Procedures:

Ban appeals

An editor who is indefinitely topic-banned or otherwise restricted from editing in a topic area under an Arbitration Committee decision may request an amendment to lift or modify the restriction after an appropriate time period has elapsed. A reasonable minimum time period for such a request will ordinarily be six months, unless the decision provides for a different time or the Committee subsequently determines otherwise. In considering such a request, the Committee will give significant weight to, among other factors, whether the editor in question has established an ability to edit collaboratively and in accordance with Wikipedia policies and guidelines in other topic-areas of the project.

Discretionary sanctions

Administrators are reminded that:

Discretionary sanctions are a fast-track procedure to tackle misconduct within defined topic areas and/or to prevent disputes from within the defined topic area overflowing freely into other areas of the encyclopedia;
Discretionary sanctions may be imposed by any uninvolved administrator after giving due warning;
Best practice includes seeking additional input prior to applying a novel sanction or when a reasonable, uninvolved editor may question whether the sanction is within the scope of the relevant case;
Warnings should be clear and unambiguous, link to the decision authorising the sanctions, identify misconduct and advise how the editor may mend their ways;
Notices of imposed sanctions should specify the misconduct for which they have been imposed as well as the appeal process;
Discretionary sanctions have an established and clearly defined appeal process, which must be adhered to;
Overturning arbitration enforcement actions out of process is strictly prohibited per longstanding principle;
Discretionary sanctions should be used with caution where the community is already dealing with the specific issue through dispute resolution processes.

The first new procedure was adopted by motion on 6 May 2011. The second new procedure was adopted by decision in Arbitration Enforcement sanction handling on 5 May 2011.

For the Arbitration Committee,
AGK [•] 13:08, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Archived discussion

Changes in Checkuser/Oversight Personnel

This is to advise the community that CheckUser Lar (talk · contribs) and Oversighter Phantomsteve (talk · contribs) have recently resigned their advanced permissions. The Arbitration Committee thanks both of them for their work in these areas. Should they wish to resume activity in the future, they may contact the Arbitration Committee.

As well, in accord with the 30 March 2011 statement on advanced permissions and inactivity, the CheckUser and Oversight permissions of YellowMonkey (talk · contribs) are removed for inactivity. YellowMonkey has not participated in the project since November 2010. We wish him well in his future endeavours.

For the Arbitration Committee,

Risker (talk) 03:18, 11 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Archived discussion

Updated procedure for Committee resolutions

The Arbitration Committee has updated its procedure for deliberating on and enacting resolutions. The updated procedure is as follows:

Committee resolutions

The Committee will consider and adopt resolutions as follows:

All proposed resolutions will be posted for voting on the discussion board of the arbitration wiki.
The arbitrator initiating the proposal will notify arbcom-l of the proposal, and is responsible for sending any subsequent reminders as necessary.
A resolution will be considered to have passed when it is endorsed by an absolute majority of active, non-recused arbitrators.
When a resolution has passed, it will be announced on arbcom-l.

Resolutions intended for public dissemination will be published to the Arbitration Committee noticeboard. Internal resolutions will be retained in the Committee's internal records.

These procedures were approved by a resolution of the Arbitration Committee:

Supporting: David Fuchs; Iridescent; Jclemens; John Vandenberg; Kirill Lokshin; PhilKnight; Risker; SirFozzie

Not voting: Casliber; Cool Hand Luke; Coren; Elen of the Roads; Newyorkbrad; Roger Davies; Shell Kinney

Inactive: Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry; Mailer diablo; Xeno

The updated procedure replaces the previously published procedure for "Internal resolutions".

For the Arbitration Committee, Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 11:27, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Archived discussion

New procedure for quorum for urgent resolutions

The Arbitration Committee has adopted a new procedure for determining the quorum on urgent resolutions:

Quorum for urgent resolutions

The Committee sometimes needs to act urgently and it may do so as an interim measure, without a formal vote of the entire Committee, once a resolution proposing urgent action and explicitly stated as such has been unanimously supported by a quorum of the Committee, comprising a third of all active non-recused arbitrators. Such resolutions will be interim measures, pending review by the entire Committee.

This procedure was approved by a resolution of the Arbitration Committee:

Supporting: David Fuchs; Iridescent; Jclemens; John Vandenberg; Kirill Lokshin; PhilKnight; Risker; Roger Davies; SirFozzie

Not voting: Casliber; Cool Hand Luke; Coren; Elen of the Roads; Newyorkbrad; Shell Kinney

Inactive: Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry; Mailer diablo; Xeno

For the Arbitration Committee, Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 11:32, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Archived discussion

Updated procedure for handling ban appeals

The Arbitration Committee has updated its procedure for handling ban appeals. The updated procedure is as follows:

Handling of ban appeals

The procedure for handling ban appeals is as follows:

The Committee hears appeals from editors who (i) have been banned or are subject to lengthy or indefinite blocks and (ii) have exhausted all other avenues of appeal.
Appeals must be submitted by email by the editor blocked or banned, setting out the grounds for appeal and the name of the account affected.
Incoming appeals will be reviewed by arbitrators on receipt.
Any arbitrator may refer the appeal to the Ban Appeals Subcommittee.
Any arbitrator may decline an appeal which appears to them groundless or frivolous and shall write to the editor stating the basis on which the appeal is declined, with a copy to the Committee for review. After review, any arbitrator may refer the appeal to the Ban Appeals Subcommittee.
Within a reasonable time of a ban appeal having been referred to it, the Ban Appeals Subcommittee shall recommend a response to the appeal, as established by unanimous agreement among its members. The subcommittee may determine what constitutes a reasonable time for this purpose, which should not be less than 72 hours, nor more than one week.
- The response may confirm the ban, lift the ban, lift the ban and impose editing restrictions, recommend opening an arbitration case, refer the matter for community discussion, or entail any other action within the authority of the Committee.
- The response may advise the user that they may request further consideration of the appeal by filing a new request after a specified amount of time has passed, or after satisfying other specified conditions.
- The members of the subcommittee may communicate directly with the appealing editor, the blocking administrator, or other involved editors, at their discretion.
- Should the subcommittee require an extended period of time to provide a recommendation, it shall advise the Committee of this, and provide a date on which it expects a recommendation to be ready.
If no arbitrator objects to the subcommittee's recommendation within 48 hours of its having been posted, the subcommittee shall issue the recommended response in the name of the Committee. If any arbitrator objects before the deadline, the response shall be brought before the entire Committee.
Should the subcommittee be unable to arrive at a unanimous recommendation, the matter shall be brought before the entire Committee.

An arbitrator's service on the Ban Appeals Subcommittee is part of his or her official service as an arbitrator, and therefore shall not constitute grounds for recusal in a subsequent matter involving an editor whose appeal was considered by the subcommittee.

This procedure was approved by a resolution of the Arbitration Committee:

Supporting: David Fuchs; Iridescent; Jclemens; John Vandenberg; Kirill Lokshin; PhilKnight; Risker; Roger Davies; Shell Kinney; SirFozzie; Xeno

Not voting: Casliber; Cool Hand Luke; Coren; Elen of the Roads; Newyorkbrad

Inactive: Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry; Mailer diablo

The updated procedure replaces the previously published procedure for "Handling of ban appeals".

For the Arbitration Committee, Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 11:36, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Archived discussion

Arbitration motion regarding hyphens and dashes

In relation to a request for arbitration on 5 May 2011, the Arbitration Committee has passed by motion these interim decisions:

Temporary injunction on the article title disputes secondary to hyphen/endash issue:
There is to be a moratorium on article title changes that are due to hyphen/endash exchange. The only edits allowed will be to create a redirect to the existing article title until the resolution of the debate below.
All discussions on the subject of En dashes in article titles discussion (interpreted broadly) are subject to civility and 1RR restrictions. Administrators are urged to be proactive in monitoring and assertive in keeping debate civil. Actions requiring clarification can be raised with the Committee on the appropriate subpage.
Motion of instruction to editors involved in dispute:
Interested parties are instructed to spend from now until 30 May 2011 determining the structure of a discussion on En dashes in article titles to obtain consensus. Note that this can be the continuation of a current discussion or commencement anew. From 30 May 2011, a period of six weeks is granted for the gathering of consensus on the issue. The discussion should be of sufficient structure to allow easy quantification of consensus rather than a large amount of poorly-framed debate. If after two months, a determination isn't realised, a case will be opened and conduct violations will be dealt with severely.

Both provisions were passed 12 to 0 with 1 recusal.

For the Arbitration Committee
AGK [•] 21:13, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Archived discussion

Preliminary injunction regarding pending changes and biographies of living persons

By a vote of 9-0, a majority of the Arbitration Committee has voted to pass a preliminary injunction. This injunction was proposed and passed after User:Scott MacDonald brought a case request to the Committee regarding the implementation of the shutdown of pending changes. At the time of the passage of this injunction, the request is pending before the Committee.

Arbitration policy states that "injunctions are binding decisions that shall be in effect until a case closes". In the event that there is insufficient agreement among the Committee to open the case, clarification should be requested from the Arbitration Committee on how to proceed. The injunction is the following:

Any administrator who removes pending changes protection from any article flagged as a biography of a living person shall replace level 1 pending changes with semi-protection of an equivalent duration and replace level 2 pending changes with full protection of an equivalent duration. This measure shall be effective immediately, and administrators who have recently removed pending changes from biographies of living persons articles are expected to assure that these protection levels are applied to articles from which pending changes protection has been removed.

For the Arbitration Committee,
NW (Talk) 15:50, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss this

Update

Because it is mathematically impossible for a case to be opened at this time per current procedure, the case request has been declined. Because pending changes are not enabled on any mainspace pages at this time,[1] the above injunction should be regarded as expired.

For the Arbitration Committee,
NW (Talk) 22:17, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

GoRight ban appeal

GoRight (talk · contribs) has appealed his community ban to the Arbitration Committee. The committee would appreciate brief (i) comments on the suitability of his possible return and (ii) proposals for possible editing restrictions should the appeal be successful. Private concerns may be raised with the committee by email at: arbcom-l@lists.wikimedia.org.

For the Arbitration Committee, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 21:13, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss this

Removal of permissions

In accordance with the process for expedient removal of permissions, administrator permissions of the account Spencer195 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) are to be removed immediately given concerns that the account may have been compromised and being used to abuse multiple accounts.

This desysop is temporary until the entire Committee has had the opportunity to examine the matter and Spencer195 is given an opportunity to explain his actions.

Supporting: Coren, Risker, Casliber

— Coren ^(talk), for the committee, 16:03, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss this

Arbitration policy update

The proposed update to the Arbitration policy has now been adopted by the committee with seventeen of eighteen arbitrators supporting the adoption: Casliber, Cool Hand Luke, Coren, David Fuchs, Elen of the Roads, Iridescent, Jclemens, John Vandenberg, Kirill Lokshin, Mailer diablo, Newyorkbrad, PhilKnight, Risker, Roger Davies, Shell Kinney, SirFozzie and Xeno. (Not voting/inactive: Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry)

The proposed update policy has now posted and is awaiting community ratification. All editors are cordially invite to participate in the referendum, which is now open.

For the Arbitration Committee, Roger Davies ^talk 19:01, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss this