Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy/Update and ratification
 | The following is a proposed Wikipedia policy, guideline, or process. The proposal may still be in development, under discussion, or in the process of gathering consensus for adoption. |
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The Arbitration Committee
Duties and responsibilities
The Arbitration Committee of the English Wikipedia has the following duties and responsibilities:
- To act as a decision-maker of last resort for Wikipedia disputes, to determine which of these disputes are suitable for arbitration, and to carefully review and render binding decisions in those disputes;
- To consider and address appeals from blocked, banned, or otherwise restricted users;
- Where necessary, to deal summarily with urgent or emergency situations, such as those involving blatant abuse of administrator or other privileges, threatening or malicious conduct presenting a danger to the project or its contributors, and other situations that require immediate action or are not suited for public discussion because of privacy or similar concerns; and
- To appoint certain functionaries of the English Wikipedia, including the holders of the CheckUser and Oversight privileges.
Selection
Normal appointments
The members of the Committee shall be appointed by Jimbo Wales, in his role as project leader, following advisory elections whose format shall be decided by the community.
Interim appointments
Jimbo Wales may, at his discretion, make interim appointments between regular elections or extend the terms of sitting arbitrators to compensate for early departures or long-term inactivity.
Eligibility
Arbitrators must meet the Wikimedia Foundation's criteria for access to nonpublic data.
Procedures and roles
The Committee may, at its discretion, modify its internal procedures or designate individual arbitrators for particular tasks or roles.
Delegation
The Committee may, at its discretion, delegate any authority granted to it by this policy to another group of its choosing.
Arbitrator conduct
Arbitrators shall, at all times, act with integrity and good faith to uphold the trust of the community and the high standards expected of them. Should their actions cause concern, arbitrators shall explain their conduct in matters relevant to their trusted roles to their colleagues and to the community.
Inactivity
Expectation of activity
Arbitrators may participate in either off-wiki or on-wiki Committee tasks, or both, at their discretion.
Tracking of activity
Arbitrators who are, or are likely to become, inactive for a period of time shall advise the Committee of this.
Extended inactivity
A arbitrator who has been unreliably active, or has been inactive for an extended period, may be asked by the Committee to remain inactive on cases until the matter is resolved or, in exceptional cases, may be removed without prejudice from the Committee by decision of the Committee and Jimbo Wales.
Resignation
An arbitrator may resign at any time, for any or no stated reason. An arbitrator who resigns voluntarily may reclaim his or her seat at any time, until the date the original appointment would have ended had he or she not resigned.
Removal
Jimbo Wales may remove an arbitrator from the Committee upon reasonable cause and after consultation with the remaining members of the Committee.
Arbitration proceedings
Scope and jurisdiction
Jurisdiction
The Committee has jurisdiction over user conduct disputes involving the English Wikipedia, including the use of special privileges accorded to certain users such as administrator status.
Limits of jurisdiction
The Committee has no jurisdiction over official actions of the Wikimedia Foundation, nor over Wikimedia projects other than the English Wikipedia.
Jurisdiction over actions of Jimbo Wales
The Committee has jurisdiction to review administrator or steward actions taken by Jimbo Wales in his special capacity as project leader.
Scope of arbitration
The purpose of the arbitration process is not as a vehicle to create new policy. However, the Committee's decisions can interpret existing policy and guidelines, recognize and call attention to standards of user conduct, or create procedures through which policy may be enforced.
In exceptional cases of communal division or exceptional risk of harm to the project, the Committee may determine a interim means to achieve the aims of communal policies or to curtail dispute in the area, until the community has developed a better consensus.
Content disputes
The arbitration process primarily addresses disputes involving user conduct, rather than content disputes concerning the contents of articles or similar issues.
Requesting arbitration
Form of requests
Requests must be presented in the form prescribed by the Committee. The length of statements may be subject to reasonable limits imposed by the Committee.
Notification of editors
All editors who would be directly affected by the desired outcome of the case must be notified of it by the person filing the request.
Reasons for acceptance
The Committee reserves the right to hear or not hear any dispute at its discretion.
The Committee will normally require that editors show they have exhausted the previous steps in the dispute resolution process before proceeding to arbitration. The Committee will normally hear a case despite the absence of prior dispute resolution only where the case involves an unusually divisive dispute among administrators, where there has already been extensive discussion with wide community participation, or where there is a specific reason to believe that engaging the earlier steps of the dispute resolution process would not be productive.
The Committee will consider, but is not bound by, the views of the parties to a request for arbitration and comments by other interested users in deciding whether or not to accept a case.
Voting on acceptance
A request shall be considered accepted if it meets all of the following criteria:
- The request must have four net votes to accept, or have an absolute majority of active, unrecused arbitrators voting to accept;
- The request must have received its first instance of four net votes to accept more than 24 hours ago; and
- The request must have been filed more than 48 hours ago (this waiting period may be waived by the Committee where there is a clear need to open the case immediately).
Once there are sufficient votes to accept, a waiting period of 24 hours will be observed before the case is formally opened, unless a majority of all active arbitrators have voted to accept the case or otherwise directed by the Committee.
Commentary on declined requests
Where the Committee declines a request, individual arbitrators may express their views on other means available for resolving the dispute, to which the parties should give due consideration.
Recusal
Grounds for recusal
An arbitrator shall recuse himself or herself in any case in which he or she has a conflict of interest, such as prior involvement in the substance of the dispute or a history of disagreements with one of the parties, such that his or her impartiality in the case could reasonably be questioned.
Actions in an arbitrator's official capacity, such as ruling on a prior case involving a party, shall not be considered adequate grounds for recusal.
Requesting recusal
Any user who believes that circumstances call for an arbitrator's recusal should bring the matter to that arbitrator's attention for his or her prompt consideration and response. Concerns beyond this should be raised with the Committee.
Except in extraordinary circumstances, requests for recusal after a case has entered the voting stage will not be granted.
Right to recuse
An arbitrator may recuse himself or herself from any case at any time prior to voting, or not post a vote on any matter, with or without giving a reason.
Expedited decisions and motions
Where the facts of a situation are substantially undisputed and the Committee believes that it can issue a fair, well-informed, and useful remedy without opening a full-fledged case, it may act by motion to be proposed and voted upon on the requests for arbitration page. Adopting such a motion in lieu of opening a case shall require a majority vote of all active, non-recused arbitrators.
Where the Committee believes that a pending case can best be resolved by a motion rather than a formal decision, such a motion may be proposed on the proposed decision page, and also requires a majority vote of all active, non-recused arbitrators.
Where the Committee believes that a case should be resolved through a formal decision but that expedition is required, it may set a reasonable expedited schedule for the presentation of evidence after which the case will move to the voting page.
Private hearings
The Committee may determine by majority vote that an entire case should be considered off-wiki, but this shall be done only in extraordinary circumstances where warranted by considerations of privacy, risks of harassment, or legal issues. Editors whose conduct is under review in connection with such a private hearing will be given due notice and an opportunity to respond, as provided below.
Normal hearings
When a request for arbitration is accepted, a Clerk will create standard "evidence", "workshop", and "proposed decision" pages. In the course of doing so, the Committee or the Clerk will designate the case with an appropriate casename. This name is used for the purposes of identification only and has no substantive significance.
Participation
Arbitrator participation
Cases are decided by the full Committee rather than by panels or subcommittees. All active arbitrators, with the exception of those recused, are entitled to participate in each case.
An arbitrator whose term expires while a case is pending may remain active on that case until its conclusion. An arbitrator who is newly appointed may become active on any or all cases pending at the time he or she takes office or may elect not to participate in these cases.
General participation
Evidence and statements may be added to the case pages by the arbitrators, the parties, and any other interested editors.
Right and responsibility to respond
Editors named as parties to an arbitration case and given due notice of the case are expected to participate in the proceeding. Any editor named as a party or otherwise subject to scrutiny during the course of a case shall be notified of this by the Committee or its Clerks, and will be given a minimum of seven days after a case is opened or they are notified, whichever is later, to respond. (The seven-day period may be shortened for good cause, in which case the involved editors will be notified.)
Failure to respond
Should a party to a case fail to respond within seven days or such other time as the Committee may determine, or explictly refuse to participate in the case, the Committee may nonetheless rule on that party's conduct in his or her absence.
Departure during arbitration
Should a party to a case leave Wikipedia during the proceedings, the Committee may, at its discretion, dismiss the case in its entirety or insofar as that party is concerned, suspend the case until the party returns, or continue the case regardless.
Resignation during arbitration
Should an administrator who is a party to a case resign his or her position while the case is pending, they shall not be eligible for reinstatement of that position upon request to a bureaucrat, but will generally be required to submit a new request for adminship, unless otherwise directed by the Committee.
Temporary injunctions
At any time between the opening of a case and its closure, the arbitrators may, by majority vote, enact a "temporary injunction" to restrict the conduct of the parties for the duration of the case. Adoption of a temporary injunction requires a net vote of four arbitrators in support, with each oppose subtracting a support. The Committee's adoption of a temporary injunction is an interim measure and does not reflect any prejudgment of the final result of the case.
Conduct
The Committee may enforce reasonable standards of editor conduct on the arbitration case pages. The Clerks have the primary responsibility for enforcing these standards on a day-to-day basis.
Evidence
Admissible evidence
Evidence admissible in an arbitration proceeding shall include all Wikipedia edits and log entries (including deleted or otherwise hidden edits and log entries, as well as edits and log entries from projects other than the English Wikipedia, as appropriate), as well as posts to the official mailing lists.
Evidence from mediation
No evidence from official mediation shall be presented or considered in an arbitration proceeding except with the prior written consent of the Mediation Committee.
Evidence from outside sources
No evidence from outside sources (including, but not limited to, other websites, forums, chat rooms, or personal correspondence) shall be presented or considered in an arbitration proceeding, except in cases of serious external harassment or conspiracy to violate Wikipedia policy.
Evidence from outside sources that was not intended by its author(s) to be readable by anyone at will must not to be posted on-wiki except with the explicit permission of the communicants, the authors of any material that is quoted in the cited text, and any recipients who are being publicly named.
Private submissions of evidence
Evidence may be submitted privately by forwarding it to the Committee's mailing list. The Committee may request that privately submitted evidence be posted publicly if there is no reasonable cause for it to be private.
The Committee will make every effort to circulate privately submitted evidence to all parties, except when doing so would result in undue risk of harassment or retalliation against the editors providing that evidence.
Dismissal of cases
If the Committee determines at any time that issuing a formal decision in a case would serve no useful purpose, or that they are unable to reach a majority decision, it may, by majority vote, dismiss the case without a decision.
Format and scope of decisions
Form of decisions
The form of decisions shall follow the established format of principles (general statements of policy), findings of fact (findings specific to the case), remedies (binding rulings concerning the parties' future conduct), and enforcement provisions.
Each substantive principle, finding, remedy, or enforcement provision shall be placed in a separate paragraph for purposes of voting. Where multiple statements have been combined in a single paragraph, they shall be separated for voting at the request of any arbitrator.
Language of decisions
Decisions will be presented in clearly written English. The wording and significance of any provision whose meaning is unclear to other arbitrators, the parties, or other interested editors will be clarified upon request.
Role of precedent
Previous Arbitration Committee decisions are considered to be useful and informative, but shall not be binding on future Committee action.
Voting on decisions
Location of voting
Proposed decisions shall be posted and voted on on-wiki except in the case of private hearings.
Majority
A majority vote of the active, non-recused arbitrators is required for the adoption of any portion of a decision.
Active arbitrators
For any given case, an arbitrator is considered either active or inactive. The presumption is that each arbitrator is active on each case unless he or she states otherwise. An inactive arbitrator may become active on a case by stating that he or she will be active on the case or by voting on any issue in the case. An active arbitrator may become inactive by so stating, in which case any votes already cast by that arbitrator on the proposed decision shall be considered withdrawn.
Abstention
An arbitrator who abstains on a particular proposal is not counted in determining the required majority for purposes of that proposal only.
Motions to close
When the proposed decision is in final form, an arbitrator shall move to close the case. Four net votes in favor of closing the case shall be required to enact the decision.
A grace period of a minimum of twenty-four hours shall be observed between the fourth net vote to close the case and the implementation of the remedies passed in the case, unless four or more arbitrators vote to close the case immediately, or an absolute majority of active, non-recused arbitrators vote to close the case.
Implementation of decisions
When a case is closed, any immediately applicable remedies shall go into effect.
Continued jurisdiction
Should the remedies enacted in a case fail to resolve the dispute, the Committee may enact additional remedies by summary motion on the request of any party to the case, or may open a review case to review developments since the original case was closed.
Appeals of decisions
Remedies and enforcement actions by the Arbitration Committee may be appealed to, and are subject to modification by, Jimbo Wales, except where the case involves review of one of Jimbo Wales's own actions.
A party or other editor affected by remedies in a given case may request reconsideration in light of subsequent developments (such as a party's request that a remedy be lifted or modified based on subsequent good behavior by the party). The Committee may, at its discretion, require a minimum time to have elapsed since the enactment of the ruling before hearing such a request.
Amendments to the arbitration policy
The arbitration policy and Committee are delegated by Jimbo Wales in his role as project leader of English Wikipedia. Changes to this policy shall only be made with the approval of Jimbo Wales or of the Committee itself.