Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-06/Arbitration report

Arbitration report

Tricky and Lengthy Dispute Resolution

By Ncmvocalist

The Arbitration Committee opened no cases this week, leaving one open.

Open cases

Climate change (Week 13)

This case resulted from the merging of several Arbitration requests on the same topic into a single case, and the failure of a related request for comment to make headway. Innovations have been introduced for this case, including special rules of conduct that were put in place at the start. However, the handling of the case has been criticized by some participants; for example, although the evidence and workshop pages were closed for an extended period, no proposals were posted on the proposed decision page and participants were prevented from further discussing their case on the case pages (Signpost coverage)

The proposed decision drafted by Newyorkbrad, Risker, and Rlevse sparked a large quantity of unstructured discussion, much of which consisted of concerns about the proposed decision (see also Signpost coverage). A number of users, including participants and arbitrator Carcharoth, have made the discussion more structured, but the quantity of discussion has continued to increase significantly. Arbitrators continued to make modifications to the proposed decision this week; drafter Rlevse said that arbitrators are trying to complete the proposed decision before the date of this report.

Motions

• Date delinking: A motion was recently passed to permit Lightmouse to use his Lightbot account for a single automation task authorized by the Bot Approvals Group.
• Eastern European mailing list: A motion was recently passed to amend the restriction that was imposed on Martintg at the conclusion of the case. Martintg is now banned from topics concerning national, cultural, or ethnic disputes within Eastern Europe (previously, this topic ban concerned all Eastern Europe topics).
• Tothwolf: Motions were passed in relation to this case. The enforceable civility restriction that was imposed earlier on JBsupreme (see earlier Signpost coverage) has been extended in duration - it will not expire in March 2011. An enforceable civility restriction was also imposed on Miami33139 which will expire at the same time. An additional restriction was imposed on Miami33139, JBsupreme, and Tothwolf which bans each user from interacting with one another.

Other

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In this issue

6 September 2010

News and notes

In the news

Book review

Dispatches

WikiProject report

Features and admins

Arbitration report

Technology report

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Congratulations to all successful candidates. Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:40, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I generally support the actions of the Arbitration Committee, but it seems more and more that their actions are taken in secret, rather than in the open where the collaborative nature of a wiki can examine them. Now, we are told of an action, and that the action is not suitable for discussion, but not even told why it's not suitable. Is it for privacy reasons? For matters of national security? We don't know, and so we have no way of judging whether the ArbCom is acting responsibly. Powers ^T 12:50, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Extended content

The story seems to have glossed over a relevant portion of Coren's statement: "The factors that went into our decision to take these actions involve personal information..." –xenotalk 13:07, 7 September 2010 (UTC) I don't think LtPowers was referring to the bleeding obvious, but rather, the deeper issue that goes beyond this single matter (see also his response at 14:22). Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC) I was responding to his statement that we haven't been told why it is not suitable. We have. –xenotalk 20:23, 7 September 2010 (UTC) Perhaps you will reconsider the helpfulness of your response if you read until the end of the editor's statement and look at the subsequent statements; you will find that the sentences were (in fact) not isolated from one another. And in case this was a separate response concerning the report generally, I wanted to quote the full statement which included the bleeding obvious, but an involved editor did not want this highlighted explicitly. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:09, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

e.c. in answer to LtPowers: There are very good reasons that ArbCom's job should not be conducted solely under the glare of the public spotlight. Just one of those reasons concerns the privacy of those who are involved in cases and other ArbCom processes. Tony (talk) 13:11, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

But the public spotlight is the only way we have to evaluate the ArbCom's execution of their duties. It seems there's an inherent tension there that has no good resolution. Powers ^T 14:22, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The alternative is exposing an editor to real-life harassment without his permission. Have you chummers already forgotten how User:H exited?! —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Dittobori)} 22:51, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I cannot forget that which I was never aware. While I certainly respect the need for privacy, it seems as if the number of times ArbCom invokes it has been increasing, including those actions they don't even mention on-wiki at all. I think it's a legitimate question to ask whether ArbCom is limiting this privilege to the smallest number of cases practical, but it's a question only ArbCom can answer, and that makes it hard to know whether to trust the answer or not. Powers ^T 23:03, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

That's true; at present, we don't have anyone else who can look at the content of those discussions (except Jimbo). Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:34, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

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