Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures
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This page documents the internal rules and procedures of the Arbitration Committee. It should not be edited without the Committee's authorization. |
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Arbitration proceedings
Expectation of prior dispute resolution
The Committee usually expects editors to have exhausted the previous steps in the dispute resolution process before proceeding to arbitration. Exceptions include cases:
- Where the case involves allegations of administrator misconduct or an unusually divisive dispute among administrators;
- Where there has already been extensive discussion with wide community participation; or
- Where there is good reason to believe that engaging in the earlier steps of the dispute resolution process would not be productive.
Opening of proceedings
A request will proceed to arbitration if it meets all of the following criteria:
- Its acceptance has been supported by at least four net votes;
- More than 24 hours have elapsed since the request passed the four net vote threshold; and
- More than 48 hours have elapsed since the request was filed.
A proceeding may be opened earlier, waiving provisions 2 and 3 above, if a majority of arbitrators support fast-track opening in their acceptance votes. Once the Committee has accepted a request, a clerk will create the applicable case pages, and give the proceeding a working title. The title is for ease of identification only and may be changed by the Committee at any time. The Committee will designate one or more arbitrators to draft the case, to ensure it progresses, and to act as designated point of contact for any matters arising.
Target timetable for proceedings
To expedite case handling, the target times are as follows:
- The evidence phase lasts two weeks from the date of the case pages opening;
- The workshop phase ends one week after the evidence phase closes;
- The proposed decision is finalised within one week of the workshop phase closing.
The target times may be lengthened or shortened by initiative of the Committee, at the discretion of the drafting arbitrator(s), or at the request of one of the parties.
Expectation of participation in proceedings
Editors named as parties to an arbitration case, and duly notified of it, are expected to participate in the proceeding. Any editor named as a party to a case, or whose conduct otherwise comes under scrutiny during the course of a case, will be notified of this by the Committee or its clerks, and, except in exceptional circumstances, will be given a minimum of seven days to respond, calculated from the date the case opened or the date on which they are notified, whichever is later.
If a party fails to respond within a reasonable time of being notified, or explicitly refuses to participate in the case, or leaves Wikipedia just before or during the proceedings, the Committee may, at its discretion: (i) dismiss the case either in its entirety or only insofar as that party is concerned; (ii) suspend the case; (iii) continue the case regardless; or (iv) close the case by motion.
Actions by parties to a proceeding
If an administrator who is a party to a case resigns their permissions just before or during the case affecting them, they are not entitled to reinstatement under standard resysopping procedures, but are required, unless otherwise directed by the Committee, to submit a new request for adminship.
Submission of evidence
Evidence submissions are expected to be succinct and to the point. By default, they are limited to about 500 words and about 50 difference links and must be posted on the applicable case pages. The submission of evidence via sub-pages in userspace is prohibited. Editors wishing to submit over-length evidence must request the approval of the drafting arbitrator(s) prior to posting it. Unapproved over-length evidence and inappropriate material/links may be removed or redacted by the clerks.
Voting on proposed decisions
For standard hearings, proposed decisions will be posted in the form of "Principles", "Findings of Fact", "Remedies" and "Enforcement", with a separate vote for each provision. Where several substantive matters are combined in a single provision, they will be split into separate provisions for voting at the request of any arbitrator.
The final decision will consist of all proposed provisions which were passed by an absolute majority.
Motions to close
Once voting on a proposed decision appears to have ended, an arbitrator will move to close the case. To be adopted, a motion to close requires the support of the lesser of (i) four net votes or (ii) an absolute majority.
A final consideration period of at least 24 hours will usually elapse between the casting of the fourth net vote to close the case and the implementation of any remedies. However, closure may be fast-tracked if (i) all clauses pass unanimously or (ii) an absolute majority vote in the motion to do so.
Motions to dismiss
If, at any time, the Committee determines by an absolute majority that (i) issuing a formal decision serves no useful purpose; (ii) a majority decision is not achievable; or (iii) a case may best be resolved by a single motion rather than a full decision; it may close, dismiss or otherwise resolve the case by motion.
Arbitrator activity and voting
Arbitrator activity
Arbitrators are presumed active unless they are on a wikibreak, have not participated in arbitration within the past week, or have informed the Committee of their absence. An inactive arbitrator may become active by voting on any aspect of a proceeding. An active arbitrator may become inactive by so stating, in which case their votes will be struck through and discounted.
Unannounced arbitrator absence
Any arbitrator who has not given prior notice of absence and who fails to post to the usual venues for seven consecutive days is deemed inactive in all matters with, where practical, retrospective effect to the date of the last known post.
Calculation of votes
Arbitrator votes are calculated on the following basis:
- Each active, non-recused arbitrator may cast one vote; and
- Recused, abstaining, and inactive arbitrators are discounted.
The following expressions are used, with the following meanings:
- "Four net votes": the number of votes to support or accept is at least four greater than the number of votes to oppose or decline.
- "Absolute majority": the number of votes to support or accept is greater than 50% of the total number of arbitrators, not including any arbitrators who are recused, abstaining, or inactive.
Advanced permissions
Advanced permissions and inactivity
Access to CheckUser and Oversight permissions is given sparingly. The permissions reflect the high trust placed in the holder but are not granted in perpetuity and holders are expected to use them regularly for the benefit of the project.
Accordingly, the minimum activity level for each tool (based on the preceding three months' activity) shall be five logged actions, including at least one community-requested logged action. Examples of community-requested actions include suppression requests via the oversight-en-wp OTRS queue; CheckUser requests through Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations, those stemming from account creation requests, those made in response to threads at an administrative noticeboard, or posted on a CheckUser's personal user talk page. These activity requirements do not apply to: (a) sitting members of the Arbitration Committee; (b) holders using the permissions for audit purposes (such as members of the Audit Subcommittee); or (c) holders who have temporarily relinquished access, including CheckUsers or Oversighters who accept appointment to the Ombudsman Commission.
Holders of the permissions are also expected to:
- Remain active on the English Wikipedia unless they have previously notified the Arbitration Committee of a significant expected absence and its likely duration.
- Consider temporarily relinquishing their permission(s) for planned prolonged periods of inactivity.
- Reply within seven days to email communications from either the Audit Subcommittee or the Arbitration Committee about their use of the permissions.
Holders who do not comply with the activity and expectation requirements – or who mark their accounts "semi-retired", "retired", or "inactive", or who announce their effective retirement by other means – may have their permissions removed by the Arbitration Committee. Prior to removal of access, two attempts will be made to contact the holder using the email address they provided to the Committee.
Permissions will usually be reinstated on the following bases:
- Temporarily relinquished permissions will normally be promptly restored provided no issues have arisen in the interim.
- Permissions removed for unannounced inactivity will normally be restored once (a) a satisfactory explanation for the unannounced inactivity has been given and (b) satisfactory assurances about future activity levels have been received.
Requests for reinstatement for any other reason will be considered on a case by case basis.
Note that Stewards and Wikimedia Foundation staff granted CheckUser and Oversight permissions by the WMF are outside of the jurisdiction of the Arbitration Committee.
Appointment to the Audit Subcommittee
A candidate for the Audit Subcommittee will be appointed if:
- No serious concerns in relation to privacy violations or other breach of trust have been raised; and
- The candidate has been supported by at least 80% of the votes cast.
In the event of there being more candidates meeting this standard than there are vacancies, candidates will be ranked by percentage of support. If this still results in a tie for the last available place(s), the number of support votes will be used to break the tie. If this does not break the tie, a runoff election will be held.
The fourth ranked candidate passing criteria (1) and (2) will remain an alternate, to be appointed if one of the appointed candidates retires before the end of his/her term.
Auditing
The procedure for handling complaints related to CheckUser or Oversight use is as follows:
- All complaints about the use of CheckUser or Oversight privileges received by the Committee shall be referred to the Audit Subcommittee by forwarding the complaint to the subcommittee's mailing list (arbcom-audit-en).
- The subcommittee shall investigate the matter and determine whether any breach of applicable Wikimedia Foundation or English Wikipedia policies took place.
- The subcommittee shall be responsible for requesting statements, documents, and any other material of interest to the investigation.
- During the investigation, the subcommittee shall keep the complainant, the subject of the complaint, and the coordinating arbitrator or their deputy informed of its progress and expected date of completion.
- The subcommittee shall provide the subject of the complaint with a reasonable opportunity to respond to any concerns raised.
- Within a reasonable time of a complaint having been referred to it, the subcommittee shall present their findings on the matter to the Committee by forwarding them to the Committee's mailing list (arbcom-l). The subcommittee may determine what constitutes a reasonable time for this purpose, which should not be less than one week, nor more than three weeks.
- The subcommittee shall determine findings by majority vote. Members of the subcommittee disagreeing with the majority findings may attach dissenting views.
- The subcommittee may, at its discretion, recommend a particular course of action with regard to the subject of the complaint.
- The Committee shall review the findings and determine what further action, if any, is to be taken in the matter. At a minimum:
- The Committee shall distribute copies of the subcommittee's final report to the subject of the complaint and the complainant, unless doing so would substantially jeopardize the security of the project.
- If the subcommittee report indicates that a breach of Wikimedia Foundation policy occurred, the Committee shall forward the report to the Foundation Ombudsman Commission for review.
- The Committee shall announce the results of the investigation on-wiki in as much detail as is permitted by the relevant policies.
An arbitrator's service on the Audit 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 the complainant or the subject of the complaint.
Ban appeals
Handling of ban appeals
The procedure for handling ban appeals is as follows:
- The coordinating arbitrator or their deputy shall refer all appeals from banned or long-term blocked users received by the Committee 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.
Appeals of topic bans
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.
Enforcement
Changes of username while subject to enforcement
If an editor is subject to any sort of Arbitration Committee parole or restriction, and wishes to start a new account or to change their username with a suppressed redirect from the old name, they must notify the Committee of this before they proceed with editing under said new account/name. Failure to disclose this, if discovered, is grounds for a ban from the project.
Reversal of enforcement actions
Administrators are prohibited from reversing or overturning (explicitly or in substance) any action taken by another administrator pursuant to the terms of an active arbitration remedy, and explicitly noted as being taken to enforce said remedy, except:
- (a) with the written authorization of the Committee, or
- (b) following a clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors at a community discussion noticeboard (such as WP:AN or WP:ANI). If consensus in such discussions is hard to judge or unclear, the parties should submit a request for clarification on the proper page.
Any administrator that overturns an enforcement action outside of these circumstances shall be subject to appropriate sanctions, up to and including desysopping, at the discretion of the Committee.
Administrators who consistently make questionable enforcement administrative actions, or whose actions are consistently overturned by community or Arbitration Committee discussions may be asked to cease performing such activities or be formally restricted from taking such activities.
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.
Incoming mail
The procedure for handling incoming mail to arbcom-l is as follows:
Once incoming mail has cleared list moderation, each message shall be acknowledged with a standard message and processed by the coordinating arbitrator or their deputy within 24 hours of receipt:
- Appeals of bans shall be referred to the Ban Appeals Subcommittee.
- Complaints regarding CheckUser or Oversight use shall be referred to the Audit Subcommittee.
- Notifications of secondary and alternate accounts shall be recorded on the private wiki and closed; no further action shall be taken unless requested by an arbitrator.
- Submissions of private evidence in an open case shall be recorded on the private wiki and closed; no further action shall be taken unless requested by an arbitrator.
- Informational notifications and comments which are determined by the coordinating arbitrator or their deputy to require no further action from the Committee shall be closed; no further action shall be taken unless requested by an arbitrator.
- All other messages shall be flagged for further action by the Committee.
All incoming mail, unless obviously frivolous, shall be tracked on the coordination page of the private wiki, and the coordinating arbitrator or their deputy shall circulate weekly summaries of all open items.
Internal resolutions
The procedure for proposing and enacting internal resolutions is as follows:
- All internal resolutions will be proposed for voting on the Discussion board of the arbitration wiki, and will be clearly marked with a section header of the form "Proposal: X" in the case of normal resolutions, or "Urgent proposal: X" in the case of urgent resolutions.
- The coordinating arbitrator will circulate a daily list of open proposals and their current voting status to arbcom-l.
- When an internal resolution has passed, it will be announced on arbcom-l. The resolution will then be published to the public Committee noticeboard after a 48-hour waiting period (for normal resolutions) or immediately (for urgent resolutions).
Requests for amendment
Format of requests for amendment
A request for amendment of a closed case must clearly state the following:
- (a) The name of the case to be amended;
- (b) The clause(s) to be modified, referenced by number or section title;
- (c) For each clause in (b), the desired modification; and
- (d) The rationale for the requested amendment, comprising no more than 1000 words.
Any request which does not comply with these criteria will be summarily removed.
Removal of permissions
When an account with advanced permissions appears to be harming the project, the Committee may authorize expedient removal of these permissions via the procedures below. If the account in question has multiple sets of advanced permissions, removal will generally apply to all of them.
The use of these procedures by the Committee is not intended to constrain the authority of the Wikimedia Stewards to undertake emergency removal of permissions on their own discretion, pursuant to the relevant policies governing Steward actions.
Level I procedures
Level I procedures may be used if (a) an account appears to be obviously compromised, or intentionally and actively using advanced permissions to cause harm in a rapid or apparently planned fashion, or (b) multiple accounts are actively wheel-warring.
The procedure for removal of permissions is as follows:
- An arbitrator, on becoming aware of the situation, will send a message to arbcom-l (a) stating the name of the account, (b) briefly describing the issue, providing examples of inappropriate conduct, (c) recommending removal of permissions, and (d) specifying why removal should occur under Level I procedures.
- Any available arbitrators will respond using whatever communication medium is available, and will update the thread on arbcom-l to keep the remainder of the Committee informed.
- A request for removal of advanced permissions may be made when three or more arbitrators agree that a situation warranting the use of Level I procedures exists, and that removal of permissions is required, with no dissenting opinions from other arbitrators.
- Once removal has been approved, an arbitrator will (a) directly request removal from a steward, (b) make a formal statement on the Meta-Wiki permissions page to confirm that the request is based on the authority of the Committee, and (c) post a notice to the Committee's noticeboard, the administrators' noticeboard, and the user's talk page, including a brief explanation of the reason for removal and the names of the arbitrators who authorized it.
Level II procedures
Level II procedures may be used if (a) the account's behaviour is inconsistent with the level of trust required for its associated advanced permissions, and (b) no satisfactory explanation is forthcoming.
The procedure for removal of permissions is as follows:
- The initiating arbitrator will (a) leave a message on the account's talk page, asking the account to contact arbcom-l, and (b) send a similar message to the account by Wikipedia e-mail, if enabled.
- The initiating arbitrator will then send a message to arbcom-l (a) stating the name of the account, (b) briefly describing the issue, providing examples of inappropriate conduct, and (c) recommending removal of permissions.
- The Committee will then schedule deliberations on the matter.
- A request for removal of advanced permissions may be made once a motion to do so has been endorsed by a majority of active arbitrators.
- Once removal has been approved, an arbitrator will post a notice, including the text of the motion and the names of arbitrators endorsing it, to the Meta-Wiki permissions page, the Committee's noticeboard, the administrators' noticeboard, and the user's talk page.
Return of permissions
Removal is protective, intended to prevent harm to the encyclopedia while investigations take place, and the advanced permissions will normally be reinstated once a satisfactory explanation is provided or the issues are satisfactorily resolved. If the editor in question requests it, or if the Committee determines that a routine reinstatement of permissions is not appropriate, normal arbitration proceedings shall be opened to examine the removal of permissions and any surrounding circumstances.