Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Party Guide/Introduction

Introduction
Arbitration is an exceptional step in a dispute and has a number of rules and norms that are unlike those of the rest of Wikipedia. If you do not understand how the Arbitration Committee approaches your dispute, you may find the process bewildering and unpleasant. This guide is intended to introduce to the Arbitration Committee and give you background so you can understand what's expected of you.

Features of Arbitration Cases

 * Act as a last resort: Arbitration Cases are designed to be the final stage of Wikipedia dispute resolution. This means a problem has normally been discussed at other places and by the community as a whole before they become an Arbitration Case. When this hasn't happened, the Arbitration Committee will normally decline to hear the case. An exception to this is certain kinds of misconduct from administrators. The Arbitration Committee continues to be a last resort in this case, but because it is the only group which may remove an administrator it will sometimes hear a case about administrators without prior steps in the dispute resolution process.
 * Examine conduct not content: The Arbitration Committee only handles the behavior of editors and does not get to have the final say about content in articles. There are times when the editor misbehavior may be about content, but the process is still about the behavior of the editor not about the content. For example, an editor who lies about what a source says may be sanctioned for the lie.
 * "Break the back" of the dispute: Because it's a last resort, a dispute may come to arbitration after many months, or even years of conflict. Some disputes are related to a long-term, real-life controversy or dispute. Many disputants, perhaps including you, will be frustrated with the dispute. Arbitrators will aim to clarify the issues among themselves and establish the case's history, then take action so that the dispute becomes easier for the community to resolve or to manage on an ongoing basis. Arbitration will rarely resolve a situation completely.
 * Not be a legal process: With no fixed approaches to problems, all actions, conduct, and relevant evidence may be taken into account. A person's general manner, past actions, and the impressions of them by reasonable people will be used to guide the arbitrators into establishing how best to de-escalate the dispute.
 * Intended to serve Wikipedia: Arbitrators focus on the risk and benefits for the future, not on past issues. Arbitration aims to find the best way to move users beyond the dispute. For this reason, the committee is more likely to consider if a user can change, or what restrictions would be of benefit to the project, than on who said what in the past.

Arbitration Committee
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities.

Arbitrators are volunteers (like other Wikipedia editors) elected by the Wikipedia community to resolve the project's most intractable disputes and to oversee the few areas where access to non-public information is a prerequisite. They are neither Wikimedia Foundation employees nor agents nor Wikipedia executives.

Expertise
Arbitrators are not subject experts and the Arbitration Committee therefore does not rule on content disputes. As a result, they are hesitant to making a ruling on the grounds that one side is right in a content dispute. There are exceptions to this; for instance, the committee has historically taken a dim view of individuals using Wikipedia as a platform for advocacy, or of editors who allege that a group of editors is conspiring to suppress their point of view.

Clerks
The Arbitration Committee maintains a panel of clerks to perform maintenance and administration of the Arbitration process. The clerks provide assistance to editors who wish to use the arbitration process but who are unfamiliar with the procedure. Clerks also perform some of the administrative tasks of a case. These include:


 * Opening and closing cases (performing the required notifications),
 * Ensuring that requests and proceedings comply with the specified format
 * Enforcing conduct standards on the arbitration pages and in open cases
 * Implementing most of the committee's decisions.

Clerk business is co-ordinated on the clerks' mailing list, to which all clerks and arbitrators are subscribed and your question or request to them might need to be discussed there before they can give you an answer.

Parties
Parties are the editors who the Arbitration Committee has identified as having an important role in the dispute the committee is examining. Being a party to a case does not mean an editor has done something wrong. It does mean that the Arbitration Committee is willing to hear evidence about that person, with-in the scope of the case. It also gives that editors certain privileges and responsibilities:


 * There is a general expectation that a party will participate. When a party chooses not to participate the case will often go forward anyway and that party will forfeit the right to have their perspective considered. Participation can vary; some parties merely give a general statement at the Case Request and answer Arbitrator questions, while others will also present detailed evidence, analysis, and provide workshop proposals.
 * Several processes have a word and diff limit. Parties are given additional words as a right and requests for further extensions are often looked at more favorably.
 * Parties are given notifications related to the case, including when it opens, and if they are named, when the proposed decision is posted

Other interested editors
Any interested editor can participate in an Arbitration Case.

The phases of an Arbitration Case
For Arbitration Cases that go through the entire process here are the different phases


 * 1) Case Request (guide): the first step in the Arbitration Case process is for someone to request that there is a case. The person requesting the case is called the "filer". The filer will give the case a name and list potential parties. The name of the case and the parties are not yet finalized. Community members and parties can present further evidence and give a statement about the case. The Arbitrators will discuss the case and what to do. ArbCom must vote to open a case. If they do not, none of the remaining steps will happen. This is called declining a case.
 * 2) Case opening (guide): There will normally be a delay between when the Arbitrators vote to open a case and when the case is opened. When the case is opened, pages that editors and arbitrators use will be created, a name, scope of the case, and deadlines for the phases will be declared, and a list of parties will be announced. All parties will be notified when the case is opened. There will also be talk pages created for the different phases of the case. These talk pages are a great place for parties to ask questions about how cases and ArbCom work.
 * 3) Evidence (guide): During this phase editors and parties may submit evidence supported by diffs. There is normally a word and diff limit, but extension can be granted. This is the evidence that will be used by the arbitrators when deciding what actions to take.
 * 4) Workshop and analysis (guide): This phase is designed to help suggest how ArbCom should decide the case. In the workshop, editors and parties may suggest principles, findings of fact, and remedies (see Proposed Decision below for more information about these) and may also provide detailed analysis of the evidence. This is also the page Arbitrators will often use when they have questions they would like to see answered. Not every case will have a workshop phase; when this happens the analysis phase will sometimes remain a separate phase and sometimes will be merged with the evidence phase.
 * 5) Proposed decision (guide): This is the draft decision for the case. It will have three main sections:
 * 6) * Principles - highlight the key applicable provisions of policy, procedure, or community practice and, where appropriate, provide the Committee's interpretation of such provisions in the context of the dispute.
 * 7) * Findings of fact - summarize the key elements of the parties' conduct. Diffs (or other evidence) may be incorporated but are purely illustrative in nature unless explicitly stated otherwise.
 * 8) * Remedies - specify the actions ordered by the Committee to resolve the dispute under considerations. Remedies may include both enforceable provisions (such as edit restrictions or bans) and non-enforceable provisions (such as cautions, reminders, or admonishments), and may apply to individual parties, to groups of parties collectively, or to all editors engaged in a specific type of conduct or working in a specific area.
 * Each individual principle, finding of fact, and remedy will be voted on by Arbitrators. Arbitrators must also vote to close the case, at which time proposals that are passing become part of the final decision.
 * 1) Final decision (guide): After Arbitrators vote to close the case, the clerks will post and enact the decision. Parties to the named in the decision will be notified when this happens.
 * 2) Enforcement of the decision (guide): After the case, remedies such as topic bans may need to be enforced. If an editor is violating a remedy from a case, editors can go to the Arbitration Enforcement Noticeboard to ask that the remedy be enforced.

Expectations of behavior during Arbitration proceedings
The behavior, good and bad, of parties during a case is carefully considered by Arbitrators when making their final decision.

Mooning the jury
Parties should be on their best behavior while adding evidence or making comments on arbitration pages. While this should be obvious, a surprising number of participants, having been accused of aggressive, uncivil or point of view editing, continue this behavior to the case itself. Comments made by the parties during the Arbitration case may be taken into account by the Committee in setting any remedies, and continued evidence of disruptive behavior is often seen as evidence that milder remedies (warnings or probation) will not have the desired effect, leading to topic or site bans. Remember that if you are on trial for assault, it is generally not a good idea to start punching witnesses in open court.

Rhetoric and blustering
Clear and persuasive presentation of evidence will almost always be more effective than any debates or arguments. Almost nothing useful ever comes out of arguments among parties on the workshop page, the evidence page, or the talk pages, and the longer the arguments get, the lower the chance of anything being noticed or valued by the arbitrators. If you must engage in discussion, short and simple questions to arbitrators are probably the most effective method.

Mistakes to avoid
ArbCom is typically pro-Wikipedia, generally considers that the Wikipedia method works, that Wikipedia is on the whole a successful project, and that admins are generally trustworthy. They explicitly choose any outcome that results in Wikipedia working better.

Therefore, arguments opposing Wikipedia's basic principles, suggesting a massive cabal of rogue admins, or holding the process to be an end in itself will not work.

Arguing about flaws in the arbitration process is usually a waste of time and will make arbitrators look dimly upon you.

Pettifoggery is likely to create prejudice against your cause, as a person who can win on the merits of their case will probably not resort to wikilawyering.

Ignoring the case is not a successful strategy. The Arbitration Committee arbitrates between the positions presented to it. It should not be relied on to investigate and construct your argument for you.

Ignoring the case is not an acceptable strategy for administrators. A failure to respond is seen as a violation of the accountability requirements and may result in the removal of admin rights pending a conclusion to the case. The case will be suspended for a period (usually limited to 3 months as of May 2024) after which the removal will become permanent.