Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-08-22/Arbitration report

The Arbitration Committee closed five cases this week, including a case against Skyring that was reopened due to a request by Jimbo Wales, a case involving a user persistently removing material from libertarianism, and a user who had a restraining order issued against other editors.

User:Skyring
On 30 June, Skyring was banned for a month, with additional one-year bans on pages relating to the Australian government, as well as one year of personal attack parole, for excessive reverting and wiki-stalking on those pages. On 1 August, just a short time after this one-month ban expired, Jimmy Wales requested that the Arbitration Committee reopen the case, citing bad faith on Skyring's part.

The Arbitration Committee ruled on 12 August, in a 5-0 decision, that Skyring would be banned for one year for "wiki-stalking and acting in bad faith towards other contributors, as demonstrated in evidence." This ban is subject to reset upon the use of sockpuppets.

User:Alfrem
A strange case involving the removal of one particular phrase from the article libertarianism has resulted in a three-month ban on libertarianism-related articles.

Alfrem's case, opened on 13 July, was brought by Ta bu shi da yu, malathion, and harry491, who complained that Alfrem insisted on removing the words "political philosophy" from libertarianism. Alfrem did not present a case, or in any way speak in his own defense during the RfAr.

Citing edit wars with the three users who brought the RfAr, inappropriate editing habits, violation of the three revert rule, and use of an IP address sockpuppet during an Arbitration Committee-ordered temporary injunction ban, the committee unanimously banned Alfrem and any IP sockpuppets from editing libertarianism and all related articles for three months.

User:Mlorrey
Mlorrey, in one of the stranger arbitration cases in recent history, was banned from article and talk pages relating to gun control for one year, and was banned from Wikipedia completely pending resolution of a legal dispute with Meelar and Firebug. The legal dispute involves the invocation of the Hague Service Convention, which gives Mlorrey a temporary restraining order against Meelar and Firebug pending resolution of the case by an arbitrator agreed to by all parties involved.

User:Argyrosargyrou
Argyrosargyrou was banned for a period of six months by the Arbitration Committee on 21 August, after a complaint was brought against him by many editors on articles relating to Greek and Turkish articles. Citing POV forks of many articles, as well as his liberal use of sockpuppets, the Arbitration Committee also banned Argyrosargyrou from all Cyprus-related articles for an additional period of six months.

User:Onlytofind and User:Emico
A case involving Onlytofind and Emico's participation on Iglesia ni Cristo and related pages has resulted in both receiving short bans and personal attack parole. Onlytofind received a week's ban, as well as one year of personal attack parole. Meanwhile, Emico received a day's ban, and three months of personal attack parole. In addition, Emico was banned from a series of pages relating to the church for a period of one year, for removing parts of the article that he viewed POV.

User:-Ril-
The Arbitration Committee is currently hearing a case involving -Ril-. The RfAr involves -Ril-'s use of the speedy deletion tags, removal of talk page comments, and nomination of the article Authentic Matthew for deletion three times, as well as many other questioned tactics. In a controversial move, UninvitedCompany banned -Ril- indefinitely for disruption of WikiProject Wikipedians for Decency, as well as the use of pornographic images inline on his user talk page (which was also protected). This ban came approximately eight days after -Ril- filed a request for comment against UninvitedCompany, in which a majority of users sided against -Ril-. At least one user claiming to be a sockpuppet of -Ril- protested this move on the RfAr page. This case is currently in the working phase.

Other cases
A case against Gabrielsimon is in the working phase, as are cases against Stevertigo, Rainbowwarrior1977, and DotSix, the name given to an IP address notoriously engaged in sockpuppetry, vandalism, and other offenses.