Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-12-11/Arbitration report

The Arbitration Committee opened one case this week, and closed five cases, leaving only six still in arbitration.

Closed cases

 * Hkelkar: A case involving the actions of Hkelkar, a probable sockpuppet of Subhash bose, on various articles. The case was expanded to consider the behavior of a number of other editors including BhaiSaab, User:TerryJ-Ho and Bakasuprman. As a result of the case, Hkelkar and sockpuppets, TerryJ-Ho and BhaiSaab were banned for one year, and placed on probation when they return.


 * Konstable: A case involving the actions of Konstable, an administrator who left the project, but then returned and created an alternative account, which some allege was used for disruption. This was then blocked, and he used his sysop tools to unblock it, causing some to call for his desysopping.  As a result of the case, Konstable (who had already resigned adminship) was formally desysopped, in a manner similar to the formalising of the resignations of Tony Sidaway and Kelly Martin in the Giano case.  Fred Bauder proposed a motion recusing Dmcdevit from the case, but it was defeated.


 * ScienceApologist: A case brought by User:Asmodeus alleging that User:ScienceApologist and others are harassing him in regards to Asmodeus' real life identity, as well as biased editing of Christopher Michael Langan and related articles. Several editors alleged that Asmodeus is an aggressive editor and that Asmodeus and User:DrL have conflicts of interest regarding Christopher Michael Langan and related articles.  As a result of the case, Asmodeus and DrL are banned from editing articles related to Christopher Michael Langan and his ideas and placed on probation. User:Haldane Fisher is banned indefinitely as an attack account.  ScienceApologist is counseled to be more diplomatic when dealing with editors who may be advancing their own original research, and FeloniusMonk is counseled to consult with other administrators regarding disruptive users.


 * Elvis: A case involving the actions of Lochdale and Onefortyone on the Elvis Presley article.  As a result of the case, Lochdale was be banned from the article indefinitely, and Onefortyone kept on probation.


 * Protecting children's privacy: A case involving a policy proposal on the Protecting children's privacy page. The committee was asked to determine whether the proposed policy has consensus and should be adopted, but declined to rule on this issue.  Instead, they encouraged the community to continue working on the proposal with the goal of achieving consensus, and voted to affirm the practice of counseling children not to disclose personal information and to delete such information in appropriate cases.

New case

 * Brahma Kumaris: A case involving the actions of avyakt7 and 195.82.106.244 (.244) on the Brahma Kumaris article.  Avyakt alleges that .244 has defamed Brahma Kumaris in the article, but .244 claims that avyakt has misinterpreted the reliable sources policy.

Evidence phase

 * Sex Tourism: A case involving a revert war on the Sex tourism article.


 * Waldorf education: A case on Rudolf Steiner, Waldorf education and related pages.


 * Iran-Iraq War: A case referred by the mediation committee regarding a dispute on the Iran-Iraq War page. Arbitrator Fred Bauder has proposed a motion dismissing the case for lack of evidence.

Voting phase

 * Seabhcan: Various parties, principally MONGO, allege that Seabhcan has engaged in repeated incivility, but he claims that the incidents occurred such a long time ago as to be moot, and that MONGO and others have acted aggressively in the course of the dispute, alleging that "what they want is blood".  At the present time, 5 arbitrators have voted to desysop both Seabhcan and MONGO, and to place Seabhcan on personal attack parole.


 * RPJ: Various users allege that RPJ edits disruptively (although in good faith) on various articles related to conspiracy theories, such as John F. Kennedy Assassination. In response, he denies the allegations, and raised some "practical concerns about arbitration", which seem to regard the legitimacy of the Arbitration Committee bindingly to resolve disputes.  Fred Bauder has proposed findings of fact that RPJ engages in original research and has few contributions that are not disruptive edits to Kennedy assassination articles, and has proposed a one year site ban followed by indefinite probation.