Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-07-30/Arbitration report

The Arbitration Committee accepted three new cases this week, and closed one of these cases as well as three older cases.

Closed cases

 * Certified.Gangsta-Ideogram: A review of compliance with the earlier decision in Certified.Gangsta-Ideogram was closed without action because Certified.Gangsta has not edited since early June. The review may be reopened if Certified.Gangsta resumes editing.


 * Miskin: This case involved the block of Miskin for one month (later reduced to one week) under the three revert rule by Swatjester. The committee advised Miskin to seek consensus on an article's talkpage if his initial edits are reverted, and advised Swatjester to take into account the length of time since previous blocks when deciding on the length of a later block and to treat all editors violating the 3RR fairly.


 * Paranormal: This case involved allegedly biased editing by various users on "articles on paranormal and pseudoscientific topics" such as parapsychology and electronic voice phenomenon. In its final decision, the Arbitration Committee made a series of observations concerning the nature of and history of contentious editing on these articles. Remedies were adopted cautioning users Dradin and Kazuba. A proposal to limit all editors who regularly edit in this area to one revert per article per week per article was narrowly defeated.


 * Jeffrey Vernon Merkey: This case involved allegations against several editors resulted in remedies banning Jeffrey Vernon Merkey, Pfagerburg, and Kebron from editing Wikipedia, each for a period of one year.

New cases

 * List of Republics: A case brought by Nema Fakei involving disputes on List of Republics and related articles, involving the conduct of WHEELER and other editors. The case is still early in the evidence phase.


 * Jeffrey O. Gustafson: A case brought by User:John254 alleging incivility and other misconduct by administrator Jeffrey O. Gustafson. The case has moved quickly to the voting stage, with arbitrator UninvitedCompany proposing that Mr. Gustafson's administrator privileges be suspended for 30 days, while arbitrator Kirill Lokshin has proposed desysopping him.

Evidence phase

 * Catalonia: A case brought by Physchim62 involving alleged edit warring, possible sockpuppetry and other misconduct, including alleged misuse of blocking tools, by various editors on Catalonia, Valencian Community, and related articles.


 * Boris Stomakhin: A case involving a dispute between Biophys and Vlad fedorov, involving alleged BLP and 3RR violations, block evasion, and edit-warring.


 * Vision Thing, initiated by Infinity0, concerns alleged edit-warring on anarchism, anarcho-capitalism, and related articles. The dispute has already been the subject of a prior arbitration case, Requests for arbitration/Infinity0, involving some of the same parties. Arbitrator UninvitedCompany has moved to dismiss the case for insufficient evidence, but at press time, other arbitrators had not yet commented on this proposal.


 * Great Irish Famine, a case initiated by SirFozzie, involves allegations including misuse of sources and harassment relating to Great Irish Famine and other Ireland/Northern Ireland articles.

Voting phase

 * Zacheus-jkb: A case involving the actions of -jkb- and Zacheus. -jkb- alleges that Zacheus has published personal data on him, and has made legal threats.  Zacheus denies the allegations, and Thatcher131 alleges on the talkpage that -jkb- has himself revealed personal information about Zacheus. In the proposed decision, the Arbitration Committee would admonish both editors for their previous misconduct against each other but note that the problematic conduct seems to have stopped, and warn the parties not to resume practices such as posting identifying information about other editors or making personal attacks.


 * Armenia-Azerbaijan 2: A case alleging misconduct by various editors, some of whom were previously placed on revert parole in an earlier case, on articles relating to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, and related matters. Fred Bauder has proposed remedies, supported by SimonP, extending to revert parole applied to various editors to probation, and imposing these remedies also on anyone who edits the articles aggressively.


 * COFS, a case initiated by Durova based on a discussion at the community sanctions noticeboard. The case involves allegations of tendentious editing by various editors, sockpuppetry, conflicts of interest, and other user conduct issues on Scientology related articles. The proposed decision submitted by UninvitedCompany would ban User:COFS for 30 days for POV editing and require him to change his username and disclose any duties he may have to the Church of Scientology before resuming editing.


 * Pigsonthewing 2, initiated by Moreschi, concerns the conduct of Pigsonthewing, including a series of conflicts between this user and other editors involving the use of microformats on Wikipedia and other matters. A proposed decision submitted by UninvitedCompany would find that "Pigsonthewing disregards the Wikipedia way of doing things and is unable or unwilling to improve his pattern of participation" and would ban Pigsonthewing from editing Wikipedia for one year.


 * Attachment Therapy, initiated by Shotwell, alleges that other editors have engaged in POV pushing and tendentious editing on attachment therapy and related articles. During the case, checkuser indicated that DPeterson had created at least four sockpuppets that were used to edit-war on these articles and create the appearance of consensus. A proposed decision by arbitrator Kirill Lokshin would ban DPeterson for one year for this misconduct and remind the other parties to exercise care while editing articles as to which they may have a conflict of interest.

Motion to close

 * Abu badali: A case alleging that Abu badali has disruptively tagged non-free images for deletion, even when a valid fair-use justification exists, and has harassed editors who have complained about this behavior. In the proposed decision, the committee would adopt a remedy proposed by arbitrator FloNight under which Abu Badali "is counselled to be more patient and diplomatic with users who question his tagging of images and to work with them in a collaborative way."


 * Piotrus: A case involving Piotrus and other editors on Central and Eastern Europe-related articles. In the case, multiple parties have accused one another of edit-warring, incivility, unethical behavior, and biased editing. Under the currently proposed decision, an amnesty would be granted for prior editing problems on these articles, and the parties would be reminded of the need to edit courteously and co-operatively in the future. Two arbitrators have opposed closing the case pending consideration of additional remedies.