Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-10-22/Arbitration report

The Arbitration Committee accepted two new cases this week, and closed six cases.

Closed cases

 * Bharatveer: A case involving alleged edit-warring, incivility and personal attacks by Bharatveer on India-related articles. As a result of the case, Bharatveer's editing was restricted for one year.


 * Digwuren: A case involving alleged POV-pushing and incivility by Digwuren and alleged sockpuppets. As a result of the case, Digwuren and Petri Krohn were banned for one year, and a general restriction imposed on editors working on Eastern European topics.


 * Liancourt Rocks: A case involving alleged WP:NPOV violations on the Liancourt Rocks article. As a result of the case, Wikimachine was banned for one year.


 * Giovanni33-John Smith's: A case regarding actions taken with respect to a block of Giovanni33 in a dispute between him and John Smith's. As a result of the case, both parties' editing was restricted for one year.

New cases

 * Alkivar: A case involving alleged misuse of administrative tools by Alkivar, including protection of a page in a dispute in which he was allegedly involved, an indefinite block of Equazcion, and a banner on his userpage stating that "comments left by anonymous editors may be removed without warning".


 * Ferrylodge: A case involving a community ban of Ferrylodge on the now-defunct Community sanction noticeboard, but which User:B has, in accordance with Community ban, stated that he is willing to overturn.

Evidence phase

 * Martinphi-ScienceApologist: A case involving alleged POV-pushing and incivility on pseudoscience-related articles.


 * Ebionites: A case involving alleged POV-pushing on the Ebionites article.

Voting phase

 * Commodore Sloat-Biophys: A case wherein Biophys alleges that Commodore Sloat has been incivil and has edit-warred, while Sloat denies the allegations and alleges that Biophys has not been co-operative in the dispute. Kirill Lokshin has proposed a remedy instructing the parties to refrain from interacting with or commenting about each other in any way.

Motion to close

 * The Troubles: A case involving a large number of editors on articles related to The Troubles. Some editors attempted to withdraw from the case when its scope was widened at the request of an arbitrator to cover the entire area rather than only the behaviour of Vintagekits, but in accordance with arbitration policy, these attempts, along with other changes to statements after the case opened, were reverted by the clerk.  If closed, any editors joining in the edit-warring on the articles in question would be liable to be placed on probation, and the indefinite ban of Vintagekits would be lifted.


 * THF-DavidShankBone: A case involving alleged POV editing by THF relating to Michael Moore, and alleged harassment by DavidShankBone. Voting on remedies is split, but a motion dismissing the case because one of the parties has left Wikipedia stands at 4-1.


 * Allegations of apartheid: This case concerns the conduct of various editors in connection with a group of articles whose titles include the words "Allegations of apartheid". It has been alleged that these articles were created in violation of Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, after several deletion debates concerning Allegations of Israeli apartheid resulted in that article being kept. Issues have also been raised concerning comments made in deletion discussions and reviews. Several users who have created and edited the "Allegations of apartheid" articles have strongly denied any inappropriate conduct. Voting on most proposals is split, but  an amnesty for past actions currently has a majority, and a motion to dismiss the case has the support of five arbitrators.