Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-04-07/Arbitration report

The Arbitration Committee opened one new case this week and closed two cases, leaving four cases currently open.

Closed cases

 * September 11 conspiracy theories: A case involving the actions of some editors on articles related to the September 11, 2001 attacks, particularly in relation to 9/11 conspiracy theories. As a result of the case, any uninvolved administrator can impose sanctions on editors working on articles related to the events of September 11; such sanctions may be appealed to the imposing administrator, the arbitration enforcement noticeboard, or the Arbitration Committee itself.


 * Highways 2: A case involving editing by NE2 on articles relating to WikiProject U.S. Roads, allegedly against consensus of other editors involved with that wikiproject. As a result of the case, editors were counseled to consider contributing outside of disputed articles, and WikiProject U.S. Roads members were advised to refer to prior debates when explaining prior consensus.

New case

 * Strider12: A case involving an Abortion-related dispute between Strider12 and MastCell.

Voting phase

 * International Churches of Christ: A case involving disputes concerning the article on International Churches of Christ.  Remedies would restrict TransylvanianKarl from editing this and related articles anonymously or through other accounts, urge him to refrain from editing these articles until he has familiarized himself with core policies, and instruct him to comply with such policies.


 * Prem Rawat: A case involving the actions of editors on Prem Rawat and related articles.  A remedy that would place Rawat-related articles on article probation currently passes, and another, more recently proposed remedy instructing editors with a possible or perceived conflict of interest to comply with Wikipedia policies on NPOV and conflict of interest has the support of four arbitrators.


 * Betacommand 2: A case involving the actions of Betacommand and others in relation to BetacommandBot, a controversial bot which tags some non-fair-use-compliant images. Betacommand's actions had previously been discussed on a subpage of WP:AN.  The main remedy, supported by six arbitrators, would instruct Betacommand to remain civil, refrain from making personal attacks, operate BetacommandBot within the scope of policies, and refrain from "further instances of untoward conduct"; an alternate remedy, with four supporting and one opposing, would extend the remedy to require Betacommand to allow a method of opting out of user talk-page messages.  Other remedies proposed, and supported by five to six arbitrators, would urge Betacommand to be more responsive to good-faith questions, advise editors that images and media may be periodically reviewed for compliance with non-free content criteria, and ask the community to re-examine policies regarding image deletion, bot-assisted and otherwise, and consider whether any updating of the bot approvals group's procedures is warranted.