Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-11-08/Arbitration report

The Arbitration Committee closed three cases since the last issue, and opened one, leaving two cases currently open.

Closed cases

 * Sarah Palin protection wheel war: Closed on October 20, a case involving allegations of wheel-warring on the Sarah Palin article, over a dispute as to the merits of page protection being applied in respect of it. As a result of the case, Jossi and MZMcBride were admonished for their use of administrative tools in the dispute and all parties in the case were instructed to carefully review the findings of the case, and the community was urged to continue discussions regarding the improvement of the biographies of living persons policy.


 * Abtract-Collectonian: A case between Abtract and Collectonian, involving an editing dispute between the two. As a result of the case, Abtract was restricted from interacting with, harassing, or wikistalking Collectonian, or making uncivil comments about any other user.  Collectonian, meanwhile, was urged to "continue to avoid any unnecessary interaction with Abtract".


 * SlimVirgin-Lar: A case brought by Thatcher, asking the committee to review the use of checkuser by Lar, in the light of comments by SlimVirgin (here, inter alia), alleging that he misused the tool. The case found that Lar's checks "fell within the acceptable range of CheckUser discretion".  Remedies enacted reminded users to bring similar issues to appropriate dispute resolution processes rather than "public invective", and reminded CheckUser operators to abide strictly to the Wikimedia Foundation's privacy policy.

New case

 * Kuban Kazak-Hillock65: A case involving a dispute between Hillock65 and Kuban kazak.

Evidence phase

 * Piotrus 2: A second case involving alleged edit warring and other misconduct by Piotrus and other editors. Piotrus denies the allegations against him, and has suggested that the case may be a deliberate attempt to drive him from the site.  The case, which has been open for over two months, involves a large number of users not named as official "parties" to the case, but cited in workshop proposals made by arbitrator Kirill Lokshin.