Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-01-17/Arbitration report

Arbitrator FT2 resigned from the committee this week; Kirill Lokshin was appointed "Arbitration Committee Coordinator", with Roger Davies as his deputy; Wizardman replaced FT2 as "IRC liaison"; and a new noticeboard for the Committee was created. See related notes here.

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

Evidence phase

 * Date delinking: A case regarding the behavior of editors in the ongoing dispute relating to policy on linking dates in articles. An injunction has been issued prohibiting large-scale linking or delinking of dates until the case is resolved.


 * Scientology: A case regarding behavioral problems in Scientology-related articles; the case is related to the prior case Requests for arbitration/COFS.


 * PHG: A case brought by PHG, in a follow up to a prior case against PHG, Franco-Mongol alliance. This case will review PHG's editing since the prior case, and may impose new sanctions, or repeal current sanctions, as necessary.

Voting

 * Fringe science: A case initially filed about the behavior of ScienceApologist, but opened to look at editing in the entire area of fringe science, and the behavior of editors who are involved in the area of dispute. In a proposed decision now being voted on by arbitrators, Coren has proposed the creation of a new type of arbitration remedy, "supervised editing", which an editor may be placed under when he or she does not "engage other editors or the editorial process appropriately". A designated supervisor would be permitted to revert or refactor the edits of the other editor at his or her discretion, ban the editor from articles, or require that the editor propose any substantial content edits to the supervisor, who will make the edits on his behalf. After the period of supervision terminates, the supervisor will submit a report to the committee who will revise the remedy that placed the editor under supervision. Other remedies include placing ScienceApologist under said supervision, restricting Martinphi from editing policy and guideline pages, admonishing Pcarbonn, and issuing general warnings to behave and seek mediation. Arbitrator voting is in progress.

Closed

 * G.-M. Cupertino: A case regarding the behavior of G.-M. Cupertino, accepted without significant prior dispute resolution as several arbitrators believed lower levels of dispute resolution would be fruitless. G.-M. Cupertino is banned from Wikipedia for one year, due to personal attacks, edit warring and sockpuppetry, and is restricted to one account should he return to editing after his ban ends.

Amended

 * Matthew Hoffman: The findings and remedies in this case were "withdrawn insofar as they reflect adversely on the editor identified as 'Vanished user.'", and the pages courtesy blanked.