Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-07-19/Arbitration report

The Arbitration Committee opened no cases this week, leaving two open.

Open cases

 * Climate change (Week 6): Special rules of conduct were put in place for this arbitration. The case resulted from several Arbitration requests on the same topic matter being merged into one case, and a related request for comment on the matter failing to make headway. Currently in the workshop phase.
 * Race and intelligence (Week 7): This case concerns accusations of incivility, disruptive editing, and tag-teaming to control the content on articles related to race and intelligence. As reported earlier, the drafter, Coren, repeatedly gave participants the impression that the proposed decision would be posted up to a few weeks ago . Delays have caused some concern about the negative effect this may have had on participants . An uninvolved administrator has also expressed concerns that the Committee might be be giving administrators "unlimited authority ... to dictate sanctions anywhere" on Wikipedia. Still in the evidence/workshop phase.
 * [Update: Shortly before this week's Signpost was published, Coren posted this proposed decision - the case is now in the proposed decision phase.]

Other

 * Early today, the Committee announced that it will continue to appoint CheckUser and Oversight candidates until the community comes to a strong consensus for a workable alternative election method. The Committee tried to justify this decision on the basis of its evaluation – that no strong consensus existed for any particular solution in the review into CheckUser and Oversight selection.
 * The Committee also announced that no further appointments will be made on the basis of the results of the May 2010 CheckUser and Oversight election; those results were deemed as unsatisfactory (see Signpost coverage) and appear to have been dumped. Instead, the Committee has made a call for CheckUser and Oversight applications from administrators only. Additionally, the Committee encouraged unsuccessful candidates from the election to reapply. The closing date for applications is July 30, and between August 13 and August 22, the community will be permitted to comment on users who are actively being considered for the role(s).