Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-13/Arbitration report

The Arbitration Committee opened no new cases, leaving one open.

Climate change (Week 14)
This case resulted from the merging of several Arbitration requests on the same topic into a single case, and the failure of a related request for comment to make headway. [ Innovations] have been introduced for this case, including special [ rules of conduct] that were put in place at the start. However, the handling of the case has been criticized by some participants; for example, although the evidence and workshop pages were closed for an extended period, no proposals were posted on the proposed decision page and participants were prevented from further discussing their case on the case pages (see earlier Signpost coverage).

The proposed decision, drafted by Newyorkbrad, Risker, and Rlevse, sparked a large quantity of unstructured discussion, much of it comprising concerns about the proposed decision (see earlier Signpost coverage). A number of users, including participants and arbitrator Carcharoth, made the discussion more structured, but the quantity of discussion has continued to increase significantly. Rlevse had said that arbitrators were trying to complete the proposed decision before last week but it was later made clear that he will no longer be voting on this decision. This week, arbitrators, particularly Shell Kinney, made further additions to the proposed decision and further attempts to manage the quantity of discussion.

Transcendental Meditation movement
Late yesterday, a request for clarification was filed in relation to the enforcement of this case - in particular, how discretionary sanctions should be enforced against editors. The filer, Littleolive oil, has also requested that the revert restriction that was imposed on her by Future Perfect at Sunrise be overturned by the Committee.

Eastern European mailing list
A request was filed two days ago to reimpose an Eastern European topic ban on Radeksz. The proposed topic ban was originally imposed at the conclusion of the case, but was lifted three months ago by the Committee. Skäpperöd, the filer, alleges that Radeksz has "returned to aggressive editing and battleground behaviour". Radeskz responded with an allegation that the filer, Skäpperöd, "regularly...resorts to attempts to have those who disagree with him banned rather than working on resolving the [content] dispute".

Race and intelligence
A request was filed three days ago to impose a topic ban on Ferahgo the Assassin from race and intelligence related articles. The filer, Wapondaponda, alleges that Ferahgo the Assasin is acting as a proxy or sockpuppet for Captain Occam - who was topic banned from the articles. Ferahgo the Assasin denied the allegation and has alleged that her contributions to the articles have been positive, while Captain Occam alleged that Wapondaponda is "drama-mongering".