Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-09-12/Arbitration report



Two cases are currently open:
 * Senkaku Islands, which looks at the behavior of editors involved in a dispute over whether the naming of the articles Senkaku Islands and Senkaku Islands dispute is neutral, moved into its fourth week. It is alleged that the content dispute has been exacerbated by disruptive editing.
 * Abortion, a dispute over the lead sentence of Abortion and the naming of abortion-related articles, also said to have been exacerbated by disruptive editing, similarly moved into its fourth week.

There are pending requests for clarification for three cases: Transcendental Meditation movement (since August 26), Digwuren (since August 24), and Ireland article names (since August 19). There are also two cases with pending requests for amendment: Race and intelligence (since September 3) and Russavia-Biophys.

Date-delinking case amended
The two-year-old date-delinking case, concerning the automated removal of date-autoformatting in articles while the relevant WP:MOSNUM guideline was still in flux, has now been amended. Ohconfucius, who was sanctioned in the original case, requested that the last remaining sanctions be removed, arguing they were outdated and that this was a matter of simple housekeeping. Arbitrator opinion was cautious: Jclemens wrote that "The last time we lifted sanctions on an editor sanctioned under this case, I regretted it, because the future behavior in the area was problematic." Risker was strongly of the view that "this should be going in the opposite direction". However, Xeno felt that, if there were any current issues, they appeared to be outside of the intent of the original sanctions and agreed with Ohconfucius that rescinding those was simply housekeeping&mdash;an opinion that carried the day 8 to 5.

Cirt and Jayen466 case closure update
In addition to the remedies covered last week, Cirt has also been desysopped (for "admitted violations of the neutral point of view and biographies of living people policies"), but may reapply for adminship by filing a new request for adminship at any time. This additional remedy eventually passed 6 to 5 in support; Cirt has since said that he is "not considering" applying for his admin bit back at this time.

Call for applications for CheckUser and Oversight
The committee announced today that they were seeking applications from suitably qualified users to serve on the CheckUser and Oversight teams. Editors were encouraged to self-nominate by emailing. The application period is scheduled to close on 18 September 2011; then the committee will review the applications to decide which candidates will move forward to the community consultation phase. Of note, the committee indicated that due to "increasing activity from the South Asian, Southeast Asian, or Middle Eastern regions, CheckUser applications are particularly sought from people ... familiar with the ISPs and typical editing patterns of any of these regions." Further information on the process is available on a special 2011 CheckUser/Oversight appointments page.