Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-02-13/Arbitration report

The Arbitration Committee opened no new cases this week, and closed one case (Betacommand 3), leaving three open.

AUSC candidates announced
On 9 February, the Arbitration Committee announced the five editors whose application to serve as community members on the Audit Subcommittee ("AUSC") were approved for consideration. AUSC was established by the committee to investigate complaints concerning the use of CheckUser and Oversight privileges on the English Wikipedia, and to provide better monitoring and supervision of the CheckUser and Oversight positions along with the use of the applicable tools.

There are three vacancies in non-arbitrator positions on the subcommittee, due to the election of past community members AGK and Courcelles to the full committee itself and the expiration of community member Keegan's term in March. Applicants for the positions will be reviewed by arbitrators in internal discussions starting on 19 February. Until then, the community is invited to question and discuss the candidates. The committee is due to announce the appointments on 29 February.

The five candidates are:


 * Avraham – administrator, bureaucrat, checkuser, oversighter and steward
 * DeltaQuad – administrator & SPI clerk
 * MBisanz – administrator, bureaucrat, former AUSC member (2010–2011) & former SPI clerk
 * Ponyo – administrator & OTRS volunteer
 * Salvio giuliano – administrator & ArbCom clerk

Betacommand 3
The arbitration case regarding Δ (formerly Betacommand) has closed. The case was opened to address the multitude of sanctions in effect on the editor. In the final decision, the committee noted that the community had the ability to sanction editors who cause a detriment to the encyclopedia, and that sanctioned editors are expected to correct the identified issues, lest more severe sanctions be implemented.

They found that the community had in the past raised concerns about Betacommand regarding both the content of his edits and his failure to adequately communicate their purpose when asked, and that the community had placed him under various restrictions as a consequence.

The committee determined that the community sanctions that were imposed on Betacommand have not been successful at addressing the editing problems, noting that he had on several occasions ignored the sanctions, and that he was still not communicating with other editors in an appropriate manner.

As a result of this, by a 10–6 majority, the committee superseded the community sanctions that were in place and imposed a site ban of no less than one year. Betacommand may request that the ban be lifted once the year has passed and after detailing his intended editing activities and demonstrating his understanding of and intention to refrain from the actions which resulted in his ban. Such a request would then be presented to the community for review.

Civility enforcement (Week 7)
This case was initially opened due to the actions of several administrators in relation to an editor who was blocked over perceived incivility. The evidence and workshop phases ended over a week ago with the submissions of over twenty editors. A proposed decision was posted by Hersfold on February 14, with sanctions proposed that range from admonishments to desysopping for the administrators involved in the case, and admonishments to site bans for Malleus Fatuorum. A general warning to the community has also been proposed, warning against conduct that causes a breakdown of communication within a discussion, reminding that uncivil conduct can be a factor in the breaking down of consensus forming, and that blocks or other restrictions may be used in the event of repeated disruption to ensure the collaborative environment of Wikipedia is maintained. At the time of writing, there is no clear indication as to which remedies are likely to be implemented.

Article titles and capitalization (Week 3)
This case was opened to review alleged disruptive editing on the Manual of Style and other pages to do with article naming. Over the last week, 11 editors submitted evidence to the Committee while 7 editors discussed proposals at the case workshop. Decision drafters AGK, David Fuchs, and Casliber will close these two stages on 19 February, a week prior to the release of a proposed decision.

On 9 February, a major party in the case,, was blocked as a sockpuppet of by arbitrator Elen of the Roads. However, the latter editor noted on her talk page that the block was not under the aegis of the Arbitration Committee, but rather one made in her capacity as the administrator who originally blocked Pmanderson. The block decision is notable as it has shown an evolution in sockpuppet investigations, as the evidence employed sophisticated forensic analysis to match the two accounts. Additionally, The Signpost can independently confirm similarities between the two user accounts from an analysis of the relevant data in question.

TimidGuy ban appeal (Week 9)
This case was brought to the Committee by an editor to appeal a site ban that was imposed by Jimbo Wales. The expected proposed decision, as mentioned in previous Signpost coverage, is yet to be posted but has been scheduled for 17 February.

Other requests and committee action

 * The Committee amended their Racepacket decision by indefinitely site banning for violating an interaction ban posted in their original decision. The vote was 10–0–1, with two arbitrators recused.