Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-05-21/Arbitration report

For the first time in nearly two years, the Arbitration Committee has no cases pending before it.

No pending cases
The closure of Rich Farmbrough last week marked the closure of the last open case before the Arbitration Committee. This has happened on only two occasions in the recent history of the committee&mdash;besides the instance in 2010, there was at least one period in early 2009 when there were no open cases.

However, full cases are not the entirety of the committee's workload. A total of six requests for amendments and two requests for clarification are still actively being discussed by arbitrators; and ban appeals, among other issues, are handled on their off-wiki mailing list.

One request for arbitration—a request for a full case—was filed a day after the last open case was closed. However, that request was unanimously rejected by arbitrators due to the lack of prior attempts at dispute resolution.

Automation restriction debate
A request to amend the just-completed Rich Farmbrough case was filed 19 May by editor Nobody Ent, seeking a modification of the restriction on the use of automation in Rich's edits. "The restriction as currently written is overly broad and vague," Nobody Ent wrote, "even a template is a type of automation and is therefore included in the scope of the remedy as currently written." Arbitrator Jclemens stated the request is a strawman. "We can deal with specific requests for clarification that pose real problems."

Arbitrator AGK concurred with Jclemens' position, to the dismay of commenting editor Hammersoft: "The restriction isn't so clear as Jclemens seems to think it is ... there's apparently still uncertainty as to whether Twinkle or Huggle qualify as 'automation'".

Jclemens answered that criticism in his opening remarks by arguing that "in the context of the case, automation is clearly intended to be that allowing an editor to modify multiple articles or other pages in rapid succession."