Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-05-28/Arbitration report

The Arbitration Committee closed no cases last week and opened one case; another is pending review. (This was the first time in 22 months that there were no pending cases.)

Fæ (Week 1)
A case has now been opened concerning alleged misconduct by Fæ. This follows a submission for a case by MBisanz two weeks ago that was rejected on the basis that other dispute resolution forums had not been explored. In his statement, MBisanz claims that "Fæ has rendered himself unquestionable and unaccountable regarding his conduct because he responds in an extremely rude manner that personally attacks those who question him." He alleges that Fæ mischaracterises commentary about his on-wiki conduct as harassment, further stating that while "Fæ has been treated poorly by some users off-wiki (and possibly on)", his violent responses to commentary about him on-wiki "has become the issue itself."

In Fæ's response, posted on his behalf by clerk Guerillero, he noted that MBisanz's writings on Wikipediocracy during May about a planned private meeting with Gregory Kohs "should be of interest to many and appears to directly relate to the nature of his complaints about matters off Wikipedia." In his statement, Themfromspace states that "views at the RFC were divided over the legitimacy of Fae's adminship when it was alleged that heleft [sic] his previous account "under a cloud". Questions were raised about the scope of ArbCom's involvement in the RFA (Fae stated that it was sanctioned by ArbCom; John Vandenberg stated that Fae was mistaken and that only he endorsed the RFA)."

Moreschi advised Fæ to step away from external websites adding that "50 percent of what people say about you at WR et al is simply driven by hurt vanity: 40 percent is based on misinformation provided by those of the hurt vanity, and 10 percent (at best) might be fair criticism of some validity." Arguing that if Fæ "can't filter out the white noise" that he not read the threads at all and continue "working quietly here without starting vast drama-filled BADSITES AN threads in which you then go make yourself look awful."

Anthonyhcole asked the committee to accept the case, provided they manage its pages "for relevance and civility." He notes that Fæ abandoned his earlier account, claiming to be leaving the project during an RfC/U where the likely outcome would have been "to sanction him in the area of BLPs." The committee, however, agreed to a clean start and in his RfA Fæ stated he changed his name after an RfC/U and that he'd never been blocked or sanctioned under the earlier name. Cole continued, saying that "this implied, to the !voters at his [Fæ's] RfA, that the RfC/U had found nothing sanctionable" adding that it is probable he would not have passed if !voters were aware of the circumstances in which he left the RfC/U.

Cole asked the committee to "address Fæ's fitness to edit BLPs" which he said "is still an open question." He conjectures that the committee should have stipulated that "he return and complete the RfC/U before agreeing to a clean start." Cole continued and stated that the right decision which, given the misleading evidence Fæ supplied in his RfA would be for him "to ask the community to reconfirm his adminship. It is argued that the value he adds to the project as an admin is too great to jeopardise with a reconfirmation RfA."

GoodDay request for arbitration
Steven Zhang has submitted a case for review into the disruptive editing of his mentoree GoodDay in the use of diacritics; GoodDay, who is topic-banned from articles pertaining to the UK and Ireland, broadly construed, believes that diacritics should not be used in articles as they are not part of the English language, in his statement, Zhang states that "at times he is rather uncivil when discussing his objections with other editors. When questioned on his edits, he will often remove the comments from his talk page, citing harassment."

In response, GoodDay remarks that "there's nothing for me to add here, except that folks should take a look at the English alphabet." In their statement, Resolute says s/he and GoodDay have both agreed and disagreed on certain points over the years in the ice hockey project—in particular, on the use of diacritics: "we used to agree but now disagree. I don't know much about his conflicts in the realm of the British Isles, but his attitude around diacritics has become increasingly combative as of late in my view."

In brief

 * The committee has resolved by motion that users who are named parties and submitting evidence must limit their submissions to 1000 words; all others will have a 500 word limit. Clerks may refactor submissions significantly over the limit at their and the committee's discretion.
 * The committee has also resolved by motion to amend finding of fact 2.5 of the Race and Intelligence Review to read that "Mathsci has engaged in borderline personal attacks and frequent battleground conduct."
 * A request for comment into the expansion of the Ban Appeals Subcommittee is now underway in an attempt to address concerns that "been raised regarding the feasibility of electing additional community members, given the traditionally low number of viable candidates in prior elections."
 * A request for comment into the effect of arbitration processes on editor retention is now underway. As the Signpost reported two weeks ago, the complexity of rules and processes and inadequacy of mechanisms dealing with problematic editors may be factors leading to decreased editor activity; because the arbitration process impacts both of the concerned areas, improving it to reduce the negative impact on editor retention is a vital step towards meeting the strategic goals of the editor retention effort.