Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-06-04/Arbitration report

The committee opened one new case, bringing the total to three. Two motions for procedural change are also being voted upon.

Motions on procedural motions
Arbitrator Kirill Lokshin launched a motion to ensure the community "is given adequate notice of and opportunity to comment on proposed changes to the committee's processes and procedures." The motion required the committee to notify the community of all proposals for significant changes at the committee's formal motions page, and that they be advertised on the committee's noticeboard, administrators' noticeboard and the village pump on policy. It also required motions be subjected to standard voting procedure and remain open for a week before enactment. The motion was defeated 8–2.

An amended motion proposed by arbitrator Roger Davies removed the provision for notices on the administrators' noticeboard and village pump and included a stipulation that clerks make the announcement, it attracted more support but was defeated 7–6. A second compromise amendment, proposed by arbitrator Courcelles, restored the provision for notices on the administrators' noticeboard, maintained the stipulation that clerks announce the initial proposal, and shortened the period for which a motion must remain open post-announcement to 24 hours. This motion has so far garnered unanimous support, with seven votes.

Motion on standardized enforcement
Lokshin also moved a motion to standardise the enforcement of "editing restrictions imposed by the committee, and to reduce the amount of boilerplate text in decisions." The motion has attracted 13 unanimous votes for its enactment; it proposes that the following standard enforcement provision be incorporated into all cases with an enforceable remedy that lack case-specific enforcement provisions:

"Should any user subject to a restriction in this case violate that restriction, that user may be blocked, initially for up to one month, and then with blocks increasing in duration to a maximum of one year. Appeals of blocks may be made to the imposing administrator, and thereafter to arbitration enforcement, or to the Arbitration Committee. All blocks shall be logged in the appropriate section of the main case page."

Motions to block or ban Rich Farmbrough
The committee has moved five alternative motions calling for the banning or blocking of Rich Farmbrough following his use of automated tools in contravention of his sanctions. This came after arbitrator AGK confirmed via CheckUser that Farmbrough had continued to make automated edits by using a hacked version of AutoWikiBrowser. The ban/block period for each individual motion varies as does the period of time before which Farmbrough may make an appeal.

Fæ (Week 2)
The newly opened case concerns alleged misconduct by Fæ. This follows a submission for a case by MBisanz three 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."

GoodDay (Week 1)
The case concerns disruptive editing by GoodDay pertaining to the use of diacritics; GoodDay, who is topic-banned from articles pertaining to the UK and Ireland, broadly construed, and who is is under the mentorship of Steven Zhang, the filing party of this request for arbitration, believes that diacritics should not be used in articles as they are not part of the English language. In his statement, Zhang notes that GoodDay can be uncivil when discussing his qualms with other editors, and that whenever questioned on the nature 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."

Falun Gong 2 (Week 1)
This case was referred to the committee by Timotheus Canens, after TheSoundAndTheFury filed a "voluminous AE request" concerning behavioural issues in relation to Ohconfucius, Colipon, and Shrigley. The accused editors have denied his claims and decried TheSoundAndTheFury for his alleged "POV-pushing". According to TheSoundAndTheFury, the problem lies not with "these editors' points of view per se "; rather, it is "fundamentally about behavior".

In brief

 * A request for amendment has been filed into the suspension of User:Lyncs' topic ban from Scientology based on "one year of good behaviour."
 * The committee has resolved by motion that remedy 4 of the Scientology case is superseded with immediate effect by remedy 4.1, "Standard discretionary sanctions are authorised with immediate effect for the Scientology topic broadly construed. All warnings and sanctions shall be logged in the appropriate section of the main case page."