Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-09-11/Arbitration report

Discussion over the Manning title dispute was off to a running start as evidence and workshop phases continued in the Bradley/Chelsea Manning naming dispute. The Infoboxes case closed with topic bans for two users, and a recommendation for community discussion of infoboxes.

Manning naming dispute
The evidence and workshop phases are now open in the Manning naming dispute case. The case involves the move of the Bradley Manning article to Chelsea Manning, after Manning's attorney announced Manning's wish to be known as Chelsea.

The scope of the case has been described as "broad": the committee is "willing to review evidence regarding any aspect of the naming dispute in question." There is particular interest in evidence regarding derogatory statements towards transgendered individuals, accusations of transphobia, whether WP:BLP concerns are being handled properly,  and evidence of possible misuse of admin tools.

The evidence phase closes 19 September, and the workshop phase closes 26 September. A proposed decision is scheduled to be posted 3 October 2013.

Infoboxes
The Infoboxes case was closed. Arbitrators agreed unanimously that infoboxes are neither required nor discouraged, and that decisions regarding infoboxes should be made by consensus on an article-by-article basis. They also recommended a community-wide discussion on infoboxes. Findings regarding conduct were passed for four users. In addition two users received topic bans: Pigsonthewing (also known as Andy Mabbett) was indefinitely banned from using or discussing infoboxes, and Gerda Arendt was restricted from discussing or adding infoboxes to articles but not from participation in broader policy discussions.

The following remedies were announced by the committee: "# is indefinitely banned from adding, or discussing the addition or removal of, infoboxes.
 * 1) is admonished to behave with the level of professionalism expected of an administrator.
 * 2) is indefinitely restricted from: adding or deleting infoboxes; restoring an infobox that has been deleted; or making more than two comments in discussing the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article. They may participate in wider policy discussions regarding infoboxes with no restriction, and include infoboxes in new articles which they create.
 * 3) is admonished for treating Wikipedia as if it were a battleground and advised to better conduct themselves.
 * 4) is reminded to conduct himself in a civil manner.
 * 5) All editors are reminded to maintain decorum and civility when engaged in discussions about infoboxes, and to avoid turning discussions about a single article's infobox into a discussion about infoboxes in general.
 * 6) The Arbitration Committee recommends that a well-publicized community discussion be held to address whether to adopt a policy or guideline addressing what factors should weigh in favor of or against including an infobox in a given article."

The proposed findings of fact against Smerus were added to the case two weeks after the workshop had closed, after members of WikiProject Quality Article Improvement complained that the decision as written was too one-sided, that one-sided rulings [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes/Proposed_decision&diff=568920303&oldid=568920145 "never calm things down"], and that anti-box editors "deserve smacking".

Since little or no evidence had been submitted against these editors, a request was made for more diffs. Since the evidence and workshop phases were already closed, there was no discussion of this new evidence. Smerus [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes/Proposed_decision&diff=570393163&oldid=570392587 offered to provide diffs] if an arbitrator was willing to take them into consideration, but did not receive a response. While no centralized discussion took place on the case pages, comments elsewhere speculated that "ArbCom wanted to punish two users from each side of the dispute to demonstrate fairness".

A similar situation occurred in the Tea Party movement case (see Signpost coverage), when fourteen editors were proposed for topic bans after discussion had already closed in the evidence and workshop phases. However, while there was no centralized discussion in that case, the discussion did continue on various arbitrators' talk pages. In a post-mortem on that case, concern was expressed that "anything that might end up in the proposed decision should, first, be displayed at the workshop… because it gives the Committee a chance to get their gut feelings reviewed by editors outside the Committee."

Other requests and committee action

 * Discretionary sanctions review: An updated draft of the discretionary sanction process is now available for review and comment.
 * Clarification request: Race and Intelligence: A clarification request has been made regarding topic and interaction bans.
 * Amendment request: Scientology: An amendment request made by The Devil's Advocate  requests the lifting of a restriction imposed regarding the mention of an editor's previous username, the removal of claims of misconduct from the discretionary sanction log of warnings, and restoration of a previously oversighted edit to avoid the appearance of misconduct implied by a suppressed edit.
 * Amendment request: Locke Cole arbitration case: A request was made by Locke Cole for the lifting of a seven-year-old interaction ban.
 * Clarification request: Pseudoscience#Principles: A request was made by IRWolfie- for clarification of the ArbComPseudoscience template. Archived here.