Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-10-28/Arbitration report



Another week, another case being accepted by the Arbitration Committee. This time we return to a topic that is still relatively new as a second Arbitration enforcement case is now open. And like before this is focused on and his actions.

Background
Eric Corbett has been a named party in multiple cases in Arbcom, including the first Arbitration enforcement case back in August and the Gender Gap Task Force (GGTF) case from December 2014. The latter case resulted in two remedies implemented on Corbett: the first being topic banned from the Gender Gap topic, and the second having him prohibited from "shouting at, swearing at, insulting and/or belittling other editors."

On The Atlantic
On 21 October, The Atlantic published a piece titled "How Wikipedia is Hostile to Women". The piece referenced the controversial Lightbreather case which saw site-banned indefinitely back in July. The article also mentions Eric Corbett, quoting him saying to Lightbreather, "The easiest way to avoid being called a cunt is not to act like one." This quote was made back in July 2014, before he was prohibited from swearing at other editors. Due to the controversial topic of sexism on Wikipedia (and in general), this article was brought up at Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wales' talk page. In the discussion editors talked about the article's inaccuracies, including the article's erroneously calling Corbett an administrator on the site. Corbett went onto the thread to defend himself but was blocked for a month by due to violating his topic ban from the Gender Gap topic after making comments on the gender gap on Wikipedia. (It should be noted that Lightbreather was also a member of GGTF). This block was lifted by a few days later, resulting in her being Level II desysopped by the Arbitration Committee "For reversing an arbitration enforcement block out of process". Corbett himself stated that he didn't want to be unblocked.

And that brings us to where we are now, with admin being the filing party of the case. Black Kite was a named party in the first Arbitration enforcement case. In that case it was found that they found no grounds to block Corbett for a different incident but had the decision overruled by, who blocked Corbett for a month without discussion. GorillaWarfare, an Arbitrator, has recused herself from the current case. The remedy to that case was to delegate the drafters of the case to amend and clarify both WP:ACDS and WP:AE. This remedy doesn't seem to have been implemented yet, with the Discretionary sanctions page having little changed. With five open cases currently ongoing we may have to continue waiting for any action on the amendments.


 * In brief
 * Overlapped sanctions: The Arbitration Committee has rescinded remedies in multiple cases "to prevent confusion and overlap between existing sanctions".