Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee

"WP:AC" redirects here. For account creator, see Wikipedia:Account creator. For Autoconfirmed, see Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed.

Arbitration​Committee

All appeals by blocked or banned editors should be sent to arbcom-appeals-enlists.wikimedia.org. Any private material intended for the Committee's attention should be sent to arbcom-llists.wikimedia.org. Please see the Communications and privacy statement below.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

In addition to its role in dispute resolution, the Committee determines which editors have access to CheckUser and Oversight permissions, and considers certain matters where exceptional factors such as privacy preclude a public hearing.

Arbitrators are volunteer users—usually experienced editors and administrators—whom the community of editors at large elects to resolve the most complex or intractable disputes that may arise within the community, and to oversee the few areas where access to non-public information is a prerequisite.

Members

See also: Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/History § Current and former members

These editors are the elected members of the Arbitration Committee (known as arbitrators). Votes of the committee are taken among the active members. Members are marked active or inactive so that the majority for new votes can be calculated. Members on wikibreak, not participating in arbitration within the past week, or indicating they will be absent are marked inactive.

Members moving back to active may remain inactive on some or all existing business. If you wish to know whether an arbitrator is active on a particular matter, please ask on their talk page (or check the proposed decision talk page, for cases). The list below is used to determine whether each arbitrator is active by default. Arbitrators who go on to participate in a vote will be counted as active for it even if they are listed as inactive below.

The following list is accurate as of 29 June 2024:

Active

1. Aoidh (talk · contribs)
2. Barkeep49 (talk · contribs)
3. Cabayi (talk · contribs)
4. Firefly (talk · contribs)
5. Guerillero (talk · contribs)
6. HJ Mitchell (talk · contribs)
7. Moneytrees (talk · contribs)
8. Primefac (talk · contribs)
9. Sdrqaz (talk · contribs)
10. ToBeFree (talk · contribs)
11. Z1720 (talk · contribs)

Inactive

1. CaptainEek (talk · contribs)
2. L235 (talk · contribs)
3. Maxim (talk · contribs)

The Arbitration Committee does not have a chair, but may designate one arbitrator to coordinate timely performance of tasks. The current coordinating arbitrator is Roger Davies, with Kirill Lokshin as his deputy.

Subcommittees

Audit Subcommittee

The Audit Subcommittee (AUSC) investigates complaints concerning the use of CheckUser and Oversight privileges. It consists of three arbitrators (currently AGK, Coren, and Timotheus Canens) and three non-arbitrator community members (currently Avraham, MBisanz, and Ponyo). Risker is the subcommittee coordinator.

Ban Appeals Subcommittee

The Ban Appeals Subcommittee (BASC) considers appeals from banned or blocked users, generally when all other avenues of appeal have been exhausted. It consists this year of four arbitrators (currently AGK, Hersfold, SilkTork, and Timotheus Canens) and one subcommittee co-ordinator (David Fuchs).

All requests or other material intended for the Ban Appeals Subcommittee should be sent to arbcom-appeals-enlists.wikimedia.org. Please see the ban appeals procedures before contacting the subcommittee.

An e-mail appeal must specify the banned editor's Wikipedia username and any other usernames he or she has used to edit Wikipedia in the past two years. The appeal should clearly but succinctly explain the reasons the editor feels the ban should be overturned, such as what lessons the editor has learned since the ban or block was imposed, how the editor would conduct himself or herself differently in the future if allowed to resume editing, or why he or she believes the ban was unfair. The editor should also include links to any relevant on-wiki discussions and any other information necessary to understanding the grounds for the appeal.

Clerks

The Committee's clerk team assists the Committee with procedural tasks, such as opening and closing cases, maintaining arbitration pages, and issuing notifications of decisions. Parties with questions about the arbitration process are encouraged to consult a clerk for assistance.

Contacting the Committee

To appeal a block or ban to the Arbitration Committee's Ban Appeals Subcommittee, e-mail arbcom-appeals-enlists.wikimedia.org.

For other matters, the arbcom-l mailing list is the primary venue for internal Arbitration Committee discussion on all matters under the Committee's remit. It can also be used by any user as a means of contacting the Committee privately (but see Email and privacy below). The mailing list address is arbcom-llists.wikimedia.org. It may also be reached through the "Email this user" feature at "User:Arbitration Committee". All current arbitrators are subscribed to this list, as is project founder Jimbo Wales.

Mailing lists

In addition to the arbcom-l list, the Committee operates several other official mailing lists:

Mailing list	Description
functionaries-en	The functionaries-en mailing list is used for general discussion among current Arbitration Committee members, former members in good standing, advanced permission (CheckUser and/or Oversight) operators, and other editors with official Wikimedia Foundation status. Please see the functionary page for more details and a list of subscribers.
arbcom-audit-en	The arbcom-audit-en mailing list is used for internal discussion by the Audit Subcommittee. Please see the subcommittee page for more details and a list of subscribers.
arbcom-appeals-en	The arbcom-appeals-en mailing list is used for internal discussion by the Ban Appeals Subcommittee. Please see the subcommittee page for more information about the subcommittee.
clerks-l	The clerks-l mailing list is used for coordination by the Committee's clerk team. Please see the clerk page for more details and a list of subscribers.
arbcom-en-b and arbcom-en-c	The arbcom-en-b and arbcom-en-c mailing lists are secondary mailing lists used instead of arbcom-l "solely for discussions involving (i) the conduct of an arbcom-l subscriber or (ii) cases, broadly defined, to which an arbcom-l subscriber is a party" per Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 5#Motion to establish secondary ArbCom mailing list. It is also used for CheckUser and Oversight applications. All arbitrators potentially have access to the archives of this mailing list upon conclusion of the incident that the list was used for.

Individual arbitrators

Some individual arbitrators have published their personal email addresses. These should be used sparingly as material intended for the Committee as a whole should instead be sent to arbcom-l at arbcom-llists.wikimedia.org.

• AGK (Anthony): wikiagkgmail.com
• Coren: marcuberbox.org
• Kirill Lokshin: kirill.lokshingmail.com

• Newyorkbrad: newyorkbradgmail.com
• Roger Davies: roger.davies.wikigmail.com

Communications and privacy

Arbitrators usually seek to treat your communications, including emails, as private when possible. We however cannot guarantee against public disclosure for a number of reasons, including potential security limitations. Accordingly, you should not disclose sensitive personal information in your communications with us.

Once received, your communications may be shared with committee members and, in some limited cases, with third parties to assist in resolving issues or other purposes. Your communications may be kept for an undetermined period of time for archival or other reasons.

You should also know that even your return email address may lead to revealing your real life identity. Many people create anonymized email accounts – for example <your username>@gmail.com, <username>@hotmail.com and so on – specially for Wikipedia use. Further information about safeguarding your privacy can be found at Wikipedia:On privacy, confidentiality and discretion and Wikipedia:How to not get outed on Wikipedia.