Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard

Arbitration​Committee

This noticeboard is for announcements and statements made by the Arbitration Committee. Only members of the Arbitration Committee or the Committee's Clerks may post on this page, but all editors are encouraged to comment on the talk page.

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User:Kevin's unblock of User:Cla68

Kevin (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) has unilaterally reversed a block placed by two oversighters relating to the repeated posting of personal information. Kevin failed to obtain agreement for the unblocking from either the oversighters or the Arbitration Committee prior to doing so. Accordingly, Kevin is temporarily desysopped in accordance with Level II procedures for removing administrative tools. The unblock of Cla68 (talk · contribs) is to be reversed until Cla68's appeal is addressed by the Arbitration Committee.

• Support: Carcharoth, Coren, Courcelles, David Fuchs, Hersfold, SilkTork, Timotheus Canens
• Oppose: Newyorkbrad
• Recused: Kirill Lokshin, NuclearWarfare
• Not voting: AGK, Risker, Roger Davies, Worm That Turned
• Inactive: Salvio giuliano

For the Arbitration Committee, T. Canens (talk) 06:17, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

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Arbitration motion under consideration regarding Oversight-related blocks

The Arbitration Committee is currently considering a motion on Oversight-related blocks. The community may comment on the proposed motion in the general discussion section.

For the Arbitration Committee, --Guerillero | My Talk 07:02, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

The section entitled "Standard discretionary sanctions" in the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 case is replaced with the following:

Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages related to Armenia, Azerbaijan, or related ethnic conflicts, broadly interpreted.

Previous or existing sanctions, warnings, and enforcement actions are not affected by this motion.

For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 05:36, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

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Unblock of Russavia

Approximately one day ago, the Arbitration Committee made public the following statement on User talk:Russavia. This is a cross-post of that statement, a motion that decided his recent appeal:

On 3 April 2012, Russavia was blocked for six months and topic-banned from all pages and discussions relating to Eastern Europe across all namespaces. On 13 May 2012, the six month block was extended to one year on the basis that this comment—made by Russavia on his talk page while he was blocked—violated his Eastern Europe topic ban. In January 2013, Russavia appealed his block and topic-ban to the Arbitration Committee. The Arbitration Committee accepts his appeal, vacates the six-month block and the one-year block that replaced it, but retains the Eastern Europe topic ban. We remind Russavia that, if he makes any further edits mentioning Polandball and similar cartoons (broadly construed), he will again be in violation of his topic ban and may be summarily re-blocked by any administrator in line with the usual methods of enforcing a discretionary sanction.

• Supporting motion: Coren, NuclearWarfare, Hersfold, SilkTork, AGK (proposing), David Fuchs, Courcelles, and Worm That Turned.
• Opposing: (none).
• Not voting: Carcharoth, Newyorkbrad, Kirill Lokshin, and Roger Davies.
• Inactive: Risker, Salvio guiliano.
• Recused: Timotheus Canens.

I have unblocked your account, but remind you (as explained in the motion) that your earlier topic ban remains in effect and that you may be blocked again if you violate that ban.

For the Arbitration Committee,
AGK [•] 14:19, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

For the Arbitration Committee,
NW (Talk) 14:46, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Discuss this

Arbitration motion regarding Oversight-related blocks

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

On July 19, 2010, the Arbitration Committee issued a statement noting that blocks based on confidential Checkuser information should not be lifted without consulting a Checkuser who has the ability to review said information. Since that time, this has been incorporated into the blocking policy.

While that statement focused primarily on checkuser-based blocks, the Arbitration Committee reminds administrators that they should not be taking any action when they are unable to make themselves fully aware of the circumstances that led to the block under review. Specifically, an oversighter may note that a block should not be lifted without consulting a member of the oversight team; in these situations, administrators are expected to heed this request and not unilaterally remove the block.

For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:43, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

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Arbitration motions with respect to functionaries

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

Audit Subcommittee (AUSC) members are provided with Checkuser and Oversight tools in order to carry out their responsibilities. Community appointees to the AUSC are discouraged from routine or regular use of either tool; however, they are permitted to use the tools in order to develop a sufficient skill level to adequately assess the actions of Checkusers and Oversighters, and may assist in addressing time-sensitive situations, or serious backlogs. Community AUSC appointees who held advanced permission(s) prior to their term will retain the permission(s) they held prior to their appointment. Community AUSC appointees who did not hold advanced permissions prior to their term may apply to retain Checkuser and/or Oversight during any Checkuser/Oversight appointment cycle that occurs during their term and, if successfully appointed, will assume their new role at the end of the AUSC term.

The Arbitration Committee confirms the current procedures with respect to advanced permissions and inactivity as approved in March 2011, with the exception of retitling the provision "CheckUser/Oversight permissions and inactivity".

For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:21, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

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Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Doncram closed

An arbitration case regarding Doncram has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:

1. Doncram is placed under a general probation indefinitely. Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions if, despite being warned, Doncram repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any normal editorial process or any expected standards of behavior and decorum. These sanctions may include blocks, page or topic bans, instructions to refrain from a particular behavior, or any other sanction that the administrator deems appropriate. Sanctions imposed under this remedy may be appealed as if they were discretionary sanctions. Doncram may not appeal this restriction for one year and is limited to an appeal once every six months thereafter.
2. Doncram is indefinitely restricted from creating new pages, except for redirects, in article space. He may create new content pages in his user space, at Articles for Creation, in a sandbox area within a WikiProject's area, or in similar areas outside of article space. Such pages may only be moved to article space by other users after review. This restriction may be appealed to the Committee after one year.
3. For edit warring with Doncram, SarekOfVulcan is strongly admonished to behave with the level of professionalism expected of an administrator.
4. SarekOfVulcan and Doncram are indefinitely prohibited from interacting with each other (subject to the ordinary exceptions).
5. The question of how substantive the content of a stub must be before it can legitimately be introduced to the mainspace as a stand-alone article cannot be decided by the Arbitration Committee. If the project is to avoid the stub guideline becoming a recurring problem in the future, we suggest to the community that this question may need to be decided through a deliberate attempt at conducting focussed, structured discussions in the usual way.

For the Arbitration Committee, (X! · talk)  · @276  ·  05:38, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

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Unblock of Fæ

The Arbitration Committee has made public the following statement on User talk:Fæ. This is a cross-post of that statement, a motion that decided his recent appeal:

On 21 July 2012, Fæ was blocked indefinitely and restricted to one account as a result of arbitration. In February 2013, Fæ appealed his block to the Arbitration Committee, declaring his past accounts. The Arbitration Committee accepts his appeal, on the following conditions:

1. Fæ is topic banned from editing BLPs relating to sexuality, broadly construed
2. Fæ is topic banned from images relating to sexuality, broadly construed

Fæ may appeal these topic bans after 1 year.

• Supporting motion: Carcharoth, Coren, David Fuchs, Nuclear Warfare, Newyorkbrad, Risker, SilkTork, Worm That Turned (proposing)
• Opposing: Courcelles
• Not voting: Roger Davies, Timotheus Canens
• Inactive: Hersfold
• Recused: AGK, Salvio guiliano, Kirill Lokshin

For the Arbitration Committee, Worm^TT(talk) 12:50, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Discuss this

Motion to return Kevin's administrator rights

Resolved by motion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case that:

Based on his commitment not to reverse any block designated as an oversight-based block [1], Kevin's administrator privileges are reinstated, effective immediately. He is strongly admonished for reversing the block and warned to abide by all applicable policies governing the conduct of administrators.

For the Arbitration Committee, Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 17:00, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Discuss this

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) closed

An arbitration case regarding Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:

1. Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) is strongly admonished for creating multiple copyright violations throughout Wikipedia. He is warned that continued violations of this nature are likely to result in an indefinite block from editing.
2. The Committee acknowledges that Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )'s community-placed topic ban on article creations was a valid and apparently successful attempt, recognizes that this sanction has been violated a number of times, and determines that the topic ban will remain in place and is assumed under the Arbitration Committee's authority.
3. Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) is indefinitely prohibited from uploading images or other media files to the English Wikipedia. Should Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) upload a copyright-violating image to the Wikimedia Commons and subsequently make use of that image on the English Wikipedia in any namespace, he may be subject to Arbitration Enforcement.
4. Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) is prohibited from linking as a reference any external site to which he has contributed. He may provide such links on the talk pages of articles, so they may be reviewed by other editors for acceptance according to applicable Wikipedia guidelines and policies.

For the Arbitration Committee, — ΛΧΣ²¹ 00:47, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Resignation

The past several months for the Arbitration Committee have been unusually filled with controversy and drama. Throughout these incidents, my colleagues on the Arbitration Committee and I have been doing our utmost to ensure our actions have been in the best interests of the project. As volunteers ourselves, it is often difficult to persevere through the animosity that is directed towards the Committee in response to some of these actions; arbitrators are regularly criticized for their work, and on rare occasion actively threatened. However, we do so because we believe that we are still making a positive difference to the project, even if only in the long term, and that our work is still appreciated by some. Unfortunately, recent events have shaken my confidence in that belief, and have been extremely stressful for me as a result. This, added on top of the everyday stress that comes from being a member of the Arbitration Committee, has built up to the point that Wikipedia is no longer something I have any enjoyment in contributing to.

As a result of this and other reasons I won't go into here, effective immediately, I am resigning my position on the Arbitration Committee and relinquishing all of my user rights, including administrator, bureaucrat, checkuser, edit filter manager, and oversight. I will, however, continue to maintain and support User:HersfoldArbClerkBot and its associated IRC bot, which assist the Arbitration Committee clerk corps.

It has been an honor serving with my fellow Arbitrators, the Functionaries, and the ArbCom Clerks, and I wish them all the best of luck. I also hope that they receive greater support from the community at large, so that they may better exercise the trust the community has placed in them for the good of the project as a whole; please remember that we are all volunteers working towards the same purpose, and while disagreements may arise, there is always time to stand back and attempt to understand one another.

Happy editing, Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 01:22, 13 March 2013 (UTC)