Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Clerks

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Arbitration Committee proceedings

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Case requests

Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

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Open cases

Currently, no arbitration cases are open.

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Recently closed cases (Past cases)

Case name	Closed
Venezuelan politics	25 May 2024

Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: Conduct in deletion-related editing	Motion	(orig. case)	30 April 2024
Amendment request: Article titles and capitalisation	none	(orig. case)	13 May 2024
Clarification request: Extended confirmed restriction	none	none	29 May 2024

Arbitrator motions

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

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This noticeboard's primary purpose is to to attract the attention of the clerks to a particular matter by non-clerks. Non-clerks are welcome to comment on this page in the event that the clerks appear to have missed something.

Private matters

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The clerks may be contacted privately, in the event a matter could not be prudently addressed publicly (i.e., on this page), by composing an email to clerks-llists.wikimedia.org; only the clerk team and individual arbitrators have access to emails sent to that list.

Procedures

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A procedural reference for clerks (and arbitrators) is located here.

Arbitrators, clerks and trainees: Please coordinate your actions through the mailing list. The purpose of this page is for editors who are not clerks to request clerk assistance.

Question about ARBPIA sanctions

Can somebody clarify this for me? Despite editing many years in this area, honestly I still do not understand the rules. I asked Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Question_about_ARBPIA_sanctions as part of a discussion that is going on there, and was advised to place my question here.

The ARBPIA policy this page states:

The following set of sanctions will be considered the "ARBPIA General Sanctions"... Extended confirmed restriction: The extended confirmed restriction is imposed on the area of conflict.

and:

The presence of the templates is required before the General Sanctions can be enforced on primary articles.

and:

If there is confusion about which content is considered related, the content in question may be marked in the wiki source with an invisible comment. The presence of the templates is required before the General Sanctions can be enforced on related content.

and:

Editors should apply the ARBPIA General Sanctions templates to related content only when disruption creates a need for additional administrative tools.

What is the policy basis for enforcing EC sanctions on pages lacking a template? As in in the case of the discussion that I linked above? Many newbie editors recently had their EC rights revoked for editing pages that did not have the template. Marokwitz (talk) 20:10, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Hello, pinging the clerks and arbitrators again, your advice would be highly appreciated . Marokwitz (talk) 07:25, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@Marokwitz, I'm neither a clerk nor an arb, but I believe I can answer your question. WP:ARBECR applies to this topic area, so any editor who does not have 30 days and 500 edits tenure cannot edit these pages, regardless of whether a template is in place. Per WP:XC and WP:PGAME, permissions can be removed if they are gained by gaming the system. So they shouldn't be having their EC rights revoked for editing these pages, but for gaming the system (even if the only reason people noticed is because of these pages). Hope that makes sense. – bradv 07:37, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the answer @Bradv. So you are saying that editors that edited unprotected articles prior to receiving EC, should not have their EC rights revoked unless they gamed the system? Marokwitz (talk) 09:08, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Mostly yes, sometimes no. Depends on the situation -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 11:28, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@Guerillero, "mostly yes, sometimes no" – this answer appears to be somewhat ambiguous. What policy guides administrators in making such decisions? According to the policy, "The presence of the templates is required before the General Sanctions can be enforced on primary articles."

I am asking because I feel that decisions are being made arbitrarily. Recently there is considerable resentment in this area, and it seems to me that there is no consensus between different administrators. Marokwitz (talk) 12:52, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Generally yes. They certainly can't have their EC right revoked as an AE action, but there may be reason to do so within normal admin discretion. Do you have an example? – bradv 17:30, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@Bradv Yes, for example, see WP:AN#Extended-confirmed gained largely through ECR violations. Note that there were no accusations of gaming, battleground behavior, or anything else against this user, and the they sound pretty frustrated. "The presence of the templates is required before the General Sanctions can be enforced on primary articles" - I think this is an unjust sanction. Marokwitz (talk) 18:31, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

That was done as an individual admin action, not as an AE action, so the ARBPIA procedures don't apply. Technically any administrator can reverse this (although that's unlikely to happen without consensus at AN). You also have to realize that the entire topic area is under a lot of strain right now, partly due to off-wiki canvassing, and there are a lot of accounts newly created solely for the purpose of editing in, or even disrupting, this topic area. The intention behind the ARBECR restrictions is two-fold: 1) to ensure the the only participants in these discussions are experienced Wikipedians, familiar with our policies and conventions; and 2) to discourage the use of sockpuppets and proxy editing by increasing the effort required to create and onboard such accounts. If people are attempting to circumvent these procedures they are likely to bring all their actions under scrutiny, and administrators may use any tool at their disposal to limit disruption. The use of arbitration enforcement (that is, applying certain sanctions that cannot easily be reversed by another administrator) is limited to the rules articulated by ArbCom, which as I said have not been applied in this case. – bradv 19:12, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm pinging the editor @Chavmen: this discussion is of relevance to your case.

@Bradv, thank you so much for clarifying that the action taken was not due to ARBPIA procedures, rather an individual call by an admin. I'm not an administrator, just a simple Wikipedian, but in my view, it's important to remember that behind the aliases we're dealing with real people in these situations, and perceptions of unequal treatment can significantly contribute to the strain in this topic area. I understand the importance of reducing disruption, but we also need to balance this with transparency, equal treatment, and protecting and welcoming newbies who came here for positive reasons. In light of this, do you believe the affected user should appeal? If so, what would be the appropriate avenue for them to pursue this? Marokwitz (talk) 19:51, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I also thought thet you didn’t think that without a template an editor without ECP could edit the article with impunity, apologies if I’ve got this wrong. Doug Weller talk 19:55, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Are you trying to point out inconsistency in my thought over time? I acknowledge this openly. At first, I thought it was totally permissible - I had disagreements with non-EC editors many times in these pages, and tried to handle this through normal discussions, only asking for the page to be edit-protected as last resort. Recently, observing discussions at ANI led me to believe it was considered gaming the system. However, a detailed review of the policy led me to understand that while it's not permitted, such behaviour isn't subject to sanctions if the article lacks the template. That's why I came here seeking clarification. Marokwitz (talk) 20:15, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

They can appeal through the normal process, namely first to the admin who took action, and secondly to WP:AN. However, for the reasons I stated above, it is unlikely to be successful. They can still edit the millions of articles that aren't related to this topic area, and it wouldn't hurt to have the extra experience before delving back in. – bradv 20:01, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi all, and thanks @Marokwitz for starting the thread.

I can understand the decision more thoroughly now with the clarifications from @Bradv. The topic area is very hot at the moment and if I need to step back, edit other areas, and show that I am here to be a constructive editor I can do so.

However, I was frustrated because I saw an editor accused of gaming in this very area; they received a sanction, had their EC rights revoked, appealed, and the appeal was successful and they now continue to edit as EC in the very area they gamed.

Hence, why I felt it was a double standard. Chavmen (talk) 03:51, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Declined case request archive

Should the most recently removed case request be archived at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Declined requests? I don't want to add it myself as it's an ArbCom page, and there might be a reason why it hasn't been added; but (in my opinion) it would make sense for it to be added to that page. All the best, ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 12:02, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

@A smart kitten you are quite correct - fixed. firefly ( t · c ) 13:12, 5 January 2024 (UTC)