Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration

This page documents an Arbitration Committee process on the English Wikipedia. This page is maintained by members of the Arbitration Committee and their Clerks. Editing requires considerable forethought and usually (for major changes) arbitrator agreement.

A Request for Arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution on Wikipedia. The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and review previous decisions. The Arbitration process is governed by the Arbitration policy.

This page outlines the arbitration process. If you are considering an arbitration case, or are involved in one, please read this page carefully. Arbitration is an exceptional step in a dispute, and has a number of structured norms which help direct its approach but are not the norm for other forms of dispute resolution. Users unfamiliar with Arbitration may experience worry if they do not understand how Arbitration approaches disputes.

About Wikipedia Arbitration

Arbitration is the final resort for serious disputes that the community cannot resolve. A panel of highly experienced users will reach a decision which is binding on all.

Types of request

Requests may be for new cases, or existing matters (clarifications, appeals, and amendments/extensions).

Important features

It is important to understand some of the more important features of Wikipedia's Arbitration process:

• Arbitration is intended to serve the project - Arbitrators focus on the risk and benefits for future, not on past historic issues. It aims to find the best way to move forward, so users can get beyond the dispute. Arbitration is more likely to ask if a user can change or what restrictions would have an effect, than "who said exactly what".

• Arbitration aims to "break the back" of the dispute - The first case (especially if messy and heated) is almost always by far the longest and hardest. The first time a dispute comes to Arbitration, it may have gone on months, or a year, or more. Many users may be angry, there will often be a lot of controversy, "smoke" and allegations. It can seem impossible and interminable. Arbitrators will aim to clarify the issues between themselves, and get the "history" mostly dealt with. They will want to get the case to the point that if it recurs it's easy to address. If it needs follow-up later, that's fine and usually quick and easy.

• Arbitration is not a court case - All actions and general conduct (not just the direct issue) may be taken into account; arbitration is not a legal process with fixed approaches to problems. A person's general manner is probably evidence of their likely behavior going forward, old incidents may not be actionable but can sometimes show a persistent history of problems, and insightful impressions by reasonable people may be valuable, even if just "impressions".

Decisions

In some complex cases the first remedy may seem deceptively light, almost "go away and don't do it again". Arbitrators will factor in their experience of how certain remedies impact certain behaviors, and the effect of having a full prior case. It is very difficult for even the worst problem users to "act up" much, after arbitration. The minority that come back often have a different issue, or need stronger enforcement measures, and this is usually quick.

Arbitrators will also try to consider careful use of restrictions. For example a user may be completely incapable of editing one area without dispute but given a "second chance" in other areas (or under certain restrictions) to see if the problem is pervasive.

Finally in many cases it works surprisingly well for the Committee to simply say once they understand "who is doing what", that the issues have to end, then wait to see if further action is needed. "Bad actors" tend to try and repeat their agendas, and that is when they will usually be removed or sanctioned. It removes doubt that otherwise would be quite divisive, especially for massively complex cases where it can sometimes be a very effective solution.

Before requesting arbitration

Prior steps

The Committee will generally consider accepting some serious cases directly, without previous dispute resolution processes:

• Reviews of emergency actions to remove administrator privileges
• Unusually divisive disputes among administrators
• Matters directly referred to the Arbitration Committee by Jimbo Wales

In some serious cases it may be best to email in private for advice, such as:

• administrator sockpuppetry
• Sensitive or "drama prone" issues requiring advice on handling
• Issues where privacy is a major concern

Otherwise, it is expected that other avenues will be attempted first. These may include the requests for comment on user conduct (RFC/U) process, mediation, or other serious attempts to resolve the problem. If not tried, the request should show why they would probably be pointless or unsuccessful.

Alternatives

Main page: Wikipedia:Dispute resolution

In general, matters should not be referred to arbitration when a lesser step will be sufficient. Alternatives include:

• An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Get to situations early and try to avoid mediation or arbitration entirely.
• The Mediation cabal can mediate in cases where full blown mediation would be overkill, and it can mediate in odd or interesting situations too.
• Ask for other editors to help out, get a third opinion or seek comments from the community.
• If you want to be sure you're doing the right thing yourself, editor assistance can help you with rules, diplomacy, and walk you through dispute resolution, so you won't have to and can just concentrate on editing the article.
• In some cases, administrative intervention is appropriate and can be obtained via the administrators' incident noticeboard.

In private or public

Typically, cases involving ban appeals are heard in private, by email, since the nature of a ban is to remove the banned user from the community. In some cases a user may be unblocked for the purposes of appeal, on the understanding they will strictly edit only the few pages needed for the purpose and not edit for any other reason.

A small minority of other cases may also be heard in private. This is less common, and most commonly occurs when there are exceptional privacy issues.

Otherwise, users may refer evidence to the Committee by email in any case. However unless there is good reason, it is preferable that, in most cases, evidence is presented on-wiki. To email the Committee, see here.

If there is doubt about posting any evidence or privacy issue, or there are concerns over a public discussion, please ask an arbitrator for advice by email.

Requesting and responding to a case

Your statement

Main page: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/How to present a case

While it is not necessary to lay out the entire case, the Committee will expect you to briefly outline the nature of the dispute and the steps already taken to resolve it.

Make your statement short and factual. Use diffs to point to specific instances to illustrate the point. Remember you are presenting at this point a summary of the evidence available and enough information to show why arbitration is needed.

Responding to others' statements

At times, others will make points that you feel need a response. Remember that arbitration cases are not debate pages; they are places to present summary (at first) and then detailed evidence (if accepted).

You should respond to others' points as follows:

; Response to statement by [[User:X|X]] : <your comment> ~~~~

This is as an alternative to replying directly to that user in the section of the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration thread in which he or she made the comment. If you comment in another user's section, the committee clerks will more than likely move your comment and refactor it as necessary.

How requests are processed and the decision to accept

After a request is made, the active Arbitrators vote on whether to accept or decline the case; 0/0/0/0 corresponds to Arbitrators' votes to accept/reject/recuse/other. Sometimes "decline" is used instead of "reject". "Recuse" means that an Arbitrator has excused himself or herself from a case because of a possible, or perceived, conflict of interest. "Other" is for votes or suggestions that do not fit into one of the previous three categories.; this includes comments that are not formal accept/reject votes, although they may imply the arbitrator intends to lean for a particular outcome.

Cases are usually opened at least 24 hours after four net accept votes are cast; that is, four more accept than reject votes. Cases will remain on this page for at least 48 hours after filing, regardless of net accept votes. Cases that have not met the acceptance criteria after 10 days will be removed from this page. When a case is opened, a notice including a link to newly created evidence and workshop pages will be posted to each participant's talk page, and linking to further information.

As a procedural note, arbitrators may often leave a comment, and then afterwards cast their vote, leaving that comment standing. If so, that comment remains in the arbitrator voting and comment section, but is no longer counted in the comments tally (hence, a comment superseded by an accept would switch from x/x/x/3 to 1/x/x/2, presuming the arbitrator voted support, and there were two other arbitrator comments). The Clerks will usually handle tally updating, especially if it is a particularly difficult set of votes.

When a case is accepted

See also: Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Case handling

Users at this point will be able to post their main evidence, which may also be updated as needed at any time, either to improve it, to add new evidence, or to provide their own notes related to others' comments. They may also optionally take part in the workshop, a structured consideration of the case for anyone in the community (including parties and arbitrators). Finally, if they have questions on the case, they may address these on the relevant talk pages.

Temporary injunctions

In some cases, the Arbitrators may feel that it is in the best interests of the encyclopedia (to prevent further disruption and maintain decorum) to temporarily enjoin the participants from continuing the disputed conduct until the case is concluded. Temporary injunctions do not necessarily foretell the outcome of the case.

Temporary injunctions pass upon receiving 4 net votes; that is, 4 more votes in favor than opposed. Injunctions are typically enacted 24 hours after the fourth net vote in favor, to allow any remaining Arbitrators a chance to vote. Injunctions end when the case is closed and the final decision is published.

Evidence

The parties and other interested editors are encouraged to place evidence on the case Evidence subpage. Evidence should be in the form of diffs to contested behavior, along with any necessary explanations and context. Generally, evidence presentations should be kept to under 1000 words and 100 diffs, although some flexibility is tolerated. The parties should be aware that argument is not evidence, and that 5 well-chosen diffs may speak more eloquently than a 500 word diatribe.

Editors are expected to only edit within their own section on the evidence page, and should not respond to other editor's evidence by adding comments in their section of the page. Make a subsection in your own section for rebuttal, or use the talk page. However, extended arguments over the validity and interpretation of the evidence is rarely helpful to the Arbitrators. Be clear and concise when making your evidence presentation.

The Workshop

The Workshop subpage allows the parties, the community and the Arbitrators to analyze the evidence, offer suggestions about possible final decision proposals, and receive feedback. Parties and editors should keep a few things in mind when writing workshop proposals.

1. Be aware of the kinds of proposals that have been offered in prior similar cases. For example: the Arbitration committee does not make content rulings, so a proposal that "The article Fooberries will be restored to my version of 12 August 2007" is a complete non-starter.
2. Proposed principles should be grounded in Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Don't offer proposals like "Topical experts should be given special deference" or "Editors do not need to cite sources when writing about themselves."
3. Proposed findings of fact should be supported by evidence on the evidence page. Linking to the evidence page or a few of the best diffs illustrating the point is helpful.
4. Proposed remedies should be supported by the findings of fact. A proposal to ban User:Smith from editing requires substantial evidence that User:Smith has violated community editing norms.

Although each workshop proposal includes space for comments by the Arbitrators, parties, and others, the workshop is not a vote, nor is it a debate. Casting a "vote" of support for your favorite proposals is less informative than a brief comment of why you think it is a good proposal, while getting into an argument with the other party in the case is less useful to the Arbitrators than a concise explanation of why you agree or disagree with a proposal. Extended discussions should be taken to the talk page.

Proposed decision and voting

After considering the evidence and workshop pages, and any private discussions among the Arbitration committee, one or more Arbitrators will write a proposed decision and place the case into voting. For the final decision, votes are cast and counted according to a simple majority of the active Arbitrators. Thus, if there are 11 active Arbitrators, 6 votes constitutes a majority and any proposal that receives 6 or more votes in support is considered passed. The number of votes in opposition does not normally come into play, although see Conditional voting below. Frequently, cases with straightforward and noncontroversial decisions will close as soon as a majority vote is reached on the key proposed principles, findings and remedies, as keeping the case open for the remaining Arbitrators to vote can lead to delays in finalizing the decision and additional votes, even in opposition, can not change the outcome once a majority is reached.

Arbitrators may vote to Support or Oppose a proposal or may vote Abstain. A vote of "Abstain" reduces the number of Arbitrators participating with respect to that proposal and may reduce the majority needed to pass that proposal. For example, if there are 12 active Arbitrators (a majority being 7) and one Arbitrator votes abstain on a proposal, the number of Arbitrators active on that proposal is considered to be 11 and the majority required to pass is considered to be 6. This means that a vote of "Abstain" is treated differently than lack of participation. If there are 12 Arbitrators listed as "active" but only 7 or 8 vote in the case, the views of the non-voting Arbitrators can not be assumed. However, a vote to Abstain is interpreted to mean that the Arbitrator has no firm opinion and is willing to allow that principle to be decided by the consensus of the other Arbitrators.

Conditional voting

The Arbitrators will sometimes offer alternative proposals, and may cast conditional votes. For example, if both a one month and six month ban are proposed, an Arbitrator may vote "First choice" on one and "Second choice" on the other, indicating that she has a preference for one or the other but that both are acceptable. Arbitrators may also vote "Support-no preference either way" on alternative proposals or may cast definitive votes ("Support a one month ban but oppose a 6 month ban as too long", or "Support a 6 month ban unless the one month ban also passes in which case oppose a 6 month ban.") When a case has multiple alternative proposals, the following procedure is generally used to determine which proposals pass.

• All "first choice" and "No preference" votes are tallied and any proposals that reach the majority pass.
• If no alternative passes, then second choice votes are added, then third choice, etc.

If at any stage, more than one alternative passes, then they will both be included in the final decision unless they are contradictory. (It rarely presents a problem to pass multiple alternate versions of the principles and findings of fact; it may represent a significant problem if contradictory remedies pass.) If contradictory proposals can not be resolved by considering conditional votes, then the clerks will attempt to determine the consensus of the committee by considering the total votes cast in support and opposition. For example, if the majority is 6, a proposal with a vote of 7-0 will be passed over an alternative with a vote of 6-3.

Arbitrators are encouraged to be as unambiguous in their voting as possible. The clerks are encouraged to bring ambiguous or difficult interpretations to the Arbitrators' attention by commenting in the Implementation notes section of the Proposed Decision page.

Drafting Arbitrator

In order to facilitate efficient case processing, the Committee will usually designate one Arbitrator to be the Drafting Arbitrator or Drafter for the case. This Arbitrator will author, in due course, the proposed decision for that case. Other members of the Committee will then vote on the proposals—and, if they wish, propose alternatives or additions to the decision.

Closing the case

Once the voting on the proposed decision has met the majority needed to pass the proposals, a clerk will usually leave a comment in the Implementation notes section of the proposed decision page, indicating which proposals pass and fail and the interpretation of any conditional votes on alternative proposals. If the Arbitrators are satisfied that the final decision reflects the consensus of the committee, an Arbitrator will make a motion to close the case. Cases will be closed after the fourth net vote to close is made, but no sooner than 24 hours after the motion to close is made.

The Motion to Close phase allows the Arbitrators a final opportunity to review the case and the voting, to make sure that any conditional votes have been interpreted correctly, and that the outcome of the case reflects their intent. Arbitrators may object to closing a case if they feel the decision is not clear, the interpretation is not correct, or in order to allow time for additional Arbitrators to cast their votes.

After there are 4 net votes to close the case, the case will be closed by the clerks. The decision will be published to the talk pages of the participants and to the Administrators' noticeboard, and any remedies (blocks, bans, article or editorial restrictions) will take effect at that time.

The role of Arbitration Committee clerks

Main page: Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Clerks

The Arbitration committee has appointed a group of clerks to assist them in the Arbitration process. The clerks process requests, open and close cases (performing the required notifications) and perform other cleanup and formatting tasks on Arbitration-related pages. The clerks also serve as a resource for parties who wish help or advice in filing or responding to a Request for arbitration or help in adding evidence to cases once they have opened. Clerk business is co-ordinated through the Clerks' Noticeboard.

During the case

Please note that this guide is descriptive, not normative: it doesn't describe how the Committee should behave. It is based on empirical observation of what arguments have worked in front of the ArbCom, and what have not, as well as discussions with arbitrators about what they pay attention to.

There are two very important things to realize about the Arbitration Committee and its members:

1. They do not have much time, and
2. They care much more about product than process.

Almost everything below is a corollary of one or both of these two lines.

Finally, and rather obviously, the absolute best way to fare well in an ArbCom case is to just not violate policy beforehand. If you are trolling, POV pushing, etc, you're not going to fare well in a case against you regardless of how you present your case.

The ArbCom's perception of your case

At any one time there are likely ten to twenty or more active matters in arbitration (including open cases, requests for arbitration, and requests for prior case amendment), and hundreds of closed ones. Individual arbitrators cannot keep close track of each of these. If you mention a user that the ArbCom has sanctioned to an ArbCom member, they are likely to remember the user. They are not likely to remember particular details of the ruling or which POV that user was advocating.

Write your evidence and proposals so that they help jog their memories. Assume that every time an arbitrator pulls up the evidence page, the proposed decision page, or the workshop page, they won't remember what they concluded last time. They are not clueless — but they may need to be reminded.

What the ArbCom will and won't look at

Evidence pages get very long very easily and quickly. Arbitrators do not have time to read through 100 KB evidence pages, and they especially don't have time to reread them after they've forgotten all the details.

Try hard to keep your evidence short and to the point. Be concise, direct, and clear. For example, trying to show every single instance of a given user being a problem will quickly bog down. Instead, pick clear and obvious examples which require the least amount of explanation and present them with the minimum commentary needed.

Context and the ArbCom

The ArbCom members do not read up on disputes that might reach them eventually. It is very unlikely they know the history of the dispute going on — that someone is a known advocate of a point of view, that someone has a history of defending problem users, or that everybody who has ever dealt with a user recognizes them to be a complete lunatic. Point these things out to them. If you point to an edit that comes after a month of heated discussion, it may not make sense to someone who was not a part of that discussion.

Take care with evidence that requires context. If there is better evidence for the same point, use that. Otherwise, be ready to explain the context. Note that the more explanation a piece of evidence requires, the less likely the arbitrators are to have time to pay attention to it. Whilst making a statement and qualifying it with evidence is very much required, it is also important to explain why that edit qualifies the statement, particularly with non-obvious evidence; e.g., "edit X shows user Foo disrupting consensus-building because ABC...".

Expertise of the ArbCom

Arbitrators are not subject experts. This is why they avoid ruling on content disputes. In practice, they are likely to be very cautious about basing a ruling on the grounds that one side is right in a content dispute. There are minor exceptions to this — in general, the ArbCom has looked unfavorably on people who are using Wikipedia as a platform for advocacy, and people who allege a conspiracy to suppress their point of view. The exact relationship between this and particular minority points of view is subtle. In this context, be very careful in how you present evidence. If you attempt to use the platform to expound your views or if you are uncivil, this could be regarded as evidence against you.

Content issues are complicated and take time to figure out. So try other approaches. Instead of arguing that somebody is advancing a nutty conspiracy theory with no credibility, find statements on talk pages where they express a desire to advocate a cause, instances of them removing well-sourced information, instances of them accusing those who disagree with them of conspiracy, and other more concrete and self-explanatory things. Almost no ArbCom cases have actually required careful attention to content issues to get the necessary result.

Effective arguments

The ArbCom generally considers that the Wikipedia method works, that Wikipedia is on the whole a successful project, that admins are generally trustworthy. They explicitly choose any outcome that results in Wikipedia working better.

Arguments opposing Wikipedia's basic principles, suggesting a massive cabal of rogue admins, or holding the process to be an end in itself will not work.

Arguing about flaws in the arbitration process is usually a waste of time and will make arbitrators look dimly upon you. Take the time that you could spend arguing about the details of process and apply it to trying to gather useful evidence. Pettifoggery is likely to create prejudice for your cause; a person will probably only wikilawyer when they realize they have no actual case.

Don't moon the jury

Parties should be on their best behavior while adding evidence or making comments on workshop and talk pages. While this should be obvious, a surprising number of participants, having been accused of aggressive, uncivil or point of view editing, continue this behavior to the case itself. Comments made by the parties during the Arbitration case may be taken into account by the Committee in setting any remedies, and continued evidence of disruptive behavior is often seen as evidence that milder remedies (warnings or probation) will not have the desired effect, leading to topical or general bans. Remember that if you are on trial for assault, it is generally not a good idea to start punching witnesses in open court.

Discussion

Clear and persuasive presentation of evidence will almost always be more effective than anything you can say here. Almost nothing useful ever comes out of arguments between and among parties on the workshop page, the evidence page, or any of the talk pages. The chance of anything on these pages getting noticed or cared about drops dramatically the longer they get. If you must engage in discussion, short and simple questions to arbitrators are probably most effective.

Case enforcement and after the case

Most cases will result in some form of decision in the form of remedies, and enforcement measures, which the community can then operate.

These may be enforced in many ways; the most common being administrative action. If there is an ongoing or future problem after the case closes, then enforcement can be requested by any user at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard, or for other issues at the administrators' incidents noticeboard, citing the arbitration case and evidence of the problem. The latter would be appropriate if for example, a sockpuppet began undertaking the same pattern, of a user under sanctions engaged in new and significant egregious behavior requiring administrative consideration of communally imposed additional restrictions and remedies.

If the remedy or enforcement regime itself proves insufficient or needs expanding or extending, or is not as helpful as anticipated, then the Arbitration Committee will hear a request for amendment (or extension) of remedies. This is useful when the remedy does not anticipate some development taking place after the case, such as the user edits on other articles on a restricted topic, or games the system in other ways.

A user under restrictions or sanctions is under these to prevent certain forms of conduct. In some cases, these preventative measures last a long time. An appeal can be made for their reconsideration, but usually a significant track record is required, and recidivism is considered more seriously if it then recurs, since this suggests the appeal was not intended seriously.

See also

• Case handling – An (unofficial) note of common Committee practices in accepted cases
• Past decisions – Some principles from prior cases
• Arbitration enforcement noticeboard – Any user can request help here if it involves the violation of an ArbCom decision
• Administrator enforcement requested – Summary of cases and remedies currently in force
• Completed requests – summaries and links to all closed arbitration cases
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rejected requests – links to rejected cases (largely incomplete prior to May 2007)