Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard

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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2020 Arbitration Committee

The Arbitration Committee welcomes the following new and returning arbitrators following their election by the community. The two-year terms of these arbitrators formally begin on 01 January 2020:

Beeblebrox (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Casliber (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
David Fuchs (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
KrakatoaKatie (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Newyorkbrad (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
SoWhy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Worm That Turned (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Xeno (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

The one-year terms of these arbitrators also begin on 1 January 2020:

Bradv (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
DGG (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Maxim (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

All incoming arbitrators have elected to receive (or retain, where applicable) the checkuser and oversight permissions. Xeno has elected not to receive administrator permissions.

We also thank our outgoing colleagues whose terms end on 31 December 2019:

Opabinia regalis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) will retain Oversight
Premeditated Chaos (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) will retain Oversight

Outgoing arbitrators are eligible to retain the CheckUser and Oversight permissions, remain active on cases accepted before their term ended, and to remain subscribed to the functionaries' and arbitration clerks' mailing lists following their term on the committee. To that effect:

Stewards are requested to remove the permission(s) noted from the following outgoing arbitrators after 31 December 2019 at their own request:
CheckUser: Opabinia regalis, Premeditated Chaos
Outgoing arbitrators are eligible to remain active on cases opened before their term ended if they wish. Whether or not outgoing arbitrators will remain active on any ongoing case(s) will be noted on the proposed decision talk page of affected case(s).
Both outgoing arbitrators will remain subscribed to the functionaries' mailing list
Both outgoing arbitrators will be unsubscribed from the arbitration clerks' mailing list at their request.

For the Arbitration Committee,

Katie^talk 21:02, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Archived discussion at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 45#2020 Arbitration Committee

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 4 closed

An arbitration case regarding Palestine-Israel articles (4) has now closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:

Condensing of remedies

1) For the sake of easy referencing, the following existing remedies are vacated (with the intention of replacing them elsewhere in this decision):

ARBPIA:

Editors reminded
Editors counseled
Standard discretionary sanctions (for "All Arab-Israeli conflict-related pages")

ARBPIA2:

ARBPIA3:

General Prohibition (of users not "extended confirmed")
Sanctions available

Existing enforcement decisions relying upon these remedies are not vacated and will be appealable as if this remedy had not carried.

Editors reminded

2) Editors are reminded that when editing in subject areas of bitter and long-standing real-world conflict, it is all the more important to comply with Wikipedia policies such as assuming good faith of all editors including those on the other side of the real-world dispute, writing with a neutral point of view, remaining civil and avoiding personal attacks, utilizing reliable sources for contentious or disputed assertions, and making use of dispute resolution where necessary.

Wikipedia cannot resolve the dispute between the Israeli and Palestinian people or any other real-world conflict. What Wikipedia can do is aspire to provide neutral, encyclopedic coverage about the areas of dispute and the peoples involved in it, which may lead to a broader understanding of the issues and the positions of all real-life conflict parties. The contributions of all good-faith editors on these articles who contribute with this goal in mind are appreciated.

Editors counselled

3) Editors who find it difficult to edit a particular article or topic from a neutral point of view and adhere to other Wikipedia policies are counselled that they may sometimes need or wish to step away temporarily from that article or subject area. Sometimes, editors in this position may wish to devote some of their knowledge, interest, and effort to creating or editing other articles that may relate to the same broad subject-matter as the dispute, but are less immediately contentious. For example, an editor whose ethnicity, cultural heritage, or personal interests relate to Side X and who finds that they become caught up in edit-warring on an article about a recent war between Side X and Side Y, may wish to disengage from that article for a time and instead focus on a different aspect of the history, civilization, and cultural heritage of Side X.

Definition of the "area of conflict"

4) For the purposes of editing restrictions in the ARBPIA topic area, the "area of conflict" shall be defined as encompassing

a. the entire set of articles whose topic relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted ("primary articles"), and

b. edits relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict, to pages and discussions in all namespaces with the exception of userspace ("related content")

ARBPIA General Sanctions

5) The following set of sanctions will be considered the "ARBPIA General Sanctions".

A. Discretionary sanctions: Standard discretionary sanctions are activated for the area of conflict. Any uninvolved administrator may apply sanctions as an arbitration enforcement action to users editing the area of conflict whilst aware.

B. 500/30 Rule: All IP editors, users with fewer than 500 edits, and users with less than 30 days' tenure are prohibited from editing content within the area of conflict. On primary articles, this prohibition is preferably to be enforced by use of extended confirmed protection (ECP) but this is not mandatory. On pages with related content, or on primary articles where ECP is not feasible, the 500/30 Rule may be enforced by other methods, including page protection, reverts, blocks, the use of pending changes, and appropriate edit filters. Reverts made solely to enforce the 500/30 Rule are not considered edit warring.

The sole exceptions to this prohibition are:

1. Editors who are not eligible to be extended-confirmed may use the Talk: namespace to post constructive comments and make edit requests related to articles within the topic area, provided they are not disruptive. Talk pages where disruption occurs may be managed by any of the methods noted in paragraph b). This exception does not apply to other internal project discussions such as AfDs, WikiProjects, RfCs, noticeboard discussions, etc.

2. Editors who are not eligible to be extended-confirmed may not create new articles, but administrators may exercise discretion when deciding how to enforce this remedy on article creations. Deletion of new articles created by editors who do not meet the criteria is permitted but not required.

C. One Revert Restriction (1RR): Each editor is limited to one revert per page per 24 hours on any edits made to content within the area of conflict. Reverts made to enforce the 500/30 Rule are exempt from the provisions of this motion. Also, the normal exemptions apply. Editors who violate this restriction may be blocked by any uninvolved administrator.

Standing sanctions upon primary articles

6) All primary articles will be subject to the ARBPIA General Sanctions. {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement}} should be added to the talk page of affected pages, and {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli editnotice}} should be added as an editnotice to affected pages. The presence of the templates is required before the General Sanctions can be enforced on primary articles. The templates may be added to primary articles by any user, but may only be removed by an uninvolved administrator. Users who lack the appropriate permissions to create an editnotice should place the talk page template as normal, then make an edit request for someone with permissions to create the edit notice.

General sanctions upon related content

7) All edits made to related content (i.e. pages not otherwise related to the area of conflict) will be subject to ARBPIA General Sanctions.

When disruptive edits are being made to such content, any editor may invoke ARBPIA General Sanctions for that content. They must place {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement}} on the talk page and {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli editnotice}} in the editnotice to do so. 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. Once added by any editor, any marking, template, or editnotice may be removed only by an uninvolved administrator. Users who lack the appropriate permissions to create an editnotice should place the talk page template as normal, then make an edit request for someone with permissions to create the edit notice.

Editors should apply the ARBPIA General Sanctions templates to related content only when disruption creates a need for additional administrative tools. Administrators should only utilize the ARBPIA General Sanctions to reduce disruption caused by edits related to the conflict area. Problematic edits made to unrelated content on the same page should be handled by normal administrative means.

Disputes about scope of conflict area

8) In the case of disputes regarding whether or not an article is a primary article, or whether a portion of content is related to ARBPIA, editors should use normal dispute resolution methods to come to a consensus.

Available sanctions

9) Uninvolved administrators are encouraged to monitor the articles covered by discretionary sanctions in the original Palestine-Israel case to ensure compliance. To assist in this, administrators are reminded that:

i. Accounts with a clear shared agenda may be blocked if they violate the sockpuppetry policy or any other applicable policy;

ii. Accounts whose primary purpose is disruption, violating the policy on biographies of living persons, or making personal attacks may be blocked indefinitely;

iii. There are special provisions in place to deal with editors who violate the BLP policy;

iv. Administrators may act on clear BLP violations with page protections, blocks, or warnings even if they have edited the article themselves or are otherwise involved;

v. Discretionary sanctions permit full and semi-page protections, including use of pending changes where warranted, and – once an editor has become aware of sanctions for the topic – any other appropriate remedy may be issued without further warning.

For the Arbitration Committee, CThomas³ (talk) 07:03, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Archived discussion at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 45#Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 4 closed

Changes to Oversight team

At his own request, the Oversight permissions of Someguy1221 (talk · contribs) are removed. The Arbitration Committee sincerely thanks Someguy1221 for his long history of service to the functionary team.

For the Arbitration Committee,

Katie^talk 03:15, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Archived discussion at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 45#Changes to Oversight team

Motion regarding Palestine-Israel articles 4

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

Remedy 1 of the Palestine-Israel articles 4 case is amended by inserting, at the end of the list titled "ARBPIA", the following list item:

General 1RR restriction

For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 19:19, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Archived discussion at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 45#Motion regarding Palestine-Israel articles 4

User:Anupam unblocked following successful appeal

Following a successful appeal via email to the Arbitration Committee, Anupam has been unblocked with an indefinite restriction from engaging in disclosed and undisclosed paid editing, including making edits on behalf of any former clients. The account restriction has been logged at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions#Placed by the Arbitration Committee.

For the Arbitration Committee,
GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:59, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#User:Anupam unblocked following successful appeal

Arbitration motion regarding The Rambling Man

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

Remedy 4 (The Rambling Man prohibited) of The Rambling Man arbitration case is vacated, together with the associated special enforcement provisions.

For the Arbitration Committee, CodeLyoko^talk 06:26, 8 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Arbitration motion regarding The Rambling Man

Arbitration motion regarding Magioladitis

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

Remedy 3: AWB prohibition of the Magioladitis case is lifted subject to a probationary period lasting 1 year from the date this motion is enacted. During this period, any uninvolved administrator may re-impose the remedy as an arbitration enforcement action, subject to appeal only to the Arbitration Committee. If the probationary period elapses without incident, the restriction is to be considered permanently lifted. For clarity, Magioladitis (talk · contribs)' prohibition on making cosmetic edits will remain in force.

For the Arbitration Committee, CodeLyoko^talk 07:20, 8 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Arbitration motion regarding Magioladitis

Money emoji appointed trainee clerk

The arbitration clerks are pleased to welcome Money emoji (talk · contribs) to the clerk team as a trainee!

The arbitration clerk team is often in need of new members, and any editor who would like to join the clerk team is welcome to apply by email to clerks-llists.wikimedia.org.

For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 18:35, 8 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Money emoji appointed trainee clerk

Arbitration motion regarding Crouch, Swale

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

The request for modification of Crouch, Swale's restrictions is declined. Going forward, he may not request relaxation of his restrictions more frequently than once per year, with the next request not taking place prior to 1 January 2021. In addition, he should ensure that there is consensus for any future large creations of articles, prior to making the request for relaxation of his restrictions.

For the Arbitration Committee, CodeLyoko^talk 21:32, 8 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]