User:Tony1/RfC on the reform of ArbCom hearings/How the proposals would be integrated into the policy page

Arbitration proceedings

Scope and jurisdiction

Jurisdiction

The Committee has jurisdiction over user conduct disputes involving the English Wikipedia, including the use of special privileges accorded to certain users such as administrator status.

Limits of jurisdiction

The Committee has no jurisdiction over official actions of the Wikimedia Foundation, nor over Wikimedia projects other than the English Wikipedia.

Jurisdiction over actions of Jimbo Wales

The Committee has jurisdiction to review administrator or steward actions taken by Jimbo Wales in his special capacity as project leader.

Scope of arbitration

The purpose of the arbitration process is not as a vehicle to create new policy. However, the Committee's decisions can interpret existing policy and guidelines, recognize and call attention to standards of user conduct, or create procedures through which policy may be enforced.

In exceptional cases of communal division or exceptional risk of harm to the project, the Committee may determine a interim means to achieve the aims of communal policies or to curtail dispute in the area, until the community has developed a better consensus.

Content disputes

The arbitration process primarily addresses disputes involving user conduct, rather than content disputes concerning the contents of articles or similar issues.

Requesting arbitration

Form of requests

Requests must be presented in the form prescribed by the Committee. The length of statements may be subject to reasonable limits imposed by the Committee. A user who files a request must state their preferred scope.^{Proposal 1a}

Notification of editors

All editors who would be directly affected by the desired outcome of the case must be notified of it by the person filing the request.

Reasons for acceptance Acceptance of request

The Committee reserves the right to hear or not hear any dispute at its discretion.

The Committee will normally require that editors show they have exhausted the previous steps in the dispute resolution process before proceeding to arbitration. The Committee will normally hear a case despite in the absence of prior dispute resolution only where the case involves an unusually divisive dispute among administrators, where there has already been extensive discussion with wide community participation, or where there is a specific reason to believe that engaging the earlier steps of the dispute resolution process would not be productive.

The Committee will consider, but is not bound by, the views of the parties to a request for arbitration and comments by other interested users in deciding whether or not to accept a case.

The Committee's acceptance of a case will include:

• a brief statement of the scope as the Committee sees fit, after considering the requesting user's preferred scope and any comments on the scope by other users on the "request for arbitration" page;^{Proposal 1b}
• a deadline for submissions to the "evidence" page, normally two weeks from the time of acceptance, but longer or shorter at the Committee's discretion; and ^{Proposal 2a}
• the naming of an arbitrator to preside over the case (mainly to liaise with the clerk where necessary on behalf of the Committee).^{Proposal 6}

In circumstances such as a change in the scope, or the illness or unavoidable absence of a party, the Committee may subsequently extend the deadline.^{Proposal 2b}

Voting on acceptance

A request shall be considered accepted if it meets all of the following criteria:

• The request must have four net votes to accept, or have an absolute majority of active, unrecused arbitrators voting to accept;
• The request must have received its first instance of four net votes to accept more than 24 hours ago; and
• The request must have been filed more than 48 hours ago (this waiting period may be waived by the Committee where there is a clear need to open the case immediately).

Once there are sufficient votes to accept, a waiting period of 24 hours will be observed before the case is formally opened, unless a majority of all active arbitrators have voted to accept the case or otherwise directed by the Committee.

Commentary on declined requests

Where the Committee declines a request, individual arbitrators may express their views on other means available for resolving the dispute, to which the parties should give due consideration.

Recusal

Grounds for recusal

An arbitrator shall recuse himself or herself in any case in which he or she has a conflict of interest, such as prior involvement in the substance of the dispute or a history of disagreements with one of the parties, such that his or her impartiality in the case could reasonably be questioned.

Actions in an arbitrator's official capacity, such as ruling on a prior case involving a party, shall not be considered adequate grounds for recusal.

Requesting recusal

Any user who believes that circumstances call for an arbitrator's recusal should bring the matter to that arbitrator's attention for his or her prompt consideration and response. Concerns beyond this should be raised with the Committee.

Except in extraordinary circumstances, requests for recusal after a case has entered the voting stage will not be granted.

Right to recuse

An arbitrator may recuse himself or herself from any case at any time prior to voting, or not post a vote on any matter, with or without giving a reason.

Expedited decisions and motions

Where the facts of a situation are substantially undisputed and the Committee believes that it can issue a fair, well-informed, and useful remedy without opening a full-fledged case, it may act by motion to be proposed and voted upon on the requests for arbitration page. Adopting such a motion in lieu of opening a case shall require a majority vote of all active, non-recused arbitrators.

Where the Committee believes that a pending case can best be resolved by a motion rather than a formal decision, such a motion may be proposed on the proposed decision page, and also requires a majority vote of all active, non-recused arbitrators.

Where the Committee believes that a case should be resolved through a formal decision but that expedition is required, it may set a reasonable expedited schedule for the presentation of evidence after which the case will move to the voting page.

Private hearings

The Committee may determine by majority vote that an entire case should be considered off-wiki, but this shall be done only in extraordinary circumstances where warranted by considerations of privacy, risks of harassment, or legal issues. Editors whose conduct is under review in connection with such a private hearing will be given due notice and an opportunity to respond, as provided below.

Normal hearings

When a request for arbitration is accepted, a clerk will create standard "evidence", "workshop", and "proposed decision" pages a standard "evidence" page, and "workshop" and "proposed decision" pages for the use of the arbitrators and clerks alone.^{Proposal 3}

Participation

Arbitrator participation

Cases are decided by the full Committee rather than by panels or subcommittees. All active arbitrators, with the exception of those recused, are entitled to participate in each case.

An arbitrator whose term expires while a case is pending may remain active on that case until its conclusion. An arbitrator who is newly appointed may become active on any or all cases pending at the time he or she takes office or may elect not to participate in these cases.

General participation

Evidence and statements may be added to the case pages "evidence" page by the arbitrators, the parties, and any other interested editors and the parties. Evidence by other interested editors is allowed only by a clerk's acceptance (under the guidance of the presiding arbitrator) of an open application on the "evidence" talk page; generally, only relevant data and NPOV information are accepted as such evidence.^{Proposal 5}

Right and responsibility to respond

Editors named as parties to an arbitration case and given due notice of the case are expected to participate in the proceeding. Any editor named as a party or otherwise subject to scrutiny during the course of a case shall be notified of this by the Committee or its Clerks, and will be given a minimum of seven days after a case is opened or they are notified, whichever is later, to respond. (The seven-day period may be shortened for good cause, in which case the involved editors will be notified.)

Failure to respond

Should a party to a case fail to respond within seven days or such other time as the Committee may determine, or explictly refuse to participate in the case, the Committee may nonetheless rule on that party's conduct in his or her absence.

Departure during arbitration

Should a party to a case leave Wikipedia during the proceedings, the Committee may, at its discretion, dismiss the case in its entirety or insofar as that party is concerned, suspend the case until the party returns, or continue the case regardless.

Resignation during arbitration

Should an administrator who is a party to a case resign his or her position while the case is pending, they shall not be eligible for reinstatement of that position upon request to a bureaucrat, but will generally be required to submit a new request for adminship, unless otherwise directed by the Committee.

Temporary injunctions

At any time between the opening of a case and its closure, the arbitrators may, by majority vote, enact a "temporary injunction" to restrict the conduct of the parties for the duration of the case. Adoption of a temporary injunction requires a net vote of four arbitrators in support, with each oppose subtracting a support. The Committee's adoption of a temporary injunction is an interim measure and does not reflect any prejudgment of the final result of the case.

Conduct

The Committee may enforce reasonable standards of editor conduct on the arbitration case pages. The Clerks have the primary responsibility for enforcing these standards on a day-to-day basis.

Evidence

Admissible evidence Admissibility

The Committee may modify the scope and the list of parties during the time allotted for evidentiary submissions, by notification on the "evidence" page.^{Proposal 1c}

Where a contribution falls outside the scope, a clerk (under the guidance of the presiding arbitrator) will ask the participant to withdraw the irrelevant material; if the participant fails to do so, a clerk will remove the irrelevant material.^{Proposal 1d}

Evidence admissible in an arbitration proceeding shall include all Wikipedia edits and log entries (including deleted or otherwise hidden edits and log entries, as well as edits and log entries from projects other than the English Wikipedia, as appropriate), as well as posts to the official mailing lists.

Length

Each party may post evidence of up to 500 words (in display mode, including diffs but excluding the main heading, signature and date); this limit may be exceeded only by a clerk's acceptance (under the guidance of the presiding arbitrator) of an application on the "evidence" talk page. Where a party's evidence exceeds the word length, a clerk (under the guidance of the presiding arbitrator) will ask the party to reduce the evidence to the allowed length; if the party fails to do so, a clerk will remove any part of the text to bring it down to length.^{Proposal 4}

Evidence from mediation

No evidence from official mediation shall be presented or considered in an arbitration proceeding except with the prior written consent of the Mediation Committee.

[The rest of the policy draft is irrelevant to the proposed changes.]