Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-06-12/Arbitration report

Arbitration report

Two cases suspended; proposed decision posted in Argentine History

Two cases, Race and politics and Tea Party movement have been suspended. Argentine History remains open, and a proposed decision was posted on 12 June.

Open cases

The Race and politics case, brought by UseTheCommandLine and dealing with sourcing methods in articles pertaining to race politics, has been suspended, after one of the editors central to the case withdrew from editing. The case will remain open for two months from the passage of the motion to suspend (May 26, 2013); if by that time the editor has not returned to editing, the case will be closed, and a topic ban imposed.

This case involving an American political group, brought by KillerChihuahua, was suspended until the end of June, pending a moderated discussion. Pages related to the Tea Party movement are placed under discretionary sanctions. The case, along with any progress towards resolution, is to be reevaluated on 1 July 2013.

In the case, brought by Lecen, an editor is accused of systematically skewing several articles involving former Argentine president Juan Manuel de Rosas to portray a brutal dictator as a democratic leader, in keeping with the political motives of Argentine "nationalists" or "revisionists".

The evidence stage closed 12 April, the workshop stage closed on 19 April, and a proposed decision was scheduled to have been posted by 26 April. The latter was published on 12 June.

Other requests and committee action

  • Block appeal:Cla68: A block appeal by Cla68 was successful. The block was lifted with some restrictions on the use of external links. Cla68 had been blocked indefinitely after posting a link to an external website that contained information about an editor whose identity was not known on Wikipedia.
  • Clarification request: Climate Change: A request, brought by the editor Phoenix and Winslow, for clarification of the use of sources as part of the ArbCom remedy in the climate change case, was closed with the advice that the wording of the remedy regarding sources did not preclude asking for a review of sources at the reliable sources noticeboard.
  • Clarification request: TimidGuy ban appeal: A 29 April 2013 request, initiated by MastCell requested the release of voting information for the rejection of Will Beback's ban appeal. (Note: this is not the same as the request of the same name brought on April 5, 2013, by IRWolfie.) The committee declined to post results of their internal deliberations, citing the confidential nature of the reasons for the ban, the potentially disruptive nature of public deliberations, and a prior understanding of the arbitrators that they would be communicating with the expectation of confidentiality. However, there was no similar objection to arbitrators making individual statements in situations where the community had expressed concern, and all ten committee members made statements about their own roles in the case.
  • Postponed actions: discretionary sanctions: Three requests involving discretionary sanctions remain postponed. The discretionary sanctions portion involving notices and warnings of a request filed by NewsAndEventsGuy was moved elsewhere in order to solicit community comment. A request for clarification of several issues relating to arbitration enforcement brought by Gatoclass was archived with the comment that a review of the issues of arbitration enforcement and discretionary sanctions was scheduled for May 2013. A request to clarify the appeal process for discretionary sanctions warnings filed by Sandstein was scheduled for May of 2013.