How to read the sections
edit- Decided: The calendar date (in UTC) when the case was decided. If the case did not reach a decision, it will be Closed instead. If the case involved an administrator "retiring", it will be "Deopped" instead.
- Abbrev.: A shorthand abbreviation of the casename. See ArbCaseAbv for more details.
- Type: The type of case it is:
- Admin: A case centred around the conduct of one or more administrators.
- Dispute: A case that examines an intractible dispute between two or more editors directly.
- Editor: A case about the (non-administrative) misconduct of an editor.
- Functionary: A case centred around misuse of Suppressor or Checkuser permissions.
- Omnibus: A case about misconduct in a topic area writ large.
- Other: Any case that doesn't fall into one of the categories above.
- Scope: The overall scope of the case.
- CT?: An indication of whether or not a case includes or included a discretionary sanctions or contentious topic remedy.
- Remedy name: The name of the remedy (or a description of it, for earlier cases which did not have sectioned remedies).
- Remedy (in modern terms): Basically my best attempt to explain, in plain English and modern understanding, what the remedy means.
- If this section has a coloured background, the colour indicates its status or origin:
- Yellow (#FFFF00) is a temporary injunction issued mid-case.
- Blue (#00BFFF) is a post-close amendment or motion.
- Red (#CD5C5C) is a remedy that has since been rescinded or otherwise is wholly reliant on previous remedies that are themselves rescinded.
- Green (#32CD32) is a remedy whose wording was amended post-close, either due to an amendment/motion or due to changes in process (such as Discretionary Sanctions to Contentious Topic).
- Brown (#D2691E) is suspended or in abeyence, usually as part of a period where a remedy has been appealed.
- Amended/Enacted: If a remedy was added or amended post-close, this will be the calendar date (in UTC) when the remedy was modified or took effect.
- Rescinded: If a remedy was terminated, this will be the calendar date (in UTC) when the remedy was ended.
- Enforceable?: Indicates whether a given remedy can be invoked at WP:AE. Any remedy that predates April 2006 and was not still in force by then predates AE entirely.
- Sup/Opp/Abs/Rcs: The vote totals for a remedy (Support, Oppose, Abstain, Recused).
Any case that has been courtesy-blanked or closed without action will be given a very brief description and nothing further.
2016
editKevin Gorman
edit- Decided: Jan. 18, 2016
(This case has been courtesy-blanked for the privacy of its participants and their estates. Kevin Gorman was desysopped. He would pass away on July 29 of the same year.)
Wikicology
edit- Decided: May 13, 2016
(This case has been courtesy-blanked due to a conversation on Arbitration-related mailing lists. While ArbCom found Wikicology was harassed relentlessly (to the point suppression and blocks were necessary), they did not believe this justified his poor contributions and behaviour. As such, they sitebanned him, topic-banned him from images and medical topics, and notified other Wikimedia Foundation-run wikis where he was active of the remedies and findings of fact of this case so that they can clean his contributions up.)
- Decided: June 04, 2016
- Abbrev.: GML
- Type: Editor
- Scope: Then-Arbitrator Gamaliel's behaviour with respect to a (now-deleted) All Fools' Day Signpost piece about Donald Trump
- CT?: No
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs[i] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gamaliel (admonishment) | Gamaliel is admonished for defending/perpetuatingwhat many saw as concerning content and their breaches of multiple policies while doing so. |
No | 10 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| DHeyward and Gamaliel (interaction ban) | DHeyward and Gamaliel are under an indefinite mutual interaction ban. | Yes | 9 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| DHeyward (admonishment) | DHeyward is admonished for using personal attacks and being incivil in the conversations about the Trump Signpost article. | No | 8 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| JzG (admonishment) | JzG is admonished for his subpar administrative conduct in this matter. | No | 10 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Arkon (reminder) | Arkon is reminded that discussion often trumps blind reverting, even if the reverts are defensible under policy. | No | 7 | 4 | 0 | 3 |
| Community encouraged (BLP) | Since ArbCom cannot force policy onto the community, the policy discussions around whether and what April Fools content should be allowed and on BLP as regards non-article space are remanded to the community. | N/A | 6 | 4 | 0 | 3 |
| Community encouraged (April Fools Day) | N/A | 10 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
- Decided: Oct. 01, 2016
- Abbrev.: MH
- Type: Dispute
- Scope: (As filed) Issues in the ancestral health topic area; (as adjudicated) User conduct issues with specific users in same
- CT?: No
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michael Hardy (Reminded) | Michael Hardy is reminded that administrators are supposed to lead by example and keep up-to-date on policy changes, and that any misconduct with the administrator toolset will lead to sanctions. | No | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| MjolnirPants reminded | MjolnirPants is reminded to cut the disruptive filibuster tactics out. | No | 9 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Arbitration Committee reminded | As a result of accepting the dispute as ripe for a case despite prior efforts of dispute resolution not being followed (and no indication that lesser means of dispute resolution would have been a waste of effort) ArbCom reminds itself to be more cautious when deciding what the scope of future cases should be. | N/A | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
- Decided: Oct. 13, 2016
- Abbrev.: TRM
- Type: Editor/Admin
- Scope: The Rambling Man's behaviour on Main Page topics (WP:DYK, WP:ITN) and George Ho's bothering-by-the-book
- CT?: No
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Enacted/Amended | Rescinded | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Rambling Man's resignation is under controversial circumstances | The Rambling Man surrendered his administrator rights under a cloud (since he was going to lose them anyway), and so can only regain them through a new, successful Request for Adminship. | -- | -- | N/A | 7 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| The Rambling Man prohibited | The Rambling Man may be summarily blocked for up to 48h if he makes an edit judged to be casting aspersions or questioning an editor's competence, with talk page access left to the discretion of the blocking administrator. Any blocks longer than 48h or non-block sanctions must be sought via ARCA. (The remedy as originally passed only prohibited personal attacks and required ArbCom intervention for blocks after the fourth; the second version changed the prohibited conduct to casting aspersions but kept ArbCom intervention.) |
Motion (September 2017), Motion (December 2018) | Motion (January 2020) | Nyess (Blocks of up to 48h only) | 12 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| The Rambling Man and George Ho interaction banned | The Rambling Man and George Ho are under an indefinite mutual interaction ban. | -- | -- | Yes | 12 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| George Ho restricted | In light of both his disruption of DYK/ITN and his active attempts to canvass people to the case in an effort to weaponise Arbitration to get rid of The Rambling Man, George Ho is indefinitely topic-banned from any and all processes directly involving selection or correction of the content on the Main Page. He may still edit pages linked to from the Main Page or participate in processes that indirectly affect Main Page content (such as WP:Featured articles). He may file his first appeal after 1yr, and thereafter every 6mo. | -- | -- | Yes | 10 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Community encouraged | Since ArbCom cannot force policy onto Wikipedia, the policy discussions about DYK and ITN are remanded to the community. ArbCom also reminds the community they are free to levy sanctions themselves as they deem fit. | -- | -- | N/A | 12 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Motion (September 2017) | This amends The Rambling Man's civility sanction to specifically look for casting aspersions, not just personal attacks. | Sep. 18, 2018 | Motion (December 2018) | N/A | 7 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Motion (December 2018) | This motion does multiple things:
|
Dec. 13, 2018 | Motion (January 2020) and Motion (December 2020) | Nyess (72h time limit) | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Motion (August 2019) | The Rambling Man is granted a carveout for his DYK ban allowing him to review a proposed nomination at the direct request of the nominator proposing it. This does not allow him to otherwise participate beyond that review. | N/A | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Motion (January 2020) | The Rambling Man prohibited and the special enforcement provisions passed in December 2018 associated with it are rescinded. | Jan. 08, 2020 | -- | N/A | 7 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| Motion (December 2020) | The Rambling Man's DYK ban is suspended for 6mo. During this time, the ban may be reinstated at administrator discretion for misconduct during the DYK process or by fiat. If the suspension period ends without the ban being reinstated (or all reinstatements successfully appealed), it will automatically lapse. | Dec. 30, 2020 | -- | Yes (reinstatement) | 6 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
2017
edit- Decided: Mar. 22, 2017
- Abbrev.: WotP
- Type: Dispute
- Scope: Keysanger and MarshalN20's conflict over articles relating to the War of the Pacific.
- CT?: No
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keysanger and MarshalN20 interaction ban | Keysanger and MarshalN20 are under an indefinite mutual interaction ban. | Yes | 10 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Keysanger warned | Keysanger in particular is warned not to cast aspersions or pointlessly prolong disputes. | No | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Military history sources | ArbCom remands the underlying content disputes in re the sources to the community, and encourages all involved to get the MilHist WikiProject involved to get more input from users who'd be familiar with the area. | N/A | 9 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Other content disputes | If a content dispute arises where Keysanger and MarshalN20 are parties, then both of them are required to obtain a consensus for any significant content edits they wish to make, and are then bound by any such consensus. This does not apply to any editors in the dispute who aren't Keysanger or MarshalN20. | Yes | 7 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
- Decided: Mar. 22, 2017
- Abbrev.: MLD
- Type: Admin
- Scope: Magioladitis' use of automation - primarily bots and AutoWikiBrowser - to make pointless cosmetic edits.
- CT?: No
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Rescinded | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Community encouraged to review common fixes | Since ArbCom cannot force policy onto Wikipedia, the policy discussion in re cosmetic edits in general and AutoWikiBrowser's "general fixes" function specifically is remanded to the community. (The latter remedy includes struck-out links to Phabricator threads.) |
-- | N/A | 13 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Community encouraged to review policy on cosmetic edits | -- | N/A | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Developers encouraged to improve AWB interface | ArbCom encourages the developers behind AutoWikiBrowser to add fixes specifically to prevent, or at least hinder, unconstructive or problematic edits. | -- | N/A | 6 | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| Bot approvals group encouraged to carefully review [bot request for approval] scope | Something something ArbCom something something can't force policy something something remand policy discussion to community something something bot approvals. | -- | N/A | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Magioladitis restricted | Magioladitis is indefinitely banned from using semi-automated scripts (such as AutoWikiBrowser) to make edits that only change the appearance of an article without meaningfully changing its content (hence "cosmetic edits"), with a carveout for making cosmetic edits specifically to bring the article in line with the accessibility policy in the Manual of Style (such as removing a tag that would break screen reader software). They may also request additional carevouts at the administrators' noticeboard provided the types of edits being proposed are described in specific detail, with any such added carveouts being logged on the case page. | MLD2 | Yes | 11 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Magioladitis reminded to avoid duplication of undesireable editing patterns | Magioladitis is reminded that personally making edits similar to the ones that led to Yobot's block will be considered either meat- or sockpuppetry, and thus grounds for a summary block. | -- | No | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Magioladitis restricted from unblocking own bot | If another administrator blocks Yobot for any reason, Magioladitis is banned from reversing that block. | -- | No (out of scope) | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
- Decided: Sep. 04, 2017
- Abbrev.: MLD2
- Type: Admin
- Scope: Magioladitis' blatant disregard of the remedies in MLD and bludgeoning of WP:COSMETICBOT discussions
- CT?: No
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Enacted | Rescinded | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prohibited from making cosmetic edits | The restrictions from six months ago are rescinded and replaced with an indefinite ban on Magioladitis from making any sort of cosmetic edit unless it is done by a bot written specifically to do such. | -- | -- | Yes | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| COSMETICBOT: discussion prohibition | Magioladitis is indefinitely topic-banned from discussions about using bots to make automated cosmetic edits other than to ask targeted questions at bot-related fora. He cannot ask the same question about the same topic more than once. | -- | -- | Yes | 11 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| AWB prohibition | Magioladitis is indefinitely banned from using semi-automated scripts of any sort. | -- | Motion: Magioladitis | Yes | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Automated editing prohibition | Magioladitis is banned from operating a bot (or editing as if he were using automation) under his main account. | -- | -- | Yes | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Desysop | Magioladitis' administrator rights are revoked. He may only regain them through a new, successful Request for Adminship. | -- | -- | N/A | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Motion: Magioladitis | Magioladitis' semi-automation ban is suspended for 1yr. During this time, the ban may be reinstated at administrator discretion for misuse of such scripts or by fiat. If the suspension period ends without the ban being reinstated (or all reinstatements successfully appealed), it will automatically lapse. | Jan. 08, 2020 | -- | Yes (reinstatement) | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
- Decided: Oct. 16, 2017
- Abbrev.: RBN
- Type: Admin
- Scope: Arthur Rubin's weaponising of Arbitration remedies to harass The Rambling Man and overall poor administrative conduct and unwillingness to defend his actions
- CT?: No
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Desysop | Arthur Rubin's administrator rights are revoked. He may only regain them through a new, successful, Request for Adminship. | N/A | 10 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
2018
edit- Decided: Jan. 07, 2018
- Abbrev.: MrW
- Type: Admin
- Scope: Salvidrim!'s use of administrator tools and AfC to further paid editing goals
- CT?: No
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Enacted | Rescinded | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salvidrim! desysopped | Salvidrim! can only get their administrator rights back via a new, successful Request for Adminship. While this remedy revoking his administrator tools passed, Salvidrim! resigned their tools in responce much like The Rambling Man had. | -- | -- | N/A | 8 | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| Salvidrim! prohibited | Salvidrim! is indefinitely banned from reviewing article drafts or moving them to mainspace. They may appeal this after one year. | -- | Amendment (March 2019) | Yes | 10 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| Salvidrim! warned | Salvidrim! is warned that any further COI editing will be grounds for community sanctions and blocks. It's worth noting ArbCom is being lenient here because Salvidrim! essentially came clean about his work with Mister Wiki; had he not been so forthcoming it's easy to imagine ArbCom would have just flat-out sitebanned him given how much his conduct is discussed in the Findings of Fact. | -- | -- | No | 9 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Soetermans prohibited | Soetermans, who handled a couple of Mister Wiki articles Salvidrim! didn't, is indefinitely banned from reviewing article drafts or moving them to mainspace. They may appeal this after one year. | -- | -- | Yes | 9 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| Soetermans warned | Soetermans is given the same warning as Salvidrim! in re further COI editing. | -- | -- | No | 11 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Amendment (March 2019) | Salvidrim! prohibited is rescinded wholesale. He may apply for use of the AfC helper script as usual at WP:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants. |
Mar. 19, 2019 | -- | N/A | 8 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
- Decided: Mar. 28, 2018
- Abbrev.: BOX2
- Type: Dispute
- Scope: Persistent incivility in discussions related to infoboxen, and particularly the conduct of Cassianto.
- CT?: Close-current (Remedy)
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Enacted/Amended | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Infobox probation | ArbCom authorises admins to put users on a special form of probation as a discretionary sanction. Users under infobox probation:
These restrictions do not prohibit the user from editing already-existing infoboxen (provided they don't collapse them), adding infoboxen to article drafts they're creating, or making multiple comments in policy discussions on infoboxen in general. (The third bullet above was narrower in scope, covering only discussions where the sole topic was addition/removal of an infobox.) |
Motion (May 2018) | Yes | 10 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Standard discretionary sanctions | Provided the person being sanctioned has been alerted to the existence of this remedy, any administrator may summarily sanction a user who disrupts discussions about infoboxen or makes disruptive edits involving same as they see fit. Any sanctions or warnings issued this way (both directly and consequentially) must be logged on the case page/centralised log and can only be appealed to WP:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement or to ArbCom directly. See WP:Contentious topics for more details. | -- | Yes | 10 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Cassianto and infoboxes | Cassianto is indefinitely under infobox probation as above. Cassianto refused to participate in the case in any capacity. | -- | Yes | 9 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Community discussion recommended | Since ArbCom cannot force policy onto Wikipedia, the policy discussion in re infoboxen and how to decide if one should be included in a given article is remanded to the community. | -- | N/A | 10 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Editors reminded | ArbCom warns all editors writ large about civility and using discussions about whether an infobox should be on a specific article to debate the merits of infoboxes in general. | -- | No | 12 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Volvlogia admonished | Volvlogia is admonished for canvassing people to this case and warned that doing this again will be grounds for sanctions. | -- | No | 10 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| Motion (May 2018) | This slightly expands the scope of the bludgeoning restriction in Infobox probation from discussions where the sole purpose is adding/removing an infobox to discussions where the primary purpose is doing so. | May 08, 2018 | N/A | 9 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
- Decided: Mar. 04, 2018
- Abbrev.: JFR
- Type: Editor
- Scope: Joefromrandb's edit-warring and aggression
- CT?: No
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| One-revert restriction | Joefromrandb is under 1RR indefinitely. Joefromrandb did not participate in this Arbitration in any capacity. | Yes | 13 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Joefromrandb banned | Joefromrandb is sitebanned 6mo. If the behaviour doesn't improve when/if he returns from his ban, ArbCom may reinstate the siteban and make it indefinite upon request via ARCA. | Yes | 11 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Previous restriction rescinded | A portion of a community sanction, specifically the third bullet point, is rescinded. The other two bullets are effectively superseded by Joefromrandb banned. | N/A | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Andrevan
edit- Closed: June 11, 2018
(Case closed as moot after Andrevan surrendered their administrator and bureaucrat rights.)
- Decided: July 26, 2018
- Abbrev.: BPOL
- Type: Editor
- Scope: Philip Cross' attempts to import external disputes with British political figures onto Wikipedia
- CT?: No
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Amended | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Philip Cross warned | Philip Cross is warned both to avoid editing about subjects he has an obvious conflict-of-interest with and that they can and will sanction him for off-wiki conduct if it's detrimental to the English-language Wikipedia. | -- | No | 10 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Philip Cross topic banned | Philip Cross is indefinitely topic-banned from the post-1978 British politics topic area. (This remedy had some redundant wording a motion excised; that motion will not be listed for brevity.) |
Aug. 09, 2018 | Yes | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| KalHolmann restricted | For posting links to off-wiki evidence about Philip Cross, KalHolmann is indefinitely banned from casting aspersions or speculating on the motives or identities of other users. He may appeal this semiannually (every 6mo) but only via ArbCom's mailing list for an in camera appeal. | -- | Yes | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Community reminded | Further to the above, ArbCom warns the community writ large that posting another editor's personally-identifying information is a serious matter due to the chilling effect it has on that user's further participation, and so encourages them to use discretion and send such information through private channels. | -- | No | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
- Decided: Aug. 11, 2018
- Abbrev.: GWE
- Type: Dispute
- Scope: A content dispute writ large between newer users and an entrenched faction, with significant behavioural issues on the latter side
- CT?: No
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Enacted | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LargelyRecyclable banned | LargelyRecyclable is indefinitely sitebanned for harassment of other, newer users. | -- | Yes | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Cinderella157 German history topic ban | For obstructionism and personal attacks against newer users trying to comply with Wikipedia policy, Cinderella157 is indefinitely topic-banned from the German history ca. World War II topic area. They may appeal semiannually (every 6mo). | Spd: Cinderella157's topic ban suspended (August 2024) | Yes (to Mar. 01, 2025) | 6 | 2 | 3 | 0 |
| Auntieruth55 reminded | Auntieruth55 is told in no uncertain terms hers (and Cinderella's) status as WP:WikiProject military history coordinators means nothing in a content dispute, and that even Featured-class articles are not immune to criticism in re sourcing. | -- | No | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Editors reminded | ArbCom, aside from the usual comments on getting wider buy-in from the community writ large rather than just the subset of it that is interested in a given article, also notes that sensitive or otherwise controversial topics all but require the best sourcing available. | -- | No | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| General conclusion and remedy | ArbCom remands the larger content dispute to the community with a warning: If behaviour does not improve in this matter, then they are more than happy to accept a new case with an aim of making German history during World War II a contentious topic or otherwise surgically removing particular problem editors from the topic area with targeted bans. | -- | No | 8 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Cinderella157's topic ban suspended (August 2024) | Cinderella157's ban from German history ca. WWII is suspended for 6mo. During this time, the ban may be reinstated at administrator discretion for misconduct in the topic area or by fiat. If the suspension period ends without the ban being reinstated (or all reinstatements successfully appealed), it will automatically lapse. | Aug. 30, 2024 | Yes | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
- Decided: Dec. 06, 2018
- Abbrev.: FB
- Type: Admin
- Scope: Fred Bauder unblocking himself after being blocked for misconduct related to ArbCom elections[ii], leading to an emergency desysop.
- CT?: No
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs[iii] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fred Bauder admonished | Fred Bauder is admonished for edit-warring on an ArbCom candidate's questions page. | No | 6 | 5 | 0 | 2 |
| Fred Bauder desysopped | Fred Bauder's emergency desysop is made permanent. He can only regain administrator rights through a new, successful Request for Adminship. | N/A | 11 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Boing! said Zebedee cautioned | Boing! said Zebedee is admonished for blocking Fred Bauder while actively edit-warring with him and for edit-warring in the first place. | No | 6 | 5 | 0 | 2 |
| Editors reminded | Editors watching the ArbCom elections are told that the best thing to do if an intractible issue arises on ArbCom election pages is to contact the Electoral Commission handling the ArbCom election, since that's their primary job. Matters on election pages requiring privacy and discretion can still be emailed to ArbCom or to functionaries as normal. | No | 10 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
2019
edit- Decided: Feb. 10, 2019
- Abbrev.: GSM
- Type: Admin
- Scope: GiantSnowman's misuse of rollback and unsatisfactory replies to raised concerns
- CT?: No
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Enacted | Rescinded | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GiantSnowman admonished and placed under review | GiantSnowman is under administrative review for an indefinite duration, with these specific restrictions:
Any or all of these restrictions may be appealed at any time. Violations may be freely reported to WP:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement. |
-- | Motion: GiantSnowman restrictions amended (January 2024) | Yes (explicitly so) | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Motion: GiantSnowman restrictions amended (January 2024) | GiantSnowman's previous restrictions are modified/superseded by the following restrictions:
As before, any/all of these restrictions may be appealed at any time, and violations may be reported to Enforcement. |
Jan. 07, 2024 | -- | Yes (explicitly so) | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
- Decided: May 06, 2019
- Abbrev.: NGMA
- Type: Admin
- Scope: Enigmaman's history of hilariously bad blocks
- CT?: No
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enigmaman desysopped | Enigmaman's administrator rights are revoked. He may only regain them via a new, successful Request for Adminship. | N/A | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
- Decided: June 06, 2019
- Abbrev.: RAMA
- Type: Admin
- Scope: Rama's using administrator actions against a community consensus
- CT?: No
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rama desysopped | Rama's administrator rights are revoked. He may only regain them via a new, successful Request for Adminship. | N/A | 6 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
- Closed/Declined: July 09, 2019
- Abbrev.: OFC
(Due to the extremely unusual circumstances (specifically, community outrage over the apparently-sudden banning of Fram) and the Foundation's unwillingness to continue sanctioning administrators for attempting to enforce community consensus, ArbCom - who was blindsided by the block almost as much as the community was - declines to accept a full case, issuing a motion that simply specifies that wheel-warring is unacceptable, regardless and especially if one of the parties is User:WMFOffice or a WMF staffer.)
- Decided: July 06, 2019
- Abbrev.: CAP
- Type: Dispute
- Scope: Edit-warring over SNC-Lavalin affair, especially from Curly Turkey.
- CT?: No
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Curley Turkey article-banned | Curly Turkey is page-banned from SNC-Lavalin affair and its talk page for six months. | Yes | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Curley Turkey warned | Curly Turkey is warned that any further instances of treating Wikipedia as a battleground will likely lead to summary sanctions. | No | 5 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Editors admonished | All editors in the dispute, writ large, are admonished for edit-warring. | No | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| All editors reminded | All involved are reminded that lesser forms of dispute resolution, and for content matters, exists for a reason, and it's to keep situations like this from occuring. | No | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
- Decided: Sep. 21, 2019
- Abbrev.: FRAM
- Type: Other
- Scope: Evaluation and assessment of the OFFICE ban issued against Fram
- CT?: No
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fram's 1 year ban is vacated | The [Arbitration] Committee decides that Fram's [1 year WMF ban from the English Wikipedia] was not required, and therefore vacates it. To put it as charitably as possible, this is an instance where the WMF's insistence that everything about the matter of Fram's conduct on Wikipedia was privileged came back to bite them in the ass. The private evidence provided by the WMF to ArbCom, per a sitting Arbitrator at the time, was 70 pages long and redacted so heavily that a fit-for-public-release version of the evidence would amount to "near nothing", not helped by the fact the WMF didn't prevent Fram from presenting their side of the case on Wikimedia Commons via his talk page there. While Fram is definitely not the most trustworthy source on matters regarding his own sanctions, it was the only direct evidence of the situation the community had. Even reading Fram's words in the most negative light, a ban not only seemed unwarranted, but counter-productive as Fram's behaviour had been improving, and the incident that led to the ban was an ArbCom decision that was overall poorly received. A call for further evidence turned up a laundry list of diffs regarding old, resolved matters which was blasted by the community as meaningless at best. As Future Perfect as Sunrise noted in response to this "evidence", We are dealing more and more with a case not of harassment by Fram, but harassment of Fram.[emphasis in original] This, coupled with the belief/conspiracy theory that T&S had been used to get rid of Fram at the behest of someone else and an infamous user that Fram had been in dispute with before legitimately being harassed off the project as a consequence of said conspiracy theory, meant that the WMF's lack of reasonable transparency did a host more damage to the project than if they had clearly explained their case without revealing any identities or any other information that could have been used to identify the victim. |
N/A | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Removal of sysop user-rights | Fram's OFFICE desysop is assumed by ArbCom. He may only regain the tools via a new, successful Request for Adminship. | N/A | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Arbcom RfC regarding on-wiki harassment | A Request for Comment will be opened under the Arbitration space, and managed by the Arbitration Clerks. This RfC will focus on how harassment and private complaints should be handled in the future. It should be worth noting that while WMF staffers stated that the situation implicated en.wp's policies around harassment, they refused to say exactly how due to treating everything about this as privileged information. The RfC was thus somewhat more focused on the Arbitration side of things rather than an earnest discussion on how to fix our policies around harassment. |
N/A | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
- Decided: Sep. 22, 2019
- Abbrev.: APL
- Type: Dispute
- Scope: Icewhiz, Volunteer Marek, and Poeticbent's overarching dispute in the Polish history ca. WWII topic area
- CT?: No[iv]
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Enacted | Rescinded | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Temporary Injunction | Icewhiz and Volunteer Marek are under a mutual interaction ban as long as this case is live, with a carveout for responding to the proposed decision on the Arbitration's talk page. This temporary injunction took immediate effect as soon as net-4 was met. | -- | -- | Yes | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Poeticbent removed as a party | Poeticbent is removed as a party to this case. Poeticbent had stopped editing the month before the case was filed. Icewhiz accused them of being a sockpuppet of Loosmark, which the Arbitrators ruled was unsupported. |
-- | -- | N/A | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Icewhiz and Volunteer Marek interaction-banned | The temporary injunction is retained indefinitely, with the carveout removed as moot. | -- | Motion (December 2019) | Yes | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Icewhiz topic-banned | Icewhiz is indefinitely topic-banned from the history of Poland ca. WWII topic area. He may appeal this after 1yr. | -- | -- | Yes | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Volunteer Marek topic-banned | Marek " " "-" " " " " " " " " ". " " " " " " ". | -- | Motion (December 2020) | Yes | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Article sourcing expectations | ArbCom creates a new discretionary sanction for use in the Polish history ca. WWII topic area and later, the history of the Jews in Poland topic area (which falls into the EE area), called "Reliable source consensus required". For articles/users under such a sanction, if a lower-quality source (i.e. not a peer-reviewed journal article or a scholarly book/article published by a reputable institution |
Amd: Amendment (May 2021), HJP | Amendment (January 2024) | Yes | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Acknowledgement of delay | ArbCom thanks the parties for their patience while they sorted through matters in the case. The case itself took three and a half months from starter pistol to tape, with the proposed decision being posted three months to the day from the start of the case. Part of this is likely due to ArbCom being severely undermanned at the time; there were only six active Arbitrators on the case, with no recusals. | -- | -- | N/A | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Motion (December 2019) | The mutual interaction ban is replaced with a one-way interaction ban (Icewhiz from Volunteer Marek). By this point, Icewhiz had already been indefinitely ArbCom-blocked with talk page access revoked; Marek appealed to make the ban one-way instead of lifting it so that he could discuss matters that involved both he and Icewhiz more freely. | Dec. 01, 2019 | -- | Yes | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Motion (May 2020) | This places the Polish history ca. WWII topic area under 500/30 restrictions |
Pass: May 30, 2020 Amd: Amendment (September 2021) |
-- | Yes | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Motion (December 2020) | Volunteer Marek's topic-ban from Polish history ca. WWII is rescinded wholesale. They still remain aware of, and thus subject to, EE discretionary sanctions. | Dec. 18, 2020 | -- | N/A | 7 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Amendment (May 2021) | This rewords Article sourcing expectations to tighten the wording and eliminate the preference for English-language sources. | May 09, 2021 | Amendment (January 2024) | N/A | 10 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Amendment (September 2021) | This rewords the 500/30 restriction to tighten the wording and eliminate the carveout to bring it in line with PIA4. | Sep. 20, 2021 | -- | N/A | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Amendment (January 2024) | This removes the bespoke remedy in favour of the now-standardised reliable source consensus-required sanction. | Jan. 04, 2024 | -- | Yes | 8 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
- Decided: Dec. 20, 2019
- Abbrev.: PIA4
- Type: Other
- Scope: Harmonising of sanctions from the other three PIA cases for clarity and bookkeeping
- CT?: Close - present (Remedy)
(This case refers to "the PIA area"; refer to the Definition of the "area of conflict" remedy for information.)
| Remedy name | Remedy (in modern terms) | Enacted/Amended | Rescinded | Enforceable? | Sup | Opp | Abs | Rcs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Condensing of remedies | The following remedies are rescinded in order to replace them with the remedies of this decision:
Any enforcement actions levied under the sanctions above remain in force and may be appealed as any other Enforcement sanction. |
-- | -- | N/A | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Editors reminded | ArbCom reminds editors that editing on Wikipedia will not move the needle on the ethnopolitical nightmare that fuels the Arab-Israeli conflict, and that compliance with Wikipedia policies - especially civility and neutrality - is all the more paramount when editing in intractible-ethnopolitical-hellhole topic areas such as PIA. | -- | -- | No | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Editors counselled | ArbCom reminds editors who may be Editing While Angry that it is generally a better idea to find and edit a topic that doesn't invoke such a visceral, tribalist mindset. | -- | -- | No | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Definition of the "Area of conflict" | ArbCom defines the PIA area as the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly construed, and makes a further distinction:
|
-- | -- | N/A | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| ARBPIA General Sanctions | ArbCom sets up the following sanctions to apply to all content about the Arab-Israeli conflict:
|
Amd: Amendment (September 2021) | -- | Yes | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Standing sanctions upon primary articles | Before a primary article and its editors can be considered subject to the General Sanctions, two templates designed to notify editors of the sanctions (one a talk page notice, the other an edit notice) must be applied. Any editor may add the templates; any administrator may remove them. | -- | -- | N/A | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| General sanctions upon related content | Before a user can be sanctioned for editing related content, two templates designed to notify editors of the sanctions (one a talk page notice, the other an edit notice) must be applied. If there is a question about which content is related, a <!--hidden comment--> may be added to the article in the source editor to mark it. Any user may add the templates provided there is PIA-related disruption; any administrator may remove them. | -- | -- | N/A | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Disputes about scope of conflict area | Any disputes over whether the General Sanctions apply is to be handled via standard dispute resolution methods. | -- | -- | N/A | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Available sanctions | This remedy is more-or-less a primer for administrators seeking to levy discretionary sanctions, particularly where biographical issues are involved. ArbCom also notes that sanctioning under BLP is always an option as well regardless of if the subject cleanly falls into this contentious topic. (The remedy includes instructions on levying semi-protection and CRASHlock, both of which are moot due to the higher-threshold 500/30 rule.) |
-- | -- | No | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Amendment (December 2019) | This rescinds PIA's 1RR restriction as redundant with the General Sanctions. | Dec. 27, 2019 | -- | N/A | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Clarification (July 2021) | (This clarification amended text that would later be obsoleted.) | July 12, 2021 | -- | N/A | 7 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Amendment (September 2021) | This replaces the long-winded bespoke 500/30 restriction in the General Sanctions with a link to a codified version of it. | Sep. 20, 2021 | -- | N/A | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Footnotes
edit- ^ Gamaliel recused from the case initially, then resigned as an Arbitrator while the case was ongoing. Their recusal is not counted in the tally.
- ^ Fred Bauder was, at the time of the incident, standing for election as an Arbitrator. His candidacy would be disqualified as a direct consequence of this incident.
- ^ DGG and Mkdw, who were both up for re-election in 2018, recused.
- ^ Locus of case falls entirely into the EE area.
- ^ This remedy also explicitly rescinds two remedies of an advisory nature; those are skipped as the rescissions have no practical effect.
- ^ The remedy also rescinds Area of conflict which sets the topic area; that is skipped as the rescission has no practical effect due to the now-standardised DS/CT templating.