Four open cases, final decision in Muhammad images, Betacommand 3 near closure
The Arbitration Committee opened no cases and closed one, leaving four open.
Closed cases
Muhammad images (Week 7)
After a week of voting, the Arbitration Committee closed this case, which stemmed from contentious editing at articles relating to Muhammad. The final decision includes a series of principles to guide editors in such content disputes. One principle points out to editors that "in controversial instances, reminding fellow editors that 'Wikipedia is not censored' will often be the beginning, not the end, of a well-informed analysis regarding inclusion or exclusion of content...a consensus for inclusion or exclusion should be sought based on the community's collective editorial judgment, well-informed by knowledge of the relevant subject matter and, where applicable, by Wikipedia's policies and guidelines."
After noting the relevant principles, the Committee made findings of fact regarding the locus of the dispute and the conduct of specific parties. By a divided vote of 6 to 4, arbitrators have asked the community to hold a discussion on the inclusion (or not) of Muhammad images, in order to establish a final and "definite consensus". Additionally, the Committee voted to ban one editor and admonish others who it found were "seriously disruptive". Lastly, standard discretionary sanctions will be applied to all pages relating to Muhammad, broadly interpreted.
Open cases
Betacommand 3 (Week 14)
Betacommand 3 was opened to address the multitude of sanctions in effect on this editor. A motion to close reached a net four votes today, which will bring this recently-deadlocked case to an end. This week, a remedy to ban Betacommand for "no less than one year" gained the support of a majority of arbitrators (with five arbitrators opposing). This follows on the Committee's agreement to "supersede" the community sanctions which came after weeks of debate over proposals to restrict Betacommand's editing abilities. No such proposal had received enough support to pass.
Article titles and capitalization (Week 2)
This case was opened to review alleged disruptive editing on WP:MOS and article naming pages. Since 29 January, 10 editors have given evidence. Several parties claimed that specific editors were to blame for the disruptive editing. The evidence phase closes 12 February, with a proposed decision due to be posted by the end of the month.
Civility enforcement (Week 6)
This case was initially opened due to the actions of several administrators in relation to a user who was blocked over perceived incivility. The evidence and workshop pages were closed after submission deadlines passed. A proposed decision was delayed for the second time, and is now scheduled for 13 February. The three drafting arbitrators have a long series of evidence submissions to analyze in coming to their proposed decision.
TimidGuy ban appeal (Week 8)
This case was brought to the Committee by an editor to appeal a site ban that was imposed by Jimbo Wales. The expected proposed decision, as mentioned in previous Signpost coverage, is yet to be posted. The tentative date for release had been in early January, but is now a future unspecified time.
Other requests and committee action
- A Request for Amendment in the Race and intelligence case is under discussion.
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Who, subsequent to that, is likely to ask ArbCom for clarification?