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Behaviour on this page: Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed decision. You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being rude or hostile, and to respond calmly to allegations against you. Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all). Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator, clerk, or functionary, without further warning, by being banned from further participation in the case, or being blocked altogether. Personal attacks against other users, including arbitrators or the clerks, will be met with sanctions. Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

Active:

1. Casliber
2. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry
3. David Fuchs
4. Jclemens
5. John Vandenberg
6. Kirill Lokshin
7. Mailer diablo
8. Newyorkbrad
9. PhilKnight
10. Risker
11. Roger Davies
12. SirFozzie

Inactive:

1. Cool Hand Luke
2. Iridescent
3. Xeno

Recused

1. Coren
2. Elen of the Roads

I'm new to arbitration...is it normal to start Workshopping before Evidence is presented? Or is this not a sequential process (that is, are they supposed to be done simultaneously)? It doesn't matter to me, but I guess I'm just confused about where to proceed first. Qwyrxian ( talk) 04:01, 18 August 2011 (UTC) reply

I don't know if there's a procedure. People normally start with the evidence stage. John Smith's ( talk) 11:58, 18 August 2011 (UTC) reply

In my experience as an Arbitration Committee clerk, workshop proposals are expexted to be evidence-based, backed up by diffs. Alexandr Dmitri ( talk) 12:21, 18 August 2011 (UTC) reply

Well, can you list the specific steps of doing this in point form then? I simply followed Tenmei's example since he had some prior experiences with ArbCom. I would've provided evidence as well, but I don't feel like doing the digging now and I can see other parties are not very enthusiastic about this either (seeing how the evidence page is empty except for Penwhale's non-evidence materials. -- Bobthefish2 ( talk) 21:05, 18 August 2011 (UTC) reply

Think of it either like telling a story - Joe did this (diff) then Nancy reverted him (diff) then Tom called Joe a bluebottle (diff). Or like a list of offenses - Joe has violated BLP (diff)(diff), Nancy has edit warred (diff)(diff), Tom has been incivil (diff). Different Arbs prefer different methods, but they need to have evidence as to why you can't reach an agreement among yourselves - who or what is preventing it. In general, the principles are based on previous principles or Wikipedia policy (Arbcom doesn't set policy in these findings), the findings of fact are based on the evidence presented, and the remedies are what Arbcom thinks will stop the specific problem happening again.

A useful thing that the parties can do is help Arbcom with the part of the finding of fact usually termed "Scope of the dispute" or "focus of the dispute", which is basically what it is that the argument is all about, that is causing people to behave badly. Getting this right forms the basis of the rest of the decisions. Read up on a few cases from this year to get more of a feel for it.

So in the example dispute above, you might get Principles

• contentious material about living persons must be supported by reliable sources. Material which violates this may be removed.(from WP:BLP
• Editors should discuss matters calmly and refrain from personal attacks

Findings of Fact

• the focus of the dispute is the article A J Foo, specifically the question of whether Foo had an affair with his researcher, Molly Minge, in 2005. No reliable sources support this widely circulated internet rumour....(this is the explanation of why there is a disagreement: everyone saw it on Twitter, but there has been no follow up in the established press, so there is a dispute as to whether it can be added to the article)
• User Joe repeatedly added this information to the article without a source.(diff)(diff)
• User Nancy reverted the addition 25 times in 2 hours - reversion of BLP violations is exempt from 3RR.
• User Tom engaged in personal attacks (diff)(diff)

Remedies

• User Joe is topic banned from A J Foo for one year
• User Tom is admonished for incivility.

Elen of the Roads ( talk) 22:52, 18 August 2011 (UTC) reply

As a side note, Bob, I am gathering evidence, but there's a lot of material to go through, so I probably won't have anything up for a while. Given the limit on words, and my own tendency towards verbosity, I feel like I have to be very careful to pick out only the best material and explanations. Qwyrxian ( talk) 23:32, 18 August 2011 (UTC) reply

I understand. Fortunately, my edit history is not very long, although it can be a bit hard to decide how to spend your 50 diffs on my 1500 or so edits. It's like going into a candy store and being told you can only pick 1 chocolate bar from the shelf. If you require assistance in choosing the best ones, let me know and I will see what I can do. -- Bobthefish2 ( talk) 00:07, 19 August 2011 (UTC) reply

The other thing I would say as a general rule is don't spend valuable words lecturing Arbcom on:

• why your version of the content is the only right one (particularly not if your explanation includes formulae or diagrams)
• the moral repugnance of the other side's position
• why your bad behaviour should be excused because other people behaved worse
• wild allegations about motivation, conflict of interest, eating kittens etc

Stick to facts, simply stated. Always comes across better. Elen of the Roads ( talk) 11:42, 19 August 2011 (UTC) reply

What if I want to accuse people of eating kittens? Where would I put that? :) -- Bobthefish2 ( talk) 18:22, 19 August 2011 (UTC) reply

The best place would probably be somewhere on Uncyclopedia. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 00:52, 22 August 2011 (UTC) reply

As some of you are new to arbitration, I invite you to consult the Guide to arbitration. Further to Elen's comments above, I'd also request that old battles not be rehashed out (nor new ones started), nor long ideological or philosophical debates started. If you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them. Case clerk Alexandr Dmitri ( talk) 13:54, 21 August 2011 (UTC) reply

Is there a reason to for you to collapse my text and not Tenmei's? As far as I know, they were both conveying the same type of messages. I suppose asking people to be even-handed is not a valid request but something like "The purpose of Wikipedia is to create and maintain a high-quality encyclopedia using a process of collaborative editing" is a valid proposal. -- Bobthefish2 ( talk) 18:42, 21 August 2011 (UTC) reply

I collapsed your text because it was, in my mind, a very general remark that was neither a formal request nor a motion pertaining to this arbitration case. Tenmei's request was clear and precise request concerning the statement made by Qwyrxian, and so I moved it to the main case talkpage. The proposal that you put forward in your comment here would make a suitable workshop proposal. I'd like to add that as a clerk I am required to remain entirely neutral towards all parties and that choices to hat, archive, refactor, move or remove material is based solely on content of said material. Alexandr Dmitri ( talk) 19:44, 21 August 2011 (UTC) reply

It was a simple request for even-handedness. If you think it is proposal-level material, then you can undo my move. But really, requests and proposals are very similar concepts... -- Bobthefish2 ( talk) 20:18, 21 August 2011 (UTC) reply

Hi Bob. No idea what you asked, but no, requests and proposals are quite different. Proposals are things that go into the final decision - principles, findings of fact and remedies. The requests section is for things that apply while the case is going on - like a request to add another party, or remove a party, from the proceedings, or a request to protect a page for the duration of the case, or to have a previously applied restriction lifted so an editor can participate. That kind of thing. I'd be guided by Alexandr as to the correct sections to include things in. Elen of the Roads ( talk) 21:22, 21 August 2011 (UTC) reply

Ok. Requests have a special meaning here then. -- Bobthefish2 ( talk) 01:06, 22 August 2011 (UTC) reply

Yeah, it's a bit bureacratic here. Elen of the Roads ( talk) 15:38, 23 August 2011 (UTC) reply

For editors who haven't been through the arbitration process before—which is not a bad thing or a criticism, believe me—I suggest concentrating primarily on posting the information you believe will be most helpful to the arbitrators in deciding the case fairly and expeditiously. Fine points of the formatting, where on the pages information should be, and all of that, can be figured out later and is less relevant. Of course, please make some good-faith effort to follow the structure set up for this page, but do not let it become a distraction or take too much time from either providing the information we need, or from doing your other editing, or from anything else. Thanks, Newyorkbrad ( talk) 03:37, 24 August 2011 (UTC) reply