Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-09-10/Arbitration report

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Arbitration report

The Report on Lengthy Litigation

The Arbitration Committee accepted one new case this week, and closed one case.

Closed case

  • Boris Stomakhin: A case involving a dispute between Biophys and Vlad fedorov, involving alleged BLP and 3RR violations, block evasion, and edit-warring. As a result of the case, Vlad federov was banned for one year.

New case

  • THF-DavidShankBone: A case involving alleged POV editing by THF relating to Michael Moore, and alleged harassment by DavidShankBone. Fred Bauder has proposed a remedy advising THF to "rely more on negotiation with other users and less on legalistic citing of policies and guidelines when disputes arise".

Evidence phase

  • The Troubles: A case involving a large number of editors on articles related to The Troubles. Some editors attempted to withdraw from the case when its scope was widened at the request of an arbitrator to cover the entire area rather than only the behaviour of Vintagekits, but in accordance with arbitration policy, these attempts, along with other changes to statements after the case opened, were reverted by the clerk.
  • SevenOfDiamonds: A case involving alleged abusive sockpuppetry and other misconduct by SevenOfDiamonds. SevenOfDiamonds vigorously denies the allegations, and alleges that MONGO has harassed him.
  • Digwuren: A case involving alleged POV-pushing and incivility by Digwuren and alleged sockpuppets.

Voting phase

  • Artaxerex: A case involving alleged POV-pushing, incivility and sockpuppetry by Artaxerex. Artaxerex denies the allegations, and alleges that Shervink and others are focusing on getting him blocked, and that certain editors push an Iranian nationalist POV. A remedy banning Artaxerex has the support of three arbitrators.
  • Jmfangio-Chrisjnelson: A case involving alleged edit warring, hostility and incivility between Jmfangio and Chrisjnelson. Jmfangio has been indefinitely blocked after checkuser confirmed that this account is the reincarnation of a community banned editor.
  • Allegations of apartheid: This case concerns the conduct of various editors in connection with a group of articles whose titles include the words "Allegations of apartheid". It has been alleged that these articles were created in violation of Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, after several deletion debates concerning Allegations of Israeli apartheid resulted in that article being kept. Issues have also been raised concerning comments made in deletion discussions and reviews. Several users who have created and edited the "Allegations of apartheid" articles have strongly denied any inappropriate conduct. Voting on most proposals is split, but an amnesty for past actions currently has a majority.
  • Catalonia: A case brought by Physchim62 involving alleged edit warring, possible sockpuppetry, and other misconduct by various editors on Catalonia, Valencian Community, and related articles. A proposal banning Maurice27 for thirty days has the support of five arbitrators, and one encouraging the parties to continue with the normal consensus-building procedure has seven.
  • COFS: A case initiated by Durova based on a discussion at the community sanctions noticeboard. The case involves allegations of tendentious editing by various editors, sockpuppetry, conflicts of interest, and other user conduct issues on Scientology related articles. The proposed decision, which has the support of six to nine arbitrators, would ban COFS for 30 days for POV editing and require him to change his username and disclose any duties he may have to the Church of Scientology before resuming editing. A proposal banning Anynobody from harassing Justanother has the support of eight arbitrators, and one placing Scientology articles on article probation has four.