Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests

Crosstalk

I thought there was not to be discussions between commenters, and that we were to address our comments to the arbcom. Probably personal asides should go on individual talk pages. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:58, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Clarification of "Someone said"

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Moved from Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case § Marine 69-71  – SilverLocust 💬 00:03, 30 October 2024 (UTC) JPxG says just above that "Someone said the filer has been following Tony around to give him a hard time -- not in a position to aggressively fact-check this at the moment -- but very lame if true." That may be the lamest statement I've seen on this page. "Someone said", really? Dig it out. "Not in a position to aggressively fact-check"? Wait until you are. How is it acceptable to attack a non-admin for a rumor which the admin speaker can't even remember where they read? Bishonen | tålk 09:45, 27 October 2024 (UTC). Sorry for the confusion -- "lame if true" is here used in the normal sense of conditional statements in the English language (e.g. P → Q, and $\neg$P → $\neg$Q). If it is not true, then it is not lame. jp×g🗯️ 17:13, 28 October 2024 (UTC) To spread nasty rumors by hiding behind "someone said" is not OK, and mansplaining what if means doesn't improve it. Bishonen | tålk 09:48, 29 October 2024 (UTC). I still have no idea what you are talking about "hiding behind" or "spreading", since what I said was a direct reference to another person's comment several paragraphs above mine, on the exact same page. If you want to say that Hammersoft's accusations were "nasty rumors", I have no idea why you would make no mention of their claims, and personally attack me for briefly mentioning them, without saying they were true, or even that I believed they were true. jp×g🗯️ 10:26, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

It wasn't initially clear that you were referring to the Statement by Hammersoft, JPxG, so I have added a link to that section in your statement. With that clarified, I think your and Bishonen's responses to each other are no longer needed, so I've moved them here and hatted them. SilverLocust 💬 00:03, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

What does "scope" mean?

Just for my own edification, what does it actually mean for arbcom to accept a case with a particular scope? Is that just general guidance about what you're going to concentrate on, or is it a strict boundary which cannot be crossed, even if things develop in an unexpected direction as the investigation progresses? RoySmith (talk) 15:16, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

The scope of a case is essentially the specific issues (and anything arising from those issues) ArbCom is looking at in a given case. For example, the scope of WTC is the behaviour of members of WP:WikiProject Tropical Cyclones, more specifically their use of Discord to collude in their topic area. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{threads critiques} 18:25, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Obviously the current ArbCom should answer how they see the scope. As a bit of institutional memory, this was formally added early on in my first term. It came in response to feedback that it was hard for community members to know what kind of evidence they should be submitting and that this resulted in all sorts of evidence which wasn't germane to the case. This evidence could be upsetting to the person it was presented about and it could be upsetting to the person who submitted it when it was ignored. So the scope was made a formal part of the process to try and help signal better to everyone. In my experience as a drafter, the scope became irrelevant in terms of the final decision - I went wherever the evidence led. This could be the same scope or a narrower scope. The only times you could say there was a broader scope is when parties would get added, which is why the committees I was on helped formalize a process where parties could be added after the case began if evidence justified it but those parties would still have a reasonable chance to participate in the case without being penalized for being added late. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:45, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

• I see scope as a natural evolution of our cases. Engineering a scope allows us to target exactly the issue we want to solve. If we didn't have a case scope, then a case could be about anything that parties put forth evidence of, which would derail proceedings. Indeed, we've seen ample examples in the past of parties using cases as general excuses to sling grievances against other editors, which has ultimately been a waste of time and energy. Also, if a scope is too large, it can be hard to pin down exactly what we're doing, and the evidence of parties may pass each other like ships in the night, not ever addressing the same issue. Scope delineates what is relevant, and what isn't, and keeps us focused. That's not to say that we'll never hear evidence outside of our initial scope, but there's going to have to be a good reason. At any rate, we often end up changing a scope as a case goes on. Sometimes the issue isn't as big as we thought it was initially, and we'll drill down on one aspect. Othertimes, we will add new parties as it becomes clear that the misconduct was broader than first thought. TLDR: scope is a soft guideline, which we have a right to change, but which we aim to follow. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:07, 30 October 2024 (UTC)