Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-02-14/Arbitration report

Arbitration report

The Report On Lengthy Litigation

Its caseload significantly reduced over the past few weeks, the Arbitration Committee saw a number of new requests last week, but only two were ultimately accepted. A third one was nearly accepted until the arbitrators reconsidered. No cases were closed last week.

At the start of the week, the Arbitration Committee had only two open cases, one involving Robert the Bruce and the second case dealing with Lyndon LaRouche articles. Deliberation and voting on proposed rulings continued through the week, but neither case reached a point where closing the matter was considered.

Request virtually accepted, then sent back

With their light caseload, the arbitrators nearly accepted a request for arbitration submitted last Monday by Bblackmoor, who had been involved in a dispute with Axon over the Open gaming article. The dispute was obscure enough that an earlier attempt to conduct a survey on the underlying issues drew little involvement from the community, and a request for mediation received no response due to the Wikipedia:Mediation Committee's recent organizational problems.

Based on the arbitration policy, a case is accepted when four arbitrators have voted to do so. Accordingly, Bblackmoor’s request might have been considered accepted when Grunt changed his vote at 17:59 (UTC) on Tuesday. However, after Sannse and Theresa knott urged more use of other dispute resolution methods, several arbitrators reconsidered and Bblackmoor ultimately withdrew his request.

Cases that did get opened

Continued problems surrounding CheeseDreams prompted the arbitrators to open a second case regarding her behavior, at the request of Ta bu shi da yu. The issues raised included harassment, including allegations of making frivolous requests for arbitration herself. The case was further complicated by the use of a large number of sockpuppet accounts, and the difficulty of blocking CheeseDreams due to her use of a dialup with changing IP addresses.

Another new request was brought on Saturday by ChrisO against WikiUser, claiming a lengthy history of personal attacks, legal threats, and other disruptive behavior. The problem had spread far enough that three arbitrators had to recuse themselves from the case for being too closely involved. Grunt and Neutrality urged their colleagues to accept the case, however, and the necessary votes were present by Sunday.