Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment
- recent changes
- purge this page
- view or discuss this template
Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.
No cases have recently been closed (view all closed cases).
| Request name | Motions | Case | Posted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clarification request: Investigation request regarding Arbitration Committee evidentiary procedure | none | none | 5 May 2025 |
| Motion name | Date posted |
|---|---|
| Smallangryplanet and Lf8u2 | 26 April 2025 |
| Procedures relating to requests for amendment | 5 May 2025 |
Use this page to request clarification or amendment of a closed Arbitration Committee case or decision.
- Requests for clarification are used to ask for further guidance or clarification about an existing completed Arbitration Committee case or decision.
- Requests for amendment are used to ask for an amendment or extension of existing sanctions (for instance, because the sanctions are ineffective, contain a loophole, or no longer cover a sufficiently wide topic); or appeal for the removal of sanctions (including bans).
Submitting a request: (you must use this format!)
- Choose one of the following options and open the page in a new tab or window:
- Click here to file a request for clarification of an arbitration decision or procedure.
- Click here to file a request for amendment of an arbitration decision or procedure (including an arbitration enforcement action issued by an administrator, such as a contentious topics restriction).
- Click here to file a referral from AE requesting enforcement of a decision.
- Click here to file a referral from AE appealing an arbitration enforcement action.
- Save your request and check that it looks how you think it should and says what you intended.
- If your request will affect or involve other users (including any users you have named as parties), you must notify these editors of your submission; you can use
{{subst:Arbitration CA notice|SECTIONTITLE}}to do this. - Add the diffs of the talk page notifications under the applicable header of the request.
Please do not submit your request until it is ready for consideration; this is not a space for drafts, and incremental additions to a submission are disruptive.
Guidance on participation and word limits
Unlike many venues on Wikipedia, ArbCom imposes word limits. Please observe the below notes on complying with word limits.
- Motivation. Word limits are imposed to promote clarity and focus on the issues at hand and to ensure that arbitrators are able to fully take in submissions. Arbitrators must read a large volume of information across many matters in the course of their service on the Committee, so submissions that exceed word limits may be disregarded. For the sake of fairness and to discourage gamesmanship (i.e., to disincentivize "asking forgiveness rather than permission"), word limits are actively enforced.
- In general. Most submissions to the Arbitration Committee (including statements in arbitration case requests and ARCAs and evidence submissions in arbitration cases) are limited to 500 words, plus 50 diffs. During the evidence phase of an accepted case, named parties are granted an automatic extension to 1000 words plus 100 diffs.
- Sectioned discussion. To facilitate review by arbitrators, you should edit only in your own section. Address your submission to arbitrators, not to other participants. If you wish to rebut, clarify, or otherwise refer to another submission for the benefit of arbitrators, you may do so within your own section. (More information.)
- Requesting an extension. You may request a word limit extension in your submission itself (using the {{@ArbComClerks}} template) or by emailing clerks-l
lists.wikimedia.org. In your request, you should briefly (in 1–2 sentences) include (a) why you need additional words and (b) a broad outline of what you hope to discuss in your extended submission. The Committee endeavors to act upon extension requests promptly and aims to offer flexibility where warranted.
- Members of the Committee may also grant extensions when they ask direct questions to facilitate answers to those questions.
- Refactoring statements. You should write carefully and concisely from the start. It is impermissible to rewrite a statement to shorten it after a significant amount of time has passed or after anyone has responded to it (see Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines § Editing own comments), so it is often advisable to submit a brief initial statement to leave room to respond to other users if the need arises.
- Sign submissions. In order for arbitrators and other participants to understand the order of submissions, sign your submission and each addition (using
~~~~). - Word limit violations. Submissions that exceed the word limit will generally be "hatted" (collapsed), and arbitrators may opt not to consider them.
- Counting words. Words are counted on the rendered text (not wikitext) of the statement (i.e., the number of words that you would see by copy-pasting the page section containing your statement into a text editor or word count tool). This internal gadget may also be helpful.
- Sanctions. Please note that members and clerks of the Committee may impose appropriate sanctions when necessary to promote the effective functioning of the arbitration process.
General guidance
- Arbitrators and clerks may summarily remove or refactor discussion without comment.
- Requests from blocked or banned users should be made by e-mail directly to the Arbitration Committee.
- Only arbitrators and clerks may remove requests from this page. Do not remove a request or any statements or comments unless you are in either of these groups.
- Archived clarification and amendment requests are logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Clarification and Amendment requests. Numerous legacy and current shortcuts can be used to more quickly reach this page:
Clarification request: Investigation request regarding Arbitration Committee evidentiary procedure
[edit]| Questions asked by the initiator have been answered, at some length and repetition, by individual members of the Committee. Processes adopted late last year by motion have been re-outlined. This has run its course. Daniel (talk) 21:03, 5 May 2025 (UTC) |
|---|
| The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
Initiated by Allthemilescombined1 at 11:11, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request Statement by Allthemilescombined1[edit]ArbCom is the “Supreme Court” of Wikipedia and serves as the ultimate authority on maintaining the integrity of the Wikipedia project. I have noticed ‘ownership’ of the I/P area by a small group of editors, and I have encountered incivility, POV pushing, tag-teaming and aspersions in the space. I have been following reports about Wikipedia in Pirate Wires and the Jewish Journal further reporting upon troubling behavior, including widespread canvassing. The Wikipedia community can only address these concerns if there is sustained trust in the platform’s governance. In response to the March 20 Jewish Journal piece on the “Tech For Palestine” editing Discord, CaptainEek stated on March 22 that the Arbitration Committee did not receive the “expanded dossier” at the center of the JJ article. On April 23, the JJ article was updated in response to CaptainEek's denial of receiving the “expanded dossier” (which appears at the bottom of the article linked above as well as on the journalist's twitter). The updated article indicates that the “expanded dossier” was in fact submitted to ArbCom twice on 9/8/24. As far as I can tell, ArbCom, while taking efforts to re-review the case in light of the update to the JJ article, has yet to clarify as to how important submitted evidence was missed, ignored, forgotten about, buried, or otherwise. Given that there is zero transparency as to the private proceedings of the committee, this is a complete violation of trust between editors and Arbitrators. How are we to trust that sensitive evidence is being handled appropriately, if such a major miss like this can happen? Furthermore, why would a veteran ArbCom member respond dismissively on a noticeboard before checking their email for correspondence relating to the evidence in question? This does not instill any confidence that the private ArbCom procedures are being conducted appropriately. As a member of the Wikipedia community, I am requesting a transparent, independent investigation be assembled as to the conduct and procedure of ArbCom on this matter. Just a few of the questions that I want answered:
I am aware of no procedure in place for the Arbitration Committee to be itself investigated. I am requesting that any ArbCom members who were active during the period in question recuse themselves from this proceeding, and only those most recently elected (which took place after this evidence was submitted) to make recommendations on this matter.
Statement by CaptainEek[edit]Moved to my own section: Seeing as Aoidh has also recused, then I will also recuse.
Statement by Huldra[edit]For a perspective: according to the dossier itself: "The current conservative edit impact estimate for the group (based on available evidence) is 260 edits on 114 articles.(p. 3 (out of 244)) (bolding in the original). I can make more edits in a day. Also, from what I could see, it was mostly adding "fluff": celebrity X, Y or Z "supporting Gaza ceasefire", etc. Huldra (talk) 23:34, 30 April 2025 (UTC) Statement by Sean.hoyland[edit]Huldra cited page 3. The page covers the Feb and Sept, 2024 period.
From this we can say a few things
And I'll add this.
Sean.hoyland (talk) 03:19, 1 May 2025 (UTC) Chess, for me, success or failure depends on things like compliance, completeness etc., all emergent properties well beyond the control of ArbCom or individual editors. Success can take years to emerge. For me, success or failure has no dependency on how partisan actors see things. They are unreliable narrators. There are misalignments between their value systems and Wikipedia's. Their stories about Wikipedia willfully misinform and mislead. It doesn't seem to make the topic area better. A real problem, for me, is that doing the thing that is prohibited by the universal code of conduct, "manipulating content to favour specific interpretations of facts or points of view", is what many of us do without even trying, naturally, in good faith, without any malicious intent or conscious manipulation, and it can take a long time for content to meander its way to somewhere resembling compliance with the important policies, too long for impatient partisans. Sean.hoyland (talk) 18:28, 1 May 2025 (UTC) Statement by Aoidh[edit]I'll recuse. The basis of this request is that Statement by Chess[edit]Would the committee consider distinguishing between action taken on anonymous sources and confidential sources? In this case, "anonymous" means unknown to the committee, while "confidential" means known to the committee, but not disclosed. And re: Sean.Hoyland, Statement by FortunateSons[edit]Hello, I may be able to answer some of those questions, as I’m not bound by the same confidentiality rules as ArbCom. I would also like to note that I fully understand that the Arbs receive many reports of varying quality and that steps have already been taken to address the pace at which action is taken, so this is primarily descriptive, not accusatory. Having said that, my own report of this issue contains 18 screenshots from their discord, the names of the most relevant editors, and a link to their on-Wiki collaboration space. I received confirmation of receipt on Jun 30, 2024, then requested an update on August 31, to which I received a response (on September 3) stating that no further information was needed at this time and that there was no news. I requested an update on November 1, which was not replied to. Between confirming reception and her block on Dec 9, User:Ïvana made more than 1000 edits, including to sensitive articles. The email from which the report was made is linked to my account and would be verifiable to ArbCom, as I have forwarded canvassing emails to them before. As such, I don’t think that this was an issue of „anonymous/confidential“. I also can’t speak to whether or not what I provided was sufficient to take action, and required a second attempt to reformat the attachment to my email with the help of an arbitrator, for what that’s worth. I waive my confidentiality to the degree that is required to confirm that all statements made above are accurate and complete. FortunateSons (talk) 13:45, 1 May 2025 (UTC) Statement by Aquillion[edit]I strenuously disagree with Chess' statement above that Statement by {other-editor}[edit]Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information. Investigation request regarding Arbitration Committee evidentiary procedure: Clerk notes[edit]
Investigation request regarding Arbitration Committee evidentiary procedure: Arbitrator views and discussion[edit]
|
