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A request for Arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution. Before requesting Arbitration, please review other avenues you should take. If you do not follow any of these routes, it is highly likely that your request will be rejected. If all other steps have failed, and you see no reasonable chance that the matter can be resolved in another manner, you may request that it be decided by the Arbitration Committee (ArbCom).

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Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

No cases have recently been closed (view all closed cases).

Currently, no requests for clarification or amendment are open.

The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and (exceptionally) to summarily review new evidence and update the findings and decisions of a previous case. Review is likely to be appropriate if later events indicate the original ruling on scope or enforcement was too limited and does not adequately address the situation, or if new evidence suggests the findings of fact were significantly in error.

The procedure for accepting requests is described in the Arbitration policy. If you are going to make a request here, you must be brief and cite supporting diffs. If your case is accepted for arbitration, the arbitrator or clerk will create an evidence page that you can use to provide more detail. New requests to the top, please. You are required to place a notice on the user talk page of each person against whom you lodge a complaint.

0/0/0/0 corresponds to Arbitrators' votes to accept/reject/recuse/other. Cases are usually opened at least 24 hours after four net accept votes are cast; that is, four more accept than reject votes. When a case is opened, a notice that includes a link to a newly created evidence page will be posted to each participant's talk page. See the Requests section of the arbitration policy page for details. "Recuse" means that an Arbitrator has excused themselves from a case because of a possible, or perceived, conflict of interest. Cases which have not met the acceptance criteria after 10 days will be removed from this page.

This is not a page for discussion, and Arbitrators or Clerks may summarily remove or refactor discussion without comment. Please do not open cases; only an Arbitrator or Clerk may do so.

See also

• Arbitration policy
• Misplaced Pages:Arbitration policy/Past decisions
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/How to present a case - Recommended reading: An (unofficial) guide to presenting effective Arbitration cases.
• Arbitration enforcement - Any user can request help here if it involves the violation of an ArbCom decision
• Administrator enforcement requested (shortcut WP:RFAr/AER)
• Developer help needed
• Arbitration template

Current requests

Unsolved block appeal and admin recusal request

Initiated by Sugaar at 08:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Sugaar (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Shell Kinney (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (as administrator)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Yes diff

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Appeal at ANI noticeboard (per WP:BLOCK), that was archived without any resolution.
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Sugaar, initiated by Shell Kinney, that (surprisingly enough) got many comments in favor of my position, more significatively those from commenters not directly subscribing either view, of whom I had not heard before, like Vercalos and Paul B and not significative support (much less neutral) for Shell Kinney's position.

Statement by Sugaar

This is a natural continuation of the unsolved appeal in ANI. There I requested, and I request here now, that:

1. The block is reviewed and, if pertinent, removed from the log, as it is an unbearable and unjustified black mark on my reputation (perfectly clean until this particular conflict).

2. That Shell Kinney is recused (either willingly or unwillingly) from further intervention in cases involving my person, the disputed White people article (where all started) and Thulean, now renamed to Lukas19. Notice that I am not asking for removing her from adminship (probably she does better in other more clear cases) just a recusal in further cases of the same nature, where, in my opinion, she has only favored gaming the system by a single disruptive user with a clear agenda.

The reasoning for these requests is as follows:

1. The block was unlawful, clearly going beyond of what policy allows and specially recomends. As alleged a posteriori, it was issued under the clause of persistent personal attacks, ignoring totally:

1.1. That I only had one official (though somehow controversial, see: diff of the relevant PAIN case at its removal by Shell Kinney) warning by Shell Kinney herself, which was useful for me to realize that I should not describe users by their ideology. I was previously unaware of this particular aception of WP:NPA and, really, I'm by nature or culture more in the line of WP:SPADE. Ignorance of policy subtleties does not wholly excuse me but explains that there was a "before" and an "after" this warning (and specially after helpful clarification by other sysops at ANI).

1.2. That, while I had a cascade of "warnings" from Thulean (now Lukas19), I always considered that all or most of them were isued in bad faith in order to:

• conceal his ideological motivation
• wikilawyer: Breaking the spirit of a policy or guideline through sticking to a too-literal interpretation of the letter thereof.
• harass me, in this case by: placing numerous false or questionable 'warnings' on a user's talk page (a system that he has used with many other respectable users that question him ).
• campaign to drive away other productive editors, as mentioned in WP:DE
• avoid the need to submit to consensus

1.3. That the alleged infractions regarding the block were extremely mild, if infractions at all.

1.4. That the context of such alleged infractions was ignored.

1.5. That there were no such persistent personal attacks. Not a single one since the warning and the reason behind it was clarified.

1.6. That all the effort I put in trying to collaborate and build up consensus with the disruptive editor , including trying to calm down other outraged editor , was flatly ignored.

1.7. That Shell Kinney was motivated personally out of anger for bringing the discussion to her talk page (something that was Thulean who did, I just followed suit).

1.8. That the block was issued as means of punishment, something expressly forbidden by WP:BLOCK specifically in cases of alleged PAs.

2. That the block helped the wikilawyering disruptive editor to continue with his campaign of driving away productive editors by means of wikilawyerist harassment (that still is going on as far as I know). In my case, I had no choice but to "disengage" from the disputed article, and other perfectly valid users have been pushed to do the same as well.

3. That a block, even a short one, is a very negative mark in a user's reputation. Hence I request that, if my appeal is accepted, that mark is removed a posteriori. I had never ever got a single warn in my two years as Misplaced Pages editor before this case, yet I have already felt how some users, particularly some sysops, judge from such arbitrary/questionable warnings, without stopping to ponder the particulars of the case or the overall historial of the user. In theory, a block can only be used in very clear cases, and comes to mean that you are sort of a "convicted criminal". And this is not my case, I believe, but a clear case of misjudgement and abuse of power by an emotionally altered administrator who just didn't thought it twice.

4. That Shell Kinney has shown clear lack of balance in this dispute, strongly taking sides for one party and systematically ignoring the complaints of the other (that is not just me but many other good willed veteran editors), when not taking a hostile attitude herself.

5. That Shell Kinney has totally lacked of any sort of self-criticsm, never or almost never accepting she could have comitted any error, in spite of the numerous users that seem to see fault in her behaviour in this particular case. Forcing me therefore to appeal this case, first at ANI and now here, and ask for her recusal.

Statement by totally uninvolved Daniel.Bryant

I normally don't bother giving statements here, and this is probably not an exception - it is merely an observation and FYI about Sugaar's statement. Sugaar states in point one and three of his statement:

The block is reviewed and, if pertinent, removed from the log, as it is an unbearable and unjustified black mark on my reputation (perfectly clean until this particular conflict).

Developers were asked to do the same thing over two months ago (see ), however made clear their staunch opposition to altering logs (see ). In hinesight, I can't see their strongly-held position doing "a full 180" to expunging logs. Just a FYI. Daniel.Bryant 09:27, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Statement by {username}

(Please limit your statement to 500 words. Overlong statements may be removed without warning by clerks or arbitrators and replaced by much shorter summaries. Remember to sign and date your statement.)

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/8/0/0)

• Reject. As to your first point, you need a developer, not an arbitrator, to fix your logs. But whether or not it was justified, the reasoning dos look true. Calling people trolls, vandals, racists, nazis, etc. is over the top. In any case, there's nothing here to arbitrate in a month-old short block. It's probably time to drop it. Dmcdevit·t 10:59, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
• Reject per Dmcdevit. Advice: Start fresh in this new year and move on for the good of yourself and the project. FloNight 17:40, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
• Reject. Without looking into whether your block was justified or not - plenty of people have been wrongly blocked over the years. Entries in the block log should not be considered authoritative as to whether the block was justified, and the arbitration committee will not consider them by themselves as meaningful. Other editors should not either. We are not about to go round deleting block log entries every time someone disputes a block. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 17:44, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
• Reject, even if you are right, shit happens, don't make a career of examining it. Fred Bauder 17:46, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
• Reject. Trivial block for bad manners. Nothing to arbitrate here. --jpgordon 19:05, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
• Reject per Morven; note that people shouldn't consider block logs to tell the whole story, and given that we've had incorrect blocks in the past, it's not reasonable to ask the developers to expound the logs in this case. They (the logs, not the developers) are there to record what happened, and tampering with that shouldn't be done except in exceptional cases. Flcelloguy (A note?) 03:44, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
• Reject. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 08:21, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
• Reject. Paul August ☎ 01:20, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Requests for clarification

Requests for clarification from the Committee on matters related to the Arbitration process. Place new requests at the top.

IRC logs

Hello. An excerpt of an IRC log were placed on and were subsequently removed from the project's talk page. I seek clarification from the Committee as to the extent to which we are we permitted to or prohibited from discussing the content contained in this excerpt (without direct quotations, of course). Since I have already commented on these, I would like to know whether I am in breach of the rules by doing so, so that, if applicable, I could rectify this and remove my comment accordingly. The pertinent comments are here. El_C 00:42, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

This discussion needs to go to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard in order to attempt to resolve the general questions involved regarding nasty behavior on IRC channels. The arbitrators did find Misplaced Pages:No_personal_attacks#Off-wiki_personal_attacks in the course of our discussions. It would probably be best not to rely on those particular logs or discuss their details, but the questions they raise, and the other questions raised regarding hostile or dismissive comments on IRC need to be discussed. I doubt anyone would fault you for your comments so far. Fred Bauder 15:07, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Fred. I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my question. While I do have thoughts regarding the particulars of the aforementioned excerpt, I will keep these confined to my mind, or at least, offwiki. For now. El_C 17:10, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Motions in prior cases

(Only Arbitrators may make such motions)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Giano

Since his arbitration case, Giano has shown continued incivility. This is most recently discussed on WP:ANI#Block_of_Giano_II and WP:ANI#Giano.27s_rampant_incivility. Most recently, uncivil comments like and led to a block on Giano which was endorsed by Jimbo, when he chose to unblock on the condition that "I hope that at least for the next 72 hours, you will agree to be calm and non-attacking". Giano's responses (even to Jimbo's personal note) broke this trust "IRC stooge sent by a lying admin on IRC", "IRC stooge", "Tell them to shove their comments up their borealis, my little nothern star", and he was subsequently reblocked for "I never talk behind people's backs - a concept I don't expect you to understand", however, Giano has been unblocked yet again, and quickly resumes with incivlity like "little-admin-with-the-funny-unpronouncable-name". I propose a standard civility parole to both cool the disruptive behavior, and give administrators a clear way to enforce it in the future without constant blocking and unblocking.

The following remedy shall be amended to Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Giano if passed:

Giano placed on civility parole

Giano (Giano (talk · contribs), Giano II (talk · contribs) or subsequent accounts) is placed on standard civility parole for one year. He may be blocked for 24 hours, or up to a week for repeated offenses, for any edit which an uninvolved administrator deems to be a personal attack, incivility, or an assumption of bad faith. Blocks shall be logged at Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Giano#Log of blocks and bans and noted on Giano's talk page.

Support:

1. First choice. Dmcdevit·t 00:49, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
2. Fred Bauder 00:51, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
3. James F. (talk) 01:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC) Third choice. James F. (talk) 00:49, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
4. ➥the Epopt 01:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose:

1. Too one-sided, too punitive, unhelpful. Jayjg 20:39, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
2. Not helpful. Paul August ☎ 03:47, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
3. Agree with Jayjg - I don't see this as headed towards a solution to this problem. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 17:34, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
4. Agree with the above; I don't think that this remedy is helpful. Flcelloguy (A note?) 03:39, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Abstain:

1. Not happy with the way this was proposed. Charles Matthews 17:39, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Giano asked to leave the project for two weeks

alternative to the remedy above

The Committee notes that Giano has made extensive contributions to the encyclopedia. Building the encyclopedia is Misplaced Pages's core mission. However, Misplaced Pages's behavioral standards exist to allow all Wikipedians to work together to build the encyclopedia efficiently.

Despite repeated warnings, Giano has continued to violate Misplaced Pages's behavioral standards. The Committee is concerned that Giano and other observers may conclude that there is no effective enforcement of these standards.

The Committee reluctantly requires Giano to leave the project for a period of two weeks, after which he is encouraged to return. We hope to see more of the excellent writing which is the greatest strength Giano brings to the project. In recognizance of Giano's standing within the community, he is expected to observe this remedy voluntarily; his account shall not be blocked to enfore this remedy unless it becomes clear that he is in deliberate violation of this it.

Support:

1. I rather like this. First choice. I do not think that this is an exception beyond the pale, given Giano's contributions and his difficult history. James F. (talk) 00:49, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose:

1. I have decided that exceptions for "good contributors" are inappropriate, some leeway, yes, but not to the proposed degree. Fred Bauder 15:39, 29 December 2006 (UTC) He was already excused, if not explicitly warned in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Giano. Fred Bauder 15:42, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
2. I don't feel that this would accomplish much. Flcelloguy (A note?) 03:39, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
3. Paul August ☎ 05:43, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Abstain:

1. I shall refrain from voting on this measure for the time being since I did not vote in the original case. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 15:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
2. Nor this. Charles Matthews 17:39, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Modification of above remedies

Alternative to the above two remedies; combines elements of both

The committee recognizes Giano's contributions to the encylopedia and also recognizes that he may have been "baited" to respond by other users; however, because of his continuing incivility and inappropriate responses, Giano ((Giano (talk · contribs), Giano II (talk · contribs) or subsequent accounts) is banned for one week. After the conclusion of the ban, he is placed on civility parole for one year; he may be blocked for 24 hours, or up to a week for repeated offenses, for any edit which three uninvolved administrators deem to be a personal attack or incivility. The block must be proposed and then affirmed by the three adminstrators at the administrators' noticeboard, and all blocks must be logged at Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Giano#Log of blocks and bans and noted on Giano's talk page.

With 14 arbitrators now active, the majority is 8. Thatcher131 08:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Note: with my recuse in this case the number of active arbitrators is 13 and the majority is 7. FloNight 14:35, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Support:

1. Second choice Fred Bauder 21:03, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
2. Second choice. James F. (talk) 00:49, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
3. First choice. Dmcdevit·t 02:02, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
4. First choice. Flcelloguy (A note?) 03:39, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Oppose:

1. Paul August ☎ 05:44, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Abstain:

1. Nor this. Can we start from scratch? Charles Matthews 17:39, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm of a similar mind here - starting from scratch rather than patching on remedies seems to be the way to go, IMO. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 20:22, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Archives

• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Completed requests
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Rejected requests (extremely sparse, selective, and unofficial)

• Misplaced Pages dispute resolution