Noticeboard
Clerks' Noticeboard
This Noticeboard's primary purpose is to facilitate co-ordination between members of the Clerk team, as well as communication on non-private matters between the Arbitration Committee itself, and its Clerks. The page may also be used by non-Clerks to attract the attention of the Clerks to a particular matter. Non-Clerks are welcome to comment on this page in the event that the Clerks appear to have "missed something."
Private matters
The Clerks may be contacted privately, in the event a matter could not be prudently addressed publicly (ie., on this page), by composing an email to clerks-llists.wikimedia.org; only the Clerk team and individual Arbitrators may read emails sent to that list.
Procedures
A procedural reference for Clerks (and Arbitrators) is located here.
Archives
Most comments here are not archived as they concern simple daily case administration and maintenance issues; rather they will be cleared by a Clerk when they become stale. (This Noticeboard often operates as more of a virtual whiteboard for co-ordination purposes than a formal discussion page.) Discussions of note, however, or of historical interest, are archived: see archives I and II.
Conflict of interest
If a particular Clerk has a serious conflict of interest regarding the subject-matter of a case or one or more of the parties to it, that Clerk should recuse himself or herself from the case in favor of some other Clerk. In any event, no Clerk should be involved in a case as both a Clerk and participant. A Clerk who wishes to make a statement in a case or provide evidence must refrain from acting as a Clerk with respect to that case. (This does not prejudice his or her right to perform cosmetic refactoring of evidence and workshop pages, as is the right of any editor.) In unclear situations, the Arbitration Committee should be consulted.
Calculation of majority
In opening a case we have to determine the majority for the case. This number goes in a statement at the head of Proposed decision.
Check for recent updates to the active list at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee#Members, and check for Arbitrators who are recused from that case. A majority is half the number of active Arbitrators, rounded up to the nearest whole number, or plus one if the number of active Arbs is an even number. (For example, if there are 8 or 9 active Arbitrators, the majority will be 5.) Seek assistance on this page or on #wikipedia-en-arbcom-clerks with the arithmetic if necessary.
Updating the majority: The majority should be calculated when the case is opened, and updated when the case is listed for voting. After a case is opened for voting, do not update the number of active Arbitrators if an Arbitrator becomes active, as that Arbitrator may not feel capable of casting an informed vote. However, if the Arbitrator does cast a vote, then consider him or her active on the case and update the majority if necessary. If an Arbitrator goes on the inactive list during voting, recalculate the majority unless the Arbitrator has already voted. Similar procedures are followed when new Arbitrators are appointed to the Arbitration Committee.
Arbitrators who vote "abstain" on a given proposal are deducted from the number of available Arbitrators on that proposal (i.e., the same as if they were recused on that issue). Thus, the majority with respect to such a proposal may be different from the remaining proposals in the same case.
- See below for the current listing of active and inactive Arbitrators for use in determining the majority.
Statement and evidence length
- Statements at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration should be kept to around 500 words and 50 diffs. For an off-Wiki Javascript utility that quickly counts the number of words used in a statement, see here; simply copy and paste the entire statement, excluding the final signature, into the text box there.
- Evidence submissions should be kept to around 1000 words and 100 diffs for parties; and 500 words and 50 diffs for non-parties.
- The Arbitrators have asked us to remove excessively long evidence presentations and ask the parties to reduce their size.
- {{ArbComSize}} may be used for this purpose.
- Usage: {{subst:ArbComSize}} ~~~~
- The generic {{notice}} template is also useful.
- Usage for parties:
{{notice|The Arbitration Committee has asked that evidence presentations be kept to around 1000 words and 100 diffs. Your presentation is over xxxx words. Please edit your section to focus on the most relevant evidence. If you wish to submit over-length evidence, you must first obtain the agreement of the arbitrators by posting a request on the /Evidence talk page. For the Arbitration Committee, ~~~~}}
- Usage for non-parties:
{{notice|The Arbitration Committee has asked that evidence presentations be kept to around 500 words and 50 diffs. Your presentation is over xxxx words. Please edit your section to focus on the most relevant evidence. If you wish to submit over-length evidence, you must first obtain the agreement of the arbitrators by posting a request on the /Evidence talk page. For the Arbitration Committee, ~~~~}}
Contents
- 1 Noticeboard
- 2 Discussion
- 2.1 Possible Doncram result change
- 2.2 Cleanup on aisle Kevin
- 2.3 foolish inconsistency
- 2.4 Pages restored for Richard Arthur Norton case
- 2.5 Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Rich Farmbrough
- 2.6 Sexology case - new initial statement added
- 2.7 Wikipedia:ARBAA2#Standard discretionary sanctions
- 2.8 Closed case template
- 2.9 User name changed
- 2.10 Please close
- 2.11 Reopening a case
- 2.12 Open Tasks Template
- Clerks and trainees: Please coordinate your actions through the mailing list. The purpose of this page is for editors who are not clerks to request clerk assistance.
Arbitrator announcements
Members
The current members of the Arbitration Committee are listed below. Arbitrators may be active or inactive. The inactive designation includes members who are on wikibreak, who have not participated in arbitration within the past week, or who have indicated their absence. The following list is accurate as of 16 July 2013:
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- Active arbitrators
- Courcelles (talk · contribs)
- David Fuchs (talk · contribs)
- Kirill Lokshin (talk · contribs)
- Newyorkbrad (talk · contribs)
- NuclearWarfare (talk · contribs)
- Risker (talk · contribs)
- Roger Davies (talk · contribs)
- Salvio giuliano (talk · contribs)
- SilkTork (talk · contribs)
- Timotheus Canens (talk · contribs)
- Worm That Turned (talk · contribs)
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- Inactive arbitrators
- AGK (talk · contribs)
- Carcharoth (talk · contribs)
- Arbitrators, please note if you wish to declare yourself active or away/inactive, either generally or for specific cases. The clerks will update the relevant cases as needed. If you are returning, please indicate whether you wish to be: 1) Put back to active on all cases; 2) Left on inactive on all open cases, and only put to active on new cases; or 3) Left to set yourself to active on cases you wish (remember to update the majority on its /Proposed decision page).
Long term projects
Discussion
- Please use this section if you are not a clerk or arbitrator, but require clerical assistance.
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Possible Doncram result change
Could someone update the counts at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Doncram/Proposed decision? I think a passing remedy may have just flipped when another one passed. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:26, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
- This is done. - Penwhale | dance in the air and follow his steps 03:01, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks, nice to know I can still count. :-) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 03:05, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Cleanup on aisle Kevin
Could a clerk review Demiurge's latest statement at the Kevin RFAR, and remove the unsupported casual slander than Kevin is somehow involved in trying to out Gwickwire? I hope we aren't at a point where that kind of unfounded accusation remains just because it can't be proved false. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:36, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
- I have redacted the statement. Thanks Floquem. — ΛΧΣ21 02:54, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks. --Floquenbeam (talk) 03:24, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
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clerks-l list. NE Ent 10:45, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
- Noted, accepted, and acted on --Guerillero | My Talk 13:43, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
foolish inconsistency
On Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Temporary_desysop_of_Kevin could a clerk either change "Motion 1" to "Motion (1)" or change "Motion (2)" to "Motion 2"? (Yes, it's not important, but you can humor me, can't ya?) NE Ent 21:12, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
Done --Guerillero | My Talk 22:50, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
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- Thx. NE Ent 01:48, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Pages restored for Richard Arthur Norton case
A number of articles previously deleted as copyright violations were temporarily restored for a recently-closed arbitration case (see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Evidence#Deleted_evidence). These pages were supposed to be re-deleted upon the conclusion of the case, but they seem to have been forgotten and the arbitrator who restored them has since resigned their adminship. Can some official functionary re-delete them? Hut 8.5 21:22, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
- WTT deleted them --Guerillero | My Talk 22:08, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Rich Farmbrough
Hi, the above (closed) section is now used for general threaded discussion about the outcome of the request. I'm pretty sure that this isn't the place for it, but as the admin whose closure is being discussed, I probably shouldn't be the one to move the discussion to the appropriate talk page. Could one of the clerks please determine whether that discussion should be moved? Thanks, Sandstein 10:55, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Done by not a clerk per not bureaucracy NE Ent 11:46, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Sexology case - new initial statement added
With these two edits Jmanooch (talk · contribs) has added an initial statement to the main case page of a case that is currently awaiting the proposed decision being posted. This is clearly in violation of the instructions not to edit the page, but I'm not sure whether my moving it to the talk would also be against that. Please would a clerk do the honours (or clarify that anyone can). Thryduulf (talk) 03:22, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
- I have taken care of the situation. Thanks for the note, Thryduulf. — ΛΧΣ21 04:24, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia:ARBAA2#Standard discretionary sanctions
Hi. That remedy's wording was modified by a motion, but the new wording wasn't added. If that is an oversight, could a clerk please fix it? Thanks, Sandstein 20:25, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
- Fixed. Regards --Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 23:52, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
Closed case template
Following the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests#note, (permanent link) I think it would be helpful for there to be a template added to the top of closed arbitration case pages and talk pages. The template would simply state that the case is now closed and comments left there may not receive a quick response and may not be seen by arbitrators. It would direct users to the best location to ask questions/make simple requests (WT:ARBCOM or WT:A/R), seek clarification (WP:ARCA), and seek enforcement (WP:AE).
This could be done as a separate template or combined with the {{casenav}} template, maybe with a "|closed=yes" parameter that added to/modified the template.
The initial addition could certainly be done by a bot (add to every page that transcludes {{casenav}} that isn't an open case). The addition of the template/parameter wouldn't seem like much extra as part of the normal closing duties, and again could very easily be a bot task. Thryduulf (talk) 00:10, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
- I think adding a note to Template:Casenav/closed would be the best option, however the problem is that Casenav is substed when a case is closed (and isn't on the pages of some old cases at all). So whilst we would be able to do it from now on, getting the message onto the pages of old cases might be a bit more hit and miss - ideas? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:57, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
- I wouldn't worry about it too much. Posting on an old case page isn't a logical thing to do; if it's important the editor will repost on more visible forum. NE Ent 01:27, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
- Except recent experience shows that people do post on old case pages expecting that to be sufficiently prominent, get annoyed that it isn't and don't know where an appropriate higher profile venue is.
- As for Callanecc's question, are there any pages in the Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/ and Wikipedia:Requests for Arbitration/Case/ hierarchies that are not part of arbitration cases? It not would be trivial to exclude the currently open cases from a trawl though those. For those pages that don't have a casenav (or where it is not possible for a bot to detect whether it is present) then maybe a standalone template could be added/substed to those with the more elegent solution used going forwards. Thryduulf (talk) 10:21, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
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- As the editor who posted the original note referred to above, I would like to thank Thryduulf for his attention to this item and for his actions on this, above. I think I would agree that a note in the template might be helpful, in order to direct editors to post any such notes at a more prominent or more well-used page. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 11:14, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
- Is it possible to create a cascading editnotice for all articles beginning in "WP:Requests for arbitration/" or "WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case/"? NW (Talk) 14:20, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
- Technically that would be a group notice, and we'd need four (the two page hierarchies and the two talk hierarchies) for which WP:EDITNOTICE recommends transcluding a template. The one issue is that I don't think it is possible to distinguish the open cases from the closed cases with edit notices (and we really don't want to mislead people into thinking an open case is closed). WP:EDITNOTICE suggests that protected pages can be distinguished from non-protected ones, but some open case pages are protected before a case is closed (e.g. evidence pages closed before the proposed decision is made) and I'm not sure whether this requires the interaction of something on the individual page or not. I'll see if I can find someone with more technical understanding to comment as I'm out of my depth here! Thryduulf (talk) 16:45, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
- It's not productive to full protect pages as it prevents editors from maintanence activities, such as category work or adding {{anchor}}s to reference specific parts of pages for current discussions. NE Ent 21:53, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
- I wasn't proposing to. My point was that as some pages of open cases are protected, that cannot be used to determine whether a case is closed or not. Anyway, I left a note at WT:EDITNOTICE, but it's garnered no attention at all yet. Thryduulf (talk) 18:14, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
- It's not productive to full protect pages as it prevents editors from maintanence activities, such as category work or adding {{anchor}}s to reference specific parts of pages for current discussions. NE Ent 21:53, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
- Technically that would be a group notice, and we'd need four (the two page hierarchies and the two talk hierarchies) for which WP:EDITNOTICE recommends transcluding a template. The one issue is that I don't think it is possible to distinguish the open cases from the closed cases with edit notices (and we really don't want to mislead people into thinking an open case is closed). WP:EDITNOTICE suggests that protected pages can be distinguished from non-protected ones, but some open case pages are protected before a case is closed (e.g. evidence pages closed before the proposed decision is made) and I'm not sure whether this requires the interaction of something on the individual page or not. I'll see if I can find someone with more technical understanding to comment as I'm out of my depth here! Thryduulf (talk) 16:45, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
- Is it possible to create a cascading editnotice for all articles beginning in "WP:Requests for arbitration/" or "WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case/"? NW (Talk) 14:20, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
- As the editor who posted the original note referred to above, I would like to thank Thryduulf for his attention to this item and for his actions on this, above. I think I would agree that a note in the template might be helpful, in order to direct editors to post any such notes at a more prominent or more well-used page. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 11:14, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
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- I wouldn't worry about it too much. Posting on an old case page isn't a logical thing to do; if it's important the editor will repost on more visible forum. NE Ent 01:27, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
You would need to timely update the list of open cases. The template would show a default for closed cases, something else for open cases. The syntax could be:
{{#switch: {{#titleparts: {{FULLPAGENAME}} | 1 | 4 }} | Open case 1 | Open case 2 | Open case 3 | ... = Template if case is open | #default = Template if case is closed }}
.
This would just make the procedures a little bit more complicated than they already are. Cenarium (talk) 18:34, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
- As an example of template, see User:Cenarium/Sandbox/Case is. I added the distinction "suspended". Then this template could be called by something such as :
{{#switch: {{User:Cenarium/Sandbox/Case is}}| open = Text if open | suspended = Text if suspended | closed = Text if closed }}
. You could call it in the arb navbox and in the editnotice, and others if needed. Cenarium (talk) 21:42, 2 July 2013 (UTC) - Why not adding related changes to the navbox as well, as had been suggested in the past ? This can be done only on open cases. Cenarium (talk) 22:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
- Thank you for your response, and for the ping on my talk page. I don't pretend to understand the code, but it seems to enable what is being suggested above for the edit notices? Thryduulf (talk) 23:07, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
- Yes, provided you update the template with the list of open cases and suspended cases when a case status changes. I could create Template:Arbitration case status and make the navigation and editnotice templates check it, if you agree (I must be "authorized" to change those). Cenarium (talk) 20:58, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
- Thank you for your response, and for the ping on my talk page. I don't pretend to understand the code, but it seems to enable what is being suggested above for the edit notices? Thryduulf (talk) 23:07, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
- Arbitrators have been invited to comment here. My comment is this: I think we've gotten rather absurd in the complexity of the templates related to arbitration, and that they need to be simplified, not made more complex. No template. No coding. Simple edit notice if someone really feels it is necessary; personally, I'm not entirely convinced it is necessary, but a case could be made. We need to stop making things as complex as possible, and instead I would rather see a reworking of almost all of the related templates so that even a newbie without technical education can file a case, make comments, submit evidence, or start an arbitration enforcement request. Right now, I am not entirely certain that I could do it. Risker (talk) 17:42, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
- Template:Casenav is quite complex, and I think the way it has been implemented is actually suboptimal. This proposed case status template is exceedingly simple and would add no complexity, in fact it would allow to decrease the complexity of casenav. Indeed, it would automatically detect if the case is open or suspended. Adding a "recently closed" status would also simplify quite a bit. Cenarium (talk) 18:47, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
- Oh, I know Casenav is very complex. I also know that any template that involves the term "#switch" is a gigantic "don't touch this unless you've been writing template code for years" warning to anyone who...well, hasn't been dealing with template code for a long time. As I say, I'm already certain I would fail miserably as an arbitration clerk. Risker (talk) 19:22, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
- Template:ArbComOpenTasks is complicated as well. By simply listing cases by status at Template:Arbitration case list, it will no longer require updating (provided an option closure date is added in Casenav data). However, I imagine having to subst those casenav templates at case closures is a hassle for clerks, moreover this method is a source of errors, can't properly handle cases being reopened or reviewed and gets broken in old revisions (example). With this new template, we can do much better. Instead of updating the /data subpage, a subtemplate would be created for each case with all the case data (we can also simplify shortcut links this way). The new casenav template would check the case status and fill in the correct data. This would significantly decrease the workload of clerks. Cenarium (talk) 01:09, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
- Oh, I know Casenav is very complex. I also know that any template that involves the term "#switch" is a gigantic "don't touch this unless you've been writing template code for years" warning to anyone who...well, hasn't been dealing with template code for a long time. As I say, I'm already certain I would fail miserably as an arbitration clerk. Risker (talk) 19:22, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
- Template:Casenav is quite complex, and I think the way it has been implemented is actually suboptimal. This proposed case status template is exceedingly simple and would add no complexity, in fact it would allow to decrease the complexity of casenav. Indeed, it would automatically detect if the case is open or suspended. Adding a "recently closed" status would also simplify quite a bit. Cenarium (talk) 18:47, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
User name changed
Tenmei, who also edited for a period under the name Ansei (talk · contribs), has recently changed his name as such to avoid the drama associated with it to Enkyo2 (talk · contribs). He was subject to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Tang Dynasty and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Senkaku Islands under which he is under an indefinite topic ban. Shouldn't the two case pages be edited to reflect this change in user name?—Ryulong (琉竜) 01:12, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
- Don't see a need as Ansei is clearly linked (via redirect) to new user name. NE Ent 01:43, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
- Tenmei is no longer editing as "Ansei" though. He has changed his user name to "Enkyo2" in what seems to be a means to step away from what happened as "Tenmei". Should his change from "Tenmei" to "Enkyo2" be reflected in the cases, particularly WP:SENKAKU where he has a topic ban.—Ryulong (琉竜) 07:55, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
Please close
my request as I am withdrawing the request. Thank you. Oda Mari (talk) 07:27, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
Reopening a case
Nothing positive can come from allowing this conversation to persist. If an arb case needs to be filed it is that away. --In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 20:08, 16 July 2013 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
I was told by an admin that the correct procedure for petitioning to reopen a suspended arbitration case is to contact a clerk. Therefore, I am asking that the Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests#Ebionites 2 case be reopened. Ignocrates (talk) 18:23, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
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Open Tasks Template
I would like to draw attention to Template:ArbComOpenTasks/ClarificationAmendment. The only outstanding question listed in the template has been archived for over 4 days leading to a disconnect between the status on the Open Tasks template and the page itself. I would also like to draw attention to the continued listing of the Sexology case as "Recently Closed" when it has been over 60 days since the case was concluded. Hasteur (talk) 21:03, 26 June 2013 (UTC)