Wikipedia:Arbitration policy proposed updating

Arbitration represents the final step in the English Wikipedia's dispute resolution procedures. This arbitration policy describes and provides guidelines for the workings of the Arbitration Committee (ArbCom). The Arbitration Policy was originally created and adopted in 2004, and has been updated in [month] 2008 by consensus of the community, as endorsed by Jimbo Wales and the present Arbitration Committee.

Committee membership and selection

The process for selecting members of the Arbitration Committee is discussed at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee.

General Arbitration Committee Conduct

Arbitration Committee responsibilities

The Arbitration Committee has the following duties and responsibilities:

1. To act as last resort other than the Wikipedia project leader or person appointed by the Wikimedia Foundation, for Wikipedia disputes posted to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration; and to determine which requests are suitable for arbitration and should be accepted and opened as cases, and to carefully review and render decisions in these cases;
2. To consider and address appeals from blocked or banned users, which should be presented via e-mail inasmuch as these users are not permitted to edit;
3. Where necessary, to deal in a summary fashion with urgent and emergency situations, such as those involving blatant abuse of administrator or other privileges, threatening or malicious conduct presenting a danger to the project or its contributors, and other situations that require immediate action or are not suited for on-wiki discussion because of privacy or similar concerns; and
4. To appoint certain functionaries of the English Wikipedia, including holders of the CheckUser and Oversight privileges, which may be granted to arbitrators and/or to other experienced editors.
5. Arbitrators are users endorsed and trusted by the community to undertake some of the most sensitive and wide ranging issues within the community. The trust of the community, the integrity and good faith of arbitrators, and the high standards expected, are to be respected in private wiki-related discussions, as in public.
6. Good communication and high standards are expected of arbitrators. More so than administrators, they are expected to enact high standards even under reasonable pressure. Arbitrators will explain their Wiki conduct and matters relevant to their trusted roles, to their colleagues, if their actions cause concern, and (privacy permitting) to the community.

Inactivity and resignation

1. Arbitrators may participate in either off-wiki or on-wiki committee tasks or both. Arbitrators who are (or are likely to be) inactive will advise the Committee and will be noted as inactive on-wiki when that is the case.
2. For any given case, an arbitrator is either active or inactive; the number of active arbitrators will determine the required quorum for voting purposes. An inactive arbitrator is deemed to be active on a case if they state they are active or by voting on any open matter in the case (including its acceptance). An active arbitrator may become inactive on a case by striking out their voting on any open matters and stating they are inactive. An inactive arbitrator may comment without becoming active.
3. A member of the committee who has been unreliably active or has been inactive for an extended period, may be asked by the Committee to remain inactive on formal cases until the matter is resolved or, in exceptional cases, may be removed without prejudice from the Committee by decision of the Committee and the Wikipedia project leader.
4. An arbitrator may resign at any time, for any or no stated reason.
5. An ex-arbitrator who resigns voluntarily may reclaim his or her seat at any time, until the date their appointment would have ended had they not resigned.
6. The Wikipedia project leader may veto re-instatement, or remove an Arbitrator from the Committee, upon reasonable cause.

Scope and Jurisdiction of Arbitration

Arbitration represents a forum for the binding resolution of disputes that cannot be or have not been resolved through other means.

1. The Committee has no jurisdiction over official actions of the Wikimedia Foundation, nor over Wikimedia projects other than the English Wikipedia.
2. The purpose of the arbitration process is not as a vehicle to create new policy. However, the committee's decisions can interpret existing policy and guidelines, recognize and call attention to standards of user conduct, or create procedures through which policy may be enforced.
3. The arbitration process primarily addresses disputes involving user conduct, rather than content disputes concerning the contents of articles or similar issues.

Requesting Arbitration

While the Committee reserve the right to hear or not hear any dispute at its discretion, the following are general guidelines for the case acceptance process:

1. Requests must be presented in the prescribed form on the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration page. All editors who would be directly affected by the desired outcome of the case must be notified.
2. The committee should normally require that editors show they have exhausted all the suitable steps outlined in the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution policy, before proceeding to arbitration.
3. Whether to accept or decline a request for arbitration is a matter of the arbitrators' discretion, which will be exercised in the best interests of the project and its contributors.
4. The committee should normaly hear a case despite the absence of prior dispute resolution where the case involves an unusually divisive dispute among administrators (e.g., "wheel warring" situations), where there has already been extensive discussion with wide community participation (e.g., contested "community ban" situations), or where there is a specific reason to believe that engaging the earlier steps of the dispute resolution process would not be productive.
5. The committee will consider, but is not bound by, the views of the parties to a request for arbitration and comments by other interested users in deciding whether or not to accept a case.
6. In cases seeking review of a lengthy block or community ban, the blocked or banned user may forward his or her request for review to the committee by e-mail. If any arbitrator considers that the request is worthy of on-wiki discussion, or if the request for review is filed by another user in good standing, any arbitrator may (but is not required to) allow a limited unblock for the purpose of allowing the blocked or banned user to edit the relevant arbitration pages only while the request for review is pending.
7. The committee will not reach a final decision on whether to accept or decline a case until there has been a reasonable opportunity for affected editors to comment. Once there are sufficient votes to accept, a waiting period of 24 hours will be observed before the case is formally opened, unless a majority of all active arbitrators have voted to accept the case or otherwise directed by the committee.
8. Where the committee declines a case, the individual arbitrators may express their views on other means available for resolving the dispute, to which the parties should give due consideration.

Automatic acceptance by referral

1. The committee will automatically accept cases that have been referred to it for decision by Wikipedia project leader and is likely to accept cases that are referred to it by formal action of the Mediation Committee.

Requesting appeals and review

1. Administrator or steward actions by the Wikipedia project leader taken in his special capacity (e.g., summary bannings or desysoppings) may be appealed to the committee. These cases are subject to acceptance under the same criteria as applied to other cases, and the committee may sustain, modify, or overturn the action of the Wikipedia project leader. The rule that Arbitration Committee decisions may be appealed to the Wikipedia project leader for his review does not apply in these cases.

Expedited remedy

1. Where the facts of a situation are substantially undisputed and the committee believes that it can issue a fair, well-informed, and useful remedy without opening a full-fledged case, it may act by open motion which will be proposed and voted upon on the requests for arbitration page. Adopting such a motion in lieu of opening a case requires a majority vote of all active arbitrators.

Case Conduct

General Guidelines

1. When a request for arbitration is accepted, the Arbitration Clerk will create the standard "evidence", "workshop", and "proposed decision" pages. In the course of doing so, the committee or a clerk will designate the case with an appropriate casename. The name of the case is for purposes of speedy identification only and has no substantive significance.
2. Cases are decided by the full Arbitration Committee rather than by panels or subcommittees. All active arbitrators (i.e., those not on leave or away from Wikipedia) are entitled to participate in each case, unless an arbitrator is recused in a particular case.
3. Previous Arbitration Committee decisions are considered to be useful and informative, but are not binding on future committee decisions.

Injunctions

1. At any time between the opening of a case and its closure, the arbitrators may enact "temporary injunctions" to remain in effect until the case closes.
2. Temporary injunctions take the form of remedies outlined below and are enforceable by blocks of appropriate length (usually no more than 24 hours for a first offense) against parties violating the injunction.
3. A temporary injunction is considered to have passed when four or more Arbitrators have voted in favour of it, where a vote in opposition negates a vote in support. A grace period of twenty-four hours is usually observed between the fourth affirmative vote and the enactment of the injunction; however, Arbitrators may, in exceptional circumstances, vote to implement an injunction immediately if four or more Arbitrators express a desire to do so in their votes, or if a majority of Arbitrators active on the case have already voted to support the injunction.

Recusal

1. An arbitrator shall recuse himself or herself in any case in which he or she has a conflict of interest, such as prior involvement in the substance of the dispute or a history of disagreements with one of the parties, such that his or her impartiality in the case could reasonably be questioned.
2. Any user who believes that circumstances call for an arbitrator's recusal should bring the matter to that arbitrator's attention for his or her consideration and response as soon as possible.
3. Recusal should not be sought or granted on trivial grounds, and requests after the case has entered the voting stage must provide strong reasons as to why such requests were not made before then.

Handling of evidence

1. Evidence, statements, and workshop proposals may be added to the case pages by the parties, interested other editors, and the Arbitrators themselves. Generally, the best evidence consists of, and should be supported by, Wikipedia edits ("diffs"), log entries for MediaWiki actions, posts to the official mailing lists, or other verifiable sources.
2. As a matter of policy, editors' behavior and comments during official mediation attempts may not be used against them in any resulting Arbitration case. An exception exists under Mediation policy for some behaviours, but the Arbitration Committee will usually consider the presentation of such evidence grossly improper unless the Mediation Committee has been consulted and affirmed prior to posting that they will not oppose it.
3. Evidence and statements should generally be presented on-wiki, as a matter of fairness to the parties and to allow for review and comment by other editors. However, where appropriate as a result of privacy or other considerations, editors may also forward evidence or statements via e-mail to the Arbitration Committee.
4. The committee may determine by majority vote that an entire case should be considered off-wiki, but this will be done only in extraordinary circumstances where warranted by legitimate considerations of privacy, risks of harassment, legal or other serious issues of this nature. Editors whose conduct is under review in connection with such a case will be advised and given the opportunity to submit evidence before any action is taken, except in true emergency situations.
5. The length of statements and evidence may be subject to reasonable limits.
6. Personal writings (including emails, other website posts, chat logs, and other writings or quoted material, which are not intended by their respective author(s) to be readable by anyone at will), should not be posted on-wiki except with explicit permission of the communicants, authors of any material that is quoted in the cited text, and any recipients who are being publicly named. They should be submitted privately to the Committee or any active Arbitrator instead, with full email headers (or equivalent) included. Where such permission is not forthcoming, a user wishing to cite from private correspondence on the Arbitration related pages may only do so if they obtain an arbitrator's opinion what is acceptable to post, and any redaction or summarizing needed, and the post is in accordance with that opinion.

Timely conduct

1. Except in unusual circumstances, a period of 7 days from the case opening will be allowed for the parties and other interested editors to present evidence and workshop proposals before the case proceeds to a proposed decision and arbitrator voting. Editors may continue presenting evidence and proposals after this period, but by that point the arbitrators may have moved on to the voting stage.
2. The arbitrators will use their best efforts to have a proposed decision drafted by an arbitrator, either on the workshop page or on the proposed decision page, within 7 days after the 7-day evidence period is closed (i.e., within 14 days after the case is opened). The arbitrators will use their best efforts to complete voting on the proposed decision within 7 days after the draft decision has been posted to the proposed decision page. However, these time guidelines are advisory, and no remedy will follow if the arbitrators are unable to meet them due to the press of other business or the complexity of a particular case.
3. If any stage of a case extends (or seems likely to extend) beyond the usual time allocated, then any Arbitrator should advise the community, and post an update giving details of progress and explanation no less than once every seven days.

Format, drafting and scope of Case Decisions

1. The format of decisions shall generally follow the established format of principles (general statements of policy), findings of fact (findings specific to the case), remedies (binding rulings regarding what is to be done), and enforcement provisions.
2. Each substantive statement or topic of principles, facts, or remedies shall be placed in a separate paragraph for purposes of voting. Where multiple statements or remedies have been combined in a single paragraph, they will be separated for voting at the request of any arbitrator.
3. In deciding cases, the arbitrators will rely upon factors including established Wikipedia customs and common practices, policies and guidelines, the reasonable expectations of the parties and the community, governing real-world norms including Wikimedia Foundation mandates, how comparable situations have been addressed by the committee and the community in the past, and the best interests of the project, the parties, and the community.
4. The arbitrators may discuss and deliberate on cases on their private mailing list, particularly where warranted by privacy or similar factors, but the substantive basis for the final decision should be apparent from the decision itself or from arbitrators' comments on it.
5. Decisions will be presented in clearly written English. The wording and significance of any provision whose meaning is unclear to other arbitrators, the parties, or other interested editors should be clarified upon request.

Voting on Case Decisions

1. Proposed decisions shall be posted and voted on on-wiki unless otherwise determined by a majority of the committee based on extraordinary cause.
2. Except in extraordinary circumstances, one full week shall pass from the case being opened until such time as any proposed decisions are proposed. Temporary injunctions should be used instead during this period. Allowance should be made to ensure that any parties affected by the proposed decisions have had a chance to state their case before findings are proposed, and extra time should be given where needed.
3. A majority vote of the active, non-recused arbitrators is required for the adoption of any portion of a decision. An arbitrator who abstains on a particular proposals is not counted in determining the required majority for purposes of that proposal only.
4. If the arbitrators determine at any time that issuing a formal decision in a case would serve no useful purpose (such as because of a change of circumstances, e.g. the voluntary resignation of an administrator whose conduct is the subject of a case) or that they are unable to reach a majority decision, they may decide by majority vote to dismiss the case without a decision.
5. When the proposed decision is in final form, an arbitrator will move to close the case. Four net votes in favor of closing the case are required. A grace period of a minimum of twenty-four hours shall be observed between the fourth net vote to close the case and the going into effect of those remedies passed in the case, unless four or more Arbitrators vote to close the case immediately, or if a majority of Arbitrators active on the case have voted to close the case.
6. When a case is closed, any immediately applicable remedies shall go into effect. Thereafter, allegations that an editor has violated an Arbitration Committee ruling may be raised (with notice to the affected editor) on Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement. If necessary, requests for clarification or modification of any decision may be placed on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Requests for clarification.

Recommendation and consultation on policy or guideline changes

1. During a case, the Arbcom may vote to recommend changes in policy or guidelines for clarity or to meet a perceived need, but this does not prevent later modification of the policy or guideline by the community.
2. On closure of the case where minor revisions or amendments to policy, which do not substantially alter or deviate a policy's intent, have received a majority of votes; an arbitrator or clerk should edit the appropriate policy or guideline, with their edit summary stating that it is a "Recommended change by the Arbitration committee". Once the change is made, the community may edit, change, or even revert it as per standard consensus-building processes.
3. On closure of the case where major revisions or amendments to policy, which substantially alter or deviate a policy's intent, have received a majority of votes; an arbitrator or clerk should create a project page for community consultation on the changes to policy, ensuring it is advertised in suitable locations, and to be used to gauge consensus for approving the changes to policy.

Appeal of Case Decisions

1. Remedies and enforcement actions may be appealed to, and are subject to modification by, the Wikipedia project leader, except where the case involves review of one of Wikipedia project leader's own administrator or steward actions.

See also

• Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration
• Meta:Arbitration Committee