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Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

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Requests for clarification and amendment

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!)

1. 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.
2. Save your request and check that it looks how you think it should and says what you intended.
3. 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.
4. 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 Misplaced Pages, 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-llists.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 Misplaced Pages: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.
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Clarification request: The Troubles

Initiated by Swarm at 00:39, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

The Troubles arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• Swarm (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)

Statement by Swarm

Greetings. So, WP:TROUBLES#Guide to enforcement contains a 2011 provision that places all pages in the topic area under a blanket 1RR page restriction that is specifically enforceable without warning, provided {{Troubles restriction}} has been placed on the talk page. This directly contradicts the current awareness criteria for enforcing page restrictions, and it's unclear to me whether that provision is exempt from, or has been superseded by, the modern awareness criteria that were implemented in 2014 and 2018. In spite of the contradiction with standard practice, it continues to be advertised as an active sanction on many articles, which is apparently validated on the case page. However, there's no apparent record, anywhere, of an intentional exemption to ArbCom's now-standardized procedure regarding awareness. It also claims to derive its authority, at least in part, from a community decision, but there is no record of such a restriction at WP:GS or on the case page, so it's unclear as to whether the "no warning" provision is actually the will of the community. Thanks in advance.

Statement by T. Canens

The 1RR restriction originated from an AE discussion in 2008 and was clarified in an ANI discussion in 2009. It's not clear whether the 2011 motion superseding "all extant remedies" actually superseded these restrictions, since these aren't actually arbcom remedies, but looking at the history of User:Coren/draft this appears to be the intent.

Additionally, it is not clear whether and how the later changes to the DS system impact a page restriction imposed in 2011 given the provisions in WP:AC/DS#Continuity (Nothing in this current version of the discretionary sanctions process constitutes grounds for appeal of a remedy or restriction imposed under prior versions of it. and All sanctions and restrictions imposed under earlier versions of this process remain in force.). T. Canens (talk) 08:51, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

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.

The Troubles: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

• By its own terms, the motion applies only to page restrictions placed as discretionary sanctions and does not apply to restrictions directly imposed by the Committee, such as 1RR from The Troubles or the General Prohibition from PIA3. As far as I remember, comments from arbitrators from the original motion supported that interpretation. Similar interpretation at the ACN talk thread. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 01:46, 15 May 2018 (UTC) I'm not recusing because this is a procedural clarification request per Jan 2018 precedent (mailing list login required). Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 01:49, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Sorry, I misread this. Community consensus was apparently here: permalink. Looks like it was at AE, though, so it probably doesn't really count as a community-imposed sanction. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 02:01, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
  • It also appears that if the community did impose 1RR, it may have been rescinded by ArbCom in this motion, which superseded "All extant remedies of The Troubles" with the intention of "Clarity and complying with general expectations", as arbitrator David Fuchs said. In any event, this ends up beyond the clerks' pay grade in interpreting ArbCom decisions. Hope the links help. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 02:06, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

The Troubles: Arbitrator views and discussion

• The general 1RR in the area was placed as a discretionary sanction by an administrator, so it is subject to the awareness criteria while enforcing it. This includes the requirements for page restrictions, as individual administrators cannot supersede the awareness requirements set by the Committee. (They could theoretically make them more stringent, but not less.) ~ Rob₁₃ 16:21, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
  • @Swarm: Do you find the answer here clear? If so, I'll have a clerk archive this. If not, I'll prod additional arbitrators for comment, but I strongly suspect it will be more of the same ("Yes, notifications should be made").
  • @Euryalus: The 1RR without warning was placed as a discretionary sanction, not by the Committee. Does that change things for you? Are you suggesting discretionary sanctions placed before our change of awareness criteria go by a different set of rules? If so, that has major implications for page restrictions, etc. ~ Rob₁₃ 03:46, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
• The concept of giving a warning, before blocking or sanctioning an editor for innocently violating a DS restriction, originated in a comment I made in a 2008 case that it would be unfair to penalize an editor for doing something that is generally allowed, but isn't allowed on a page covered by DS. The intent was certainly not that this observation evolve into a complicated rule-set of "awareness criteria," in parallel with the rules-creep that continues to take place all over the wiki (as observed in this essay by a community-elected WMF trustee). The importance of reasonable warnings is reinforced when we periodically get AE or ARCA appeals from editors who are blocked or topic-banned for a DS breach and respond in good faith along the lines of "I didn't know there was any such rule" or "what the heck are you talking about?" To me, "warn before sanctioning if it isn't clear the editor knew (or clearly should have known) he or she was violating a restriction or acting improperly" remains a basic precept of wiki proportionality, fairness, and common sense. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:10, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Late to the party, but for what it's worth I agree with NYB. Arb-related sanctions are a topic with so much rules creep that I understand why this question was asked, and yet I also want to think we as a community can manage to warn people before sanctioning them even if WP:OMGWTFBBQ#RTFM paragraph 3 line 2 says you don't technically have to. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:39, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
• The DS warning system is a poor attempt to codify what should be commonsense. Prefer the approach outlined by NYB, where we don't actually mandate a slew of warnings and alerts before doing anything, but nonetheless have the courtesy to let people know if they've done the wrong thing before applying sanctions. FWIW, I reckon the without-warning-1RR technically still stands despite the later implementation of other processes, but its existence suggests we should again go through these older cases and review the surviving sanctions to see if they're worth updating or even keeping at all. -- Euryalus (talk) 03:43, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles 3

Initiated by Makeandtoss at 16:09, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Palestine-Israel articles 3 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. "All Arab–Israeli conflict-related pages, broadly interpreted, are subject to discretionary sanctions: Any uninvolved administrator may levy restrictions as an arbitration enforcement action on users editing in this topic area, after an initial notification."

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request

• Makeandtoss (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Information about amendment request

• "All Arab–Israeli conflict-related pages, broadly interpreted, are subject to discretionary sanctions: Any uninvolved administrator may levy restrictions as an arbitration enforcement action on users editing in this topic area, after an initial notification."

• Add:"An administrator may only add the protection template to the article relating to this case after having clearly demonstrated how the article is likely to witness edit-warring." or .."after having gotten a consensus from users and other admins"

Statement by Makeandtoss

Jordan for example, a high-level article with around 6,000 daily views, is held under the Arab-Israeli conflict arbitration template. No IPs or new accounts are allowed to edit the article, and a minor edit-war over content that may not even be related to the conflict will trigger harsh discretionary sanctions. 5 out of 95 paragraphs in the article discuss the Arab-Israeli conflict, and this somehow makes it eligible for the harsh sanctions. Another suggestion would be to make two sanction templates, the existing one for directly related articles to the conflict, and another 'diluted' form that allows IPs and new accounts to edit but restricts reverts to 2 and has less harsh sanctions. Makeandtoss (talk) 16:09, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Are they working as they are supposed to? Are the templates added to all the articles remotely relevant to the conflict, or do they only apply on some? Can't see any templates on US, EU, UN, UNSC, UK, Henry Kissinger, Gamal Abdul Nasser, Harry S. Truman? They all can be "related" to the conflict. Makeandtoss (talk) 16:44, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

Palestine-Israel articles 3: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Palestine-Israel articles 3: Arbitrator views and discussion

• No. That’s not how discretionary sanctions work. They are interpreted broadly for a reason. I will also note you’re actually asking us to also modify several other remedies related to this topic area (1RR and ECP), not just the discretionary sanctions. ~ Rob₁₃ 16:29, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
• Absolutely not. The sanctions are working exactly as they are designed to do so. RickinBaltimore (talk) 16:35, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• No. As Rick says, this is the way we designed them to work. Doug Weller talk 16:41, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Template:Q amendment request

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