World War II case comes to a close; ban appeal, motions, and more

The Arbitration Committee opened no cases this week, but closed one today, leaving one case open.

Open case

The deadline which has been set for evidence submissions in this case is 15 January 2011. The original deadline, 3 December 2010, was extended after parties made requests to have more time to present their evidence. At the time of writing, except for this, no further evidence or workshop proposals have been submitted on-wiki during the week.

Closed cases

This case concerns allegations about misrepresentation of sources, disruptive editing, and WikiProject Military history (the Mil-Hist WikiProject). The filer and main party of the case, Communicat (talk · contribs), made a series of accusations about the behavior of editors of the Mil-hist WikiProject. He also alleged that World War II articles rely on orthodox Western sources to the exclusion of non-Western or significant-minority Western positions. Other editors, including editors from the WikiProject, made accusations about Communicat's editing and behavior. Evidence and workshop proposals were submitted (see earlier Signpost coverage), and the drafter of the case, arbitrator Newyorkbrad, posted a proposed decision for voting on 6 January 2011 which attracted votes from 13 arbitrators. The case came to a close today.

What is the effect of the decision and what does it tell us?

Communicat is indefinitely topic banned from articles about World War II or the Aftermath of World War II.

Communicat may appeal the topic ban after 6 months. Should he appeal the topic ban, the Committee would consider whether he will edit collaboratively and in accordance with Wikipedia policies and guidelines in other topic-areas.

Communicat is subject to a civility restriction for 1 year.

Users who engage in tendentious or disruptive editing may be subject to bans.

Articles need to comply with core policies concerning verifiability, reliable sources, neutral point of view and original research; editors should avoid misusing sources.

On 5 January 2011, Piotrus (talk · contribs) requested the Committee to lift his modified topic ban which bans him from "articles about national, cultural, or ethnic disputes within Eastern Europe, their associated talk pages, and any process discussion about these topics". The ban is set to expire on 2 March 2011. On 6 January 2011, Newyorkbrad indicated that arbitrators are waiting for others to comment, including on whether the topic-ban should be lifted altogether or whether the wording of the topic ban should be clarified. The question about the wording being clarified arose after this arbitration enforcement appeal. Although an editor has supported Piotrus' request, two administrators have repeated their requests for the restriction to be amended - to better-communicate ArbCom's intent in a clearly worded editing restriction.

Motions

On 14 December 2010, Jayjg (talk · contribs) requested the Committee to lift the topic ban that was imposed on him at the conclusion of the case. The Committee accepted his request and a motion was passed; Jayjg is no longer banned from Arab-Israeli conflict-related articles.

On 30 November 2010, Koavf (talk · contribs) requested for his Community sanctions to be lifted. Arbitrator Newyorkbrad formally proposed a motion on 3 January 2011 to terminate the restrictions that were placed upon Koavf in the Koavf arbitration. 12 arbitrators supported the motion and it was adopted on 6 January 2011. On 9 January 2011, clerk NuclearWarfare pointed out that the motion does not address the community sanctions. Newyorkbrad apologized for the delay and proposed to copyedit the motion. He said that unless an arbitrator objects to the change he made to the motion ([1]), it will be considered adopted as if the Community sanctions have also been removed. As no objections were made, the motion was passed today.