Two cases closed – what does the Coanda decision tell us?

The Arbitration Committee closed two cases during the week, and opened no new cases. Two cases are currently open.

Open cases

During the week, another 86 kilobytes was submitted as on-wiki evidence while proposals and comments were submitted in the workshop by arbitrators, parties and others.

During the week, further comments were submitted in the workshop by arbitrators, parties and others.

Closed cases

This case was opened after allegations of tendentious POV-pushing and a content dispute involving the usage of sources in the Coanda-1910 article. Evidence was submitted on-wiki by four editors. Drafters Newyorkbrad and Jclemens posted a proposed decision last week, and the case came to a close this week after 14 arbitrators voted on the proposed decision.

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

The scope of sanctions imposed as remedies in arbitration cases, such as topic-bans, should be clearly defined so as to avoid later misunderstandings and disagreements. A sanction remedy should also clearly specify the duration of the sanction and the procedure available to the sanctioned user to seek lifting or modification of the sanction.

Lsorin (talk · contribs) is indefinitely topic banned; he cannot edit or comment on articles about the Coandă-1910 aircraft, its inventor Henri Coandă, or the history of the jet engine, anywhere on Wikipedia. Lsorin may request that the topic ban be terminated or modified after at least 6 months have elapsed. In considering any such request, the Committee will give significant weight to whether Lsorin has established an ability to edit collaboratively and in accordance with Wikipedia policies and guidelines in other topic-areas of the project. This topic ban does not preclude Lsorin from responding to good-faith, reasonable inquiries from other editors on his user talkpage seeking information about the Coandă-1910, as long as Lsorin does not misuse this permission.

Editors should endeavor in good faith to work toward consensus when content disputes arise. Editors are not required to abandon their beliefs about historical or other facts, or to simulate agreement with article content with which they continue to disagree. However, where consensus is clear, after appropriate discussion and the use of applicable dispute resolution methods, disagreeing editors should not edit against that consensus; it may cross into the line of disruptive editing and may warrant sanctions.

This case was opened to examine the circumstances surrounding the removal of Rodhullandemu (talk · contribs)'s administrative privileges, and his conduct and status as an administrator. When opening the case, the Committee revoked an earlier motion and replaced it with a motion which suspended Rodhullandemu's administrator privileges for the duration of the case. Evidence was submitted on-wiki by six editors, including recused arbitrator Elen of the Roads, and the subject of the case, Rodhullandemu.

Case closed by motion

During the week, the Committee passed a motion. The motion notes that while the case was open, Rodhullandemu was blocked for reasons unrelated to the issues raised in the case, and that since then, the Committee voted to indefinitely block Rodhullandemu. (cf. last week's Signpost coverage). The motion concluded that "[a]ccordingly, Rodhullandemu's administrator privileges are revoked and the case is closed."

Other

AUSC appointments

The Committee has announced the criteria which were used for the Wikipedia:Audit Subcommittee (AUSC) appointments that were published in last week's Signpost. Unless announced otherwise, these criteria will be used for future AUSC appointments.

Changes requested to CU/OS

The Committee requested (bugzilla:28440) that the deletedhistory, deletedtext, and browsearchive rights be added to the CheckUser and Oversight permission groups; this was to remove the technical limitation that these permission groups must also be administrators to review deleted content.