This was another active week for the Arbitration Committee. One new case has been opened, for a total of four active cases. Details of cases are correct as of Saturday, August 20.
The Senkaku Islands dispute—over a group of five islands in the East China Sea administered by Japan since 1972 but claimed by China—is itself the subject of dispute here on Wikipedia along with its parent article Senkaku Islands.
The figurehead point of controversy appears to be the name, Senkaku Islands, which, as the Japanese name, has been alleged as supportive of the Japanese side in the dispute. As a result, a handful of editors have been pushing for the Chinese name instead, and many arguing for the anglicized The Pinnacle Islands as a correct, NPOV descriptor. The point has seen many discussions, an RFC, and mediation. Since 2005 the article on the Senkaku Islands has been moved eleven times, but is now back where it started. To what extent the article should acknowledge the other names of the islands has also been a point of edit warring, with the current text including significant coverage. Comparisons to the dispute of the name of the Liancourt Rocks—islands claimed by both Japan and South Korea—have been drawn. In that dispute, an anglicized name was chosen over the Korean or Japanese names, although the dominant consensus has consistently been that "Senkaku Islands" is the name most commonly used in English publications for the islands. Edit warring in the body of the two articles has also been significant, with many users feeling that the article endorses the Japanese claim to the islands.
The dispute has seen established users in good standing on both sides of the issue.
The request was opened on August 13 by Qwyrxian who wrote that (s)he has "come to believe that until the behavioral problems are corrected, we will be unable to make constructive progress on the article content". Eleven parties gave statements and the case was accepted unanimously by eight arbitrators with one recusal. Arbitrator Coren wrote in his acceptance that the Senkaku Islands dispute is "a relatively simple case where it's likely consensus could be reached if everyone behaved and where Arbcom could help by making sure everybody does."
Since its opening on August 17 it has seen little activity so far; STSC and Penwhale have presented brief statements of support for the position that 'Senkaku Islands' is not NPOV. Tenmei has posted some stock principles in the workshop.
No drafting arbitrator has been assigned yet.
The case, which centers on the naming of abortion-related articles and related behavioral issues, proceeded into its second week. Three more uses have presented evidence this week:
In the workshop Steven Zhang proposed some very broad principles and remedies, Anythingyouwant and HuskyHuskie proposed principles, findings of fact, and remedies in line with their respective sides of the dispute.
The case involves allegations of non-neutral editing by Cirt and also allegations against Jayen466 that he has stalked and harassed Cirt. Three more users presented evidence this week,
The case, which was broken off from the Cirt and Jayen466 case to be a somewhat unusual investigation of BLP policy, proceeds into its third week. The sluggish addition of actual evidence submitted remarked upon last week appears to have ameliorated. This week nearly twice as much evidence was presented as in the first two weeks of the case combined.
The workshop saw little new this week, a few very pointed questions—with the subtext that the case was being unfair to Cirt—for Cla68 from Jehochman and another pointed question from Prioryman for Delicious Carbuncle listing a post of his on Wikipedia Review and asking him to explain. Also a Mathsci posted two standard "proposed principles" adapted from previous ArbCom cases on Decorum and Conduct on arbitration pages, urging civility.
Last week John Vandenberg noted a trend where abstention votes were being increasingly used to give vote-like opinions, which he noted was "causing elements of arbitration cases and motions to technically pass or fail while the abstain section contains many arbitrator votes consisting of comments heavily leaning for or against". He stated that "The Arbitration Committee needs to review its use of abstention in order to ensure that the committee position on an issue is clear and that they have the requisite support to provide legitimacy for that position." This has been the first time the issue has surfaced around ARBCOM, and the need for a motion was questioned. "Well, I probably would have gone for discussion before writing motions, but meh" wrote Risker, however John Vanderberg's proposal did lead somewhere; after going through six drafts, the motion passed, creating a new "comments" section in addition to the support, oppose, and abstain sections, and advising arbitrators that "abstention votes as a vehicle for comments [... are] not recommended". The motion also guarded against slacktavism, stating "an arbitrator who posts a comment is also expected to vote on the proposal".
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FYI, Waalkes (talk · contribs) is not an entirely new editor. He previously edited using a variety of IPs dating back to October 2010, [1] most recently as 81.210.206.223 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) Will Beback talk 01:41, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the heads-up! :)
Not being a regular Signpost reader, I was surprised to learn that my username appeared in recent editions. It might be a nice idea if editors are notified when they are mentioned. It is unfortunate that you chose to mention ChrisO/Prioryman's "pointed question" to me, but not the fact that I have twice ([2] & [3]) asked him to clarify what he is asking. Oh well. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:26, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]