Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-12-16/Arbitration report

Arbitration report

GMO case decided

Kevin Gorman case

On 11 December, the Arbitration Committee accepted the case on Kevin Gorman. The case was submitted by administrator and former Arbitrator Worm That Turned, who called to have fellow administrator and candidate in this year's Arbcom elections, Kevin Gorman, be de-sysopped. Worm That Turned has claimed that Kevin Gorman abused the revision deletion tool that admins have, using the tool to delete discussions to evade scrutiny during the election. WTT also pointed out how Kevin Gorman unblocked an entire group of checkuser-block accounts without consulting the blocking checkuser or any checkuser at all. Vanjagenije, another named party in the case, made a statement saying he was the one who advised Kevin Gorman to unblock the accounts but later realized it was a mistake and apologized.

Kevin Gorman responded by denying wrongdoing in some of WTT's claims, while saying other claims are too stale to have a case. He also points out how everyone makes mistakes, using an example of how WTT accused Gorman of using his health issues to avoid a ban on Wikipedia. The Committee members themselves thought this was a case worth looking into as it was opened in a 10–0 decision. The case is currently in its Evidence phase.

GMO case closed

An anti-GMO protest in Chile in 2013

But as one case begins, another has ended. On 12 December, the case involving Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) articles has been closed. Among the Committee's findings was that users Jytdog, DrChrissy, and Wuerzele were all involved with edit warring. Individually, Jytdog was also found to have "belittled other editors and has engaged in non-civil conduct", SageRad had cast aspersions, added unsourced content, and articulated a clear POV in regards to the locus of the case, and Wuerzele displayed a battleground mentality and engaged in incivility. Jytdog and DrChrissy were found to "have been engaged in an oft personalized dispute", with DrChrissy also found to have violated existing restrictions, having been "topic banned from alternative medicine, broadly construed. To be clear, this includes alternative medicine for humans and animals, so Veterinary acupuncture does fall under the scope of this ban. Animal biology, behavior, health, and normal veterinary medicine does not fall under the scope of this ban so long as it does not intersect with alternative medicine. DrChrissy is also topic banned from human health and medicine, and WP:MEDRS related discussions, broadly construed."

Remedies of the case include discretionary sanctions covering pages relating to GMOs, agricultural biotechnology, and agricultural chemicals, as well as editors being prohibited to revert pages related to the topic more than once per day. DrChrissy, Jytdog, SageRad, and Wuerzele were all topic banned, with DrChrissy and Jytdog having an interaction ban placed between the two. Jytdog also received an admonishment for their poor civility.

Current open cases

Catflap08 and Hijiri88: Currently in its Proposed Decision phase.
Arbitration enforcement 2: Currently in its Proposed Decision phase.

In brief

Kharkiv07 appointed as a trainee clerk: On 13 December, the Arbitration Committee approved Kharkiv07 as a new trainee ArbCom clerk. This is the second trainee clerk approved by the Committee this month.

Next "Arbitration report" →

In this issue

16 December 2015 (all comments)

In focus

In the media

Arbitration report

Discuss this story

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It took just under three years for the community to impose discretionary sanctions in the GMO topic area. During that time, many administrators failed to act responsibility and allowed the disputes to get worse. This is unacceptable. Viriditas (talk) 20:18, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- We'll be getting new Arbitrators next month. 2016 is gonna be a new year with new cases. Who knows the results? GamerPro64 22:31, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - It should be an interesting year. Gamaliel (talk) 22:36, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    - I know it's been done before, but one thing I'd be interested in seeing again is an interview with incumbent and outgoing arbitrators: What was/is it like behind-the-scenes on the committee? Is it a mostly collegial body, or are there heated internal disputes that the public eye doesn't necessarily see? What is the hardest part of arbitrating? The easiest? Do the arbitrators themselves feel like they're doing a good job? Mz7 (talk) 02:30, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      - I do have plans to interview the incumbent arbitrators. Didn't think about interviewing the outgoing members. I'll look into that more. GamerPro64 03:09, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It’s not that incumbent arbitrators (who ought to have joined many of their colleagues in resigning in the wake of this disastrous year) should be interviewed, but that ArbCom needs some way to communicate, either in its decisions or elsewhere, what it imagines it is trying to do. On many points this year, not even the closest study could reveal what the committee was thinking. Is vicious off-wiki harassment a useful tool for Wikipedia editors? Read the tea leaves, because nothing in GenderGap, GamerGate, or Lightbreather will tell you. Is sexual harassment OK if you're a Valued Contributor or have powerful friends? Read the tea leaves. In the GMO case, is the committee trying to side with Science, with Corporations, with the Media, or just trying to ban a bunch of unpopular editors and hoping that everyone else will get the hell off their lawn? Read the tea leaves. As to what the committee is trying to say in the still-open AE2 case, we’ll have to hope that the Shadow knows because it’s pretty clear that the committee does not. Next year’s committee either needs to explain cases in their decisions or in the Signpost, or in some other place. Repeating this circus is insanity. MarkBernstein (talk) 17:28, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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