Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Party Guide/Case request

Arbitration​Committee

This is part of a series of guides for parties to an Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) case. The guides are:

Introduction to ArbCom for parties	The case request	Introduction to cases	Evidence phase	Workshop and analysis phase	Proposed decision	Final decision and afterwards

Requesting Arbitration

In a request for Arbitration, an editor tries to show the Arbitrators that there is a dispute requiring their intervention, as well as preliminary evidence of wrongdoing. A short and factual statement of 500 words or fewer should be written, including diffs where appropriate, to illustrate specific instances of the problem. The filing user is also expected to show that prior dispute resolution has already been attempted. It can be appropriate to file a case even if a noticeboard discussion remains open, if it does not seem like the discussion is headed towards a consensus that addresses the issue.

Exceptions to showing prior dispute resolution apply to situations where the Arbitration committee is the only possible venue of dispute resolution, e.g. administrator misconduct or those involving a mix of on-wiki and off-wiki evidence.

The Request is intended to be a summary of the available evidence including enough information to show why Arbitration is needed. You are not trying to prove your case at this time you: if your case is accepted for Arbitration, an evidence page will be created that you can use to provide more detail.

Alternatives to requesting Arbitration

• A Request for Comment is an effective way to resolve a content dispute by inviting other editors to give their thoughts. This is the most common process editors should have done rather than file an arbitration request.
• Administrator's Noticeboard or Administrator's Noticeboard/Incidents to discuss user behavior
• Administrative action review to discuss a single action by an administrator
• Dispute Resolution Noticeboard can provide a structured approach for users with content disputes

Making a statement at a case request

If you are named as an involved party in a request for an arbitration case, or if you feel you must respond to any request or to comments made by others in any request, then you may make a statement on the case page. You must remember that Arbitration cases are not debate pages; their purpose is to petition the committee by making an argument (with appropriate evidence) as to why arbitration is necessary or unnecessary, and to allow the committee to gauge the views of the community and the parties about the request. Statements may also be made in order to correct inaccuracies in other statements, or to draw other matters to the attention of the arbitrators. The best statements are short and factual statement, including diffs where appropriate.

All statements are subject to a maximum word limit, which you may not exceed. The purpose of these word limits is to prevent lengthy case requests, which obfuscate the discussion and delay the delivery of each arbitrator's decision about the request. For requests for an arbitration case, the maximum word count is 500 words, although this can be relaxed, upon request, in the case of parties to the dispute, and especially for the filing party who must usually respond to many comments by the arbitrators.

If an arbitrator or clerk removes or amends your statement or comments, you may not revert this action, because it will have been made in order to properly manage the request. However, you may raise the matter with the clerk or arbitrator directly if you believe there has been a mistake.

Responding to others

If you must respond to some statement by another editor on the arbitration request, then you must do so in your own section. There may be no threaded discussion (that is, comments in any section but your own) on any arbitration request; any such threaded discussion will be summarily removed by a clerk or arbitrator. Responses to other editors may be made in your own section in the following form:

; Response to statement by User:Example : {your comment} ~~~~

Deciding requests

After a request is submitted, the active arbitrators vote on whether to hear the case. An arbitrator may vote to accept or decline a request. Votes are recorded in this format: 0/0/0, where each digit is (respectively) the number of arbitrators who have: voted to accept/voted to decline/recused from voting.

"Recuse" means that an Arbitrator has excused themselves from a case because of a possible or perceived conflict of interest. Votes, suggestions, or questions that do not fit into one of the previous three categories, such as comments that are not formal accept/decline votes, are taken to be comments that have not cast a vote. Even comments which suggest an arbitrator is inclined towards one or another decision are not taken to be a vote unless it is explicitly marked as such. Votes are usually given in bold print, like Accept, or will otherwise make it clear what the vote is (e.g. "Decline.").

Criteria to open a case

A request will proceed to arbitration if it meets all of the following criteria:

1. Its acceptance has been supported by either of (i) four net votes (that is, four more "accept" than "decline" votes) or (ii) an absolute majority of active, non-recused arbitrators;
2. More than 24 hours have elapsed since the request came to satisfy the above provision; and
3. More than 48 hours have elapsed since the request was filed.

A majority of arbitrators may vote to waive the minimum time requirements, although this is currently quite unusual.

What happens after a decision

Once the Committee has accepted a request, a clerk will create the applicable case pages, give the proceeding a working title, and list the parties to the case. The title is for ease of identification only and may be changed by the Committee at any time. The parties may change from those that were included when the case was filed. A notice linking to further information, including links to newly created "Evidence" and "Workshop" pages, will be posted to each party's talk page. The opening of a case takes 24-48 hours, or often even longer, after it has met the 3 criteria as the Arbitrators discuss the decisions necessary to open a case.

Cases are removed when they are declared "premature", which means that the problem does not come close to meeting the requirements of a case (e.g. it is a content dispute between two editors), or when it is clear there will not be enough arbitrator support to open a case.

Deciding a case by motion

In some circumstances, the Arbitrators will decide to write a motion rather than moving to open a case. The motion will get its own sub-section and Arbitrators will vote to Support, Oppose, or Abstain/Recuse on the motion. A majority of active arbitrators, who are not abstaining or recused, must support the motion for it to pass. Parties and other interested editors may comment about the case in their own subsections.

Motions will sometimes be in place of a case, other times motions will give the conditions under which a case may be opened. For instance, in recent years for certain cases against administrators when the administrator has been absent, the committee has given the administrator a certain number of months to request a case.

Expectations of behavior during Arbitration proceedings

The behavior, good and bad, of parties during a case is carefully considered by Arbitrators when making their final decision.

Mooning the jury

Main page: Wikipedia:Don't moon the jury

Parties should be on their best behavior while adding evidence or making comments on arbitration pages. While this should be obvious, a surprising number of participants, having been accused of aggressive, uncivil or point of view editing, continue this behavior to the case itself. Comments made by the parties during the Arbitration case may be taken into account by the Committee in setting any remedies, and continued evidence of disruptive behavior is often seen as evidence that milder remedies (warnings or probation) will not have the desired effect, leading to topic or site bans. Remember that if you are on trial for assault, it is generally not a good idea to start punching witnesses in open court.

Rhetoric and blustering

Clear and persuasive presentation of evidence will almost always be more effective than any debates or arguments. Almost nothing useful ever comes out of arguments among parties on the workshop page, the evidence page, or the talk pages, and the longer the arguments get, the lower the chance of anything being noticed or valued by the arbitrators. If you must engage in discussion, short and simple questions to arbitrators are probably the most effective method.

Mistakes to avoid

ArbCom is typically pro-Wikipedia, generally considers that the Wikipedia method works, that Wikipedia is on the whole a successful project, and that admins are generally trustworthy. They explicitly choose any outcome that results in Wikipedia working better.

Therefore, arguments opposing Wikipedia's basic principles, suggesting a massive cabal of rogue admins, or holding the process to be an end in itself will not work.

Arguing about flaws in the arbitration process is usually a waste of time and will make arbitrators look dimly upon you.

Pettifoggery is likely to create prejudice against your cause, as a person who can win on the merits of their case will probably not resort to wikilawyering.

Glossary

Below are a list of words used during ArbCom cases which have a specific meaning or intent that might not be obvious to the average reader. It is not intended to be a complete list of words used.

Admonish

The most severe reprimand of the remind, warn, admonish triplet. Used when ArbCom wishes to criticize and firmly caution someone against repeating certain behavior/actions.

Assume

To take over responsibility (Used interchangeably with take over)

Contentious topic

Specially designated topics that have attracted more persistent disruptive editing than the rest of the project. Administrators are allowed to impose editing restrictions on editors who do not follow project expectations within contentious topics. Administrators are also allowed to set special rules on pages within a contentious topic to prevent inappropriate editing. See the contentious topic page for a full explanation.

Drafting arbs

See Overview of Cases

Implementation notes

A table that summarizes the voting on a proposed decision, allowing arbitrators, clerks, and editors to see which proposals are passing, which are failing, and how many more votes are needed for a proposal to pass if there is no majority.

Net four

The number of votes to support or accept (or oppose or decline) is at least four greater than the number of votes to oppose or decline (or support or accept). For example if there are 2 declines, there must be at least 6 accepts for there to be net four.

Party

An editor who the Arbitration Committee has identified as having an important role in the dispute the committee is examining. A party may or may not be sanctioned, while non-parties are not eligible to be sanctioned.

Remind

1)The least severe reprimand of the remind, warn, admonish triplet. Used when ArbCom wishes an editor to not repeat certain behavior/actions.

2) Also is the most frequently used of the three words when addressing a group (e.g. the community or administrators). When addressing a group it is often be used to bring an option to that group's attention rather than as a reprimand (e.g. administrators are reminded that partial blocks may be used).

Take over

To assume responsibility (Used interchangeably with assume)

Warn

The middle reprimand option of the remind, warn, admonish triplet. Used when ArbCom wants to caution an editor to not repeat certain behavior/actions.