Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-06-27/Arbitration report

Arbitration report

The Report On Lengthy Litigation

The Arbitration Committee closed its oldest case last week while also formally opening several cases the arbitrators had previously voted to accept. Other activity remained slow, as no new cases were accepted, although the possibility of reopening the case involving Instantnood was being considered.

On Sunday, the arbitrators issued a ruling in their longest-running case, the climate change dispute involving William M. Connolley, Cortonin, and JonGwynne. Both Cortonin and JonGwynne were prohibited from editing articles related to climate change for six months, although they may ask for this restriction to be lifted after three months. In addition, since JonGwynne displayed "continued incivility and edit warring" after being the subject of a previous arbitration case, he was banned from Wikipedia entirely for a period of three months.

Although all of the parties had showed a tendency to engage in revert wars, the decision drew a distinction between the two original parties to the case, Connolley and Cortonin. As part of their ruling, the arbitrators found that Cortonin was unable to grasp the metaphorical nature of concepts like the greenhouse effect, and that this interfered with his ability to appropriately edit the articles involved.

Meanwhile, the arbitrators acknowledged that Connolley, a climate modeller for the British Antarctic Survey, "is widely viewed in Wikipedia as being highly knowledgeable in the field". However, Connolley was left subject to the provisions of an earlier temporary injunction, which prohibited reverting the disputed articles more than once in 24 hours. This restriction was to apply for six months, but Connolley may apply to have it lifted after one month.

The request to reopen the Instantnood case came from SchmuckyTheCat, arguing that the earlier closure had been improper and alleging that Instantnood had resumed making edits to enforce disputed naming conventions related to China and Taiwan. Instantnood's advocate, Wally, objected that Instantnood was being subjected to personal attacks and should not be penalized for the Arbitration Committee's procedural error. At last report, however, three arbitrators had voted to accept the case with no votes to reject.

Also this week: Upgrade — Donations — Quiz show — Article blocks — Contest — Features, admins — KDE — Spoken RSS — T.R.O.L.L.

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27 June 2005 (all comments)

Arbitration report

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Instantnood's advocate, Wally, objected that Instantnood was being subjected to personal attacks and should not be penalized for the Arbitration Committee's procedural error.

I would liek to point out that while Wally objects the case being reopened, it was someone else who first posted about Instantnood being personally attacked.

Tell me what's this: 唔屌到你唔好以為自己好撚型，屌那星! 含家呤 (Don't think you're damn smart if I don't fuck you. Fuck that star. Go to hell your entire family) I found this threatening statment in Instatnood's talk page.

Obviously, someone has made serious insult plus personal attack before the arbitration. In fact, SchmuckyTheCat used to write indecently weird phrases like 猶太陰莖貓 (Jewish Penis Cat) in his (I use "his" because he's got a penis as he claims) user page, and for many times I see he creates some users' pages by adding a full stop. I don't think that's a patent accident at all. Does it violate some rules of wikipedia? I'm new to here, and I know little about Wikipedia's policy. But I would feel terribly annoyed if someone attempted to "deflower" my user page -- that's just like rape, to be honest. -- Jerry Crimson Mann 18:30, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Posted three hours before Wally's response. Also notice my response on that page.SYSS Mouse 28 June 2005 20:21 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. Given how Wikipedia arbitration works, the article must obviously summarize the proceedings and cannot be a blow-by-blow account of all the evidence presented. Since Wally actually represents Instantnood, I determined that it would be easier to convey Instantnood's position by mentioning his objections, rather than bringing in points made by other people who are not necessarily parties to the case. --Michael Snow 28 June 2005 20:37 (UTC)

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