Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

Open cases

Currently, no arbitration cases are open.

Recently closed cases (Past cases)

Case name	Closed
Venezuelan politics	25 May 2024

Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: World War II and the history of Jews in Poland	Motion	(orig. case)	21 June 2024
Amendment request: Suspension of Beeblebrox	Motion	none	10 July 2024
Clarification request: Desysoppings	none	none	12 July 2024

Arbitrator motions

Motion name	Date posted
Amendment to the standard provision for appeals and modifications	14 December 2018

Motions

Shortcuts

This page can be used by arbitrators to propose motions not related to any existing case or request. Motions are archived at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Motions.

Only arbitrators may propose or vote on motions on this page. You may visit WP:ARC or WP:ARCA for potential alternatives.

Make a motion (Arbitrators only)

You can make comments in the sections called "community discussion" or in some cases only in your own section. Arbitrators or clerks may summarily remove or refactor any comment.

Amendment to the standard provision for appeals and modifications

The following text is added to the "Modifications by administrators" section of the standard provision on appeals and modifications:

Administrators are free to modify sanctions placed by former administrators – that is, editors who do not have the administrator permission enabled (due to a temporary or permanent relinquishment or desysop) – without regard to the requirements of this section. If an administrator modifies a sanction placed by a former administrator, the administrator who made the modification becomes the "enforcing administrator". If a former administrator regains the tools, the provisions of this section again apply to their unmodified enforcement actions.

For clarity, this change applies to all current uses of standard provision, including in closed cases.

Enacted - Brad v🍁 01:55, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

For this motion there are 11 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Support

Common sense really. RickinBaltimore (talk) 23:12, 8 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
♠PMC♠ (talk) 15:50, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Needed. A good idea to add Lord Roem's suggestion. Note that I don't consider the "enforcing administrator" to have sole responsibility for sanctioning editors, their responsibility is any changes to the sanction itself. Doug Weller talk 16:23, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
a rational change DGG ( talk ) 17:52, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Katie^talk 19:11, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Worm^TT(talk) 22:32, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(minor tweak to address Future Perfect at Sunrise's point, feel free to revert) Opabinia regalis (talk) 02:51, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As an obvious improvement. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:16, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Now that editors have had a chance to comment, I'll add my obvious support since I proposed it. Noting that Lord Roem makes a good point that the 'new' enforcing admin should log it per WP:AC/P#Logging. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:06, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:09, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
-- Amanda (aka DQ) 18:10, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Mkdw ^talk 19:25, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Abstain/Recuse

Arbitrator comments/discussion

This motion will provide a mechanism for other administrators to effectively "take over" the sanctions placed by administrators who no longer have the tools available rather than needing to go through AN or AE. This was really already envisioned in the current language by noting that former admins can't act in enforcement. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 21:35, 8 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thryduulf, with this motion we're choosing not to address the question of inactive admins. It's harder to define exactly what constitutes a reasonable threshold of inactivity for this purpose, so we wanted to start with former admins, which is much more black and white. I'll send you an email about DF24. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:31, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion and comments

Makes sense. For clarity, the new 'enforcing admin' should make a note of this circumstance in the log when modifying the sanction. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 03:13, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This is sensible for page restrictions. Does it make as much sense for topic bans or blocks imposed under DS, though? I don't think it is too much of a burden for them to be appealed through AE/AN - they usually are appealed there anyways, not directly to the enforcing administrator - and IMO it doesn't make sense to suddenly technically allow unblocking/unTBANing by any admin if the original admin leaves. One could scope this change to policy to only apply to page restrictions, which is the impetus of it anyways; I don't believe there have been too many problems with retired administrators and their TBANs/blocks, only with page restrictions. Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:01, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any problem with letting this apply to TBANs and blocks, especially the blocks. It's much easier for a blocked user to appeal a block through the standard process on their userpage than trying to get it done at an AE thread where they can't contribute directly. This is how most normal blocks are handled, and I don't expect individual admins to act any less responsibly with an AE block/ban than they do with a normal block. ~Awilley (talk) 19:50, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Is it only me, or is the language in the clause "... that administrator becomes..." structurally ambiguous? I mean, I get it that it must obviously refer to the new admin taking over, but grammatically it could refer to either of the two admins mentioned in the preceding clause, and to my mind it would even refer more naturally to the immediately preceding mention, i.e. the former admin. I admit I had to read the sentence twice to parse it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:08, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Is it worth adding something to say that an enforcing administrator can be changed when the original admin is long-term inactive (even if they are still an admin) or abdicates that responsibility (I attempted to do this regarding Darkfrog24 as my patience was completely exhausted but I was still pinged when it came to AE.)? Thryduulf (talk) 21:11, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- @Thryduulf: This is an issue we discussed on the list before this was proposed and posted. The issue here is ambiguity. How do we define long-term inactive? We elected to make the one change we could all agree upon first. I think your question is a very good one and one that we should investigate more thoroughly. It's not something I'd want to do without formal community consultation. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:18, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep in mind that admins who are inactive for over a year are procedurally desysopped, so that kind of puts an upper limit on how long a stale DS sanction can go before other admins can modify it. ~Awilley (talk) 03:59, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

And one of my concerns with making anything more strict than that is ArbCom providing a competing definition of "inactivity" for our purposes. That could be seen as pressuring the community to consider activity more strictly, and while I would personally like to see that happen, I would like to be very careful we're not inadvertently pressuring the community by adopting competing procedures. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:03, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Those are good and fair responses to my comments regarding inactivity, but completely ignore the question about abdicating as enforcing admin. Thryduulf (talk) 09:18, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

An enforcing admin can (mostly) already abdicate responsibility for a sanction by noting that any admin is able to change it (effectively granting standing approval) or by stating that a specific admin is able to change it. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:35, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This motion is a good idea, but can someone clarify: "the provisions of this section again apply to their unmodified enforcement action"? It must apply to the situation where an admin is desysopped (or perhaps gives up the bit) for a period of time and then returns. Do they still 'own' their previous sanctions? EdJohnston (talk) 02:43, 12 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- @EdJohnston: "This section" refers to the procedure that prohibits admins from modifying other admins' sanctions. In other words, after the admin returns, they re-"own" their sanctions (but not any that have been modified by other admins in the meantime). Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 02:54, 12 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of "regains the tools", I suggest something less colloquial (and a shift to plural to match the neutral "their"): "Should former administrators regain administrative permissions,..." The phrase "without regard to the requirements of this section" sounds a bit awkward to me, but I can't think of anything better at the moment ("notwithstanding" would fit, but I suspect it might be confusing to some). isaacl (talk) 17:46, 12 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0–1	6
2–3	5
4–5	4