Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-05-28/Arbitration report

Arbitration report

Gamaliel resigns from the arbitration committee

Gamaliel resigns

On 22 May, it was announced that Gamaliel was resigning from the committee. A statement from the committee, written by Arbitrator Opabinia regalis, says:

Gamaliel has resigned as an arbitrator because he is currently unable to edit the English Wikipedia and is therefore entirely inactive as an arbitrator. This has come about as a result of circumstances which have been disclosed to the Committee, and which in no way reflect negatively on him. We thank Gamaliel for his service on the 2016 Committee to date and wish him the best.

For the Arbitration Committee, Opabinia regalis

His resignation comes as the current arbitration case, "Gamaliel and others", is in its proposed decision phase, with the remaining members voting on the outcome. Gamaliel was elected to the committee at the December 2015 elections, where he was ranked 9th, to take up a one-year term. Gamaliel has since retired from Wikipedia altogether.

Extended confirmed protection

On 15 May, the committee passed motions on extended confirmed protection. Also known as the "30/500 rule", the protection level restricts editing rights for certain articles to editors who have made 500 edits and have been registered at least 30 days. Current uses of this level include the GamerGate controversy article, articles on Brianna Wu and Anita Sarkeesian, certain articles pertaining to Indian castes and their talk pages, and any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab–Israeli conflict. The expectations for the use of 30/500 in arbitration enforcement and discretionary sanctions are:

Extended confirmed protection may only be applied in response to persistent sockpuppetry or continued use of new, disruptive accounts where other methods (such as semi-protection) have not controlled the disruption. This provision does not apply to a page or topic area which has been placed under 30/500 protection by the arbitration committee.
Administrators are not permitted to remove the extendedconfirmed user group as a discretionary sanction.
Administrators must not remove the extendedconfirmed user group as means of bypassing defined arbitration enforcement procedures (for example, removing the user group as a normal administrative action to avoid banning an editor from the Gamergate controversy article).

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Extended confirmed protection

The Committee has not explained what "expectations" means in this context. It appears to be some kind of policy statement. The Committee is not allowed to make policy, that is reserved for the community. If this is not policy then what is it? All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:02, 29 May 2016 (UTC).[reply]

It was pretty clear that the restrictions related to 30/500 were in regard to AE and DS. An administrator cannot enact the specified sanctions as an AE or DS remedy and therefore are subject to rules regarding any other admin action and are not backed by arbcom. --DHeyward (talk) 09:13, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Gamaliel resigns

Why is Gamaliel "currently unable to edit the English Wikipedia", and therefore unable to act as an arbitrator, "as a result of circumstances ... which in no way reflect negatively on him"? While I do not want to invade anyone's privacy, the community is entitled to some explanation of why an arbitrator that we recently elected is "currently unable" to fulfill his duties as an arbitrator.—Finell 18:34, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You're not actually entitled to that information. You're not entitled to any information about people's personal lives.--Jorm (talk) 18:46, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing in the announcement said that the reason had to do with "information about people's personal lives."—Finell 20:25, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Most people (rightly) assume that when someone steps down from a role, saying "I am unable to continue with this," and doesn't say why, that it's a "personal life issue". And thus: you are not entitled to any more information than that.--Jorm (talk) 20:53, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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