Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-12-18/Arbitration report

This edition of the Arbitration Report covers 24 November through 15 December 2017.

Conduct of Mister Wiki editors case

On 21 November 2017, the request for the case concerning Mister Wiki editors was opened by TonyBallioni – as reported in Signpost issue 11 News and Notes.

On 1 December, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct of Mister Wiki editors was formally opened. According to the first arb to accept the case, it is "to review whether a desysop is in order for Salvidrim". Arbcom has stated that if the case isn't decided by the end of December – when some of the standing arbs will be replaced due to 2017 elections – "outgoing Arbs will be able to remain active on it if they wish, and incoming arbs will be able to join it if they wish." Points considered by Arbitration Committee include:

1. The alleged breach of
   WP:PAY
   by Salvidrim! and Soetermans in reviewing each other's AfC submissions.
2. Salvidrim!'s use of admin tools to grant additional userrights to the account Salvidrim! (paid).
3. Any other evidence relevant to conflicts of interest by editors associated with the Mister Wiki business

An Arbcom member stated "we do not have Committee support for a case on paid editing per se - that is appropriately a matter for the community. What there is support for, is whether specific named editors have acted outside of policies on meatpuppetry and COI, in their role as paid editors on this site".

Interested editors can still comment at the case's workshop through 22 December. The case page states that a decision will be posted by 29 December.

Current requests

• Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles was opened 1 December to clarify when the "24 hour timer" for discretionary sanctions starts.

Declined requests

• Crosswiki issues request: The request for a case was declined with a motion (permlink) for an RfC to decide "Whether and how information from Wikidata should be used on English Wikipedia...who should decide whether and when Wikidata content should be included, the standards to be used in making those decisions, and the proper role, if any, of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) in connection with this issue". Discretionary sanctions around Wikidata integration were established and the motion mentioned "systematic Wikidata-related edits on English Wikipedia that would be difficult to reverse" as a potential trigger.
• List of current NHL captains and alternate captains request filed 4 December, declined 6 December <0/7/0>

In brief

• 2017 Arbcom elections:

At press time for this issue of Signpost, results of the 2017 Arbcom elections had not yet been announced. Extremely low turnout was noted at Jimbo's talkpage. Possible explanations offered were a voting system failure and lack of a mass message to eligible voters. Mz7 said that between 2014 and 2015 when mass messages became routine, voting went up over fourfold. At the time the conversation began in late November, fewer than 300 votes had been recorded. Mass messages were sent out on 3 December – midway through the voting period – and by the time voting closed, 1,993 valid votes were tallied.

• STOP PRESS: Results released.

Certified by:

1. Shanmugamp7 ^(talk) 11:24, 18 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
2. Matiia (talk) 16:27, 18 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
3. RadiX∞ 00:14, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]