"Broadly construed" explained, voting begins on Senkaku Islands case, invitation to comment on CU/OS candidates

Two cases remains open: Abortion and Senkaku Islands. The latter has moved to the proposed decision stage.

Last week Cptnono submitted a request for clarification to the committee about the use of "broadly construed" in sanctions, based on concerns that the phrase has not yet been defined clearly enough and that it left too much discretion to administrators.

Arbitrator SirFozzie was the first to reply, writing that:

Broadly construed means that one shouldn't attempt to "nibble around the edges", so to speak. If there's problems in topic area A, we don't want people to move on to "related topic B" and continuing. If there's doubt, don't do it, and get clarification first, like what's happening above.

This message was generally echoed by the several other arbitrators that weighed in; for example, on Friday, Arbitrator David Fuchs wrote that "SirFozzie['s definition] hits the nail on the head [...]".

Five weeks after the first piece of evidence was submitted, voting has begun on this case which centers on the naming of "Senkaku Islands" and "Senkaku Islands dispute" articles (it has been alleged that using the Japanese "Senkaku" gives too great an endorsement to the Japanese side of the debate). The case itself was opened to investigate if behavior contrary to Wikipedia policy were impeding consensus. Arbitrator Coren stated that "this is a relatively simple case where it's likely consensus could be reached if everyone behaved and where Arbcom could help by making sure everybody does".

Ten users presented evidence: Penwhale, STSC, Lvhis, Cla68, Qwyrxian, Tenmei, Oda Mari, John Smith's, Magog the Ogre, and Bobthefish2 (users in bold have made more than one hundred edits to the pages in dispute).

In the workshop there were calls for bans, desysopings and restrictions from all sides.

The Arbitration Committee today invited comments from the community regarding the candidates presented for appointment to the CheckUser and Oversight teams (see previous Signpost coverage). Comments concerning the suitability or unsuitability of the individual candidates may be made publicly or submitted privately via email to the committee until 4 October. By 10 October, appointments will be announced from the list of approved candidates:

CheckUser: 28bytes • AGK • Courcelles • Elockid • HelloAnnyong • Keegan • Kww • Mentifisto • WilliamH

Oversight: Courcelles • Fluffernutter • WilliamH

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• Cool criticism and praise picture. What's the story behind it? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:36, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• I read through Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Senkaku Islands/Evidence with a spreadsheet and kept note of when users mentioned each other then hacked out the graphic in GIMP. I'm hoping to make it a regular thing, but am looking for better software so it does not look so MS Painty. JORGENEV 03:19, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Give Graphviz a try. 82.82.131.70 (talk) 10:08, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, a very good idea. The visual restatement caused me to re-examine the case in a fresh way. --Tenmei (talk) 15:20, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That graph is insanely cool. Good work, @Jorgenev:. jp×g 21:08, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]