Senkaku Islands closes; administrators authorized to place articles on discretionary sanctions

The Arbitration Committee closed one case this week, Senkaku Islands. Another case, Abortion, is still pending before the Committee.

Senkaku Islands has closed, a month and a half after it was originally filed by Qwyrxian. Two parties were topic banned, Tenmei indefinitely and Bobthefish2 for a year, and the former was also banned from Wikipedia for a year; Arbitrators cited the editor's past Arbitration sanctions in another topic area in the decision. Unusually, the Committee also considered an indefinite ban for the editor; but while five Arbitrators supported it, they did so only as an less-favored alternative to the 1 year ban. STSC was given a warning.

Standard discretionary sanctions were also authorized for the Senkaku Islands topic area, marking the sixth time in the past twelve months that the Committee has authorized discretionary sanctions. In contrast, from October 10, 2009 to October 10, 2010, the Committee only placed a topic on discretionary sanctions three times. The case also marked the first time the Arbitration Committee has devolved the authority to place discretionary sanctions; any "uninvolved administrator may, after a warning given a month prior, place any set of pages relating to a territorial dispute of islands in East Asia, broadly interpreted, under standard discretionary sanctions for six months if the editing community is unable to reach consensus on the proper names to be used to refer to the disputed islands."^{[nb 1]}

Public commenting on the candidates for checkuser and oversight functionaries (see previous Signpost coverage) has concluded, and the Committee is expected to release its decision on who it is appointing by October 15. This deadline has been pushed back several times in previous stages of the appointment process; the decision date was originally to be October 5. The list of candidates that ArbCom is considering is:

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

The Committee also received two requests for clarification, one on WikiProject Conservatism (which was filed as a case request)[1] and the other on the propriety of administrators overturning unblocks by the Arbitration Committee. It closed two other clarification requests, one on the naming of Ireland articles and the other on Eastern Europe. The Committee also continued to consider a request for amendment by William M. Connolley, who had filed a request lifting removal of sanctions imposed on him in Climate change. As of publication, an unusually high number of 24 other editors had commented on the request, most of whom had been previously involved with William M. Connolley or the topic area in some form. The Committee received an additional amendment request from mediator Steven Zhang, who requested that two editors recently topic banned at Arbitration Enforcement be allowed to continue editing a mediation discussion page.

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• I wish I had been around earlier this month, so I could advocate Fluffernutter for OS while the community was still accepting editor input. It's not that I think she's better than the other two, any of the three would be fine, but we really do need an Oversighter who hangs around on the IRC. Some variation of "Holy shit, I need an OS urgently" is said in #wikipedia-en at least a few times a week, by my estimation. Having someone in #wikipedia-en with OS rights would be a huge boon, and Fluffernutter is in #wikipedia-en regularly. Courcelles is there less often, and I've never seen WilliamH there, unless he uses a different nick. Sven Manguard Wha? 10:45, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Scratch that, WilliamH is around, just not usually when I'm awake. Any of these three candidates would solve that 'we need an OS in the IRC' issue. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:39, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• This comment draws on nothing more than my own very limited and slanted experience. User:Courcelles's summary response to User:Jayjg's recent request for me to be blocked suggests less than the ideal degree of caution in someone to be entrusted with the drastic powers of "disappearance" conferred by Oversight authority. Obviously just my opinion. Opbeith (talk) 16:19, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]