Concluding 2016 and covering 2017's first two cases

Happy 2017, readers of the Arbitration report. For the first issue of the year we cover the remaining 2016 motions and the first two cases accepted by the Arbitration Committee in 2017.

War of the Pacific case

The first case accepted by the committee opened on 3 January. It involves an accusation by filing party Keysanger that MarshalN20 has made personal attacks. Previously, Marshal was topic-banned from all Latin American history articles in the Argentine History case. The topic ban was later suspended for a year by an 8–0 motion on 1 September 2015. The case was accepted in an 10–0 decision and is currently in the evidence stage.

The Magioladitis case

Also opened on 3 January, the Magioladitis case was filed by Ramaksoud2000, who has claimed that administrator Magioladitis refuses to follow the bot policy, specifically WP:COSMETICBOT. Magioladitis's bot Yobot has been blocked 19 times since March 2009. The case is also currently in the evidence stage.

In briefs

• Motion regarding Darkfrog24: Darkfrog24 was again blocked on 5 December. In the committee's statement, they said "After review of the current appeal, we find that there is no evidence in favor of lifting or modifying the topic ban, and the disruptive behavior, in the form of repeated relitigation of the circumstances of the topic ban, has continued." Darkfrog can appeal the block in three months' time.
• Motion regarding Fæ: Fæ's topic-ban "from editing BLPs relating to sexuality, broadly construed as well as topic banned from images relating to sexuality, broadly construed" has been suspended for six months. The decision was made on 12 December.
• On 19 December FloNight had her checkuser and oversight permissions returned after resigning back in September 2016.
• Arbitration motion regarding Austrian economics: Also on 19 December, a motion was made in the Austrian economics case, where discretionary sanctions were placed on pages related to the Austrian school of economics and the Ludwig von Mises Institute, broadly construed (remedy 1.1). These sanctions can be reinstated in the future.
• Motion regarding North8000: On 21 December, the committee announced the unbanning of North8000. The editor had been site-banned as part of a remedy for the Gun control case in 2014. While unbanned, there are still restrictions placed on him, such as the topic bans on gun control, the Tea Party movement, and homophobia. The editor is restricted to using one account on Wikipedia.
• Modifications in two of the Palestine–Israel articles: In 26 December, both the first and third Palestine–Israel articles cases were modified by the committee.
• Arbitration motion regarding Captain Occam: On 1 January 2017, Captain Occam was unbanned after a vote from the committee. He had been site banned in 2012 after a review of the Race and intelligence case. With the site unbanning, Captain Occam's 2010 topic ban was modified from "race and intelligence related articles, broadly construed" to "the race and intelligence topic area, broadly construed". A two-way interaction ban between him and Mathsci has been imposed, and Captain Occam is reminded that he will be banned by an uninvolved administrator if he behaves disruptively in discussions.