- This page is where I maintain notes about where I have been, or am currently, acting as an administrator in arbitration enforcement.
Arbitration enforcement generally falls into the following categories:
- Monitoring articles or editors listed at Wikipedia:Discretionary sanctions, Wikipedia:General sanctions or Wikipedia:Editing restrictions, to keep an eye out for places where disputes are taking place that are not being resolved through the normal means of Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.
- Once it is determined that administrator intervention may be necessary in a particular dispute, an admin may issue informal warnings, either to specific editors, or on article talkpages to remind editors that they are working in a topic area that is within the scope of a particular ArbCom case's discretionary sanctions
- If informal warnings are not working, administrators are to issue formal notifications about the potential of discretionary sanctions
- Lastly, administrators may place discretionary sanctions on editors or articles, such as WP:BANs, WP:BLOCKs, or other kinds of restrictions such as revert limitations.
Articles where I have used discretionary sanctions
- I try to adapt my approach to specific articles or topic areas, since when it comes to discretionary sanctions, it's not one-size-fits-all. Sometimes in the most complex disputes, which involve dozens of editors on a single article, I create a "list of editors" to help provide some structure to the dispute.
Areas where I have used the "list of editors" technique:
Other articles where such a list was not needed, is not being used, or was scrapped after it appeared to be causing more problems than it was intended to solve:
Probation
Editors placed under probation have certain restrictions placed on their editing, such as being limited to 1 revert per article per week.
Troubles (Britain/Ireland) topic area
Discretionary sanctions
- This section contains data on every discretionary sanction I placed, which went beyond a simple warning to the point of an actual restriction on an editor or article.
Eastern Europe
See User:Elonka/Hungarian-Slovakian experiment/Admin notes (April – July 2008)- Summary of my efforts: Before my arrival in mid-April 2008, there had been edit-warring on dozens of articles, and dozens of admin board threads, most of which had been ignored because the complaints were too complex. After the intervention of myself and other administrators such as Shell Kinney (talk · contribs) and EdJohnston (talk · contribs), the topic area was stabilized within a couple months. Multiple sockpuppets were blocked, a special naming guideline had been discussed, the admin noticeboard threads had trickled off, and all editors were either working together constructively, or had moved on to other projects.
Homeopathy
Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Homeopathy
- Summary of my efforts: By simply implementing two brief bans, the rest of the editors on the Atropa Belladonna and Quackwatch articles were able to reach consensus, and the articles were drastically improved.
- Atropa belladonna article before I arrived,[22] Article 10 days later:[23] Better quality article, tags gone, and edit wars diminished
- Quackwatch article before I arrived[24] Article after restrictions:[25]
Palestine/Israel articles
- Summary of my efforts: Before my arrival, chronic edit-warring, multiple ANI threads, rapidly scrolling talkpage, extensive incivility. After my participation: Stable article, no more ANI threads, editors apparently content with compromise and have moved on to other projects
Pseudoscience topic area
- Summary of my efforts: Minor. I did start a thread at WP:AN to request clarification on whether or not Chiropractic could be administered under the Pseudoscience case (the answer was yes). And I started the Talk:Chiropractic/Admin log page, where I engaged in discussion with other admins on the best way to proceed. All the actual sanctions though were placed by other administrators such as Shell Kinney (talk · contribs), who did the lion's share of the work on stabilizing the article, such as by managing the page at Talk:Chiropractic/Mediation.
- July 11, 2008, ScienceApologist blocked for 12 hours[33]
- November 4, 2008:
- December 1, 2008, ScienceApologist blocked for 48 hours for violating his page ban.[36]