Commons:Arbitration (failed proposal)

Community arbitration

For resolution of complex and severe disputes between users, the community can initiate an arbitration process.

A Request for arbitration can be filed at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/some other page if a community member thinks that problems can not be resolved any other way. The user should post a short summary of the dispute containing the previous dispute resolution that has failed. All users involved should be notified to be able to post their views in the dispute.

Any uninvolved administrator/Any uninvolved community member/Any uninvolved elected arbitrator can accept the case. At least 3/5/7 acceptances within two weeks of initiation are required to start the arbitration. Users who accepted a case are considered arbitrators for this case. Once started, involved users can submit evidence to the arbitrators. If an arbitrator is not considered to be suitable for the case, they can be removed from the case if at least 5 community members or a majority of the arbitrators agree.

The arbitrators will analyze the evidence and submit their conclusions to the community, in a set of motions. During 7 days the community/all administrators/all elected arbitrators can vote for the motions. Available options are support, oppose and return to arbitrators. Motions reaching a predefined quorum are implemented.

CheckUser and Oversight

According to Wikimedia policy, CheckUser and Oversight privileges are granted by the arbitration committee. Since no formal committee exists, this will still stay a matter of the community.

Language issues

Still to be handled.

Arbitration ultralite (alternative proposal)

In cases of seemingly insoluble problems, users may request binding judgment and remedies from a quorum of administrators. A quorum shall be defined as (the fixed number 5 / 10/ 12) / (percentage of admin corps, e.g. 5%=9.25 and 7%=12.95.) The threshold for quorum approval is 60/two-thirds/70/75%.

• Any user may request arbitration by posting a request to Commons:Administrators' noticeboard detailing the perceived concern. Any involved users shall be immediately informed. Any user may comment, preferably with diffs.
• An administrator who feels that they have enough information to make a judgment will create a "Remedies" subsection with a sub-subsection for a proposed remedy with an informative title, as well as a more detailed explanation of the remedy, e.g. "User:X is cautioned to avoid using profanity on talk pages" or "User:X is prohibited from using profanity on talk pages. Violations will result in a series of escalating blocks, to be implemented by any admin, beginning at one month and with a maximum of one year." Any judgment with quorum approval seven days after being proposed is implemented. Any proposal that has not reached quorum approval after seven days is closed. Any arbitration proposal that has not had any new proposals added in the past seven days is closed.
• Approved judgments may be overturned or modified by approval of a quorum consisting of more members than made the original judgment.

Resolution councils (alternate proposal)

In cases were a dispute is causing disruption and there is no clear consensus on how to proceed, and user (either involved or uninvolved) may call for a resolution council. The council will be formed from at least 3 uninvolved administrators who volunteer to take on the task of investigating the issue and working on:

1. A statement of findings to be delivered within 4 days
2. A statement of resolution to be delivered within 6 days
3. Council members will also be responsible for determining consensus on a quorum regarding the resolution, which will be open for 3 days after the resolution is presented.

Involved parties will be asked to discontinue the contentious activities during the term of the council. If the disruption continues during the term of the council, one or more involved parties may be blocked until the quorum is closed. If the contentious activities include the use of administrative tools and the administrator in question continues to use the tools in this manner during the council term, the administrator's tools shall be temporarily disabled and a new RfA will be initiated.