Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee

Proposals regarding ARBECR protection levels at VPR

There is currently a request for comment at Village pump (proposals) about protection levels for articles under an arbitration extended confirmed restriction.

RfC: Extended confirmed pending changes (PCECP)

[Q1:] Should extended confirmed pending changes (hereby abbreviated as PCECP) be enabled on Wikipedia?

Q2: If this proposal passes, should PCECP be applied preemptively to WP:ARBECR topics?

Q3: If this proposal does not pass, should ECP be applied preemptively to articles under WP:ARBECR topics?

SilverLocust 💬 19:21, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

There is kind of a procedural question here regarding the intersection between community consensus and WP:AC/P. Is this the community's decision to make, or the committee, or both? Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 22:21, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Two navigational aid suggestions

Hi! My user story is that I've been digging around case history for the purpose of candidate review for WP:ACE2024. There have been a few consistent slowdowns that I feel could be improved by technical clerking on closed case pages.

The easy one: transclude {{Casenav}} at the top of case subpages in the Wikipedia talk: namespace. It's a lot of clickarounds to navigate between talk subpages.

The more difficult one that may already be implemented but I'm too stupid to find it / doesn't display in Minerva / something: a link (maybe in {{Casenav}}, maybe on the main case page) to the archived WT:ACN discussion of the case closure. The threads at WT:ACN often can provide valuable context for how community members respond to ArbCom decisions, and usually also contain relevant followups from Arbitrators.

I'd be willing to track down all these threads in the archives if – understandably – no one here wants to do it, but I'd want some confirmation first that they'd be linked somewhere useful before putting in the work (which probably won't be that bad since there are only 51 archives).

Anybody else think these are good ideas? Any clerks willing to implement? Folly Mox (talk) 13:47, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

On the first suggestion, casenav should already be the second banner at the top of case talk subpages, but mobile Minerva hides those unless you click "Learn more about this page" to view them. Could you clarify what you are suggesting?

To partially address (or begin to address) the second suggestion, I have asked Legobot to create an archive index at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive index, similar to this example. I believe the bot will create it around 03:00 UTC. SilverLocust 💬 16:42, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, SilverLocust, yes it looks like I attached the "may be hidden in Minerva" caveat to the wrong item. I guess I was expecting the template not to be hidden since it is visible on the case subpages in the Wikipedia namespace. Please chalk that one up to my own stupidity. Folly Mox (talk) 21:46, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Recruiting new arbitrators

Although this might be a topic more suited for Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Election, it has fewer than 30 watchers, so I'm starting a thread here (and it can be moved elsewhere if desired). A number of current and past arbitrators have expressed a need for more arbitrators to take on certain tasks. Previously I started the Wikipedia:Arbitrator experiences page to collect links to descriptions of the work done by the committee, to help potential candidates better understand what they will need to do. Is there interest in having a more targeted pitch to prepare candidates, and that can talk about particular challenges that need specific skill sets? Beyond availability of time (which is a hard thing to manage with Wikipedia's volunteer environment), spreading the workload seems to be an ongoing problem. Are there any ideas about how to attract users willing to do some of the less desirable chores? From the outside, it's easy to see the drawbacks; from the inside, though, is there a way to sell the upside of being an arbitrator? isaacl (talk) 18:46, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Historically, the committee has tried and failed at having specific roles, such as WP:AUSC and WP:BASC. I had no involvement with AUSC, but I was on BASC in 2014 and it worked like this: an appeal would come in, and either one arb would reject it out of hand, or one or two arbs who may or may not be on the subcommittee would comment on it, it would sit there for a while, then maybe one more arb would comment on it and eventually someone who again, may or may not be on the subcommittee would action the result and reply to the appelant. This process often took close to a month. Shortly after my term expired I proposed reforming the subcommittee to something that actually worked, but, to my surprise, we wound up getting rid of it. As of last year it worked essentially the same way, just without the pretense that there is a subcommittee. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 19:06, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

WMF IT support

As I recall, once upon a time, new workflow management tools for the arbitrators were being considered to be deployed, but the initiative wasn't implemented. Now there are discussions once again on this front. Is there a shortfall in WMF IT support to help enable this work to proceed (including transition planning and support)? If so, is there anything that the community can help with (if it wants) to encourage the WMF to provide the necessary assistance? isaacl (talk) 19:05, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I am not sure which tools were supposed to be deployed, but workflow management tools are hella expensive; even the cheaper options run in the order of 5-10k per year; I've been looking into some of the free stuff that is out there and they are not really well-suited towards our workflow needs. Primefac (talk) 19:17, 18 November 2024 (UTC)