Arbitration​Committee

Arbitration Committee

This page is a guide detailing an Arbitration Committee process on the English Wikipedia. Please see theArbitration Policy and theArbitration Committee's Procedures for authoritative information. This page is maintained by members of theArbitration Committee and theirClerks. Editing requires considerable forethought and usually (for major changes) arbitrator agreement.

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To submit a complaint, please go to the#Procedure section.

The Arbitration Committee investigates complaints about the misuse or abuse of CheckUser and Oversight (suppression), both of which arefunctionary user permissions. To file a complaint, please e-mail the mailing list on the address specifiedbelow.

These complaints were previously heard by theAudit Subcommittee, which was disbanded bymotion on January 14, 2016.

The Arbitration Committee established its Audit Subcommitteein 2009 to investigate complaints concerning the use of CheckUser and Oversight privileges on the English Wikipedia, to scrutinise the use on the English Wikipedia of CheckUser and Oversight (suppression) functions, and to ensure the tools are used in accordance with the applicable policies. These complaints are now addressed by the Arbitration Committee.

CheckUser is a tool that allows certain trusted users to see theIP addresses used by registered users, which are normally hidden. Its use is governed by the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF)privacy policy andcheckuser policy, and the English Wikipedia's ownCheckUser policy. CheckUser is used primarily to fight vandalism, identifysockpuppets, and prevent disruption; the tool must not be used out of curiosity, for political control, to place editors under pressure, or as a threat in a content dispute. The committee's remit is restricted to the use of CheckUser on this Wikipedia (seelist of users with checkuser access).

Oversight (or suppression) is a procedure by which revisions and log entries are removed from view by all users except oversighters (including administrators). The oversight privilege is governed by the WMF'soversight policy and the English Wikipedia's ownOversight policy, and is typically used to remove:copyright violations by request of the Foundation'sGeneral Counsel; violations of the privacy of an editor or another person; self-disclosures by apparent minors; and material that is potentially libelous. Unlike simpledeletion andrevision deletion (performed by anyadministrator), suppression hides material from view by almost every user. The committee is only concerned with the use of suppression on the English Wikipedia (seelist of oversighters).

To submit a complaint or query to the Arbitration Committee, pleasesend an e-mail (arbcom-enwikimedia.org)

• Your e-mail must:
  • Concisely describe the situation that you wish to complain about;
  • Include links to relevant evidence or material; and
  • Use a descriptive subject.
• Your e-mail will be held "in moderation" by our anti-spam mailing list software.
  • The software will immediately send an automated response to your message, to let you know it has been received into the system. This does not mean it has been received by the actual committee.
  • Please write to us again if you do not receive a hand-written acknowledgement from a member of the committee (rather than a boilerplate bounce from the software) within two days.
• If you wish your identity to not be disclosed to the functionary or functionaries involved in the complaint, please remember to also state this clearly in your e-mail.

Reports of those investigations that were publicly reported, and anonymised summaries of all the subcommittee's cases from before the Audit Subcommittee was disbanded in 2016, are retained atWikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Audit Subcommittee/Reports.

Statistical reports on Checkuser and Oversight are maintained atWikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Audit/Statistics.

The Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees maintains anOmbuds commission to investigate the misuse of checkuser and oversight on all its projects. The commission is a separate body from the Arbitration Committee.

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