The case has now been closed. A prolific, articulate editor totally banned for a technical violation on a topic ban that arguable should not have been issued in the first place. Is there no way to have this decision reviewed? Because this is frankly ridiculous, and having just returned to invest time in building articles here, it makes me wary of continuing when seeing how I could be treated in the future.Tiamut (talk)12:22, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Officially, ArbCom bans (including this one) generally come with a restriction thatThis ban may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter. As a practical matter (as I've pointed out in the past) such moratoriums are not actually binding because a future ArbCom could just lift it if there's a majority to do so; the current ArbCom can't constrain actions taken by future ones, so they'd be free to consider an early appeal that the current ArbCom said is not allowed. Whether they'd actuallydo so is another matter. --Aquillion (talk)13:47, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking as a former arb, I'd be unlikely to entertain an early appeal that didn't include something acknowledging the appeal is early and explaining why the appeal should be held early. I absolutely wouldn't consider an early appeal that didn't bring new evidence to the table. Appealing a decision that has just been made to the same set of people who made it, based on the same set of evidence that was (or could have been) presented in the discussion they based their decision on would need avery strong rationale that didn't sound at all like a "I don't like it", "JUSTICE!!!" or "Wikipedia/this topic area can't survive without me/this editor". Of course current arbitrators may feel differently.Thryduulf (talk)14:50, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

You mention "new evidence" and "the same set of evidence", but the ban was not based on any evidence - which is why it should be appealable immediately. Unless you count the seven diffs in the "Iskandar further POV pushing" motion as evidence, in which case we can't say it was based on no evidence, but that it was based on bogus evidence. Either way, this is unacceptable and this is even starting to look like misconduct by the Arbitration Comittee.IOHANNVSVERVS (talk)18:34, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Myself speaking as a former arb and without comment on this particular case, while a past committee can't bind a future one, arbs treating such things as binding is of net benefit to the committee in terms of receiving appeals with sensible intervals inbetween. It can mean that injustices linger, but also the same people who voted for something are less likely to recognize something has been an injustice. So outside of waiting for a new committee, I'd put this as a soft reason to be in favor of moving from afixed number committee to a panel. Best,Barkeep49 (talk)18:42, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's a fairly interesting suggestion by @Levivich, though I think it only solves the front facing part of the Committee's work. The behind the scenes aspects, which I think require more stable membership to address, have multiplied in recent years. I'm not sure a panel based solution could effectively interface with TnS/legal like the current Committee does, or handle the email workload. But I'm certainly intrigued by the public facing panel idea.CaptainEek^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓21:28, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The full committee of arbs could create subcommittees to handle interfacing with WMF just like it could create subcommittees to hear a case or motion.Levivich (talk)21:36, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the pilot project version of this would be to strike an appeals committee made up of former arbs, and see how that works out. --asilvering (talk)21:53, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

We used to have the ban appeals subcommittee, but we got rid of that. I'd like to see a postmortem from those involved before we try subcommittees again.CaptainEek^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓22:32, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that experience would be very relevant to this question, since most of the appeals that subcommittee was dealing with have since been devolved to the community. --asilvering (talk)22:34, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

By the end, theBASC was made up of any arb who was interested in working on appeals. TheAUSC actually functioned as a subcommittee but only gave suggestions to the full committee --Guerillero^{Parlez Moi}01:55, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I agree on the email workload front. My suggestion there would be to have 10 arbs handling that, with each arb serving for 2 months, rotating 5 each month. I think having that monthly "deadline" could actually allow many issues to be resolved faster. But you could also mutiply that by 2, so you could have 10 active arbs on email duty at all times with 5 new ones coming on every other month (plus an adhoc 1 or 2 to cover for arbs who become unexpectedly inactive). I agree the WMF relationship piece is one that would need some more permanent group. But that could be handled either by a subcommittee or by panels with longer "terms" (which at some level become indistinguishable from each other). Best,Barkeep49 (talk)22:48, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a way to appeal/repeal a factually deficient "finding of fact"?Katzrockso (talk)00:29, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Just as an example (since a good one seems to have just occurred)YFNS just asked for an amendment to a similarly close topic-ban from three months ago that had a similar restriction, and while it's unclear if the appeal will succeed or not ArbCom is at least clearly taking it seriously and considering it, not instantly shutting it down. One arb even explicitly noted that the fact that they're not bound by decisions by past arbcoms. Of course, a very, very important caveat - YFNS was fortunate (?) enough to get banned shortly before an arbcom election, which allowed her to appeal to a different group of people just a few months later, whereas the next arbcom election is in almost a year. Asking thesame people who passed down a ban to overturn it is a very different prospect. Another important caveat is that YFNS is just asking for a slight narrowing of her ban's scope. --Aquillion (talk)15:22, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

To be able to refer to them with ease,these should be numbered. Also disappointing that many of these have already been deconstructed and shown to be benign but SFRbis just reposting them like that did not happen.Tiamut (talk)15:11, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

They were analyzed by ScottishFinnishRadish in the same order they appeared in the motion. So they can probably be numbered 1-7 in the order they appear in the motion.IOHANNVSVERVS (talk)21:59, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

So edit 1 would be the one about Asherah, and edit 7 the one about "Hashmonean".IOHANNVSVERVS (talk)22:01, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

My edithere was reverted. I explicitly stated that I would like a short word extension, but it was reverted for being too long. This case is a sprawling mess, and now a new motion is being proposed. Am I not allowed to comment on new developments?Kingsindian ♝ ♚12:46, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think it’s fair to say, as a result of this whole sorry mess, that arbcom’s credibility with the community is currently shot to pieces.

Responsibility for this fiasco clearly lies largely (albeit not exclusively) with two particular arbitrators: SFR and Guerillero, each of whom failed to recuse when they clearly should have done; and each of whom pushed through a ban based on secret evidence that they failed to share, either with their fellow arbs or with the community. While I appreciate SFR’s recent attempts to explain himself (albeit very late) it is depressing and concerning that Guerillero still ignores the issue.

its time to acknowledge reality. SFR and Guerillero clearly lack both the judgment and the integrity to be on arbcom.~2026-84876-2 (talk)11:40, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]