Arbitration Committee
AbbreviationArbcom
FormationDecember 4, 2003 (2003-12-04)[1]
Membership
15 as of January 1, 2024
Websiteen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee

On Wikimedia Foundation projects, an Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) is a binding dispute resolution panel of editors. Each of Wikimedia's projects are editorially autonomous and independent, and some of them have established their own ArbComs who work according rules developed by the project's editors and are usually annually elected by their communities. ArbComs generally address misconduct by administrators and editors with access to advanced tools, and a range of "real-world" issues related to harmful conduct that can arise in the context of Wikimedia projects.[2][3] Rulings, policies and procedures differ between projects depending on local and cultural contexts. According to the Wikimedia Terms of Use, users are not obliged to have a dispute solved by an ArbCom.[4]

The first Wikimedia project to use an arbitration committee was the Swedish Wikipedia, soon followed by the widely covered English Wikipedia Committee. Over time, other Wikimedia projects have established Arbitration Committees as well.

The English Wikipedia ArbCom was created by Jimmy Wales on December 4, 2003, as an extension of the decision-making power he formerly held as CEO of site-owner Bomis.[1][5] Wales appointed members of the committee either in person or by email following advisory elections; Wales generally appointed editors who received the most votes to the ArbCom.[6]

The English Wikipedia's ArbCom acts as a court of last resort for disputes among editors and has been described in the media as "quasi-judicial" and a Wikipedian "High or Supreme Court", although the Committee states it is not and does not pretend to be a formal court of law. English Wikipedia's ArbCom has decided several hundred cases in its history.[7] The Foundation's Arbitration Committee process has been examined by academics researching dispute resolution, and has been reported in public media in connection with case decisions and Wikipedia-related controversies.[5][8][9]

History

In November 2002, Swedish Wikipedia's Tinget became the first instance akin to a prototype arbitration committee on any Wikipedia language version.[10]

In October 2003, as part of an etiquette discussion on Wikipedia, Alex T. Roshuk, then legal adviser to the Wikimedia Foundation, drafted a 1,300-word outline of mediation and arbitration. This outline evolved into the twin Mediation Committee (MedCom) and Arbitration Committee, formally announced by Jimmy Wales on December 4, 2003.[5][11] Over time the concept of an "Arbitration Committee" was adopted by other communities within the Wikimedia Foundation's hosted projects.

When founded, the Committee consisted of 12 arbitrators divided into three groups of four members each.[1][12]

In 2004, an Arbitration Committee was founded on the French Wikipedia,[13] and in 2007, on the German,[14] Polish, Finnish and Dutch Wikipedias.[15] In 2023 Arbitration Committees were used on eleven Wikipedia versions and the English Wikinews.[16]

On English Wikipedia

A statistical study published in the Emory Law Journal in 2010 indicated that the committee has generally adhered to the principles of ignoring the content of user disputes and focusing on user conduct.[5] The same study also found that despite every case being assessed on its own merits, a correlation emerged between the types of conduct found to have occurred and the remedies and decisions imposed by the committee.[5]

In 2007, an arbitrator using the username Essjay resigned from the committee after it was found he had made false claims about his academic qualifications and professional experiences in an interview with The New Yorker.[17][18][19] Also in 2007, the committee banned Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Carl Hewitt from editing the online encyclopedia for "disruptive" behavior of manipulating articles to align with his own research.[20] In May 2009, an arbitrator who edited under the username Sam Blacketer resigned from the committee after it became known he had concealed his past editing when obtaining the role.[8]

In 2009, the committee was brought to media attention as a result of its decision to ban "all IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and its associates, broadly interpreted", as part of the fourth Scientology-related case.[7][21] Such an action had "little precedent"[7] in the eight-year history of Wikipedia and was reported on several major news services such as The New York Times, ABC News, and The Guardian.[7][21][22] Satirical news-show host Stephen Colbert ran a segment on The Colbert Report parodying the ban.[23] In 2022, the Committee lifted the ban citing the lack of disruption in recent years.[24]

In 2015, the committee received attention for its ruling pertaining to the Gamergate controversy, in which one editor was indefinitely banned from the site and several others were banned from editing topics relating to Gamergate and gender.[25]

In June 2015, the committee removed advanced permissions from Richard Symonds, an activist for the British political party Liberal Democrats.[26] Symonds had improperly blocked a Wikipedia account and associated its edits with former Chairman of the Conservative Party Grant Shapps,[27] and leaked this to The Guardian.[26] Shapps denied ownership of the account, calling the allegations "categorically false and defamatory".[28] Symonds said in an interview he stood by his actions.[29]

A 2017 study found the committee's decision making was mostly unaffected by extra-legal factors such as nationality, activity, experience, conflict avoidance, and time constraints. The same study found the committee's decision making was much more affected by time constraints than that of conventional courts.[30]

On March 13, 2023, the Arbitration Committee began an investigation into the coverage of the history of Jews in Poland in response to an academic essay published by researchers Jan Grabowski and Shira Klein. Klein stated that the coverage of the topic was flawed largely due to "a group of committed Wikipedia editors have been promoting a skewed version of history on Wikipedia".[31] The Arbitration Committee would later sanction editors involved in this controversy for their conduct around the topic area, but they did not address underlying content disputes related to the topic. Klein has criticized this decision, stating that Wikipedia sent a message that "[there’s] no problem with falsifying the past, [as long as people are] nice about it".[32][33]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Wales, Jimmy (December 4, 2003). "[WikiEN-l] Wikiquette committee appointments". lists.wikimedia.org. Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on June 29, 2021. Retrieved June 29, 2021.
  2. ↑ "Arbitration Committee". Archived from the original on February 24, 2021. Retrieved March 19, 2021.
  3. ↑ "Wikimedia Committees". Archived from the original on April 18, 2021. Retrieved March 19, 2021.
  4. ↑ "Wikimedia Terms of Use - # 13 Disputes and Jurisdictions". Archived from the original on March 18, 2021. Retrieved March 19, 2021.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Hoffman, David A.; Salil Mehra (2010). "Wikitruth Through Wikiorder". Emory Law Journal. 59 (2010). SSRN 1354424.
  6. ↑ Broughton, John (2008). Wikipedia: The Missing Manual. O'Reilly Media. pp. 208–209. ISBN 9780596553777. Archived from the original on July 26, 2020. Retrieved September 27, 2016.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Cohen, Noam (June 7, 2009). "The Wars of Words on Wikipedia's Outskirts". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 28, 2014. Retrieved June 9, 2009.
  8. 1 2 Welham, Jamie; Nina Lakhan (June 8, 2009). "Wikipedia sentinel quits after 'sock-puppeting' scandal". The New Zealand Herald. APN Holdings NZ Limited. Archived from the original on September 18, 2020. Retrieved June 9, 2009.
  9. ↑ Moore, Matthew (May 30, 2009). "Church of Scientology members banned from editing Wikipedia". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on June 2, 2009. Retrieved June 9, 2009.
  10. ↑ "Så fungerar Wikipedia/Wikipedias historia". Lennart Guldbrandsson, sv.wikisource.org. March 9, 2010. Archived from the original on November 25, 2015. Retrieved November 24, 2015.
  11. ↑ Roshuk, Alex T. (2008). "Law office of Alex T. Roshuk". Archived from the original on June 29, 2009. Retrieved June 14, 2009.
  12. ↑ Hyatt, Josh (June 1, 2006). "Secrets of Greatness: Great Teams". Fortune. Time Warner. Archived from the original on April 13, 2010. Retrieved June 15, 2009.
  13. ↑ Florence Millerand; Serge Proulx; Julien Rueff (2010). Web Social: Mutation de la Communication (in French). PUQ. p. 66. ISBN 9782760524989. Archived from the original on December 23, 2016. Retrieved September 27, 2016.
  14. ↑ ,Kleinz, Torsten (April 30, 2007). "Wikipedia sucht Schiedsrichter" (in German). Heise Online. Archived from the original on May 1, 2009. Retrieved June 9, 2009.
  15. ↑ "Komitet arbitrażowy oraz mediatorzy w Wikipedii" (in Polish). Blog wikipedystyczny. August 31, 2007. Archived from the original on May 1, 2009. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
  16. ↑ "Arbitration Committee - Meta". meta.wikimedia.org. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
  17. ↑ Cohen, Noam (March 12, 2007). "After False Claim, Wikipedia to Check Degrees". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 24, 2017. Retrieved June 14, 2009.
  18. ↑ Hafner, Katie (June 17, 2006). "Growing Wikipedia Refines Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 6, 2014. Retrieved June 9, 2009.
  19. ↑ Cohen, Noam (March 5, 2007). "A Contributor to Wikipedia Has His Fictional Side". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 6, 2014. Retrieved June 9, 2009.
  20. ↑ Kleeman, Jenny (December 9, 2007). "Wikipedia ban for disruptive professor". The Guardian. Archived from the original on October 6, 2014. Retrieved December 3, 2014.
  21. 1 2 Fitzsimmons, Caitlin (May 29, 2009). "Wikipedia bans Church of Scientology from editing". The Guardian. Archived from the original on June 11, 2009. Retrieved June 14, 2009.
  22. ↑ Heussner, Ki Mae; Ned Potter (May 29, 2009). "Wikipedia Blocks Church of Scientology From Editing Entries". ABC News. Archived from the original on June 2, 2009. Retrieved June 14, 2009.
  23. ↑ Colbert, Stephen (June 4, 2009). "Wikipedia Bans Scientologists" (Flash Player). Comedy Central. MTV Networks. Archived from the original on December 12, 2015. Retrieved June 14, 2009.
  24. ↑ "Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment". Wikipedia. January 7, 2022. Archived from the original on March 25, 2022. Retrieved February 10, 2022.
  25. ↑ Dewey, Caitlin (January 29, 2015). "Gamergate, Wikipedia and the limits of 'human knowledge'". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on January 29, 2015. Retrieved January 30, 2015.
  26. 1 2 "Censure for Grant Shapps' Wikipedia accuser - BBC News". BBC News. June 8, 2015. Archived from the original on August 18, 2015. Retrieved August 23, 2015.
  27. ↑ "Andy McSmith's Diary: Ed Balls and Jack Straw off the Labour peerage list". The Independent. June 8, 2015. Archived from the original on July 28, 2015. Retrieved August 23, 2015.
  28. ↑ Randeep Ramesh (April 22, 2015). "Nick Clegg mocks Grant Shapps over Wikipedia affair". The Guardian. Archived from the original on July 8, 2017. Retrieved December 13, 2016.
  29. ↑ Ramesh, Randeep (April 24, 2015). "Wikipedia volunteer who blocked 'Grant Shapps' account: I stand by my decision". The Guardian. Archived from the original on December 10, 2016. Retrieved December 13, 2016.
  30. ↑ Konieczny, Piotr (August 11, 2017). "Decision making in the self-evolved collegiate court: Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee and its implications for self-governance and judiciary in cyberspace". International Sociology. 32 (6): 755–774. doi:10.1177/0268580917722906. ISSN 0268-5809. S2CID 149261265.
  31. ↑ Harrison, Stephen (April 5, 2023). "Wikipedia's "Supreme Court" to Review Polish-Jewish History During WWII". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved June 12, 2023.
  32. ↑ "Wikipedia bans editors for denying Polish complicity in Holocaust". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved June 12, 2023.
  33. ↑ Elia-Shalev, Asaf. "Wikipedia bans editors but sidesteps broader action in Holocaust distortion row". The Times of Israel. Retrieved June 12, 2023.
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