Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures
 | This page documents the internal rules and procedures of the Arbitration Committee. It should not be edited without the Committee's authorization. |
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Advanced permissions
Use of advanced permissions by AUSC members
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Audit Subcommittee (AUSC) members are provided with the CheckUser and suppression tools in order to carry out their responsibilities. Historically, community appointees to the AUSC were discouraged from routine or regular use of either tool. Since appropriate procedures exist for excluding arbitrator or community AUSC members from cases in which they may be involved, there is not a compelling reason to continue to prohibit use of the CheckUser or suppression tools. As such, members of the AUSC are explicitly permitted to use their advanced permissions for non-AUSC-related actions as allowed by the appropriate policies surrounding each permission, as members of the functionaries team. This is without regard to the presence of a backlog or time-sensitive situation. |
CheckUser/Oversight permissions and inactivity
Access to CheckUser and Oversight permissions is given sparingly. The permissions reflect the high trust placed in the holder. They are not granted in perpetuity and holders are expected to use them regularly for the benefit of the project.
Accordingly, the minimum activity level for each tool (based on the preceding three months' activity) shall be five logged actions. Consideration will be given for activity and actions not publicly logged, such as responding to requests on the CheckUser or Oversight VRTS queues; participation on list discussions; activity at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations; responding to account creation requests; and responding to CheckUser or Oversight requests on administrative noticeboards, UTRS queue, and user talk pages. These activity requirements do not apply to: (a) sitting members of the Arbitration Committee; (b) holders using the permissions for audit purposes; or (c) holders who have temporarily relinquished access, including CheckUsers or Oversighters who accept appointment to the Ombuds Commission.[1]
Holders of the permissions are also expected to:
- Remain active on the English Wikipedia unless they have previously notified the Arbitration Committee of a significant expected absence and its likely duration.
- Consider temporarily relinquishing their permission(s) for planned prolonged periods of inactivity.
- Reply within seven days to email communications from the Arbitration Committee about their use of the permissions.
Holders who do not comply with the activity and expectation requirements – or who mark their accounts "semi-retired", "retired", or "inactive", or who announce their effective retirement by other means – may have their permissions removed by the Arbitration Committee. Prior to removal of access, two attempts will be made to contact the holder using the email address they provided to the Committee.
Permissions will usually be reinstated on the following bases:
- Temporarily relinquished permissions will normally be promptly restored provided no issues have arisen in the interim.
- Permissions removed for unannounced inactivity will normally be restored once (a) a satisfactory explanation for the unannounced inactivity has been given and (b) satisfactory assurances about future activity levels have been received.
Requests for reinstatement for any other reason will be considered on a case by case basis.
Note that Stewards and Wikimedia Foundation staff granted CheckUser and Oversight permissions by the WMF are outside of the jurisdiction of the Arbitration Committee.
Appointment to the Audit Subcommittee
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A candidate for the Audit Subcommittee will be appointed if:
In the event of there being more candidates meeting this standard than there are vacancies, candidates will be ranked by percentage of support. If this still results in a tie for the last available place(s), the number of support votes will be used to break the tie. If this does not break the tie, a runoff election will be held. The fourth ranked candidate passing criteria (1) and (2) will remain an alternate, to be appointed if one of the appointed candidates retires before the end of his/her term. |
Auditing
The procedure for handling complaints related to CheckUser or Oversight use is as follows:
- The Arbitration Committee shall investigate the matter and determine whether any breach of applicable Wikimedia Foundation or English Wikipedia policies took place.
- The committee shall be responsible for requesting statements, documents, and any other material of interest to the investigation.
- During the investigation, the committee should keep the complainant and the subject of the complaint informed of its progress and expected date of completion.
- The committee shall provide the subject of the complaint with a reasonable opportunity to respond to any concerns raised.
- Within a reasonable time of a complaint having been referred to it, the committee shall decide the matter. The committee may determine what constitutes a reasonable time for this purpose, which should not be less than one week, nor more than three weeks.
- The committee shall determine findings by majority vote. Members of the committee disagreeing with the majority findings may attach dissenting views.
- The committee shall determine what further action, if any, is to be taken in the matter. At a minimum:
- The committee shall distribute copies of the final report to the subject of the complaint and the complainant, unless doing so would substantially jeopardize the security of the project.
- If the committee report indicates that a breach of Wikimedia Foundation policy occurred, the committee shall forward the report to the Foundation Ombuds Commission for review.
- The committee shall announce the results of the investigation on-wiki in as much detail as is permitted by the relevant policies.
An arbitrator's service as an auditor is part of their official service as an arbitrator, and therefore shall not constitute grounds for recusal in a subsequent matter involving the complainant or the subject of the complaint.
Removal of permissions
When an account with advanced permissions appears to be harming the project, the Committee may authorize expedient removal of these permissions via the procedures below. If the account in question has multiple sets of advanced permissions, removal will generally apply to all of them.
The use of these procedures by the Committee is not intended to constrain the authority of the Wikimedia Stewards to undertake emergency removal of permissions on their own discretion, pursuant to the relevant policies governing Steward actions.
Level I procedures
Level I procedures may be used if (a) an account appears to be obviously compromised, or is intentionally and actively using advanced permissions to cause harm in a rapid or apparently planned fashion, or (b) multiple accounts are actively wheel-warring.
The procedure for removal of permissions is as follows:
- An arbitrator, on becoming aware of the situation, will send a message to arbcom-en (a) stating the name of the account, (b) briefly describing the issue, providing examples of inappropriate conduct, (c) recommending removal of permissions, and (d) specifying why removal should occur under Level I procedures.
- Any available arbitrators will respond using whatever communication medium is available, and will update the thread on arbcom-en to keep the remainder of the Committee informed.
- A request for removal of advanced permissions may be made when three or more arbitrators agree that a situation warranting the use of Level I procedures exists, and that removal of permissions is required, with no dissenting opinions from other arbitrators.
- Once removal has been approved, an arbitrator will (a) directly request removal from a bureaucrat, or steward if necessary, (b) make a formal statement on the bureaucrat noticeboard or Meta-Wiki permissions page as appropriate, to confirm that the request is based on the authority of the Committee, and (c) post a notice to the Committee's noticeboard, the administrators' noticeboard, and the user's talk page, including a brief explanation of the reason for removal and the names of the arbitrators who authorized it.