Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions: Difference between revisions – Wikipedia

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Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

The Arbitration Committee has received several complaints without standing regarding violations of topic bans imposed in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5. Following the unsatisfactory conclusion of an enforcement request against Iskandar323 (due to the standing of the filer), the committee invokes its jurisdiction over matters previously heard and will review all topic bans issued during that case. The committee will determine by motion 1) whether violations of a topic ban have occurred, and 2) what sanction, if any, to levy for any edits determined to be violations. Editors with standing are welcome to present diffs of alleged violations for the committee’s consideration.

ARBPIA5 topic bans: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

Alleged violations and analysis

  • Iskander323
    • Blocked for a fortnight on 26 November 2025 for topic ban violation.
    • AE request largely focused on Dome on the Rock and edits around history of Judaism.

General discussion

  • I’m bringing this here because we have a rough consensus on-list that something needs to be done, but no actionable complaint has yet been presented and the Iskander thread at AE closed without a resolution because the filer was found to be a compromised account. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:28, 28 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think we either need to do a formal review (PIA5.5) or consider roughly 15 potential motions to tie up some loose ends revealed in the 12 months since PIA5 —Guerillero Parlez Moi 17:45, 28 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per User:Newyorkbrad below, I am still very much against using standing to describe anything on Wikipedia, as it reads like Standing (law) which is only going to cause problems and confusion and is completely unnecessary. The community soundly rejected codifying “standing” into Arbitration Policy for good reason, and I do not intend to support any motion that encourages or uses this wording. – Aoidh (talk) 01:29, 30 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I had abstained from the discussions behind the scenes and do so here too. I’m not sure if it matters much as this isn’t a case and I won’t be an arb anymore tomorrow; WP:AC/C/P says something about “motions not related to a case”, whatever. It would amuse me if my abstention is struck through. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 09:22, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    No longer on the committee. Izno (talk) 04:45, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don’t agree with the characterization that there was a rough consensus to come here. One Arb, around Christmas, suggested bringing it here, and no one else agreed. I hadn’t even read the email as I was away for the holidays (as I suspect many other Arbs were). At any rate, this is far too broad, open ended, and lacking in structure. We’re just sending up a call for any diffs about the editors we topic banned a year ago? Without even having a case structure? That is going to create more drama and problems and more work for everyone. We’re at ARM and there aren’t even any motions. I do hope Guerillero goes and posts his motions though, perhaps in a separate header, as he had some general ideas aimed at tying up loose ends. But I oppose this structureless attempt to fish for further sanctions. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap’n!⚓ 19:13, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree we can probably come up with a better word than standing, but it would be nice to have it clearly laid out that we’re not accepting emails from random anonymous editors about CTOP/AE violations, especially if the topic is covered by ECR. However, of something is raised on-wiki, this is more or less my view on that. Much as it is when one UPE sock reports another UPE sock, there are no free passes depending on who raises a violation. Special:PermanentLink/1330538550#Bad math contains violations by both Iskandar and Levivich discussing an earlier violation here, and this is after Iskandar’s last block for topic ban violations. I don’t think ignoring this is the way to go. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:27, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • I’d like to highlight this from dlthewave in the comments below: It would be immensely helpful to have either a noticeboard or a list of admins’ talk pages where someone could post “Hey, this situation is starting to get out of hand, could you please take a look at it?” I think adding “quick requests” to WP:AE was a very good idea, and something like this could be an interesting further reform to the process. New editors in particular are often perfectly capable of observing that something is going very wrong, but completely unable to navigate the complex CTOP processes to make a report. In theory, WP:ANI would be the place to go with this kind of complaint, but in practice, not so much. — asilvering (talk) 01:12, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Responses from parties

Statement by Iskandar323

One has to marvel at the effort that is being committed to here on behalf of a globally account that was hacked/criminally hijacked by a bad actor. I doubt that even in the bad actor’s wildest best-case scenario they imagined their actions could spur ARBCOM to contemplate embarking on a nebulous re-examination of the actions of all participants in a past case. They will surely be, somewhere, raising a champagne glass in toast to a job well done on their part in causing such a ruckus with their throwaway account. What a potential reward for not only disruption, but digital crime within the Wikipedia system in general! What great profit for such a similarly great misdeed! And the principal diff in question that this has been raised over? A comment on a talk page with (then) no CTOP template and with no political bearing and no conflict relevance, but more pertinent to, say, WikiProject Islam, than anything else. A diff that already garnered a collective ‘meh’ among administrators at the procedurally invalid AE. THAT should be a priority – a diff that disrupted nothing – and not the new-found knowledge that accounts are being hacked and then kept in a sleeper state for up to two years only to brought out for use in CTOPs, and, when and where conducive, to be used to weaponize AE? If this is the direction of travel then I fear the committee has gotten horribly confused somewhere along the lines over its priorities and where its attentions best lie in mitigating disruption. The only disruption that has been meted out here is that by the bad actor, and yet it is precisely this disruption that the motion before the committee proposes to not only oblige, but to amplify. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:02, 30 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Nehushtani: being ‘uninvolved’ is a droll notion. This despite them having taken me to ANI, alongside other CTOP-related posts, on my talk page. All in Archive 8. They were also involved in presenting evidence in the instigating AE thread. All this despite me never interacting with them prior to the ANI filing. Here’s to hoping that they (unlike the many Icewhiz and NoCal100 socks and now unknown account hackers that have graced my user page) are acting in good faith, but uninvolved and just coincidentally calling for a CBAN? I think not. If proceedings proceed, I must insist that they join us on this merry goose chase! Iskandar323 (talk) 12:17, 30 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by BilledMammal

Statement by Levivich

Statement by Nableezy

Statement by Selfstudier

Statement by AndreJustAndre

Received this [1] but per [2] there isn’t an allegation about me. Confusing. Assuming that this falls under BANEX, let me know if not, I volunteer, in the interest of transparency, that I edit history topics and avoid anything to do with Israeli state and politics, Zionism anti-Zionism, modern Palestinians, pan-Arabism, Hamas, etc, but my understanding is that ancient archeological Israelites/Judeans aren’t covered by the ban. If that has changed, let me know. I have not been warned for any violations since returning from the last sanction, or repeated anything that was sanctioned. I was involved in a discussion on the Talk:Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_world#Jews_as_second-class_citizens where it was getting close to the topic and per this suggestion I have since refrained, even though the discussion was pre-exodus dhimmi status and not post-1948. I don’t see that I am flouting the ban with my edits and only received that one nudge as far as I can recall. If there is any concern about my editing I only ask that I be given feedback and a chance to adjust or comply with the guidance.

To elaborate on my thought process of how I observe my topic ban, e.g. part of the Khazar hypothesis page, or changing Palestine to Israel if there isn’t a source-based historical reason in that context. Those would violate how I think the ban is broadly construed. If the obvious underlying subtext of an edit is ARBPIA-related, such as a statement in the Khazar article that says “it is used by anti-Zionists,” well that’s explicit, but now if the edit were e.g. [3], well, that edit doesn’t mention Zionism, but it certainly makes oblique reference. So I have not reverted that. Similarly, I would consider Pirate Wires to be off-limits, and have avoided that. Even generally on the reliability of Pirate Wires. Technically, not a violation, since they do other stuff, but if an obvious reference to its coverage, that could be. Similarly, I would consider Dome of the Rock to be too close to the Western Wall and how that interacts with East Jerusalem and its inhabitants, the uneasy tension of sharing etc. It’s not something from the middle ages, it’s a current-day charged political and religious dispute. So I would avoid that and modern Western Wall topics. But I do not consider it a violation to edit Jerusalem Talmud. The Talmud Yerushalmi happens to also be known as the Palestinian Talmud. That doesn’t automatically make it a violation to edit about a guy writing manuscripts analyzing rabbinical literature interested in Jerusalem Talmud.

Edited Andre🚐 23:24, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Makeandtoss

Statement by Nishidani

I was topic banned in good part for taking issue over how to correctly construe a diff, innocuous but thought damning by enough admins. So, here, I’d once more draw your attention to sloppy and imprecise language.

The Arbitration Committee has received several complaints without standing regarding violations of topic bans imposed in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5. Following the unsatisfactory conclusion of an enforcement request against Iskandar323 (due to the standing of the filer), (a) the committee invokes its jurisdiction over matters previously heard and will review all topic bans issued during that case.(b) The committee will determine by motion 1) whether violations of a topic ban have occurred, and 2) what sanction, if any, to levy for any edits determined to be violations. Editors with standing are welcome to present diffs of alleged violations for the committee’s consideration.

In (a) the bolded ‘that case’ would appear to refer to the action against Iskander, but grammatically its wording suggests that at issue is the antecedant ‘Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5’ higher up, meaning contextually that the committee will ‘review’ the original ‘topic bans’ themselves.

However as (b) shows, there will be no ‘review of all topic bans issued during that case’, as clumsily asserted. Rather, and contradicting itself, the text then asserts that all the topic bans stand, and the committee will only adjudicate sanctions for any edits since which violate the bans laid down in the Palestine/Israel articles5 case.

If the point of the exercise is to ‘tie up a few loose ends’, by all means. But as one hanging from a dropped noose, any further measures in my regard at least would be Flogging a dead horse. Cheerio Nishidani (talk) 23:49, 28 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Am I allowed to make a comment on an apparently overlooked but very serious, (potentially destructive) implication for future work on the ancient history area in the ‘evidence’ presented for another T-banned editor? If what I pereive is not wholly incorrect, then ME ancient history itself, with a great number of articles with deeply flawed POV-material that is simply not recognized as such because generally the scholarship that would emend common perceptions is neglected, will become unworkable, and as vexed with politics as the modern ones. It’s not in defense of a fellow editor, but a crucial issue of method that, if unnoticed and passed, will affect everyone, even those in ‘good standing’.Nishidani (talk) 14:48, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
the seven diffs cited here as ‘evidence’ of POV-pushing do not constitute evidence. They are simply claims, by whoever compiled them, that each of the listed edits is, in their personal view, motivated by POV pushing, though no argument is given to sustain that interpretation.It is, I guess, taken to be self-evident.
Given word limits, I will list just one example of the errors in that evidence, not to exculpate the accused (the other evidence indeed shows T-ban infractions) but to elicit a serious problem latent in some proposals here.
Diff 9. That edit simply replaces a biblical claim presented as a neutral fact from a Pov-driven un-RS source (Chabad) with the correct, neutral voice. There is no evidence that the ancient community consisted of 12 tribes: that is a complex contradictory and vexed story (‘myth’) that slowly developed over time as scholarship has long recognized (See most recently Andrew Tobolowsky,The Myth of the Twelve Tribes of Israel: New Identities Across Time and Space, Cambridge University Press 2022. For a quick overview see this)
What is required is that someone show that these seven diffs are evidence for ‘non-neutral editing around the history of Judaism.’ If admins are to be invested in a further power to judge content issues in ancient ME historical articles, as either, in their view, ‘neutral’ or POV-pushing, they would have to be deeply versed in the historical scholarship such edits touch on (which generally takes a back seat to large paraphrases of the Tanakh). If they may issue punitive sanctions without showing any deep familiarity with the topics’ contemporary scholarship, we will be treading on very dangerous ground. Much of the fideistic POV content in those articles will remain unchallenged, and those (not me -I find this place’s rules too bewilderingly complex to edit) who know their stuff will be open prey to accusations of POV-pushing by true believers who wish the Biblical account to prevail.Nishidani (talk) 21:19, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • consider roughly 15 potential motions to tie up some loose ends revealed in the 12 months since PIA5 are these motions that did not pass from PIA5 or additional motions besides those? User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 21:05, 28 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have just a wording point at the moment. For the past several years, I have urged that the Committee do its best to keep the rule-set in this area as simple as possible; and there has also been a desire for ArbCom to use less legalistic language. For both of these reasons, if “editors with standing” just means “extended-confirmed editors,” then please use the latter wording. If you don’t, I foresee that sooner or later, someone will try to wikilawyer some distinction between them. Thank you, Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:52, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Newyorkbrad, the most obvious example here is of BlookyNapsta, who initiated the Iskander323 AE thread and has since blocked as a compromised account. So “editors with standing” is indeed intended to have a broader meaning than simply “extended-confirmed editors”. — asilvering (talk) 14:13, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • The scope of the CT refers explicitly to the “Israel-Arab conflict”. This “conflict” involves two parties, Israelis and Arabs, and in some cases Jews and Muslims. The recent trend to expand it to anything related to Jews or Arabs separately is a widening that is not supported by Arbcom decisions as far as I know. To take a pertinent example, Iskandar323’s recent edit to Talk:Dome of the Rock is about whether the structure is a mosque or a shrine. This is a question which lies entirely within Islamic law and practice. It has nothing to do with either Israel or Jews and therefore nothing to do with the Israel-Arab conflict. I am not aware of any Jewish or Israeli interest in the question. Incidentally, I’ll remind the committee that the CT notice was added after Iskandar323’s edit. (It is incidentally the wrong notice—it should have the “related content” attribute since only a fraction of the article refers to PIA.) Zerotalk 02:33, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    isn’t Zero an involved editor and should be above as he were a party to the case last year? even if he only got a warning? asking honestly, if the involved editors is only folks who got topic bans, apologies. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 03:12, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    According to the title and the description given by the filer, this is about topic ban violation, and since I don’t have a topic ban I can’t violate it. If the committee decides to widen it, that might be a different matter. Zerotalk 05:54, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I’ve added |section=yes. It seems clear that most of the page content should be accessible to non-extendedconfirmed editors to edit without having to post an edit request. Sean.hoyland (talk) 03:56, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it’s somewhat clear that Iskandar doesn’t have any “hard” tban violations in the edits they were reported for by the compromised account (though they’ve been served a warning and tempban for other ones in the past year). The question, as Guerillero framed it, is twofold:
    • whether the naked violation of their topic ban linked by Guerillero is worthy of a more severe sanction, when taken in conjunction with their prior vios, and
    • whether Iskandar’s editing in the tangentially-related areas you describe is a “soft” violation; i.e. not explicitly editing a TBANned page, but a pattern of subtly attempting to push a narrative on related pages (as Guerillero also stated).
    The Kip (contribs) 07:02, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • My only comment at this time is that I would encourage the Committee to allow presenting evidence on the various sanctioned editors’ behavior in general, not just within PIA. When an editor is sanctioned in an ArbCom case, and then continues to disrupt the project in other ways, it is within ArbCom’s jurisidiction to consider evidence regarding their general fitness to edit the project. — Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 04:08, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Tamzin, what you call for is the kind of rough justice that we generally see at ANI. If we were to do as such, I would argue that there be allowed the presenting of evidence against anyone who meanders into this discussion. TarnishedPathtalk 13:16, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Anyone who comments here is in-jurisdiction for AE. The conduct of the ArbCom-TBANned editors is a special matter because it’s ArbCom’s job as sanctioning authority to make sure that the sanctions are sufficing to avoid disruption to the encyclopedia. That is not something that can be determined without looking at editors’ conduct holistically. — Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 02:10, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • In Iskandar323’s case specifically, this shows revisions by Iskandar323 post-ARBPIA5-close to pages that are templated as being within scope of CT/A-I, either in whole (blue) or in part (orange) because of the presence of ‘|section=yes’ or ‘|relatedcontent=yes’. Apologies, but posting an image for this kind of data is my only option at the moment. No comment on the accuracy or completeness of topic area related templating. Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:58, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe don’t reward complaints by accounts compromised to stir up trouble by stirring up trouble at their behest. Just a thought.Dan Murphy (talk) 23:18, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The community seems happy with the current faith-based trust-and-don’t-verify ‘crime does pay’ approach to whether an account is in ‘good standing’. A ‘crime doesn’t pay’ approach might be a lot of work e.g. CUs for anyone who uses reporting systems, erasure of content created by accounts found to not be in good standing etc. Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:27, 30 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The community is happy because of both WP:AGF and because misconduct on the part of the filer shouldn’t excuse misconduct on the part of the accused. It’s an unwinnable situation where misconduct is being excused either way and, assuming bad filers keep getting caught (as they almost always are), the current approach results in the least long-term damage.
The alternative described is to mandate that any bad-filer reports with merit (read: not frivolous) are re-filed by a non-bad account, either creating more unnecessary work for everyone in re-filing and re-processing the report, or getting the accused off scot-free if nobody re-files the report. The current approach is effectively the community judging that they’d rather just cut out the middleman.
Remember that Arbcom are not paid employees; they’re all volunteers. Sometimes the most convenient option is best. The Kip (contribs) 04:56, 30 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is a time-saving exercise? What a world.Dan Murphy (talk) 06:27, 30 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If nobody but the obvious bad faith account “bothers to refile”, how actually disruptive can the behavior that desperately MUST be punished be? Is this about bettering the encyclopedia or simply punishing for the sake of it? Parabolist (talk) 08:24, 30 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Two points: I’m only addressing filings that were judged to potentially contain valid misconduct, i.e. the Iskandar one that sparked this – that filing wasn’t dismissed because Iskandar hadn’t done anything wrong, but because the filer literally stole another user’s account. We’re now here because an arb said there was potential legitimacy to the complaint despite the filer’s actions. Frivolous filings in bad faith are what they are, and the community is good at shutting those down.
I’m also saying that for cases with valid complaints, there’s the potential that no non-bad account could refile, which could happen for various reasons; a desire to avoid conflict, to avoid ARBPIA, to avoid being labeled a partisan within ARBPIA, ideological/personal alignment with the accused, etc. I think the second item applies to a lot of Wikipedians, and the fourth item sums up why many cases in the area are accused (usually justifiably) of weaponization – I can only name one recent ARBPIA filing where someone reported a user that was “on their side.” I can dig into more research on that if requested.
All of that could be avoided if you mandate that cases containing legitimate misconduct be re-filed by good-faith editors, which I’d support, but again, that creates more tasks for what’s already an over-strained volunteer system. The Kip (contribs) 09:16, 30 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, this doesn’t address the systemic issues. If the objective is to improve something, or reduce something, it probably won’t do that in any way that matters. That seems to be what history shows. If we can’t tell the difference between accounts “in good standing” and accounts created or acquired by people evading a previous sanction, then sanctions related to “legitimate misconduct” can only be imposed on accounts “in good standing”. This is perhaps the most important property of the ARBPIA system for me because it breaks the symmetry, it ceases to be a symmetric game, different players have different payoffs, and that changes everything. We know that people who employ ban evasion are effectively unsanctionable and weaponize reporting systems to target editors “in good standing”, and so we know that sanctions related to “legitimate misconduct” can only be effectively imposed on people who believe that the rules apply to them and accept the verdict. Under these conditions, what is the objective when we allow people who think the rules don’t apply to them to sample the vast number of revisions in the topic area to target opponents and then reward them by pretending that any “good-faith editor” might have done the same thing because it’s just about dealing with “legitimate misconduct”? It’s not about misconduct. Why would we allow ourselves to be played and pretend that it is? It’s about them removing perceived opponents and us rewarding bad actors who employ deception. Many, many people have already learned that it is better to use disposable accounts in the topic area. Some of them keep their heads down, and don’t bother anyone, and good for them. Others, like the person who acquired the BlookyNapsta account have a value system that is incompatible with Wikipedia’s, and yet we keep reminding them that using disposable/compromised accounts was the right decision. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:45, 30 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree with the train of thought above. If no actually in good faith editor is willing to raise a complaint, then any complaints raised by a not in good faith, actually in BAD faith, compromised editor must be considered fruit of the poisonous tree and dealt with accordingly. To do otherwise is a rabbit hole we do not want to go down. – The Bushranger One ping only 07:33, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • In Iskandar323’s case specifically, this shows revisions by Iskandar323 post-ARBPIA5-close to pages that are templated as being within scope of CT/A-I, either in whole (blue) or in part (orange) because of the presence of ‘|section=yes’ or ‘|relatedcontent=yes’. Apologies, but posting an image for this kind of data is my only option at the moment. No comment on the accuracy or completeness of topic area related templating. Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:58, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Since finishing their 2-week block for TBAN violations, Iskandar323 has edited Talk:Dome of the Rock (as already discussed), while the article was explicitly tagged as ARBPIA. On 18 December 2025 they edited Syria Palaestina which has an ARBPIA template. Additionally, on 15 December 2025 they removed a phrase that appears in 1988 Hamas charter (to quote from that article “The 1988 Hamas charter proclaims that jihad against Jews is required until Judgement Day.”). In their edit summary, they cited “marginal sourcing” from Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum. On 16 December 2025, they violated their topic ban by discussing the conflict on another TBANed user’s talk page. On 17 December 2025 they violated WP:CIVIL.
In addition to the above violations, they have also edited extensively on the history of Judaism just outside of the topic ban. While no particular edit is problematic, the edits together show an ARBPIA related POV being pushed by minimising the historical Jewish presence in ancient Israel. The connection of Jews to Israel or the denial or downplaying of this connection is one of the major issues of the Israeli-Arab conflict (some of these examples are from before the latest block, but this issue was not addressed in that block and continues). 5 November 2025, 5 November 2025, 25 November 2025, 25 November 2025, 16 December 2025, 16 December 2025, and 17 December 2025.
Other users TBANed in ARBPIA5 have also violated their TBAN. Levivich responded to Iskandar323 above, also violating their TBAN on their talk page on 16 December 2025. On 25 December 2025, they also violated a participation restriction at AE.
On 4 November 2025, Nableezy edited another editor’s comments on Talk:Gaza genocide, violating their TBAN. They wrote in their edit summary “worth a block of any length”, meaning that they were well aware that this was a violation.
On 28 April 2025, Makeandtoss violated their TBAN with an edit about a sabotage plot related to Israel (see the source cited, and note that in the current version of Islamic Action Front, the section is titled “Reaction to Israel-Palestine war”).
Nishidani was blocked on 22 August 2025 for a month for TBAN violations.
In short – several of the users TBANed in ARBPIA5 have not been meticulously observing their TBANs and continue the same behavior as before their TBANs. I think that ARBCOM needs to get involved. The pattern shown with Iskandar323 is especially disturbing. The user had multiple TBAN violations, and following a block for those violations, they continue with the same behavior. Multiple warnings and a temporary site block have not deterred them from violating their TBAN over and over again. I see no alternative to an indef CBAN. I also recommend to ARBCOM to take a look at the behavior of other senior users who have been involved in similar conduct to those who were banned in ARBPIA5. Nehushtani (talk) 07:20, 30 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Makeandtoss claim feels weak – unless I’m missing something, neither the Reuters source nor the article address anything directly related to ARBPIA, and another Reuters article says the sabotage plot was planned attacks within Jordan. The Kip (contribs) 09:21, 30 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Reuters source is about the sabotage plot that links to an article from a week earlier that explains the full context at Jordan says it has foiled attacks by Muslim Brotherhood which explains that “Security forces found a rocket manufacturing facility alongside a drone factory, according to a statement by the General Intelligence Department released on state media. “The plot aimed at harming national security, sowing chaos and causing material destruction inside the kingdom,” the statement said. … It said some of the arms were bound for the neighbouring Israeli-occupied West Bank, adding that they have arrested several Jordanians linked to Palestinian militants. … Jordan has over 3,500 American troops stationed in several bases and, since the war between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza erupted in October 2023, it has been increasingly targeted by Iranian-backed groups operating in neighbouring Syria and Iraq.” In other words, the “sabotage plot” was intended to smuggle weapons to Palestinians to use against Israel. Nehushtani (talk) 10:49, 30 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • The underlying question here is “what to do when sockpuppets, compromised accounts, etc. bring an at least potentially valid concern to AE.” This is a particular problem in the ARBPIA topic area due to the large number of recurring sockpuppets, who aggressively target ideological opponents, coupled with lots and lots of people with restrictions that they may in fact have violated. On one hand we don’t want to ignore potentially valid problems, but on the other hand moving forward based on allegations from sockpuppets encourages them to continue pressuring Wikipedia via those vectors and creates potentially one-sided examinations because the socks can freely harass people, getting banned repeatedly, then report them when their targets react; additionally, normal users would get in trouble if they repeatedly abused AE, whereas sockmasters can keep creating new accounts and throw things at the wall until they find something that sticks. That said, I feel that this shouldn’t actually be that hard of a question – we’ve already answered it, albeit in lower-pressure situations, when it comes to WP:BANREVERT. Specifically: If it’s found that someone is a sock or otherwise shouldn’t have been bringing things to AE, it can be closed without prejudice until / unless an editor in good standing is willing to vouch for it; but anyone can choose to vouch for it and re-open it (or create a new case based on it), effectively taking over as the filer. This avoids situations where people can use sockpuppets to spam our system with weak accusations, while still making it easy for cases to happen when there’s clearly something that needs to be looked into. —Aquillion (talk) 19:32, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah the iskandar blookynapsta filing situation tban vio is a good initial place to start from. I have no opinion for or against further creep scope at this point User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 19:35, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Anyone filing lots of reports against ideological opponents/participating lots at AE should just be page blocked from it, uninvolved editors in good standing should be using their social capital to clean up these CTs Kowal2701 (talk) 20:47, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed the rapid fire ae reports was not a good look. Nor was the participant restriction not being used earlier and more often. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 21:29, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that abuse of AE should be dealt with, but I wrote an essay about this here – as long as requests have a valid basis, I don’t think we should bar people from bringing a bunch of AE cases against people they’re in a dispute with. The facts are that:
1. Many topic areas are filled with stuff that needs to be brought to AE or SPI. ARBPIA and ARBTRANS in particular are flooded with both sockpuppets and outside canvassing, which have brought a lot of people whose edits could reasonably be described as tendentious. Sometimes someone making a lot of reports just means there’s a lot of problems. And while these problems are not one-sided, they do tend to come in waves.
2. People are simply more likely to notice issues with someone they’re in a dispute with. It’s a lot easier to spot incivility when it is directed at you! It’s much easier to notice revert-warring and 1RR / 3RR violations when it’s your edits being reverted! Tendentious editing sticks out a lot more when it’s pushing a position you also believe to be wrong; and believing something to be WP:FRINGE usually means disagreeing with it. The simple fact is that most people don’t look too closely at edits they agree with.
3. Making an AE case is a lot of work. Only a few people are willing to actually do that work; and people who have done it a lot in the past tend to be better and faster at it and more willing to do it again, simply because they know how.
The combination of these things means that in certain topic areas, you’re going to see a lot of reports from the same people, often aimed at those they disagree with. It’s a reason to be a bit more thorough and cautious with those reports and to avoid just assuming things are valid… but if the reports do in fact seem legitimate, I don’t think people should be prevented from making them. Because the flipside is that AE is one of the few venues we have to report actual abuse that is, in fact, happening; if you bar people from reporting too many people they’re in a dispute with, you’ll end up with actual issues festering until they reach ArbCom. And finally, yes, while people do make plenty of invalid or ridiculous reports… ultimately that’s a WP:ROPE situation. People like that are probably part of the problem in the topic area; by filing reports they’re calling attention to themselves and will eventually get removed. (This doesn’t apply to sockpuppets / compromised accounts for the reasons I outlined above, of course. But it’s why I do want editors in good standing to be able to “cure” those reports. AE might be frustrating but we do need it – as the ArbCom cases showed, the flood of reports in these topic areas isn’t people trying to remove otherwise blameless ideological opponents; it reflects genuine problems.) Basically, for someone to be abusing AE, they have to actually be filing weak or frivolous reports. If they’re filing a bunch of valid ones then that’s not abuse. Look at eg. the recent WP:ARBTRANS case – a lot of filings leading up to it were dismissed as just people targeting opponents, yet almost everyone who had an AE case filed against them was ultimately removed by ArbCom, several of them with verbage that made it clear it was not a hard call and that those people probably should have been removed earlier. AE needs to be able to handle those cases, which means it can’t just dismiss otherwise valid reports as partisan griping. —Aquillion (talk) 14:40, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but having ideological opponents file reports to ban each other only makes the topic more battlegroundy and entrenched. Theoretically It’d be better for people not involved in the topic area to make reports. It’s not too time consuming for such an editor/admin to glance at articles often subject to disputes, identify someone who seems tendentious, and keep an eye on their conduct in other disputes they get into. I don’t know why admins only get involved when something’s placed on their desk (though I’m sure there’s a good reason). All CTs need is a couple Frams Kowal2701 (talk) 15:42, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is huge and recognizing a pattern of tendentious behavior in particular requires both experience with the topic (to recognize when someone is eg. clearly pushing for undue weight rather than trying to fix genuine existing bias) and, usually, experience with an editor’s contributions that comes from interacting with them a lot or caring enough to go over them. Even recognizing a pattern of low-key uncivil behavior can require focused attention. Administrators can’t randomly go through checking everyone, especially given the amount of work it often requires to identify complex or long-term problems; realistically the system depends on those who interact with each other making reports, because they’re the first ones who will notice something wrong. And I don’t agree that it causes battleground entrenchment; I think it’s a symptom. I think genuine bad-faith reports are rare – people do usually actually believe the people they report have conduct issues; this belief is just sometimes tainted by their biases. If you bar them from making reports, they’re still going to think the people they interact with have conduct issues and shouldn’t be editing, and that will leak through and taint interactions. IMHO it’s better to encourage people to “put up or shut up” – to take concerns to AE quickly, handle them rapidly and with minimal back-and-forth or crossfire, and accept the results if they’re told there’s no issue. AE is a pressure-release valve, basically. I’m all for making it smoother and less… squabble-y, but we should be encouraging people to take things there quickly, not discouraging it, because that is how you get those uninvolved admin eyes on something; and whether there’s an issue or not, getting that attention is how you resolve things. But, like I said – we get a lot of eg. ARBPIA reports because there are, in fact, a lot of problems in the topic area. Making it harder for things to be reported is just going to make them fester and will ultimately make the battleground behavior worse, you just won’t see it until it explodes into a full ArbCom case or some other issue that can’t be ignored. —Aquillion (talk) 15:52, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Back when I was more active in contentious topics, I always felt like discretionary sanctions were underutilized because there’s no neutral way to request that an uninvolved admin step in. You’re either borderline-canvassing related projects (editors often know exactly which wikiprojects are monitored by those who agree with them) or making specific accusations at AE or ANI. It would be immensely helpful to have either a noticeboard or a list of admins’ talk pages where someone could post “Hey, this situation is starting to get out of hand, could you please take a look at it?” –dlthewave ☎ 16:10, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • We ought disregard with prejudice filings made by sockpupppets/compromised accounts. Their edits and arguments are in bad faith by definition given their block evasions. There is no further analysis required. TarnishedPathtalk 13:21, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    What would it mean to disregard them with prejudice, though? What happens if someone else goes “wait, that was a sockpuppet, but their filing pointed out a serious problem with how Lex Luthor is editing our BLP on Superman?” Do we tell them “sorry Lex Luthor was reported by a sockpuppet so now everything they did is excused?” —Aquillion (talk) 14:40, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Perhaps my language is a bit sloppy, but I meant with prejudice against the filing party, not against other editors who are in good standing. TarnishedPathtalk 22:52, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    there reports were thrown away with prejudice. but the diffs are real, and if arbcom believes they can separate the prejudicial value of the original report from possible real concerns at play, let them. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 23:37, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with asilvering’s highlighting of Dillthewave’s comment. Even people who are experienced editors but not familiar with the topic (area) and/or regular players in it can often tell that something seems wrong even if they can’t put their finger on what or who is the problem. Somewhere where they can bring their observations to the attention of those who do have the relevant knowledge would be valuable. I suspect that some experienced editors are using informal channels (IRC, Discord, email, whatsapp, etc) for this purpose currently but those channels are not available to everyone. Thryduulf (talk) 02:29, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Honestly, one thing I wish we had was a simple “report diff” button (similar to the “thank” button), coupled with a page that simply showed recently reported diffs sorted and filtered in various ways, especially the most-reported diffs, and who reported them; probably we’d also want a place to see every diff someone has reported to investigate abuse. Then admins could just regularly glance at the page and investigate diffs that get reported. It wouldn’t be perfect (it would put the burden on admins who see the reports to figure out if some actual policy has been violated and turn it into an action if that’s the case) but it would be extremely easy to use and intuitive for new users. While reports would be public they wouldn’t produce notifications (in particular the person being reported wouldn’t get a notification, though they could see it if they happened to look) – this is IMHO necessary to avoid turning it into a back-and-forth argument like we see in ANI and to a lesser extent AE; the idea is that this is only a very light “hey, someone should look at this” request, with the actual process-heavy case and the chance to defend oneself happening afterwards if an admin decides reports are worth doing something with. This would also mean that if someone is brought to AE or ANI, all their reported diffs could be reviewed to get a bigger picture of what potential issues there are. —Aquillion (talk) 02:47, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Some amount of “report diff button” is the intent of mw:Product Safety and Integrity/Incident Reporting System. Izno (talk) 02:59, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

These motions came out of an informal brainstorming session that included myself and several other arbs. I would catagorize several of these proposals as blue sky ideas that may not have the support of the committee or the community. —Guerillero Parlez Moi 18:48, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

2026 Review of the PIA topic area: Implementation notes: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

2026 Review of the PIA topic area: Implementation notes

Clerks and arbitrators should use this section to clarify their understanding of which motions are passing. These notes were last updated by automatic template check at 21:26, 3 January 2026.

Notes

Iskandar323 topic ban violations

1) Iskandar323 (talk · contribs) has violated their topic ban. ([4][5][6]). Iskandar323 was previously warned by Tamzin on 21 February ([7]) and blocked for 2 weeks by ScottishFinnishRadish ([8]) on 26 November for violating their topic ban.

Support
  1. Factual. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 02:58, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Added mention of the warning and block, borrowing from Guerillero‘s language. CC ScottishFinnishRadish. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 17:08, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Per Tamzin, I might want to add something like Iskandar323 was previously warned by Tamzin on 21 Feb and blocked for 2 weeks by ScottishFinnishRadish on 26 Nov for violating their topic ban. to give addtional color —Guerillero Parlez Moi 14:01, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  3. With the addition of the logged warning and block is better. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:26, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Indeed. asilvering (talk) 18:28, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Daniel (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Izno (talk) 19:56, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Aoidh (talk) 20:22, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  8. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 20:46, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Elli (talk | contribs) 20:47, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Abstain

Arbitrator views and discussions (Iskandar323 topic ban violations)

Community discussion (Iskandar323 topic ban violations)

Iskandar323 further POV pushing

2) Since their topic ban in WP:ARBPIA5, Iskandar323 has been engaged in consistently non-neutral editing around the history of Judaism ([9][10][11][12][13][14][15]). This is a continuation of the misconduct that led to the original topic ban.

Support
  1. The edits are obviously a continuation of PIA-related editing just outside of the topic area. —Guerillero Parlez Moi 14:04, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  2. A topic ban doesn’t mean find something only partially covered by your topic ban (as demonstrated by the warning and block) and continue POV pushing. As to what Parabolist said below, WP:NPOV is policy and non-neutral editing is disruptive. Wikipedia is WP:NOTADVOCACY and not a WP:BATTLEGROUND to further disputes. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:26, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  3. We’re not calling these topic ban violations, because they are not. I am saying that these are continuing the same behavior that led to the topic ban: pushing a point of view. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 17:08, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Daniel (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Izno (talk) 20:03, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  6. per above, and consistently non-neutral editing is absolutely disruptive. When it’s intentional, it’s POV pushing; when it’s not, it’s incompetence. Either way, that’s disruptive. see Transgender healthcare and people § Partisanship. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 20:46, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Abstain

Arbitrator views and discussions (Iskandar323 further POV pushing)

Community discussion (Iskandar323 further POV pushing)

Is the claim that these edits are disruptive, or does a topic ban prevent an editor from getting in editorial disagreements in non-banned pages now? “Non-neutral” editing doesn’t imply misconduct, and if this is meant to be the evidence that calls for a indef block below, I’d expect it to point to or claim that this is actual disruptive editing. Should he venture no opinions? Parabolist (talk) 19:57, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Where am I allowed to respond? Iskandar323 (talk) 18:45, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Iskandar323 banned

3.1) Iskandar323 is indefinitely banned from the English Wikipedia. This ban may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.

Support
  1. First choice —Guerillero Parlez Moi 14:05, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  2. The answer to someone violating their topic ban multiple times and working at the edges of it to continue the same dispute isn’t to further broaden their topic ban. It’s to make it clear such behavior isn’t allowed. When you’ve been warned, topic banned, blocked for topic ban violations, let off with time served then topic banned again by Arbcom, warned, blocked, and continue to violate your topic ban another warning or broadened topic ban isn’t going to fix things. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:26, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  3. First choice. Daniel (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Abstain

Iskandar323 topic banned

3.2) Iskandar323 is further topic banned from any edit related to Israel, Israelis, Jews, Judaism, Antisemitism, Palestine, Palestinians, or anything else that is related to the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Support
  1. Second choice as a package 3.3 —Guerillero Parlez Moi 14:05, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  2. The topic ban did not stop the disruption. I support this with 3.3. I am still considering the siteban, but if I support it, it would be in addition to 3.2 and 3.3. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 17:08, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. Insufficient. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:26, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Insufficient. Daniel (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain

Iskandar323 warned

3.3) Iskandar323 is warned for violating their topic ban imposed in Palestine-Israel articles 5. Administrators are authorized to block Iskandar323 for any reasonable length, including indefinitely, for further topic ban violations. Blocks imposed under this remedy may only be appealed to the Arbitration Committee.

Support
  1. Second choice as a package 3.2 —Guerillero Parlez Moi 14:06, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  2. With 3.2. I am still considering the siteban, but if I support it, it would be in addition to 3.2 and 3.3. Note that this allows editors to block for violations of the expanded topic ban. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 17:08, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. Insufficient. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:26, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Insufficient. Daniel (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Per above. Izno (talk) 20:04, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain

Arbitrator views and discussions (Iskandar323 remedies)

Community discussion (Iskandar323 remedies)

  • Another option not listed, and you’re not going to like this, would be to vacate the topic ban. Why might that be an option? Maybe it was an unsafe conviction. For example, the verdict says Iskandar323 “engaged in disruptive behavior in the PIA topic area, including consistently non-neutral editing (FOARP evidence)”. But if we look at the 9 samples presented, what other patterns might people see there? One pattern is that 6 out of the 9 !votes are consistent with the current titles of the articles, which presumably represents the current policy based consensus. Does this tell me that Iskandar323 is biased towards policy compliant results? No, because 9 samples don’t tell me anything useful about anything. I mention this for 3 reasons – 1. consistently non-neutral editing is the norm in the topic area, 2. violating topic bans is common in the topic area, but the usual device is to use sockpuppetry/ban evasion to hide it rather than do it out in the open, and 3. the sunk cost fallacy.
id rfc !vote current title !vote = result
1 Netiv HaAsara attack → Netiv HaAsara massacre RM (10 Oct 2023 – I) Iskandar323 – oppose Netiv HaAsara massacre 0
2 Nahal Oz massacre → Nahal Oz attack RM (6 November 2023 – I) Iskandar323 – support Nahal Oz attack 1
3 Nirim massacre → Nirim attack RM (14 Nov 2023 – I) Iskandar323 – support(nom) Nirim attack 1
4 Nir Yitzhak massacre → Nir Yitzhak attack (10 Jan 2024 – I) Iskandar323 – support Nir Yitzhak attack 1
5 Holit massacre → Holit attack RM (10 Jan 2024 – I): Iskandar323 – support Holit attack 1
6 Kissufim massacre → Kissufim attack RM (8 March 2024 – I) Iskandar323 – support Kissufim massacre 0
7 Engineer’s Building strike and massacre → Engineer’s Building airstrike RM (7 April 2024 – P) Iskandar323 – oppose Engineer’s Building airstrike 0
8 Nir Oz massacre → Nir Oz attack RM (1 June 2024 – I) Iskandar323 – support Nir Oz attack 1
9 Al-Tabaeen school attack → Al-Tabaeen school massacre RM (10 Aug 2024 – P): Iskandar323 – support Al-Tabaeen school attack 1

Sean.hoyland (talk) 13:20, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Another option not listed… would be to vacate the topic ban.
I can’t think of a worse possible option, nor do I see the usefulness in attempting to relitigate FoFs from a year ago. The Kip (contribs) 15:23, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t know how to measure whether it is actually better for Wikipedia for Iskandar323 or the other editors to be topic banned or not, so I don’t rule out any option. My position is always, keep an open mind and have some humility. Nobody really knows how to make the topic area function better. Sean.hoyland (talk) 18:14, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Levivich topic ban violations

4) Levivich (talk · contribs) has violated their topic ban. ([16][17])

Support
  1. As far as a FoF goes, yes, this is pretty straightforwardly true. — asilvering (talk) 01:54, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Yeah, those are indeed violations, but both of them have mitigating circumstances: the first is responding to misleading claims made about them in an external publication and the second is, to take asilvering’s term, a massive nothingburger. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 02:58, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  3. —Guerillero Parlez Moi 13:52, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  4. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:26, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Meh. Izno (talk) 19:40, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Daniel (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Yes. These in specific are minor violations, but topic bans are not a suggestion and Levivich absolutely knows what he’s doing here. Elli (talk | contribs) 20:48, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Abstain

Arbitrator views and discussions (Levivich topic ban violations)

It is somewhat surprising to me that the drafter of this section (Guerillero) failed to propose a remedy such as “Levivich commended” for having the bravery to WP:IAR in order to debunk blatant disinformation targeting himself and others. (first diff) — SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 07:17, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Levivich banned

5.1) Levivich is indefinitely banned from the English Wikipedia. This ban may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.

Support
Oppose
  1. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:26, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  2. But Levivich, please don’t make me regret this vote. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 17:08, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  3. For the infractions, opposed. Izno (talk) 19:42, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Daniel (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain

Levivich warned

5.2) Levivich is warned for violating their topic ban imposed in Palestine-Israel articles 5. Administrators are authorized to block Levivich for any reasonable length, including indefinitely, for further topic ban violations. Blocks imposed under this remedy may only be appealed to the Arbitration Committee.

Support
  1. Doesn’t really need the additional parts per HouseBlaster below and this will become second choice if someone puts that forward. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:26, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Needing a warning from the committee to stay within the bounds of your topic ban should mean that the next violation could be indefinite. First choice —Guerillero Parlez Moi 20:25, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. I would need to see extreme misbehavior to support indefinite, appeal only to ArbCom blocks enacted by a single admin. Best, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 17:08, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Prefer 5.4. Daniel (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Disproportionate. Izno (talk) 19:50, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain

Levivich warned (alt)

5.4) Levivich is warned for violating their topic ban imposed in Palestine-Israel articles 5.

Support
  1. Proposing a vanilla warning. If there is further violations then I will be supremely unimpressed, but I don’t see a reason to skip the initial block for for a month. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 17:08, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  2. First choice. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:18, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Daniel (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Second choice —Guerillero Parlez Moi 20:26, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Abstain
  1. Honestly, I can’t even get to a support here for the infractions of interest. Izno (talk) 19:51, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrator views and discussions (Levivich remedies)

  • A warning seems sufficient in this case – it’s one of those situations where technically yes, the TBAN was openly violated, but the disruption/severity was, as others have put it, a nothingburger. Might be worth considering as a factor should Levivich have a more impactful violation in the future, but on its own merit it’s obviously not worthy of any substantial sanction, especially when compared to the proposed FoF for Iskandar above (which IMO is far more of an issue). The Kip (contribs) 09:39, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • While I’m would have previously agreed with Guerillero regarding there being “no allowable topic ban violations”, the edit to their user talk quoting what an external source has said about them, is not at all the sort of conduct or content that the topic ban was intended to cover and does not harm the project in any way. Accordingly, if that were the sole diff brought here I would say the appropriate remedy would be acknowledging it as technical violation and no other action. However, that is not the only diff and the other one cannot be excused in the same manner. A block at this point feels punitive rather than preventative, so I would go for a warning that any future violations will (not might, will) result in blocks of increasing duration. Thryduulf (talk) 16:31, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • This was not disruptive. Even a warning feels disproportionate here. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 16:47, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Got to agree with the sentiments above. One can maybe nit-pick over the scope of the TBAN, but frankly I can’t see how Levivich complaining about the way an external source has misrepresented him constitutes anything that is going to have a material effect on Wikipedia content. Likewise, the nothingburger. TBANs are supposed to prevent harm to the project, not act as gotchas for griping. Possibly a warning is appropriate. Certainly nothing more. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:49, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • This reminds me of a similar situation with Eric Corbett in late 2015, involving critical coverage of him in an Atlantic article. The article involved a subject he was topic banned from; see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration_enforcement_2#Discussion_following_The_Atlantic_article for further context. Corbett disputed parts of the article and wasn’t sanctioned for doing so, but was blocked when he started talking about the topic instead of the article. Obviously this isn’t a 1 to 1 comparison– and it’s been 10 years since then, and Wikipedia culture has changed a lot since– but I think it’s worth thinking about in this context. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 20:13, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the idea that Levivich should have no opportunity to defend himself onwiki against allegations from a major source feels contrary to the spirit, though not the letter, of BANEX. Given that so much of this review is about people’s relationship to the spirit and not just the letter of things, I’m surprised to not see that get more thought. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:45, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Direct violation reports I

6.1) Violations of sanctions on a specific editor imposed by the Arbitration Committee as a remedy of an Arab-Israeli Conflict-related case may be reported directly to the committee. Reports may come via Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee, by accounts with 1 year tenure and 1000 edits, or to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment (AR/CA), by any user who is extended-confirmed. Emails sent to the Committee through other channels or by users who do not meet this requirement about sanction violations will be discarded without a response. Valid reports received via email will be posted at AR/CA by a member of the Committee.

Support
  1. SecondUpdated with creation of 6.4 Third choice, somewhat weakly. All of the same comments apply as 6.3 to the concept of ArbCom assisting with enforcement of our own topic bans. The part about emailing was based on general commentary that some long-term editors do not want to insert themselves into the dispute, especially against established editors that we sanctioned with topic bans, for fear of reprisals. Allowing emailing (ie. anonymous reporting) is definitely going to cause some consternation I imagine, but if topic ban violations aren’t being processed due to this, that’s equally concerning. Trying to find the balance between these two things might not result in this, but it’s a conversation worth having. The restrictions placed on who could use this potential new process was designed to prevent it being abused by drive-by sockpuppets and similar. As with 6.3 again, the statement about discarding without a response emails that don’t come from people who meet the requirements to report them correctly is key to prevent abuse. Daniel (talk) 19:58, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The corollary to this vote potentially failing is an inferred statement of opposition to the concept that the Committee will accept (and take action against) such reports in our inbox in the future. That’s something I am personally very willing and happy to see (and a position I’ve strongly held over the past 12 months). Daniel (talk) 04:13, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. Onwiki stuff stays onwiki, in the interest of transparency. I am not interested in playing telephone for the arbitrary user who sees an issue, and I know it’s left ArbCom with egg on its collective face before when it’s initiated proceedings onwiki as the result of offwiki requests. Izno (talk) 22:40, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Per Izno. Onwiki ought to be onwiki. If this does pass, note that it mandates the use of Special:EmailUser so we know who is making the report. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 02:27, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain

Direct violation reports II

6.2) Violations of sanctions on a specific editor imposed by the Arbitration Committee may be reported directly to the committee. Reports may come via Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee, by accounts with 1 year tenure and 1000 edits, or to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment (AR/CA), by any user who is extended-confirmed. Emails sent to the Committee through other channels or by users who do not meet this requirement about sanction violations will be discarded without a response. Valid reports received via email will be posted at AR/CA by a member of the Committee.

Support
Oppose
  1. I originally thought it might be better for 6.1 to apply across all cases, if it was indeed to pass, hence 6.2. On reflection, given the somewhat extraordinary situation that PIA5 creates, I now think it’s better that (if 6.1 passes rather than 6.3), it be restricted only to that scope. Consider it another “enough is enough” moment, where the Committee may, as a last resort, be compelled to adopt robust measures. I think there’s an argument that 6.1/6.2 would benefit maybe one or two other topic areas, but it would be strange to have it apply to 2-3 topic areas and not all of them. I think, when presented with 1 topic area vs all of them, 1 topic area is the better of the two options. Daniel (talk) 20:01, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Onwiki stuff stays onwiki. Izno (talk) 22:40, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Per Izno. Onwiki ought to be onwiki. If this does pass, note that it mandates the use of Special:EmailUser so we know who is making the report. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 02:27, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain

Direct violation reports III

6.3) Violations of sanctions imposed by the Arbitration Committee as a remedy of a case, on a specific editor may be reported directly to the Committee via Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment (AR/CA) by any user who is extended-confirmed. Emails sent to the Committee about topic ban violations will be discarded without a response.

Support
  1. FirstUpdated with creation of 6.4 Second choice. To be clear, this would only apply to topic bans which we specifically have placed, not topic bans placed by administrators under CTs etc. These are ‘our’ topic bans that we voted to place, normally placed against long-term contributors, and I think we should be another avenue of hearing reports of their breaches by these established editors. This will also help with workload to a small extent at AE. The sentence about people emailing us with topic ban violations is also critical – it establishes firm restrictions that, yes, people can report topic ban violations to us (through AR/CA), but it can’t be done anonymously via email. Daniel (talk) 19:52, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Second choice to 6.4. If it is our restriction, we should have the ability to directly enforce it. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 06:04, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Abstain

Direct violation reports IV

6.4) Violations of restrictions imposed by the Arbitration Committee on a specific editor may be reported directly to the Committee via Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment (AR/CA). Emails sent to the Committee about violations will be discarded without a response, unless there are privacy or other factors that are unsuitable for public discussion.

Support
  1. Proposing and supporting as a first choice. There are the following differences:
    1. Instead of sanctions, it says restrictions per Thryduulf’s comment
    2. The limitation to restrictions from cases is removed; I see no reason to place this off limits for restrictions imposed by motion (such as the ones we are considering above!)
    3. The requirement to be XC is removed per my comment below

    Wordsmithing welcome. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 05:42, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Before others have voted, adding another difference: the no email apply in all cases unless there are reasons to keep it private. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 06:18, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  2. First choice, per comments at 6.3 and below. Daniel (talk) 06:20, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  3. —Guerillero Parlez Moi 13:46, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Abstain

Arbitrator views and discussions (Direct violation reports)

  • I don’t know if any of these are good ideas, but they are certainly interesting ones. —Guerillero Parlez Moi 18:56, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Can we remove the word ‘sanction’ if at all possible, given its double meaning (which is why it’s generally not a good word to use onwiki at all)? “Violations of sanctions imposed by the Arbitration Committee as a remedy of a case, on a specific editor may be…” -> “Violations of remedies imposed on a specific editor by the Arbitration Committee as the result of a case may be…”. (This also fixes a grammar issue in the prior version.) Izno (talk) 22:45, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    (And I see Thryduulf was also concerned about this wording.) Izno (talk) 22:46, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rather than transparency (since there’s no email aspect here), I lean toward opposing 6.3 as effectively duplicating the support we already provide to admins at AE. I am not really interested in being the first group of people to be approached for enforcement when the rules are already laid out, and that pathway to ARCA from AE already provides a reasonable minimum set of permissions (namely, being an admin). If we need to loosen the level of consensus required to account for, say, a low-activity AE, we can, but that is not this proposal. Izno (talk) 22:59, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am apprehensive about introducing yet another thing you must be XC for—note that this requires XC to file about violations of remedies from any case, not just PIA—without direct evidence that this will end poorly. We already have means to dismiss frivolous complaints, ECR would still make this apply to PIA reports, and the community firmly said no to introducing this concept (“standing”) in 2024. (As a sidebar, I would like to get back to that 2024 refresh.) I might propose this, without the XC provision, as an alt if there is appetite for that. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 02:27, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do worry about how editors may avoid reporting others at AE for problematic behaviour, because of the various on-wiki social dynamics that can make that uncomfortable, and how that can lean to undesirable behaviour continuing where AE could have stopped it if only a report had been made. I think that is a particularly dangerous problem in this CTOP, of all of them, and that’s additionally compounded by off-wiki considerations. So in principle, I’m sympathetic to a proposal whereby an established contributor could alert arbcom or AE to an issue without needing their name attached to it, provided the rest of the discussion happens on-wiki. But this is also a topic area where the most recent AE filing came from a compromised account – one with more than 1000 edits, and more than five years’ tenure. — asilvering (talk) 02:55, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • In regards all three, Violations of sanctions imposed by the Arbitration Committee as a remedy of a case, on a specific editor may be reported would I think be more clearly worded as Violations of sanctions imposed on a specific editor by […] of a case, on a specific editor may be reported. In 6.1 and 6.2 or by users who do not meet this requirement should be set off with commas. Generally, it’s not immediately clear to me what restrictions other than topic bans are likely to be imposed on specific editors meaning the wording using a mix of “restrictions” and “topic bans” is slightly confusing and 6.3’s final sentence seems to imply that (nearly?) all reports received will be discarded without a response. As that would be pointless, I suspect that either I’m misinterpreting something or 6.3 is missing some words? Thryduulf (talk) 20:43, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Interaction bans come to mind, so I will make some fixes; however, 6.3’s last sentence says exactly what it should say in light of what is missing from it compared to 6.1 and 6.2 — Guerillero Parlez Moi 20:46, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Some less common restrictions might have off-wiki components (e.g. off-wiki evidence someone is operating what would be a WP:GOODSOCK but is in violation of an one account restriction). I suspect most of the time we would not take action, but there’s more room for shades of gray. I am really struggling to see how a topic ban violation could involve off-wiki evidence, and given that we regularly get reports from anonymous editors attempting to stir up trouble, firmly establishing that this will get no response seems like a good idea. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 05:42, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Users have been blocked before per off-wiki evidence of proxying TBAN violations. ZaniGiovanni, memorably. — Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 06:31, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    That’s a great point. I know 6.1/2/3 were written to prohibit “look at these naughty diffs [1][2][3]” (those diffs may or may not be actually problematic; if they are problematic, they may or may not be topic ban violations). Mentally I would consider the block to be for proxying around the tban rather than the tban, but that is entirely academic. I’ll think on it, but I suspect I will switch to oppose on 6.3 for that reason. Best, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 06:57, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Recently, I noticed that an unregistered user had been repeatedly violating ECR by using numerous temporary accounts to participate in conduct disputes within WP:CT/A-I. They asked various administrators (including me) to perform arbitration enforcement against certain editors (e.g. in Special:Diff/1328730103 and Special:Diff/1329090403, as well as Special:Diff/1324244034 for which the linked U4C case refers to Talk:Antisemitism on Wikipedia and a related Commons deletion request) while opposing sanctions against another editor in a noticeboard discussion (e.g. in Special:Diff/1324759095). As they have ignored my logged warnings, I have blocked ~2025-36583-02 and all of the temporary accounts listed in Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of ~2025-36583-02 and Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of ~2025-36583-02; see the enforcement log entries for more information. I suspect that some of the email reports described here have been sent by the same individual. — Newslinger talk 07:59, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

WP:ARBPIA EC by default adjusted

7) Remedy 1 of the Palestine-Israel articles 5 case (“ECP by default”) is rescinded and is replaced with Administrators are permitted to preemptively protect articles covered by WP:PIA.

Support
  1. Reaffirming my support for doing this, which is aligned with my vote in October 2025 at this same page. Daniel (talk) 20:06, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  2. per my comment below —Guerillero Parlez Moi 21:16, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Per Sdrqaz at the previous appeal attempt, and my comments over at ACE. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 00:03, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Per my vote when I raised this motion last year. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:16, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. Slightly opposed largely per Eek’s oppose on the motion from 3 months ago. Plus, the balanced editing restriction relies on PIA ECR articles being ECP’d. The initial wave of protections already happened. Logging is no longer an extra burden with the creation of WP:AELOG/P. And if RFPP admins don’t want to deal with these requests even at this point, they can take up the suggestion at WT:RFPP § Should ECR page protections be deferred to AE? to refer these to AE (e.g., via the new quick requests section). But if some admins start declining these even though the article topic is strictly within the topic area, that will just mean that the requester will need to go ask again of some admin (e.g., at AE) willing to implement the ECR and BER based on disruption to the topic rather than inspecting each particular article for disruption. Or some such admin(s) will just go check through RFPP archives from time to time for PIA requests declined as preemptive. ~ Jenson (SilverLocust 💬) 22:28, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Oppose, slightly per prior Eek and more per my own comment at the same ACE. This is a systems problem and it will be a net negative of resources to take some apparent pressure off RFPP and effectively put it on SPI or ANI instead. And I feel a lowercase reminder is warranted that ECP is called for in the relevant remedy for only those topics which are strictly within the scope of PIA. I am also not a fan of asking practically the same question all of 2 months down the road. Izno (talk) 22:37, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain

Arbitrator views and discussions (WP:ARBPIA EC by default adjusted)

  • I agree that this is a good change, though now that most of the topic area is protected and CTOP logging is automated I’m not sure it’ll have a large effect. Toadspike [Talk] 19:00, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • As someone who spent a lot of time proactively protecting ~900+ articles this is a welcome change. Dr vulpes (Talk) 21:28, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Users are subject to ARBPIA rules regardless of whether there is a technical ECP. There are some edge cases, where an article shouldn’t be locked, because it has a broader scope, but in most cases ECP is the logical outcome. SilverLocust’s comment on balanced editing makes little sense without ECP by default for relevant articles. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 01:01, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a regular these days at RFPP, I don’t quite understand the process behind this: there doesn’t seem to be a glut of PIA-related articles flooding RFPP. Also, since this doesn’t remove the ECR from the topic area, a note that Administrators are permitted to preemptively protect articles covered by WP:PIA strikes me as pointless, as ECR is de facto ECP, and thus making it de jure by ‘pre-emptively’ applying ECP to articles covered by ECR is already cromulent (and widely done in all ECR coverage areas). – The Bushranger One ping only 01:54, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • I invite the Arbitrators to look at the history of WP:RFPP/E and WP:RFPP/D with regards to Gaza genocide and Zionism over at least the past six months, if not the 2025 calendar year. Then ask, “When will the next PIA ideological flashpoint emerge?” —Jéské Couriano v^_^v threads critiques 16:29, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators permitted to topic ban from a wider area

8) Based on an explicit finding that a topic ban from the Arab-lsraeli conflict has been insufficient to prevent disruption, a rough consensus of administrators at Arbitration Enforcement may extend an existing topic ban to include other topics related to Israel, Israelis, Jews, Judaism, Palestine, Palestinians, Islam, and/or Arabs. They should cite at least one diff pertinent to each area into which the ban is extended.

Support
  1. When I was an AE admin, last week, I think I would have found the extra tools to be useful —Guerillero Parlez Moi 20:28, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Abstain

Arbitrator views and discussions (Administrators permitted to topic ban from a wider area)

  • This isn’t anything that AE can’t already do per WP:CTOP: A rough consensus of administrators at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard (“AE”) may impose … any other reasonable measures that are necessary and proportionate for the smooth running of the project. I would prefer to put this in PIA’s standard set of restrictions (for imposition by individual admins or AE) for an editor already topic-banned who “nibbles around the edges”/continues problematic behavior in topics adjacent to the modern conflict (such as historical or religious disputes used to bolster either side of the conflict). ~ Jenson (SilverLocust 💬) 23:17, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I might suggest the relevant line was intended to be read for extraordinary remedies inside the topic area (e.g. a remedy like a limit on words in a discussion levied on a specific user), not extending the consensus of AEdmin’s powers outside the topic area. I would not hang my hat on that line for such a use as you suggest. Izno (talk) 23:24, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with Izno. If we want to let admins topic ban around the edges, we need to do so — Guerillero Parlez Moi 13:45, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  • I get why Based on an explicit finding that a topic ban from the Arab-lsraeli conflict has been insufficient to prevent disruption is included, but where it currently sits makes it look like there has already been a finding rather than that being the process by which admins at AE might issue a wider topic ban. This motion needs rewording to remove “we found” case as a possibility.

    That aside, I’m open to an adjustment here; I’d like to hear from AEdmins first to see if this is a knob they would appreciate having access to, and whether they would appreciate something like this in the specific topic area or in all named contentious topics administered by ArbCom. (And if it should be explicitly granted/rejected in the context of the line that SilverLocust has noted.) Izno (talk) 23:24, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Speaking as an AEdmin, I quite like that WP:CT/SA has this effectively baked in. I think in WP:PIA specifically we’re seeing that this would be useful, given, for example, the suggested motions about Iskandar above, and the Roman Palestine AfD question. — asilvering (talk) 01:44, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • I’m with Izno: If AE admins think this would be helpful, I am more than happy to support some iteration of it; I have dropped WT:AE a line to get their opinions. I disagree with SilverLocust—AE admins cannot already do this. That line didn’t fall out of a coconut tree; it exists in the context of all that came before it, including the fact that the previous sentence is about enforcement. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 02:27, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The sentence I quoted is also about enforcement. I don’t think AE can or should impose other restrictions not meant as enforcement – namely of PIA (or other CTOPs). Rather, a PIA+ topic ban would be appropriate enforcement when the editor has been continuing PIA-related disruption in adjacent topics/pushing the limits of the topic ban in contravention of the topic ban broadly construed. ~ Jenson (SilverLocust 💬) 03:01, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Restrictions might be the wrong word, though I am not sure what the right one is. The standard set is all about restrictions within the topic, so I read that line to refer to bespoke things within the topic. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 05:42, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • I generally like encouraging AE admins to act, but I’m not convinced that this is a helpful power to give. A topic ban is only a good sanction if it seems likely that doing so will allow an editor to focus on more productive editing they do (or likely would do) in other areas. If an editor’s reaction to being topic-banned is trying to find sneakier ways to push the same POV… well, then trying it again is probably not a good idea. See the Asshole John rule. It’s just not possible to ban someone from “changing the POV of any article in a way that might influence coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict” – without giving away exactly what for BEANS reasons, extending a ban like this to Iskandar wouldn’t be nearly comprehensive enough to stop them from subverting it yet again to influence coverage of the conflict, if that is their intention. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 03:28, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    @Theleekycauldron, in a situation where someone is acting as you describe, sure, that might not be useful. But I can easily imagine situations where someone has been caught because they were editing in PIA, but their actual problem editing is something like “Jewish history, broadly construed” or “fiqh” or whatever. — asilvering (talk) 19:07, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • I hesitate to support this one as written mostly because it looks to me like it’s adding extra bureaucracy (diff requirements, a specific list of allowed topics) for no reason. If what we mean is something like “AE admins are encouraged to consider whether a topic ban that extends beyond the conflict itself (for example, “Jewish history”, “human activity in Palestine”, “Islam”) is necessary to prevent the disruption”, we should just say that. — asilvering (talk) 19:15, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another way to do this would be to make the area of conflict Israel and Palestine, broadly construed, including the Arab-Israeli Conflict. The downside is that you would expand everyone’s topic ban overnight without telling them —Guerillero Parlez Moi 20:31, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Any reason Judaism is included but Islam is not? Toadspike [Talk] 18:58, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    @Toadspike: No, just oversight on my part. I have no problem with adding it. — Guerillero Parlez Moi 19:12, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Since some editors here may not have seen it I will link to my 2025 AE report and also share the PIA observations I made there: The number of PIA (the number 1 topic area by a lot since it basically equaled #2 and #3 combined) reports dropped from 81 to 62 but unlike last year those reports were statistically different from the overall reports, being open longer than other kinds of reports. When filtering out PIA from the totals you get an average length of 10.1 and and median of 8 meaning PIA averaged 2.1 days more and had a median of 3.5 days more than other cases. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:18, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • AE rough consensuses have at times enacted sanctions that went slightly broader than the relevant topic area’s scope. If, say, AE TBANs someone from trans topics under GENSEX, well, not everything related to trans topics is a “gender-related dispute or controversy”, but I think it’s well-understood that AE can do that, or even an individual admin. I can try to find instances later but I think I’ve also seen a few sanction scopes lacking a date- or region-based restriction from the underlying CTOP. But, despite wording arguably allowing it, AE has so far resisted passing any sanctions that would go leaps and bounds beyond a CTOP’s scope. Perhaps that informal status quo is sufficient; perhaps ArbCom should clarify the limits here going forward. — Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 03:40, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, looking through every rough-consensus TBAN from 2024 and 2025, I see four that I would say nontrivially exceed the CTOP scope (where I would consider my trans/GENSEX example as only trivially exceeding). Only the fourth is a major broadening of the scope, however.
    (Iljhgtn’sA TBAN technically qualifies too but would not if it were recategorized under CT/BLP, of which the user was aware at time of sanction.) — Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 05:57, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Historically, the predecessor to contentious topic designations gave admins the flexibility to enact sanctions at their own discretion that they deemed would best fit the situation, without any predetermined limits. (The counter-balance was for the restriction to be appealed at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard.) My understanding of the progression from the discretionary sanctions framework to the contentious topics framework is that bespoke restrictions are still authorized, when determined through a consensus of admins at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard. I appreciate that the logistic difficulties in remembering and enforcing custom restrictions has resulted in admins favouring well-known restrictions as much as possible. isaacl (talk) 05:21, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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