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This is getting posted on every arb's talk page and I will courtesy notify Doc J. I am appalled at how low the standards of wiki admin behavior have sunk. We've seen admins lose their bit for nothing more than one wheel war and yet here we have multiple instances of involved protections, edit wars, hounding new users, involved blocks, etc, and absolutely nothing gets done about it. Why? So Doc J can "adjust"? What about all his victims? What do they get?--diddly squat, just like in the real world. I actually truly hope Doc J can change, but that is not what wiki history teaches us. Wiki history teaches us he will lay low until the heat dies down then steadily go back to his old ways and he'll be back at RFAR within 6-30 months from now. Just like the arb case from my day when a drafting arb came within a hair of posting sanctions on Willbeback but didn't and what happened? Will kept going on in the same old fashion and two years and countless victims later, Will loses his bit and gets banned. And Doc J gets to use a secret mentor? He'd only not disclose that person if he felt the community would not accept the mentor, such as the mentor wasn't neutral or some such reason. By not taking this case and not issuing any guidelines or admonishments, especially with several extremely weak comments by the arbs (ie, how can some of you see nothing wrong in his behavior) all AC did here was send a clear signal to admins that there are no more admin standards of behavior and admins can do whatever they want and get away with it scott free. This juxtaposed with those who lost their bit for one wheel war also shows there is no consistency at all in AC's rulings on admins. At a minimum AC should have issued a statement on unacceptable behavior rather than turning a blind eye to the RFAR. This is an unacceptable precedent for which the community and AC will pay for many times over in the future. The UN can do a better job of fixing things than wiki and AC can, and that's really sad. This is a classic case of how those committing harmful acts rationalize their behavior and others rationalize excuses on their behalf. See you at "RFAR/Jmh649 2". PumpkinSky talk 22:00, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrators, especially Carcharoth, are pretty good at monitoring any festering disputes. If you post your opinion once, in one place, that is probably sufficient. Spamming every arbitrator's talk page may convince the large number of lurkers on these pages (such as me) that you are responsible for the frictions. You might want to ask ONE arbitrator for tips on how to resolve your concerns. Jehochman ^Talk 02:37, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Jehochman for replying here (though arbitrators are not really that good at monitoring festering disputes, it depends how much of various activities they see before it rises to the level of arbitration, or how active they are to even be aware of such things). PumpkinSky, I was on a wikibreak at the time you posted that request. I don't have the time to look into things now, but if it comes up again, I will. One thing I did notice, when looking over declined requests, was that the most recent request was one made by you in relation to Bwilkins that got rejected. I don't usually comment on rejected requests, but looking over some of those rejected requests, I'm sorely tempted, though I suspect that my views would not have changed the results of any of those requests. Carcharoth ( talk) 19:49, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

We are down to our final 16: the 2013 semi-finals are upon us. A score of 321 was required to survive round 3, further cementing this as the most competitive WikiCup yet; round 3 was survived in 2012 with 243 points, in 2011 with 76 points and in 2010 with 250 points. The change may in part be to do with the fact that more articles are now awarded bonus points, in addition to more competitive play. Reaching the final has, in the past, required 573 points (2012, a 135% increase on the score needed to reach round 4), 150 points (2011, a 97% increase) and 417 points (2010, a 72% increase). This round has seen over a third of participants claiming points for featured articles (with seven users claiming for multiple featured articles) and most users have also gained bonus points. However, the majority of points continue to come from good articles, followed by did you know articles. In this round, every content type was utilised by at least one user, proving that the WikiCup brings together content contributors from all corners of the project.

Round 3 saw a number of contributions of note. Figureskatingfan ( submissions) claimed the first featured topic points in this year's competition for her excellent work on topics related to Maya Angelou, the noted American author and poet. We have also continued to see high-importance articles improved as part of the competition: Ealdgyth ( submissions) was awarded a thoroughly well-earned 560 points for her featured article Middle Ages and 102 points for her good article Battle of Hastings. Good articles James Chadwick and Stanislaw Ulam netted Hawkeye7 ( submissions) 102 and 72 points respectively, while 72 points were awarded to Piotrus ( submissions) for each of Władysław Sikorski and Emilia Plater, both recently promoted to good article status. Collaborative efforts between WikiCup participants have continued, with, for example, Casliber ( submissions) and Sasata ( submissions) being awarded 180 points each for their featured article on Boletus luridus.

A rules reminder: content promoted between rounds can be claimed in the round after the break, but not the round before. The case in point is content promoted on the 29/30 June, which may be claimed in this round. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. We are currently seeing concern about the amount of time people have to wait for reviews, especially at GAC- if you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to reduce the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn ( talk • email) and The ed17 ( talk • email) 09:56, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new Featured and A-Class content Book reviews: Nick-D looks at Australia's frontier wars Interview: What Wikimedia chapters can offer military history editors

I received a notice from Callanecc today that there was a proposed motion on an ARBCOM case that affected me. [1] Penwhale notified me of the case 16 July. [2] I did not reply because no comments were made about me. AGK, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs and Silk Tork have voted to ban me. Could you please explain why I am part of this case. TFD ( talk) 05:18, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

TFD, thank-you for your note. I'm not active on this case, and have been on a wikibreak for most of the past two months. My inactivity on this case should have been noted back in May, but the template wasn't updated until recently (see this edit). Hopefully your question will have been answered on the talk page of the proposed decision of the case by those arbitrators active on this case, as I see you asked it here. Carcharoth ( talk) 19:04, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

We're halfway through this year's penultimate round, and the competition is moving along well. Pool A's Sasata ( submissions) currently leads overall, while Pool B's Sturmvogel_66 ( submissions) is second. Both leaders are WikiCup veterans, and both have already scored over 600 points this month. If the round were to end today, Miyagawa ( submissions), with 274 points, would be the lowest-scoring participant to make it through. This indicates that participants will need a score comparable to last year's (573, the highest ever) to qualify for the final. The high scores this year are a testament both to the quality of participants and to the increased focus on significant content (eligible for bonus points) in this year's competition. So far this round, both Sasata and Cwmhiraeth ( submissions) have made up over half of their score through bonus points, with, for example, high importance FA koala earning Sasata a total of 440 points (from a multiplier of 4.4) and high-importance GA sea earning Cwmhiraeth a total of 216 points (from a multiplier of 7.2). Other articles on important topics submitted this round include a featured article on the Norman conquest of England by Ealdgyth ( submissions), and good articles on Nobel laureate in literature Henryk Sienkiewicz, Nobel laureate in physics Hans Bethe, and the noted Japanese aircraft carrier Hiryū. These articles are by Piotrus ( submissions), Hawkeye7 ( submissions) and Sturmvogel_66 respectively.

Other than that, there is not much to report! If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to reduce the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn ( talk • email) and The ed17 ( talk • email) 23:21, 31 July 2013 (UTC)