User:Elonka/ACE2008


 * The final decision was announced on December 20. See User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive_41.  Congratulations and sympathies to the new arbitrators!

Overview
For those who aren't sure what this was about: The Arbitration Committee is part of the Wikipedia dispute resolution process. In fact, ArbCom is pretty much the last stop. For a general real world analogy, ArbCom is sort of like the Supreme Court of Wikipedia. The arbitrators don't make decisions on article content, but they do issue rulings on complex disputes relating to user conduct, and they have considerable authority within the wiki-culture. Members of the committee are elected for three-year terms, with a new batch elected each year. Candidates nominate themselves in November, and go through a Q&A process for a few weeks. At midnight UTC on December 1, 2008, the community began a 2-week voting period, and pretty much anyone could weigh in with "support/oppose" comments, voting for or against as many candidates as they wished. A running tally was kept which showed the percentage of supports vs. opposes. Voting closed at 23:56 December 14. On December 20, Wikipedia co-founder Jimbo Wales made the final decision. This year, seven seats were to be filled, out of a candidate pool of about 30–35. After the elections, Wales decided to appoint 10 new arbitrators, for terms ranging from 1-3 years.

This page that you are reading contained my notes on the election as it was unfolding. Now that the election is over, I have blanked the page, though the information is still in history if anyone is interested. I may do the same thing for the 2009 elections, I haven't decided yet. We'll see! --Elonka 04:21, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Other guides

 * 2009: User:Elonka/ACE2009
 * 2010: User:Elonka/ACE2010