Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008

The Elections to the English Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee commenced on 10 November 2008 (candidate statements opened). Nominations were accepted from 10–24 November 2008. Voting opened on 1 December 2008. The newly elected Arbitrators will join both Tranches Beta and Gamma. Voting ran for two weeks (exactly fourteen days), and the results were determined and announced by Jimbo Wales on 20 December 2008. In announcing the new appointments, Jimbo decided to expand each Tranche by one seat. Additionally, an arbitrator who resigned during the election was not replaced. Therefore, after the election, ArbCom was composed of 17 members, ten of whom were newly elected.

Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/General Summary provides an at-a-glance overview of this year's Election.

Vacant seats
This year's Election was held to fill the following outgoing Arbitrators' seats:
 * 1) (James Forrester aka "James F.")
 * 2) (previously Blnguyen)

Additionally, resigned two years before his term would expire (statement); his seat was kept unfilled for the time being.

Process
The agreed process being used this year is based around the following seven points.


 * 1) The Election opened formally on 10 November 2008. On this day, candidates were able to submit their candidate statements. Also, general questions (questions that are submitted once on a single page, and thereafter answered by every candidate in the election) will be accepted on this day.
 * 2) Candidate statements were accepted 10 November 2008 through 24 November 2008.
 * 3) General questions were accepted from 10 November 2008 through 17 November 2008.
 * 4) Individual questions can be asked of each candidate between 10 November 2008 and 1 December 2008. They can be asked on his or her "/Questions for the candidate" subpage, reachable through the respective candidate statement. (Please do not repeat questions that have already been generally asked.)
 * 5) Voting began at 00:00 UTC on 1 December 2008 and closed at 23:59 UTC on 14 December 2008. Votes cast after that time will be reverted.
 * 6) Voters had to have a registered account with at least 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2008.

Results
Final tallies of votes can be found at Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Results.

On 20 December 2008, at 23:32 UTC, Jimbo Wales announced the results of the ArbCom elections. As a change to this year's ArbCom, Jimbo decided to add one new position to each Tranche, thus expanding the size of the ArbCom to 18 members. He did this because, as he stated, "My exploration of the voting results tells me that this was an election for change...This was a key factor in my decision to expand the committee...As it stands, we have 10 of 18 seats filled with new members" Additionally, one standing Arbitrator, User:Deskana, resigned during the election. Rather than fill his seat in Tranche Alpha, Jimbo elected to leave it unfilled, and to hold an interim election in "at some point in 2009", likely "March or June or so". He stated that he expects the possibility of some additional retirements in the coming months, and would like to handle the replacements under a single election.

Additional ruminations by Jimbo on the operation of ArbCom, and on the 2008 ArbCom elections, can be found here.

Tranche Beta
The following were all appointed to 3-year terms in Tranche Beta, with terms expiring in December 2011:
 * User:Casliber
 * User:Risker
 * User:Roger Davies
 * User:Cool Hand Luke
 * User:Rlevse
 * User:Jayvdb (expansion seat)

Tranche Alpha
The following were all appointed to 2-year terms in Tranche Alpha, with terms expiring in December 2010:
 * User:Vassyana
 * User:Carcharoth
 * User:Wizardman (expansion seat)

Additionally, the seat recently vacated by Deskana in Tranche Alpha will be left unfilled, leaving 5 (instead of 6) members of Tranche Alpha for the time being.

Tranche Gamma
The following was appointed to a 1-year term in Tranche Gamma, with a term expiring in December 2009:
 * User:Coren (expansion seat)