Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-10-10/Breaking news

In a mailing list post today, Jimbo Wales appointed two users to the Arbitration Committee: Mindspillage (a.k.a. Kat Walsh), and Kelly Martin (a.k.a. karynn).

Mindspillage made her first edit in June 2004, and was made an admin in April 2005. Kelly Martin first contributed in December 2004, becoming an administrator in June 2005. Jimbo referred to both users as "highly recommended".

Some users expressed dismay at the use of temporary appointments. Talrias, a candidate for the December ArbCom elections, said "I disagree with the principle of Jimbo appointing people to the arbitration committee rather than having elections. The Committee was originally set up with the idea that arbitrators would be elected by the community - in fact, there was a special election when two original members resigned." Jguk agreed, but said "The reason for an appointment is that it is temporary, will only last for two and a half months, and is easier at present...really, we need rules in place to provide for what we do with vacancies."

Most users, however, were decidedly in support of the appointments. Hamster Sandwich said, "I agree with the process of appointing ArbCom members. It ensures a higher standard of accountability to the editing community at large, in that appointees can be revoked with out a complicated process if they act in bad faith or contrary to the letter and spirit of WP process."

Both Mindspillage and Kelly Martin's terms will expire on 31 December, 2005. Neither have officially announced their candidacy for another term.

In other news, Jimbo announced that plans are in the works for "a new election process for the arbcom which I hope will deal, in some small way at least, with the unpleasantness of last year's process." No further details are yet available.

Also announced in the post was the appointment of James Forrester to the position of Chief Research Officer, replacing Erik Möller, who resigned on 17 August (see archived story).