The Arbitration Committee's December 2008 elections opened on December 1. At the beginning of the election, thirty-four candidates were vying for seven open positions on the Committee.

Through the first four days of the election, thirteen candidates were receiving at least 50% support, the threshold for appointment:

• Casliber: 92.9%
• Risker: 86.7%
• Roger Davies: 83.9%
• Rlevse: 77.4%
• Vassyana: 72.4%
• Cool Hand Luke: 70.7%
• Jayvdb: 70.0%
• WJBscribe: 68.4%
• Wizardman: 67.4%
• Carcharoth: 66.1%
• SirFozzie: 61.0%
• Coren: 60.5%
• The Fat Man Who Never Came Back: 52.9%

The results are strikingly similar to those of the 2007 election, where, just like in this year's election, thirteen candidates had at least 50% support, and only one had over 90% support.

It could be said that this year's election shows a desire for "change" within the Committee; voters have shown deep discontent regarding some recent actions taken by the Arbitration Committee. In particular, the two arbitrators running for reelection, Charles Matthews and Jdforrester, have very low support, receiving just 19.0% and 17.8%, respectively. In comparison, since the introduction of on-wiki voting in the December 2005 elections, five sitting arbitrators have run for reelection, and none received less than 64% support.

Many of the candidates with high levels of support have expressed interest in improving the Committee's speed and transparency, as have many voters on the vote pages of Matthews and Forrester. This trend has not affected current arbitration clerk Rlevse and former clerk Jayvdb, however, as the two are currently in 4th and 7th, respectively.

As of press time, three candidates had withdrawn from the election: BillMasen, Gwen Gale, and, most notably, former arbitrator Sam Korn. Korn served on the Committee in 2006, and did not seek re-election in 2006 or 2007. Korn was receiving 51% support at the time of withdrawal, with most opposition coming due to inactivity. Korn said, "I've only just realised that the voting period has started -- I have been rather unwell for the last week or so and haven't been able to be on Wikipedia to answer questions and otherwise participate in the election process. ... I think I must withdraw my candidacy for this election. ... I very much appreciate the support I have received and apologise for this necessity."

The elections run for two weeks, ending on Sunday, December 14 at 23:59 UTC. It is anticipated that Jimbo Wales will make his selections soon afterward, and the newly elected Arbitrators will take their positions on January 1, 2009. Of the seven seats to be selected, five of the seats will be three-year terms in Tranche Beta, up for reelection in December 2011, while the other two will be one-year terms in Tranche Gamma, and will be up for reelection in December 2009.

Last week, we released our annual election guide, containing the responses to a few general questions asked to every candidate. The election guide is intended to be a brief overview of each candidate's beliefs and experiences. More detailed information about each candidate may be gleaned from their user pages, as well as their responses to questions from other users. Not all candidates have yet replied to our questions; their replies will be added as they are received.

Due to size, the guide has been split up alphabetically, though a page transcluding all sections is available below:

ArbCom candidate profiles:    A-F  |  G-K  |  L-S  |  T-Z  |  All  |  (Withdrawn)

Of the five arbitrators whose terms expire this year, two, Charles Matthews and Jdforrester, will stand for re-election. These five seats, along with the seats of UninvitedCompany, who resigned in September, and Jpgordon, who will resign on January 1, will be up for election, resulting a total of seven seats to be filled in the election.

United Press International cited Wikipedia as a source in one of its recent Top News stories.
The article, Personality Spotlight: Robert Gates, discusses United States President-elect Barack Obama's choice of Robert Gates for US Defense Secretary.
The article mentions Wikipedia, and presumably the article on Robert Gates, as a source for various facts regarding his history, including his serving as a Cabinet member under two presidents of two political parties.

Among the hundreds of applications available for the iPhone and the iPod Touch, there are several applications designed specifically for browsing Wikipedia. In addition to presenting the information in a more iPhone-friendly format, some applications provide other features and research tools. iLounge editor Jesse David Hollington reviewed some of these applications in this recent article.

The article showcased 16 different Wikipedia applications, including three location-based apps, GeoPedia, Next Wiki, and WikiMe. Hollington rated Wikipanion as the best application, making note of its viewing options, link queuing, and page caching features.

Rowena Mason of telegraph.co.uk discusses the recent inclusion of Jimmy Wales in Oxford University Press's Who's Who 2009. According to Mason, Wales, an American, is an unusual choice for the list, which has been dominated by the British. Wales listed his hobbies as "international travel, free speech, free culture, contributing to Wikipedia, commerce and technology". Other new additions this year include Cynthia Carroll, CEO of Anglo American PLC, and Andy Bond, CEO of Asda.

According to ExecutiveBrief, wikis are the way of the future for today's businesses. The ITworld article Wiki at Work discusses how the success of Wikipedia has proven the value of open-source applications and the free sharing of knowledge. The wiki model and software would allow various business documents, such as high-level designs and corporate newsletters, to be created and maintained in a much more efficient way than by more traditional step-by-step processes.

Welcome to another issue of the WikiProject Report, highlighting the ways Wikipedians coordinate their efforts to make Wikipedia better. In this issue, we're interviewing Ruslik0, the current coordinator for WikiProject Solar System. With only 30 members, it is a fairly small WikiProject,^[1] yet it has still managed to produce, among other featured content, the extremely comprehensive Solar System featured topic. Ruslik0 is here to tell us about how it all works.

1. Tell us a little about yourself and your history as an editor.

   Well, I am a theoretical physicist. I am not an astronomer or planetary scientist. However I have been interested in astronomy since my childhood years. Wikipedia gives me an opportunity to find a useful application of my interest in astronomy.

   I made my first edits in April 2006. I actually wanted to find some information (escape velocities and gravity accelerations) about moons of Saturn, but could not. Wikipedia articles contained information that was sometimes wrong and sometimes outdated. In addition the information I found in en.wiki contradicted other sources. So I grew increasingly frustrated and decided to fix the problem myself. I calculated gravity and escape velocities and updated the values in articles. This was my first contribution to Wikipedia. After that I made no edits for almost a year.

   However then in March 2007 I again failed to find satisfactory information about moons of Saturn and Callisto, as I remember. The latter article actually had a {{unreferenced}} banner at the top, and did not look like a very promising source of information. So I decided to add sources myself. I found a good paper and update masses/radii of satellites. I also fully referenced Callisto article. I would probably have stopped at that point, had not I learned about FAC and GAN. So I thought it would be great to bring one article to GA level and another to FA. By the June 2007 I did this with Amalthea and Rings of Jupiter. I initially wanted to stop after that, but quickly discovered that I could not. Every wikipedian knows what followed after that. Ruslik (talk) 11:32, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

2. You are currently the self-appointed WikiProject Solar System coordinator. How and when did this happen? What are your duties and privileges as project coordinator?

   In the last summer I noticed that Wikiproject Solar System was in a miserable state. It had about 500 articles under its umbrella, almost all of them unrated. I started doing some maintenance work. Currently all ~5000 Solar System articles have quality ratings. I personally rated probably ~1000 of them. I also noticed that self-appointing is popular among coordinators. I came up with an idea to appoint myself a coordinator of the Solar System Wikiproject. I did this in September; nobody has objected. Now I even have two self-appointed assistants (User:Serendipodous and User:Ceranthor).

   As to duties and privileges? There are no privileges only duties, I would say. I try to maintain consistent ratings among Solar System articles. In addition I updated the main project page and did some work on Portal:Solar System. Ruslik (talk) 11:32, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

3. The Solar System project has over 40 featured articles, many of which you have contributed to. Solar System is also a fully featured topic. Some might say that bringing a topic of this scope and importance to featured status would require a great deal of effort and organization by you and the project members. Others might argue that the individual articles of your project are much easier to bring to featured status than, for example, those belonging to WP:COUNTRIES, as the content involved is much more clear-cut and the scientific data are so objective, well-researched, and highly publicized. What do you think?

   Well, it requires some level of coordination, of course. One editor can not really write a featured article alone. Any text needs at least copy-editing by someone not familiar with it. Very complicated articles (Formation and evolution of the Solar System, for instance) were written by several editors closely collaborating with each other. However the featured topic itself has not required so much collaboration. Creating a new topic is actually quite simple, providing you have enough GA and FA articles. Solar System FT was actually created by other editors (including Serendipodous—another great contributor to Solar System articles) before I even came to Wikipedia.

   I also do not agree that writing astronomy related articles is so simple. If it is so simple, why so few editors are working in this area? I invite anybody who thinks that it is simple to bring at least one Solar System article to featured status. In reality scientific papers are not so clear-cut, they often contradict each other and may contain plain errors. In addition, scientists have their own idiosyncrasies. So I always need to decide which information to include and which to ignore. This may be a difficult choice. Another problem is overabundance of information in some areas (Formation and evolution of the Solar System), when it is a problem to select a limited number of papers from many thousands that are available.

4. Since becoming featured in November 2006, the Solar System topic has undergone 9 supplementary nominations, more than any other topic to date.^[2] What's that all about? Is it just because the topic was among the first 5 to be featured and has had to deal with 2 years of shifting criteria?

   Initially FT Solar system included only Sun, eight planets, moon and other articles about major parts of the Solar System (18). After that six articles about giant moons became featured and we decided that they should be included (18+6=24). Formation and evolution followed soon (24+1=25). So inclusion criteria have been constantly evolving. And finally last summer IAU decided that two more bodies should be called dwarf planets. To avoid demotion of the topic these bodies—Makemake and Haumea were quickly brought to FA level and included in FT (25+2=27). However, after all those additions the topic became too large and was recently split. Three subtopics were formed: Dwarf planets, Galilean moons and Main belt. The main Solar System topic currently contains 17 articles. So nine supplements are not unusual, in my opinion.

5. After the failure of the previous supplementary nomination back in September, do you think the topic is in a stable state for now, or do you plan on expanding it further?

   I think it is unreasonable to expand it further (however Planets beyond Neptune can be a nice addition to it), because this topic is already really big. Currently we are actually focused at subtopics. Three subtopics exist now. We are working on Jupiter subtopic that will probably supersede Galilean moons subtopic. Ruslik (talk) 20:19, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

6. You mentioned that you are a theoretical physicist, yet according to your user page, you haven't significantly contributed to any non-astronomical physics articles. Why is that?

   I have enough theoretical physics at work. So, for me writing astronomy articles is just a form of rest. However I often review natural sciences articles that are FA candidates. Ruslik (talk) 20:19, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

7. Your user page also mentions that your native language is Russian. Do you plan on using your language skills and your experience writing English astronomy articles to contribute to the Russian Wikipedia?

   I am actually a rare guest on ru.wiki. This is mainly because of the lack of time. However I noticed that some of the FA articles, which I contributed to, were translated to Russian. Ruslik (talk) 20:19, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Five editors were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: SilkTork (nom), Thehelpfulone (nom), Jclemens (nom), Ruslik0 (nom), and Seddon (nom).

Ten bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: CwraschkeDataBot (task request), XZeroBot (task request), ArthurBot (task request), GnawnBot (task request), Homobot (task request), Obersachsebot (task request), AnomieBOT (task request), AnomieBOT (task request), DYKadminBot (task request) and DYKBot (task request).

DYKadminBot is an administrative bot, operated by Ameliorate!, that automatically updates Wikipedia:Did you know every six hours from a queue of approved hooks chosen by administrators.

Nine articles were promoted to featured status this week: Kannada literature in the Western Chalukya Empire (nom), Myst V: End of Ages (nom), Mozart family Grand Tour (nom), SS Montanan (nom), Caspar David Friedrich (nom), Battle of Lipantitlán (nom), Herbert Greenfield (nom), Richard Williams (RAAF officer) (nom), and World Science Festival (nom).

Eighteen lists were promoted to featured status this week: List of Governors of Arizona (nom), List of premiers of Manitoba (nom), List of premiers of New Brunswick (nom), Lambda Literary Awards winners and nominees for science fiction, fantasy and horror (nom), List of Santa Clara VTA Light Rail stations (nom), List of Houston Rockets head coaches (nom), Natacha Atlas discography (nom), List of awards and nominations received by Rufus Wainwright (nom), List of Washington Nationals managers (nom), List of awards and nominations received by Chris Brown (nom), List of moons (nom), List of premiers of Newfoundland and Labrador (nom), List of Portland Trail Blazers head coaches (nom), List of Knight's Cross recipients of the Schnellboot service (nom), List of WCW World Tag Team Champions (nom), Gaylactic Spectrum Award winners and nominees for best novel (nom), List of number-one Billboard Top Latin Albums of 2006 (nom), and List of Stewards of the Manor of Northstead (nom).

No topics or portals were promoted to featured status this week.

The following featured articles were displayed on the Main Page this week as Today's featured article: David I of Scotland, 1956 FA Cup Final, Harvey Milk, Pulmonary contusion, Angus Lewis Macdonald, Anglo-Zanzibar War, and Rosetta@home.

No articles or topics were delisted this week.

Two formerly featured lists were delisted this week: List of countries (nom) and CZW World Heavyweight Championship (nom).

The following featured pictures were displayed on the Main Page this week as picture of the day: Eastern Imperial Eagle, Trinity nuclear test, Bogong High Plains, Nelumbo nucifera, Anthophora, Louis Brandeis, and F-4 Phantom II.

No sounds were featured this week.

No featured pictures were demoted this week.

Four pictures were promoted to featured status this week and are shown below.

• 
  New River Gorge Bridge
• 
  Retrograde and direct motion
• 
  Jupiter
• 
  Arcus cloud

The Arbitration Committee opened one case and closed one case this week, leaving three open. The Committee also passed a series of high-profile motions in response to an unblocking of Giano II by SlimVirgin, including the temporary desysopping of SlimVirgin, and a restriction on administrators' ability to enforce Giano's civility parole.

Notably, the Committee did not close any cases in November, the first month since the committee's inception in February 2004 that no cases were closed. This is partially due to decreased caseload; through the first eleven months of 2008, the Committee closed just thirty-five cases, compared to ninety-one in 2007 and one-hundred-and-sixteen cases in 2006.

On February 9, 2008, the Committee placed editor Giano under a civility parole through the "IRC" request for arbitration case. The civility parole terms allowed Giano to continue participating in Wikipedia, but conditioned that participation on Giano not making "uncivil, personal attacks, or assumptions of bad faith" edits. The Committee made the civility parole enforcible on-the-spot through blocking by any administrator. After 5 blocks, the enforcement guideline provide by the Committee increase the authorized block length from a maximum of one week to a maximum of one month.

On November 23, 2008, FT2 became the seventh administrator to block Giano since the civility parole was set in place nine months prior. FT2 set the November 23rd block to expire after 55 hours, but the block was lifted seven hours later by administrator SlimVirgin, who reasoned in her edit summary that "all this block achieves is an increase in drama; blocks should be prevent, not punish". Approximately thirty minutes after the block was lifted, FT2 made a formal proposal for actions to the Committee regarding the unblock by SlimVirgin. The Committee passed several motions one a week later on November 27th, including:

• The desysopping of SlimVirgin for six months, "[b]ecause of her disruption of the arbitration enforcement process, her continuing assumptions of bad faith towards her fellow administrators, and in light of numerous prior warnings related to conduct unbecoming an administrator." After six months, her access will be automatically restored; a harsher remedy that would not have restored SlimVirgin's adminship was defeated, 5-3.
• "Until further notice, no enforcement action relating to Giano's civility parole shall be taken without the explicit written agreement of the Committee." FT2's block, and SlimVirgin's unblock, are hardly the first invocations of Giano's civility parole to receive criticism; since the institution of the parole, Giano has been blocked eleven times. Of those, only three blocks, one 31-hour block and two 3-hour blocks, were served in duration without another administrator unblocking Giano or reducing the duration of the block. On those blocks that were reversed, Giano served an average of 105 minutes before the block was removed.
• A remedy noting that administrators are prohibited from overturning administrative actions explicitly taken as part of an active arbitration remedy, such as a civility parole, without written authorization from the Committee or a "clear, substantial, and active community consensus" to do so.

• Kuban kazak: A case involving a dispute between Hillock65 and Kuban kazak. As a result of the case, Kuban kazak was banned from editing Wikipedia for one year. The case was formerly titled "Kuban Kazak-Hillock65", but was renamed upon closure, as no findings were made against Hillock65.

• PHG: A case brought by PHG, involving a prior case against PHG, Franco-Mongol alliance. This case will review the prior case, and may impose new sanctions, or repeal current sanctions, as necessary.

• Cold fusion: A case involving conduct disputes around the article Cold fusion.

• Piotrus 2: The latest in a series of cases involving alleged edit-warring and other misconduct by numerous editors on articles pertaining to Eastern Europe. The case, which has been open for over three months, involves a large number of users not originally named as parties to the case, but named in a proposed decision drafted by arbitrator Kirill Lokshin. Among the thirty-seven proposed remedies are findings banning certain named editors and imposing various restrictions on others, while noting that allegations of misconduct against still other users were not established by the evidence. Arbitrator voting on several of the remedy proposals is split.