Wikipedia:Arbitration Role of Jimmy Wales in the English Wikipedia

There is great admiration for Mr Wales's co-creation of one of the world's most significant information resources, and for the basic design features he has insisted on; however, most of his work in those respects is done. While Mr Wales can be proud of his achievement and will almost certainly continue to play a role in the English Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation for as long as he wishes, the time has come to recast his relationship with the project. His leading role was helpful when the project was young and innocent, but the English Wikipedia has matured: it is now too large and powerful not to have a modern system of governance.

It is hoped that Mr Wales will continue to be recognised as "the special Wikipedian" and to give his expertise to the project and its public relations. However, there is clearly a mood for constitutional change. Modernising the relationship between Mr Wales and the English Wikipedia's "Supreme Court"—the Arbitration Committee (ArbCom)—will be an historic and critical step. It will bring the project closer to the governance systems of the other Wikipedias, such as the German and the French, which have a relationship with Mr Wales only insofar as his membership of the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation.

This RFC is a carefully conceived, minimalist proposal, in which we seek to determine whether there is community consensus to:

establish ArbCom elections as a direct expression of the community's will rather than as merely "advisory" to Mr Wales as now;
establish the elections as bringing the number of arbitrators to a total of 17 at the start of each year (no default size has previously been set), with a normal term of two years for new arbitrators;^[A]
rely for appeals solely on ArbCom's well-established procedure for that purpose, which renders unnecessary Mr Wales's theoretical power to modify ArbCom's remedies and enforcement actions, and his role as court of appeal for ArbCom decisions.

We encourage discussion of the issues raised, beneath the RFC on the talk page.

The two critical changes in policy wording

The changes involve two sections of the draft updated ArbCom policy that ArbCom released on June 26 for community feedback: (1) Selection and appointment and (2) Appeals of decisions. The struck-through text is removed; the normal text is added.

1. ~~The members of the Committee are appointed by Jimbo Wales, in his role as project leader, following annual advisory elections, whose format is decided by the community.~~
Starting December 2009, new members of the Committee will be elected each December to bring the total number of members to 17.
(a) Successful candidates take office from the following January 1 for a two-year term.
(b) Election to the Committee is on the basis of each candidate's ranking in terms of the strength of their vote.
(c) The format of the elections is decided by the community.
(d) The Committee may call interim elections in a comparable format to that of the regular annual elections, if it determines that arbitrator resignations or inactivity have created an immediate need for additional arbitrators. Successful candidates in such interim elections hold office until December 31 of the year following the interim election.^[B]

2. Remedies and enforcement actions by the Arbitration Committee may be appealed to, and are subject to modification by, Jimbo Wales, except where the case involves review of one of Jimbo Wales's own actions.

Notes

^A Any new arrangements would continue the desirable staggered elections: there would be six vacancies in December 2009 (terms ending: Coren, Bain, Lokshin, FloNight, Blacketer, FT2); six in Dec. 2010 (Vandenberg, Wizardman, Carcharoth, Vassyana, FayssalF, NYB); and 11 in 2011 (Rlevse, Luke, Davies, Risker, Casliber, plus the six arbs elected Dec. 2009). Resignations and interim elections would alter these numbers. The long-term annual vacancy rate should converge on 50% (eight or nine seats). See Chart of ArbCom membership since 2004.
^B ArbCom has already included the first sentence of 1d in its latest draft of the new ArbCom policy, under "Selection and appointment".