Arbitration Committee

An Arbitration Committee (sometimes abbreviated as "ArbCom") is a small group of trusted users who serve as the last step of dispute resolution on some individual Wikimedia Foundation projects. Originally set up on the English Wikipedia by Jimmy Wales to take over his role in resolving complex disputes between users, Arbitration Committees are now used on eleven Wikipedia versions and the English Wikinews.

Composition

Committees typically have five to fifteen members, who are known as Arbitrators. Terms vary in length, with some as long as three years.

On the English Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales has reserve authority to appoint and dismiss committee members, or to disband the committee and force new elections. Previously, non-binding community votes were used to present candidates for appointment. The community now runs standard elections to select committee members.

Projects with Arbitration Committees

Wikipedia versions

Project	Name	E-mail	Private wiki	Notes
cs – Czech	Arbitrážní výbor	arbcom-cslistswikimediaorg	arbcom-cs.wikipedia.org
de – German	Schiedsgericht	arbcomde-llistswikimediaorg	arbcom-de.wikipedia.org
en – English	Arbitration Committee	arbcom-enwikimediaorg	arbcom-en.wikipedia.org
fa – Persian	هیئت نظارت			Limited purview, mainly a supervisory council for complaints against admins
fi – Finnish	Välityslautakunta		arbcom-fi.wikipedia.org
fr – French	Comité d'arbitrage	car-fr-llistswikimediaorg
hu – Hungarian	Wikitanács
nl – Dutch	Arbitragecommissie	arbcom-nllistswikimediaorg	arbcom-nl.wikipedia.org
pl – Polish	Komitet Arbitrażowy
ru – Russian	Арбитражный комитет	arbcom-ruwikimediaorg	arbcom-ru.wikipedia.org	New every half-a-year
uk – Ukrainian	Арбітражний комітет

Wikinews

• English

Projects with inactive, trial or dissolved Arbitration Committees

Wikipedia versions

• Arabic (inactive)
• Bulgarian (there is a page on arbitration policy; an ArbCom hasn't been established yet)
• Croatian (inactive)

  (First version) An ArbCom that was proposed (and discussed) in May 2007, never reached consensus

  (Second version) Existed from 7 June 2009 to 23 January 2010

• Italian (page deleted).

  An ArbCom was proposed in 2006, never reached consensus.

• Spanish (dissolved April 2009)
• Korean (No arbitrators elected since December 2015, arbcom function suspended as of 18 March 2017.)
• Occitan (A setting up was proposed in 2006, an election has been planned in December 2008 but was never realized)
• Portuguese (dissolved January 2012)
• Swedish (inactive)
• Slovenian (deleted, with a redirect to Wikipedija:Mediacija). The page exists only as a framework for eventual setting up. The mediation wasn't needed so far, so the rules for the election process haven't been established yet.
• Thai (term expired in January 2016, no elections held since)

Wikivoyage versions

• Spanish (Proposal rejected)

See also

• Wikimedia Arbitration committees election processes
• wikt:arbitration, wikt:committee
• Global arbitration committee (proposal)