QUOTE(Kato @ Tue 11th November 2008, 9:38pm)
The Arbitration Committee is
almost entirely irrelevant at Wikipedia. The committee is not "the leadership". It oversees only a handful of convoluted cases a year that largely have nothing to do with an encyclopedia's content. Most of these cases relate only to ridiculous trivial dramatic feuds. And even then, the Arbitration Committee tends to fudge a verdict, resulting in conditions that are little different to those if the players had never bothered bringing it up at all. Simply a tremendous waste of time.
The Arbitration Committee is just another avenue for gameplayers to relieve their drama fixes. These annual elections in particular serve no purpose other than to provide a dramatic Carnival of the Absurd every year. Amusingly, this circus kicks up much negative drama that is clearly harmful to Wikipedia - with no net gain.
If you can't see this, then I suggest that you are so addicted to this crap you've lost all perspective, and should seek professional help.
I think the Arbitration Committee plays an important role on Wikipedia, as is reflected in the amount of consternation (on-wiki and here, among other places) when something goes wrong with it, but I also agree that the committee is not as important as some people think it is, and that far too much drama surrounds the election process.
(Someone recently proposed on-wiki that to increase community input into the selection of arbitrators, there should be two ArbCom elections each year instead of one. Although this was a good-faith suggestion, it also qualified for my personal designation as a Really Bad Idea.)