Mark Pellegrini:
The Arbitration Committee is seeking public commentary and suggestions pertaining to an ongoing problem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/RFC
I will state here for the record that I'm strongly opposed to any content arbitration committee. Decisions like this should be made by the community, not by elected or appointed representatives. The solution to dealing with prolonged disputes is to establish clear community procedures to make decisions, such as binding votes under clear conditions (e.g. a discussion has been going on for X weeks, all arguments have been summarized, all options of the vote have been agreed upon in consensus ..). Wikipedia does not need an editorial staff.
As I've often stated, if you absolutely rule out voting as a last resort, you end up with clubs and cabals which make decisions instead. This is exactly what a content committee would eventually become. Don't destroy the village in order to save it.
Erik