This bug is a tracker to follow the progress of GNOME 2.8.1 in ~arch, and to move it into arch. This bug depends on the issues that should be considered for fixing before moving to arch, and as such is really a "meta-bug". As such, please don't introduce more traffic than is required in this bug, unless reporting a significant change. Thanks, Mike.
Updated, 2.8.1 has been marked stable on x86 and ppc.