Fred Bauder wrote: I don't really like this idea. It puts too much politics into it based on the selection of who's voting on your case, and those who know how to game the system are more likely to come out ahead. It also adds yet another beaurocratic step to the process. I'd prefer instead a simple vote of all members of the committee for all cases. I very much hope there will not be a lot of cases, so I don't see this as being a problem workload-wise. If there are a lot of cases, then we need to figure out how to rework the system so that there aren't--the vast majority of issues should, in my opinion, be decided by consensus on talk pages or, if necessary, through mediation. Having some sort of grandiose process I'm afraid will actually encourage the overuse of the committee, as it makes it seem like it's normal to refer matters to be decided through this process. I think instead the arbitration committee should be a "decision-making committee of last resort", to which only relatively extraordinary matters are referred. And so we could have a relatively minimalistic process: the committee just votes, and thereby makes a decision (including possibly making the decision "the committee declines to make a ruling on this matter"). -Mark

Delirium wrote: This is what I had envisioned as well. Yes, absolutely. Just as a side note -- I'm deliberately staying out of this discussion, so when I say "this is what I had envisioned as well" I'm just giving background information, not dictating to the committee as to how it should function. If no consensus by committee members develops soon enough as to what it will do, I can step in and say "O.k., let's have a vote of the committee on the options that have been proposed" and then we'll go with that. But hopefully a vote won't be necessary, if proposals are craft that try to take into account various points of view. I think that the simple approach is best right now. --Jimbo