Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) wrote:
On 12/26/06, Matthew Brown <morven(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
On 12/25/06, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia)
<newyorkbrad(a)gmail.com> wrote:
There will need to be a discussion about how to
handle cases that
are pending as of the time the new arbs take office.
I would imagine we'll handle it like last time: where arbitrators no
longer in office have voted on a case, they count as extra arbitrators
for those cases only, and majority is adjusted appropriately.
New arbitrators will be counted as recused for all currently open
cases unless they declare themselves un-recused for an individual
case; this saves them from having to read up on all open cases
immediately.
That makes total sense, of course, and it would probably be contrary
to the Wiki-way to formalize things any more than that, especially if
it worked out okay last year.
Not just last year; this is as we decided to do it even when we had our
very first non-bootstrap addition, when Mark and James (Raul654 and
Jwrosenzweig) joined in July '04.
On the other hand, it appears that there will be at
least ten cases in
the evidence stage but not yet being voted on as of January 1st. I am
concerned there will be an awful lot of "is this case ready to close,
who's voting in this case, should we wait for more votes?" type of
issues with so many new members and so many new cases.
Well, don't worry about that; it used to be my job to nag people about
such things, and having written much of our operating procedures I'm as
ever happy enough to state things definitively if any clarification is
needed. It's rarely that much of a problem, though - the Clerks are
absolutely marvellous (I remember when I did pretty much all the work
they've now taken off our hands, only less well, less quickly, and much
less happily :-)).
On top of that, with Fred Bauder having indicated that
he plans to cut
back on his writing and Dmcdevit less active for the next couple of
weeks per his userpage, it looks like in at least some of the new cases
the new members may have to get involved in doing the initial analysis
and drafting.
Well, being thrown in at the deep end is good for 'em. ;-)
Seriously, I share your concerns about potential issues with workload
being too much, though I hope (perhaps in vain) that the community will
take a more pro-active approach themselves as to management of such
situations so as to obviate the need for the Committee; that /was/
sort-of the idea, after all. Maybe this year I will be pleasantly surprised.
It's entirely up to the (new and old) arbitrators
and probably is
already being discussed on the ArbCom mailing list,
Yes, and yes. :-)
but a slightly more pro-active approach to planning
now how all these
cases are going to get written and decided might pay dividends in the
form of hitting the ground running for the new year and avoiding
having a backlog pile up.
Well, I personally have grave concerns at the concept of spreading the
ground too thinly, and parcelling out cases a priori. I'm a strong
believer in our current system (which is not much of a surprise, given
how and by whom its form was shaped :-)), where Arbitrators are moved to
write a case up, rather than handed it and told to get on with the case.
This is why we don't sit en banc (and won't, until I'm/we're convinced
that the benefits outweigh the disbenefits).
Yours sincerely,
--
James D. Forrester
Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
E-Mail : james(a)jdforrester.org
IM (MSN) : jamesdforrester(a)hotmail.com