On 14/10/2007, charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
"Thomas Dalton" wrote
The other option is to have ArbCom function as a
"court of appeal"
(which, I guess, makes admins magistrates). I would expect most cases
to be appealed, however ArbCom could reject cases far more often than
they do now if they've already been reviewed by admins.
A great deal of the AC mailing list traffic is actually just this kind of appeal. That is
one hold-up to the real cases: either an email is given attention when it comes in,
involving at least a rough discussion of the history, or it will simply be lost.
That's not really the same kind of appeal. The appeals I'm talking
about are after a committee of admins has fully explored the issue and
made a ruling. All the information ArbCom would need to judge if an
appeal is warranted should already be there. Judging an appeal of a
community ban is much harder, since the information is often much
harder to find.
Community bans are now used on most of the no-brainer
cases as it is. That means the AC gets the trickier stuff - if the cases were easier,
we'd vote on them quicker.
Absolutely true, but there are degrees of tricky cases. No-brainers
can be dealt with by community bans (although some tidying up of the
community ban system would be good, as no-one seems to be able to
agree about what one actually is), average cases can be dealt with by
communities of admins and the really tricky ones can be dealt with by
ArbCom following an initial review by admins.