Matt Brown wrote:
If arbitrators had to recuse themselves every time
someone came before them
who they considered a 'known troublemaker', let's say no disruptive user
would ever get banned.
There's an informal (formal?) rule that if a majority of arbitrators
ever recuse on a case, they all are automatically unrecused. The
justification is that, in all probability, a situation that resulted in
a user having personal conflicts with nearly every single arbitrator is
more likely to be the fault of the user than the fault individually of
every arbitrator. A more practical justification is that it serves as a
deterrent to trying to "win" a case by forcing everyone to recuse.
-Mark