On 10/14/07, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/14/07, Thatcher131 Wikipedia thatcher131@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/14/07, fredbaud@waterwiki.info fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
I made one suggestion, which might not be particularly workable.
Regardless, we need to find solutions.
Fred
I had an idea a while ago, I don't remember if I ever presented it before.
Why not have cases heard before a panel of 5 Arbitrators, randomly chosen from the list of Arbitrators active when the case was accepted? Cases that are voted out 5-0 or 4-1 would close as is; cases where the votes were 3-2 or less would be heard before the entire committee. That way, Arbitrators do not have to hear every case, and might not burn out as quickly. (A vote of 5-0 is all most cases get by the Fall of the year anyway.)
It would be *more* susceptible to burnout than the current model, actually, since there's no provision for the scenario where none of the five randomly-selected arbitrators are willing to do any case work. In a system where the full Committee hears every case, a few active members can keep things moving (to some degree) even if the bulk of the Committee isn't actively participating.
(Or, in other words: we can currently close a 5-0 case if we find *any* five active arbs, but, in the new model, we would select five arbs first and then expect them to be active -- which is a rather dangerous assumption to make.)
Kirill
I was thinking of this when the discussion started, but my initial idea was to use a 3-arbitrator panel rather than 5.
That was based off US Federal Courts of Appeal - they have a pool of judges, with 3-judge panels brought together for specific cases. One can then appeal to the whole Court in a particular district if one doesn't like the ruling from the group of 3.
Another thing that occurs to me is that we could do 4 instead of 3, even. Yes, it's an even number, so one can tie... but we're not looking for "what to do about ties", we're looking for "how can we dispose of things that end up obvious reasonably quickly". More things will fall into the latter category (I hope), and a 3:1 vote (or 3 to an abstention or idle arbitrator) is good enough for majority or consensus. A tie is a kick-it-to-entire-arbcom.
Or even a single arbitrator for cases, with "punt to a 3/4/5/whatever larger group" as an accepted option for the ugly cases.