On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 6:57 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/03/2008, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
The ArbCom claims to derive it's authority from Jimbo's authority, so such a "route of appeal" remains necessary until ArbCom gets some new mandate. Presumably, we could (as a community) seperately empower ArbCom (or a similar body), but it's unclear how we can remove Jimbo's vestigial authority apart from asking nicely.
We remove his authority by simply declaring it to be gone. He only has authority because we accept that he does. If we want to, we can have a big on wiki discussion and if there's a consensus to remove Jimbo's powers over arbcom, then that's that. (I suppose there may be a need to get the "new" ArbCom ratified by the foundation so it can grant checkuser access etc., but I can't see that being a problem, I'm not sure if it would even be necessary.)
I'm not particularly convinced this is true. It's very likely the case that if some commanding mandate came from the community requesting Jimbo step down that he would, but I don't think the mere act of saying it would make it so. Jimbo compares his role of QEII on occasion, and it's definitely the case that in at least some of the countries where she's Queen, she can only de jure be removed from her position with her permission.
That said, I think you'd be hard pressed to round up much support for petitioning Jimbo to relinquish that authority to the community. But do feel free to open a discussion.
WilyD