OK, let's change the subject here, as I think this deserves a seperate thread.
I agree with Thomas that no responsibilities have been determined yet.
However, let me please make clear that I absolutely disagree with the idea to have "representatives" of local arbcoms in the meta-arbcom. Not in any case. Why? Well, because this meta-arbcom would in any case mainly be dealing with small projects and cases that are multi-project. Other then expertise these local arbcoms have nothing to bring in. I think that for the sake of neutrality it would even be better to not have local arbcommers in the meta-arbcom. It's either another, either a higher jurisdiction. In neither of the cases it would be wishful to have local arbcom people in the meta-arbcom.
Please let us not get stuck in details here by the way. The language is mere a practical issue that the arbcom will have to solve on itself. I think however that for practical reasons language sections would not be successful. It is not scalable. You can't get 280 language sections, or we should hire language-miracles here, but I think they can spend their time much better writing travel guides ;-)
Best regards,
Lodewijk
2008/1/4, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
I am not sure I quite agree. The local arbitrators on say the Portuguese wikipedia might not have been chosen for their familiarity with minor languages in the (former and current) Portuguese colonies, just as an example, which a putative meta arbcom team with a working language of Portuguese, might quite easily be.
I guess that all depends on what responsibilities the meta-arbcom would have, which I don't think has been decided on. If it's primarily arbitrating disputes (as the name would suggest), the skills needed are much the same regardless of the nature of the dispute.
I don't quite see how a pure english language meta-arbcom would be truer.
It wouldn't be an English Language arbcom, it would an arbcom that uses English as a lingua franca. That's the only way to allow people from different languages to work together to resolve issues, which I think would be a good feature of a central arbcom.
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