Fred Bauder wrote:
If we do allow litigants to select among arbitrators that would indeed give those who are knowledgeable and experienced an advantage (like in real life) where one party choses one arbitrator the other choses one, then the two chosen choose the third. In labor disputes the union choses someone friendly to them, likewise management, then the two chosen look for someone they can both work with.
I don't really like this idea. It puts too much politics into it based on the selection of who's voting on your case, and those who know how to game the system are more likely to come out ahead. It also adds yet another beaurocratic step to the process. I'd prefer instead a simple vote of all members of the committee for all cases. I very much hope there will not be a lot of cases, so I don't see this as being a problem workload-wise. If there are a lot of cases, then we need to figure out how to rework the system so that there aren't--the vast majority of issues should, in my opinion, be decided by consensus on talk pages or, if necessary, through mediation.
Having some sort of grandiose process I'm afraid will actually encourage the overuse of the committee, as it makes it seem like it's normal to refer matters to be decided through this process. I think instead the arbitration committee should be a "decision-making committee of last resort", to which only relatively extraordinary matters are referred. And so we could have a relatively minimalistic process: the committee just votes, and thereby makes a decision (including possibly making the decision "the committee declines to make a ruling on this matter").
-Mark