[WikiEN-l] How many Arbitrators should we have?

[DF]

On 10/5/05, Snowspinner <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

> > On Oct 5, 2005, at 11:22 AM, DF wrote:
> >
> > Perhaps this just means we should expand the pool
of
> > Arbitrators and elect 20 or 30 this time around as
> > some people had proposed (though one might have
> > trouble finding enough people to run).
> >
> 
> The problem wouldn't be finding enough people to 
> run. We had 34 people running last time. The 
> problem would be that, if we had taken 30 
> arbitrators last time, we'd have six arbitrators 
> who are under various forms of arbcom parole, 
> including one who is currently banned for a year.

I'm sure I meant to say trouble finding enough
Qualified people to run.

Of course if we went to a system more like Requests
for adminship that wouldn't be an issue since the
questionable candidates would never get through.  Of
course we would have to give up the notion that ArbCom
needs to be a fixed size.

On the other hand, since the Wikipedia community has
roughly tripled in size, maybe finding candidates this
December won't be all that hard.  Of course it would
help if we could stop scaring them off by making it
look like such a hard and all-consuming job.

On another point, why do we ever lose Arbitrators? 
They resign in frustration or their terms expire, but
neither of those issues indicates a lack of faith from
the community.  A larger and looser structure could
allow people to have sabaticals and still come back to
help with the work later.

-DF