On 12/26/06, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/25/06, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
There will need to be a discussion about how to handle cases that are pending as of the time the new arbs take office.
I would imagine we'll handle it like last time: where arbitrators no longer in office have voted on a case, they count as extra arbitrators for those cases only, and majority is adjusted appropriately.
New arbitrators will be counted as recused for all currently open cases unless they declare themselves un-recused for an individual case; this saves them from having to read up on all open cases immediately.
-Matt
That makes total sense, of course, and it would probably be contrary to the Wiki-way to formalize things any more than that, especially if it worked out okay last year. On the other hand, it appears that there will be at least ten cases in the evidence stage but not yet being voted on as of January 1st. I am concerned there will be an awful lot of "is this case ready to close, who's voting in this case, should we wait for more votes?" type of issues with so many new members and so many new cases. On top of that, with Fred Bauder having indicated that he plans to cut back on his writing and Dmcdevit less active for the next couple of weeks per his userpage, it looks like in at least some of the new cases the new members may have to get involved in doing the initial analysis and drafting. It's entirely up to the (new and old) arbitrators and probably is already being discussed on the ArbCom mailing list, but a slightly more pro-active approach to planning now how all these cases are going to get written and decided might pay dividends in the form of hitting the ground running for the new year and avoiding having a backlog pile up. Just some thoughts for what they are worth.
Again, congratulations to all the new arbitrators.
"Newyorkbrad"