On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 12:12 AM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:
This issue was raised on the pages for the 2008
election of the Arbitrators
Committee,
and while I haven't been involved in that discussion I think its important
to get a wide
array of eyeballs on this particular question: Should the term of election
for the
Arbitration Committee be reduced to two years, from three, with annual
elections?
(Snip)
Nathan
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I had thoughts about this. The issue is less the actual length of term. It's
more, that those appointed (as it stands) can be pretty much nothing
''except'' arbitrators. Every wiki hour switches to disputes, bad acting,
flames, decisions, and that eventually wears people out. It's not the
duration per se, 3 years is fine. its that it's 3 years doing nothing but
arbcom work.
There are two remedies for that.
Firstly, the tasks the committee does, need to be delegated or passed to
more people. Today's re-affirmation of the June announcement about enlarging
the Checkuser team, is a step on the way. Other things might follow.
Secondly, users who become arbitrators should be encouraged to sit on the
next 3 months cases, then take a months break from the front line, do some
editing or wiki-gnoming, mentor or coach someone, work on a favorite
project, or get away from it a while, before coming back to 3 more months
cases (not "by the calendar, but as they feel right). Keeping people on a
treadmill 24/7 till its too much, is a bad idea.
Those 2 measures would probably solve much of it.
FT2