On 12/26/06, Matthew Brown <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 12/25/06, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) <newyorkbrad(a)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"