Arbitration Committee quorum

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CrowsNest
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Arbitration Committee quorum

Post by CrowsNest » Tue Aug 13, 2019 2:24 am

For the foreseeable future, for various reasons, an "absolute majority" of Arbitration Committee members, might be as low as four, or even three. As such, previous statements I have made about how Committee business is not really vulnerable to undue influence by one particular Arbitrator pursuing a personal agenda, probably no longer holds.

I'm surprised the community is not making more noise about this than they have. For all they have recently whined about natural justice, a system where the two drafters of a Proposed Decision might only have to persuade two or even one of their colleagues to sign their names to it for it to pass, looks very unjust and ripe for abuse, if not simply prone to errors.

I personally have never seen anyone say what the quorum is for the Arbitration Committee, or if there even is one. My guess is they never even considered things could get so bad they might need to have one. They presumably thought this provision also gave them some wiggle room...
In exceptional circumstances, the Committee may call interim elections, in a format similar to that of the regular annual elections, if it determines that arbitrator resignations or inactivity have created an immediate need for additional arbitrators.
.....but as has been recently seen, not even this extraordinary period counts as an exceptional circumstance. They're apparently just going to struggle on, hoping no one else resigns, is fired, or has to withdraw on grounds of stress, or just goes on holiday. Not a safe bet, imho.

For certain possible future cases, it is conceivable that the necessary amount of recusals could reduce the absolute majority to one. Which is close to absurd. Absurd being a Committee of two, both drafting a decision that each then has the ability to veto, because 1 is not "greater than 50% of the total number of arbitrators".

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Re: Arbitration Committee quorum

Post by CrowsNest » Mon Aug 19, 2019 11:28 am

Another one bites the dust.
Resignation from the Arbitration Committee
I increased my activity on Wikipedia hoping that I'd have more time but, if anything, I've probably got less time now than I did then. For that reason I am resigning from the Arbitration Committee and have asked that my CU and OS permissions are removed. I've emailed the Arbitration Committee and requested removal of my OS and CU permissions on meta so am posting here to confirm and for any talk page stalkers. Hopefully I'll have more time for Wikipedia later this year or into next year. I also want to confirm that this has absolutely nothing to do with what's happening with the project but solely real life. Thanks everyone, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:17, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
We're officially down to ten serving Arbitrators, with only eight currently active - Courcelles is travelling the world, and SilkTork is all burned out.

Still looking like a good idea to wait until the next election?

Could be some hilarious consequences......

https://www.wikipediasucks.co/forum/vie ... 423#p11423

HTD.

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Re: Arbitration Committee quorum

Post by CrowsNest » Wed Sep 11, 2019 9:44 am

Alex_Shih wrote:On a side note, it's quite disturbing to let a 8-person committee (5 being the majority) being in charge of determining the outcome of such important case with potential lasting ramifications. There really should be a community motion of no-confidence filed somewhere, so that this case cannot be concluded until ACE2019 is onboard in late December.
Hmm. Would he be saying this if he hadn't been fired from the Committee?

Still, always fun hearing former Arbitrators give us the benefit of their 20/20 hindsight.

Wikipediocracy won't bother to say it, if they even remember it, but I think it's bizarre that Alex seems to have gone back on his election position, namely ArbCom is redundant and should be eliminated. So rather than passing this to a future full complement, why isn't he saying it should be passed to the community?

Still, you can understand why he might have changed his mind, this being his position before he got a first hand view of the serious issues involved in being on the Committee......
Any privacy concerns with legal implications should re-directed to WMF, as I honestly don't believe this is a task for the volunteer-based community.
Burn the traitor!

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