Herewith some thoughts on the 2010 Arbitration Committee Elections. Initially, this will be a collection of links to the questions I've asked of candidates, which I've divided into two groups: (a) former and current arbitrators; (b) all the other candidates (with no previous arbitration track record). I've done this because I'm coming to end of a two-year term on the committee, and my perspective is that of someone who knows what the job has entailed for the past two years, as well as having worked on the Arbitration Committee at some point with all of those in group (a). Next to each candidate name are links to the question(s) I asked them, along with (at some point) my thoughts on their candidacy.
I was initially uncertain of the propriety of commenting in this way during the elections (or even posing questions) given that I will still be a sitting arbitrator up until the end of December. I would say that it is not advisable for those who will be staying on the committee into the following year to take part in election discussions, questioning and commentary, in the way I have, but I do think that those who terms are about to expire shouldn't feel so constrained. The only other former or soon-to-be-former arbitrator who has commented in such fashion is Wizardman, who wrote a guide giving his views on the candidates in this election.
Please direct any comments to the talk page (including the candidates, who are more than welcome to comment on what I've said).
At the time these notes were written, three candidates had withdrawn and are listed here without further comment. I've also included Loosmark here as well. Some of these candidates withdrew or were banned after voting started, and remain on the ballot paper, where I will be entering an oppose against their names.
Will add links here to other posts I made during these elections, as well as thoughts on the questions to pose the twelve candidates with no prior experience of arbitration. This is intended as a deliberate contrast to the seven candidates who do have prior experience of arbitration, as I suspect that future ArbCom elections will see more and more former or current arbitrators standing for election, so such matters will increasingly become something that (in my opinion) the electorate should consider.
With the twelve candidates with no arbitration experience, I've decided to review the past two years and see which situations I found the most difficult to handle, and to then pose 12 general questions on that basis, with each candidate getting pot luck as to which question they get (all should have put aside time this weekend to answer questions, or at the least made a statement stating that they will be unavailable for the closing days of the election).
On reviewing the past two years, I found the following to be good examples of problems faced by arbitrators. Not all of these happened all the time, but all happened at least once to me or other arbitrators.
OK. I made up the last one... (but the point is that taking breaks from the work is absolutely vital).
Question template:
Cast an initial set of votes on Saturday afternoon (04/12/2010) that consisted of 12 supports, 5 opposes (including the three withdrawn candidates still on the ballot - the fourth withdrawn candidate didn't make it onto the ballot, it seems), and 5 neutrals/undecided. This should be followed by a further vote on Sunday evening (05/12/2010) to make any changes needed and to make a decision on the undecided votes.
My final vote on the Sunday evening (05/12/2010) resulted in me casting my support for 17 candidates and opposing 5 candidates - i.e. the five previous neutral votes were reviewed and I found no concerns sufficient to oppose (I'm a strong believer that those unsuitable to the role for reasons not immediately apparent to the electorate will not last the distance, and those suitable to the role will adapt and grow into the position - hence I often cast a support where others might cast an oppose). This means that of the 19 candidates listed in the first two sections above, I only opposed two of them (one of the 19 has since withdrawn). I would have preferred to be able to rate the candidates I supported according to how strong my support was, but that may be something to discuss for next year.