The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Please Note: Extended comments may be moved to the talk page.
For all those who don't know me, I'm Ryan. I've been a member here since October 2006 and an administrator since March 2007. For me, arbitration is an unfortunate process - as a community, we should be able to sort all of our problems ourselves. Normal dispute resolution channels should fix all problems we have without anyone having to make rulings. Currently however, this isn't the case and the committee has to step in when all other methods have failed.
I would see myself as a community arbitrator, I think I'm quite in touch with how we operate and I actually prefer to try and sort issues out before they reach the levels of arbitration. Taking things out of the community's hands is something I couldn't support if at all possible. If I was part of the committee I would like to see the arbitrators take a more active role within the community, appearing on noticeboards in an attempt to avoid arbitration, but I'm not naive and do understand that sometimes a case is inevitable, even if it's simply to hash out the community's core values. As an arbitrator, I would examine all requests that were made, and wherever possible, attempt to make suggestions as to how the community could handle the dispute - if that wasn't possible, then I'd accept the case.
Finally, I believe it's important that an arbitrator must put the community's underlying principles into their mind when studying a case. Whatever their personal opinion, it should be put aside and they should look for a solution that would benefit the project - I feel I am a good candidate to do this. Ryan Postlethwaite01:44, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
