User:Guerillero/Guide to Arbitration

1. Your conduct during the case is paramount. One of the easiest ways to get shown the door by the committee is by being a jackass during the case. This comes in several forms:^[4]
   • Do not fight with or attack the other parties. I do not care how frustrated you are with anyone else. Doing this will paint you as the problem party no matter what the evidence looks like. If you are already in jeopardy of being sanctioned, this will make them a sure thing and more severe. It is for the best that you interact with the other parties as infrequently and as civilly as possible.
   • Do not continue the behavior that brought you to ArbCom. Much like getting into fistfights with the other parties, the committee tends to look dimly upon such behavior. My suggestion is that you stop editing the topic area entirely. If you are an admin, do not use your tools. Any misstep will be spotted and used as evidence against you.
   • The arbitrators are who is going to decide your fate on the project. If one of them is a jerk to you, the time to fix that issue is in December when the yearly election rolls around, not during your case. No matter how good it will feel in the moment, lashing out at one or more members of the committee will only cause you to get drummed out of the project.
   • Neither refuse to take part nor take part too aggressively. The case will move forward without you and boycotting the case can lead to increased sanctions. Similarly, approaching the case as the last battle to be won of some sort of campaign has also led to increased sanctions. There are definite rights and lefts that one must stay between.
2. The committee is a dozen people, not a group. Each person is going to have different biases and areas of focus. They are not a monolithic cabal of lizard people out to get you.^[4]
3. The committee is not a court and justice has nothing to do with what ArbCom does. It attempts to solve disputes and nothing more. You have no rights; there is no due process. Relying on textualism will probably result in harsher sanctions.
4. Drafting arbitrators are given wide latitude by the rest of the committee on questions of case management.
5. Only expect the drafting arbitrator(s) and one or two other committee members to closely follow the case and carefully read the evidence. The rest will skim the evidence, work from broad impressions, and largely play follow the leader with the drafters.^[4] In the first case after the election or in rare high-drama cases, your submissions have a higher chance of being analyzed by a majority of the committee.
6. "Repetition Legitimizes." If you have an important point, say it in the request for arbitration. After the case is accepted, even if you have no additional diffs, post about it in the evidence.
7. Cases will involve people examining your past conduct, often in a critical way. If you disagree with such statements, rebut them calmly, recognizing that while they may be hurtful they are not per se personal attacks.

1. You have limited space and attention. Parties receive only 1000 words and 100 diffs; everyone else gets 500 words and 50 diffs. We want to believe that the arbitrators will read everything and closely examine each diff. In reality, the likelihood that diff 105 will be closely examined is much less than diff 1. So, place your best evidence first.
2. Rebuttals are unhelpful as evidence. Much like how a gish gallop works, it is much easier to make accusations than it is to disprove them. You have a limited number of words and diffs. Do not waste them trying to disprove accusations unless it can be done thoroughly with a minimal use of resources. Instead, use the Analysis of evidence section in the workshop where there is not a word cap.
3. Nobody cares that you can write a wall of text or a cogent argument. It will be ignored. Instead, submit diffs of direct misconduct with the minimal amount of explanation to show what the issue is. A good three words and three diffs are more potent than a 500 word essay.
4. Arbitrators do not understand the background of your case. Write any explanation as if you are talking to a complete outsider about it.

The workshop exists to be a mud pit to entertain the parties while the drafters read the evidence, but it is disguised as a place for the parties to draft their favored version of the proposed decision. Unless you are extremely well versed in the case law of the committee, most everything you propose will, in the best case scenario, get moved to /dev/null. Principles, findings of fact, and remedies are written with a particular voice and style that you have probably never written in before. However, if you are perceived as being too forceful with your proposals, analysis, or responses it will be taken as evidence of battleground conduct showing that you should be sanctioned.

The best thing you can do during the workshop is to ignore it and work on other things that are in no way connected to the case at hand.

1. If there are findings of fact about you, even if you think they are incorrect, briefly apologize for your conduct, and then shut the fuck up. At this point, there is nearly no way to reduce the chances of sanction, but there are a litany of ways to shoot yourself in the foot and receive harsher sanctions. These include, but are not limited to,:
   • Writing hundreds to thousands of words about the proposed decision
   • Accusing anyone of any sort of misconduct
   • Asking the arbitrators to sanction someone who is perceived to be your enemy
   • Threatening to leave the project
2. If you are a party and you do not, currently, have findings of fact written about you the best thing you can do is shut the fuck up and hope that does not change before the case closes.
3. While they have official definitions, the difference between a reminder, warning, and an admonishment is so small it is not worth thinking about. They all pretty much mean that the next time a user is back in front of the committee within the decade, they are facing a ban of some kind.

1. Arbitration Enforcement admins do not take kindly to testing the boundaries of restrictions. If you think you might not be allowed to do something, you are not.
2. The committee can overturn a case, but in practice, they are not going to. If you submit a Clarification and Amendment Request based on a "miscarriage of justice", "being railroaded", or something similar it will be rejected.