User:Lord Roem/Draft

An analysis of Arbitration Committee records since January of 2008 has now confirmed key trends in the Committee's behavior. The number of public cases opened each month has been on a steady decline, with small spikes at the beginning of each new term. At the same time, the cases being reviewed take longer to reach a final decision, with the most complex seeming to be resolved in the middle of the year. What these trends may mean could be of great import to the future of dispute resolution on Wikipedia.

Case duration: From Open to Close
The analysis of Committee proceedings in regards to case duration counts the number of days it took for a publicly heard case to reach a motion to close, after being opened for evidence submission and workshop input. The graph specifically averages all cases closed during a specific two-month period. This means that a spike in case duration for the months of September and October 2008 probably accounts for cases opened several months earlier.

Starting in January 2008, we find an average of 30 days for cases to be resolved. These two months closed a total of twelve cases, none of which were of large complexity (as none required more than two months to reach completion). This number went on a steady increase during each two-month interval (climbing from the 30s to upper 40s) until it spiked in September/October 2008 with an average of 68 days. This can be accounted for by two cases (one which took 131 days and another taking 99). But 2008 was not done with longer cases. The well-known Eastern European case took 115 days. Not only that, but its evidence page had nearly 30 editors submit evidence, in stark contrast to a case like John Gohde 2 which was resolved in less than two weeks with a third of the number of evidence submissions of the EE case.

Thus, with the first year of data reviewed we can see a clear (and understandable) correlation between large complicated disputes and the length of time to decide a case. An on-point example of this issue is seen with the Scientology case which took a whopping 169 days to resolve. But the bigger question is not whether these long cases will always happen, but whether this is becoming a trend in regard to all Committee proceedings.

Going back to 2009, we see two cases at the start which already took longer than the highest average for the first half of 2008. Further, for the entire year, there are only three cases which took less than than a month to resolve. The shortest case gets closer to the higher average of the year before.

While there is a decline in the average of cases in the beginning of the year, that average consistently remains higher than the first half of 2008. With three complex cases resolved in the Summer, the average jumps to 72 days. With another election on the horizon, cases became quicker resolved as the number drops to the 40s by the ed of the year.

The year 2010 then becomes intriguing as the number of these super large cases begins to decline, and the average sinks (in March/April 2010) to 33 days, the lowest since the beginning of 2008. But this does not stay. By the end of the year, the average jumps back up to be consistently in the 70s range, with the longest case in the winter to be 123 days.

From this data, as the logarithmic trendline indicates, the time for cases to be resolved as steadily grown.

From 11 to 1 a Month: Decline in Opened Cases
The data in regards to the amount of opened cases each month is calculated in a very simple counting of when cases started. The trend here is also much easier to discern: a deep decline in the cases the Arbitration Committee hears each year.

A surprising (by today's standards) grant of 11 cases in January of 2008 starts off the graph. Comparing archives of the Signpost before 2008 also shows this high amount of cases resolved by the Arbitrators. This number very quickly drops to only 3 opened in February, dropping to only one or two per month by the Summer.

The numbers then remain in the same range throughout the whole year of 2008. The only times the number of opened cases per month rises to 3 or higher is at the start of each year, when a new slate of Arbitrators come in (exhibited by a rise in January-March of 2009 and a grant of three cases in February of 2010). After August of 2009, the Committee has always granted one or two cases per month with an exception only once.

The Committee, for the first time in at least 23 months (my record goes to 2008), in December of 2009, granted no cases. Again, for four consistent months between July and October 2010, the Committee did not grant a single case. A deeper look at records in this long 'no-grant' period shows that only one Arbitrator voted to accept in one of the over-ten declined cases.

The Signpost's weekly coverage of Arbitration cases is also interesting to compare, as it exemplifies a dramatic decline in decisions before the Committee (2006 coverage, 2007, and 2010).

Reaction from the Committee
Arbitrator Newyorkbrad says that the declining number of Committee cases is due to a greater reliance on community mechanisms to resolve disputes, like community sanctions at the ANI board or through a single administrator blocking a user without a disagreeing admin unblocking. "Today, we get relatively few of those types of cases, and when we do get one, it's typically because there has been disagreement among administrators as to how to handle the situation." He also pointed to the complexity of the issues that do make it before the 18-member panel, which arguably is a cause for the length of decisions. While public perception may be that the Committee is overly slow, Newyorkbrad notes that they always "[Try] to keep the case lengths reasonable." Whether this is due to an evolution of the DR process on Wikipedia, or just a heightening of requirements to have a case before the Committee, the trend is unmistakable.

Looking to the Future
The trends have been established - but what does this really mean for Wikipedia and the Dispute Resolution process?