 ****Perhaps the arbitration committee and the community should clarify expectations here; we have generally followed similar rules to those defining when an admin is too involved in an issue to use their admin tools, probably because it was Wikipedia's only existing similar rules/unwritten code of conduct. It may be the correct behavior, or it may not.  My concern is that it is quite possible to go too far in that direction, and that the current de facto rule will be replaced by one in which any arbitrator who has had any kind of interaction with any of the parties to an arbitration will be considered 'tainted', or indeed any who have expressed views previously that might seem to prefer one side of the argument over another.   