česky | english
A template for a CAcert arbitration announcement (email)
Dear Parties,
I am the appointed Arbitrator for the dispute case a200YMMDD.n, as documented here [1]: http://wiki.cacert.org/wiki/Arbitrations/a200YMMDD.n
Let us start with some preliminaries.
- Please reply to this email and confirm that you accept the Arbitration under the CAcert Community Agreement [2] and the Dispute Resolution Policy [3].
- The governing law will be that of NSW, Australia. It is possible to request a change of law, but it is unlikely to be helpful in this case.
- You each need to notify me if you are seeking legal counsel (a lawyer). This is not recommended. Rather, if you feel the need for help, I can ask an experienced Assurer to assist you.
- The next thing I would like both sides to do is to prepare a short email that outlines their viewpoint. No longer than a page, please!
Finally, please remember: this forum is about sorting out our common difficulties and improving our ability to secure ourselves. Unlike other forums, we will all be required to work together after this Arbitration, so I ask you to maintain a positive and helpful spirit at all times!
XXXXX, Arbitrator.
[1] http://wiki.cacert.org/wiki/Arbitrations/a200YMMDD.n
[2] http://www.cacert.org/policy/CAcertCommunityAgreement.php CAcert Community Agreement
[3] http://www.cacert.org/policy/DisputeResolutionPolicy.php Dispute Resolution Policy
Comments
The initial mail acts as the formal opening of the Arbitration, ensures (hopefully) that the parties are reachable via email, ensures (or at least, tries to encourage) that the parties accept the CCA and DRP and tries to keep the parties from panicking. Sometimes people become a bit funny if adressed in a very formal style. 
The mail may be sent by Arbitrator or Case Manager. Don't forget to CC the mail to the other one if already known, maybe you should ask him/her in advance whether s/he already sent this mail (as I sometimes do it if I'm acting as CM to speed things up a bit).
The first three points are important and should only be skipped if you really know what you are doing. The last one may be omitted if the viewpoints are already clear enough from the initial filing (Like in "I want my middle name changed"), or you may already ask more specific questions.
Since I'm a native german speaker I usually offer my service as a translator if one of the parties is german does not seem very used to writing in english.
If replies are received you or the CM record the content (usually in summary) with a timestamp in the status page. I usually give the parties two weeks time (maybe some more in holiday times) before nagging a second time.
ToDo: What to do is no reply arrives?