Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2009/Feedback

This page serves as a forum for editors to provide feedback on the December 2009 Arbitration Committee Elections, and ideas on how the process can be improved for the next election, in 2010. The 2009 elections departed in some ways from those of previous years, most notably in the introduction of the SecurePoll secret ballot.

Please interpolate comments, feedback, and discussion below; if adding issues, use the formatting consistently. Note that this is not the place to discuss candidates or the Committee itself.

Proposed timetable

• From the announcement of the new arbitrators onwards: seek resolution of the outstanding issues for the 2010 election; liaise with developers if software changes are required
• 25 October 2010: call for volunteer coordinators; establish new pages for the election; invite and confirm scrutineers and administrators; confirm timing; liaise with developers and confirm software situation; confirm electoral roll and update eligibility tracker; apply for and implement watchlist notices, for "nominations are open" and "voting is open"
• 1 November 2010: call for and manage general questions
• 10–24 November 2010: call for candidates, call for individual questions; manage candidate statement lengths and individual questions to candidates; remind developer of arrangements for starting the vote
• 1–14 December 2010: voting period; construct draft announcement for scrutineers, plus message to scrutineers
• 14 December 2010: close of voting – cascade full-protect of all voting pages to ensure clean cut-off
• 15 December 2010: certification and announcement of the results
• 16 December 2010: solicit feedback from scrutineers and other election officials

Election personnel

In the 2009 election, most of the on-wiki running of the election was done by self-appointed co-ordinators. Editing the interface and monitoring votes was handled by WMF-identified "election administrators", while "scrutineers" drawn from the ranks of stewards not active on the English Wikipedia monitored the integrity of the election and signed off on the results.

Is the current structure of coordinators, administrators, and scrutineers optimal?

Should the term "administrators" be changed to avoid confusion with site-wide admins?

Should the roles and responsibilities of each position be written out?

Should scrutineers continue to be entirely drawn from the ranks of non-en.WP stewards?

Discuss "Election personnel"

Possible term for (election) administrators might be "officials". Then: coordinators, officials, scrutineers. Tony (talk) 12:15, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

The SecurePoll system

The SecurePoll system was used for the first time in an ArbCom election in December 2009, following a discussion in the weeks leading up to the election. The community needs to decide whether it should be used in 2010.

There are some technical issues that invite attention:

Display previous votes? Should the developers be asked to change the software to display a voter's previous vote so that they do not need to vote in a single sitting, and do not have to start from scratch on returning to their ballot paper to make changes?

How to manage mid-election withdrawals: User:Secret withdrew half-way through, but it was not possible to remove his name from the list, and votes could still accrue for that candidate.

Minimise call on developers: Are there ways of minimising the necessity for developer input/set-up? For example, is it feasible for an election coordinator to upload the names of candidates? What would need to be done to the software, and would it require too much technical skill for non-developers to upload the names?

Are the actual votes going to be deleted after all this is over? (Or erased, purged, or whatever the technical term is.) The process requires that the record of how each person voted has to be kept so that a person can change their vote and so that invalid votes can be thrown out. But after the process is completed, checked, verified and so on, there wouldn't seem to be a need to keep them around. (Modified version of Neutron's question at the election talk page).

Advantages and disadvantages in destroying the data after the election process

Discuss "The SecurePoll system"

• I'm uncomfortable with the idea of being able to display your previous vote. In a real-world election, that would make it possible to sell one's vote by logging in and showing it to the buyer. It's quite possible that the abstraction provided by interaction over the Internet makes this less feasible, and it's certainly true that vote-buying on Wikipedia is improbable, but we should try to be a model for good elections. rspεεr (talk) 17:59, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

What, by taking a screenshot of it, emailing it to the potential "customer", promising to vote that way, and here's my bank account number to shovel money into and you can trust me to honour the screenshot? (Other voters cannot access one's personal ballot page.) This is, let us say, a fatally flawed business model! Tony (talk) 00:14, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Screenshots and bank accounts are indeed a poor way of making such an exchange. The way you get this kind of privileged information, as developers of shady Web games know, is just to ask the user nicely to type their username and password into your form. In fact, now that you've got me thinking about it, the fact that the entire election takes place on the Internet makes this easier, not harder.
You don't even have to pay real money; many Facebook and Twitter users will "sell" their online identities for a game of Mafia Wars or the ability to upload photos from their phone. Imagine how cheap a single vote is in comparison. Again, it's not socially likely to happen in the current environment of Wikipedia, but it's technically quite straightforward. rspεεr (talk) 06:56, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Rspeer, although the thought is chilling, I'd say the previous, low-tech manual "scroll down and vote" system was also vulnerable to vote trading. We can only do our best to avoid dishonesty whatever system is used. Tony (talk) 07:51, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it's probably not a huge concern, especially as we're coming off a system where you could basically "trade" your vote for an arbitrator liking you more. (I'm not claiming that this happened to any extent that would affect the elections.) rspεεr (talk) 08:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Rspeer, I don't understand your point at all. Thanks to the public voting log it is already trivially easy to verifiably sell one's vote with a screencast. The concern of vote-selling is not a small concern but it's just unrelated to the proposal at hand. --JayHenry (talk) 20:28, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

• On displaying a voter's previous vote: Yes, absolutely this should be done if it is technically feasible. (And we already know that the software is keeping a record of how each person voted; otherwise it would not know which vote to over-write when someone votes for a second time to change their vote.) It should be easier to change one's vote. I also don't think the software should necessarily reveal to the public who has changed their vote, as it did this year. It's really nobody's business. Neutron (talk) 00:06, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
  • There are disadvantages to a public record of when and how often someone changed their votes, but the advantage is that the person changing their votes sees a visual confirmation in the log that their vote did in fact change and get recorded. If the log only showed the fact that you had voted previously, you might think "did the new vote really get recorded?" Carcharoth (talk) 03:05, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
  • It should be possible to have a system where you don't have to vote for everyone at once and can easily change your vote without displaying previous votes. It could go something like this: If you haven't voted for a particular candidate before, the ballot would give you four options: Support, Neutral, Oppose, No Vote. If you have, there'd be a checkmark next to the candidate's name and four options: Support, Neutral, Oppose, Retain Previous Vote. Just an idea; might need better wording on that last option. --Chris Johnson (talk) 01:29, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  • i'd definitely be in favour of a system where i don't have to do all the voting in one sitting and where i can see who i have/haven't cast a vote on yet. i'd also prefer a system that lets me know a changed vote has been duly recorded without publicizing that information. Sssoul (talk) 17:43, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
• On withdrawals: Although I don't feel terribly strongly about it, I think that once the voting starts, the ballot should remain stable. It's a secret ballot; nobody really knows how they (or anyone else) are doing, though they might think they know. A candidate may certainly "suspend" his/her "campaign", as is done in real-world elections, without changing the ballot. But I don't think the ballot should be altered once people have started voting. Neutron (talk) 00:06, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree. Withdrawals in a secret ballot system are pointless, and in theory someone could withdraw after voting once in support of themselves, and hence end up with 100% support. Not that this would really work, of course. Carcharoth (talk) 03:07, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree w/ Carch. We can simply adopt a system like most real-world elections: create some buffer prior to the start of the election where candidates may not be added or removed. We don't have the hassle of paper ballots and multiple polling places to necessitate that this time period be very long, but it should be non-zero. After that I don't see the benefit of removing names or the cost of retaining them. In the unlikely event that someone notionally "withdraws" during the election but is still elected, S/he can either resign or refuse the seat. Protonk (talk) 22:07, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
• The move to secret ballot, which is used in most 'real-world' elections, seems to have so far significantly reduced drama, potential for distortion etc. kudos to getting it set-up and looks like it would be a good idea to keep on using it and expanding its use where suitable, Tom B (talk) 13:20, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

  If by drama you mean discussion about the election then it's certainly reduced that. I don't know on what observable information we'd conclude the process has reduced the potential for distortion, certainly when we've not seen the results yet. --JayHenry (talk) 03:00, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

• It ought to be possible for the developers to set up the SecurePoll system so that a certain group of users (let's say for the sake of argument there's an ElectionAdmin flag that can do this) that can set up new elections and edit the list of candidates, deleting them if necessary in the case of withdrawals. They could also appoint scrutineers and vote counters if needed, I'm not sure how that part of the extension works. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 05:00, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
• I just want to go on record here as liking the way the way this was done. We still had conversation, user were still able to publicly state positions if they wished, but in the end you could make whatever decision you thought best without consideration of how you might be viewed by the candidates or others in the future. I'm sure this idea would be shouted down if I actually tried it, but I think this could also be new model for RFA. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

• I was very glad that we switched to a secret ballot. I found the interface reasonable enough, although I seem to remember I wished there were more cross-links between the voting page and the candidates' pages. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:18, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
• Overall good. However would like it to be possible to be able to not have to vote all at once and be able to change your vote without having to revote on all the candidates. I did not want to go back and change my votes when it became clear there would be an extra place being elected as I could not remember all the previous votes I had made and there was no way I was going to spend the time to remake the decisions again. I hope the votes are destroyed after the election process is completed to ensure there is no way candidates will ever find out how each voter voted on them. Davewild (talk) 18:08, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Improving instructions to voters and voting rules

Voter eligibility. Is there a need for explicit rules about blocked and banned users? For example:

1. Voting is not permitted for the duration of a block or a ban.
2. The use of a multiple account to cast more than one vote or to evade a block or a ban by voting will result in the voiding of all votes by the user in that election.

Voting system used. Voters should be given information about the voting system used.

Discuss "Improving instructions / voting rules"

• The page Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2009 describes the voting system only with the words "with the traditional options of support/abstain/oppose". It is not clear to me what that means; how will the winners actually be determined? Are we sorting on the difference #support-#oppose, or on the ratio #support/#oppose? If all I want is one particular candidate to succeed and I don't care about all the others, is the strategically correct approach to vote "oppose" for all of them, or can I "abstain"? AxelBoldt (talk) 18:30, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

The relevant metric is (unchanged from previous years) the support percentage, calculated as supports/(supports+opposes). Abstain/neutral has no effect. So a candidate with 8 supports, 67 neutrals and 2 opposes will have a "score" of 80%. See last years results. Regarding strategy, a rational voter will not use the abstain/neutral option.  Skomorokh  18:35, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, that clarifies it. I think all voters should be given this information; they can't be expected to hunt for old election results in order to deduce the tallying method, nor do they know whether the same method is still being used. Specifying the tallying method ahead of time would also avoid the possibility of nasty disputes after the fact. Cheers, AxelBoldt (talk) 22:15, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

• As to the other issue, there is little point in telling blocked or banned users that they can't vote. If they have a sleeper sock so well put together that it fulfills the requirements to vote and has not been detected, telling them not to vote is extremely unlikely to have any effect. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Supplementary voting

In the 2009 election, the franchise was given to accounts rather than editors, forbidding some eligible editors from voting using the SecurePoll system. It was proposed that "postal vote"-style supplementary voting should be enacted to facilitate these voters; ongoing discussion for the 2009 election is here.

Discuss "Supplementary voting"

Postal voting is an exceptionally poor idea open to incredible amounts of abuse with almost no legitimate use whatsoever. This has not been thought through at all. --JayHenry (talk) 20:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The question seems to be more about users in good standing who have sufficient votes but spread across multiple accounts. The automated system doesn't recognize them.

Maybe a simple "fix" would be that such users can approach scrutineers and if it's agreed they have franchise, the scrutineers can add their primary (nominated) account to SecurePoll as an exception in the election. This would mean SecurePoll would need a minor upgrade to allow an automatic rule, plus a manual whitelist. But it would solve the problem completely. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 12:24, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

You are still describing something with almost no legitimate use whatsoever, although certainly an improvement of the postal voting idea. There are lots of totally legitimate users, interested in ArbCom elections, who do not have a single account with 150 mainspace edits, do have that spread across multiple accounts, and there's no impropriety at all? Come on, you're more familiar with Wikipedia than that. This is opening the door to abuse for no good reason at all. Someone without 150 real edits on a single account can stick to one account and wait until next year. --JayHenry (talk) 03:04, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Questions to candidates

There has been unresolved debate on measures to bring the size and number of both "general" and "individual" question under control (examples: 1, 2, 3). Should this be done?

Possible measures include:

1. the requirement of a seconder for each question;
2. a limit of one question per user (properly observed and enforced);
3. a word-length limit per user;
4. an absolute limit on "individual" questions per candidate;
5. a proscription on the mass pasting of the same "individual" question(s) on more than one candidate's page.
6. closer editorial control over the questions.

Discuss "Questions to candidates"

• I have to agree that the number of questions is simply staggering here. I can't say with any certainty what the "best" resolution to this is, although I would suggest that limiting each user to 1 question could improve things. Perhaps if there were a group (not unlike the group that has worked here to co-ordinate things and oversee the results) which looked at the questions and simply picked out 15 or 20 of the best for each candidate it would assist the process. I found some of the questions to be a bit ... ummm ... let's just say perhaps asking the candidates on their talk page might have been a better choice for a few of them. Even Arbs have real lives, and I can sympathize with the sheer multitude of work that went into each and every candidates page. Surely we can find a way to tone it all down a notch for next year. — Ched :  ?  15:05, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
• From a voter's standpoint I would say that the huge volume of questions made the question-and-answer process mostly worthless. I tried to wade through all of it, but there was no way I could. I also think that a lot of questions are a little too "inside baseball." Maybe a little less focus on the political and interpersonal disputes that have taken place within Wikipedia would make the election a little more "accessible" to the "rank and file" who are more tuned-in to editing articles than some of the other stuff that goes on around here. Neutron (talk) 00:14, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
• Rather than questions, make candidates draft an arbitration case (or pick some other arbitration activity if they don't particularly like the idea of drafting a case). Or some other form of practical test, such as analysing various forms of evidence. More practical stuff and less wordy stuff. Carcharoth (talk) 03:09, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
• I think voters must be allowed to ask questions. One method by which things could be somewhat improved, as I suggested last year, is for the "General questions" section to be formatted in such a way that each question is put only once, and the candidates list their respective responses one after the other. That would also have the advantage of allowing voters to compare the answers more readily. Gatoclass (talk) 08:14, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
• If the single question rule is to remain the wording on the general questions page desperately needs to be revised. Both this year and last year it said on the general question page This questions page may be used to pose a single question to every candidate in this year's election. Does this mean a single question per candidate? A single question being asked only once, so no duplicates? It is clear that a few users did not understand it actually meant a single question per person, as shown on the discussion pages and by the fact it has been ignored by many two years running. Personally I think such a rule, even if clear and enforced, is unhelpful as there is not limit to the amount of question people can ask candidates directly. I did like the idea of general questions being submitted, being re-organised into question categories with duplicate merged, and then submitted to the candidate. This could also work well with the Board Election like set-up of questions being listed and each candidate putting their individial response underneath each one, as suggested by Gatoclass. Camaron · Christopher · talk 14:42, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
• I agree with the idea of restricting users to one question. To be honest I only glanced at the questions and answers because it was just too much to read over and I don't think that I would be the only one, so I think that it is self defeating allowing so many questions and answers.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 14:45, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

  Well you don't have to read them all. You can just pick out the questions from users you trust, for example. Gatoclass (talk) 16:05, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

• I think questions suffer from the many-to-many networking realities at hand. RfA's are somewhat manageable (with an obvious and notable exception) mostly because the import and scope of the "office" are such that they attract <200 participants (usually), in english, they are "no big deal". By contrast we have made Arbcom into a very big deal (relatively speaking) and we have many more users participating in the election. Enough that I didn't bother reading the questions or answers (general or otherwise). I'd be interested to learn how many users read all the questions, or even a preponderance of them. Somewhat cynically, I suspect we won't throttle or control questions in the next election, so discussion of the merits may be fruitless. I do note one pleasant outcome of the secret voting system: it substantially reduces the ability of a voter to grandstand after seeing his/her pet question go unanswered. Perhaps we will find ourselves at an equilibrium with candidates refusing to answer late or redundant questions. Protonk (talk) 22:02, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
• As a candidate, I don't think the number of questions was terribly excessive; I was able to answer the vast majority of mine in the space of a few days. However, I did join in rather late and I believe got fewer questions than many as a result. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 05:04, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
• The volume and variety of the questions serve as an introduction to the firehose you will face if appointed. Just as there is no way to fully do what is required as an arbitrator, there is no way to comprehensively answer all the questions adequately. It does no harm to get a peek at the over-whelming situation you will face. Fred Talk 19:13, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
• Per Fred. But also, a lot of questions were off-topic on what Arbitrators do. If current and ex-arbs described the role better for next year, and an indication of useful and likely less useful areas were given, then questions might be more salient. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 12:27, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not so concerned about the candidates (although the idea of perpetuating the "trial of hell" aspect just because I myself survived it doesn't seem like a good reason). No, the real concern for me is the voters: they want to make their judgements in under 10 hours of reading, thanks. Several people have already told me they didn't vote because it's too hard to wade throught the text. Of course, in previous years we just acted like a herd and voted as we saw our friends did; fortunately, that is no longer possible. Bringing the question process under control so that it serves both voters and candidates better is a prime consideration for next year, in my view. Tony (talk) 12:38, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

• I did wade through most of the questions, skimming past questions I was not interested in. It took about 4 hours for me to go through them and make my decisions. I think a limit of one question each is too strict but would support having an enforced limit of some sort as some people did ask a lot of questions (and there were quite a few I paid very little attention to). Perhaps something like each eligable voter could ask 2 questions, with any further questions from that person requiring another 4 people to endorse the question being asked. This would have to apply to both general and individual questions as the individual question part just became an extension of the general questions this year. Davewild (talk) 17:58, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest a two question limit, with parts, subparts, and the word "and" being counted towards the limit. Questions violating the limit to be removed not by the candidate (why should he take the heat?) but by an election official. In addition, perhaps it is time to look at the election guides, some of which seem very idiosynchratic and based on personal preferences having little to do with ArbCom. Perhaps it would be a good idea if there was a standard they had to meet if they wanted their page in the election template Just a thought.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Feedback from the candidates

The 23 candidates in the 2009 elections are invited to give feedback and make suggestions in this section.

• This was a relatively painless and mostly drama-free election. Arguably, some of that can be attributed to the Committee's performance during 2009 which, by most accounts, was much less controversial than the previous year and thus less likely to arouse passions.

  I'm a bit disappointed by the paucity of direct discussion, but perhaps that is a normal side effect of editors being able to keep their votes to the privacy of the booth; so there can be no badgering or "why did you vote this way, you fool!" effect. — Coren ^(talk) 00:29, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

• Agreed, secret ballot worked well. It might not be a bad idea to shorten the election to a week, voting fell off dramatically after the first few days. I may have some comments on the amount of time it is taking to announce the results, but am content to let the scrutineers do their thing for now.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:54, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

• Secret balloting is unacceptable. How are we to know the announced results accord with the actual voting? Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 19:49, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

  One does have to wonder why you chose to run in such an election. Happy‑melon 20:06, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

  The election opened formally on 10 November. Nominations for candidature closed on 24 November. On the same day, the decision to go with a secret ballot was made ... unless you're saying that the decision to go with SecurePoll was made before then? ;-) --rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid (coṁrá) 20:55, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

  Two candidates withdrew from the election, there was nothing precluding Kurt from doing the same. If he was unable to accept the use of a secret ballot in the election, it only served to waste everyone's time to continue to participate in it. Happy‑melon 12:14, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

• Dislike secret ballot. Dislike unanticipated delays in announcement of result (schedule says 14 December 2010: close of voting... 15 December 2010: certification and announcement of the results). This wasn't expected, something has gone wrong, and no-one is saying what William M. Connolley (talk) 11:13, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

  I don't go so easily with a conspiracy theory: it looks intead that for the first time the votes/voters will be checked properly for validity. Tony (talk) 11:46, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

  The 'overrun' compared to the timetable reflects a hopeless optimism on the part of the timetable, not any problem with the process. Compare the date of announcement in previous elections: 20 December in 2008, 26 December in 2007 (but with voting closing on 16 December), 26 December in 2006 (with voting closing on 17 December). The average time before the nominations are announced is thus around 8 days. Given the limited data that Jimbo will have on which to base his nominations, that stage of the process should be extremely quick, perhaps a day at most to account for timezone dislocations. So compared to other elections, we are still well ahead of schedule. The only difference is that, instead of everyone waiting with baited breath to see how Jimbo interprets the results, everyone waits with baited breath to see what the results actually are. Happy‑melon 12:24, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Feedback from election volunteers

The volunteer co-ordinators, scrutineers, and election administrators of the 2009 elections, and Tim Starling, who prepared the software, are invited to give feedback and make suggestions in this section.

Things seem to have gone well, overall. Many of the hiccups we had (like the start and end times, period for questions, etc) were artifacts of the Open Voting system used in previous years - which might be my fault, a bit, as I started setting up election pages under last year's open voting system prior to the RFC. Next year will be vastly simpler if we know we're using one system from the beginning. Congrats also to the volunteers who pitched in for ACE2009 - well done. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 13:20, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Some comments on SecurePoll, may have thoughts on the rest.

• SecurePoll needs to be documented here
• SecurePoll needs to log tally generations.
• Consider obscuring enhanced list data for scrutineers/election admins unless it is deliberately accessed, and again, logged.

--Tznkai (talk) 21:51, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Feedback on the organization of the election

(New section because it doesn't seem to fit in an existing one.) For next year, we should remember to:

• update MediaWiki:Securepoll-not-in-list if we use securepoll again before the elections (I noticed it hadn't been updated and did it on 6 Dec)
• advertise the election in proper places (see archived discussion), at WP:CENT (see how it was done [1], [2], but late) and at the Wikipedia:Community portal (without voting links I suggest, since most viewers will be unregistered users).

Cenarium (talk) 16:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Just a few odd notes from me:

• Start/end times should be expressed 00:01 and 23:59 to avoid confusion.
• Check next time that SecurePoll start/end times are correct.
• Make it very clear when the periods for inserting questions end.
• Mention banned users' status under "Voter eligibility". Tony (talk) 12:10, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
• Clarify somewhere in the instructions to voters that they should not leave it until the last minute to vote, lest there be software lag. Tony (talk) 07:11, 16 December 2009 (UTC)