Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2022/Coordination

2022 Arbitration Committee Elections

Status as of 07:19 (UTC), Tuesday, 19 November 2024 ()

• Thank you for participating in the 2022 Arbitration Committee Elections. The certified results have been posted.
• You are invited to leave feedback on the election process.

Did I miss anything?

So I just finished my page creation spree. Did I miss anything? —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 17:40, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Not seeing any gaps right now. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:42, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

To-Do List

We're ready to start gearing up for the production, if anyone would like to help build out the to-do list that would be nice. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:40, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

I’ll work on the voter lists. —CYBERPOWER (Trick or Treat) 17:45, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Looks like Asartea has already requested scrutineers at meta:Stewards' noticeboard#Looking for Scrutineers. Mz7 (talk) 04:34, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

I did yes, and apparently totally forgot to drop a note here, I thought I did so. We have three volunteers already luckily enough, although I'm keeping it open for a bit in the hope of also picking up 1 or 2 reserves. -- Asartea ^{Talk | Contribs} 16:25, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Notice of delayed start to questions phase

In light of the decision at WP:ACERFC2022#Proposal 2: Start questions to candidates after nomination period ends, I have boldly added a new notice to the text that will be displayed at the top of every questions page. It displays until the end of the nomination period, after which the notice will automatically hide itself:

Please feel free to tweak the wording or the formatting if you feel it could be improved! Thanks, Mz7 (talk) 03:27, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

The banner template/module may need to be updated for this additional "phase" as well. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:42, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Would that be Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2022/Header? I notice that it currently states Community members are welcome to ask questions of the candidates. –FlyingAce^✈hello 03:30, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

@FlyingAce: Whoops, good catch. Removed that text. Mz7 (talk) 04:53, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Request

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Hi coords. I will be away during the nomination period due to a real life engagement, but will be back when the questions start. Would it be possible for one of you to post my statement on the first day for nominations? It can be found here. -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 15:18, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

@Guerillero I loaded the input box to User talk:Guerillero/ACESandbox for you, could you complete it using that process - but do not transclude the entry to Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2022/Candidates yet. Regarding the Applications are considered complete only when properly filled out and transcluded by the deadline. Deadlines will be strictly enforced regardless of technical problems that may occur. rule - will leave this up to ElectCom do deal with this extraordinary situation. I think it sounds fine, but they are the deciders. Electcom, can you comment here please? — xaosflux ^Talk 17:29, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

• @AmandaNP, Mz7, and Cyberpower678: will this be OK? Guerillero created the pages (e.g. Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2022/Candidates/Guerillero) and is just asking for someone to do the transclusion now. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:51, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  I see no issue with it, given the candidate won't be around to place their nomination. I have also heard from the other two commissioners and they had no objections either. -- Amanda (she/her) 01:08, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Voter eligibility list

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2022/Coordination/SecurePoll —CYBERPOWER (Message) 19:03, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

c.f. Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2022/Coordination/SecurePoll/Sorted (warning 40K links on that page). — xaosflux ^Talk 01:01, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Looks like 2 bots are in there, User:TaxonBot and User:C1MM-bot; they were not categorized (they are now assuming this will be rerun). — xaosflux ^Talk 01:06, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Just for the record, in theory bots will be disallowed from voting anyway through SecurePoll's settings, even if they're in the list. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 16:55, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

These (and some others) are non-flagged bots, so they are "bots", but they are not bots. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:58, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Ah, good point. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 21:45, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

@Cyberpower678 can you do another generation run of both the electoralroll (which WMF will need for SecurePoll I think) and of the MMS list maker please? — xaosflux ^Talk 00:16, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

I can certainly update the list, but the list the WMF receives is directly emailed, after being generated, just prior to the start of the vote. —CYBERPOWER (Around) 00:19, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, just want to get one last check on them. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:23, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: List updated. Have fun. —CYBERPOWER (Around) 16:18, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

• @Xaosflux: I've posted the MM list on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2022/Coordination/MM. I'm probably not available to send them out when voting starts. Would you mind taking care of it?—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 20:34, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

  Sure, I can work on that this evening once we validate that the election is actually open. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:02, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

  @Cyberpower678 looks like you already started this off, ping if you need to hand it off. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:00, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

  You mind finishing it up? Super tired right now. —CYBERPOWER (Around) 01:08, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

  @Cyberpower678 on it. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:19, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

  @Xaosflux:—CYBERPOWER (Around) 01:09, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

• MMS distribution done. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:58, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Scrutineers appointed

After discussing with my fellow electoral commissioners, we have appointed the following stewards to be the scrutineers for this election: Hasley, Martin Urbanec, Sotiale. I have sent an email to the Arbitration Committee asking them to grant temporary checkuser permissions to these stewards for the duration of the election. At this time, there is no fourth steward who has offered to serve as a reserve. Mz7 (talk) 20:52, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Format of Nominations

Are there instructions for how self-nominations should be formatted, or for a form that should be used for self-nominations? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:17, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon there is an entire set of forms, they will appear on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2022/Candidates once the nomination period opens. They are mostly the same as in prior years if you want to see what one looks like you can do so at WP:ACE2021/C. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:42, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

WLN for QA?

I think we should have advertisement that the Q&A period is open on the WLN, @Mz7: I think you most recently worked on the modules related to that? — xaosflux ^Talk 00:14, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux:  Done [1]. Please feel free to tweak the wording if you feel it necessary. Mz7 (talk) 04:06, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

@Mz7 Thank you! — xaosflux ^Talk 11:20, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Candidate not answering questions

One of the candidates has not answered any of the questions put to them, and, in fact, has not edited here for 10 days. They've been informed on their talk page that they have questions pending. I went to e-mail them to request that they answer, but they apparently don't have a registered e-mail address. With voting due to begin in 2 days, my question to the co-ordinators is: is the failure to answer any questions grounds for being disqualified from being a candidate, and is that something that falls within the ambit of the co-ordinators? If not, who? Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:45, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

I strongly believe that no candidate should be disqualified unless they don't meet the qualifications established by community consensus in WP:ACERULES. The questions exist for the voters; let's let the voters decide whether this candidate should be elected based on the answers or absence thereof. (not a coordinator) Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 22:54, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken in general a candidate would only be disqualified if it was found that they did not actually meet the candidate qualifications, or have since violated them (e.g. by becoming banned, discovery of sock-puppetry). While the electoral commission has broad authority to solve "problems" with the election, I can't see the presence of an inactive candidate from preventing the election from proceeding normally. As the election style is individual-approval, votes of approval for any one candidate won't prevent votes of approval for any other candidate. If you want to propose a new rule that candidates that don't participate in q&a get disqualified, you may do so at next year's RFC (and maybe make a note about it here for reference). — xaosflux ^Talk 23:17, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

There is longstanding text at the top of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2022/Questions which states: Candidates may refuse to answer any questions that they do not wish to, with the understanding, however, that not answering a question may be perceived negatively by the community. I understand this to mean that, similar to RfA, all questions here are technically optional, so choosing not to answer any question would not be valid grounds to disqualify a candidate from appearing on the ballot. Mz7 (talk) 23:22, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks to all for the responses. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:31, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Slightly Busy

Hi, just wanted to let everyone know that I'm a little busy with some dissertation stuff right now. I still check in on the election pages a few times per day. But just in case anyone sees my activity plument I wanted to let y'all know everything is fine, I am reachable and keeping myself up to date with everything. Dr vulpes ^{(💬 • 📝)} 06:35, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm going to piggy-back off this section to state that I plan to do some traveling in an area with limited Internet connectivity starting December 18 and going through December 25. I may be able to pop onto the Internet once or twice a day, but it's possible my responses may be delayed. Please feel free to invoke reserve commissioners if an urgent issue arises that needs an ElectCom decision quickly and I am not immediately responsive. Mz7 (talk) 05:37, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Can we finish this first?

Looks like we are almost but not quite done with the election, pending closure as the big template shows. However, Cyberpower678 making edits to Template:Arbitration committee chart/recent is apparently confusing arbcom in to thinking the election is actually over (c.f. User_talk:Barkeep49#ACE2022). We are right on the brink of this being done, but seems like everyone is jumping the gun. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:47, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Obviously I'm not neutral here, but we've got 2 of 3 scrutes signing off on the count and I can't think of the last time we had a scrute disagree, so...no harm no foul? It's not right, clearly, the timelines and such shouldn't have been updated before the votes were posted and signed off, but it's also extremely unlikely that the final scrutineer is going to disagree with the results. GeneralNotability (talk) 20:26, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

It is certainly unlikely that anything will change; but now we've ended up in a situation where the sitting arbcom is notifying candidates that they have won; the election operations are meant to be arms-length from the committee. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:49, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2022/Coordination/Instructions for scrutineers § Reporting:

Once the scrutineers are satisfied that all votes remaining in the ballot are valid, they should inform the WMF liaison, who will assist with tallying the results; complete the results table here, and each scrutineer should sign below to certify them. As a formality, they should post a notification to Jimbo Wales's talk page to inform him that the results are available.

Presumably all three scrutineers are satisfied as the "WMF liaison" should not have completed the results table before all three scrutineers had informed the liason of their satisfaction. Also, the most recent edit to Jimbo talk was on 17 December, four days ago. Of course, the scrutineers should have been aware of the need to reasonably promptly sign this page and have been prepared to do so, knowing in advance of the imminent posting of results. – wbm1058 (talk) 21:07, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

AmandaNP are you the "WMF liaison", or is JSutherland (WMF)? wbm1058 (talk) 21:19, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

That would be Joe that they coordinated with. I don't have any buttons to tally the result, they came from Joe in an email. -- Amanda (she/her) 21:23, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

JSutherland is the WMF liaison, and that first sentence really could use some wording clarification...here's how the process breaks down, based on my memories of two years on electcom:

• Scrutineers scrutinize.
• After scrutinizing is complete, scrutineers email the WMF contact (JSutherland) that they're all done. WMF contact sends the scrutes and electcom the tallies.
• Electcom puts tally up.
• Scrutineers sign off on tally.
• Electcom notifies Jimbo.

GeneralNotability (talk) 21:25, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree with GeneralNotability here. Although ArbCom technically jumped the gun when they notified the successful candidates before Sotiale signed off on the results, the risk of any problems arising from this is negligible enough that proceeding with the usual paperwork for the successful candidates shouldn’t be a big deal. For what it’s worth, Sotiale is in a time zone that is probably different from the ones most of us on this wiki are in—that is the most likely reason for the delay. Mz7 (talk) 21:52, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't see any specific remedies being needed, and if this is the only hiccup in election processing this year it has been a good cycle. There is no rush on this. The problem I've called out is that there is an appearance that arbcom is overstepping their role. The committee is certainly expected to receive and welcome their new members, however they are not expected to administer the election which is run by the English Wikipedia community. I expect that Barkeep acted in good faith, in an individual capacity, despite sending out communications on behalf of the entire committee, as the message was templated. With luck, the final certification will be soon completed. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:11, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Apparently the WMF liaison was introduced into the process in the 2016 election. The same text has been copied forward each year since. It doesn't say that Electcom posts the tally. I read it as saying the WMF liaison posts the results, or perhaps one of the scrutineers. No indication that the electoral commission reports the results. The 2015 instructions don't mention any WMF liaison, rather they say the scrutineers themselves tally and post the results. The 2014 instructions even gave a link to the page the scrutineers use to tally the results. – wbm1058 (talk) 22:23, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, this is a great example of how most process/information pages on Wikipedia should be read as attempting to describe standard practice, rather than prescribing the standard practice. I think it's taken a while to iron down a standard procedure, but GeneralNotability's description of the process above aligns with my experience the past three years that I've been an electoral commissioner. We should definitely amend the instruction page to be more accurate. Mz7 (talk) 00:18, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Meh, considering that each year there's a lengthy request-for-comment discussion over the prescriptions for seemingly every last detail of the elections process, it strikes me as odd that here there's a page that neither prescribes nor accurately describes the process for reporting the results. – wbm1058 (talk) 01:21, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

we did document more this year, and can add to it. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:27, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Personally I don't feel the mechanics of reporting the results needs the whole community to weigh in on. Although the WMF liaison is the source of the unlocked vote tallies, I think it should be the electoral commission, composed of community members, that maps them to the requirements set up by the community (minimum standards for one- or two-year terms and assigning seats in descending order of support percentage). Certifying the results is basically a double-check by the scrutineers that the support percentages were correctly calculated. I think once the results are certified, they can be considered official. Perhaps the results should be marked "uncertified" until all scrutineers have done their checks. isaacl (talk) 03:31, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I tend to agree with this. For the record, once the tally was completed (only I can do that, since I set up the encryption), I emailed the results to the Commission and the scrutineers for final checks. The tally is also still visible directly on votewiki, though only for electionadmins — I'd be happy to re-add the commission to that, though they would also be able to view the voter data. The tally will still be visible in 90 days (after which the voter data will no longer be visible even to electionadmins), though I think asking people to wait three months for their new Arbs isn't ideal :) Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 10:56, 22 December 2022 (UTC)