Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2006/Vote

Statement modification

Will Beback has modified his statement. This should be reflected on this page. Tra (Talk) 17:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. --Conti|✉ 21:45, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Voting

Can I vote for more than one candidate? This isn't very clear on the page. | AndonicO ^{Talk | Sign Here} 00:13, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, you can. One vote per candidate. - Mailer Diablo 00:22, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. | AndonicO ^{Talk | Sign Here} 11:37, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Ineligible votes

Should ineligible votes be removed or should I strike them out when I find them? --Conti|✉ 00:44, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Strikeout seems best, to be safe. They can always be removed later. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 00:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The method used last year was to indent, and add a comment. For example, see Ineligible user's vote in the below scenario:

1. Support. Ral315 (talk) 01:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

   Support. Ineligible user 01:13, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

   User has less than 150 edits. Ral315 (talk) 01:16, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

2. Support. Fake 01:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Using both strikeout and indenting would be good. The reason indenting is used is so that the numbering is correct; in the example above, you can see that the vote of "Fake" is correctly numbered as #2. --bainer (talk) 00:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Give brief reasons with votes

While I understand people not wanting to be harsh, brief reasons with votes, especially oppose votes, would generally be helpful for other voters. Otherwise, the question one asks oneself when seeing an oppose is: "Was there something I missed, or is he voting oppose based on something that did not bother me?" With supports, one can at least assume that the voter has no major problems with the candidate. —Centrx→talk • 01:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

• Somehow giving brief reasons does make this election look like an RfA. Personally I decided not to; out of respect I don't want to express my choice words for certain candidates. - Mailer Diablo 03:22, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Albeit an RfA lacking in any discussion of the votes. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 03:24, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Where's the bot-update page with the tallies?

I'm sure somebody already thought of that... —Doug Bell ^talk 11:26, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Gurch/Reports/ArbComElections. Geni 12:38, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

And another at User:Mathbot/ArbCom Election December 2006. NoSeptember 13:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

• Battle of the tallies! ;) - Mailer Diablo 13:58, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

We need to add a check for possible duplicate voters, like the Tangobot RfA summaries do. Before long these lists of votes are going to be huge. NoSeptember 14:17, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The script I'm using to check for suffrage checks for duplicate votes. —Cryptic 15:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Btw, it is good we have 2 bots running. Gurch's page has not updated in about 4 hours now. NoSeptember 15:58, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Note about Gurch's S-O column: though there was a lot of discussion about that last year, in the end Jimbo ignored it and went by raw percentages. It's still interesting to have both for comparison, of course. Chick Bowen 17:59, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Gurch/Reports/ArbComElections is seriously broken, at least in IE 6.02 on Windows XP. The page is blank and only contains the following:

<script type="text/javascript" src="/skins-1.5/common/sorttable.js"></script>

—Doug Bell ^talk 19:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Works in Firefox. I'll let Gurch know. Chick Bowen 19:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Apologies for the lack of update. I was asleep and it stalled. Working again now after 9 hours. I'm not sure why it doesn't work in IE... it does have the new sortable table feature, which is perhaps breaking in IE, I'll look into in. In the meantime, those who only have IE either use MathBot's page or get a better browser :) – Gurch 22:00, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Just tested in IE7 and it works fine. If you're using IE6 that's your own problem :) – Gurch 22:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's not by choice. I need IE 6 for compatibility testing with the development work I'm doing. Pretty sure since everything else here works with it that breaking it isn't a requirement. —Doug Bell ^talk 05:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, now User:Mathbot/ArbCom Election December 2006 is doing exactly the same thing. Oleg, what did you change? —Doug Bell ^talk 05:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I just used a sortable table. I removed it now. That Gurch has it is enough I guess. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, this seems to be a problem of the user's monobook.js (or .css, I don't know), having some kind of conflict with the sortable table thing. I have the same problem as Doug Bell (using Opera), and it vanishes when I look at the page while logged out. I don't have a clue what part of my monobook.js is causing this tho, as I'm too stupid to know much JavaScript. --Conti|✉ 05:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Neutral votes

I have been shifting neutral votes and other corollary discussion to the discussion pages of the individual votes, as provision is only made for support and oppose votes in the ArbCom elections. - Mark 14:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

"150 votes"

A little question - why do you have to have 150 edits to vote? Surely a user's dedication and trustworthiness is based on quality, not quantity? It's ard to measure how 'good' a user is - even time isn't really important. Scenario: candidate registers new account before 1 October 2006, makes 150 minor edits, and votes. Is there a better way? Just wondering. Dr Santa 17:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It's impractical, if not impossible, to judge each voter's dedication and trustworthiness. 150 edits is an arbitrary threshold, but it's also a low one. SuperMachine 17:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It also helps to prevent sockpuppet voting. It's very easy for a user to register a bunch of new accounts and have them all vote the same way but it's much harder to have each one of them accumulate 150 edits before the vote starts. As for choosing a numerical measure, it's easier to just count a voter's edits than it is to look at each one and evaluate it for quality, plus this is subjective and people might disagree on whether the edits have sufficient quality to be able to vote. Tra (Talk) 17:22, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Lengthy comments

I believe voters were not supposed to leave lengthy comments; I've got a few four- or five-liners, and one user that left an entire essay in her vote. Could someone neutral please take a look and move those to the talk page if appropriate? (Radiant) 08:59, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I've moved the longest comment to the talk page, and left a note linking to it. The other ones don't seem so bad, so I've left them there. --bainer (talk) 10:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Checking votes

From the above comments ("The script I'm using to check for suffrage checks for duplicate votes. — Cryptic 15:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)") it seems that checking of votes is taking place. Is it possible to be reassured that such checking is indeed taking place, what it innvolves, and whether the results will be published? Thanks. Carcharoth 10:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm checking once a day or so, by reading and parsing http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&limit=150&go=first&target=Whoever, with a supplementary check to the new user log if the user's first edit is after the October 1 cutoff. I paste the results into the voting pages as I find them. —Cryptic 02:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Notable pattern: It's a rather 'rouge' election

There is no cabal - crz crztalk 02:39, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Look at the page 'Category:Rouge admins'. On that list are the ArbCom candidates Alex Bakharev, FloNight, Geogre, JzG, and Samuel Blanning. There are also the candidates Freakofnurture, Starblind, and Blnguyen, who associate with them. Also, look at the votes of the rouge admins JzG (signs as 'Guy'), Geogre, Crazyrussian (signs as 'crz'), AlexBakharev, Nightstallion, Glen_S, Jaranda, Duja, and KillerChihuahua, and known rouge admin associates Zscout370, Newyorkbrad, Khoikhoi, JoshuaZ, Starblind, Giano, Ghirlandajo, Irpen, and Bishonen. There are many of them, and they support their own, so much so that their votes constitute a significant portion of the support votes for their candidates. They even constitute about one-quarter of JzG's support votes.

I also noticed that the listed rouge admin Ral315, and his associates Coredesat and Chacor, mostly voted AGAINST the rouge admins. I wonder what the cause of that schism is.

Hearse Monoplane 10:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• TINC. (Radiant) 12:03, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2006/Vote/Radiant! -Looks like I missed one. Thanks for drawing my attention enough to notice.

[1] Funny.

Hearse Monoplane 21:38, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Um, I'm a "known rouge admin associate"? What the heck does that mean? And, is it good or bad? :) And P.S., who is Hearse Monoplane the rest of the time? Newyorkbrad 21:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Ha. Convincing first 2 questions.

The following links are meant for others, not for you, as you are already aware of their content.

• ArbCom election votes: [2]
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/InShaneee (InShaneee is a rouge admin)
• [3]
• [4] (This is an article that was written by JzG, which is related to the rouge admin creed)
• [5][6][7][8] -Intent to be an admin planned well in advance, supported by a rouge admin. Note that most of the group members (including all of the listed rouge admins and most of the associates) have sought and obtained adminship already.
• [9]
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Konstable/Workshop
• [10]
• [11]

Hearse Monoplane 01:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

It looks like you've uncovered a shocking conspiracy. How can we repair the damage? —Centrx→talk • 06:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Expansion

Keep in mind that in the coming year, due to the overall growth of wikipedia, we are likely to see a big expansion of the arbcom. This is not certain, but entirely possible. Therefore, people should (a) not vote strategically based on good people being very close to the top N and (b) not withdraw from the race with good scores just because you might not be in the top N. Anyone who has recently withdrawn on that basis might reconsider.--Jimbo Wales 19:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Only one candidate with more than 70% support has withdrawn: I hope the expanded ArbCom won't comprise members with less than 2/3 community support. Sandy (Talk) 19:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo's input here is helpful. I certainly would suggest that no candidates enjoying majority support should withdraw. Voters might also bear in mind that there will be at least one ArbCom position to be filled beyond the five currently up for election, and I presume that, though I can't say for sure whether, that selection would be made from this crop of candidates. (I gather that a current ArbCom member, not in this year's tranche, is resigning from ArbCom to take a Board seat; there is also another member who is on a seemingly long-term break from en:wiki and has not responded to my query whether he will be returning, though I certainly hope he will.)

If there is to be a "big" expansion of the committee, I kind of wish that had been announced earlier; many people who decided not to run because they thought there were five candidates more qualified than they, might not have made the same decision if they'd know that (say) 10 or 12 candidates would be appointed. Ah well, hindsight is 20:20. Newyorkbrad 21:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Of course, any decision on whether and how to expand the ArbCom will probably take into account the quality of the 50%+ candidates at the end of this election. As for hindsight, I thought you (newyorkbrad) were one of the ones who pointed out that there might be an expansion! :-) Carcharoth 02:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I recall there was a thread on the election talk page in which this was briefly discussed, but I wasn't one of the ones who suggested it might actually happen. And in any event, I don't think we can assume that all the potential candidates were watching that page! But the committee was expanded from 12 to 15 after January's election, so to that extent at least, I suppose everyone was on notice this might happen again. Newyorkbrad 03:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Why would we expand ArbCom at a 50% threshhold, if we have a much higher threshhold for admins? Fifty percent seems awfully low - that means as many people oppose as support. <confused> Certainly would expect 2/3 consensus. Sandy (Talk) 02:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The Arbitration Committee is selected by Jimbo, who himself gives due consideration of the candidates, after an advisory election, whereas an RfA that exceeds 80% rather automatically results in the candidate being made an administrator. Also, new admin candidates may be rather unknown and RfAs are no where near as well advertised and well known as the Arbcom elections; thus they require a surfeit of support to evaluate trustworthiness. With Arbcom, however, all remotely successful candidates are well-known established users, typically for years. There is probably not a candidate in the whole election who would intentionally try to mess up Wikipedia, and everyone who has a chance at Arbcom has a certain level of competence, though certain ones are more or less competent for this very high task. On RfA, however, there are regularly candidates who would be seriously dangerous to have as administrators, as well as candidates above 50% who have little clue about Wikipedia or administrative tasks. Arbcom elections are also more heated than the less important, less publicized RfAs with candidates who have not taken strong positions on anything; most RfAs pass with 95+% support —Centrx→talk • 03:58, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, Centrx - dont' like it, but appreciate it. Sandy (Talk) 04:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Some good points, but I'm with Sandy. In fact, I think it's the other way round: adminship is said to be "not a big deal", but ArbCom is a very big deal. I'd want 80-85% minimum. Tim Smith 06:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

If Arbcom elections were conducted in the same way as RfA's, that would make sense (though because of its importance, it would never be conducted in the same way), but they are not similar. —Centrx→talk • 09:57, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

A little late for this. The elections page for this elction was created on 14 March 2006 at 00:38. Surely it would have made more sense to talk about posible expansion before this point rather than requireing the cadidates to run blind.Geni 15:23, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Agree - I imagine a lot of people would have voted differently if they had known such a low threshhold was in place. Sandy (Talk) 15:26, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Those voters could easily have read Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2006, which says, Jimbo favours running the elections in the same way that they were run last year, that is: All candidates with more 'support' votes than 'oppose' votes were eligible for the ArbCom. If there are more approvals than seats available, Jimbo will either expand the size of the committee or choose among the community approved candidates. Jimbo appointed candidates mostly in the order of the percentage of approval in the community. That language has been there explicitly since November 4 [12], and has been there implicitly since October 1 [13]. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 19:22, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I read that: it says eligible. Sandy (Talk) 19:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. Candidates are eligible if they're past the 50% threshold; Jimbo picks whoever he pleases from that pool. Same as last time. Or am I missing your meaning? --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 19:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

There are two different discussions here.

First, some people are surprised that this is really an approval process, and not an election. Anyone with 50% or better is approved by the community; then Jimbo choses from that group. But Jpgordon is correct, that is the same as last time. See the last bullet at Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2006.

The second discussion is about how many will be chosen. The current tranche needs four new ones, plus another slot was vacant. So everyone, or almost everyone, thought five would be chosen, and even with Jimbo's discretion, there were 4 - 8 who had way more support than the others. And three with positive support, but lagging the leaders, dropped out (plus a few others without 50% support).

But two things happened next. One ArbCom member resigned (or is in the process of). Looks like we will need 6. And Jimbo hints just above (and not for the first time), that he may be taking even more members. I'll guess: 9 new ArbCom members. Had the others known that there might be 9 instead of 5 slots, they might have stayed in. Jd2718 20:18, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The thing I'm confused about is that Jimbo says that anyone who withdrew might want to reconsider. (To be precise, he said "Anyone who has recently withdrawn on that basis might reconsider."). Does that mean that anyone who withdrew can re-enter? Would their vote counter have to be reset to zero or do you just reopen the voting page? Might this advantage the candidate in some way? I will note that the one withdrawn candidate "with more than 70% support" that Sandy mentions, mentioned other issues at User_talk:Voice_of_All#Withdrawing from ArbCom elections, and predicted that the support would go down to "60% or less probably". If a clear guideline isn't set here, we will probably have more of this "withdrawing" and "re-entering" in other elections. It needs to be made clear that this is an exception (if indeed it can be), and maybe discourage withdrawing as well (better to let the election run its course). Carcharoth 21:03, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about it. It seems unlikely that anyone will, in fact, reenter. Chick Bowen 23:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree with Geni above that it's a bit too late to talk about expansion. I also don't see a problem if some of the people who withdrew would put their name back in. I doubt it would influence much their percentage of support (and there is at leat a week more to go). Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:49, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Though I doubt it'd make any difference, since Jimbo requests it, I believe I should "un-withdraw" for the election. I'm not sure how that would work, so I'd like comments from the "election officials" (by which I mean the neutral people looking over the process) on how to handle it; for instance, it may be a good idea to keep my page open a few extra days to compensate. I've asked Jimbo to comment as well. Also, I believe that since this is unprecedented so far, we could use a clear rule on this point for next year to prevent confusion. For what it's worth, if statistics are any guide, a candidate with more than 50% support would "miss" more support-votes than oppose-votes by being "inactive" for some time, thus it could only advantage a candidate that is already below the threshold and so doesn't have a chance anyway. (Radiant) 00:13, 11 December 2006 (UTC)