Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December 2012

Meta voter guides

I wanted to remind everyone that there was an outstanding question from last year regarding the propriety of meta-voting guides and their inclusion in the guide list. As my guide was the primary point of contention, I want to let others make the initial proposals. Just as a reminder, opinions varied including creating an official meta guide, allowing as a regular guide, and prohibiting meta guide inclusion in the guide list. Monty ₈₄₅ 03:16, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Voter guide consensus from last year

"Consensus from last year's RfC: Serious voter guides may be included for the election, but those that are not should be discarded. They should also be randomized so that not everybody believes the top of the voter guide list says."

Would someone please clarify the underlined sentence? I don't understand it. —Cupco 05:29, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Per the request at last year's RFC, we made the order in which voter guides listed in {{ACE2011}} appear pseudo random, every time the template generates the order should randomize. You can test it by purging the template page. This was so that no one's guide would get a better spot then any other. I think that is what the comment refers to. Monty ₈₄₅ 05:44, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Psuedo-random being that a computer cannot generate true randomness, being a deterministic machine, but it should be random enough for our purposes. --Rs chen 7754 05:54, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, afaik the wiki software doesn't even provide a Psuedo-random number generator, so we kinda hacked it together, but I think it is more then sufficiently random for our purposes. Monty ₈₄₅ 06:00, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In other words, Cupco, ordinarily the guides would all be listed in the same order. Most likely it would be alphabetical order, meaning that User:Aardvark's guide would come first, and User:Zebra's guide would come last. Some people thought this meant that the Aardvarks' guides would get more readership than the Zebras', which wouldn't be fair to the latter, and so the intention was to give everyone an equal chance. I believe the same was done with the order of the candidates' names on the ballots, too. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:57, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Understood, and I agree with this because ballot order is apparently a 5%+ advantage in some cases. —Cupco 02:22, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

MediaWiki:Sitenotice

Last year there was a problem with getting the voting listed at MediaWiki:Sitenotice. If we desire to have it appear there, we will want to make sure its addressed again this year. Monty ₈₄₅ 15:49, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can the RFC be put on the watchlist notice? Neutron (talk) 19:31, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note

I would like to comment in this RfC, but am holding off due to a current RfARB (not sure of the appropriateness). However, I may still, if time becomes an issue. So please drop me a note prior to closing this to allow me the chance to comment please : ) - jc37 22:14, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mean this to sound harsh, but it is probably fairly unlikely that anyone is going to "drop you a note" to remind you to comment in an RfC. I, for one, have enough trouble remembering what I am supposed to do tomorrow. If you are going to comment, you need to do so by Oct. 31 to ensure that your comments are considered. ~~There's your note. Put it on your calendar.~~ Neutron (talk) 01:47, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't so much a request for a reminder, as just wanting to still have the opportunity to comment : ) - jc37 21:15, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

jc37, I don't see any reason why the pending request should prevent you from commenting here. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:50, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the clarification. - jc37 21:15, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quick question

How many slots are we talking this year, assuming that we keep it at 15? Volunteer Marek 01:59, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There should be 8 seats available based on the tranche. I'm not aware of any planned resignations, but it has happened somewhat frequently and I doubt I'd be the first to know, so it could be more. Monty ₈₄₅ 02:03, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Eight. The arbitrators whose terms are expiring are Casliber, David Fuchs, Elen of the Roads, Jclemens, Newyorkbrad, PhilKnight, SirFozzie, and Xeno. See the table at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/History. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:06, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, given how dry RfA and RfB have been this year, you think we're gonna have enough candidates for 8 positions? Volunteer Marek 02:58, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well...even last year, there were only 10 over 50%, so maybe not.--Müdigkeit (talk) 03:11, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)Last year we had 10 candidates who passed the 50% threshold. I'm not sure how correlated nominations are with RFX, on the one hand, most of the harsh criticism is found in the voter guides that a candidate could ignore, rather then on a community discussion, so in a sense its less unpleasant, on the other they are signing up for 2 years of unrelenting criticism as a member of the committee. Monty ₈₄₅ 03:13, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Volunteer Marek, if you promise to reprise your 2010 Voter Guide this year, I am sure we'll have large numbers of highly qualified candidates competing in this year's election. If you reprise last year's guide instead, maybe not. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:18, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I'll go all out crazy and be serious this year. Volunteer Marek 03:31, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well,even if nobody wants to be everbodys punching bag, which would be understandable, there would still be 7 arbitrators. At least until 2013...--Müdigkeit (talk) 03:52, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Stuff from last year

Some things that popped up last year.

Are election committee members allowed to create voter guides? To put it another way, does creating a voter guide disqualify an election committee member from impartially performing their duties?
When closing the RfC, how is the support percentage determined? See this amended close.
What happens if not enough candidates reach the minimum percentage to fill the empty seats? Do the seats go unfilled?

Any opinions on these? 64.40.54.32 (talk) 06:33, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]