Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013

2013 Arbitration Committee Elections

Status

• Thank you for participating in the 2013 Arbitration Committee Election. Results are available here.
• Please offer your feedback on the Election process.

For the enjoyment of complaining

I have no idea what's going on here. Luckily I don't care about the arbitration committee, so it doesn't matter that much -- but I'm a pretty smart guy and don't think I could make heads or tails of this page without intense study, which could say something about what other uninitiateds are seeing. Of course, there's also the possibility that I'm simply not as smart as I thought I was, in which case you may want to disregard this. Contributors may nevertheless want to take the approach that stuff like this should be written with dumb people in mind. Pretend your audience has not one iota of a flippin' clue what a "tranche" is, for instance. Also the timeline graphic is made more confusing by its 8-bit kerning (what the hell is a cardidate?). equazcion → 08:46, 10 Nov 2013 (UTC)

I think "tranche" is a word that someone decided, long ago (before my time), should be the word that Wikipedia uses instead of the more common "class" or "group" to refer to the, er, classes of arbitrators whose terms expire in different years. Personally I think the vast majority of readers can figure out what it means from the context. As far as I know, nobody has ever bothered to try to change it, though when I am writing about the subject in the annual election RfC's, I usually say "tranches or classes" because the word "tranche" does seem awkward to me. (Someone else in the RfC this year pointed out that, outside Wikipedia, the term only seems to be used in the context of a certain type of financing transaction, and I have never seen it used outside the financing context either.) But as I said, it is one of those things people seem to just live with. Neutron (talk) 00:50, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

It should be changed. I have three college degrees and I still had to look up "tranche" in the dictionary. I'm guessing it comes out of Wales' work in finance. And also, in previous iterations, there were different tranches for different lengths of time (one year, two year, three year) and each tranche had a different name. As it is now, it should simply say that 8 Arbitrators are elected each year for terms of two years and if there are vacancies from the previous year's class/cohort, there will be X openings for a one year term.

Maybe the Election Committee could make this change? I think it is confusing language for people who've never participated in an Arbitration Committee Election before. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:06, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Personally I don't think this is a big issue, but I am adding the parenthetical term "(groups)" after "tranches", so if anybody really can't tell what "tranches" means from the context (or from the new link to Wiktionary), it might be clearer to them. I would not remove the word "tranche" because, whether we like it or not, that is the word that Wikipedia editors have been seeing in this context for years - perhaps as long as the committee has existed. This way everybody will be happy. (Just kidding, I know nobody is ever happy.) Neutron (talk) 22:29, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Voter guide on banned user's talk page?

Since Kiefer.Wolfowitz is currently under an indefinite ban (see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds#Kiefer.Wolfowitz banned), I seriously question whether he should be maintaining an ACE2013 voter guide on his talk page (see User talk:Kiefer.Wolfowitz#Voting guide: Arbitration Election 2013). What do others think? — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 21:32, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

If it were a static complaint I'd leave it alone, but a banned user using userspace to actively maintain a project should probably be gone. I think are are maybe 3 people watching this page, so you should post this at ANI. equazcion → 22:07, 11 Nov 2013 (UTC)

Okay 13 people. Still, though. equazcion → 22:07, 11 Nov 2013 (UTC)

(ec) He wrote a good guide in 2012 (and was polite enough to say that mine was better). Does being banned change his ability to observe? The position at the receiving end of sanctions might add a different viewpoint, I can tell you ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:23, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

The Banning Policy says that a site-banned editor "is forbidden from making any edit, anywhere on Wikipedia", with the single exception that editors may appeal their ban via their talk page. This particular editor was indefinitely banned, by the Arbitration Committee, and must wait until at least next August before he is allowed to ask ArbCom to end his ban. The prohibition on site-banned editors using their own talk pages is frequently not enforced in practice — but in this case the user is (IMO) actively attempting to engage the community, not only by putting together recommendations for voting in the upcoming election, but also by tagging his "voter guide" with a category tag that may presumably cause his material to be included in the list of voter guides.

Since I am standing in this election, and Kiefer's comments are highly critical of my candidacy, I realize some people may see a conflict of interest in my bringing up the issue. That's why I chose to discuss it here and see what other people think, rather than taking it straight to WP:ANI or some other enforcement forum. I also realize that since the prohibition on site-banned editors soapboxing on their talk pages is not consistently enforced, the consensus might be that it's OK for Kiefer to say whatever he wants on his talk page, but not OK for him to try to get his "voter guide" listed amongst the officially recognized guides. If people think Kiefer has crossed the line and ought to have his talk page access blocked, I think it might be better if someone else (other than I) were to bring the issue to ANI. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 22:47, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I posted this. equazcion → 23:21, 11 Nov 2013 (UTC)

I am posting a link to this discussion (and the one that Equazcion started at ANI) at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Coordination, which seems to be the right place to get the attention of the people running the election. At least, that is where you go when you click on "Contact the coordinators" on the election template. It seems that nobody has actually signed up to be a "coordinator" yet, but we do have three appointed Election Commissioners, and I would say this is an issue for them. (And I would also say the real issue is not that the user in question is posting about the election on his talk page, but that his talk page is listed in the Voter Guide section of the "official" election template.) Neutron (talk) 01:10, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

• This is now being discussed in multiple fora and should be centralized. Joefromrandb (talk) 10:43, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

It looks like his Talk Page access has been revoked. I understand why but I found his guide interesting to read. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:09, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Better chart?

Since I complained about the timeline's readability, I thought I might do something about it. The timeline coding is pretty limited, and normal-sized text just comes out all stupid looking, but I managed to mangle it into something that I think is more readable: Template:ArbitrationCommitteeChartRecent/sandbox. If anyone thinks that version is better they can feel free to replace the current one, or let me know and I'll do it. equazcion → 23:38, 11 Nov 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I thought about doing that when I saw your post above, and actually went into edit mode on the template - and immediately realized it was nothing that I should be touching with a ten-foot pole. I figured that a technical-type person like you would come along and fix what I would probably only break more. It is definitely more readable without the distracting spacing issues (and doesn't smash letters together, so no more "Cardidate".) The only thing I would point out is that the phrase in the introduction, "on one screen without scrolling", may no longer be accurate depending on one's browser settings. I had to shrink everything down two levels, but I guess I usually have my browser set on can't-see-very-well-even-with-glasses. And actually at that size it is now much more readable than it was before, so I would say, please post it. Since it is still possible to see it on one screen (even though someone might have to change browser settings), I guess the description can remain as is. Neutron (talk) 00:41, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I view Wikipedia at 125 per cent magnification (running Vector skin on Chrome) and the sandbox version has about a quarter of the chart out of sight to the right. If I scroll over to the point where the tool bar on the left disappears, it fits on the screen very nicely. It looks good in mobile view. Template:ArbitrationCommitteeChart shows the whole works on one screen, but is too tiny and blurry for me to to read. Template:ArbitrationCommitteeChartRecent is also quite blurry on my set-up. My preference would be the sandbox version -- Diannaa (talk) 00:44, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

No problem :) I tried to keep the size down, but it seems the timeline coding is so limited that there's not much to be done about it -- it's either small enough to cause the text issues or large enough to bleed into scrolling territory for some users. I think the latter is the lesser of the two evils though. I will post it but I'll remove the message, since most users are likely to leave it at the default browser size and scroll to view it, if their screen resolution calls for it. Thanks for the feedback :) equazcion → 00:50, 12 Nov 2013 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, the "Recent" chart is only supposed to show enough years to include the beginning of each currently sitting arbitrator's term; so we can actually knock two years off the start, which would make it more compact. Happy‑melon 11:41, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I understand the decision and shorten it so it is more readable, Happy‑melon, but do you know where I could find data about previous years ARBCOM compositions from previous years? I would love to see some actual election results but it appears in early years, the "winners" were just announced without knowing how they ranked or what their approval percentage was. I've gone to previous election pages but I was wondering if this data was elsewhere. Thanks! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:15, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I found the original at Template:ArbitrationCommitteeChart that shows the history of ARBCOM elections (although some names are unreadable. If you knew where I could find election totals (numbers), I'd really appreciate it. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:27, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

You can follow the link to each election at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee elections. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:54, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Brad, I've already gone through the categories and pages. It's just that sometimes I find information has actually been posted to a different location (like to Signpost or Jimmy Wales' talk page. For example, I've found some data on Wikipedia on an editor's subpages and the user isn't active any longer. It was a complete accident that I stumbled upon it. And being a regular Editor, I have no idea what information is on pages which have been deleted.

I thought someone familiar with older elections (before 2007) might remember if this was the case here. I'm going through a discussion now about deleting old administration pages and putting my pitch in for keeping them for archival purposes. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:26, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I cut down the chart as Happy-melon suggested. equazcion → 12:50, 13 Nov 2013 (UTC)

Q. Why does the chart state "Dec 2013 top 8 Candidates" and "Dec 2013 9th place"?

I could probably explain this better if I understood it fully myself, but according to my reading of the vacant seats section, the top 8 candidates get 2-year terms, while the 9th place candidate gets a 1-year term. equazcion → 14:20, 13 Nov 2013 (UTC)

In other words, 9 candidates will be elected. The one of those who comes in last (the one with the least votes out of those nine?) only gets a one-year term. The other eight all get two-year terms. But I'll let someone who actually knows what they're talking about confirm this. equazcion → 14:24, 13 Nov 2013 (UTC)

The 8 in the bottom section were elected in Dec 2011 and have sat for 2 years so they are out of a job (unless re-elected) when the new AC takes over. So the chart reference (appreciate not made by you) to "Dec 2013" is misleading. I agree with your sentiments way up top. The whole thing is as clear as mud and shrouded in oblique language. Leaky Caldron 14:29, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

If you're saying it's unclear that the arbs elected in 2011 are now up for re-election, yeah, I'd have to agree. If I understood this whole thing better I'd give the whole page a rewrite with simpler language. I'm not sure what could be done about the timeline though -- I'm not sure if a timeline is the best way to illustrate what's happening here, not to mention the timeline extension's dilapidated workings. equazcion → 14:38, 13 Nov 2013 (UTC)

Lowest turnout for candidates ever?

Perhaps I haven't paid as much attention to arbcom elections as others, but unless I'm mistaken, so far we have the lowest turnout for candidacies for arbcom since it was founded. I can think of a dozen excellent candidates but I doubt they would be interested.--MONGO15:50, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

We are behind 1 from this point last year, so it is too soon to say. Often, candidates wait until the later half of the nominating period before announcing. Monty₈₄₅ 17:16, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I was just going to pose this question, for those who are familiar with previous elections, Monty, if this was an unusually low number of candidates. Are there typically a lot of Editors filing statements on the last day? Also, it seems like in previous elections, the nomination period was longer (two weeks?) but I can't recall when that changed. Having such a short nominating period means that you'll mainly get candidates who've been thinking about running for a long time along with candidates who are acting more impulsively (nothing wrong with that if they are a strong candidate!). There is less time to go lobby Editors who you'd think would be good candidates, to persuade them to run.

Also, MONGO, I know of at least two (could be three) candidates who have already withdrawn. I think the level of experience and tenure on Wikipedia from the candidates who are still running in the election is pretty high. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:11, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't have any hard figures, but as a rule of thumb, candidacies are announced disproportionately very early or very late, with few in the middle period. Hence, I suppose, the belief that the length of the nomination period is not overly important, since a longer period just produces a larger 'middle' section... Happy‑melon 21:21, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Happy‑melon...there is so much regarding the way things work at Wikipedia that isn't written down anywhere. It's part of the "collective memory" that is probably buried in talk page comments. This turnout led me to wonder if there might not even be nine candidates running! I guess in this case, Wales would appoint some people. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:39, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Without delving into past history and past dramas, I doubt that Jimbo would appoint people to the committee who were not elected. I remember reading something about the idea that, if the Arbitration Committee believed that it had been left with an insufficient number of members, Jimbo would consider calling a special election. More generally, I suspect that if it turns out that there are fewer than nine candidates, there will be a great deal of discussion about a large number of possibilities, ranging from... well, let's not even go there unless and until we have to. Let's just say that if it does happen, the resulting controversy will be the Next Big Thing on Wikipedia. But there is still a week to go before the deadline for nominations. I am hoping there will be at least 18 candidates. Neutron (talk) 00:20, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Note also that last year 13/21 candidates passed the 50% cutoff. While it is certainly better to have an abundance of acceptable candidates, that we can seat those with the highest supports, based on last year's numbers, we would need only 15 candidates to fill the 9 seats. If it looks like it may be close, perhaps voters could be encouraged to oppose sparingly, but I agree we should see what the field looks like at the close of nominations before worrying too much. Monty₈₄₅ 01:57, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

If there are 9 or fewer candidates then there is no reason for those who oppose for tactical reasons to do so and very little with only 10. My gut feeling is that those who vocally vote tactically are a greater proportion of all vocal voters than those who silently vote tactically are of all silent voters, but I obviously have no way of knowing whether that is true. Certainly if I am wrong then a small electoral field is more likely to demonstrate this than a large field. Thryduulf (talk) 11:11, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

There would still be a reason for voting tactically - to try to stop people you don't like getting 50% -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:33, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

(No, forget that, I'm misusing "tactical" there -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:40, 14 November 2013 (UTC))

Maybe you were misusing "tactical", but that is what a lot of people on Wikipedia seem to think it means. Personally, I don't worry about whether voting is "tactical" or not, because there is nothing wrong with "tactical" voting. All voting is designed to achieve some objective, and it is the voter's business what the objective is. Neutron (talk) 22:11, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree - nothing wrong with it at all. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 04:10, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, there is nothing wrong with tactical voting. My point simply was that if there is no tactical voting then in theory there should be fewer oppose votes. The reason being that there are two reasons to oppose - (1) because you think the candidate would not be suitable for arbcom, and (2) because you think a different candidate would be better suited. If every candidate with >=50% support is guaranteed a seat then there is no reason to oppose for reason 2. Indeed, if people only support their favourite N candidates there is a greater chance of any individual candidate being in that N. Thryduulf (talk) 09:36, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

As there are still only 9 candidates, I've taken the liberty of dropping reminders that the nomination period is almost up at WP:AN WP:VPM WT:ARB/N and WT:ARB, mentioning the current nu,ber of candidates. Monty₈₄₅ 18:58, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

That's quite unfortunate; those are the last people we want nominating themselves for the position of Arbitrator. :) Wer900 • talk 02:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Extra link

I want to link a userpage essay that I want to create (as nobody bothered to ask any questions) explaining my liberal position of the administrative job, and the risk of me "resigning" during my term, which given my history in the project, I feel I need to give a long explanation and its a major concern from voters. Is it still possible to link it to my candidate statement once I write it. Thanks Secret ^account 02:14, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I would say yes, as long as you tacked it onto the end and noted you added it later. I'm not a coordinator though, so take that with a grain of salt. Hot Stop talk-contribs 02:19, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I will discuss this with the other commissioners. GiantSnowman 12:44, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

@Secret: - what is your actual concern here i.e. what policy/guideline are you afraid you might violate? GiantSnowman 20:17, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Should ACE2013 guides make "ratings" of other guides with personal comments or charges about the authors thereof?

Is it proper to "rate" other guides on the basis of personal comments about the person who has not yet even written any ratings of any candidates? I am affronted by one user whose guide says to ignore my unwritten ratings on the basis that I was added to a case after the workshop and evidence phases were completed -- thus (apparently?) making any ratings I offer to be anathema. I suggest that each guide should stick to issues about candidates, and not make personal comments about other editors who are not candidates. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:43, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

@Collect:, please can you be more specific so we can look into this further? Feel free to e-mail us. GiantSnowman 12:54, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

[1] shows the diff in question from, of all people, an ArbCom clerk trainee!. It calls my POV "extreme" and says I was a "party" to Lord Voldemort (I was warned in no uncertain terms to even avoid mentioning the "case" by the way) and that this "greatly affects my guide" which is interesting as I have not yet written a single rating of any candidate whatsoever! I suggest, in fact, that his own utility as a clerk is now moot. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:09, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I personally don't see the issue with this, as I believe that I had issues with your 2012 guide. But I have removed the section anyway. My role as a clerk has nothing to do with this; clerks have written guides, and are writing guides. --Rschen7754 20:30, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Yet you referred specifically to a recent case as being the problem -- and that my views are "extreme" -- I ask you to note that this is still a problem from my point of view, as I find the possibility that a clerk would have such prejudice about any editor to be exceedingly distasteful, just as I would find any ArbCom candidate showing such prejudice about any editor to be, frankly, unqualified for any position of trust. And you did not remove the claim that some ACE2013 essays are "extreme" and so your "redaction" is actually pretty much wertlos. Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:35, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Clerks always have the option to recuse from a case, and if you are concerned about this in a future proceeding you are involved in, you can always ask for it. As I recall, the TPM case was before my time as a clerk. In addition to this, the userbox at the top of your page is what I was basing my concerns on; I don't think that was improper. But I'm not going to fight this. --Rschen7754 23:44, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Statement from the WMF

The WMF wishes to make the following statement, in response to questions raised on my talk page.

---

The Wikimedia Foundation has been asked to clarify and/or expand on a previous decision of the legal team, specifically that the Foundation would not allow users to have Checkuser or Oversight rights added to the user account of a user who had not passed a request for adminship or an equally rigorous community selection process.

Our legal and community advocacy team has been asked whether running for (and winning) a seat on the Arbitration Committee would meet the "rigorous community selection process" test, and therefore qualify an elected ArbCom member for Checkuser/Oversight rights. We believe that being elected to ArbCom is an involved process that strongly demonstrates community trust, and that there is a reasonable expectation that Arbitration Committee members on the English Wikipedia's Arbcom will hold those tools, except in exceptional circumstances. Therefore, we will not object to the assignment of checkuser/oversight tools to any user who runs for, wins, and is seated on the Arbitration Committee.
Respectfully,
Philippe Beaudette
Director, Community Advocacy

---

I am, of course, open to clarification, though I'm traveling tomorrow, so it may be a couple of days. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 23:56, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

A better matter for a statement might be: does the WMF have the individual members of ArbCom's back, legally speaking, in the event of the inevitable frivolous lawsuit(s)? Carrite (talk) 04:06, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes. See m:Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Legal_Fees_Assistance_Program. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 05:25, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Carrite (talk) 18:35, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Just to note: By saying yes, I believe Philippe means that the WMF will consider supporting some or all legal fees for those members based on the linked policy, not that WMF lawyers will "have the individual members of ArbCom's back."--v/r - TP 18:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Correct. Sorry if I was too pithy. I thought it was implied through the link to the policy, but I can see the room for misunderstanding. Thanks, TParis.  :) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk)`

Yeah, I'm glad to read this, to hear that non-Admins can run for ARBCOM, too. It doesn't happen often that a regular Editor runs (and wins) but ACE shouldn't be considered an election only for those with admin rights. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:34, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

It does represent a lower standard. You only need 50% approval to get elected to ArbCom. Such an RfA would not succeed. Hawkeye7 (talk) 18:47, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I do agree that its a lower standard in the sense that it only requires a 50% approval. I also think however that due to the position the majority of the voters are going to be very seasoned and experienced and would likely not elect someone to Arbcom without having some experience being an admin first. This is even more dubious if the editor has multiple RFA failures. I for one am glad and agree with the WMF statement/decision but I don't think the community will accept it. I hope I am wrong though because IMO it will be of benefit to have both admins and nonadmins on the committee. A good followup question is will said individual be allowed to keep said rights once they are done being a member of the committee or have them revoked. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 19:02, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

The pass rates in the two different kinds of election are not directly comparable, and a 50% pass rate in ArbCom is not necessarily lower standard than the RfA pass rate - a single-candidate support/oppose is completely different from a multi-candidate election with a limited number of seats. See here for further explanation. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:18, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I do not think it is a "lower standard" in light of the fact that in an ArbCom election there are opponents and a limited number of seats. At most, nine of the 25 (or so) candidates in this election will be elected, regardless of what percentages they get. It is good to see that this has been clarified in favor of allowing non-admins to run. Neutron (talk) 20:23, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

This sounds like you are not just talking about voting margins but also believe that Admins are of a higher standard than regular Editors who haven't been through an RfA. I disagree. There are capable, experienced, knowledgeable, even-tempered Editors who do not have the desire to become an Admin. I'd also argue that the skills that would make a user a good Arbitrator are different from the skills that make one a good Admin. An arbitrator needs to know policy, precedent and sifts through a mountain of evidence and diffs. This is quite different from fighting vandalism, deleting pages and active AN/I debates although both require an understanding of WP policy and guidelines. Admins work swiftly, Arbitrators need to be more deliberate. I think a background in mediation would be more valuable quality for future Arbitrators than having a record number of blocks imposed or articles deleted. One doesn't need to be an Admin to have this experience. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 13:09, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Redlink where instructions about questions should be

• Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Candidates/Questions

This is a redlink where it is supposed to have instructions about individual questions, is there some way that could be fixed?

Thank you,

— Cirt (talk) 03:43, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

@Cirt: Surprised nobody else has noticed this. I fixed it. The navbox and an earlier link to the Questions has the correct link. Things changed last year and the Questions page was created without "/Candidates/" in the path. This change continued to this year. Some of the links were fixed, but not that one. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 06:48, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Gogo Dodo, most appreciated, — Cirt (talk) 16:47, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Incomplete implementation of WP:ACERFC

Earlier this month, the community decided to use Support, Abstain, and Oppose as the three types of vote available to voters. This was a change from previous years, when No vote was used instead of Abstain. However, it looks like the SecurePoll interface is configured to use the older style of language (see 'question(332)/column0'). Is this an error? AGK [•] 13:09, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Changed to Support, Abstain, and Oppose. GiantSnowman 13:16, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

'election(331)/intro' still reads Please use the radio buttons below to indicate which candidates you wish to "Support," "Oppose", or register "No vote." A "No vote" does not affect the outcome in any way. Should this be modified as well? Altamel (talk) 18:47, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

It should be. Neutron (talk) 19:07, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

About 1.5 hours left until voting starts. If the instructions are to be modified, it had better be soon. @User:GiantSnowman. Altamel (talk) 22:19, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Now changed - apologies for not being online at 10:30pm (my time) on a Sunday night. Did you attempt to contact the others? GiantSnowman 09:59, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

That probably would have been a good idea, since I only noticed your name on the thread. No harm done. Voting had to be restarted anyway. Altamel (talk) 23:04, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Withdrawn candidate appearing in vote options

Is anyone else seeing a candidate named "(Withdrawn before voting began)" as an option in the SecurePoll? – GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:11, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I am seeing that option --Guerillero | My Talk 00:15, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

My guess is that Secret withdrew too late to be removed from the ballot completely. --Rschen7754 00:17, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Follow-up question: if the withdrawn candidate is elected, can the community appoint someone at random? :D – GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:26, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Fairly obviously, only candidates can be elected :P Happy‑melon 10:17, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

It also seems to be putting random people underneath it that haven't actually withdrawn (that I know of). — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 01:08, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

The order of candidates is random; the "withdrawn candidate" may appear at the bottom, top or (most likely) somewhere in the middle. Happy‑melon 10:17, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

It gives the impression that all those below the "Withdrawn" have withdrawn. I think people won't tend to bother researching anybody below the line it appears. I thought it was a header at first. The text should have been changed to "(name of withdrawn) has withdrawn." or something specific. __ E L A Q U E A T E 09:49, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

If possible, something like "Name of candidate (candidate has withdrawn)" would be best I think. An explicit consensus about how it should be shown would be useful for next year's RFA I think. Thryduulf (talk) 10:59, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

The reason we have a withdrawn candidate is because before the names are inputted, an XML file gets imported into SecurePoll that basically sets up placeholders. 23 placeholders were set up, but with Secret's withdrawl, that leaves 22 candidates. We cannot remove that 23rd placeholder, and so all we can do is mark it as withdrawn.--v/r - TP 01:51, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

This is extremely confusing. I read all the names below "withdrawn before voting began" as being withdrawn. And I'm sure no small number of other people do as well. Which means we don't pick anything for those below. That needs to be clarified as indicating its own line and not everything below it. Bastique ^{☎ call me!} 23:56, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

You can vote "support" on "withdrawn" as I did, simply because it amused me to, or you can oppose, or you can skip that question. Makes no difference in any case. Does that help? 00:04, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Why would I bother to vote anything on those names if I think all the names beneath "Withdrawn before voting began" have been withdrawn? It's painful enough to have to read through the questions and statements of those I did look for. Clearer language that indicates that the withdrawn candidate refers to that line only is in order. Bastique ^{☎ call me!} 00:17, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I hear what you're saying Bastique; it's not optimal. It cannot be fixed now, though. Doing so would mean crashing the current SecurePoll and creating an entirely new one for the second time in 24 hours. Risker (talk) 00:26, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I've implemented User:Thryduulf's solution above so hopefully it becomes more clear. Bastique, you are allowed to revote. We'll simply discount all but your latest vote.--v/r - TP 00:31, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Logging in from different domains?

I note at Special:SecurePoll/list/331 that there are users who seem to be voting from multiple other domains. It is my understanding that SecurePoll is supposed to be logging the domain from which the vote originated, not the "home wiki" of the voter. How is this happening? Risker (talk) 05:07, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

At a guess (and it is only a guess), it's the wiki on which the user most recently logged in (ie where their SUL login session is propagating from). I don't think it's an issue as long as they are not able to vote multiple times (as happened a few years ago, I think 2009). Are you aware of anyone who has voted multiple times from different domains? Happy‑melon 10:21, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Did some more researching on this; it turns out that it is indeed listing the home wiki of the user, rather than the wiki on which the vote was made. While this shouldn't be too problematic for this one specific election (although I suggest that the election commission create a list of the non-enwiki votes so that users can verify eligibility on this project, just as a precaution), it does mess up the data. The effect would be very concerning on a multi-wiki election, as it would inaccurately reflect voting patterns and would make tracking down problem votes much more difficult, and I've suggested that a bugzilla be filed to fix this in SecurePoll. It's not clear to me what's happened since May (when voter lists were run for the WMF Board/FDC elections) that would have resulted in SecurePoll using "home wiki" instead of "project where vote occurred" for the applicable domain, but it is one more reason that SecurePoll has to be rewritten and its documentation improved. Risker (talk) 13:59, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, a bug to look into this would be good. I'm not sure what happened since it's clear that this was not an issue for past arbcom/functionary elections but it's possible that the bug existed before the board election (the only cause I can think of right now is changes to centralauth/loginwiki but I don't know why it would be ). The board election passed voter wiki somewhat manually since it went to an central vote wiki and so it's possible it skipped around this bug and we didn't notice it. Jalexander--WMF 23:11, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Statement from the Election Committee

It has recently been brought to the Election Committee's attention that the SecurePoll was improperly configured. We apologise for this oversight, but can confirm that WMF are working on fixing it as we speak. As a consequence, voting is currently suspended and all votes already made will be struck and will have to be re-cast. Again, apologies to all. On behalf of the Election Committee, GiantSnowman 20:54, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

GiantSnowman is going to be unavailable for the next few hours, but I'll be here to answer questions if someone pings me.--v/r - TP 20:57, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

It is Monday night, 9:15pm in the UK. I should be back online properly in under 12 hours to answer any queries. Please bear with me/us for a while. GiantSnowman 21:15, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

@TParis:, can you please turn off the watchlist notice during the interim, until the situation is resolved? Thanks. Risker (talk) 21:02, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

 Done--v/r - TP 21:05, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Are individuals going to be contacted about voting again? If not, at least the resumption Mediawiki message will have to indicate that the previous vote was voided. Leaky Caldron 21:09, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we are in the process of contacting everybody who has already voted. GiantSnowman 21:11, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

• I've revised Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Header, but if someone thinks this is some kind of conflict of interest, feel free to revert and then resave. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:16, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

• Many thanks, I have added a link to this discussion from the header. GiantSnowman 21:19, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I am working on calculating the new start and end times. I've started working on a template to notify individuals User:TParis/SecurePoll and I've got a list on my computer of everyone who has voted so far.--v/r - TP 21:29, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Good notice, TParis; however, please include a link to exactly where they can contact the election commission. In fact, there should be a link to the page that identifies the election commission and how to contact it on the main election page, but that can wait. If I may suggest, I'd recommend both a talk page notice, and an email-this-user wherever possible, to ensure that the communication is received.

Just speaking from past experience as an election admin for the WMF Board/FDC elections earlier this year: Once you have received confirmation that the configuration is fixed, you will need to test it with a few votes, and then strike all the original votes including the tests. Good luck! Risker (talk) 21:40, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

They are actually going to set up a brand new poll for us. We'll do some test votes as you suggest.--v/r - TP 21:42, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

@TParis: Don't forget you can use Special:MassMessage now to notify large groups of editors. I don't know whether you already planned to use it, but if not, it should save you some time. Thanks for all your hard work in this matter. Regards, AGK [•] 22:41, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, do they have one of those for emails?--v/r - TP 23:32, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Not a publicly-available one, but I'm almost certain the Foundation has an in-house method of mass-notifying people by email. AGK [•] 08:40, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Why is the fact that something is screwed up and we have to have a complete do-over unsurprising and the suggestion that WMF is on the case with a prospective fix unreassuring? Carrite (talk) 23:46, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

• Are there plans to extend the voting period? (I know you have bigger fish to fry right now, but it should probably be addressed by the EC at some point). - MrX 21:35, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes. Since all previous votes will be lost, we are going to start the voting period with the full 14 days. The new timeframe will be 00:01, 26 November to 23:59, 9 December.--v/r - TP 21:39, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

You might want to notify those who had voted per the log.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:27, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I intend to.--v/r - TP 23:43, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

• Voting has resumed for 14 days from this point.--v/r - TP 00:01, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Could someone remind me on or about 7 December to compare the list of voters from the now halted poll to the new poll to ensure all those who voted in the earlier one manage to also vote in the new one?--v/r - TP 00:30, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
    • We'll remember! GiantSnowman 08:08, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

The Timeline section on the main election page needs updating with the new closing time. Thryduulf (talk) 09:33, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

 Done GiantSnowman 11:44, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I realize space in the site notice must be limited; however, I suggest that "(Important note: Votes made prior to 00:01 26 November 2013 were discarded due to a configuration error)" be changed to something more positive such as "((Important note: Votes made prior to 00:01 26 November 2013 were discarded due to a configuration error. If you voted prior to that time, please re-cast your ballot.)" or some such. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:34, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Not sure it's necessary. I've been keeping track, and over 70% of those who voted in the initial poll (i.e., the one with the discarded votes) have already recast their ballots. After a few more days, doing individual follow-up would likely be the most successful method of bringing these users back for a second vote. Risker (talk) 15:47, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good. Thanks. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:56, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I can't find myself in the voting log [2] and I did not receive one of these spiffy messages [3]. What's up? Am I missing something?  Volunteer Marek  18:11, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

It's evidently related to the fact that you've redirected your user page to User:Volunteer Marek/ArbComEl tentativepositions. The MediaWiki message delivery system left you the spiffy message at User talk:Volunteer Marek/ArbComEl tentativepositions. I'm guessing if the system is provided with a list of user pages, it goes to those pages first, and then goes to their talk page. For you, it got redirected before step 2. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:21, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

(more) You're not in the current voting log, but you're in the old obsolete voting log: Special:SecurePoll/list/331. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:24, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Yea, I'm also on TPs list of people who were supposed to get the message. Makes sense with the redirect, though the message didn't pop up at /ArbComEl tentativepositions either. Someone might wanna manually double check the lists/messages. Volunteer Marek  18:26, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

It popped up at User talk:Volunteer Marek/ArbComEl tentativepositions not User:Volunteer Marek/ArbComEl tentativepositions. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:32, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Looking at Special:Contributions/MediaWiki message delivery, it appears VM is the only person that this happened to. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:55, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

• Just for the record: Based on my records, 24 hours after the election was restarted, 127 of 165 voters whose initial votes were discarded have now revoted; that is 77% of the total. I'll be sending my spreadsheet to the election admins to take over the monitoring. Risker (talk) 00:06, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

There is no incentive to read the questions to candidates prior to voting

One may choose to read them or not, but there is no incentive to do so. My strong suspicion is that they are ignored and the entire ballot is based upon a mixture of prior popularity (The "swimsuit round") and candidate's statement (The "I want to work with old people and children round").

While there is no opportunity to alter the process for this election, serious consideration should be given to this for subsequent elections.

The contra issue to this is that the nomination and voting process is already unwieldy. Fiddle Faddle 10:55, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

What changes would you suggest to improve this? Thryduulf (talk) 11:01, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

It is hard indeed to see how one might improve matters since people always have the option not to do the correct thing. Nonetheless we need some sort of workflow (I hated that word while I was in the IT industry, and I hate it now) to induce people to read all parts of the candidate's submissions. In part this may be to do with the placement of text in better locations.

As you probably know from experience and as I certainly know from experience, it is far easier to identify something that does not quite work than to fix that thing. I'm not an expert in this field. We have, however, excellent experts here, people who can analyse the problem and the correct pathway

I do not dispute that we have the absolute right to vote as if it were a beauty contest (Uk general elections, US presidential elections etc), but I hope to encourage people to see the entire picture. ArbCom is considered important, and the procedure to elect to it must be both simple and effective. It is currently simple, but I question whether, despite the hard work by candidates, we will not necessarily see a result that reflects that work (factored by their suitability, naturally). Fiddle Faddle 11:07, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Sounds to me as if you're seeking a way to force the electorate to view a select aspect of "the picture"—or view it from a select angle. The questions and answers exist and links to them are made readily available throughout the election pages and on the voting form itself. The incentive to use these links would be an electors own desire to be informed. Getting overly concerned about the quality of the electorate and trying to actively compensate for it seems to be a slippery slope to me. The sort of thing that leads to private cabals vetting candidates in advance limiting the electorate to what choices 'their betters' are willing to allow to them. --Kevjonesin (talk) 14:45, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

There is a huge disconnect in your conclusion that cabals might arrive. I am seeking a way to ensure that the electorate is better aware of the questions, the answers and that they really ought to look at them if they decide to vote at all. I have been clear throughout that this may be voted on as a beauty contest. Whatever it may sound like to you your suggestion is not what it sounds like to me. Fiddle Faddle 14:47, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, it does appear that there is some room for confusion as mentioned in a section below. But the same section also provides an example of an elector actively seeking to read the questions upon their own volition. A single sample, yes, but in timely contrast to your point all the same.

It was not my intent to imply making electors view a candidate's answers to questions before voting — brings to my mind checking forced user agreement forms for software and web services — would in and of itself lead to a cabal controlling candidacy. It's the desire to micromanage the poor unenlightened masses (i.e. the electorate) which I question. The proposal assumes, is predicated upon, the premise that the electorate are in fact currently not reading the questions. I find this to be a rather arbitrary postulate. --Kevjonesin (talk) 15:12, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

It is based upon my own voting experience, one where I had to make an exceptional effort to read the questions and answers. I chose to vote before all the questions and the answers were complete, so I have half voted as in a beauty contest, and half as a better informed editor. Fiddle Faddle 15:21, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Check out the titles for the radio buttons - look "wrong" to me

Extended content

This is what the top line of code looks like in the voting table: <td class="securepoll-ballot-optlabel"><b><a href="/wiki/User:Richwales" title="User:Richwales">Richwales</a></b> • <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2013/Candidates/Richwales/Statement" title="Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Candidates/Richwales/Statement">Statement</a> • <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2013/Candidates/Richwales/Questions" title="Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Candidates/Richwales/Questions">Questions</a> • <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2013/Candidates/Richwales" title="Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Candidates/Richwales">Discussion</a></td><td><input name="securepoll_q362_opt381" value="1" title="<p>Support </p>" type="radio"></td> <td><input name="securepoll_q362_opt381" value="0" checked="checked" title="<p>Abstain </p>" type="radio"></td> <td><input name="securepoll_q362_opt381" value="-1" title="<p>Oppose </p>" type="radio"></td> </tr> This is what it probably should look like: <td class="securepoll-ballot-optlabel"><b><a href="/wiki/User:Richwales" title="User:Richwales">Richwales</a></b> • <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2013/Candidates/Richwales/Statement" title="Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Candidates/Richwales/Statement">Statement</a> • <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2013/Candidates/Richwales/Questions" title="Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Candidates/Richwales/Questions">Questions</a> • <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2013/Candidates/Richwales" title="Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Candidates/Richwales">Discussion</a></td> <td><input name="securepoll_q362_opt381" value="1" title="Support" type="radio"></td> <td><input name="securepoll_q362_opt381" value="0" checked="checked" title="Abstain" type="radio"></td> <td><input name="securepoll_q362_opt381" value="-1" title="Oppose" type="radio"></td> </tr>

I know this is probably a technical issue with Special:SecurePoll and it's extension, and if no-one beats me to it I'll submit a bug report on Bugzilla for it later. Just wanted to jot it down (in case it is just another minor configuration error that you can easily fix) someplace so others can know it's been seen and will be reported (and maybe fixed before this poll is complete). Technical 13 (talk) 13:31, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, I've been advocating strongly for a rewrite and proper documentation of SecurePoll ever since I had to work with it as an election admin for the WMF Board/FDC elections earlier this year. The software is extremely finicky, hasn't been updated in years, isn't keeping pace with the improvements in the rest of MediaWiki (and when it does, it does so in perverse ways, such as indicating "domain" as the user's home wiki rather than the domain from which they voted), and it's incredibly easy to make errors. It seems that the issue you're identifying will not affect the outcome of the election; it's not interfering with anyone's ability to vote. Therefore, I'd suggest it be filed as a bugzilla for future work, although I have been given to understand that Engineering does not consider this a priority. If you do file a bugzilla, could you please either include me in the CC or leave me a link on my talk page? Thanks! Risker (talk) 14:28, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Does domain really refer to the user's home wiki? Good grief, that's confusing. When looking at the log, I always thought a lot of people just liked to vote from other sites. The foundation loves reducing costs, so let's frame the proposal in terms they'll like. Writing a better voting extension would offer the foundation a chance to open the administration of elections to non-staff users, through an on-wiki interface (Stewards could set up global elections on Meta; bureaucrats could set up ArbCom elections on here; etc.). For a short-term investment of developer time, they'd therefore never have the headache of manually setting up elections every year, and we'd have a fit-for-purpose elections interface. AGK [•] 17:31, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

+1 to this suggestion (in my staff capacity). I can't guarantee that would get it into the budget, of course, but I can guarantee that I'd support it, since it's frequently my team that has to parachute in to try to fix the thing. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 15:50, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

That's what "domain" is referring to this time; five months ago during the Board elections, it referred to the location where the person voted, and nobody is certain exactly why or how this changed. WMF sysadmins will always have to be involved in preparation of whatever software is involved because the voter lists pull from non-public data to some extent, and because the polls need to be encrypted, but I suspect that a complete rewrite with very good step-by-step documentation done by volunteer developers with sufficient access might get things done. It's not about costs, apparently, it's about staff time and priorities; in fairness, SecurePoll is used so rarely that absent a direction from the Board to get this done (it was originally designed for secure WMF Board elections), it's not going to be at the top of anyone's list. Risker (talk) 17:43, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Blocked sockpuppets voting

This guy shouldn't have been able to vote. Is it possible to strike his vote? Reaper Eternal (talk) 20:45, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

 Done GiantSnowman 20:51, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Umm. There's a lot of things wrong with that vote. Blocked user, but also insufficient number of edits. Were these criteria included in the development of the voter list? If not, we're going to have to go through and verify that all who have voted have met the edit requirements. Risker (talk) 20:54, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Superflat Monogram (talk · contribs), Neonchameleon (talk · contribs), PaulCHebert (talk · contribs), and Arkady Rose (talk · contribs) [4] are also ineligible with less than 150 mainspace edits. Reaper Eternal (talk) 21:02, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Got those 4. GiantSnowman 21:13, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

• @Happy-melon:, @TParis:, @GiantSnowman: - please check what configuration was used to make up the voter list. If the standing voter criteria were not met, then *all* voters need to be checked to confirm they meet the criteria. Risker (talk) 21:04, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Dearth of Rats (talk · contribs) and Lustywench (talk · contribs) are ineligible too. Reaper Eternal (talk) 21:05, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Got those 2. GiantSnowman 21:13, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Resuna (talk · contribs) has just voted, but is ineligible. Reaper Eternal (talk) 23:10, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

By the way, it's 150 mainspace edits as of November 1. Seems the scrutineers will have more work this year... --Rschen7754 01:58, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

150 Mainspace edits as of November 1. Darkweasel94 (talk · contribs) does not appear to meet it and even this user 2Awwsome (talk · contribs) now called ☼ (talk · contribs) who is way above edit requirement now and at the timing of voting may not meet on as of November 1 through would like to someone to recheck this.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 18:30, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

@Pharaoh of the Wizards: - the scrutineers are checking the votes as we speak, specifically the number of edits, I have had an e-mail confirming so. GiantSnowman 18:41, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be a technical restriction? Remove mine, didn't realise I only met it on the 12th. I made 150 edits across the whole site on 21st October though. Dark Sun (talk) 18:58, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

150 mainspace edits

I find voters with less than 150 mainspace edits are voting. User:Mr. Treason now blocked and also User:Superflat Monogram with 135 edits being able to vote.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 20:58, 26 November 2013 (UTC) User:Lustywench has 131 edits ,Neonchameleon, PaulCHebert, Arkady Rose and User:Dearth of Rats as far I can see so far.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 21:09, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Already dealt with above. GiantSnowman 21:14, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

(ec)I've peeked into the config on request of Risker when she noticed the discussions here. There appears to have been a problem with the import on min edits (it was set somehow to 1, possibly misreading the xml config when it was imported because that was clearly set to 150). That setting has now been fixed. That said I do not know if that setting actually checks mainspace edits only (my understanding is that it only checks edits total but I may be wrong). On the blocked question I have no clue right now... the setting appears to be correctly set for that but clearly if people are getting through something isn't working. Jalexander--WMF 21:17, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Maybe y'all should have done a better job of configuring the system so that users who don't qualify either could not vote, or knew what the qualifications were. PaulCHebert (talk) 22:37, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to answer this. I'm not sure, User:PaulCHebert, who you are referring to with that comment, but I'd like to say that User:Jalexander had nothing to do with setting up the system or configuring it. As his manager, I feel obliged to step in here. He's fixing these issues, but he didn't create them. I don't frankly know who did, but the WMF didn't set up this election. We were handed a file and told to run it as the config. Only once Jalexander got involved did we notice there were problems. So I'd like to be sure that you're not calling out a member of my staff for 1) identifying, 2) isolating, 3) reporting, and then 4) fixing the issues. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 15:35, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea how the corporate structure is organized; my comment was directed at the the website at large. Whoever organized this election made it possible for me to vote, then made it so that my doing what I was invited to do engendered a response on my talk page that was not voiced in a tone that said "Hey, sorry, there was a mix-up, don't take it personally, hope this doesn't discourage you from staying involved with the project...." but said "you did something wrong." The OP in this section didn't say "I think there's a problem with the system, it's allowing unqualified editors to vote, we should explain and apologize"; they said: "these people have voted" (IE: ("These people have done what they were invited to do."). The thread then conflated sock-puppets and blocked editors with people who did what they were invited to do. Not a big deal, I'm not that butt-hurt or nothin', I just think this is a prime example of how poor PR practices can make a small, understandable problem become something involving misunderstandings and an alienated contributor base. PaulCHebert (talk) 18:03, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

The perfunctory message to your talk page and the passive aggressive response from the WMF manager above (who really should know better) are inexcusable. Leaky Caldron 18:15, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

This is part of life in Wikipedia unfortunately. For a user to become an admin they have to run through a gauntlet, have every piece of dirty laundry drug out and scattered around, present a virgin and sacrifice a goat...just to be able to see deleted content and delete vandalism. Then the Arbcom, who are supposed to be a group of our most trusted users and are elected to participate in some of the most sensitive areas of the project hold "secret" ballots, with minimal comment and then they are there for a year? Then they make it so complicated only the most experienced editors will even turn out or those who have a vested interest. I doubt there will be more than 200 editors and that's a generous number. Last year I don't think it was that many. Then there are problems with the vote and it had to be wiped out and advertised to restart, which frankly probably helped draw in people because its a big banner message at the top. Then they come here and have to navigate a maze? It hardly makes sense but its just par for the course here. Personally I wouldn't vote for any incumbent or clerk. There was one or 2 highly qualified persons, several more somewhat less qualified a non admin (which I think is good) and there is someone who works for the WMF (which I also think is quite good). Other than that, its either the same cast of characters or frankly folks I have never heard of. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 00:06, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure virgins aren't too hard to find around most parts of the Internet. That said, I have no dog in the "what the voting requirements are" fight. I just kinda resent being given an opportunity to vote, and then being called out like a petty criminal by exercising it. PaulCHebert (talk) 00:10, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Yeah I totally understand that too. Unfortunately over the years WP:AGF has become less of a policy. These days it rarely applies to editors but is often used as a bludgeon by admins. That's why I edit rarely these days and when I do its as an IP. The only time I even bother to login is if I want to vote on something like this. The Wikipedia culture has become such a shadow of what it once was and could be that I've become pretty disenfranchised (as you can probably tell) with the whole place. Maybe the new Arbcom can help turn that around. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 00:39, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

• Mr Hebert has a point; perhaps a link to the eligibility requirements on either the watchlist notice or the securepoll page itself, or (even better) maybe a rundown of the eligibility requirements on the securepoll page itself. I think that might have been done in previous years, but I can't see the page used last year to verify. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:49, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

In the past, the configuration was coded so that people who were blocked or who did not meet the editing requirements did not get a ballot, but instead got a message that said they were not permitted to vote. I am at a loss to explain why this did not happen this time. Risker (talk) 02:12, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Bump. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:15, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Has this been dealt with yet? FWIW, last year it was clear that the editing requirement limit could only be set for total number of edits. See here. So you still had scrutineers having to check eligibility last year as well. But this year the config file didn't even have that 150-edit limit in it or a setting to leave out blocked editors (that seems to have been a major oversight)? More generally, was the potential problem carrying over from last year even discussed by the community at the pre-election RFC or the post-2012 election feedback page? Has SecurePoll changed since last year so it could have been set to count mainspace edits (I doubt it)? The focus now, if nothing more can be done, needs to be on people pitching in to help check eligibility, and making sure those not eligible are politely told why they were allowed to vote and what is being done about this. Last year I said "I also agree that the voting system really should be set up properly next time, so there is less of the rather embarrassing spectacle of good-faith voters having their votes struck because the software didn't tell them they were ineligible (I know why it happened this time, but it should really be avoided)." So the same thing happened again this year, but it is worse as more people are affected (wrongly being allowed to vote)? Carcharoth (talk) 02:44, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

How are sockpuppets dealt with?

Checking to see how many mainspace edits a voter has is relatively easy, and something anyone can do, but how is the problem of sockpuppetry dealt with? Is there a CU available to rule out potential sockpuppetry?

I raise the issue because in looking over the voting log I see teo users, Mrmoustache14 and MrMoustacheMM, who disavow any connection to each other on their respective talk pages, but who voted within 18 minutes of each other. I am explicitly not accusing these editors of being sockpuppets, and the similarity of their names can be explained by their being based on the name of a song, but such a prima facie example of the possibility of sockpuppetry raises the question of how that is dealt with. Beyond My Ken (talk) 11:57, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

My understanding is that the election scrutineers (all stewards) will be doing that cross-check. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 15:38, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that was also my understanding. GiantSnowman 16:39, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

OK, thanks, that's good to know. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:54, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

"An Abstain does not affect the outcome in any way"

What a nonsensical statement, of course it affects the outcome if I choose Abstain rather than Support, or Abstain rather than Oppose. W. P. Uzer (talk) 10:31, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

But voting abstain for all candidates would have the same effect as not voting (ie nothing), which is what the statement means. In most elections voters have the option to only vote in part of the election by leaving other parts blank; this is a reassurance that it is still possible to do so, despite being forced to mark one checkbox for each candidate in order to be able to submit a ballot at all. Happy‑melon 10:48, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

So it should say "a complete slate of Abstains", not "an Abstain". But what are the "parts" of this election in which we have the option to vote separately? I don't see it. W. P. Uzer (talk) 11:02, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

There are no parts where you have the option to vote separately; that's the point. In an election you can generally "not affect the outcome" by not writing an X or a number or whatever on the given section of the ballot. Here, you can "not affect the outcome" by selecting "abstain". Which is precisely what the instruction says. Happy‑melon 12:25, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

You're not making any sense. You can "not affect the outcome" by not voting at all, or by submitting a ballot paper with Abstains (plural) for all the candidates. It is not true in any sense that I can divine, that a single "Abstain" does "not affect the outcome". My choice to Abstain for a particular candidate, as opposed to exercising any other of my available options (which are only Support and Oppose, from what I can tell), certainly may affect the outcome. W. P. Uzer (talk) 13:13, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Abstentions can most assuredly affect outcomes if certain candidates are voted FOR and certain AGAINST, and yet others are ABSTAINS. The issue that we have here that makes our elections peculiar is that one may vote against. It is perfectly possible in theory to be the majority candidate with a negative tally of votes! This is all part of the alleged wisdom of crowds. We have the bureaucracy we have created, thus it must be the one we deserve! Rather like a 'rest' in a piece of music, the abstain votes are most assuredly played. Only those not voting at all can truly not influence the actual ballot. Fiddle Faddle 13:25, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

So is there any way the offending statement can be removed from the voting instructions? If not now, at least for future elections? W. P. Uzer (talk) 09:58, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

(Innocent bystander interjection) My understanding is that candidates are ranked according to S/(S+O), i.e. abstain votes are ignored in calculating the ratio for each candidate. Therefore the intended interpretation of the statement is as follows: if I vote S for a candidate, I nudge their ratio higher and therefore actively increase their likelihood of being elected. If I vote O, I nudge their ratio lower and decrease their likelihood. If I vote A, I do not affect their ratio, and my direct impact *on them* is the same as if I had not voted at all. The statement is intended to negate the plausible but incorrect alternate assumption that I would be reducing a candidate's support percentage merely by casting any ballot in which I failed to explicitly support them. It is of course true that by voting S or O for other candidates and thereby affecting their ratios, I am expressing a rank order of candidates, and so indirectly the candidates I vote A on will be impacted in relation to the others. However it is at least theoretically possible that a candidate with a handful of S, no O, and nearly all As would rank higher than a candidate with no A, one O, and everyone else an S. Martinp (talk) 15:31, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

So it is perhaps true to say (in a certain non-obvious sense) that an Abstain does not affect a given candidate's "ratio"; but it remains false to say that it does not affect "the outcome", which is what is currently stated. W. P. Uzer (talk) 21:01, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

"An abstain does not count as a support; an abstain does not count as an oppose" But honestly, why say it at all? It clarifies absolutely nothing. Jd2718 (talk) 23:40, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Precisely. I suppose it's supposed to be trying to tell people that abstaining is somewhere in the middle between supporting and opposing, in case voters can't work that out for themselves. Instead there should probably just be a link to a page containing detailed and accurate explanation of the vote calculation system (which may be there already, I don't remember). W. P. Uzer (talk) 09:10, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I think I broadly agree with User:W._P._Uzer regarding the desirability of some kind of link. If I mainly want to elect one candidate, the most effective way I can cast my vote to do this is to Support that candidate and Oppose all other candidates. Telling me that Abstain makes no difference may mislead me into being 'nice' by abstaining instead of opposing. Something similar is true if I mainly want to stop one candidate, or if I want to elect 7 candidates, etc. But if I want to elect one candidate and also stop another it might well be best to abstain on some of the remaining candidates - basically, especially if I have found a reasonably trustworthy 'guide to guides' (which is a kind of opinion poll), I'd want to oppose those who seem a threat to my favourite candidate, support those who seem a threat to my most hated candidate, and perhaps abstain where the precise threat position seems unclear. Perhaps what's needed is a link to something that explains (as far as reasonably practicable) 'How your vote works in practice', while also making it clear that the precise effect of abstentions can't always be reliably predicted (while perhaps adding that 'guides to guides', which are a kind of opinion poll, if reasonably trustworthy, can at least in theory help with such tactical voting decisions, and while perhaps also adding that it may not be easy to work out how honest and trustworthy any such 'guide to guides' actually is). Tlhslobus (talk) 22:27, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Banned users voting via sockpuppets

Phil Sandifer (talk · contribs) appears to have voted in these elections as Mr. Treason (talk · contribs), whom I recently blocked. The account was originally blocked by Zoe (talk · contribs) on 1 April 2006, since it was taken to be a sock of a vandal. Phil Sandifer (then Snowspinner (talk · contribs)), promptly unblocked the account with the summary "/scowl". It was promptly re-blocked by another admin. Presumably, the wheel-warring was due to April Fool's Day clowning around, a view bolstered by this account being used to comment on 1 April on ANI regarding joke RFAs. A long-term abuse page was created in the name of this account for a group of trolling IPs who liked to claim "treason". A perusal of the history shows that Phil Sandifer and Mr. Treason both edited the article [5]. Finally, the account claimed to be Snowspinner, and Phil Sandifer (then Snowspinner), did not block the account for impersonation. Thus, it appears reasonable to conclude that Phil Sandifer owned the Mr. Treason account and has just used it as an illegitimate sockpuppet. Reaper Eternal (talk) 02:27, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

It does also have less than 150 mainspace edits. --Rschen7754 02:30, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

questions are out of control

I just counted, and as of right now I have answered sixty three questions, almost every last one of them a boilerplate that was submitted to every single candidate, and some of them basically retreads of questions that were already asked and answered. I realize that arbs have to put up with a lot more than that, but do we expect the voting public to actually review that many replies? Some have had even more, but if we say the average is sixty that means there are something like thirteen hundred questions and answers in total. I try to be responsive when anyone asks me a question in good faith anywhere on WP, but this is getting ridiculous. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:35, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. I didn't answer as many as you did, and I'm no longer going to answer any more that are not specific to me. If people are going to vote against you because you don't answer question #64, that shouldn't keep you up at night. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:48, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't even read any of the copy-paste questions that seem to be getting spammed on every candidate's page. I only read the thought-out and relevant ones when making my decisions. Reaper Eternal (talk) 00:50, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

On the one hand, yeah, I (and plenty of others) already voted, and the vote wasn't based chiefly on candidates' A's to Q's. Moreover, I won't be following that part anymore. On the other hand, you're putting yourselves up for a position that not only carries a lot of weight regarding how this encyclopedia is managed, but (ideally) will also require a decent chunk of your time reviewing cases (not to mention all the stuff we don't even see on-wiki). Ideally, I don't think it's too much to ask you to "campaign" and answer as many questions as you feel comfortable answering, plus a little bit more, but, hey, I'm glad some reasonable people are even running, so I won't push my point any further. ---Sluzzelin talk 01:00, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I thank you and many others for answering my three questions, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:24, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

• Perhaps posting identical 'boilerplate' questions to all the candidates allows electors to observe how candidates respond differently to a common stimulus and thus make comparative inferences about style and character. I suspect in part it's also a way for electors to feel 'involved'. Also, some may simply be following the example that was set by having 'official' boilerplate questions preceding the space for individual questions. Perhaps it would be helpful if boilerplate and candidate specific questions were on separate subpages? Or perhaps some sort of pre-election process of community proposing and narrowing down boilerplate question? Merging similar ones and such? Also, it strikes me that if truly redundant questions arise the candidate has the option to simply reply by linking a previous answer perhaps with qualifiers if differences in nuance need addressed.

Obviously it would be easiest for the candidates if a bare list of Usernames was simply tossed up and the electors were left to do all their own research and to initiate independent inquiries on talk pages discussions if they have questions. But is the convenience of the candidates really the priority here? I think it begs the question as to whether one aspires to rule or to serve? --Kevjonesin (talk) 14:03, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Where are those questions?

The link at the top of this page in the navigation box goes to: WP:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2013/Questions which is completely devoid of questions. The shortcut WP:ACE2013/Q is regrettably red. Jd2718 (talk) 23:44, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

The discussion as to which questions would perforce be asked of all candidates was terse in nature, and few in participants, and a number of questions which had previously been generally asked were elided. While the gantlet seems big, it is nowhere near the quantity of thought needed for a single case - thus any candidate who can not handle this number is unlikely to be able to handle the greater amount of material in a case. I would commend candidates to read a large number of prior cases to get a feel for how much thought ought be expended on any given case. Collect (talk) 00:13, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea where you get that idea, Collect. Cases have a lot more reading, but very few questions. There is no correlation at all with the number of questions answered, the answers to those questions, and the ability of any particular arbitrator to manage the volume of postings related to cases. Risker (talk) 00:39, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I referred to the amount of reading and thought needed to reasonably consider a case as opposed to the reading and deliberation needed to reasonably weigh and answer questions. As I did not refer to any count of "questions" in a case, I am puzzled as to where your comments come from here. As to where I "get that idea" -- it comes from having read more than four million messages over part of my online career, and reviewed on the order of a hundred thousand images -- perhaps that elided you? BTW, I have only read through a dozen or so cases as archived -- as few new ones occur each year. Cheers. Collect (talk) 01:15, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I don't think anything elided me; nothing I said was "omitted or cancelled" nor "ignored or suppressed" (definitions 2&3 from the Gage Canadian Dictionary). I think perhaps you mean "you chose not to consider my activities", which is not the same thing. Nonetheless, your initial response specifically refers to the number of questions ("any candidate who can not handle this number") and I am pointing out that there is no correlation between the number of questions and the activities required of an arbitrator. Risker (talk) 01:30, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe had I said "elided your notice" (that is, you appear not to know my background) that your "sic-ism" would have been thought dismissive at best. Oxford[6] has: mid 16th century (in the sense 'annul, do away with', chiefly as a Scots legal term): from Latin elidere 'crush out', from e- (variant of ex-) 'out' + laedere 'to dash' . Arbitrators need to be able to comprehend substantial masses of material in any given case, and if they somehow feel that they can ignore material because of their own convenience, then they ought not be arbitrators at any level in any society. IMO of course, just in case you feel that arbs should be free to ignore as much as they wish in any gathering of evidence etc., then your position would not be congruent with mine. Cheers. Collect (talk) 01:40, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh my. You're still equating answering masses of irrelevant questions (and yes, most of them are irrelevant) with being effective at analysing evidence. I'd suggest to you that ignoring the irrelevant is actually an important skill for arbitrators. And I believe you've still got the wrong emphasis on "elided": you seem to mean to say that I elided your contributions, not that they elided me. I've never known anyone's contributions to ignore anyone. Risker (talk) 04:42, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

As I made no such equation - your response is getting ever more puzzling. And as for your gratuitous implication that the three questions I added are "irrelevant" - that is perilously close to a personal attack from an Arbitrator of all people! At least I trust you are not calling the questions which has been part of the general questions last year "irrelevant." And as for your apparent belief that the Oxford dictionary is "wrong" -- I find that to be a quite interesting position for anyone at all to take -- it implies a belief that HumptyDumptyism lives on at ArbCom (sigh). Cheers -- I think you are quite through exposing your position here at this point. Collect (talk) 14:29, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

• To answer the OP's question: Unlike the candidate statements, there is not a single page where you can read all of the candidates' answers to questions (it would be really, really, long). But if you go to Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Candidates#Standing candidates, each candidate has a box below their statement, and you can follow that link to see each candidates' question page. For example, mine are at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Candidates/Floquenbeam/Questions. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:49, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I had missed it (overshadowed by the status box). And I de-redded ACE2013/Q. FWIW, the long lists of questions seemed not so useful, and not so long. It looks like the candidates are dealing with them just fine. Jd2718 (talk) 04:27, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I think the questions need to be brought under some control for next year. Maybe individual editors need to be limited to one or two questions. (I can hear the yelling and table-pounding already.) Or maybe the "fallow period" between the end of nominations and the beginning of voting needs to be greatly expanded - like to 3 or 4 weeks - to give candidates enough of a chance to really think about the questions and answer them. I have also noticed a bit of foot-stomping about candidates not answering questions, when those who decided to run at the last minute really only had a couple of days to answer them. That would also be remedied by allowing more time before voting starts. In "real" elections (at least in my state) there are four months between the nomination of candidates (at primaries) and the general election, during which candidates campaign, including answering questions from the voters. (If they answer.) Four months would obviously not be reasonable for an online election, but neither is four (or five) days. Neutron (talk) 04:38, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

A two-question limit is perfectly reasonable, and was effective in the past; hypothetically, the questions are supposed to provide information for the voters, and there are so many of them that most voters will wind up just going on their gut rather than trying to make it through all that. In fairness, none of the candidates this year are answering the number of questions I answered in my first candidacy (I think it was 140), but then again more of those questions were personalized. Perhaps we should start the "issues to consider for next year" page... Risker (talk) 04:45, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Conversely -- then parliamentary question time should be limited to two questions so that the prime minister need not tax his brain. Cheers -- I find such a gross change in Wikipedia practice to be errant. Collect (talk) 14:33, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

This proposal isn't the equivalent of restricting the PM to only answering two questions, it is saying that no individual questioner may ask the prime minister more than two questions. In the UK at least, the number of questions any one person may ask of the prime minister is limited to between 1 and 6 per session (depending on their role). Thryduulf (talk) 15:31, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

So how many questions which were previously used as general questions would be estopped from being asked in that case? If I expect a candidate to be willing to spend 20 hours on a case, I hardly think asking a candidate to spend two hours on questions is grossly excessive -- if they canna spare two hours now, I canna expect they will spend 20 hours later .... Collect (talk) 15:41, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

That questions were previously asked as general questions is irrelevant. The general questions for each year are determined by consensus, if a question didn't make it this year then there was no consensus that it was of sufficient importance/utility/quality/relevance/whatever. The problem isn't the amount of time taken spent answering questions (although the current arbs, the only ones who can know, seem to regard it as a poor measure) but with the amount of time it takes for voters to read the questions and answers - there is a strong feeling that TLDR applies. I have personally spent around 8 hours so far reading the questions asked of candidates and I have only got down as far as RegensPark. When I am finished I will then go back and look for new questions and answers from each candidate before casting my vote. Limiting the number of questions should also focus people's minds on asking only the most relevant, least duplicative ones - e.g. candidates are asked how they will handle being outed 2 or 3 times each which educates voters no more than if it was asked once, and the candidates views on judicial incarceration in the USA are of no relevance I have been able to determine. Thryduulf (talk) 16:17, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Might you tell us precisely how many editors made up the "consensus" this year? Might you note that I and others did not concur with the very limited number who averred that the NYB list was sufficient? and that no one demurred on me asking the seven questions -- four of which were from last year's general question list, and three new ones which I proposed at the start of the entire discussion? And yet the questions I posed are now "irrelevant"? I suggest that if we had thirty or so participants in a consensus that you would be on solid ground -- how far short of thirty people participated in your averred "consensus"? Might you tell me where the "general questions" are listed at Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2013/Questions? Sorry Charley -- that consensus appears not to exist, and the agreement for the list seems not to exist, and the demurral about questions proposed to be general at the very start seems not to exist. Cheers. And I shall propose the same list next year, just so no one is surprised. Collect (talk) 17:38, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Note to Risker (per her comment above) and others: The discussion page for "feedback on the election to be considered for next year" is already started at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Feedback. The section on the candidate questions is here. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:43, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Maybe we should go one small step further than the current questioning "system", and tie heavy weights to all the candidates, throw them in deep water, and whoever floats will be considered pure of heart enough to be on the committee. As for the rest... well, I guess the water line would represent 50% support. (And no, I don't think I invented this idea, but I'm not sure it's been adapted to ArbCom elections before.) Neutron (talk) 23:36, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

"We have found some candidate. May we burn them?" Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:38, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

"If the candidate is a duck..." (Bishzilla stomps in) CHOMP "err... WAS a duck...."

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:29, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, ducking was easier: who floated was guilty, who drowned was innocent, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:08, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I used to think so too, but as explained in the article that I linked to, it depends on what era you are talking about. In some places and times the innocent floated, in others the innocent sank. I think that in modern times, "we" are more familiar with the versions of the story where the innocent were expected to sink. (And by the way, the article also explains that at least in some places where the innocent were expected to sink, the townsfolk did tie a rope around the person's waist so they could pull them out before they drowned. Or try to, at least. I had never heard about that part until I read that article. Aren't election discussions educational?) Neutron (talk) 23:27, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

She turned me into a newt. But I should point out that I wasn't necessarily trying to be "funny" with my comment, I was trying to be sarcastic, so as to make a point. Neutron (talk) 17:58, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

(Quizically) "A newt?" Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:26, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

I got better. (I recently attended a production of Spamalot and was surprised to see that that scene did not make it into the musical, especially considering some of the new, um, "stuff" that did.) Neutron (talk) 04:32, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Signficant inconsistency concerning vacant seats

Two statements are inconsistent with each other, under "Vacant seats" overleaf:

"The committee will continue to have 15 seats, leaving nine vacant seats filled in this election."

and

"The minimum support percentage is 50%."

Can someone please explain? Tony (talk) 13:43, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

The sentence immediately after the second you quote explains it, "If there are more vacancies than candidates with 50% support, those seats will remain vacant." although the section is poorly phrased, changing as follows would imho resolve it:

• "The committee will continue to have 15 seats, leaving nine vacant seats filled in for this election."
• "8 seats will be filled for have 2 year terms, and one will be filled for has a 1 year term."
• "the seat they vacate will be filled added to the election, and will be for have a one-year term."

I'm not certain whether this can be changed before next year's RFC though. Thryduulf (talk) 13:56, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's just poorly written. There was some discussion of the wording (though not necessarily the specific issue Tony raises) prior to the nominating period, and I started trying to fix it up by changing a few words there and there but I kept finding more and more problems with that paragraph and eventually just gave up and didn't change anything, and never got back to it. (I don't think there would be anything wrong with editing it now, as long as the meaning were not changed -- well, not changed from what it is supposed to mean. I don't think that specific wording was "adopted" by an RfC, though I could be wrong about that.) On the other hand, I do not see anything wrong with using the word "filled", as long as it is made clear that while there are nine seats to be filled, a seat would go unfilled if fewer that nine candidates achieve 50% percent support -- which is (I think) what Tony's point is. Neutron (talk) 18:13, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I just made a small edit to that paragraph (changing "seats filled" to "seats to be filled.) But actually, after having re-read the paragraph, I see that the "inconsistency" mentioned by Tony is not really there. The very next sentence after "The minimum support percentage is 50%." is "If there are more vacancies than candidates with 50% support, those seats will remain vacant." (Later note, now I see Thryduulf already pointed that out.) So I think that part is clear enough. There are nine seats "to be filled", but the actual number of seats that will be filled will depend on how many candidates receive at least 50% support. As I said before, however, the whole thing could use a rewrite. Neutron (talk) 19:52, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I can see there's going to be dramah if fewer than nine candidates make it over this ridiculous, arbitrary 50% formula mark (in practice, very candidates are ever supported by more than 50% of voters, which many editors would say is a more realistic measure). The graph just below this two-timing text marks eight seats with "Top 8 Candidates" and one with "9th Place". Sounds pretty cut-and-dried, don't you think? Tony (talk) 00:56, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Of course there would be "dramah." This is Wikipedia. There's drama over everything. The WMF would save a lot of money if they could figure out a way to power the servers with drama instead of electricity. But there would be much MORE drama if anyone were ever appointed to ArbCom with more opposes than supports. I think the past RfC's show that a large majority would prefer to see empty seats on the committee rather than have arbitrators who received a majority of opposes. As for "cut-and-dried": Our election method here is kind of unusual, and kind of complicated, and therefore not the easiest thing to describe, especially when the description was written "by committee" over a period of years. I think the system is ok, we just need a better description. Neutron (talk) 04:50, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

We do try to minimise the risk of drama, surely. The problem with the argument you put is that no one knows how many opposes were cast for any one candidate on the basis of "I really don't want that person to be an arb" versus the strategic voting rationale of "I don't know about that candidate, but I'm opposing everyone but my preferred few candidates, to give them maximum advantage in the formulaic race". (I voted strategically, and I'm pretty sure it's a lot of others did too.) Reducing opposes to a simple binary message is a grand presumption, and I believe the corollary to that is that "better empty seats than arbs who received more opposes than supports" is based on a wobbly presumption about the meaning of opposes.

To put my neutral hat on: the graph text is a liability if you really want to exclude someone who received a formula-derived 49.9 ranking when only five got over the contrived 50 benchmark. BTW, I see no reason to express the formula outputs as percentages: percentages of what? Tony (talk) 09:33, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

• An urgent matter: the watchlist banner warns voters that, in effect, their vote didn't count if cast before a certain date. Could a link to the list of voters be piped within that statement so people like me can check whether they voted before that time? I can't even find a link when I try. Tony (talk) 09:33, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Here's an alphabetical list of everyone who voted before that date (it's a separate, discarded poll, a new one was started when they noticed something was wrong with the first one). ---Sluzzelin talk 13:56, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

• @Tony1:: Actually, "in practice, very candidates are ever supported by more than 50% of voters" is not true, according to my research. For example, last year, 13 users got more than 50% of support, from which 8 became arbitrators. In 2011, 10 users received more than 50% of support, of which (again) 8 became arbitrators. In 2010, a record 13 candidates received more tha 50% of support. 2010 was an unusual year because 12 seats were filled, and even that year, no seat was left vacant. So, there is no doubt we will get 9 users elected this year. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 14:08, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

• We seem to have 2 different subjects interwoven here, but... I suggest removing the note about the discarded votes from the watchlist notice; by my count there are only 17 editors who voted in the first election attempt who haven't yet voted in the do-over. It doesn't make sense to target part of a watchlist notice to 17 people - just leave another note on their talk page and/or email them again. At this stage, all that note does is confuse people. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:44, 4 December 2013 (UTC) addendum: @TParis:, you said earlier you wanted to be pinged (pung?) to remind you to compare the two lists. Now might be a decent time to do so; down to a manageable size list of people who haven't re-voted yet, and enough time left to contact them again while they can still see the message and re-vote. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:53, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Hahc21: "13 users got more than 50% of support"—no, 13 received more supports than opposes (when we really don't know what proportion of opposes were simply strategic voting). Only three of the 21 candidates got more than 50% support—that is, they gained the support of more than 50% of the 824 voters: Newyorkbrad, with 70.1%, NuclearWarfare, with 55.1%, and Worm That Turned, with 54.1%. Floq, yes, sounds like a good idea. Tony (talk) 15:20, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Tony1, when people say "more than 50% support", they mean "more supports than opposes", i.e. more than 50% of (supports + opposes). Untidy wording, but that's what it has meant in the context of ArbCom elections for the last 3 years at least (not quite sure about before that). --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:29, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

(ec) Tony, we have this same discussion every year. Hahc's figures are correct, because "abstains" don't count. The instructions say: "There will be an abstain option; choosing this option will not affect the support percentage for the candidate, and will be treated as though you did not vote in the election with respect to that candidate." I don't think it could be made any clearer than that. Abstains don't count for anything. If 1000 people vote and a candidate gets 450 supports, 300 opposes and 250 people abstain, the candidate got 60 percent support. That's the way our "system" counts it. If you want to count it as 45 percent, you can, but that's not the system we have. (Later added note: Floquenbeam, thank you for correcting my math; I guess I was subconsciously illustrating that abstains don't count, by counting them incorrectly.) Neutron (talk) 15:38, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. Tony1, as much as I understand the spirit of your comment, it is pretty off from what is the reality. By making a comparison with the number of voters, you count the abstain votes, which is a mistake. They do not count for the percentage of support, since they are not taking any sides. And well, for me, "13 received more supports than opposes" is exactly the same as "13 users got more than 50% of support". I don't see any difference. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 20:35, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

That's a problem if you don't see the difference. If someone goes into the system and doesn't vote support for candidate X, they're still a voter, right? It doesn't matter whether this voter voted oppose or neutral, they still didn't support candidate X, right? I'm simply counting the proportion of voters who supported candidate X, which is an almost universally understood measure. I suspect that this S/S+O weirdness was adopted by those whose interests are served by distorting massively upwards the real support that arbs garner at elections. It's time we punctured this fallacy, even if the official system counts this ranking formula. You're equating 50% ranking formula with 50% of the electors voted for X. Not so. And 12 supports, 8 opposes, and 874 neutrals whatever they're called, gives a formula ranking of 60. Great. Tony (talk) 23:59, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, then you'd have to change RfA as well, because the ArbCom elections' system was borrowed from there. RfA's are calculated exactly the same way, S/S+O * 100, and neutral votes don't count. If you run for adminship, and then you get 75 support votes, 25 opposes and 1000 neutrals, do you pass or not? — ΛΧΣ²¹ 00:18, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I think the scoring, S/A/O, result=S/(S+O) is perfectly sensible. On a per-candidate basis, you have two options, S or O. You should not count the thousands or millions who did not S or O the candidate. You may have preferred a separate ballot for every candidate, with the options S or not(S), and ignore the non-voters, or do you support mandatory recording of preference for all candidates, or none? I think a single ballot easier for the voters, and with all votes defaulting to A, every A should be interpreted no different to the voter not voting. If there were no A, how should the vote default, or should the vote be impossible to complete without taking an action on every candidate? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:19, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

(ec) Tony, I suspect that if something like that ever actually happened - someone being elected 12-8-874 or any similar pattern of numbers where the supports and opposes were completely dwarfed by the abstentions - there would be an uproar and the system would probably be changed. But it hasn't happened, so it hasn't happened. My perception of how things work on Wikipedia is that policies and procedures are generally not changed simply because there is a concern that something bad might possibly, conceivably, hypothetically occur. Generally the "something bad" has to actually happen, and even then there might not be consensus for a change. Is that a good way to run an organization? Probably not, but that's how Wikipedia seems to operate, and for better or for worse, it's still here. Neutron (talk) 00:26, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Tony, whether you agree with the way the 50% support is calculated or not is frankly irrelevant at this point. The formula is explicitly and unambiguously defined and seemingly understood by almost everyone. The result=S/(S+O) method was chosen by consensus at an RfC a few years ago and reselected by an RfC in every year since. If you would prefer a different formula be used then you need to propose an alternative in next year's RfC (put a note on the feedback page as an aide mémoire if you want), and if your proposal gains consensus then it will be used for the 2014 election. Thryduulf (talk) 02:14, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't bother unless I saw signs of a reasonable chance of reform. All I want is for people to recognise that this formula system is not synonymous with percentage endorsement by the community. That is the smoke and mirrors of it. Tony (talk) 05:45, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

The percentage support is not representative of the community. It represents a small self selecting group of voters. Has anyone done a demographic analysis of the voters and compared to random editors (random editor selection requires a few decisions). My impression is that the self-selecting voters tend to overrepresent project-space active editors. The most obvious failing is non-response bias. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:22, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

No matter what method you choose, you will only ever get a percentage support of voters. Whether you count the percentage of those who expressed an opinion about that candidate or a percentage of those who expressed an opinion about any candidate, you are only working with the opinions of a self-selected subset of the electorate (circa 800 out of probably tens of thousands). Why is that relevant? Thryduulf (talk) 10:27, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

All discussions. All decisions, in this project, are made by groups of self-selected volunteer participants. It works well. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:33, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

• Have the last few comments gone off the previous theme? I'm unsure how they relate to the ranking formula and a straight percentage of voters who clicked support for candidate X. And again, I struggle to see why the ranking formula has been expressed as a percentage. Tony (talk) 11:37, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

  Not really. It is illustrating that the current method does not distinguish, for the purposes of determining who is elected, between someone who offered no opinion on user:Example's candidacy but did express an opinion about one or more other candidates and someone who expressed no opinion about any candidate. I believe this is fair and correct, but it seems this view is not universal.

  As for expressing support as a percentage, I don't know why, but given the criteria used for this election the statements "At least 50% support" and "More supports than opposes" have identical meaning, and ranking candidates by the percentage support and ranking candidates by how many more supports than opposes they got produces an identical ranking I don't understand why it is an issue. Thryduulf (talk) 12:14, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

  That's not true, is it? What you call the percentage support, and what I would understand by "how many more supports than opposes" (which sounds like the result of a subtraction), don't have to rank in the same order. Anyway, if we mean more supports than opposes, then why not say that, instead of the potentially misleading "more than 50% support"? W. P. Uzer (talk) 18:31, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

  We say "at least 50% support, defined as ..." because that's how the controlling RfC defined the criteria. Prior to this thread I'm not aware that anyone has noted it as being potentially misleading. Thryduulf (talk) 18:39, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

  So what? We're noting it as being potentially misleading now. People reading it won't know how the "controlling RfC" defined the criteria (whatever that means). Better to use plain language that everyone will understand correctly without insider knowledge. W. P. Uzer (talk) 18:55, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

  The controlling RfC is Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013 which defined the rules and requirements of this election. You can't just change things part way through (which is one of the reasons we have the RfC), but I still don't get what is not clear about "Seats will be filled based on support percentage, as calculated by support/(support + oppose)"? Thryduulf (talk) 19:27, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

This is all legitimate, but entirely academic, discussion; and it's not particularly constructive to have it midway through the election. The formula of S/(S+O) was formalised in 2011, and the selection of 50% (which is equivalent to requiring more supports than opposes) was first formalised there and then confirmed in 2012 and 2013. This election will be conducted under that process. Whether or not you think it is fair, democratic or sensible, now is not the time to change it. Happy‑melon 22:10, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

• H-M, I'm not for a moment suggesting that it be changed for this election. I'm keen, however, that people not misinterpret ranking formula as a percentage of voter support—it is far from that, and there seemed to be a little confusion even among election coordinators. Tony (talk) 00:38, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Total voters

As of 02:58, 5 December 2013, 707 valid votes have been cast. We still have 4 days to reach, match or surpass 2012's total number (824).

Cheers. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 02:59, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Should another attempt to contact those who voted in the first abortive poll, but haven't yet revoted, be made? Does anyone have the updated numbers for this problem? Espresso Addict (talk) 17:21, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

@Floquenbeam: noted yesterday that there were only approximately 17 users who have not revoted [7].

Will there be an update on this (total numbers and whether any users in the initial poll failed to re-vote) after voting closes? Carcharoth (talk) 14:59, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

It looks like there are still 11 people that voted the first time but not the second. I'm not really comfortable acting like a coordinator here, when I'm a candidate. If I make a mistake and miss one, am I going to be accused of leaving off a voter I think won't vote for me? But with the caveat that I'm not responsible for the accuracy of this list, it looks like the following people have not re-voted:

• @Aswn:
• @DragonZero:
• @ElKevbo:
• @Fredddie:
• @Galwhaa:
• @Jamesofur:
• @Philippe:
• @Qwfp:
• @Scott MacDonald:
• @Squeamish Ossifrage:
• @TML:

--Floquenbeam (talk) 16:03, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Why are we posting details of anyone who may have voted here? Is a vote, cancelled or not, not an entirely private matter? Leaky Caldron 16:09, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Whether someone voted or not can be seen by everyone. I'm not on the EC, I have no access to any special info, just looking at the list of voters just like you could: Special:SecurePoll/vote/360. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:11, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

OK, understood. Like you said though, I wouldn't be comfortable getting involved in any of this. We have a committee to consider such issues and if you are a candidate there is a theoretical COI. Leaky Caldron 16:27, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

By the power vested in me by the State of Confusion, I hereby deputize you as an ArbCom Election Coordinator for 2013 (updated total number of coordinators this election: 1). Please do whatever you think is best. No one else is doing anything about this except asking questions or making comments. Tag, you're it. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:30, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Sure. Well for the edit summary if nothing else, that's one vote you've just lost. Leaky Caldron 16:34, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Two of the final eleven voters on your list have re-voted. In other words, 9 users lost their votes. Floquenbeam, if you don't get elected to ArbCom (which would be unfortunate) you should consider running for the electoral commission. Altamel (talk) 02:23, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm hoping Floquenbeam gets elected, if just to run the CU/OS and AUSC appointment processes. They'll be run like Mussolini's railroads... Risker (talk) 02:27, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

• Just a note here for the record, I did not revote because I held the decryption key and server access in my staff role and so felt it was better for me to refrain (I believe Philippe did the same thing because while he doesn't have server access he was the backup holding the key for me incase I got hit by a bus). My original vote was done without that handicap (it was also how I realized that there was no encryption key inserted because I recognized how the receipt was being given). @Floquenbeam: James of UR (talk) 01:41, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Candidate Arthur Rubin

It was just pointed out, Arthur Rubin is under Wikipedia:Editing restrictions: an indefinite ban from editing Tea Party Movement related articles. The Arbitration Committee had to deal with this person in a disciplinary fashion regarding his inability to be impartial.

He has a dispute with the committee, so it should be clear he has NO BUSINESS being involved ON the committee. Why is his disciplinary position not an immediate disqualification for the position? Why is this not even being discussed? OsamaPJ (talk) 00:39, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

It appears the term "blocked or banned" refers to the project qua project and does not encompass a limited topic ban -- but was intended to prevent candidates whose actions were judged so antithetical to the project itself that their candidacy ought be barred. The material with regard to Arthur does not seem remotely to extend to that state. Cheers. Collect (talk) 01:35, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that is how it appears. And this was discussed, more than two weeks ago, between the close of nominations and the start of voting, here. It was not a very lengthy discussion: Another current candidate raised the question of whether Arthur Rubin was eligible, I said I thought he was, and NewYorkBrad and Thryduulf agreed with me, and the questioner appeared to be satisfied. I suppose the issue could be raised in the RfC for next year's election, but if we are to have a clear-cut "rule" on this, I would favor retaining what has been followed for this election: If you are allowed to edit the project "at all", and otherwise meet the numerical criteria for candidacy, you are allowed to run. Of course, a topic ban is one of the many facts that the voters may take into account when making their choices, and in this particular case, many of the "voter guides" mentioned the topic ban, so the voters were adequately informed of the topic ban. Whether this candidates has any "business" being on the committee is for the voters to decide. Neutron (talk) 03:38, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

As long as a candidate is not under a restriction that means they are not permitted to engage in dispute resolution unrelated to themselves, and recognise that they would need to recuse from any discussions about the topic area in which they are banned, then I personally don't have a problem. Obviously it could get tricky if two candidates were under an interaction ban with each other and both were elected, but I can't see that happening. It would be good to discuss this in next year's RFC though. Thryduulf (talk) 10:03, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Nasty MONGO here to ask OsmaaPJ why after not editing for 3 years that this issue matters to them.--MONGO 03:13, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Mongo, if you must know, I am actually quite active as an IP editor. I deliberately do that because one's political editing is being traced by interest groups. I hold a position in an institution that could want to control what I publish. See William Cronon. In that light, I have observed this Arthur Rubin character and an additional handfule of his clique take WP:ownership of articles to ramrod their POV. I assume that is why he was banned. I could give you a few more names that need such discipline. What offends me is this political activist is using wikipedia politics to attain a more powerful position to further affect the spread of his POV. After establishing this account I rarely use it, except now when a login is required. OsamaPJ (talk) 04:05, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

In other words, you don't like him because he edits from a different perspective, as does "his clique" that need "discipline".--MONGO 12:33, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

MONGO, you know better than that. Editors are expected to enforce a neutral point of view (WP:NPOV) at all times. If an editor is so heavily emotionally invested in a particular political perspective that he finds it impossible to write from a neutral viewpoint, then he shouldn't be editing articles in that area. That's one of the things that has resulted in Rubin getting himself blocked. SimpsonDG (talk) 22:42, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

He's topic banned as of this posting, not currently blocked. Left with a complex case as the TPm one was, the committee did probably the only thing they could do and that was to topic ban virtually every named party in the case.--MONGO 04:23, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

• Probably best not to continue this discussion; it's morphed into something completely unrelated to the ArbCom election. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:47, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Clearly one issue that arose with the Rubin candidacy is what to do with candidates who are being considered for a block, but not yet blocked at the time of the election. It seems like a sensible solution for the future would be to allow the candidacy provisionally; but if the candidate wins AND the block goes into effect, then the candidate is no longer eligible to serve on the committee, and must be replaced. SimpsonDG (talk) 22:52, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh? We have no policy that s blocked Arbcom member must resign. This seems novel. What purpose is served...? Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:18, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

My understanding is that we DO have a policy that a blocked editor cannot run for Arbcom. This situation created a bit of a dilemma: Rubin was under consideration for a block, but no decision had yet been made, at the time the voting was closed. There is apparently no rule in place to handle this situation. See discussion [[8]]. SimpsonDG (talk) 23:52, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Header error

Am I the only one seeing this? The header is claiming the results have been verified and published, but voting is not even over yet.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 02:50, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorted, I think. The header wasn't changed when the vote was restarted, and the final 2012 header as it was after votes were tallied was copied over, instead of the wording right after the polls close. It should switch correctly at midnight UTC now. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:58, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

When I fixed it last night, it was working fine, but this morning it just says "Status". I reverted mt changes to make sure I didn't screw anything up, but that wasn't it. This is beyond my very limited template skills. Any ideas? Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Header. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:37, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Note that the header is now in Category:Pages with script errors, I don't think that was the case last night. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:42, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I just hard-coded the correct message until someone can figure it out. sometimes these fancy switches are more trouble than they're worth... --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:47, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I would have actually used a different method to create the header. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 23:19, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Voting closed

Guides' individual votes matrix

Guides' overall approval of candidates

Okay. Here are the two tables with information collected from the guides. Those tables provide the guide writers' overall perspective of which are the candidates that should be elected. Of course, this does not represent the final outcome, but comes pretty close. Y'all know :) — ΛΧΣ²¹ 00:19, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Nice chart! It will be interesting to see if the results parallel the guide recommendation. However, I think some of your data are incorrect. Did you intend to leave GregJackP's guide off the chart? And some of Bishzilla's endorsements don't match either. Altamel (talk) 00:43, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh, looks like he finally got to finish his guide; time to add it then. And thanks for the note, I will check Bish's guide again and make the modifications! — ΛΧΣ²¹ 02:16, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

 Done. However, FWIW, I read neutral leaning X as X instead of neutral. I am amazed at how adding Greg's guide almost had no impact on the table. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 02:34, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

I didn't vote neutral on Floquenbeam. I strongly supported her. I also did not support Guerillero. Reaper Eternal (talk) 13:14, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Reaper Eternal: I also forgot to go and update your guide's votes. I will do that now. Cheers. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 16:36, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

So, even though "guides to guides" are discouraged, Hahc21 put one up on 23 November. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:48, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Um, incorrect. They are not discouraged, they are not allowed to be presented as guides, and last year I was told not to publish them before the election period was over. And that's what I did. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 16:36, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

You published it on November 23.[9] You may not have widely announced the publication, but nonetheless, you published it well before elections ended, and surely people knew that. Next year, we need to make sure you don't do this. I also find your addition of a meaningless percentage column troubling. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:05, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

"Guides to guides" are not included in the elections template and I understand why some people don't care for them, but I'm not sure anyone has the authority to prohibit someone from creating one in their userspace. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:07, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

He didn't create it in his userspace; he created it as an image! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:16, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia: let me be clear on this. The rules are that guides to guides are not to be added to the election template. Apart from that, I can create my tables and upload them to Wikimedia Commons whenever I want, and I want to make very clear that nor you, nor anyone can prohibit me from doing so. I did not even add the tables to my guide to make sure I met the rules, so stop making incorrect claims. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 19:27, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

And I suggest the community should discuss further whether you should be publishing something like this on Commons next year. Rules lawyering doesn't impress me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:47, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

I doubt you'd reach anywhere with such a proposal. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 20:06, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

So, let's do be clear. Do you intend to rules-lawyer your way around this again next year, in spite of knowing the negative effect of guides to guides, and the community views on them? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:43, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Okay, stop right there. As far as I know, the community's views about guides is that they have no place in the elections template, period. Last year, I was told that it was better if I placed my guides after the elections period closed, period. The ArbCom elections took place on the English Wikipedia, so I intentionally uploded my guides to Commons so that nobody could reach them easily. They were intentionally hidden from the English Wikipedia to comply with the indications I received last year. In addition to that, there is a big difference between SandyGeorgia dislikes guides to guides and the community dislikes guides to guides. Last year, I received a bunch of thank-you comments because of my work with these tables, and such a thing doesn't translate into they disliked guides to guides. So, yes, I will make my tables each ArbCom elections hereafter, and I will use the same procedure. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 02:43, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

@Hahc21: In what sense were the files “hidden”, having been assigned (quite appropriately) to the “English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee Elections” category? I have no opinion about the publication of guides-to-guides in general except that they seem rather pointless while incomplete, but are interesting to compare to each other and to the results. Thanks for posting them here & ‘now‘, anyway. I can‘t resist observing that they should be SVGs, though: easier to edit, and usually smaller files.—Odysseus1479 05:07, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

@Odysseus1479: By hidden, I meant that they weren't at a visible place like this talk page, or any guide on the elections template, or any page on Wikipedia, for that purpose, except this one. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 13:47, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

They are not hidden from anyone by being placed on Commons, and certainly not if they are listed in the Category. So, you intend to rules-lawyer this issue again next year? So, I suggest the community should revisit (once again) their views on same. If last year, as you say, you were "told that it was better if I placed my guides after the elections period closed, period", you did not comply. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:28, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I was told two things: Not to add it to the elections template, and not to post it here before the voting period closed. Unless I am missing something, that was exactly what I did, and nobody but you has said otherwise. Also, I do not understand what you mean by "rules-lawyer," (since there are no rules) but if what you mean is if I will publish my tables again next year, and the year after next year, and so on, the answer is yes, I will. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 14:39, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

The only guide I followed was the one by Bishzilla...dinosaurs know best.--MONGO 18:24, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Collect was neutral on 28bytes. No one opposed him by my count. SirFozzie supported Kww, while you mark him as neutral.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:52, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

I do not expect 100% accuracy on Wikipedia. Cheers. Collect (talk) 19:10, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

The Devil's Advocate: Thanks, I have re-checked all the guides and corrected the votes.

Collect: What happened was that I forgot to go back and heck if there were any updates in the guides. Everything has been corrected though.

On a general note, I decided to remove Volunteer Marek's guide because he erased it all. Also, I did not update Neotarf's votes because I did not properly understand the change he did to his guide, and so I preferred to not update it rather than removing it from the table. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 19:27, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

• These are some very interesting charts, thanks for making them Hahc21. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:33, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

The table has now been updated with the final results. This year was a very interesting year, in correspondence between the guides and the voters. Warm congratulations to the newly elected arbitrators. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 01:34, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Delay

(note below split off into its own section by me --Floquenbeam (talk) 13:28, 10 December 2013 (UTC))

• Sadly there's something wrong with the securepoll behaviour, I'm pretty sure it will be fixed soon but till now it was impossible to tally the poll. --Vituzzu (talk) 12:42, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Putting on my SecurePoll administrator hat, why are you trying to tally the poll already? Have the scrutineers all reviewed the votes, eliminated socks, queried questionable votes, ensured that all voters meet the editing criteria? Only when ALL of you have signed off that there are no further corrections or changes to the the vote data should you be tallying the poll. There's nothing wrong with SecurePoll here; someone is holding the key, and won't give it to you until you've all signed off that there are no further corrections to be made to the votes. Risker (talk) 15:36, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm going to be more specific here. Go to Special:SecurePoll/list/360. Using the tabs at the top, look for same/similar IP and user agent combos (there are bound to be some) and then review the users to see if they are likely socks or are two people who reside together (there will be some of them, too). Look for CSRF tags and see if there is a reason to question those votes; in the past, scrutineers have sometimes contacted those editors directly. Look for near-identical usernames. Check with the election commissioners to see if they have received any emailed concerns about possible socks. Once you've investigated all of these issues, and all of you have signed off that you are satisfied there are no further votes to be eliminated, then you contact the person who holds the key (the election commissioners will tell you who it is and how to make contact). At that point, you can insert the key and do the tally. Risker (talk) 15:50, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
    • Just to clarify: are you saying that everyone who votes in Arbcom elections is scrutinized using checkuser as a matter of course? If so, was that made clear somewhere? --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 19:01, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
      • That'll teach me not to log in to vote while I'm at the hair salon. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:06, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
      • SB_Johnny, every vote is recorded with the IP and user agent data; the scrutineers see the username, date of vote, IP, user agent, and if applicable a flag for possible duplicate or CSRF problem; nobody sees how any specific user voted. That information is available only to the scrutineers, which is why they must be WMF-identified, and should normally have some experience with Checkuser. This should be somewhere in the documentation for SecurePoll (but probably isn't, since it's so badly documented...) Risker (talk) 20:13, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
      • It looks like there was a mention of it within the guide for for voters "The process will be conducted using the SecurePoll extension which ensures that individual voter's decisions will not be publicly viewable (although technical information about voters, such as their IP address and user-agents, will be visible to the WMF-identified election administrators and scrutineers)" but there is always a question about making it clearer. Jalexander--WMF 21:27, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
        • • "Will be visible" isn't the same as "will be checked". CU data is always visible for every edit by Checkusers, but they certainly don't go checking that data on everyone who edits. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 01:20, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
        • Having it in the messages as you go through the voting process would be nice as a reminder. I knew, but I could see how others might miss it... Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:52, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
          • Yup, that would be a good approach. Personally I could care less if they know my IP, xff, and other identifying data, but I know there's some who feel that's a violation of privacy. OTOH, I find it hard to imagine that there would be enough sock voters to actually skew the results, so it seems silly not to release the raw results even before the "scrutineers" go through it. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 01:15, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
            • Well, the SecurePoll software doesn't permit any modification of the voter list or results once the tally is run; the entire poll is locked once the key is inserted and no changes to the voter list can be done, nor can any additional ballots be cast. That serves several purposes, first of which is to prevent vote manipulation, second of which is to prevent the scrutineers or election admins from peeking at the running tally and potentially providing that information to third parties, who may attempt to canvass or otherwise try to affect the outcome. They're secret ballots, and variance between the "raw" data and the "final" data could very well reveal the actions of the (few) votes that get struck. Risker (talk) 01:41, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
              • Risker could you please refresh us on where can be found the list of editors who know our IPs as a result of voting? I will vote from the hair salon in the future :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:47, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
                • I'm not Risker, but: Wikipedia:ACN#Motion granting temporary local CheckUser permission to Arbitration Committee Election Scrutineers. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:54, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
                • SandyGeorgia, see here - I believe both the electoral commission and the scrutineers can see. Risker (talk) 01:56, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
                  • Risker if you are saying that Happy-Melon and GiantSnowman have access to IPs, that is news to me. If I should have known, I didn't. I imagined the stewards saw IPs. How many others didn't know the election commission could access our IPs? I hope that will be made clear next year when scrutineers are appointed. The stewards are appointed by ArbCom and have a level of community trust; the decision on who is appointed as election commission was a "vote" subject to a couple dozen people. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:01, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
                  • (e/c) Risker, not because you're responsible, but because you seem to know what's going on: Wouldn't the EC need Checkuser permission to see them?? The EC is chosen in a (slightly refreshingly) relaxed manner; does that really satisfy the level of scrutiny usually required for something like Checkuser? --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:03, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
                    • Yes, Flo, we're saying/asking the same thing. I understood that CU was being granted to the stewards appointed by the arbs to oversee the election. That it would also be granted to three editors chosen here in a very "relaxed manner" is something I find disconcerting. We should have clarity on this, and if those three members have access to IPs, then the process by which they are selected should be more broadly advertised next year. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:07, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
                      • • • You and Floquenbeam both raise good points. As I recall, for the first Arbcom election using SecurePoll, and the one go-round of CU/OS/AUSC elections using SecurePoll, all of the election admins were either already CU/OS (for Arbcom elections) or arbitrators (CU/OS/AUSC votes). I'm not entirely sure why it was decided a few years back that the steward scrutineers needed CU access — best guess I have is that they would do "regular" CUs to root out socking on voting if it was reported to them — but I've been a SecurePoll admin on two global elections and had no need for CU on either one, nor would I think it would have been helpful. I think what's happened here is that we've normalized certain practices without fully understanding their implications. Risker (talk) 03:01, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
                      • It's seldom a good bet to say Risker is wrong about something, but... I think she may be mistaken here. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:09, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
                        • It says so right in the instructions for scrutineers that the election commissioners have the same access as the scrutineers. The giveaway is that, in reading the last sentence of the "Technical background" section, it's clear that election administrators (commissioners) have the ability to strike votes, but are not supposed to do so; only those with access to the IP/UA data are also able to strike/unstrike votes. Risker (talk) 02:44, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
      • I know that the secure voting process has stated this before. As well as the fact that the scrutineers check each vote to make sure no dupes, socks, etc. It would seem a violation of any election process on the web for it not to be checked. Right? How could we possibly have a secure election with confidence without knowing that the foundation has policies in place to make sure some jokers aren't voting multiple times? Dave Dial (talk) 01:35, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
        • I don't think they can really make sure; it would be easy enough to vote from different IP addresses if someone were that determined. W. P. Uzer (talk) 17:09, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
          • To be clear, without going into too much detail, while nothing can be perfect the securepoll system has multiple extra ways to help determine if someone is socking then just IP info [more so then normal CU actually]. Jalexander--WMF 19:25, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

To be clear, although Risker has already done an excellent job of explaining, she is entirely correct. There is only one class of SecurePoll administrator, and so both EC and scrutineers are given that level of access. I posted a screenshot of the interface last year which made it very clear what was and was not visible, to me as well as to the other SecurePoll admins.

For each vote cast, the IP, XFF and UserAgent information is recorded and is easily visible to all SecurePoll admins; so it is true that TParis, GiantSnowman and myself have access to that "CheckUser-like data" immediately related to the vote, in addition to the scrutineers. It is not correct that we have CheckUser access in any more general sense. We cannot use the normal CheckUser interface to investigate other wiki activity, either technically or by policy. Happy‑melon 09:35, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: - re:your earlier comment that "the decision on who is appointed as election commission was a "vote" subject to a couple dozen people" is not wholly correct, we were actually appointed by Jimbo following a public !vote. But your point remains valid, it should have been clearer who could see what 'hidden' informnation - though I hope you trust us. GiantSnowman 13:58, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

There is a feedback page for discussion of how the election process went this year and what changes, if any, should be considered for next year. If anyone thinks we need to discuss possible changes relating to this issue, that is probably the best place to discuss it. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:15, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, thanks all for the clarification; this is a rather big oversight that should be corrected. In the future, the community should know that when they do not (because most didn't) come over to these pages to "vote" on election commission, they should know that those people will have access to CU data. So, there are two problematic issues on this page now that should be revisited on the feedback page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:33, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I almost hate to mention something directly related to this year's election, but... what is the status of the issue raised by Vituzzu at the beginning of this section? There seemed to be a problem tallying the results of the election. Then Risker seemed to be saying that shouldn't be a problem because before the votes are tallied, some other things are supposed to happen, and at that point the whole thing turned into a blur for me due to my extremely vague understanding of technical stuff. Then the whole section got off on a tangent, and I guess I'm sort of trying to pull it back to where it started. Is everything ok? Is everything that is supposed to be happening, happening, in the correct order? I want to make it clear I am not trying to rush the results, because I remember that one year (the first year SecurePoll was used for an ArbCom election, I think) when people were rushing the vote-counters and scrutineers and there ended up being a problem that could not be fixed, but which luckily did not affect the outcome of the election. We all want everything to be done properly and accurately even if it takes a little extra time. So, there's not a really serious problem, is there? Neutron (talk) 23:33, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Vito's just enthusiastic to get it all done --Rschen7754 23:35, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

@Risker: I use to calibrate the depth of my analysis upon delta. A very very deep analysis must be taken with a 2 votes margin, while it's a useless waste of energies with a 50 votes margin. --Vituzzu (talk) 23:38, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, that's kinda my point, Vituzzu. It's not about the delta, it's about the acceptable votes. The only tally that matters is the one based on acceptable votes; there is no "delta" involved. It's not that much work, with under 1000 votes the check reviews should take about 2 hours unless there are significant problems. Risker (talk) 00:12, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry Neutron, I didn't respond to your question. Tallying wasn't "broken" because the decryption key has not yet been activated. It cannot be activated until all of the improper votes are struck, and the scrutineers so certify. That is because once the tally is run, no changes to the voter list can be made; that is, votes of users who do not meet the criteria could not be struck. This is a deliberate and intentional security measure to prevent the SecurePoll administrators from repeatedly running tallies, striking votes and running new tallies (thus negating the secrecy of the ballots). There is no actual problem here, and there is nothing that needs to be fixed. The problem you refer to in your post is actually solved by the fact that repeated tallies cannot be run; the problem that first time was that scrutineers apparently were able to repeatedly run tallies and strike votes afterward, and my suspicion is that the first SecurePoll Arbcom election may not have been properly encrypted, although I agree that it did not make a difference in the outcome. Risker (talk) 05:07, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

This (it not being permissible to publish more than one tally) is exactly what happened in 2009 as Neutron says, when we discovered three duplicate votes just after the results had been published, and could not strike them without compromising their secrecy. The ACE09 election was indeed not encrypted (nor were '10, '11 and '12), because managing the encryption requires more involvement from the WMF, which has not been as forthcoming in previous years. Implementing encryption was the reason why the poll was restarted this year.

I do sympathise with Vituzzu's point about more rigour being required if the election is very tight; but it's also true that exposing the ranking before completing the striking is not really on. It would be a good feature for SecurePoll to have an option to produce a tally of results, but without the candidate names, perhaps? Happy‑melon 09:50, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Would that make any difference? When the final results were published, it would be easy to go back to the previous tally and match names to numbers. W. P. Uzer (talk) 10:58, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't address the reduction in ballot secrecy if only a small number of votes are struck, no. It would prevent theoretical biased scrutineers deliberately striking votes in order to get their preferred candidate into the top spot, because they wouldn't know who was where on the ranking. Happy‑melon 11:17, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I see. Sounds to be a good idea (provided it was the only available option up to the point where striking had finished). W. P. Uzer (talk) 12:20, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

@Risker: so I must infer my standards are definitely different from those which I am supposed to implement, good to know.

I think no securepoll's admins are needed for the future if it has been argued they can try to remove random votes in order to alter the result, that's, ofc, quite airy since it would originate lots of logged removal and unremovals attempt, anyway it's another good thing to know. I must also underline is a success for the whole organisation we were made aware of this new procedure (about the secret key) let's say...incidentally. --Vituzzu (talk) 12:19, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

There are no SecurePoll logs, other than the voter list, Vituzzu. No logs of who changes the translations, when, or from what to what. No logs of who pushes the tally button. No logs of who strikes votes or when, or who reinstates them and when. If there was logging, what you said would be a deterrent to inappropriate administrator behaviour, I quite agree. But there is no logging on SecurePoll, other than the voter list, and technically that's a database, not a log. Risker (talk) 15:51, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Not entirely true - there is a log of strikes and unstrikes attached to each vote, just no overall log of activities across a whole election. So strikes and unstrikes are recorded, just not in a very easily-accessible format. SecurePoll's logging infrastructure definitely needs considerable improvement, though. Happy‑melon 18:55, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm not sure the data connected to an individual vote is actually a log; it might be a data point instead, since it's only connected to the vote itself and not anything else; unless someone looks at the individual back-data for the specific vote, one would never know whether or not it was struck and then unstruck. But yes, as you're probably aware, I've been agitating for some major reworking of SecurePoll for a while now, and logging is one matter that needs to be addressed. Risker (talk) 19:34, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Why is it important at all for everyone to see when I voted, how often I changed my vote, when I changed my vote ...? All one needs is some confirmation that one's own vote or one's change of a vote have been registered. Is this something that is or has been discussed somewhere else too? (I didn't mind the completely open voting we used to have, but I fully understand why voting has become secret, only, why not go all the way then? Or do we rely on scrutineering by the community regarding illegitimate votes etc?) ---Sluzzelin talk 20:41, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Suggest that things be slowed down here, let the scrutineers do their work (I'm very curious to see the results, both as a former member of the Committee, as a voter, a guide writer, and an interested Wikipedia.... but I've been able to tamp down on my curiosity in order to let the scrutineers do the work), and the discussion on improving SecurePoll and next year's elections be moved to the proper area. SirFozzie (talk) 22:45, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

No, keep free discussion here at least until after the results have been announced, plus a decent interval afterwards for post-mortems regarding why the delay was so long and whether it had to be that way, and so on. Later such discusions can always be copied to the discussion on improving SecurePoll if anybody wants to do so. But in the meantime having an unfettered discussion here reduces the danger that the delay will cause paranoia about election fraud, etc. A free discussion here shouldn't prevent the scrutineers from doing their job, but anything that promotes paranoia about the delay (such as attempts to restrict free discussion about it here) may well put unreasonable pressure on scrutineers to rush the job, as well as having many other undesirable consequences. Tlhslobus (talk) 09:40, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Agree in full with Tlhslobus. That said, this delay is absurd. It's just some votes and some user names. How about a report on progress to date and a rough idea when we can finally expect the results? Jusdafax 11:23, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I fail to see how any debate here slows down the scrutineers, it's not like they are all participating in the discussion. But be careful what you say here. When I compared our vote processes to that of an African dictatorship last year I was warned by an Arbitrator that I might be blocked. Leaky Caldron 11:40, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Noted, with thanks! Jusdafax 11:51, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

African dictatorships are surely far more efficient. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:20, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

But maybe that's just because Arbitrators aren't yet in a position to oppress the electorate as efficiently as real dictators can :) Tlhslobus (talk) 18:04, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

By the way, Leaky Caldron, do you by any chance have a link to your comparison and the Arbitrator's warning? Tlhslobus (talk) 18:04, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Bottom section of this [10] covers it. Leaky Caldron 18:49, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that most informative link, Leaky Caldron, it's always useful to learn that even at election time some of our arbs remain firm believers in our core principle that Wikipedia is not a democracy, and also know that they are far too important for Wikipedia:Assume Good Faith to apply to them :) Tlhslobus (talk) 13:10, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

As an (informal) update, there have been expressions from three of the scrutineers that they are happy with the results, so we are near the end of the process (there may have been a final confirmation that I haven't been made privy to). Even assuming that that is forthcoming, however, the new encryption means that the keys (which are currently locked in Philippe's desk, apparently) need to be uploaded by WMF staff before the election can be tallied; that of course won't happen until Monday at the earliest. Happy‑melon 18:44, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, assuming final confirmation can be gotten, give him a call or text, somebody. He won't mind, I suspect. Or at least ping him here. Jusdafax 20:33, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Quite right, I wouldn't mind. But as it turns out, I'm monitoring this thing closely anyway, so it's not necessary. User:Happy-melon, I planned ahead on this, and I have the keys with me and made arrangements for User:Jalexander to get access at the appropriate time, as well. We're holding, waiting for the final confirmation from scrutineers. We've been ready - and continue to be ready - to flip the proverbial switch as soon as we get that confirmation. (IOW, no need to wait til Monday - for that anyway. If we get the confirmation, the WMF is ready to go.) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 06:09, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Outstanding, thanks Philippe! Jusdafax 06:22, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

A further (informal) update: the WMF decrypted the ballots today and provided a full dump and the secret keys to the scrutineers for independent verification. This was completed about two hours ago. At this point, our involvement ends, until we are asked to accept identification on behalf of any newly elected arbs prior to their taking up the restricted oversight and checkuser tools. It's been our pleasure to assist the community once again with an election. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 23:34, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Even better. Thanks again! Jusdafax 00:20, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Percentages

I notice that this year the Net and Percentage columns have been left blank for losing candidates, a departure from years past. Is there a reason for this? It seems very useful for the community to know how close some of the losing candidates came to winning, and vice versa. Also, of course, like this we just have to take the scrutineers' word for it that that's who actually won, or, even worse, do math for ourselves. ;)

Oh, and congratulations/condolences to our new arbitrators. Sorry for all the crap we'll put you guys through over the next two years. — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 01:34, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

It's not difficult to get them. Just copy it into Excel and work some numbers.--v/r - TP 01:36, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

My table above already has the percentages for the rest of the candidates, I will update it properly now. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 01:37, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I see that it has already been done. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 01:38, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

"just copy it to Excel" is a major job, since the WMF still doesn't give us tables that can be copy-pasted. You'd think that would be a fundamental priority. I will have to do it for Signpost coverage, so anyone who wants a copy can email me and I'll send it (but I'd need to know the email address to attach, of course). Tony (talk) 02:25, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Tony1: I can send you my Excel file so that you don't have to start from scratch. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 02:49, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Hahc—I've emailed you my address. Tony (talk) 03:47, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Congratulations!

Congratulations to the top vote-getters and new committee members! Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:05, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• I am surprised and humbled by this result. I feel kind of lucky actually, I can try it on for a year and if I hate it it'll just be over. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:02, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks GWH, and thanks too to all the scrutineers, members of the Electoral Commission and other folks who put their time and effort into this. Your efforts are very much appreciated! 28bytes (talk) 03:07, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks, GWH. I'll try not to disappoint everyone (at least, not all at once). --Floquenbeam (talk) 03:49, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I would like to thank the community for giving me a chance for the second year in a row and I would like to congratulate the group that got elected. --Guerillero | My Talk 04:22, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Has someone thanked the stewards? I put flowers on their talk pages when I was a coordinator. The steward policy suggests that this election-related duty is not at all the norm (to put the most liberal interpretation on it), so showing gratitude is important. Tony (talk) 05:08, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• Thank you, and thank you to everyone who put so much time into this! – GorillaWarfare (talk) 05:30, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
• Thanks, GWH, and many thanks to the coordinators and scrutineers who made sure this all ran smoothly. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:40, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Why is the withdrawn candidate cluttering the table?

This should be removed: it was a nuisance for voters on SecurePoll, and the ternary voting breakdown for this person is utterly meaningless. Let's be practical? Tony (talk) 02:23, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree, it seems a bit silly to have that in there. I've commented it out; anyone feel free to revert if you think for some reason it should be displayed. 28bytes (talk) 04:51, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I think it should be displayed; as I said in my edit summary, it may indicate that a certain number of people are registering a protest vote or something. It may also serve as a caution; if a sufficiently large number of people had not marked "oppose" for this non-option (rather than just ignoring it, as most voters apparently did), then the withdrawn candidate would have scored a large percentage and could claim to have been elected. W. P. Uzer (talk) 09:35, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I reckon the 785 "abstain" votes just includes everyone who voted after the candidate withdrew and didn't even see his name on the ballot, so those figures are meaningless. All we know is that by the time he withdrew, the voting was 43 support, 95 oppose, and an unknown number of abstains - that's a 31% support rate. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:40, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

And having just counted a few, it looks like they all add up to 923. So those who didn't see him on the ballot after he had withdrawn have indeed been included in the "abstain" count - they did not choose to abstain, and did not register a "protest" vote. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:43, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

OK, sorry, I may have misremembered - I remember seeing this "withdrawn candidate" on the ballot (unnamed), but possibly the voting options had been disabled. Still, the figures are not meaningless - they indicate the degree of support that candidate had at that point (which may be of interest to that candidate or others). W. P. Uzer (talk) 10:42, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I voted after the candidate had withdrawn and did not abstain with regards to that candidate. It is therefore incorrect to assume anything about the level of support prior to withdrawing. Thryduulf (talk) 10:55, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Not from the number of abstains, no; but from the number of supports and opposes (which is also what gives the percentage). I'm happy to let the ex-candidate themself decide whether to display this information or not. W. P. Uzer (talk) 11:01, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Eh? The candidate received support, abstain and oppose votes after withdrawing. Without knowing when each vote for each option was cast (which would require identifying the voters) it is not possible to infer anything. Thryduulf (talk) 12:10, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hmm, I wonder - I don't remember any withdrawn candidate on the ballot, but I have a vague recollection that they might have appeared in the first version of the ballot that was withdrawn and replaced? -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:57, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I distinctly remember such a line appearing on the ballot, but now you mention it, the voting options probably were disabled. W. P. Uzer (talk) 11:05, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

The withdrawn candidate withdrew before the election started but after the poll had been made. Since it would have been difficult to remove his line entirely, those in charge elected to simply remove his name. The supports and opposes are all from people who chose to support or oppose "(withdrawn candidate)" on the ballot. I know I opposed the withdrawn candidate purely on the principle of preventing any withdrawn candidates from somehow achieving a passing percentage. Reaper Eternal (talk) 11:33, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I thought my memory was failing me. I clearly remember such a line appearing on the ballot, and I certainly did not abstain. Theopolisme (talk) 11:48, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Creative interpretation of the withdrawn candidate data

• The withdrawn candidate data, a possible interpretation: The withdrawn candidate supports and opposes measure the background count rate, providing data for background subtraction. Votes for and against the withdrawn candidate represent indiscriminate voting. To correct, subtract 43 and 95 from all support and oppose counts. Doing this would cause Richwales to have recorded a net support. Congratulations, Richwales. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:01, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Nice idea, but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. My vote was not indiscriminate, nor was Reaper Eternal's (based on their comment above). Thryduulf (talk) 13:18, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

    Neither was mine, not that it matters. Theopolisme (talk) 13:44, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

    • Give me a break—the guy's name wasn't even on the ballot paper. Why has this meaningless rubbish been returned to the results table??? Tony (talk) 13:49, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

      • @Tony1: - it shows completeness of the results. GiantSnowman 13:50, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
        • He withdrew before the start of polling. End of story. If he'd withdrawn after polling, or even during polling, it might be a different matter. IMO the ballot paper should have been cleansed beforehand. The results are irrelevant and should not clutter the table. Tony (talk) 13:53, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
          • IIRC the candidate withdrrew in the 'limbo' between the poll being set up and it actually going live. GiantSnowman 13:55, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
            • Yes, he withdrew before the start of polling. Tony (talk) 14:07, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
              • But after the number of candidates had been finalised. In traditional terms he withdrew after the ballot papers had been printed but before the poll, so his name would have been struck out on each ballot. In neither that scenario nor ours was there anything stopping any voter casting a ballot for that candidate, for whatever reason they chose. It would be absolutely incorrect for those ballots to have been removed from the results. Thryduulf (talk) 14:16, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
                • There is no case for changing the final scrutinised results for ANY reason. They are the absolute record of FACT. Air brushing creates a false interpretation of the final, scrutinised outcome. Leaky Caldron 14:24, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

"No vote" changed to "Abstain"

Congratulations and best wishes to all the winners.

I changed the "No vote" column heading (and the associated descriptive text) to "Abstain", to reflect the way this year's options were presented to the voters. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 03:04, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Sure—but no matter what it's called, voting neutral/abstain/no vote is actually a conscious decision on the part of a voter. It is a choice of one of the three options in this ternary-choice system. Tony (talk) 03:46, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Agree. "No vote" sounds too much like "negative vote". "Abstain" is more concise. —Neotarf (talk) 06:53, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually "not voting" would appear to be the least confusing term here ... and should not require a third column, if a person votes neither "yes" nor "no" then the software should be able to figure out that the person did not vote on that issue. Collect (talk) 13:15, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Description of ranking in results

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013#Results says "The tally ranks candidates by level of support, defined as the number of votes cast in support of the candidate divided by the total number of votes cast for the candidate ("Abstain" preferences are not counted)." "Level of support" is vague, but it is then defined clearly; but then nowhere in this prose is it mapped to column in the table called "Percentage". And the denominator of that calculation is poorly explained as well: "votes cast for the candidate" (my emphasis) means "support" in lay language (synonymous with the numerator), not "support and oppose". Clearer wording might be "level of support among those who expressed an opinion about the candidate (the percentage of 'for' votes out of the 'for' and 'against' total)". DMacks (talk) 05:10, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Well yes, I'd picked this up immediately, but held back because I've already made a pig of myself in a thread above on this issue. I also don't think the values in that column should be appended with a % sign. Percentage of what? I suppose it's S as a percentage of S+O, which disregards the real level of support for each candidate among the voters—this is a much lower figure, but is a true representation if someone is thinking of ascribing "mandate". Only one candidate—28bytes—gained the support of more than half of the voters. That doesn't bother me, but let's not fool ourselves by ascribing bloated "levels of support" from that formula, expressed as a simple percentage. Again, people voted neutral and oppose for various reasons, some of them purely strategic to advantage the supports they'd chosen (a rational method, IMO). Tony (talk) 05:24, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Re: "Percentage of what?" - it says so immediately below the table, in note 3. And of course it should have a % sign, because it *is* a percentage. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:51, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Pretty abstract for most punters to understand; it's just a mathematical construct. We could capture the "don't care" factor too—the neutrals—because who wants arbs people don't actually feel like supporting, even if they don't oppose? What about multiplying by the square-root of the neutrals, then? Tony (talk) 14:06, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Not at all abstract, because as is explicitly explained everywhere the winning candidates are those with the highest percentage of support votes out of the total votes supporting and opposing. Despite your repeated attempts to obfuscate the issue, the abstain votes have no relevance to who gets elected - there were 23 individual votes taking place here, each of which you could support or oppose. If you didn't want to take part in one vote you didn't have to. David Gerard was not elected on a turnout of 646, LFaraone was elected on a turnout of 400. If you want abstains to have any effect you need gain consensus to change the electoral system next year. Thryduulf (talk) 14:26, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

It's precisely-defined arithmetic - the very opposite of "abstract" -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:30, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't see Tony as arguing against the legitimacy of the S/(S+O) formula as the metric by which the results of the election are calculated; rather, he is attacking the relevance of that metric as the best measure of the electoral mandate of the candidates (presumably in an attempt to have the metric changed in future years). It's important that we recognise, both in discussion and in the wording of the results page, that that metric stands for this election regardless of what individuals or consensus feels about it in the future. As such I've rewritten the disputed intro somewhat; are people satisfied with that new version? Happy‑melon 14:42, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

If that is what Tony is arguing (and I think you might be right) then he's doing so in the wrong place as it comes across to me at least as disputing the S/S+O metric's relevance to this election. The place to discuss voting systems for next year is next year's RFC. In the meanwhile there is this year's feedback page, which should (at least I intend to, and Carcharoth seems to intend to) be referenced at the start of planning for next year. Perhaps an essay page where he can clearly express his views and preferred alternatives and would allow the arguments to be refined between now and then would be beneficial too? I've tweaked your wording slightly to link to the RFC where this metric was chosen for this year as "established metric" seems a little weak imho. Thryduulf (talk) 15:08, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I think that it would be pretty hard to change the system. Our current method is not only used for ArbCom elections. It is also used for RfAs, RfBs, et cétera all across the English Wikipedia and most WIkimedia projects. However, if we want, we could use the proper electoral system and evaluate this approach: you can only select as much candidates as seats are available, and those with the highest number of votes get elected. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 15:43, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

The system described by Hahc21 above is also known as the General ticket, and was in use until the middle of the 19th century to elect US congressman, and in New York State to elect state senators and assemblymen. Apparently some people found fault with it, and it has been replaced with other systems in the English-speaking part of the world... Kraxler (talk) 17:04, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Your statement isn't exactly correct. The system Hahc referred to is known as plurality at large voting and is still used to this day in at large elections. The general ticket system you described is no longer used because Congress mandated that all U.S. House districts be single member districts, instead of at large districts. (FWIW I would support moving to such a system because I prefer using a system used in the real world instead of the support/oppose system, which makes more sense in a process like RFX than it does with private balloting.) Hot Stop 19:11, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. The system I described is used in every single country that has elections to this day. I've never heard of a presidential election were you could vote for more than one candidate; or if you have a council election, you cannot cast more votes that seats available. I believe that we could test this model and see if it works for next year's elections. Like Risker said, we can have an RfC about this by the end of February to make sure we can make the needed modifications to SecurePoll or have the time enough to create a new extension (or voting interface, which could be easier than touching SP) in the case this (or any other suggestion, for that matter) gets approved. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 19:40, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm going to point out that there are very, very few elections in "democratic" countries that are deliberately intended to result in multiple winners who will have equal responsibility and authority. The voting methodology that comes closest to those systems is approval voting, multiple winner variation - something that this community has explicitly turned down because it offers no opportunity to oppose candidates the voter believes could be harmful.

Having worked a lot with SecurePoll over the past few years, I'm hardly a fan of it; however, any replacement system that is developed requires extensive testing, a great deal of care to ensure that it interacts appropriately with MediaWiki and is accepted by the Engineering Department as they will need to pull the voter lists for it. It would also need to be able to work for multi-project elections such as the Board elections. This isn't an easy fix, it will require devoted and focused developer time, plus the assistance of mathematical specialists and programmers to test the voting software. Risker (talk) 19:48, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I think "used in every single country that has elections" is a bit strong, unless you mean the effectively meaningless "someone, somewhere, elects some group"; but it's certainly widely used. SecurePoll has an "approval" ballot type which allows checkbox voting; it would require a little modification to permit a limit on the number of allowable checks. I'm not passing any judgement on the merits of such a voting system; only that it would be easily technically possible. Happy‑melon 19:53, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Since tactical voting is in vogue, such a change would leave most seats on arbcom unfilled. --Guerillero | My Talk 21:15, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Any change or replacement of the existing ArbCom election method is going to have to make it reasonably clear that the chosen winners have community support. I believe this means voters must be given the option of explicitly opposing candidates; otherwise, there will be no real way of determining how many (if any at all) of the candidates really do have the backing of the community (as opposed to merely getting the most votes).

I do think, though, that the current S/(S+O) ranking has serious problems. Tony1 makes a reasonable point when he questions how meaningful these "support percentages" really are. And we run a risk here of electing someone who has very little support but also virtually no opposition (i.e., a very low S, but an even smaller O).

I would propose a new system where people could vote just as they do now, but instead of ranking candidates per S/(S+O), the winners would be the candidates with the most "support" votes — and with the additional rule that anyone with more "oppose" than "support" votes (i.e., a negative "net" score) would be eliminated and skipped over. This would make the system much simpler — easy to understand and (presumably) to accept — while still allowing voters to register meaningful opposition to candidates they might consider to be really bad news.

This modified system would not require any changes to SecurePoll; the only difference would be in the way the winners are selected. To see what I mean, take the existing results and re-sort the candidates in descending order by "support" votes. The hypothetical results in my proposed modification would be almost the same as the official results — except that Guerillero would have been elected instead of LFaraone, and the one-year seat would have gone to Guerillero instead of Beeblebrox. (I would still not have won a seat under this modified scheme. ) Again, anyone with a negative "net" score would be eliminated from consideration regardless of their level of support; if more seats needed filling in this hypothetical scenario, the next winners in order would be LFaraone, RegentsPark, Ks0stm (skipping David Gerard and me because of our negative "net" scores), and Gamaliel.

I also agree that we should start planning seriously for any needed or desired changes sooner, rather than later, so that there will be enough time to reimplement the voting software if required. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 00:13, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure what problem that would be solving. I went back and looked at how the four previous elections would have been affected by your scenario. As with this year, it would result at most one (and in one year, zero) arbitrators being elected who were not elected under the current system. In NONE of the years (including this year) would anyone have been "skipped" over due to getting more opposes than supports. Leaving aside order-switching and switching between one and two-year terms, here is what difference it would have made: In 2009, AGK gets elected instead of KnightLago. (Though interestingly enough, if there had been one more seat, FredBauder and Cla68 would have been skipped over with less than 50%, with Wehwalt getting the last seat.) In 2010, Sandstein gets elected instead of Jclemens. In 2011, there is no difference (except for a swap of one-year vs. two-year between Jclemens and SilkTork.) In 2012, Elen of the Roads gets elected instead of David Fuchs. What does all this mean? Maybe it means your scenario gives a slight advantage to someone who is "controversial", but not so controversial that their support percentage falls below 50%. Some people might see that as a good thing, others not. But the main point is that it would not really make a very big difference. Neutron (talk) 00:53, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

(ec) Unless I am mistaken, "approval voting" (with secret balloting) was used in the first two ArbCom elections, in 2004. (I was not around then, but I have read about it.) After a series of discussions in 2005, this system was replaced by the support/oppose system with open voting for the January 2006 election. (The secret ballot was adopted for the December 2009 election, but still with support/oppose voting.) Before we go too far down the road of "approval voting" (or the more real-world-like system where you vote for a number of candidates equal to or less than the number of available seats, and those with the most votes win), we ought to explore why that system was abandoned. I think it probably had something to do (as I think Risker is suggesting) with people wanting successful candidates to have "community support", independent of how a candidate stacks up against the other candidates. I am a little surprised that the idea of approval voting is coming back up; in the past few RfC's (though not this year's) the most popular alternative to the current system was some form of "preference voting", though it didn't go very far, partly because its proponents never really identified a specific system. As I have said in the past, I would not mind seeing an experiment with Single transferable vote, but I doubt it would get a consensus once people understood that it is designed to elect some candidates who would not get majority support under the current system (meaning, they would get more "opposes" than "supports".) Neutron (talk) 00:24, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Your proposal is certainly much better than actually using the formula as the sole determinant, and I'd support it if there were no other likely prospect of change. But the question remains as to why voters tick oppose—for multiple reasons, not all to do with their opposition per se to a candidature. By now we're all familiar with "strategic oppose voting" as an approach to maximise the power of one's supports. Why are you so set on building in this negativism, even the barrier of 50? Support is support, I say. If you don't support a candidate, just don't tick support. Binary, not ternary. If more voters oppose than support a candidate, who's to say that many of those voters weren't just advantaging their favoured few (as I and—anecdotally—many others did)? Neutron, you hypothesise that back in the rather crude days of 2005, the simple, widely used system was dispensed with because (some) people argued that "successful candidates [should have] have "community support", independent of how a candidate stacks up against the other candidates [in support votes]". So we got a system where community "support" is defined by how a candidate stacks up against the other candidates in terms of support and oppose votes. It's just another, more complex and flawed way of defining "community support", oddly embracing "support" in negative terms. And let's not forget that one fatal flaw is that the voting intensity is brought into play for each candidate: if a candidate is widely disregarded with neutrals, in particular, 20 supports, 15 opposes, and 888 neutrals gives them a formula ranking of 57.1%. What kind of community support is that? It's an extreme example, but potentially plays out at higher numbers, too. So concerned about this scenario were those who ran the WMF Board of Trustees (including Risker) that they introduced a special "floor" to prevent it. Tony (talk) 03:01, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Neutron that if we are to change voting systems (which I'm not sure is necessary) STV is the best option. The major problem I see with it, however, is its complexity. In the first place, I'm not sure whether SecurePoll is equipped to provide a ballot that allows ranking all the candidates in order. And even if it is, it will quite likely be unable to perform the calculations required to determine the quota and distribute surplus and excluded preferences. Plus there isn't just one version of STV. We would have to decide whether to use the Hare quota, the Droop quota, the Imperiali quota or the reinforced Imperiali quota. We'd also have to choose between the random subset, Hare, Cincinnati, Wright, Hare-Clark and Gregory methods for distributing surplus votes, plus the Meek, Warren and Wright methods for dealing with secondary preferences for prior winners. Not to mention whether to use bulk exclusions and whether the single transaction, segmented transaction or iterative count approaches to distribution of excluded candidates' preferences should be used. In short, STV is a good system, but really complicated. Neljack (talk) 06:31, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

To quote Einstein, I think the ArbCom election system should be "as simple as possible, but no simpler". Choosing the N candidates who get the most votes is really simple, and I think we should aim for this approach except to the extent (if any) that there are compelling reasons not to.

At the same time, there do appear to be good reasons why we need some indication that arbs have a tangible measure of community support (as opposed to just being the N candidates who got the most votes). For example, when the WMF was asked whether non-admin arbs (if any were elected) would be granted access to private data, they agreed to do this because they accepted victory in an ArbCom election as indicating a degree of community support comparable to passing at RfA — and it's reasonable to speculate (though I do admit it is only speculation) that a major factor in this decision was the existence of both "support" and "oppose" options in the ArbCom voting process. Additionally, I understand Jimbo has said he will not appoint arbs who don't get a net "support" in an election — another reason why we probably do need to continue offering voters the opportunity to explicitly oppose as well as support candidates.

I understand, as well, that some people have expressed concern about the possibility of ArbCom getting filled with unqualified, harmful candidates if the election process were solely a matter of who could get the most support. I'm not fully convinced that the existence of an "oppose" option really addresses this concern — a mob of voters supporting a "bad" candidate could, after all, vote to oppose all the "good" candidates just as easily as supporters of "good" candidates could vote to oppose "bad" candidates — but it is an issue that probably does need to be addressed somehow, hopefully in conjunction with an analysis of the various reasons why people do vote to oppose candidates as opposed to simply abstaining.

In my opinion, single-transferrable-vote (or any other complex preferential voting system) would unduly complicate the ArbCom election process to no good end. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 19:21, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I think STV would probably produce a "better" ArbCom - or at least, one more representative of the community - but I agree that the benefits probably would be outweighed by the complexity of the system. That includes all the wrangling that would have to go into deciding the "detail issues" mentioned by Neljack, only a fraction of which I understand. And that would be another problem with it - because only a very small number of people really understand all that stuff, the decisions that would affect who gets elected would be made by the same tiny fraction of the community. And then when the election was over, very few people would understand why Candidate A was elected instead of Candidate B. So it's not going anywhere - but I don't agree that it would be "to no good end." It would be good, just not good enough to counterbalance the disadvantages. Neutron (talk) 23:41, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Does electing half of ArbCom at each election cause too much disruption?

Firstly, congratulations to the winners of the election. Secondly, this election made me wonder whether we're currently going about things the right way. Is it right that we currently put half of ArbCom up for election every year? For understandable reasons, the rate of arbitrators running for re-election is low, which means at every election, we get a bunch of new ones and almost half of ArbCom is made up of new arbitrators. I have little experience of ArbCom myself, but it strikes me that that must be pretty disruptive to its running every year, with so many new arbs having to learn the ropes at once.

I understand the previous system elected one third of ArbCom every three years, but this was changed because three-year terms were felt to be too long. What about if we instead kept the terms at two years, but elected one-quarter of arbitrators every six months? That would mean holding elections twice as often, but only one-quarter of ArbCom would change at each one, creating greater continuity in the committee. Or would more frequent elections be more disruptive overall?

I'd be particularly interested to hear from current and former arbitrators, and others who have experience dealing with ArbCom, on whether more frequent elections would be a good or bad idea. Robofish (talk) 01:25, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Having recently looked through the history of ArbCom elections, the turnouts and the history of the candidates who were elected, I already feel like the pool of potential arbitrators is already diluted (no offense to those recently elected). Having more frequent elections is only going to result in us electing someone unfit to be an arbitrator and more members of ArbCom to be ousted because of outcomes to tough cases. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 01:37, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

• I never thought I would say this, but I think the 3-year terms actually worked better. We still (re)elected about half the committee each time, but there was a little bit more depth in the ability to carry out knowledge transfer. I'm currently in the process of "on-boarding" new arbitrators, and it's a lot more work than meets the eye: I have a spreadsheet to track who needs access to what and it has 20 columns (including notes, confirmation of email, confirmation that ID was submitted). That doesn't count updating pages and preparing knowledge transfer documents all over the place. One election a year is enough for everyone. Risker (talk) 02:08, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Elections are stressful. I don't think elections every six months is a solution. Also, while three year terms might have meant lower turnover, that is quite a commitment to make and look at arbitrators who can't serve out two years, much less three. Looking over the elected new arbitrators, I know almost all of their names which means that they already have quite a presence on Wikipedia. There are not newbies getting elected here, most of these folks have been on WP for years. Yes, they need to familiarize themselves with the ways of ARBCOM but I'm sure current arbitrators and ARBCOM clerks help orient the new arbitrators.

But above all, this is best a question that should be asked of past arbitrators...were they prepared? Was it hard to get up to speed? What helped? What was hard? Without information from editors who have actually been through the experience of coming aboard ARBCOM, it's all just speculation on what we think they are going through. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:30, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Liz, in brief, I'd say that almost every year something very big and potentially divisive hits in the first 6 weeks of a new committee's term. Some years, this helps the new team to come together and gel, and it results in a very productive committee. Other years, it results in a splintering of the committee that it can never quite overcome. And each year, new arbitrators have more and more past history to try to absorb and understand, as they're asked to amend or clarify cases from the past, or recurrent situations rooted in precedent. There's a lot to learn. Risker (talk) 06:03, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

As an outside observer, a big and divisive thing not occasionally strikes in the sour spot of the transition. Each transition seems to be (from an outsiders) perspective, an opportunity for profound mischief, so increasing the number of transitions can make that far worse. --Tznkai (talk) 19:52, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't think elections every six months would be practical because the turnover would be far too frequent, among other reasons. Risker's point about possibly going back to three-year terms is one that probably be considered heading into the next election. I'm somewhat surprised it hasn't come up since the terms were changed in 2009. Hot Stop 03:17, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

As an off-the-top-of-my-head suggestion, would a longer transfer period help? i.e. instead of electing people for 2 year terms every 12 months, we elect people for 2 year 3 month terms every 12 months. This would mean a larger committee between December and March than the rest of the year but would allow a more seamless transfer. Majorities for accepting/declining a case would be calculated ignoring those in the final three months of their term. Thryduulf (talk) 10:08, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

There are two things I would suggest. The first is that the core election period should be April/May or May/June and the second is that the voting be designed to end no later than 4 weeks before the end of the previous committee's term. That way, neither the election nor the transition is competing with what, for most westerners, is a very busy social and work/school season. This is, of course, my personal opinion. Risker (talk) 12:51, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Responding to the original post, the Arbitration Committee elections each year take up an enormous amount of the community's time and effort. I don't think it's justifiable to further increase that commitment of our contributors' time and effort which is, at all times, our most important resource. A couple of years ago, when we were having periodic checkuser/oversight and AUSC member elections on top of the ArbCom elections, it became obvious to me that "elections fatigue" and diminishing returns were setting in. If we were to hold ArbCom elections more than annually, I fear that the same thing would occur here as well. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:11, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to those above for your replies. It's clear that there's no support for more frequent ArbCom elections. Other possibilities suggested above, like extending terms or changing the election time/transfer period, are things to possibly think about before the next round of elections. Robofish (talk) 21:17, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

• Risker, any chance you might write a guide for new arbitrators, extracted out of your spreadsheet and other materials. It could be recycled each year with minimal updating. It took years for us to write a guide for stewards who work on the auditing for the elections, but we finally got there thanks to valiant efforts by a few election officials. Tony (talk) 09:21, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

7% female arbitrators

In the future, I would like to see the number of women arbitrators meet or exceed the number of female editors, including by pre-allocation of female-only seats. EllenCT (talk) 05:33, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, it's pretty much at that level right now. You need to keep in mind that 50% of the women candidates for this role were elected, which is a much better percentage than can be said of just about any other "identifiable" group of candidates. If there are few women candidates, it's unlikely this proportion will change; it has been years since there were more than two women on the committee at any time, and last year I was the only one. This year, GorillaWarfare is it. Speaking as a woman who is just finishing 5 years on the committee and knows the nature and volume of work involved, I can say honestly that I see absolutely no value in "pre-allocation" of seats to individuals who can't otherwise get themselves elected. If they've got the skill set and they're willing to stand, women candidates generally do quite well, and are actually considerably more likely to be elected than male candidates. Risker (talk) 05:54, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, if we want more female arbitrators we need more female candidates, so the first question that needs answering here is "why are more female editors not standing for election?". Until we can answer that question, we wont know what needs to be done to increase their representation on the committee. As a starting point for that, I'd encourage any woman reading this to answer the following questions:

1. Why did you not stand for the Arbitration Committee this year?
2. What change(s) to the committee or the arbitration system would make you stand?

I don't expect that this will give anywhere near a representative sample or provide the answers. Certainly nothing suggested as an answer to 2 should blindly applied. This is just to get some idea of what we need to start looking into and to get some ideas to evaluate and discuss. Thryduulf (talk) 10:20, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, speaking as a female editor who a couple people urged to run this year: 1) I didn't run because I am already harassed quite enough (about my gender, my sexuality, and my topics of interest, as well as a number of other things that have little to do with being female) due to my Wikimedia participation, and painting a bigger target on my back is not something I'm inclined to do. 2) Any system in which arbitrators are "fair game" for abuse and harassment, either on-wiki or off, is going to put off female editors who think like I do (which, mind you, is not all of them). I don't have any ideas for how to cut down on the amount of abuse arbitrators take beyond "maybe start enforcing some level of civility?", but until something happens to limit the abuse/harassment, only a very, very particular personality, in a very, very particular life situation is going to be prepared to step into that role. My sense is that fewer women than men have that particular mindset and are in that particular life situation. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 14:59, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

The proposition as it stands is of course nonsense; "I would like to see the number of women arbitrators meet or exceed the number of female editors." However, assuming Ellen means a proportional representation, where does it end? How about ethnic minorities and disabled editors being "fairly represented"? I see no good case for affirmative action of any sort in a structure such as Arbcom. Remember, in a slightly different context, WP is not a democracy. Leaky Caldron 10:42, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

So given that we're not aiming to be a democracy, we might perceive that women (or some other group, though probably not the ones you mention) are typically better (than men) at dispute resolution, but typically more reluctant to stand in elections, and thus the project would benefit from some sort of action which encourages them to stand. W. P. Uzer (talk) 10:57, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

The ideal arbitration committee would represent the broad range of backgrounds of the community it serves. Geographically I don't think we're doing too badly, but the gender of the committee is disproportionately male. Ethnicity is a harder one, as what constitutes a minority is geographically dependent, as a white British person living in London I'm part of the ethnic majority, but if I were to move to India say I'd instantly become part of a minority. I don't support affirmative action to get anyone onto the committee, but when there is no limit to the number of candidates, encouraging under-represented groups to stand is imho a Good Thing. Before we can do that however we need to understand why they aren't standing at present. Thryduulf (talk) 11:23, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

My point would be, would it lead to better Arbcom. decisions? Typically a case reaches Arbcom. due to the failure of Alpha males to agree amongst each other and after other forms of dispute resolution have failed. How would injecting Alpha females at the Arbcom. level lead to "better" decisions? What is a "better" Arbcom. decision anyway? Most of the cases are straightforward, despite the ludicrously lengthy processes and pompous, posturing tone of their deliberations. Maybe alpha females generally would be less pompous and posturing. If so I would vote for them. Leaky Caldron 11:38, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't view the proposal as "nonsense". I once worked for a private consulting firm who elected its own board. We had several "inside limits" which over-rode the preferences that would otherwise arise from the voting. My recollection is that we required one board member to be younger than 40 years of age, and we had some geographical minimums by continent, to make sure we had geographical representation. I do not automatically rule out consideration of similar limits, although I can see potential for abuse. One mathematical note, I would urge that the limit be set below the proportionate representation, or problems can ensue. For example, if we decided, as a community, that there was value in having female representation, I would support a minimum that was below 7%, but not one that was effectively 7%. As an example of something I would consider supporting, I think a non-admin might be a useful addition to the committee, so would consider an inside limit that elects at least one non-admin, should any be qualified to run (possibly also requiring some minimum support.)--S Philbrick(Talk) 19:40, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

"I would like to see the number of women arbitrators meet or exceed the number of female editors." If not nonsense, it's nonsensical. Leaky Caldron 20:27, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

"Another victim of the manocentric male-ocracy!" GiantSnowman 20:30, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

@GiantI missed this jibe 2 days ago. Is it an attempt at humour, a veiled personal attack or intended to clarify something? Leaky Caldron 12:59, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

@Leaky caldron: - humour, of course. Your lack of good faith is disturbing. GiantSnowman 13:02, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

WP:AGF isn't a noose. Your reference to "manocentric male-ocracy" might suggest that I was referring to the OP's suggestion as nonsense because she appears to be a woman, whereas the reason I described it as nonsense is because, as it stands, it is nonsense. Or maybe you haven't read it thoroughly. Leaky Caldron 13:23, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

My comment - a quote from Futurama by the way - was in no way a response to you, hence why I out-dented it. For what it's worth, I fully agree with your feeling that this is nonsense - because it is. GiantSnowman 13:38, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

As I understand it, one of the nine arbitrators elected this year (and one of the eight elected to a full two-year term) is female. That's 11.11...% of the total elected this year and 12.5% of those elected to two-year terms. As of one year ago, two of the 15 arbitrators were women, which was 13.33% of the total. I also believe (though I can't prove) that if more women ran, more women would be elected. (There were only two female candidates this year, I believe.) So if 7% percent is your goal, the voters are capable of achieving that without any "allocation", and have done so. Also, isn't it clear to everybody that the under-representation of females on ArbCom is just a symptom of the larger issue of females choosing to edit Wikipedia at a much lower rate than males? Once that problem fixes itself, the rest should fall into place. Neutron (talk) 23:04, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

If you would like to see more female arbitrators elected, encourage qualified female candidates to run. Quotas are not a good idea. We cannot get more female candidates elected than ones who run. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:06, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I am female, voted for females, and miss a female I voted for last year, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:27, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I shall certainly miss the one who is leaving. But like I said, there can't be more than candidates. This year, we had two female candidates running. One was, well, something of an unusual candidacy that was highly unlikely to go anywhere, and the other one was elected handily. It's not like we have dozens running and only a few getting elected. To get elected, one must run in the first place. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 12:43, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

• You're very kind, Seraphimblade. :-) Realistically, though, there are many, many other things that affect the balance of the committee. In 2014, with the exception of one lone European, all of the arbitrators will come from the US or the UK; no Australians, Canadians, Africans, Asians, etc. There aren't a lot of members of the committee whose primary focus has been content improvement/development; the few who were once primarily content editors have been away from it for a while. There is a surfeit of members with technical expertise (most of whose skills I had no knowledge of beforehand!). But designating seats for geography, for gender identity or sex, for age, or for onwiki expertise is a mugs game. The encyclopedia risks having to accept someone who's not really the right fit simply because of their preferred categorization, or not getting an outstanding candidate because s/he came in second or third in the preferred categorization. Risker (talk) 20:05, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
• Let me see if I have this straight... There were two female candidates and twenty male candidates. Of those one female and eight males got elected. That is 50% of the female candidates and 40% of the male candidates. I'm not sure I'm seeing the problem here as stated that not enough females are being elected. It seems to me that females have a higher percentage of being elected than males. That being said, I would like to see a few more qualified females maybe run at the election next year, assuming of course that there are more qualified females that are willing to take a the nonsense complaints and agravations that accompanies such a position. Technical 13 (talk) 14:04, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

novel proposal

EllenCT and many others raise interesting points about what the committee ought to be, and how its composition ought be determined. Added: The list of queries below is not a catenation of desirable or undesirable attributes - it seeks to find which attributes the community finds should be given the greatest weight Collect (talk) 17:04, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

1. Ought its members be as close to the median of Wikipedia editors as possible (eliminating any who are far from the median) on all Wikipedia issues,
2. ought it be representative of the demographics of the Wikipedia community as nearly as practicable, or
3. ought it be representative of groups within the community on the basis of opinions regarding Wikipedia policies and practices, or
4. ought it reflect those who, regardless of any demographics, are best suited temperamentally and intellectually to make rulings congruent with the scope of the committee set forth in the policy establishing it?

Once the criteria have been determined, then we can possibly effect changes to make the results in accord with those criteria. At this point, folks who wish to be "Ruler of the Queen's Navee" appear to have the edge, but I do not think anyone has actually advanced that as a proper discriminant for members of that committee. And, of course, additions to the postulated four choices are absolutely welcome. Collect (talk) 13:36, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Is the (active) median Wikipedia editor an administrator?  Volunteer Marek  14:23, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I expect that the median Wikipedia editor is a schoolkid adding penis vandalism to his high-school article, unfortunately, so you'll need to adjust the baseline of who you think it should be representative of... :D Happy‑melon 14:28, 17 December 2013 (UTC)e

That's why I put the "(active)" in there. "Active" as in survives to make, say, 100 edits (though some define "active" as more than 5 edits, especially when the numbers of "active" editors isn't looking too good). Volunteer Marek  16:30, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Propose a wording for "choice 5" in that case -- which subcriteria ought to be added to make it more representative of your own opinion? Thanks. Collect (talk) 14:34, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

• What I hope arbitrators to be is people who look at facts with an open mind free of bias, - answer yourself if this describes the median Wikipedia editor, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:36, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but does that describe the *median administrator*? That's the more relevant question here. Volunteer Marek  16:31, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

"Ellen and many others raise interesting points about what the committee ought to be". Where? The small section above? Leaky Caldron 14:39, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Going back a ways even before this year -- even one proposal for "proportional representation" in the past, etc. Probably fifty editors or more have discussed such issues -- do you wish me to list them all? Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:14, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

OK: adding:

5 Ought its members be as close to the median of Wikipedia administrators as possible (eliminating any who are far from the median) on all Wikipedia issues?

6 Ought its members be those who approach all issues free of any bias or prejudgment, in accord with the scope of the committee, regardless of any editorial opinions they may have?

I think this addresses Happy and Gerda's posts -- if not, please edit them. Thanks. Collect (talk) 14:43, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I am not a fan of the Arbcom and there needs to be reform here but this doesn't make sense even to me. First we have enough trouble getting people to do this, by making it even harder we are guaranteeing that any candidates would be those who have carefully managed their wikicareer. I personally don't want more bureaucrats than we already have on Arbcom. The second problem with this is that the language "eliminating any who are far from the median" is too vague. What does that mean? Too Americanized? Not enough? Must be Catholic? Fond of cats and kids? It doesn't tell us anything and we have enough problems with extremism in this project in regards to politics and religion especially. Why does it need to be an admin, there are plenty of non admins fit for the task of Arbitrator. In fact I would argue that the committee should be part administrator, part regular editor and at least a couple members from the Foundation. Maybe someone like Maggie from the community liaison section. The committee should be a representation of all parties and stakeholders. The next problem is the demographic argument. We don't need to be appointing by statistic. We need the most qualified people (not that we have those now mind you). We should not be appointing based on race, gender, religion, diet or some other equally "arbitrary" cultural subgrouping. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 16:22, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

The proposed choices or queries are not catenated -- they are separate issues to see and discuss exactly what we want ArbCom members to be. It is clearly impossible for anyone to think they meet every possible criterion -- but unless we know which criteria the community deems important, the idea that we can "improve the election process" is risible <g>. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:36, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

What specific, identifiable problem with Arbcom. - past, present & future - does this novel proposal intended to address? It sets out a list of desirable attributes, but what is the definition of "the problem", please? Leaky Caldron 16:57, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I commend you to read the whole dang talk page above. And the proposal does not list "desirable attributes." It asks which attributes the community assigns or ought to assign the greatest weights to. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:59, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Most of this talk page has nothing to do with the structure of the AC and attributes for being a member of it. Leaky Caldron 17:07, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I actually agree with both of you. In collect's defense Arbcom and the Arbitration process needs a makeover (along with other areas of Wikipedia), but I also agree with Leaky that before we start coming up with solutions we need to identify what the problems are. Are some of the things mentioned above problems, yes I think we can agree that most are. Not enough women, sure I think we could agree with that but that is a problem throughout the project, not just here. Do we need a wider demographic? I think we will all agree that would be good too, but how do we get there. None of these are problems with the committee or the process though. There are a lot or those so what we need to do is identify the core requirement for the committee. Are we meeting that (not really in my opinion), are we straying to far from that mandate (I believe it is), is it fair (no not really), are the cases managed fairly and appropriately (no not really), does Arbcom followup to ensure the cases are being enforced fairly (no not at all), it takes to long, its heavily biased towards admins over reguler editors, etc. This doesn't even include that Admins have to be brought before arbcom to be desysopped which I think is a waste of time and unnecessarily burdeonsome. So as you can see there are quite a few areas where we need to improve the process. If we can get more women involved and expand the demographic (which I'm not even sure what the demographics are frankly) that's great but I don't think its a critical problem. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 19:24, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

The community is made up of many people with their own views on this. I think the arbs we get is already the aggregate opinion of said community members. Resolute 19:49, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. I would add that this kind of discussion is really one that would make more sense within a political party; what should be the attributes of the candidates we nominate? In some places, this is done overtly; in some countries where elections are done by "party list", Party X might have a rule that Candidate #2 must be of a different gender than Candidate #1, at least one of the Top 5 must be 35 or under, and at least one must be 65 or older, no more than 6 of the Top 10 can be of the same gender, and so on and so forth. But Wikipedia does not have a party system (whether there are factions that could be called "parties" is a different story, but the elections are not organized along those lines.) In the electorate as a whole, however, I don't see where this discussion is going. It doesn't really mean anything in the abstract, meaning, without candidates to match with the attributes. And as Resolute suggests, in an actual election, the voters look at the attributes of the candidates, at least so far as those attributes are disclosed, and the aggregate of the voters' individual decisions decides who is elected. Neutron (talk) 23:23, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Voter demographics

In light of some discussions at Jimbo's page, has anyone done, or is anyone willing to do some analysis of the voters in the election? I'd be interested to know the percentage of admins/active admins/'crats/Active 'crats/active non-admin editors that voted. I'd also be interested to know what proportion of votes were cast by editors who have ever been named in an ArbCom case.--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:06, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I think i could do this, but it will take a while.... — ΛΧΣ²¹ 20:26, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't see a rush, but if there is any debate about turnout, it might be useful to have some stats. Unlike Political elections, where the ratio of votes to voters is unambiguous, and has meaning, it is more complicated here, so i think categories such as these would be useful.--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:48, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

No rush from me either ΛΧΣ, but I was wondering if you could also get a time/vote chart to see at what rate the votes were coming in and if maybe the election was run too short of a period of time. Based on what I read of that above linked discussion, there are some that think that 900 votes in two weeks wasn't enough time for a majority to get a chance to vote, and if the rate of votes per hour supports that, perhaps it would be appropriate to offer the election for a longer period next year? Technical 13 (talk) 13:45, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

900 people could have voted in 2 hours if they had wanted. 20,000 could have voted in 2 weeks. Voting is optional, reminders are displayed. People vote if they want, when they want. The entire election process is already too long. Extending the voting period would be akin to Parkinson's Law. Leaky Caldron 13:55, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Technical 13: I think I could do that. Although, Leaky has a point. I think that we could just follow Risker's advice and move the elections to another period of the year, since a lot of users are on holidays when elections take place. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 15:16, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't see what relevance votes-per-hour would have to whether the voting period was long enough. It's not like people were queuing up at a polling station and got turned away when the time ran out. Happy‑melon 15:35, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Leaky caldron, they could have all voted in the first two hours, in which case would there be any need to keep the election open for two weeks? They could have all voted in the last two hours, in which case, perhaps a more aggressive form of advertising the election may be appropriate and maybe if there had been two more hours we'd have 1,800 voters instead of 900... Without the data, there are just way too many possibilities to speculate, so I propose we just wait and see what the data ΛΧΣ returns with indicates. Thanks! Technical 13 (talk) 17:32, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

You're looking for evidence of a problem that doesn't exist. Thanks! Leaky Caldron 17:41, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Well that doesn't rely on painstaking analysis of voter demographics, you can get that just from the list of timestamps on the ballot list. Broadly, 10% of the votes are in the first two hours, 33% in the first day, then there's pretty much a perfect exponential decay curve until the final day, when the final 10% of votes come in in the last 12 hours. Absolutely nothing remarkable, IMO. Happy‑melon 17:58, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

ACE 2013 voter evaluation table #1

Okay, so I got the first piece of data together. According to what I did gather by now, most people vote on the first and last day of the elections. 304 users (or 33%) casted their first vote (only the first timestamp is considered for my studies) on 26 November, whereas 118 (12.78%) did so on 9 December. This represents 422 out of 923 votes (or 45.72%), and it means that almost half of the votes were accomplished in two of the fourteen days available to vote (or 14.28% of the time available to vote). If we add 27 November, which is the third and only day left with more than 100 votes, we'd have 524 votes (or 56.7%). A lot of additional conclusions could be drawn from the graphic at the right. Cheers. — ΛΧΣ^{21 Call me Hahc21} 22:55, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

If there was a quota, should it match editors or readers?

The reaction to my proposal makes me wish that I had proposed that the quota, if there ever is one, would meet the reader demographics if not meet or exceed the editor demographics towards the reader demographics. EllenCT (talk) 00:36, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

There should not be a quota. Period. Nobody at all has demonstrated that Arbcom is better or worse depending on any of the demographics that have been batted around. In fact, one could argue that rejection of good candidates because they don't fit into some specific demographic would make Arbcom worse. Arbcom isn't intended to be representative of any group other than those that experienced editors consider capable of managing disputes in relation to Wikipedia. It is not a governing body. It is not an exercise in democracy, and it's definitely not there for political correctness. Risker (talk) 01:03, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Risker's view on this issue, as expressed here and elsewhere on this page. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:08, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

How is it possible to demonstrate that arbcom is better or worse depending on whether its demographics match readers without an arbcom with demographics that match readers? There is only one way to find out. EllenCT (talk) 01:11, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I'll be completely blunt. Quota systems encourage the practice of placing inferior candidates ahead of those more qualified. When you're electing based on gender, skin colour, religion, ethnicity, etc. before capability, then you will not end up with a better committee. Resolute 01:19, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

On the contrary, "males are somewhat less likely to reach agreements than females."[11] Testosterone has consequences. EllenCT (talk) 01:32, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

That has nothing to do with the work of the Arbitration Committee; appeals to authority, particularly authority that does not speak to the issue at hand, is a false logic. I think you need to understand the work of the committee before you start proposing to change its makeup. Risker (talk) 02:04, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I am very interested in your reasons for saying so. EllenCT (talk) 02:19, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I say so for the same reason that I would have no faith in the ability of someone to build a better internal combustion engine if they had not bothered to figure out what an internal combustion engine is supposed to do. Risker (talk) 02:38, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually -- a slightly false position. The key to reasonable quota systems depends on looking at the universe of qualified people for the task -- and determining what the percentages are within that universe. Then the number of positions must be sufficient to allow for multiple subgroups -- say a "jury universe" for Wikipedia editors of about 100 would allow for any subgroup chosen in accord with "quotas" to be attainable. This means, moreover, that if (say) 20 out of the hundred individuals were to be used for a given case, that if one group were underrepresented in the group of 100, that they would then be proportionately more likely to serve in the group of 20. Would it be an improvement? No one really knows -- but it is a possible route to take. Collect (talk) 01:28, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Precisely. Perhaps there is an advantage to having at least twice as many statisticians on the committee as are present in the readership or editing community. Again, there is only one way to find out. EllenCT (talk) 01:32, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

We've been trying to get through to the community for years that case work is only about half of the work of the committee. On what basis do you think that jury pools are going to handle the rest of the stuff? Before arguing for a system like this, it would be far more useful to everyone in the community, including the arbitration committee, to figure out how to return some of those tasks (in particular, block/ban reviews of community or single-admin blocks/bans) to the community. Perhaps more importantly, I don't see any indication that there is a problem this proposal is trying to solve, nor any indication that the solution is solving an actual, demonstrable problem rather than a hypothetical one. Risker (talk) 01:44, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I was addressing a possible concern expressed above by others. Is there only one single perfect way to choose arbitrators - or is the current system now hallowed? The clear solution is to discuss the possible choices and the reasons each one may be good or bad -- not to say "we hare already at perfection" <g>. I have specifically not stated that one specific course is ideal - I seek to facilitate reasoned discussion on the options for the future as best I can. à bientôt Collect (talk) 01:52, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I doubt the current system is hallowed, but I think you need more than "we should do this because we can" before change is likely. But I will reiterate that I will never support a system that makes competence a secondary attribute. Resolute 03:31, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Request

Congratulations to the new Arbitrators. Could I request, please, that each of the winners contact me via e-mail with a snail mail address to which I can send an envelope bulging with untraceable US $100 bills, just in case I ever need to influence their decisions in the future?

(Just a joke, obviously, what I really want to send is the business card of my uncle, Benny "Two Eyes" Ken, who's in the import/export business here in NYC, and can get you very good deals on stuff that somehow falls off the truck during shipping. He's a really sweet guy who hasn't been soured by his occasional time upstate.) Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:26, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Don't trust him, I have seen this movie before.:-) Kumioko. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 04:32, 20 December 2013 (UTC)