User:Barkeep49/ACE

As I write this on Christmas Eve 2020, I have run for ArbCom twice. I did so unsuccessfully my first time, missing out by like 13 votes, and successfully my second time. Unlike RfA, I have seen a lot less community thought go into what makes for a successful arbitrator candidate and since I have just gone through the process twice, and because I'm prone to reflection anyway, I'm going to steal a cue from Tyler Cowen and write about what I think is underrated and overrated about ACE and ArbCom. By writing this I might in some way change the community perception which is why I noted in my opening words when I am writing these thoughts. Or I might just be writing for myself - that's OK too because putting things into words helps to sharpen my thinking.

2022 update: I updated this to reflect some small changes in thinking after the 2021 ACE results.

2023 update: Updated after thinking about the ACE 2022 results. A merge of extended candidate statements into a new entry (running to win) and a change to the guide section though not the conclusion that they're overrated.

Unhappy people at the Arbitration noticeboard
Massively overrated. Every year a number of people make comments to the effect of how this committee is the worst one ever (or in a number of years) and how they're going to make sure no arb on that committee ever gets elected again. I think most of the community is, even with relatively unpopular committees, pretty happy with the job Arbs do on the whole. But some people are unhappy with a given ArbCom decision while others are just perpetually unhappy with ArbCom. Those editors come out at ACN using among the strongest rhetoric we see onwiki. And since there's not a lot of incentive for the happy people to invite grief from the angry people, it's mostly the angry voices that get heard. And then, in the end, basically every incumbent who runs for re-election gets re-elected. Instead the nasty rhetoric just makes life a little less pleasant for the Arbs and likely means that a number of arbs just don't run again, which in some way is its own victory, I suppose, for those upset people. On the positive side it is important that some arbs don't stand for re-election because the Arbitrator class is already too calcified in my opinion; it's important for there to be "open" slots for new people (like me right now) to have a chance.

Candidate statements
Massively underrated. When I spent time this year ahead of a potential candidacy really trying to figure out what separated winning candidates from losing ones over the past 10 or so years, one thing that I really honed in on was the candidate statement. It is probably the one thing that nearly every voter is going to read, which is backed up by the viewing stats. I would go so far as to say that my somewhat apologetic and self-derogatory statement in 2019 was the difference, in a close election, between me being elected and not. Especially in comparison to the upbeat, inspirational statment of the person who finished just above me in the results Bradv. I think they also explains a lot of why some people who might seem "more qualified" (e.g. a former arb) finish below those with fewer qualifications (e.g. me last year with only a few months of actual admin experience but who did take the statement seriously warts and all).

Running to win
Underrated. Both times I've run, I've tried to run to win. That means focusing on what I write about here: I put a lot of time into my statement, I prominently note my content work, and in my re-election emphasized my candidacy. It also meant taking advantages of other edges I could find, including an extended candidate statement, or what I call my platform. Despite my success in 2020, as of 2022 I remain the only candidate in modern arbcom history to take advantage of this rule. I think too many candidates run to "say something" about ArbCom in general, or a specific ArbCom decision (or two), or about the community. A run during ArbCom certainly gives those candidates widespread exposure to do that but I think the community is less interested in that than candidates who genuinely want to become arbs and who campaign accordingly. That's not to say that candidates pushing a viewpoint don't want to become arbs, just that their motivation for running is different, that the campaign process reveals that difference and that difference is noticed by the community.

Candidate questions
Overrated. They get relatively few views, especially when you consider that each question is going to produce at least 3 views: the editor posting the question, the candidate answering it, and the editor returning to read the answer. However, the questions are also an important means of accountability for candidates and so if some otherwise promising candidate were to ever basically skip answering them I would hope to be proven wrong and see that candidate punished in the results.

Viability of non-admin candidates
Underrated. If there is one piece of conventional wisdom around ACE, it's that no non-admin candidate stands a chance of getting elected. I think there's no question that a non-admin face an electoral penalty. This isn't surprising because many of our voters are relatively low information voters and being an administrator (or not) is an easy qualification to assess. However, I think this penalty has been overrated because of the non-admin candidates who've chosen to run. They have been, from what I've seen, all been candidates who have had unsuccessful RfAs. This means, regardless of what you think about RfA, that some segment of informed voters have already found fault with those candidates for some reason. My hypothesis is that if L235 had run for ArbCom in 2020, in some parallel universe where he'd never gotten admin or CUOS, he would have still been elected based on his visibility as ArbCom clerk and general skills, demeanor, and disposition, albeit not with the 77% support he got. I think there are probably non-admins who could probably get elected if they ever ran (and ran in the "right year" in terms of number of available seats and strength of candidates). But many/most of those people would also pass RfA and there's probably a reason they've never done that either.

Candidate's qualifications as shown on the generic candidate guide
Properly rated. The community has shown that if you're a crat and want to run for ArbCom you'll get elected. If we're going to have crats, and I'm open to the idea that we should just abolish them, I think they should be a separate set of people from arbs. It's just not great, in my opinion, to concentrate so much authority, both formal and informal, in a small group of people. But clearly the community doesn't agree with me there since they keep electing the crats who choose to run, and have chosen to make several ex-arbs crats. People who hold more permissions on that chart - admin (as already discussed), checkuser, oversight, and arbitrator experience - tend to do better. The one qualification that I think matters to voters that isn't listed on that chart is experience as an ArbCom clerk. Being a clerk, I suspect, sounds impressive to the average voter even if it isn't, in reality, experience that really helps prepare a person to become an arb.

Previous experience as an arb
Properly rated. Experience as an arb is seen as a good thing and arbs standing for re-election, whether consecutively or after some time away from the committee, do quite well in results.

Overrated. There is a big exception to the above are Arbs who've run unsuccessfully for re-election once before. Once that's happened there is some chance you could get re-elected, particularly in a large field, but the bigger trend seems to be a group of candidates who finish above the 60% threshold but not high enough in the rankings to actually get seated. The sample here is small enough that this could just be an illusion. But I suspect there's something here. Namely that the typical voter, who is relatively low information, votes for them based on their experience but there's enough of a group who dislike them as individuals to mean that others end up placing above them in the final results.

Candidate guides
Overrated. Boy do we spend a lot of time at ACE RfCs talking about guides. We probably just shouldn't worry about them so much. Instead I think the correct way to view them is that they can reflect overall community consensus but in a small sample. So if some candidate gets widespread support or opposition that reflects the community as a whole as a bit of polling but also as a bit of influence on voters who might skim all the guides. But for the majority of candidates who fall somewhere in the middle, getting some support and some opposition, they're just not all that useful for either influencing votes or for predicting who will win.

Candidate's content creation
Underrated. This content creation needs to be obvious to potential voters - either explicitly mentioned in candidate statements or clearly apparent on their user pages - but people seem to like it. Given that we're ultimately here to build an encyclopedia for our readers it's not too surprising that people who do serious writing are respected. I admit that I might just be misjudging the conventional wisdom on this and content creation is properly rated.

Personal experience with the candidates
Properly rated. I think the easiest way to get someone to vote for you is by doing good work onwiki that people notice. That's one other way that being a content creator is probably underappreciated. The easiest way for someone to oppose you is by doing something that they personally observe that upsets them, perhaps by being rude or ill considered. These personal experiences definitely matter. But there's a limit to that, especially because I hypothesize that the average voter is relatively uniformed and thus likely to have had personal experiences with only a small percentage of the candidates in any given field. I travel pretty widely onwiki, in terms of discussions I read and venues I frequent as an editor, and I still didn't know everyone who ran in either of my elections, including BDD who got elected alongside in 2020.

Conclusion
So I think that's everything. If there's some element of the election that I didn't cover and you want to know what I think, I'm happy to take suggestions on the talk page (and indeed have already added to this based on what's been written there).