User:Tazerdadog/ACE2017

Welcome to my guide to the Arbitration Committee 2017 elections. I will be casting the following vote for Arbcom:

The above ballot has been ranked in order from highest to lowest support - Opabinia regalis is my top choice, Alex Shih is my last candidate in, and Premeditated Chaos is my first candidate out. Nothing in here should be considered a judgement on any of these users beyond the scope of this election.

Strategic Voting
While I wish this wasn't a thing, unfortunately it is. To maximize the impact of your ballot overall, you should not cast a vote of "Neutral" for any candidate. Suck it up and make a decision. Secondly, the overall power of your ballot is maximized when you cast a number of supports equal to the number of open seats. This rule is less important than the preceding one, and deviating by one or two here is not a disaster. Just stay close to 8 supports, and you're fine.

Categorizing the candidates
The candidates break pretty cleanly in my mind into four major categories.

The shoo-ins
The following users will make great arbitrators, and everyone seems to know it:


 * 1) Opabinia regalis
 * 2) Callanecc
 * 3) KrakatoaKatie
 * 4) RickinBaltimore

The candidates who ought to be shoo-ins
These candidates will make great arbitrators, but not everyone has gotten the memo yet.


 * 1) BU Rob13
 * 2) SMcCandlish
 * 3) Worm That Turned

The genuinely difficult decisions
These candidates are on the bubble. One or two of them are likely to get a seat, while one or two will not. These are the votes you need to take your time and do your homework on. I chose Alex Shih out of this group because his comments always seemed particularly insightful to me. If you value gender diversity highly, Premeditated Chaos is a fine choice. If you value institutional knowledge highly, take a chance on Mailer diablo.


 * 1) Alex Shih
 * 2) Premeditated Chaos
 * 3) Mailer diablo

Just say no
These candidates have fundamental problems with their candidacy


 * 1) The Rambling Man
 * 2) Sir Joseph
 * 3) SarekOfVulcan (withdrawn)
 * 4) A Den Jentyl Ettien Avel Dysklyver (disqualified)

Candidate responses
I'd like to extend an invitation for any arbcom candidate to make a reply of up to 100 words here to anything I've said in this guide.

Reply from WTT
Thank you User:Tazerdadog, your comments regarding adoption and my influence there, mean an awful lot to me. I am extremely glad that I influenced an editor to stay and be productive, however indirectly. It's a shame adoption doesn't get to show off its success stories like this - I do think I need to go back and see what my adoptees have got up to - though it was so long ago, I doubt many are still about :/ One point on the rest of your comment though, I remained on Arbcom for a full term, you might be mixing me up with Hersfold, another great adopter. WormTT(talk) 08:01, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Fixed, thank you. Tazerdadog (talk) 08:38, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Happy voting. Tazerdadog (talk) 05:23, 26 November 2017 (UTC)