User talk:GamerPro64/Archive 10

free-time, free-for-all
Hi Gamer, I too am working on the arb-report now, due to lack of time earlier... maybe if I type really fast, I'll work off some of those recently-acquired excess calories? :-)     Let me know if you want to divvy up the effort in some specific way.  I'm also happy to just jointly edit the arb-report on-the-fly.  Best, 75.108.94.227 (talk) 09:41, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, it is pretty close now. Please review, if you have some time -- Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-11-25/Arbitration_report.  Also ping Ryk72 who got this thing rolling, and ping Samtar in case they have time to dip their feet into the Signpost pool this weekend, as it were.  :-)      Besides the closed ARBPIA3 case and the ongoing ACE2015 proceedings, do we need to mention any other arb-related happenings, Gamer?  75.108.94.227 (talk) 14:57, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Not seeing any updates on the Noticeboard so I think we're up to date right now. I think the report is good for this week. Might get copyedited beforehand. GamerPro64  19:57, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Looks like Lambian is already on the job. :-)      I have checked the voter-guides to see if other people were making updates, and will need to tweak Lady Cath's dataset, they have changed a few of their recommendations today, but otherwise everything seems to be copacetic.  Nobody had added any [cetacean needed] tags yet anyways.  75.108.94.227 (talk) 21:11, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't consider fixing camel case to be copyediting. Anywho, if there's anymore fixing up we'll figure that out in the future (like when it goes live). GamerPro64  21:17, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Gnoming, copyediting, I'm fuzzy on the whole meaning-spectrum of that stuff. Appreciated in any case, thanks Lambian.  Piece is live now, Tony and a couple other people made some fixes.  Samtar was too lazy this time around, probably stuffed with leftover turkey and cranberry, no doubt  :-)      Or playing heavy-metal head-banger on youtube!  ;-)      Working on this arb-report stuff, seems like a good way to deeply dive into the proceedings, though.  It is important, too, for summarizing the strangeness; ARBPIA3 was accepted mostly on an IAR basis, for instance; rather than to further examine the named parties, it was meant as a "upgrade" of ARBPIA2.  Gamer, does the Signpost do interviews, like with sitting arbs, or with arb-candidates?  Or would that turn into too many words, for the average signpost readership to happily stomach?  75.108.94.227 (talk) 12:19, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I've had a wee crack at some copyediting for the ARBPIA3 section, mostly phrasing & grammar changes. I think it's "good to go", but please feel free to revert anything that doesn't seem right. I'd also like to propose that "75.108" gets a share of the byline. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 21:31, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I was thinking of doing so. Done with. GamerPro64  21:53, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * While I thank you for the thought, I would prefer to, you know, remain anon. :-)      That is the whole point of being an IP, right?  I'm happier with the official column-editor getting the masthead credit, just like mainspace credit goes to the trademark owned by the WMF.  Folks who care can check the edit-history.
 * Also worth mentioning, somewhat in the vein, when the ARBPIA/ACE2015 folks come for my wiki-head, for accidentally misrepresenting the outcome of the last three arbcases/arb'lections in some fashion, I can honestly say I was only doing what the boss said, and helping over the turkey-holiday. Gamer, after I direct the pitchforks your way, you can direct the pitchforks to User:Go_Phightins! in exactly the same cabal-approved fashion, and in turn *they* can pass the buck along to User:Jimbo_Wales, and pretty soon we'll get enough noticeboard-drama to write up ARBPIA4 and ACE2016.  Genius!  Everybody is now getting twice the salary.  :-)      75.108.94.227 (talk) 22:46, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Woo… GamerPro64  22:51, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Rollback
Out of curiosity, would you like access to the Rollback tool? You're a much trusted user, and I've no doubt you would use the tool for the benefit of Wikipedia. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:47, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I could've sworn I already had access. If I don't, sure that'd be nice to use. GamerPro64  17:52, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Seems that beat me to it. In any case, welcome to the rollback team. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:13, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * All I got was auto patrol. I thought that was different. Anyhow, thanks, Salvidrim. GamerPro64  23:23, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * It is, sorry. I tweaked for rollbacker, you should have that now. (Long morning, ya know?)... Anyway, enjoy the new tools, as far as I am concerned you've long since earned them :) TomStar81 (Talk) 23:34, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks Tom. Hope to put it into good use. GamerPro64  23:35, 3 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I only noticed you weren't "auto-patrolled" because the software prompted me to "patrol" a page you had created (an SPI report, of all things). I've always advocated that "autopatrolled" should be granted liberally to anyone who is generally trusted not to create CSD'able articles. :) ☺ ·  Salvidrim!   ·  &#9993;  00:03, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, and I didn't also add Rollback because it is vastly overrated and made entirely redundant by Twinkle, which is what I recommend anyone use. ☺ ·  Salvidrim!   ·  &#9993;  00:03, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Time to RfA?
I think you're ready, fancy a (co-)nomination? -- samtar whisper 18:47, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I would love to do that but my last nomination was back in July. Wouldn't that be considered too early? GamerPro64  18:48, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, five months ago.. The preference seems to be at least six, but seeing as you withdrew from your previous I think you could get away with five -- samtar whisper 19:10, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * You'd think six would be the preference. But I saw some people saying I should've waited an entire year to make another RfA. Some people are hard to please. GamerPro64  19:14, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Don't listen to samtar, they are a Kremlin provocateur!! I know cause Lady Cath said so, that USSR thing refuses to go away!!  :-)       forgot to sign... 75.108.94.227 (talk) 14:50, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * 75.108 is a MI6 agent out to sow discord, but more importantly, maybe wait until January (new year new admin and all that)? -- samtar whisper 17:29, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Speaking of RfAs, have you ever done one? I don't recall seeing you nominated there. GamerPro64  17:31, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh goodness me no - I'm merely making comments about who I'd like to see (as one of those editor people you tend to find around here) become an admin! -- samtar whisper 18:50, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Review reminder
Gamer, this is a reminder about a review you took on a while back. It's for Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible: it opened on 17 November, and has yet to receive anything beyond your initial comment. Just dropping a reminder in case you had forgotten, so the article has a chance of passing. --ProtoDrake (talk) 21:50, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah I remember. I told the nomination I was gonna gonna take my time on this one. Don't worry Proto. I got this. GamerPro64  00:56, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 02 December 2015

 * Read this Signpost in full
 * Single-page
 * Unsubscribe
 * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:22, 6 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Hey, while I'm here... is there some kind of fixable bug, so that all comments will show up, when viewing Signpost-pieces? For instance, when I click news-n-notes and scroll to the bottom, I only see one comment, by Carrite (talk) 05:46, 7 December.  However, when I manually click add-a-comment, or manually click the talkpage-button, there are several more comments.  There is a little note which says, "These comments are automatically transcluded... If your comment has not appeared here, you can |try purging the cache."  And indeed, after I do manually purge the cache, I can see all the comments including Opabinia's upgraded graph, properly transcluded.  But is there a way to purge the cache every fifteen minutes or something, automagically?  It was something like 21 hours between Carrite's comment and Opabinia's comment, with three other intervening comments.  75.108.94.227 (talk) 15:52, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
 * It's just a purge issue. Not much to fix really besides purge it. GamerPro64  17:41, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

ACE2015 exit poll email from PrimeHunter (talk) 14:54, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
Mail sent. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:54, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

ACE2015 exit poll email from Sumana Harihareswara 15:14, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi. I've sent you an email via the "email this user" functionality at 10:13am ET (Wed, 09 Dec 2015 15:13:23 +0000) with answers to the ArbCom election exit poll, for the Signpost. Thank you. Sumana Harihareswara 15:14, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

arb report of Dec 5th-or-6th
Can you do the honors please? I'm trying to write a subsection about an exit poll, see discussion on User_talk:Guy_Macon. I will post a list of people to contact in a short while, and some rough draft questions.


 * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-12-02/Arbitration_report&action=edit&redlink=1

Also ping Samtar and Ryk72 who may want to have a piece of the final arb-report prior to the end of ACE2015.

p.s. For the "2015-12-09" issue which comes out on December 12th or 13th, I was planning to interview the three scrutineers and the three election-commissioners, if they have spare time for signpost-stuff, and *if* the final results have not been announced. (They might be too busy though, iff results have NOT been announced.) Gamer, were you planning on doing newly-elected-arb-interviews for the 12th-n-13th issue one week from now, or for the 19th-n-20th issue two weeks from now? Best, 75.108.94.227 (talk) 14:50, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Have ~146 raw names for the first-pass-cut. User_talk:75.108.94.227/exit_poll_possible_participants_list.  75.108.94.227 (talk) 15:26, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I created the draft for the report. And yes U was planning on interviewing the newly elected. Not sure when, though. GamerPro64  16:31, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, here is the rough draft of the exit poll. User_talk:75.108.94.227/exit_poll_possible_questions.  Can you look at these, and help me fix screwups?  :-)      If people want to email in their answers, do you 1) have Special:Email/GamerPro64 enabled currently, and 2) have the time && inclination to process the email-based replies?  75.108.94.227 (talk) 17:24, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes I have an email connected here and yeah I think I have time to process them with finals coming up. GamerPro64  17:27, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Heh heh! :-)      Did you mean "no I don't think I have time because finals are coming up"?   ;-)      I will add that info to the blurb.  My plan is to send out the usertalk-blurb later today, and then create a preliminary subsection of the arbReport that mentions the exit-poll.
 * As people respond, we can process their responses in small batches, and add the summary-data right into the arbReport. So although there is a WP:DEADLINE for when the arbReport goes live, I would prefer to let people keep submitting answers as long as they like, and us just adding info as and when survey-answers arrive.  To keep us from stepping on each other's toes, I suggest that we add info in batches of ten:  once ten on-wiki responses come in, I will summarize those ten into a row for the arbReport, and once ten more come in, will add another row just for that second batch of ten.  Same for you, with the answers-by-email, once you have ten off-wiki responses summarize *just* those ten, and add a new row to the arbReport, then once you have a second bunch of ten off-wiki responses, summarize just that batch into a new row, and so on.  Make sense?  75.108.94.227 (talk) 17:36, 4 December 2015 (UTC)


 * More than happy to help out, but offline for parts of the next day or so; will probably be limited to copyediting, fixups, etc. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 23:21, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, with help from Ryk72 , the questions and the blurb are almost ready. I'm checking through the list of people to be polled, to see if there are any to be elided -- people that have opted out of mass messages via the category, or people that are blocked currently, or whatever.  Gamer, do you have time this morning to send out some of the messages?  Maybe Ryk72 can help with that job, since they are also willing to respond to emails.  I'm going to be missing in action for a few hours, but will be back this evening.  Not sure if the signpost will be published today, or tomorrow.  :-)      But if you can take a peek at the questionnaire, and let me know if it looks Just Wrong, or instead Probably Okay, that would help.  Thanks, 75.108.94.227 (talk) 13:58, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Which part is the poll that would be sent out? GamerPro64  14:01, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * To make it maximum-easy on people, I was planning on posting it straight into their usertalkpages. Easiest way to do that, would be to make a userspace subpage like User:GamerPro64/ACE2015_exit_poll, and paste in (the top part of) the contents of User_talk:75.108.94.227/exit_poll_possible_questions there.  Afterwards, you can click down through the list of "unmarked" names at User_talk:75.108.94.227/exit_poll_possible_participants_list, and on each of their usertalks, click new section, and then use simply   to magically "pull" in the contents of the poll.  Once you save, they should be able to have their own editable-copy of the exit-poll.  They can either fill it out on-wiki, or paste the plaintext into an email, and fill it out thataway.  Make sense?  Sound incorrect somehow?  I'm happy to help send out the surveys, but we will get a higher rejection-rate if the message is signed by an anon.  ;-)      I'll be back in time to help process the results this evening, though.  75.108.94.227 (talk) 14:16, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay. I'll start messaging people now. Gotta love the Signpost I guess. GamerPro64  14:40, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Honestly, couldn't we have done this for next weeks edition instead of making one for this week near the end? I honestly feel like we're pushing ourselves to get a print every week. I wasn't even planning on publishing one for this upcoming issue. GamerPro64  14:44, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Up to you, of course. But yes, we're cutting it pretty thin for this week.  Composing the questions turned out to be harder than I thought, and my election commissioner was MIA for a few days, so I didn't think we'd get a response.  :-)      Then we did, so I went ahead and put the wheels into motion.  We can abort, if you would rather wait, or we can publish the results as they come in.  I have tested the subst-trick, it seems to work.
 * (cur | prev) 14:46, 5 December 2015‎ 75.108.94.227 (talk)‎ . . (55,521 bytes) (+295)‎ . . (→‎ACE2015 exit poll answers from 75.108.94.227 (talk) 14:50, 5 December 2015 (UTC): new section) (undo)
 * (cur | prev) 14:46, 5 December 2015‎ 75.108.94.227 (talk)‎ . . (55,226 bytes) (+407)‎ . . (→‎The questionnaire: test save) (undo)
 * (cur | prev) 14:43, 5 December 2015‎ 75.108.94.227 (talk)‎ . . (54,819 bytes) (+14,020)‎ . . (undo)
 * I just left the edit-summary blank when I first did the initial  post onto my own usertalk.  Let me know what you want to do.  75.108.94.227 (talk) 14:50, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I think we should hold off for next issue. I'll delete the current draft and then on Sunday, or after the next Signpost drops, I'll be sending the messages. I think that'll be the best plan. GamerPro64  14:56, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, sounds like a plan. Thanks for your help, and will talk to you later.  Best, 75.108.94.227 (talk) 14:59, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Voting is over now, and scrutineers are working their way through the voter-list to make sure everybody is properly enumerated. There has been a suggestion to expand the question-contents, which I tried to formulated as an expansion of q#8, see User_talk:GamerPro64/ACE2015_exit_poll. Gamer, do you have a goal-slash-schedule, for when we send out the questionnaire? We have a little breathing room to work over the questions further, and to finish filling out the list-of-recipients to cover through the end of voting. What are your thoughts on timelines/deadlines, for 1) finalizing the questions, 2) sending out the questionnaires on usertalk, and 3) processing the batches into a reasonably presentable WP:Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-12-09/Arbitration_report? Also, are there other sections of the ArbReport that may need to be written?  75.108.94.227 (talk) 10:11, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

not-so-arbitrary

 * We could send the questionnaire later today or tomorrow. Doesn't seem much less to publish this week besides letting people know that the voting period is over. So if we don't have the exit poll done by this issue we can at least do an article on the elections wrapping up. GamerPro64  16:47, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, the people who are GREYED out, are just re-votes, and should not be struck. I have gotten through #111 in the list of participants, or thereabouts, and will check through the rest of them now.  Can you and Ryk72 and Samtar please look over the questions, and see if we can make any fixes to them?  I've also made an alt-approach-rough-draft, at User_talk:75.108.94.227/arb'15_tiny, which is somewhat more compact.  See also the similar-alt-approach at User_talk:75.108.94.227/arb'15_teensy_tiny, which is significantly more compact.
 * As with any kind of will-you-please-do-X request, the length will be offputting and some folks will simply not respond. Maybe we should just cut the questions down to bare essentials, with footnotes holding the suggested responses, and let people be open-ended if they prefer?  Should we be going for the 'tiny' kind of approach, rather than the nominally-less-biased 'lotsa-enumerated-choices' approach?  Or an even more-tiny approach, with no footnotes?
 * Also, is it worth mentioning to the recipients that their is no WP:DEADLINE for when they submit their responses, and any time before 2016 is likely to eventually get tabulated into the article by somebody? That of course will increase the TLDR factor.  At present we just say "will be published" and nothing more.  I'll let you know when I've finished the participant-checks.  If we can get some WP:LOCALCONSENSUS for the specifics of the questionnaire, I agree that sending them out today (Tuesday the 8th) is a good plan.  That will give people three or four days, to submit responses in time for processing-before-publication.  75.108.94.227 (talk) 15:44, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, the participant-list is ready. There are 155 people, not counting three who are getting skipped for opt-out or for being at present indisposed (#27 #59 #117).  I'm happy to have any of the three question-drafts sent out, or happy to further discuss the optimal way to ask the questions.  I will start working on a result-formulation page, to get the table-layout fixed up.  75.108.94.227 (talk) 23:24, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Wait, which one am I sending? GamerPro64  23:35, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I am indecisive about that. :-)    There are four drafts:  collapseTop#1, collapseTopMod#2, notelist#3, sansNotelist#4.  All four have the same basic set of questions, but in slightly different layouts/formulations.  If you want to make a command-decision, I'm happy to let you.  If you want to let Ryk72 make a command-decision, that is also fine by me, I trust their judgement.
 * The issue is simple. The visually-longest to visually-shortest are:  collapseTopMod#2 (v.huge), collapseTop#1 (huge), notelist#3 (big), sansNotelist#4 (medium).  Shorter is better, in terms of getting a higher response-percentage: fewer participants scared off by tl;dr.  Longer is better, in terms of getting an easier-to-process-and-analyze dataset:  less ambiguity for us Signpost folks to manually resolve after-the-fact.  Although collapseTopMod#2 is "most-precise least-interpretive" it is very huge and risks giving us too few datapoints... if we can get away with sending medium-sized sansNotelist#4 instead, more people will answer the exit-poll rather than ignore it, and "less-precise-more-interpretive" will end up being just fine since we will have MORE datapoints.  We must pick our poison, in other words:  too long and we won't get ENOUGH responses, too short and we won't be able to interpret the higher response-rate SENSIBLY.  :-)
 * If we cannot decide what to do amongst ourselves (you/me/Ryk/anybodyElseWhoCaresToComment), we could theoretically do a test-run of collapseTopMod#2 against ten people, and a separate test-run of sansNotelist#4 against ten people, but that might take a day or two, and it's already the 9th. So if neither of you wanna make a command-decision, I'll bite the silver bullet and pick one of the four.  75.108.94.227 (talk) 08:31, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * If I had to pick my 'druthers, 'd suggest the extended version here with the ordered bit in Your Ordered-List-Of-Letters Answer: removed. The hope is to get sufficient responses that importance of each option can be gauged by the count of responses in which it was selected, rather than qualifying each respondent's answers. I do like the additional questions in the other surveys, but think they might reduce the responses more than they increase the value of the data. Hopefully that makes sense. Please let me know if you would like me to also be sending out questionnaires. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 09:00, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, nice command decision. :-)      Gamer, any objections to that scheme, collapseTop#1-draft with a slight tweak?  If not, I suggest that...
 * Gamer send out messages to participant#1 thru participant#79 (which is Leglish_vote_ID#1422), and that
 * Ryk72 send out messages to participant#80 (which is Cmr08_vote_ID#1440) through participant#158. ✅ - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 14:55, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Gamer, give us the go-ahead signal, if you are happy with this plan. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 09:26, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Go. GamerPro64 13:53, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * NOT yet go, on hold, see further down this talkpage. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 15:39, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

break deux
Steps for sending out the messages: Make sense? 75.108.94.227 (talk) 09:44, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) Verify that the questions are correct:  User:GamerPro64/ACE2015_exit_poll.  No way to bugfix the prose later, this is a WP:SUBST operation, not a WP:TRANSCLUDE.
 * 2) In a new browser-window, open the participant-list:  User_talk:75.108.94.227/exit_poll_possible_participants_list
 * 3) Rightclick a participant's usertalk link, open in a new tab
 * 4) Ctrl tab over to that participant, click New Section
 * 5) Leave the "Subject/headline" blank, paste the following into the big textarea:
 * 6) Click save, close the tab
 * 7) Repeat steps three through six, for each participant you are notifying

ACE2015 exit poll email from - Ne ll  is  17:04, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
Email sent moments ago. - Ne  ll  is  17:04, 9 December 2015 (UTC) {{{You've got mail}} Apwoolrich (talk) 20:04, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

ACE2015 exit poll from User:Lejman

 * Q#0. Will you be responding to the questions in this exit poll? Why or why not?
 * Your Answer: Sure.
 * Your Comments: Eh, otherwise you'll have low answer rate in your statistics, which messes it up. That's mostly why really.


 * Q#1. Arbs must have at least 0k / 2k / 4k / 8k / 16k / 32k+ edits to Wikipedia.
 * Your Numeric Answer: 0k
 * Your Comments: It helps but I wouldn't set a specific limit. Personality is key.


 * Q#2. Arbs must have at least 0 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7+ years editing Wikipedia.
 * Your Numeric Answer: 0
 * Your Comments: It helps but I wouldn't set a specific limit. Personality is key.


 * Q#3. Arbs...
 * A: should not be an admin
 * B: should preferably not be an admin
 * C: can be but need not be an admin
 * D: should preferably be an admin
 * E: must be or have been an admin
 * F: must currently be an admin
 * Your Single-Letter Answer: C, I suppose.
 * Your Comments: Wether they are admin or not is irrelevant to me.


 * Q#4. Arbs must have at least 0 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7+ years of experience as an admin.
 * Your Numeric Answer: 0
 * Your Comments:


 * Q#5. Completely optional, as all these questions are completely optional:  which candidates did you support this year, and why?
 * Your List-Of-Usernames You Supported: None.
 * Your Comments: I didn't recognize any name, so I voted abstain for everyone. Yep.


 * Q#6. Completely optional, as all these questions are completely optional:  which candidates did you oppose this year, and why?
 * Your List-Of-Usernames You Opposed: None.
 * Your Comments: There weren't anyone I had met/seen frequently in the past and had a negative view of.


 * Q#7. Are there any Wikipedians you would like to see run for ArbCom, in the December 2016 election, twelve months from now?  Who?
 * Your List-Of-Usernames As Potential Future Candidates:
 * Your Comments: He's no longer as active, otherwise I would've supported Basement12.


 * Q#8. Why did you vote in the 2015 ArbCom elections?  In particular, how did you learn about the election, and what motivated you to participate this year?
 * Your Answer: I was notified on my userpage. I voted because I generally think elections are good. So show of support.
 * Your Comments:


 * Q#9. For potential arbs, good indicators of the right kind of contributions outside noticeboard activity, would be:
 * A: discussions on the talkpages of articles which ARE subject to ArbCom sanctions
 * B: discussions on the talkpages of articles NOT subject to ArbCom restrictions
 * C: sending talkpage notifications e.g. with Twinkle, sticking to formal language
 * D: sending talkpage notifications manually, and explaining with informal English
 * E: working on policies/guidelines
 * F: working on essays/helpdocs
 * G: working on GA/FA/DYK/similar content
 * H: working on copyedits/infoboxes/pictures/similar content
 * I: working on categorization e.g. with HotCat
 * J: working on autofixes e.g. with AWB or REFILL
 * K: working with other Wikipedians via wikiprojects e.g. with MILHIST
 * L: working with other Wikipedians via IRC e.g. with or informally
 * M: working with other Wikipedians via email e.g. with UTRS or informally
 * N: working with other Wikipedians in person e.g. at edit-a-thons / Wikipedian-in-residence / Wikimania / etc
 * O: other types of contribution, please specify in your comments
 * Please specify a comma-separated list of the types of contributions you see as positive indicators for arb-candidates to have.
 * Your List-Of-Letters Answer: Especially A, B, C, D
 * Your Comments: I think all activity helps, but especially the kinds that are more in line with discussion, negotation and diplomacy, so especially the discussion type ones. Formality can sometimes stand in the way of communicating efficiently.


 * Q#10. Arbs who make many well-informed comments at these noticeboards (please specify which!) have the right kind of background, or experience, for ArbCom.
 * Options: A: AE, B: arbCases, C: LTA, D: OTRS, E: AN,
 * continued : F: OS/REVDEL, G: CU/SPI, H: AN/I, I: pageprot, J: NAC,
 * continued : K: RfC, L: RM, M: DRN, N: EA, O: 3o,
 * continued : P: NPOVN, Q: BLPN, R: RSN, S: NORN, T: FTN,
 * continued : U: teahouse, V: helpdesk, W: AfC, X: NPP, Y: AfD,
 * continued : 1: UAA, 2: COIN, 3: antiSpam, 4: AIV, 5: 3RR,
 * continued : 6: CCI, 7: NFCC, 8: abusefilter, 9: BAG, 0: VPT,
 * continued : Z: Other_noticeboard_not_listed_here_please_wikilink_your_answer
 * Please specify a comma-separated list of the noticeboards you see as important background-experience for arb-candidates to have.
 * Your List-Of-Letters Answer:
 * Your Comments: I'm not familiar with either noteboard really and am not about to read up on them first. I wouldn't specifically pick targets based on where they discuss as much as how they discuss. Some people try to "win" discussions, those kind of people are not good negotiators.


 * Q#11. Arbs who make many comments at these noticeboards (please specify!) have the wrong kind of temperament, or personality, for ArbCom.
 * Options: (same as previous question -- please see above)
 * Please specify a comma-separated list of the noticeboards you see as worrisome personality-indicators for arb-candidates to have.
 * Your List-Of-Letters Answer:
 * Your Comments: See above.


 * Q#12. Anything else we ought to know?
 * Your Custom-Designed Question(s):
 * Your Custom-Designed Answer(s):


 * The Extended-Answers End. Thank you for your answers.  Please sign with your Wikipedia username here, especially important if you are emailing your answers, so we can avoid double-counting and similar confusion.
 * Your Wikipedia Username: Lejman (talk) 02:29, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * General Comments:

Signpost spam
Could you tell me how many of these you sent out, and point to where there was community consensus that this spam was OK? --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:53, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, are you done, or are you sending out any more? And if there are still more, and there is no consensus you can point to, will you stop until that consensus is gained? --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:55, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I see it was 200. Other questions still apply. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:01, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm done sending. The other guy might not. GamerPro64  15:03, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, that answers one question, although saying "the other guy" instead of a name isn't really helpful. Where was there consensus to send these? And new question, which AC Electoral Commissioner helped you develop the list? --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:14, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Other person involved is User:Ryk72, whom I asked to help. We would be happy to halt the outgoing stuff, if Floq wants to open some kind of AN discussion about this, or somesuch.  75.108.94.227 (talk) 15:30, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * There wasn't a community consensus on this and no Commissioner helped. It was an IP address that suggested the idea. GamerPro64  15:16, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok then, first, please do not send out 155 messages without some kind of consensus that spamming the message is OK. Second, the message says "Dear Wikipedian, you recently voted in the ArbCom election. Your username, along with around 155 other usernames of your fellow Wikipedians, was randomly selected from the 2000+ Wikipedians who voted this year, with the help of one of the election-commissioners". Was that misleading, or did you have help from one of the commissioners? --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:22, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * These questions can be best answered by the IP address as they were the one who set this whole thing up. I didn't really do much here besides the spamming. GamerPro64  15:27, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, technically one commissioner helped, User:Guy_Macon, by but only by giving us the hardware-random-number-generator info.  Another commented briefly, User:Mdann52, about the meaning of the the grey-outs.  And although it was my idea to run an exit poll via the signpost, the suggestion originated with one of the arb-candidates, if memory serves.  I'll find the thread if anybody actually cares. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 15:30, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * If everything has already gone out, then I have no desire to open an AN/ANI about spilt milk, but I do want to emphasize that there is a long tradition against unapproved spam to this many people. If you do it for this without approval, it opens the floodgates. If everything has not gone out, then I would like you to get some kind of community approval before completing it.  Yes, I'd like a pointer to the thread. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:35, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I've asked Ryk72 to hold off, if they haven't already started the other half. Gamer has already sent 79 usertalk messages, Ryk was going to send the remainder of the ~155.  Here is the thread with Guy Macon and Mdann52:
 * User_talk:Guy_Macon
 * They are not at fault here, of course. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 15:43, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know if this is the only place, but the idea of an exit poll definitely came up in the giant graphs thread on my talk page. Hey, I like data. And one thing we know about that left-hand peak on the edit count histogram is that people in it respond well to talk-page spam... :) Opabinia regalis (talk) 16:26, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I believe that was the place. See posts on 29th Nov:  Opabinia at 08:59, Kudpung at 10:45, and myself at 21:50.  Later down the same talkpage, 7th Dec:  Opabinia at 07:15, and myself at 01:08.  75.108.94.227 (talk) 18:10, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Does know about this?   Gamaliel  ( talk ) 15:18, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * No. And now I just realize this was a terrible idea. GamerPro64  15:20, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not passing judgment on the idea, it just looks like something he should know about ahead of time. Gamaliel  ( talk ) 15:22, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * By coincidence, Go_Phightins is on the list of people being polled, because they happened to vote in a multiple of 18. So they probably know about it, but we didn't clear it with them first. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 15:30, 9 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I was not aware that this would be happening. In the future, as per Floq, it is good to at least have some people in the loop. At this point, though, I would say just be careful doing this sort of thing in the future, and see what data you get.  Go  Phightins  !  16:25, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to make excuses for the lapses of judgements I made here. But I will make sure this will not happen again, Phightins. GamerPro64  16:28, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with this at all, and in fact I think an Exit poll might be a useful thing to do every year - there's no obligation and anyone who does not want to take part can simply ignore it. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:32, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed czar  15:32, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Also agreed -- samtar whisper 15:35, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Floq is correct though: If you do it for this without approval, it opens the floodgates.  Would have been better to open a thread at the appropriate noticeboard... maybe WP:AN, like the mass-message?  ( or maybe a new subsection over here instead.... )  There is an infrastructure in place, for requesting such things:  WT:Mass_message_senders.  Prolly the annual-exit-poll-idea needs an RfC thing, though, since it is repetitive spam rather than one-off.  Boing!_said_Zebedee is probably correct that this particular "it" -- an annual exit-poll of arb-voters -- would likely be seen as a Net Positive for the 'pedia, if such pre-approval had been sought.  But!  Like all unsolicited messages, one can ignore it, and there is no active obligation.  There is a *passive* obligation, however, a slight but inherent waste of time, getting notified about a message, and then checking that message, and then ignoring it... plus the annoyance, at the time wasted.  Multiply that by the number of recipients.  Multiply *that* by the number of Worthy Causes, which folks might wish to send unsolicited spam about, in good faith or otherwise.  Floodgates, indeed.  The hypothetical spam-load, for Causes however Worthy, would be a massive cumulative opportunity cost, draining the 'pedia of volunteer-time that coulda been better utilized, and hurting volunteer-gumption broadly construed. Not good.
 * In some ways, 155 messages is not that many... they were hand-delivered in under an hour (34mins Ryk72 + 22mins Gamer), after being hand-pre-sorted by me to elide recipients who had opted out via user-cats. But like Floq, I now believe that this is a slippery slope:  better to get approval for any number of messages greater than N, where the number N is *very* small indeed.  Like, anywhere in double-digits, maybe even.  Because, in the normal course of editing, most people won't need to send out a message to multiple people... unless they are WP:CANVASSING.  There is already a software-feature, that prevents more than 20 pings from being sent simultaneously, which is also canvassing-related.  In the normal course of 'community' stuff (aka indirect support-functions of normal editing like arbcom and signpost), most such meta-editing people won't need to send out a non-opt-in message to multiple people... unless they are canvassing for eligible arbcom voters (Mdann52&Gorman'15), collecting data about actual arbcom voters (gamer&ryk&myself'15), begging for donations (WMF every year), or organizing some kind of meta-thing like those examples, where utilizing opt-in would very much *spoil* the spam-broth.
 * So I'd actually say that although the request-we-shoulda-made-first would likely have been approved, to send out this particular exit-poll, overall usertalk-spam is definitely a case where WP:BURO applies. (Hurts me a bit to say that ;-)     We don't want to have usertalk turn into just another inbox, filled to the brim with these types of things.  People don't LIKE spam-folders.  We don't want people to feel that twinge of annoyance -- more than a twinge in Floq's case but they were not the only recipient to be annoyed -- that a time-wasting unsolicited message caused.  People don't LIKE being forced to passively spend time where they don't wish to expend it, even a few seconds.  When opt-in would ruin the idea -- such as in an exit-poll, where unless you randomly select the participants you screw up the extrapolation -- it is still pretty important to get a broad consensus first, WP:BEBOLD yet not reckless.  *One* message is not blatantly reckless, even to 155 people, true... but allowing it, without "official" pre-approval of some sort, does set a bad precedent, because if we let that happen without getting broader consensus first... again with the floodgates-metaphor.  Best, 75.108.94.227 (talk) 16:28, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Arbitration Report
The Editorial Board decided to cover the election results in News and Notes and not run an Arb Report this week. They moved your non-election In Briefs to NAN. I didn't play a role in this decision since I've been staying away from election stuff, but I wanted to let you know in case none of them told you prior to publication. Gamaliel ( talk ) 19:21, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

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Seasons Greetings, Talk Page Stalkers
While we're contemplating what we're still doing here on Wikipedia, let's all remember the good times here. Cheers, everyone. GamerPro64 02:33, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * *bearhugs GamerPro64* ☺ ·  Salvidrim!   ·  &#9993;  14:34, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Seasons greetings :3 -- samtar whisper 14:58, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

arbReport questions
Okay, so it looks like you were notified of six emails. Did you get more than that? I'm about done with the second batch (#11 thru #20) of the on-wiki results, and was going to put some data-rows into the arbReport draft. However, I'm noticing that not all the people clicked the little notify-the-signpost-editor links, even though they did fill out their surveys. Maybe they are thinking it over, or maybe they are done but skipped the how-to-submit portion. So, two questions:


 * 1)  have you reached ten email, so you have a full batch to process?  If not, I suggest we earmark some of the on-wiki polls, to bring your batch-size up to ten response-sets.
 * 2)  what do you want to do about the folks who answered, but didn't send us a talkpage-note?  We can add them into the dataset now, or we can wait a day or two, and see if they finalize their answers and then submit.  Either way works for me.

And I guess there is a third question... I've only been tabulating batches of ten *filled out* responses. For folks that declined to fill anything out, I've shifted them to the side. We can report the total number of people who: responded to most questions, responded to the quick-n-easy questions only, declined-to-respond, declined-or-reverted-as-spam, ignored-and-have-been-editing-since-then, ignored-but-have-not-yet-made-edits. Are these numbers useful journalistic info, for the arbReport to give out? p.s. And besides the election-results, and the rolling exit-poll results, any other stuff we need to cover this weekend? Best, 75.108.94.227 (talk) 16:50, 11 December 2015 (UTC)


 * First off, sorry for the last response. I'm back home for break and am getting settled again. Now to answer your questions, I seem to have gotten 6-7 responses so far. I don't know if I can count The Squirrel Conspiracy as they answered on their page already. Honestly I have no clue what I doing with these answers. Where do I put them? I can get them processed soon enough unless I get more answers but that's about it on my end. GamerPro64  04:03, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep the emailed-answers themselves secret, first of all. :-)      So keep them in your inbox.  Don't publish the raw responses on-wiki, we only want to actually publish anonymized data (averaged/summed/whatever).  More on that in a moment.  If you want help with processing the email-response-numbers, I suggest you send Ryk72 an email, they seem to have some statistics-background.  Here is what I've been doing.  First, divide up into processing-batches of ten, eliding the people who declined.  Since you only have six or seven, you should NOT yet process/analyze the answers (small number of email-responses won't average out to anonymous results... ten is pretty borderline, since some of the questions have a narrow range of likely answers, so less than ten means wait-for-more).  Once you have ten in hand, then you can do some processing.  Here are my on-wiki batches, so far:
 * WikipediaResponseBatchOne ==
 * WR_00	Nathan
 * WR_01	I9Q79oL78KiL0QTFHgyc==jps
 * WR_02	LaMona
 * WR_03	JoJan
 * WR_04	Csisc
 * WR_05	Thargor Orlando
 * WR_06	Buster7
 * WR_07	Corinne
 * WR_08	Twofingered Typist
 * WR_09	P.T. Aufrette
 * WikipediaResponseBatchTwo ==
 * WR_10	Mirokado
 * WR_11	starship.paint
 * WR_12	The Squirrel Conspiracy
 * WR_13	Lejman
 * WR_14	maclean
 * WR_15	Elias Z
 * WR_16	zzuuzz
 * WR_17	Boing! said Zebedee
 * WR_18	prat
 * WR_19	Jd2718
 * Declined to answer, no analysis needed, thus not being used in any batches:
 * D_0	Nanami-chan==上村七美
 * D_1	Deor
 * D_2	Floquenbeam
 * D_3	Classfan455
 * To do the analysis, is pretty straightforward. For example, in the answers to question#1, the WR_00 thru WR_09 folks gave on-wiki answers like this:
 * 8k 0k 2k 4k 16k 8k 16K 16k 2k 0k
 * Straight numeric average would be 7200. However, in the YourComments portions, two people said they *actually* use a standard of ~10k, so I tweaked the numbers like this:
 * 8k 0k 2k 4k 16k 10k 10K 16k 2k 0k
 * Now the adjusted average is 6800. For purposes of the arbReport, we would simply say ~7000 as the minimum number of edits required to become an arb.  Which I find surprisingly generous-aka-low!  :-)      I'd have expected a lot more people to whack that 32k button.  Besides the average-aka-mean, it would also be possible to calculate the median, stdev, min, max, maybe a few other things.  Optional stuf, in my view, but we might put it into footnotes.
 * What about *beyond* the numeric portion? Bit more tricky.  Half the people, in the WR_batch#1 comments for q#1, specifically said things like 'no firm requirement', 'editcount does not mean you will be a good arb', 'not numeric', 'no fixed threshold', 'numeric thresholds not helpful'.  Another half said that edit count was important (things like 'broad range of experience matters').  But several people also qualified that only certain kinds of experience are likely to lead to good arbship candidates:  high quality of discussion-participation, high quality of WP:BURO-participation, and substantial content changes were specifically mentioned.  So in the arbReport, I will have something like this in the results-table:
 * Q#1: ~7k min.    Broad range of relevant experience was necessary, but is not properly measured by this numeric criteria, said more than half of the responses.
 * And below the table some footnotes:

In an ideal (sufficient sample size) world, I'd also be keen to see some mapping / correlation between answers to different questions - e.g were respondents who answered 0k min. edits more likely to also support non-admin candidates? (where they answered which details of their votes) - and potentially some Wikipedia (!IRL) "demographic" information (voters edit counts, first edit dates years, etc). The last is likely fraught with danger if we do not have sufficient sample size / response rates; but could be informative if we do have sufficient. Speaking of response rates, we should also include some information on those - again I'd be keen on some analysis there rather than just a single summary statistic. Something like an ANOVA or even a correlation coefficient is probably overkill for what we want in the analysis as written up; but it might be useful to see if the responses for "min. edit count" & "min. admin years" or "admin required" correlate. Apologies for the stream of consciousness. I am happy to do some analysis later this week, if provided with the raw, sanitised (no names), data. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 15:02, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * In the case of the email-in-responses, you should probably NOT quote anybody's exact wording without getting permission via email, and definitely NOT publish their raw numbers on-wiki. But once you have ten, you can create ER_batch1, and average out the ten answers (or nine answers or however many you get of people that didn't skip the optional question#1 fill-in-the-blank), and publish that numeral in the arbReport.  It will be easier to discuss this once I've put some draft-exit-poll results from my two on-wiki batches together.  I'm working on that now, and will ping you when I get it into the draft.
 * After that is up, we can discuss analysis-procedures further, plus decide whether to use four of the on-wiki responses to round out the email-batch, boosting it from 6 responses to the minimum of 10 responses so you have a full batch to process. But at the moment, I'm leaning towards waiting until this evening, and seeing whether more people email you during the Saturday hours, when hobby-time is easier to come by.  Best, 75.108.94.227 (talk) 18:08, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
 * To throw a few ideas into the mix, while I get a few spare minutes, I'd be interested not only in some summary statistics - arithmetic mean (as described above), mode, median, or similar - but also some indication of distribution - a histogram would be nice for those "multiple choice" questions where we have sufficient answers; and could include a "not relevant" (or other "write in" answer) column.

ORCP Survey
Hi, thanks for creating a poll on WP:ORCP. I was wondering if you would like to take part in an optional survey regarding the polling process? If so, could you fill out the four questions on this page? Many thanks, and good luck! -- samtar whisper 13:29, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

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Re:Shantae review
Hey. You got lucky—my GI collection is spotty, but I did (surprisingly) have the right issue! Here you go: Good luck. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:35, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
 * - Andy McNamara, May 2002, ish 109, page 88.
 * Personally haven't taken GI very seriously since its infamous pan of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. But reliable sources are reliable sources, and Wikipedia is Wikipedia—gotta separate my editorial decisions and my personal taste. Hope Shantae whips into shape for you! JimmyBlackwing (talk) 21:36, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the beer. You've always been a more consistently hard-working Wikipedian than myself, so it means a lot to me! JimmyBlackwing (talk) 16:26, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Featured topics that fell below the threshold
Hi, I noticed my bot acting a little odd at WP:WBFTN and in the process of fixing things ran across this edit. I haven't checked very many, but my guess is that none of the topics that were demoted were added to WP:FFT. Do you know of any particular reason for this? I'm tempted to add them to WP:FFT but I have very little involvement with the featured topic folks. I gather you do. Thoughts? -- Rick Block (talk) 07:14, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Usually Featured Topics is used as a catchall for both FTs and GTs. Personally, when a topic doesn't meets the criteria to be a topic anymore, we can slap it onto FFT. But I think all the other topics are good where they are now. Besides, articles statuses can change anytime. Could be hard to keep track of. But that's my take. GamerPro64  15:56, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

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ACE2015 exit poll email from Erpert  blah, blah, blah... 20:32, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
12/9/2015 2:31 PM CST

Exit poll on my talk page
Hi! I've completed the exit poll, and have decided that anything worth saying on the matter is worth saying publicly (and in long, overly philosophical paragraphs), so I've posted my answers on my talk page.

The controversy about the talk page spamming better not prevent you from using the data you do collect, because I spent two and a half hours answering that poll that I could have been using to play Fallout 4.

The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 02:14, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi, I'm the copy-editor doing the number-crunching (and parsing of long philosophical statements :-)  for the on-wiki portion of the poll.  I've finished my first pass on the first batch of ten responses, and am working my way through the second batch of ten, which *will* definitely include the much-appreciated efforts of User:The_Squirrel_Conspiracy, no worries.
 * So your hard work will not be wasted. As far as actual publication in the Signpost goes, we've already had to delay one week... organizing the exit-poll proved to be more time-consuming than first anticipated... and now the ArbCom results are out, with only a couple days to go before the weekend-of-the-12th-and-13th-edition of the Signpost goes live... we were vaguely planning on doing an exit-poll ArbReport, an interview with the three-and-a-backup scrutineers and three election-commissioners ArbReport, and an interview with the finally-announced new crop of arbs... but the scrutineers foiled our expectations that it would take weeks before results were finalized, by speedily wrapping things up!  :-)      So our publication-schedule intended to be spread across three or four weeks, is now all a-jumble.
 * One way or the other, though, the exit-poll analysis will get done, and published on-wiki in some fashion, now that we've started the ball rolling. The spam-related-controversy was mostly that we didn't pre-clear the ~155 usertalk messages about the exit-poll at AN, like happened for the 107k usertalk messages about the start of voting (that one got reasonably-broad consensus beforehand at CENT && AN noticeboards).  Lesson learned!  Thanks for your efforts improving the 'pedia, 75.108.94.227 (talk) 10:09, 10 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I've pulled the content from my talk page, and would appreciate it if you disregarded my response. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 23:51, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

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Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X
Do you feel that there is any potential for such an article? If you are interested in writing it, I could etch out some time to find sources. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 15:38, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I mean it might. If you can find some sources on it we can look to see if there's enough to warrant one. GamerPro64  15:41, 7 January 2016 (UTC)