User talk:Od Mishehu/Arbitration Committee Elections

=First draft=

S/(S+O)
This page needs a description of the S/(S+O) formula for ranking the candidates. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 12:24, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I wrote as follows: "The winners are the top users by support percentage; that is, the percentage of support votes from all the support and oppose votes." It seems to me that the definition of "support percentage" there is precicely your S/(S+O) formula. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:25, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Alright. Sorry. The page should also describe "no votes" and how they don't have any effect on the election's outcome. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 16:10, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Noted - let's see what other users think. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 17:15, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * This is covered at WP:ACE2011, maybe you can just use the language from there. Neutron (talk) 18:00, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Getting In?
"Get in" I think you mean "achieve consensus for nomination" as Jimbo still makes the final appointments. Hasteur (talk) 17:00, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Possibly a good idea. I've put a footnote on the draft. Let's see what other users think about it. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 17:13, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * See the Arbitration policy, ratified by the community last June. Risker (talk) 00:30, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
 * "Consensus for nomination" is not really accurate either. There is no requirement for "consensus" to be "elected" -- or whatever you wish to call the results of the voting, since those who are "elected" must then also be appointed in order to serve on the committee.  But that issue aside, "consensus" is not required -- only that the candidate be in the top X number of candidates and receive at least 50% support (of those voters choosing either "support" or "oppose" for that candidate.)  How about replacing "get in" with "are selected"?  I think that expresses the point without requiring a discussion of the "elected vs. appointed" issue.  Neutron (talk) 17:52, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Unjustified blocks and other comments
This is a good idea, but it needs some tidying and tweaking.
 * "except for unjustified blocks" - either explicitly define which blocks are "unjustified" and who determines this, otherwise expect arguments and wikilawyering
 * "A candidate must present a statement for running, in which (s)he must declare all his/her accounts." - probably ought to specify a deadline for this, or make it clear that this needs to be done before the candidacy is accepted.
 * Questions for the candidates section. This is very poorly worded and needs to be split into subsections/hierarchical bulleted list. The intro to the section should be something like, "Once a candidate has present their statement/had their nomination accepted [whichever is correct], they will be asked a general set of questions, and individual questions asked by individual users. Candidates are not required to answer all questions, but failure to answer a question may be interpreted negatively by voters.
 * The first paragraph seems to be talking about the development of the general questions, I think, but it should make it clear that these will not be asked immediately and are worked and edited together into a short set of non-redundant questions relevant to arbitration matters, that will be asked to every candidate after they have presented their statement. This should be the first section.
 * The second section needs should be about the individual questions and make clear that these can be asked, to one or more candidates, by anyone eligible to vote once the general questions have been asked. I should note that they must be clear, related to arbitration matters and not redundant to either the general questions or other individual questions. It should be explicitly stated that questions that don't meet the criteria may be removed [by whom?].
 * Voting: There should be a fifth bullet in the first section, "Voters have the choice of registering "support", "oppose" or "no vote" for each candidate. "No votes" are not counted and do not impact a candidate's chances of being elected in any way."
 * "The number of Arbiters to be elected must be determined by the start of the voting period; if any Arbiter resigns before that, their seat is to be filled by the election, and if any Arbiter resigns after that, it shouldn't." This should be moved to the timeline section and read something like "23:59 UTC 26 November - the number of vacant seats and the term length for each of them is finalised. Any seats that become vacant after this time will not be filled at this election. "
 * The results section should read:
 * The "support percentage" for each candidate is calculated. The support percentage is the number of support votes expressed as a percentage of the total number of support and oppose votes.
 * Those candidates who receive less than 50% support are not elected.
 * Those candidates who receive 50% or greater support are ranked in decreasing order of their support percentage. That is the candidate with the greatest support is ranked first, the candidate with the next highest support is ranked second, and so on down to the candidate whose support was the lowest above 50%.
 * The vacant seats are allocated, in decreasing order of term length, to each candidate in rank order. That is the seat with the longest term length is allocated to the first ranked candidate, the seat with the second longest term length is allocated to the second ranked candidate, and so on until either there are no more seats or no more candidates with 50% or greater support, whichever is first.
 * If there are fewer vacant seats than candidates with 50% or greater support, then only the number of candidates equal to the number seats will be elected.
 * If there are more vacant seats than candidates with 50% or greater support, then those seats not filled will remain vacant.
 * If any candidate does not, within one week of being asked to identify themselves to the Wikimedia Foundation does not do so to the satisfaction of Jimbo Wales and/or the Foundation, or is otherwise found to be ineligible for the committee, including through disqualification, then they will not be elected.
 * The vacant seats will be reallocated as necessary as if they had not received 50% support, that is if they had been the third ranked candidate then the candidate who was previously ranked fourth will take the seat with the third longest term and the candidate previously ranked fifth would take the seat with the fourth longest term, etc.
 * If there were more candidates with 50% or greater support than vacant seats, then the candidate with the highest support percentage not previously allocated a seat will be allocated the seat with the shortest term.
 * If the number of vacant seats was equal to or greater than the number of candidates with 50% or greater support then one (additional) seat will not be filled.
 * Under no circumstances will a candidate who received less than 50% support be allocated a seat.

Yes, this does expand it a lot, but it makes everything explicit based on the outcome of the RfCs this year. Thryduulf (talk) 18:31, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll deal with this in the second draft - I want the first draft to remain more or less unmodified to get more opinions of what I already have here. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:20, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * How's my description of unjustified blocks here? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:25, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think you need point 3 - a block made by a rampaging or compromised admin account will surely be undone by the community? As for the rest of the draft, there are a couple of things in that aren't quite right (both my fault)
 * "If any candidate does not, within one week of being asked to identify themselves to the Wikimedia Foundation does not do so" - only one of those "does not"s is needed.
 * The voting section point 5 shouldn't actually be part of that list, but a separate statement below it (it's explaining the voting process not listing requirements for voters). I've fixed a typo in the draft directly (TUC vs UTC). Thryduulf (talk) 20:04, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * About point 3 - such a block would be undone by a single admin, and the community wouldn't even be asked about it. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:44, 30 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I am concerned that anyone would think the community requires "protecting" from any candidates by creating extensive criteria for candidacy. The community is perfectly capable of deciding who they feel is an appropriate arbitrator.  Risker (talk) 00:36, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Changes from the status quo

 * Start with the status quo I disagree with a number of your changes from the status quo. I like the idea of a permanent set of rules that would then only need RFCs to modify them, but I fear your changes will be controversial, and will undermine the concept. I would urge you to start with the current rules as adopted by the ACE2011 RFC, and get community consensus to establish them as a default going forward. There is no way in hell recent blocks should automatically disqualify a candidate, it should be for the voters to decide if the block is relevant. Monty  845  02:18, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I intentionally added the following changes, and I intend, in a later stage, of explicitly requestingf that users comment about these:
 * The integrety of candidates - while certain aspects of this are subjective, I think that certain things are objective - lack of recent blocks, not being banned.
 * In the voter criteria - we should have a threshhold fo total edits, in addition to one for mainspace edits.
 * Also in the voter criteria - we should have a required number of recent edits - the purpose of the minimum number of edits/mainspace edits is to make it harder for the same person to have multiple accounts which subsequently all appear to meet the criteria, and vote using more than one of them; we need some protection against a user abandoning his/her old account, creating a new one and using just it, and returning to the old one to vote.
 * This policy also allows the public to be involvedwith the general questions.
 * עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:40, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * A recent block may have no impact on the integrity of the candidate. For instance, a standard 3rr block, 9 months old, for a technical violation that wasn't a particularly bad edit war. Why should that prohibit a highly experienced editor with years of experience and a good reputation in the community from running? Sure some may hold that against a candidate, but they would have a legitimate chance of success. Its an arbitrary barrier to entry, and one that is not really necessary. Same for the other changes. If you think the community would support those changes, feel free to propose them, but again, I think it is a mistake to mix them with the codification idea. Same for the arbitrary week deadline to identify, there is clear consensus to allow more time, which is why the schedule allows for about 2 weeks. Monty  845  07:13, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with you about the recent block, it's something that's probably best left to the community to decide its relevance (chances are it'll be asked about), but I wouldn't vote against a proposal because of it. I'm not bothered either way about the time to identify, as long as it's done to the satisfaction of the Foundation it doesn't really matter to me - it's their rule not ours (although that isn't to say I disagree with it).
 * As for the proposal, we could hold a multi-question RfC. Question 1 would be "Do you agree with codifying the rules?". Then have a set of other questions for each change, worded and arranged in such a way that none are dependent on each other so that the whole thing would still be workable with any combination of pass and fail of individual questions. Possibly one of the questions should be the support percentage, as some people seem to think that 50% is too low so it might be good to see what the opinion is when the election results are known. For that sort of reason I don't think we should be looking to hold an RfC before January, although we don't want to lose momentum if we can help it. Thryduulf (talk) 11:24, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not moving this out of my namespace until I believe that all the necessary feedback from the current elections has been considered - and that won't happe at least until the new ArbCom is official, which is January 1. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 17:19, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

=Second draft=

This is extraordinarily bad timing
I'm sorry, but this is really a poorly chosen time to put this before the community. We are in the middle of an election right now. Those who are active participants in the election (in particular, candidates, election admins and election co-ordinators) all probably have comments to make, but they cannot do so at this point without charges of lack of impartiality and/or personal self-interest. Can this not be put on hold until after the current election results have been announced? Risker (talk) 21:56, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * This is just a draft. If any of tjhe participants have any comments they can't make now, they can wait until later - this won't become an official proposal until at least mid-January. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:47, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
 * History has shown that any time someone tries to get community input on ArbCom elections other than right before the elections, community input is not forthcoming.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  16:59, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I am inclined to describe/codify what we have now, as a result of the RfC and as things have developed by practice over the years. The community can then proposed changes in an RfC before ACE2012. Tony   (talk)  03:11, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, now that the voting has ended, I'd like to codify things now too....but not have annual RFCs where the rules change every time. It is exhausting to the community and to the potential candidates - as can be seen by the small number of community members who participated in the RFC this year, and the ever-decreasing number of voters. Risker (talk) 03:23, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see a logical connection between the RfCs and decreasing numbers of voters. It's not yet a perfect system; the community runs the elections and has been gradually shaping the procedures and rules over a number of years. The move to 15 arbs from 18 was your own proposal in the recent RfC, and probably a good one. The election system needs to retain this flexibility. Tony   (talk)  05:38, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Curiously, the step *up* to 18 was made without community discussion, but when the community did discuss it, for two years straight they thought it was a good idea. Having these issues up in the air until only days before the nomination period starts is not helpful in attracting qualified, sensible candidates. That the rules change very significantly every year is, I genuinely believe, one of the reasons that fewer and fewer people are interested in any aspect of the process. We don't change rules on most of our other major processes on an annual basis, and at this point I think we should nail things down more firmly. This year's RFC was considered to be so poorly participated in that the people who control the MediaWiki interface felt quite justified in refusing to allow a site banner advising of the election, for example; when those site-wide banners ran to all users, even for a few days, there was considerably more participation.  Risker (talk) 06:01, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Risker, that's the first I knew "that the people who control the MediaWiki interface felt quite justified in refusing to allow a site banner advising of the election"— it's scandalous. Really, how dare they make their own independent interpretations of the level of our community's RfC participation, particularly in such a way that is bound to reduce participation in the election. And what business is it of theirs to decide one way or another whether the results of the RfC were major changes, anyway? Aside from the change from 18 to 15 seats, which you yourself sponsored, the RfC was characterised by the remarkably few changes on which it reached consensus: it essentially reinforced the status quo. I do believe that an issue needs to be made of this. Could you link us to where this decision was made, please? The move up to 18, as I recall it, was the result of the RfC in 2009 launched by John Vandenberg—not "without community discussion". Other policy and procedural pages on en.WP have no precisely defined annual rhythm; they evolve all the same. Tony   (talk)  09:08, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The discussion was here, although I believe this issue is being discussed in a couple of places and the link has already been provided elsewhere. The first year that there were 18 arbitrators appointed was following the 2008 elections (the year in which I was initially appointed) - when Jimmy Wales unilaterally decided that the "right" number was 18. However, at the same time he announced this, he also announced that arbitrator Deskana had resigned so, even though there were 18 slots, only a total of 17 arbitrators were appointed (new and continuing). Shortly after the "new" committee took office, FT2 resigned in January 2009, so the total was effectively 16 for much of 2009 (there were other resignations, but not for a few months). Prior to the 2009 elections, the community decided that there should be 18 arbitrators, which is the number of seats filled following that election; there were two resignations by mid-February 2010, so for the majority of the year there were 16 or fewer arbitrators. The same held true for 2010 elections; community determination, 18 seats filled, but only one resignation throughout the course of the entire year in 2011.  Based on my own experiences over the previous 3 years, in particular being aware that the times the committee has been most effective is when there are between 12 and 16 arbitrators, I recommended the reduction in number this year.  Risker (talk) 21:49, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The AC elections were never advertized on the sitenotice Risker, check the history if needs be. The decline in participation is quite simply due to the overall decline in active users, and more particularly in users interested in Arbcom elections. Cenarium (talk) 00:05, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Personal questions
"any user entitled to vote may ask him/her personal questions." I know what is meant by this, but it's easy to read "personal questions" as things like "How much do you weigh?" and "What is your sexual orientation?". While it is later qualified to "relevant" questions (which almost all personal questions won't be), I don't think we need to qualify the word "questions" in this sentence. Thryduulf (talk) 10:40, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Would "Individual questions" be better here? I don't think we need to add an adjictive to this sentence to exclude the questions you mentioned, as the next sentence clarifies this. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 16:58, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * "Individual questions" would be better, but I don't think it actually needs to be more than just "questions". Thryduulf (talk) 18:09, 18 December 2011 (UTC)