Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December 2012

This is a request for comment about the upcoming December 2012 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election.

Purpose of this request for comment: To try and gain at least a rough community consensus on structure, rules, and procedures of the December 2012 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election.

Structure: This RfC is divided into portions, each of which contains a question for the community to discuss. The standard RfC structure will be used, in which any user may make a general statement that other users may endorse if they so agree. The questions will be listed in the table of contents below, along with the users who have made statements.

The questions have been chosen from the comments from Arbitration Committee Elections December 2011/Feedback. More questions may be added if other concerns arise.

Duration: This RfC is scheduled to last for about 30 days; on or after 1 November 2012, it will be closed, and an uninvolved editor(s) will determine the result of the RfC. The results will determine the structure, rules, and procedures for the election.

12:00, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

REMINDER TO USE THE TALK PAGE FOR DISCUSSION: All replies to another user's statement, vote, endorsement, or evidence should be posted on the RfC's discussion page. There, threaded discussion should be used to keep discussions organized.

Use the following format below; post a new statement at the BOTTOM of the section in which you want to make a statement. Endorse by adding a hash symbol (#) and your signature.

Statement by User:USERNAME
Comment ~


 * Users who endorse this statement:



Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

=Composition of the Committee=

How many arbitrators should we have for 2012? (How many seats should we fill for next year?)
''Consensus from last year's RfC: The number of arbitrators should be reduced to 15. Barring any unexpected vacancies, 8 seats should be filled for next year.''

Statement by Newyorkbrad
The current size of the Committee at 15 members is reasonable. (Arguably the optimal number of members would be slightly less, but we need to build in some extra capacity given that arbitrators get busy, take wikibreaks, etc.) There is also some value to keeping the size stable rather than changing it as frequently as we have in recent years. Thus, my recommendation is to leave it as is. (COI note: In case anyone doesn't realize, I'm a sitting arbitrator and my term expires this year.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:25, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:25, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Neutron (talk) 16:07, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) LegoKontribsTalkM 16:20, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4)  Monty  845  16:21, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) Rschen7754 17:46, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I would also support expansion because I think the per-arbitrator load has been too great up until recently. &mdash; Cup co  19:36, 1 October 2012 (UTC) Banned sock
 * 1) AutomaticStrikeout 20:03, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) My feeling is this is about right. Funnily enough, it does seem a bit quiet if a few of us are busy. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:20, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Current size is about right, and if a little too big, I guess that's just needed as backup for resignations or inactivity. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 03:21, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) If it ain't broke, don't fix it.   Hot Stop     (Edits)   12:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) Davewild (talk) 12:53, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) It could go down a bit, yeah. But it's not worth changing right now. (I fundamentally disagree with the formula for resisting gradual improvement towards excellence, expressed above in the "if it ain't broke" proposal.)  Tony   (talk)  13:40, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) I haven't seen any issues with the current level. Admittedly I haven't been following ArbCom as much lately (has it been a slow year?) but I'm not seeing any reason to change the number.   S ven M anguard   Wha?  16:31, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) What Tony said. I prefer a smaller, more agile committee, but thing at a time.--Tznkai (talk) 20:28, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) --VikÞor |  Talk 02:25, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) Reasonable. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:33, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 11) -- — Keithbob • Talk  • 16:13, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 12) Stability is desirable in this area.  That is, 11 or 13 members is probably enough but I really don't want to debate the issue de novo every year.  Eluchil404 (talk) 17:52, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 13) I would prefer keeping the size of Committee stable. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 10:29, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 14) 15 seems to be working just fine, and any further changes to membership numbers should have good justification so we have some stability. CT Cooper · &#32;talk 11:22, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 15) I agree with Brad, based on my own observations over the past few years. When we've had more than 15 members, there was considerable slowdown due to active Arbitrators taking a long time to vote on proposed principles, findings of fact, and remedies. On the other hand, when we've had less than 15 members, there simply weren't enough Arbitrators around to handle the Committee's tasks efficiently. We've found a productive medium, and I see no pressing reason why we should change it. Kurtis (talk) 21:01, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 16) Sure, though with the caveat that if arbcom seems to constantly need more bureaucratic "subgroups", then maybe we should increase the number of seats. - jc37 21:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 17) We only have somewhere between 10-13 active members at any given moment even with our current roster of 15. Jclemens (talk) 01:00, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 18) --Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 14:24, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 19) All things considered to include recuses, 15 seems the right number. Stability is the best achievable outcome. 76 Strat String da Broke da (talk) 19:59, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 20) Michaelzeng7 (talk) 20:19, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 21) $\color{Blue}\mathcal{M}$$\color{Blue}\vec{( e\ ,}$$\color{Blue}t )$ = ? 20:42, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 22)  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   21:33, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 23) Armbrust, B.Ed. WrestleMania XXVIII The Undertaker 20–0  22:53, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 24) Endorse. Somewhat related, I'd like to see that the committee elects among themselves a set number of Arbitrators who handle said case (7 or 9, with additionally 1 or 2 reserves who can be added when one of the previous 7 or 9 has to leave for whatever reason), and those are strictly the 7 or 9 who are handling the case.  That takes the workload down on some of them (they don't have to be active for all cases), and makes it more clear to the parties who is really active in which case.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 05:43, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I very much like the idea of setting an amount like that. But only if it's a minimum, not a maximum. (A case needs a quorum of at least 11, let's say. And then we wouldn't have to limit the number of arbs to 15. By setting a quorum value, the number of arbs is immaterial, as long as we have enough to establish a quorum.) That way, any arb can join in, but once a case has a quorum, they don't "have" to. That said, what's the motivating factor to join a case? If there is a politically charged case, what's to stop arbs from taking a mini-wikibreak? (Not that that isn't possible now, obviously...) A lottery? or some kind of rotation maybe? - jc37 10:14, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I would also support such an initiative; even considering that a panel of 5 could efficiently handle a bulk of anticipated cases. 76 Strat String da Broke da (talk) 22:55, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 1)  Miniapolis  ( talk ) 13:30, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Stability is a good thing. -- No unique  names  15:30, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Having the same number of arbitrators in each election makes the elections more fair. Jsayre64   (talk)  01:45, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Trusilver  03:42, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) No reason to change. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:09, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) As HotStop said, if it isn't broke, then don't fix it. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 23:15, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) Like Newyorkbrad, my view as a current member of the committee is that the current size is optimal. If the size of the committee were to decrease or increase by more than a couple of members, I would expect many aspects of the arbitration process to suffer as a result. (Mandatory disclosure: Again, I'm a sitting member, though my term does not end this year.) AGK  [•] 11:19, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) What worked in the past is likely to continue to work well.  I see no reason to increase or decrease the number. DocTree (ʞlɐʇ · cont) Join WER 15:42, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) Qwyrxian (talk) 14:38, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) Gilderien Chat&#124;List of good deeds  20:49, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 11) No obvious reason for change, and no evidence the current number isn't working. Manning (talk) 02:33, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 12) Yes. —  ΛΧΣ  21™  03:53, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 13) Yes, but without prejudice to shrinking it a few seats in the future, if the circumstances permit. Lord Roem (talk) 16:56, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 14) mabdul 23:47, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 15) the wub  "?!"  11:33, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 16) Sensible. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:15, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 17) My optimal choice would be 9 but 15 will do for now. ```Buster Seven   Talk  07:02, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 18) The current size seems to be working. Per Hot spots.    Mlpearc  ( powwow ) 10:02, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 19) — Sowlos (talk) 11:37, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 20) Agree strongly. 15 is a decent number, we won't likely run out of active arbs and there's minimal risk of groupthink. Guy (Help!) 12:53, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 21) Endorse. In accordance with my earlier proposal to entrust the Arbitration Committee with the appointment and deposition of Administrators. The Banner  talk 17:34, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 22) If it isn't broken ... ~  GabeMc  (talk 05:50, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 23) We do need to keep it at 15 because of wikibreaks and other things that come up LoganLopez (talk) 15:23, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 24)  Rcsprinter   (warn)  @ 20:45, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 25) Good number, allows for a range of views and builds in some capacity to cover real life stuff that affects everyone. Peacemaker67 (talk) 23:25, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 26) There's no such thing as a perfect number, but this is a reasonable one. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:36, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 27) We have lucky numbers, but there's no magic number for an exact no. of arbitrators.   TruPepitoM  Talk To Me  12:46, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Ebe123
I think the optimal size would be 13, but we should elect 14 for if an arb goes on break. I do not think changing the size would be bad. Ebe 123  → report 00:46, 2 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Ebe  123  → report 00:46, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Alot of us are busy some of the time. 14 I can live with too. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:21, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) I think people are looking at it from the demand side in which case 15 might be optimal, but on the supply side I'm not sure if we're going to have enough viable candidates to fill up the empty slots and hit 15. If it turns out that we do, then never mind. But if we come up short? Are we gonna let any low-support jokers in just to get 15?   Volunteer Marek   20:36, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

How many seats should be 2-year terms, and how many 1-year terms?
Consensus from last year's RfC: Successful candidates with the highest support receive 2-year terms, while those with lower levels of support receive 1-year terms.

Statement by User:Monty845
The first 7 seats filled should be for 2 year terms, any additional seats should be for 1 year terms. This would mean that the Arbiter elected with the lowest support to a regular seat would come back before the community a year later to evaluate their performance, as would any elected to fill unplanned vacancies. This provides a bit of additional accountability, makes sure that none of the 2 year seats end up swapping tranches, while placing little extra burden on the community. Monty <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  15:35, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1)  Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  15:35, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) It means there will be an actual difference between finishing first with 75% support and barely squeaking in with 51%.    Hot Stop     (Edits)   12:40, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Openskye (talk) 11:46, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Neutron
Eight (8) two-year terms should be filled, to match the eight that are expiring. That will leave two tranches (classes, groups, etc.), one with eight members and the other with seven, in alternating years, this being the year for the eight-member group. If any vacancies occur in the seven-member group before the cutoff date for this election (whatever date is chosen), they would be filled for the remaining one-year period at this election, from the 9th, 10th etc. ranking candidates, assuming they meet the required percentage of support. Neutron (talk) 17:44, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Neutron (talk) 17:44, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) The community decided in 2010 for good reasons that the term length should be two years, and that has worked well. A one-year term can mean that just as an arbitrator has become fully familiar with the role, it is time for him or her either to run for reelection or leave the Committee. It is best to stick for two-year terms for everyone except in ad hoc vacancy situations. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:55, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) AutomaticStrikeout 20:06, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Per Newyorkbrad, exactly.  TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 20:45, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) -- Dianna (talk) 23:01, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6)   Volunteer Marek   01:53, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) Rschen7754 02:21, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) Per NYB really. Takes some time to learn the ropes. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:22, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) Davewild (talk) 12:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) Yes, as before, only one-year terms if they are filling early vacancies. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 15:46, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 11) Sensible.   S ven M anguard   Wha?  15:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 12) VikÞor  |  Talk 02:27, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 13) Per NYB.  --Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:35, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 14) --<span style="font-family:Comic Sans MS,sans -serif"> — <b style= "color:#090;">Keithbob</b> • Talk  • 16:14, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 15) Sensible. CT Cooper · &#32;talk 11:24, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 16) This would make it a lot less convoluted going forward than if we were to completely alter the "seating arrangements" so to speak. I also agree with appointing an additional Arbitrator to a one-year term in the event of an early vacancy, provided they've garnered a margin of at least 50% in support; you never know, they might turn out to be great at the job. Kurtis (talk) 21:08, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 17) Definitely confirm that it takes up to six months to be fully functioning, so 1 year terms would not get the best out of new arbs. Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:25, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 18) - jc37 21:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 19) Jclemens (talk) 01:03, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 20) I understand the logic behind the two/one-year terms until last year: to maximise the evenness of the number of vacancies from year to year. But that evenness has almost always been overshadowed by early departures, and I don't much care if the number of vacancies fluctuates. I strongly agree with Elen that one year is insufficient. Tony   (talk)  03:44, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 21) Armbrust, B.Ed. <sup style="color:#E3A857;">WrestleMania XXVIII <sub style="color:#008000;">The Undertaker 20–0  22:55, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 22)  Miniapolis  ( talk ) 13:36, 9 October 2012 (UTC) (also agreeing with Newyorkbrad, above)
 * Yes, we need to replace the two-year terms that are expiring. Jsayre64   (talk)  01:47, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) This makes the most sense.  Think about how some city council elections work - the 10 (or however many) people who get the most votes are all elected for some number of years.  You don't say, you got more votes so you serve for two years, while this other person only serves for one.  If someone dies/leaves/melts down, then replace them with an appointee from the pool or have a special election if no more are available. --B (talk) 15:11, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Makes the most sense to me. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 23:29, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) AGK  [•] 11:43, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Per Newyorkbrad (Number 2 above). DocTree (ʞlɐʇ · cont) Join WER 15:55, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) Gilderien Chat&#124;List of good deeds  20:56, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) 8 sounds reasonable. — ΛΧΣ  21™  03:54, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) Suprcel (talk) 21:15, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) <i style="color:#FF4500;">76</i> Strat String da Broke da (talk) 08:32, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) the wub  "?!"  11:49, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) Assuming we're presented with enough good candidates. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:15, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 11) Agree, per first hand knowledge, it does take some time to settle in.   Mlpearc  ( powwow ) 10:07, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 12) Agree, but prefer 3-year terms. When a arbitrator resigns, his/her spot should be filled for the remainder of the term. In cases that the elections were less then 4 months ago, the highest ranking non-chosen candidates should be asked to fill the gap. <span style="font-family:'Old English Text MT',serif;color:green">The Banner  <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 14:08, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 13) An elegant solution. ~  GabeMc  (talk 05:33, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 14) Sensible to stagger changeover, maintains corporate knowledge but ensures accountability to the community within a reasonable timeframe. Peacemaker67 (talk) 23:27, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 15) I'm a little ambivalent about giving two-year terms to candidates who get 50–60% support, but I see the logic in saying that one-year terms aren't enough to really get up to speed. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:39, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 16) It's true that the no. of seats up should be equal to the no. of arbitrators retiring. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TruPepitoM (talk • contribs) 12:49, October 31, 2012‎

Statement by User:Beetstra
Having 50% support (which by definition is also 50% oppose) is not the strongest support to start a term as an Arbitrator. Although I understand Elen's concern in the above thread ("Definitely confirm that it takes up to six months to be fully functioning, so 1 year terms would not get the best out of new arbs.", though I note that Arbitrators have been voting on cases which were already opened before their term started, and that 2 years may also not get the best out of new arbs when they indeed turn out not to be the strongest candidates), I would suggest to consider whether we should give 1 year terms to Arbitrators who have between 50 and, say, 70% (percentage to be determined before the election starts), and to give 2 year terms to Arbitrators that have more than that 70%.


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Dirk Beetstra T  C 20:52, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Hasteur
To me it seems quite simple. There are seats that are expiring at the end of this election. There are other seats that are not expiring that are currently vacant (1 year left on the seat's term). Starting with the 2 year seats, start seating new arbiters based on their approval rating. Below some threshold (66% or 60%) seat the candidates in 1 year term seats. If we have more qualified candidates than seats on the 2 year cycle, start seating the remainder in 1 year sets. If we don't have enough candidates that meet the supermajority threshold, leave the seat empty. If we don't have enough candidates that pass the bare minimum threshold (50%), leave 1 year seats vacant. It's hard, but it's expected that the candidates need to have the confidence of a reasonable amount of the community before being considered an Arbitrator.


 * Users who endorse this statement:
 * 1) Hasteur (talk) 21:22, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Similar thinking, 50% may be a bit low.  Dirk Beetstra T  C 21:41, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Since I don't think we are supposed to put "Oppose" votes in here (although I think there is an "Oppose" section for some statement on this page), I just want to point out that my statement above (fill all eight expiring terms for 2 years, fill any vacancies in the other "group" (of which there are none to date) for 1 year), assumes that there is a single threshhold, the "height" of which is being discussed in a section further down this page. Hasteur and Dirk Beetstra have (each) proposed a two-threshhold system. I suppose I could make another statement in this section, proposing that there is a single threshhold, but I think it would unduly complicate things. A single threshhold is inherent in my statement, and I assume (though we all know what happens when you assume) that it is inherent in Monty's statement as well. I'll also say that whoever closes this RfC should get double pay. Neutron (talk) 22:28, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment
 * The purpose is to solidify 2 thresholds. A higher one for those candidates that recieve a significant amount of support to fill the "more choice" seats, then a lower one that fills the lesser seats because the community had less confidence in them as Arbitrators.  The idea is the ones the community is less sure of get the lesser seats and we leave vacant any seats we cannot fill (No choice seat should go to a candidate that got less than the higher threshold, no seat for those who can't muster a simple majority of people who voted. 76.184.251.7 (talk) 01:53, 12 October 2012 (UTC) Hasteur (talk) 12:51, 12 October 2012 (UTC) (taking ownership of my comment that was made while accidentally logged out)
 * @Neutron - I know that your, and Monty's, are based on a one-threshold system. You just say, the X highest votes get 2 year, the rest gets one year (basically).  I do think that 50% is a bit low, but sufficient, but what I am trying to propose here is that to have a 2 year seat, you need significant support, for a one year seat, enough support.  So I am not suggesting to 'the X highest get 2 years', I am suggesting to 'the Y who get over 70% get 2 years' (which I think is reasonable, but maybe 66.6% is fine as well) - if that then are less than X, but only 4 .. so be it.  If the ones in 1 year positions do well, in one year they should be able to get more (and the ones who get 1 year positions because they did not get into the X positions would have to reconsider themselves as well over a year, and we would possibly have to reconsider them as well).  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 05:33, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Od Mishehu
8 candidates should be choisen for 2-year terms.Should any of the other 7 resign before the cut-off date, they should be replaced by subsequent candidates for a one-year term. Should any of the 8 2-year term arbs resign during this year, and any 1-year arbs voted in this year still available, then a 1-year should be upgraded to a 2-year to fill in the resulting vavancy of the following year.


 * Users who endorse this statement:

-
 * 1) עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:43, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Nathan
They should all be one year terms. Lots of things change in one year - on Wikipedia, on the Internet, in the world, in the lives of arbitrators, etc. The subset of the community that participates in the annual election for arbitrators should have the opportunity to select the entire committee, not just a portion of it. Think about the composition and nature of the Wikipedia community - it changes so rapidly that there might be only a fairly small concordance between the voters in one election and the next. By limiting the election to only some committee members, you bar today's community from fully influencing the future of the project. I understand the arguments in favor of staggered elections, but disagree that the utility of such a system outweighs its somewhat anti-democratic nature. At the very least, one year terms should be an option on the table here and thus I propose it.


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) <strong style="color:#0033CC">Nathan <strong style="color:#0033CC"> T 19:31, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) This is the only statement that has it right. All terms should be one year so that the ArbCom's composition will fully reflect the wishes of the community in each year. A two-year term is excessive for a project like Wikipedia; things can just change so much in one year. I have not seen any convincing arguments in support of these long terms, and shorter terms will serve to promote higher levels of engagement and accountability. Everyking (talk) 13:52, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Sowlos
The number of Arbitration Committee members receiving 2-year (and 1-year) terms should not be based on the number of seats. Term length should be based on two factors: This allows the community to evaluate untested candidates and those with low support after only one year while allotting the benefit and trust of longer terms those who have earned it. If enough elected candidates meet the requirements for 2-year terms, let the whole committee be filled with 2-year seats. If the reverse is true, let the whole committee be filled with 1-year seats. Trust the community. However, term-limits may be worth consideration.
 * First term candidates should always receive 1-year terms
 * Successful candidates for subsequent terms should receive 2-year terms if they receive supermajority support (such as two-thirds) and 1-year terms if they receive less


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) — Sowlos (talk) 12:33, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

What should the requirements be for candidates to run for the election?
Consensus from last year's RfC:
 * Registered account with a minimum of 500 edits.
 * Good standing and was not currently subject to active blocks or site-bans.
 * Meets the Wikimedia Foundation's criteria for access to non-public data and is was willing to identify with the Foundation if elected.
 * Has disclosed any alternate accounts in their election statements (legitimate accounts which had been declared to the Arbitration Committee prior to the close of nominations did not need to be publicly disclosed).

Statement by User:Ebe123
I disagree with the "was not subject to a block" as people can change and we should not deny possibility to run because of a block. Imagine. You do not know the policies and you disregard them. You get blocked, but you learn and the user has really changed. Imagine you're that person. Ebe 123  → report 01:09, 2 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Ebe  123  → report 01:09, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Gigs (talk) 13:23, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Sounds reasonable.  Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:37, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comments
 * The language is intended to mean they they are not currently blocked and not currently subject to a site ban. Past blocks that have expired or been overturned are for !voters to consider how they will. Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  01:13, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree, so I think the proposed change is not controversial and should be done for clarity. Gigs (talk) 13:23, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I made the change above to the original language as a clerical correction. Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  19:01, 2 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Should "did not need to be publicly disclosed" actually say "do not need"? Or was another meaning intended? 67.117.130.72 (talk) 01:26, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The above was summarizing last year's rules, so it's written in the past tense. For the current election it would presumably be present tense. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:55, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Sven Manguard

 * Registered account with a minimum of 500 edits.
 * Account has a minimum of 180 edits in the past six months.
 * ''User is not currently subject to active blocks, site-bans, or editing restrictions imposed specifically on that user by either the community or ArbCom.
 * Meets the Wikimedia Foundation's criteria for access to non-public data and is willing to identify with the Foundation if elected.
 * Has disclosed any alternate accounts in their election statements (legitimate accounts which had been declared to the Arbitration Committee prior to the close of nominations did not need to be publicly disclosed).

This is a slightly stronger set of requirements. The new additions should not effect legitimate candidates, but will spare us from "NWA.Rep" type candidates. If a user can't average one edit a day over six months, I personally doubt that they have the commitment to function as an arb.  S ven M anguard  Wha?  17:00, 2 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Obviously.   S ven M anguard   Wha?  17:00, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Rschen7754 17:53, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3)  No  unique  names  15:07, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) We need to elect people who have time to be actively involved as an Arb, not those that will be absent or little time to spare. 180 edits over 6 months is a very minimal commitment. An active Arb such as User:Newyorkbrad, exceeds this amount in one month on mostly Arb related duties. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 18:29, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

or editing restrictions - some editing restrictions are fairly trivial or outdated and should be covered by usual recusal policy. Whether these are serious enough to disqualify is something for voters to decide. Blocks and site-bans on the other hand make it more or less impossible for the person to act as arbitrators, so that makes sense. So I would remove those three words.
 * Discussion

In regard to the qualifier in parentheses in the last bullet: legitimate accounts which had been declared to the Arbitration Committee prior to the close of nominations did not need to be publicly disclosed. Does that mean that if someone emails the ArbCom shortly prior to the close of nominations with their alts, then they don't have to disclose anything? I'm also not sure how I feel about the "if you let ArbCom know, you're good" part of it - history suggests that Arbs don't often react, or even notice, these kinds of notices (though they might have learned a thing or two), even if this issue has not arisen in regard to candidates so far. Why not just require full disclosure of all alts, unless there are real and important privacy reasons? Keep it simple.  Volunteer Marek  17:45, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I disagree with the proposed change, the qualifications to run should be designed to avoid candidates with so little experience that they don't realize they stand no chance of being elected, candidates that would be ineligible to serve, and candidates whose candidacy would be clearly disruptive as in the case of blocked or banned users, but not candidates that will fail to meet our personal criteria for support. For more experienced users who could serve, but who have a problem that makes it unlikely they will be elected, such as the active restriction, or lack of recent activity, I trust in leaving it to them to decide if they want to run, and to the voters to adequately weigh their suitability. Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  19:08, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Editcountitis. Doing 180 or even 500 edits in one day isn't terribly difficult, especially for bot operators, so the "requirement" is game-able anyway.  I think voters are capable of using their own judgment about a candidate's contribution history, and anything (such as lack of edits) reflecting on candidate suitability should be brought up in discussion of the candidate. 67.117.130.72 (talk) 19:35, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I think that the people choosing the arbs will be able to weigh the levels of inactivity on their own. No need to complicate the rules with it. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:39, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The 500 and 180 edits (total and past six month respectively) seems rather strange to me. The numbers are too low to bar the noobs, and I see no particular reason to bar them in the first place. Otherwise these two requirements are useless. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 10:59, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * On the edit count restrictions, I share czarkoff's reservations. On the editing restrictions provision in particular, I have marked concerns. Editing restrictions do not confer a binary state, unlike blocks or bans, and take many different forms of seriousness. In many cases, a restriction could be years old. The effect of editing restrictions on a candidate's ability to serve on the committee are better determined by the community during voting than by the minimum requirements of candidacies—which are intended to exclude only new, blocked, and banned accounts. The requirements proposed above go too far. AGK  [•] 11:23, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) Getting 180 edits is hard when you're in the hotspot of scarcity of materials.  TruPepitoM  Talk To Me  13:07, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by 67.117.130.72
Anyone can run if they meet the WMF requirements and their nomination is supported by 2 editors in good standing.
 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) 67.117.130.72 (talk) 19:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) No need to separate by number of edits.   Ebe  123  → report 10:12, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) per above.--Müdigkeit (talk) 11:25, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Agreed. Voters will decide who they trust and who not. Superp (talk) 20:41, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) This seems the most elegant proposal (and the two-nominators clause IMO addresses concerns about troll-nominees, below).  It Is Me Here   t /  c 14:13, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Comments

 * Can someone clarify for me, what is "objective" "in good standing"? Does this include any hidden edit counts? blocks? Really, we can discuss everything and I like the idea, but the problem is that I see the problem that we can't deny anybody with that woolly requirement. "Troll nominees" can simply caused by new meat puppies... So the bar isn't really set higher than before. <small style="font: 12px Courier New; color: #000000; display:inline;border:#009 1px dashed;padding:1px 3px 1px 4px;background-color:#fff">mabdul 00:05, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment. Having been in elections that were closed per SNOW, I can say that I personally do not object to a small number of nominees who are not likely to gain any support. There is really nothing wrong with trying - it is a learning experience and you get better each time. And they are easy to scroll past. To me, good standing is not something that could be defined other than not blocked, and of course no one who is blocked would be able to participate anyway. It really is not necessary for everyone to vote against them - a few no votes are sufficient to guarantee the result. Apteva (talk) 00:22, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Correct me if I'm wrong, but we are discussing about the requirements of the candidates. You can't vote against somebody without any "vote" - we are discussing that if somebody can be "promoted" to be a candidate. So this procedure is before the vote starts and thus nobody can vote for or against anybody... <small style="font: 12px Courier New; color: #000000; display:inline;border:#009 1px dashed;padding:1px 3px 1px 4px;background-color:#fff">mabdul 12:39, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Volunteer Marek

 * Not currently subject to active long term (more than a month) blocks or site-ban.
 * Meets the Wikimedia Foundation's criteria for access to non-public data and is willing to identify with the Foundation if elected.
 * Has disclosed any alternate accounts in their election statements.

The first is essential for an Arb to carry out their duties - though I am specifically excluding short term blocks and other sanctions which I believe it is up to voters to decide whether these are relevant or not. The second one is important because Arbs handle private information and this will help ensure a level of accountability. The third should go at least some way to preventing potential shenanigans which could result in a huge amount of drama and waste of time later on in case an alt account or two, or fifty, are discovered (and the implication is that in such circumstances the person would automatically be de-Arbed). I think these are the minimum requirements, and I also believe that there is no point in going above the minimum - everything else can be decided by voters.


 * Users who support the statement


 * 1) Me. That is one helluva an awesome statement!  Volunteer Marek   00:30, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Nothing to add, actually. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 10:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) I was about to propose this myself, before I saw this Statement, so obviously I support it. Whether or not an editor with less than a certain number or frequency of edits makes them "uncommitted" is up to the voters to decide. These 3 criteria, however, are common sense to be required. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 00:42, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Support, and well done. The Garbage Skow (talk) 19:06, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

How would a user blocked at the time of their nomination go about nominating themselves? Also, shouldn't there be some screening, either via edit count or some other mechanism, to avoid editors with no chance of being selected, such as an account whose first edit after becoming autoconfirmed is to nominate themselves, from cluttering the ballot? Monty <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  00:45, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comments


 * Hmm, it hasn't been a problem in the past, but I guess it could be one in the future. Maybe I should amend that to include that 500 non-bot edit threshold. Not opposed to that idea.  Volunteer Marek   01:13, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * If we're worried about trolling editors who create their accounts just to nominate themselves, then how about some requirement that candidates must have been a part of the project for at least a few months or so? We shouldn't be too restrictive, as voters can decide how experienced an editor should be, but some bare minimum to eliminate trolls would be okay. In theory, an edit count can be stacked up by a troll in a few days or weeks, whereas a minimum requirement of having been a registered user for at least 4-6 months (Should it be more? Less?) better prevents ballots from being cluttered by these trolling editors. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 00:53, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I would be fine with that.6 months seems about right.  Volunteer Marek   18:55, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes. And even that would just be so that the really exceptional user comes along - although of course it also means that someone with 100,000 edits over 8 years only needs to wait 6 months after last changing their user name. Apteva (talk) 00:26, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:gwickwire

 * No long-term or renewed bans on account(s) at any time.
 * Meets the Wikimedia Foundation's criteria for access to non-public data and is willing to identify with the Foundation if elected.
 * Minimum edit count of 1,000 edits total, 100 of which must be in the past month OR 40 in article(talk) namespace.
 * Account must be six months old
 * ''Complete disclosure of all alternate, bot, or other accounts.

I personally feel like some of the ones above are too relaxed. If the user has ever had a long-term ban on their account, or had a renewed ban, then they likely didn't learn their lesson with a short ban. Identification to WMF is neccesary for duties. Minimum edit count shows that they are somewhat active and somewhat familiar with policies by this time. Reason for the OR article namespace is some people only edit articles, and don't make a lot of edits because of that. Six month requirement is for further knowledge of policies here, and also to show that they aren't just someone who joined for fun, then will leave in a while. Other accounts are neccesary so the community knows of any blocks or any other happenings that the user running would wish to hide from us otherwise.

gwickwire &#124; Leave a message 22:36, 8 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) gwickwire &#124; Leave a message 22:36, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:AGK
These requirements (which were used in last year's elections) should be used this year:

These requirements exclude very new, blocked, and banned editors from running, but leave any other decisions about unsuitability to the community's vote. This is as it should be. AGK [•] 11:31, 12 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) AGK  [•] 11:31, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) I prefer consistency unless there is a reason to change. DocTree (ʞlɐʇ · cont) Join WER 16:13, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Sounds reasonable. I see no reason why this should be changed. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 22:18, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Support as above proposals aren't gaining traction. --Rschen7754 22:23, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) Neutron (talk) 22:49, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) As stated this is about 'minimum requirements'. If an editor has only made (say) 100 mainspace edits in recent months, that will quickly be raised in discussion, and the community can weigh the issue directly. Ditto for any recent blocks or community action. We don't need these things in the prerequisites. Manning (talk) 02:41, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) Best of what has been proposed - I don't see any pressing need for any major changes. CT Cooper · &#32;talk 18:33, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) Seems fine. Hobit (talk) 03:11, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) Good to me. —  ΛΧΣ  21™  03:57, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) Support statusquo.  Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  20:07, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 11) Reasonable. -- Lord Roem (talk) 03:37, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 12) the wub  "?!"  12:03, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 13) Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:15, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 14)  Mlpearc  ( powwow ) 10:15, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 15) Agree. ~  GabeMc  (talk 05:53, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 16) No change supported. Let the voters decide otherwise, don't impose requirements that will restricts the voters choice. Davewild (talk) 17:29, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 17) Yes, there really is no need to change these criteria. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:41, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Od Mishehu
As absolute requirements:
 * Eligible to vote
 * Willing to identify with the Foundation if elected, and will otherwise meet the criteria for access to non-public data as of the first day of the term
 * Not subject to any block during the election period (from the beginning of nomination to the end of the vote)

As recommended requirements (Users who don't meet these requirements are unlikely to get in, but are welcome to try at their own risk):
 * Administrators (including former admins who could regain it at any time by contacting a 'crat)
 * No recent blocks or bans
 * Experience with dispute resolution

עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 16:24, 14 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 16:24, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:My76Strat
Since the question asks "What should the requirements be" instead of "What will the requirements be", I'll say this: The buck for ArbCom appointments "should" stop on Mr. Wales desk. The prospects should ultimately be published by Jimbo, after consideration. However, like I said, I think it "will" be done differently than this. <i style="color:#FF4500;">76</i> Strat String da Broke da (talk) 09:05, 18 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:

Is it really necessary to get into the issue of Jimbo's role on this subject? The way I see it, Jimbo has effectively "delegated" the issue of what the requirements "should be" (or "will be") to run for ArbCom, to the "community", and this RfC is the device the community uses to determine that issue. Now, one could ask, is there a point at which the community's consensus could be deemed to be so "out of line" that Jimbo might step in and impose a different set of requirements? I think the answer is, theoretically, yes. For example, if the consensus in this RfC was that a candidate needs 30,000 edits to run for ArbCom, someone(s) would probably ask Jimbo to step in, and in that kind of extreme example, I suspect that he would step in. But it is obvious that the chances of that happening are extremely remote, so the issue of "what happens if it does" is not something that really requires discussion. There are many such issues on Wikipedia, and not just in these elections. Neutron (talk) 16:38, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comments
 * I don't think my comment was "necessary". But I don't think it was necessary that I keep it to myself either. <i style="color:#FF4500;">76</i> Strat String da Broke da (talk) 20:12, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:ErrantX
One of the issues with Arbcom is that often it represents the "patroller" and "administrator" side of Wikipedia less than the "content" side. This is problematic as it lacks balance. One solution could be to require either:


 * Editors standing for election must have writen either 5 Good Articles or One Featured Article.
 * Editors standing for election must have at least 60% of their total contributions to article space.

This could redress the balance by ensuring we have extremely established editors (either admin or non-admin) with experience in article work (the bread and butter of Wikipedia). Errant (chat!) 15:16, 21 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Errant (chat!) 15:16, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I have one fundamental problem with this, and that is that yet again it takes the tack of "the only real article is a GA or FA". I've got 13 featured lists - do these not make me a content editor? Do they not teach me the need for balance, for verifiability, for the avoidance of plagiarism? What about my circa-200 DYKs? The one thing that sickens me more than the "the only real editors are content editors" position (which I'm not saying you endorse) is the fact that the editors who hold that position, 9 times out of 10, have a very precise definition of what "content editors" are. GAs and FAs are not the bread and butter of Wikipedia - stubs are. B-class articles are. Taking something crappy and making it neutral. Most of our editors have engaged in content editing, but most haven't engaged with GA or FA, because it requires a certain degree of metapedianism that little things like clearing out spam or adding citations or expanding and updating don't. And I'm tired of seeing engagement with the highest grade of content editing touted as the way people demonstrate competence and experience. an FA or GA is not a prerequisite for knowing your way around content any more than playing for the Premier League is a requirement for being considered a footballer. Ironholds (talk) 15:51, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Looking back at this it may come off as an attack on you - my apologies for that. It was more intended as an attack on the concerns that this seems to be trying to address. Ironholds (talk) 15:55, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure, and I'd support a broadening of the criteria (honestly; in my mind FL == FA, as much work is required for both!). One issue with article percentage is "patroller" types may often look like adept content writer. I don't expect this requirement to "pass", at all. And indeed it probably shouldn't. However it's step one in an attempt to highlight that we have a serious issue; in that the "metapedians" hold a significant portion of the administrative and social power in our community. I often worry that so much of our procedures and problems are driven by the "meta" that such a huge portion of our community partake in (I've long argued for the moving of a lot of our social interactions off-site). Often administrative or legislative actions confuse me as they simply don't seem beneficial to writing good content (of any type), and I realised some time ago that is because a lot of people making those suggestions and driving their acceptance are people who don't write/edit much content. We need to restrike the balance and make sure that content is the focus of all our work. If we can find a metric that properly covers all the content editing you mention then I would be fully behind using it. --Errant (chat!) 16:06, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * As a broad statement I'd agree with that. The problem we have at the moment is that formally evaluating article content is a metapedian activity, insofar as it is something that requires active engagement in community processes to achieve. It would be nice to see more people nominate the articles of others for evaluation, for example, as a possible way around this, but that's just a random idea (and probably sucks). Ironholds (talk) 16:12, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * For the record, a few years back it was considered gauche to nominate one's own article; the majority of articles at FAC were nominated by editors other than the primary contributor. This was stopped when a pattern of drive-by nominations developed, wasting the time of FAC reviewers and delegates. Risker (talk) 18:21, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) This would be an interesting requirement, and while I realize it's unlikely to gain traction, I wanted to offer you moral support. I know that in my case, some portion of my previous evaluation by voters' guides has turned on the fact that I have multiple GA's and a couple of pieces of featured content. Jclemens (talk) 02:04, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Hell freakin' yes. Of course we can count FLs too.   Volunteer Marek   02:52, 25 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment
 * ErrantX, if you were to look for the 15 arbitrators you feel have performed best in the role, and then checked how many of them met the standards you're proposing, I think you might fall a bit short in being able to fill that table. Could you explain to me the correlation between production of featured content and dispute resolution? <Full disclosure: I had 2 FAs and a GA credited to me at the time I was appointed to Arbcom; unless I'm missing something, the current committee has 5 or 6 editors who would meet the FA/GA criterion. I don't know that *any* current sitting arbitrators met the 60% article space criterion at the time of their appointment (unless they were using scripted tools), and I'm relatively certain that very few, if any, arbitrators in the history of the project would have met that. Very few editors with a history of dispute resolution would have. >  Risker (talk) 02:57, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Risker, to flip what the Classical economists used to say, "demand creates its own supply".  Volunteer Marek   03:02, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * And? There have been quite a few FA-writers who've run for the Committee in the past and who have not been supported sufficiently by the community. So you're looking for, what exactly? High level content contributors who are also successful at dispute resolution, *and* are willing to put up with constant abuse?  Can you think of 15 people currently editing who fit into that category? Risker (talk) 18:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I am open to the first suggestion, the requirement of some strong content work, but I don't like the percentage element. Seems totally arbitrary and not necessarily relevant to whether someone's worked through researching and building a developed article. Lord Roem (talk) 03:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * This is the wrong approach; it is wrong to try to impose our own opinions on what makes a good Arb as the minimum standards to run at all. There is ample opportunity to express that opinion through guide writing and voting. Instead, what we must decided here is who can be considered a serious enough candidate as to appear on the ballot, and no more. Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  17:36, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with Monty. I think the voters should be treated as if they are capable of deciding for themselves who should be on the ArbCom.  While minimal requirements like 500 edits are reasonable just to make sure someone has at least some level of commitment to the project, adding specific requirements for content contribution is not reasonable.  While I support the current set of requirements, I'd rather see no requirements at all -- let even a brand-new editor or a banned user run, since I know the voters would not elect such a person -- than to have this kind of requirement imposed.  Neutron (talk) 19:08, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Everyking
I think the requirements should be stronger than what I'm seeing in the statements above. To be an effective arbitrator, you need a lot of experience. Most of the cases that get to ArbCom are quite complex and require extensive experience&mdash;both as a content editor and as an administrator&mdash;to properly understand and appropriately resolve. I suggest that the key requirement should be adminship&mdash;not necessarily current adminship, but some past or present admin experience, ideally at least a year of it, along with a record of consistent editing for at least the two years immediately prior to the ArbCom vote. I just don't see the point in even bothering with candidates who don't meet those qualifications.


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Everyking (talk) 14:11, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Kww

 * Registered account with a minimum of 500 (or so) edits.
 * Good standing and not currently subject to active blocks or site-bans.
 * Meets the Wikimedia Foundation's criteria for access to non-public data and is was willing to identify with the Foundation if elected.
 * Has disclosed any alternate accounts in their election statements. Any accounts which have been declared to the Arbitration Committee prior to the close of nominations must be publicly disclosed by the Arbitration committee when the nomination is accepted.
 * Has not served four consecutive years in the preceding six years

First, the idea of an Arbcom member with an alternate account that has been disclosed only to Arbcom is repulsive. Arbcom members should not have undisclosed alternate accounts. Period.

I think it is also time for term limits. I've tried to derive a formula that allows reelection, but requires them to take an occasional break.

As for edit counts: I think insisting on an edit count is fine, but I can't get myself excited over the exact number.&mdash;Kww(talk) 23:09, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Users who endorse this statement:
 * 1) &mdash;Kww(talk) 23:09, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by MuZemike
Last year's unexpected and last-minute vacancies has prompted me to pose this question about vacancies. Basically, there are three types of vacancies to be considered:


 * 1) End-of-term vacancies: Vacancies that will result when an Arbitrator's term is expected to end.
 * 2) Expected vacancies: Vacancies that will result when a sitting (at least one year remaining in term) Arbitrator is expected to step down from the Committee before his/her term ends.
 * 3) Unexpected vacancies: Vacancies that will result when a sitting Arbitrator unexpectedly steps down from the Committee for one reason or another.

I'm not sure which directions the discussions will go, but it's clear that the biggest concern by far is with unexpected vacancies, as is what happened last year. I pose some questions:


 * If a sitting arbitrator unexpectedly resigns, how long should that corresponding term be?
 * Until what point can we adjust the number of vacant seats without jeopardizing the integrity of the election? (i.e. it would be too late during voting, as adjusting seats will very much affect how voters will vote; too early means that seats may go unnecessarily unfilled for next year)

--MuZemike 02:09, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Monty845
In addition to seats from regular vacancies and expected vacancies, all seats resulting from unexpected vacancies that are announced up to 48 hours before the close of the voting should be filled. This will fill the maximum number of seats possible while still giving those who wish to vote strategically based on the seat count a chance to amend their votes. I doubt many voters will change votes, thus the small window wont be a problem for most voters. Monty <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  02:52, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  02:52, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * &mdash; Cup co  03:07, 1 October 2012 (UTC) Banned sock
 * 1) Not opposing this, as long as we're not dipping below 50% support though. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:24, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2)   Hot Stop     (Edits)   12:42, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) I agree, I don't think many people are that strategic with their voting, and even if they are, a small window to adjust is fine. Gigs (talk) 13:26, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Second choice (so far), see below.  Neutron (talk) 19:59, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) Second choice. CT Cooper · &#32;talk 11:31, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) The point is to fill the committee with the community's elected representatives; freezing the number of vacancies prematurely can put a crimp in that. Jclemens (talk) 01:05, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) Sensible, presuming Casliber's caveat.  --j⚛e deckertalk 15:39, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) As long as Casliber's modification is rolled in, count me in.  -- No  unique  names  15:36, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion
I oppose this. It defeats some of the reasons for having voting over several days. This should be limited to "before voting starts" as another suggestion noted. - jc37 00:48, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It defeats some of the reason, but not the whole reason.I doubt that many voters would change their vote if suddenly there were to be an other openning. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:40, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Cupco
If a sitting arbitrator unexpectedly resigns, the corresponding replacement term should be one year long. &mdash; Cup co  03:07, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * &mdash; Cup co  03:07, 1 October 2012 (UTC) Banned sock


 * 1)  Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  03:10, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Ebe123
The arb on break should not have compensation for the loss of time, and the 14th arb (in my first proposal) should take the arb's place. Ebe 123  → report 00:49, 2 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Ebe  123  → report 00:49, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Neutron
This is a modification of Monty's proposal, above: Vacancies that occur before voting begins in the election will be filled in this election. (This applies to terms that are not otherwise being filled in this election; in other words it applies only to the departure of Arbitrators elected in the 2011 election.) I believe changing the number of seats being filled while voting is actually taking place creates too much of a "moving target". Note, this change still would have resulted in the filling of last year's "last minute" vacancy in the election, because voting had not yet begun. Neutron (talk) 19:58, 2 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) First choice, I would support Monty's proposal as a fallback. Neutron (talk) 19:58, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Predictability is good here. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:43, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) No midstream changes, ever.--Tznkai (talk) 03:54, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) I don't think the number should change once voting's begun, either. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 13:35, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) Unexpected vacancies that occur after the start of voting should not be filled at this election. Eluchil404 (talk) 17:57, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) I can support this although hypothetically if a vacancy occurred on, say, the first day of the election one could argue for the opposite result. However, one of the purposes of having the Committee size remain at 15 (as consensus above seems to agree on) rather than reducing it is so that an unexpected vacancy or two won't have a detrimental impact. (For what it's worth, I'm not aware of any arbitrators who aren't up for reelection this year but are thinking of resigning early, so hopefully this will not be any sort of issue.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:20, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7)   Volunteer Marek   00:32, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) Simplest and fairest option, and as New York Brad states, one or two vacancies won't be much of an issue. CT Cooper · &#32;talk 11:30, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) - jc37 21:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:58, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 11) VikÞor  |  Talk 01:23, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 12) the wub  "?!"  12:06, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 13) Opposes are unconvincing. :P Lord Roem (talk) 18:54, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 14)  Mlpearc  ( powwow ) 10:20, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 15) This is the most equitable. Fill all open seats during elections, save seats that open during elections. As long as the committee has enough members to cope, this works. — Sowlos (talk) 12:38, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 16) ~  GabeMc  (talk 05:54, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 17) This seems the least likely to result in confusion. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:43, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Nouniquenames
I propose electing one more person than we have positions to fill. The lowest-support individual, if still above 50% support and agreeable to the notion, would become an alternate to fill any vacancy that arises. No unique  names  15:23, 9 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) No  unique  names  15:23, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion
The "positions we have to fill" would ideally (in my opinion) be at the end of the election, as individuals should be voting based on who they want elected. That said, it could just as easily be 48 hours out, at the beginning of the election, or whenever seems most appropriate to others involved. -- No unique  names  15:23, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

=The election itself=

How many days for voting?
Consensus from last year's RfC: At least 14 days should be allowed for voting.

What should the voting timeline be?
Consensus from last year's RfC: At least 10 days should be allowed for the nomination period, 5 days for the fallow period (the period between nominations and voting, mainly to handle any late administrative and software tasks before voting begins), 14 days for voting, and a brief but indeterminate time for scrutineering.

Statement by MuZemike
Going off last year's election, I have drafted a following timeline below for this year's election:


 * Nominations: Sunday 00:01, 18 November - Tuesday 23:59, 27 November (10 days)
 * Fallow period: Wednesday 00:01, 28 November - Sunday 23:59, 2 December (5 days)
 * Voting period: Monday 00:01, 3 December - Sunday 23:59, 16 December (14 days)
 * Scrutineering: Monday 00:01, 17 December - ??? (whenever the Stewards are finished)

--MuZemike 02:09, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) --MuZemike 02:09, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Rschen7754 02:22, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * &mdash; Cup co  02:52, 1 October 2012 (UTC) Banned sock
 * 1) I would also support a longer nominating period, but this proposal is acceptable to me. Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  02:54, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) AutomaticStrikeout 20:09, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) -- Dianna (talk) 23:01, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Neutron (talk) 23:16, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) Müdigkeit (talk) 15:02, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6)   S ven M anguard   Wha?  16:34, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) Seems right.   Volunteer Marek   00:33, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * AGK [•] 11:33, 12 October 2012 (UTC) Prefer the next proposal.  AGK  [•] 11:34, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Of the options proposed, I prefer this one. DocTree (ʞlɐʇ · cont) Join WER 19:31, 12 October 2012 (UTC) Perhaps earlier is better. DocTree (ʞlɐʇ · cont) Join WER 19:34, 12 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Discussion
 * What is the value of the 5-day fallow period? Speaking as one of last year's candidates, I didn't find it particularly helpful, and it simply added another 5 days to the "no decision yet" period. Is this something that people feel strongly should be continued? Risker (talk) 05:10, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Most importantly it provides time for the poll to be set up. I guess it could also be useful if there are any last minute nominations and there was some type of procedural concern that needed to be worked out. Basically a time to make sure that everything is ready to go for the start of voting. Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  05:57, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It also gives a short period for the compilation and review of voter guides. -- Dianna (talk) 23:01, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * And a thorough dirt diggin'...  Volunteer Marek   01:43, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Marek, how could you..... 02:25, 2 October 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Casliber (talk • contribs)
 * And to answer the large number of questions! Courcelles 04:21, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree that it's good for voters to have time to review candidates, particularly the inevitable last-minute ones. In response to Risker's original comment, I think this is really for the benefit of the voters, not the candidates. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 15:40, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, what Heimstern said. Also what Courcelles said.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  16:34, 2 October 2012 (UTC)


 * 17 December is far too late to start the scrutineering. Need to start it all at least a week earlier or reduce the nom and voting to 10 days each. Tony   (talk)  03:51, 7 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I didn't do much with the election last go around, when did the scrutineering start in 2011? How did that work out? If we need to adjust it, I'd say to adjust it the other way - move nominations earlier and push voting forward to Dec 1st or some such. We should still keep 14 days, both for tradition's sake and to account for candidates/voters who are otherwise busy during what always ends up being a busy month. UltraExactZZ Said~ Did 18:28, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Hot Stop
I don't see the reason why we should wait 17 days between this RFC closing (on Nov 1) and the opening of nominations (on Nov 18). I think the nomination period should open a week earlier, starting on Nov 11. This would also avoid any problems caused because Thanksgiving falls on Nov 22, which could cause issues for editors who are traveling the week of the 18th (the nomination period last year avoided the conflict by running Nov 11 to Nov 21; Thanksgiving was on the 24th. In both 2010 and 2009 the nomination period closed before the holiday as well). The remainder of the timeline has been moved up as well because of comments below.
 * Nominations: Sunday 00:01, 11 November - Tuesday 23:59, 20 November (10 days)
 * Fallow period: Wednesday 00:01, 21 November to 25 November (5 days)
 * Voting period: Monday 00:01, 26 November to 23:59, 9 December (14 days)
 * Scrutineering: Monday 00:01, 9 December - ??? (whenever the Stewards are finished)
 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) As nominator   Hot Stop     (Edits)   12:52, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Unless there's a technical reason for it that we are missing, this sounds fine to me. Gigs (talk) 13:28, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) I don't see a reason for limiting the nomination period, candidates are always free to wait till whenever during the period they want to formally nominate themselves. Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  15:58, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Let's avoid Thanksgiving here. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:48, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) Whichever is fine with me. My concern is that this gets drawn out too far, which is what we do not want. However, I have nothing against moving the whole thing up a week. --MuZemike 04:59, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) See no problems with moving it up. --Rschen7754 05:02, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) As revised with voting ending on Dec 9. Eluchil404 (talk) 18:01, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) Probably better to end the voting earlier to allow more time for scrutiny of the votes and other post-election activities. CT Cooper · &#32;talk 11:34, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) - jc37 21:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) This way we can start the nomination process earlier and have the fallow period include Thanksgiving. Jsayre64   (talk)  01:57, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 11) Additional week is really needed to ensure that there is sufficient time for scrutineering and transition processes, especially as the election coincides with the busy travel/year end/holiday season.  Risker (talk) 02:22, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 12) Seems like this works better for candidates and voters alike, as the fallow period falls around Thanksgiving, allowing for lessened activity around the holiday. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 01:02, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 13) I don't really like the focus this places on North American holidays, but I suppose it is an unavoidable truth that much of our community is busier than usual at some times during December.  AGK  [•] 11:35, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 14) Switched to earlier dates DocTree (ʞlɐʇ · cont) Join WER 19:34, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 15) --Lord Bromblemore (talk) 16:36, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 16) Support, moving things along is preferable over unnecessary delay. Lord Roem (talk) 03:42, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 17) the wub  "?!"  12:09, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 18)  Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:15, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 19)   Mlpearc  ( powwow ) 10:23, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 20) Expediate to reduce Wikitedium. ~  GabeMc  (talk 05:37, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 21) A good idea Michaelzeng7 (talk) 00:24, 31 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment

From the perspective of the person who usually does much of the orientation and bureaucratic work to bring new arbitrators aboard, the earlier a result is available, the better. December 17 is terribly late for close of voting; stewards, candidates, arbitrators, and the community are usually far too wrapped up in seasonal activities by that time. It leaves only 14 days for stewards to review the votes and communicate the result (which usually takes 4-5 days), the successful candidates to be appointed, for them to identify to the WMF (whose staff will have statutory holidays where they shouldn't be expected to verify ID papers), and to make arrangements for permissions and accesses. If you're going to move up the nomination period, move up everything else too. Risker (talk) 16:28, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Having observed four of these transition periods since I've been on the Committee, I agree with Risker. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:30, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Note that the proposals both have the same schedule after the nominating period, with voting until the 16th. So this proposal isn't any worse then the first one in that regard. Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  16:34, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I will adjust the schedule then  Hot Stop     (Edits)   17:33, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

There are some days you can't get out of bed. If the nom schedule will start on a Friday, I may support it. If someone wants to place this in an "Oppose" corner, please do so. TruPepitoM Talk To Me  13:13, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

What should the requirements be to vote in the election?
Consensus from last year's RfC: 150 mainspace edits by 1 November.

Statement by User:Ebe123
Any user in good faith may vote. Ebe 123  → report 00:15, 4 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Ebe  123  → report 00:15, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Yeah, any real sock will be reported to SPI, the others are eligible; 150 useless edits don't help anybody. <small style="font: 12px Courier New; color: #000000; display:inline;border:#009 1px dashed;padding:1px 3px 1px 4px;background-color:#fff">mabdul 00:34, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Perhaps a little idealistic, but certainly something I support. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 01:06, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Monty845
We need some minimum threshold to discourage the creation of sock/meat-puppet accounts for the purpose of influencing the election. The threshold of 150 mainspace edits by 1 November to be eligible to vote which was adopted at last year's RFC seems as good as any. Monty <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  00:53, 4 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  00:53, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Seems reasonable. CT Cooper · &#32;talk 11:35, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Neutron (talk) 21:57, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Jclemens (talk) 01:07, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) Though something like 4000 would be more appropriate. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 23:00, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) Rschen7754 18:50, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) $\color{Blue}\mathcal{M}$$\color{Blue}\vec{( e\ ,}$$\color{Blue}t )$ = ? 20:46, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) Agreed with both this and the Statement by jc37. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 22:23, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) Agreed. Note that this isn't a requirement that came from last year's RFC, but a requirement that seems to have been in place for all of the previous elections as well. It's long-standing status quo and I see no reason to upend it. UltraExactZZ Said~ Did 18:32, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) Requirement of N edits should be as a threshold. ♪ anonim.one ♪ 18:49, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 11) 150 seems fair. Over 150 is not a good idea. Superp (talk) 20:32, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 12) Qwyrxian (talk) 14:45, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 13) Yes. — ΛΧΣ  21™  03:59, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 14) Fair enough. Lord Roem (talk) 00:51, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 15) We should not change this from last year. Davewild (talk) 08:25, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 16) the wub  "?!"  12:11, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 17) ```<em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black">Buster Seven  <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black"> Talk  07:19, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 18) Agree, it should be the same as last year. Peacemaker67 (talk) 23:34, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 19) I'm also endorsing jc37's modification, below. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:46, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Comment
Should the date by which 150 edits need to be made not be 1 October, rather than November? That's when this RFC which begins the process started, and would reduce further the likelihood of meat/sock puppet accounts. Hiding T 07:11, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree <i style="color:#FF4500;">76</i> Strat String da Broke da (talk) 08:38, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Makes sense to me as well. - jc37 19:22, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * How many editors with only 150 edits are even aware of ArbCom's existence? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:16, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The idea is to prevent sock-puppet voting, otherwise why have any restrictions? Hiding T 12:59, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Good point. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:15, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I have a question that requires an answer before the game begins: Are editors with multiple acts, i.e. an administrative acct and a seperate User acct, able to vote more than once? ```<em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black">Buster Seven  <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black"> Talk  07:19, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I am certain that the answer to that question is "no", and that answer is strongly implied at Sock puppetry (which also deals with legitimate alternative accounts, which is what you appear to be asking about), but there may be a more definitive source for the answer somewhere else. Neutron (talk) 14:12, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Voting multiple times is clearly impermissible sock puppetry, and if detected would result in the sock votes being discarded, as well as, I would wager, some further consequences to sock master. Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  07:30, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I disagree. If this is going to be based on a number of edits (which it shouldn't be anyway, although it sure seems like it's going that way now) then good-faith editors like myself deserve a chance to get into the game. By moving it to October 1st, it seems like you're assuming a user currently racking up edits that has less than 150 total edits must be a sock. I am certainly not a sock. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 01:22, 24 October 2012 (UTC) I posted this in the wrong discussion area. Sorry for any confusion.
 * I think the idea of using the end date of the RFC as the cutoff date is that some editors, myself included, are uneasy about setting a requirement with the cutoff being before the requirement was set. Really the date should be after the RFC is concluded so that potential voters are on notice, but the time frame for that would be too tight. Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  07:30, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The idea for pre-dating occurred to me because this RFC itself has been edited by a sock-puppet. I think we have to acknowledge that discussing these things in a transparent wiki way means we have to adapt how that affects any ideas we have on eligibility. It may be worth exploring the idea of randomising the requirements in the future, I don't know.  Given that so many editors would prefer secret elections, which I am uneasy with, it seems to me we should do as much as we can to prevent the elections getting gamed. Hiding T 17:14, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:jc37
This may merely be a technicality, but I think that being autoconfirmed should be a requirement. In an era of auto-editing tools, someone could do 150 edits rather quickly. - jc37 21:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Me - jc37 21:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) I support this along with the previous statement, as they're entirely compatible. Jclemens (talk) 01:08, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) In other words, semi-protect the election page. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 20:32, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Myxomatosis75 (talk) 16:20, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) Better way to prevent sock/meat puppets. Jsayre64   (talk)  01:59, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) IRWolfie- (talk) 09:19, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:15, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) ```<em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black">Buster Seven  <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black"> Talk  07:21, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) Agree, semi-protect page.   Mlpearc  ( powwow ) 10:30, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) Protect the integrity of the results. ~  GabeMc  (talk 05:40, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 11) I agree with this. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:47, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 12) Yes, of course. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 13:48, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 13) Certainly a good suggestion.  Automatic  Strikeout  20:08, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Comment
How many new editors have heard of or use auto-editing tools? I have been editing for years and do all edits one at a time, often only a few a day. I think I was up to less than 20 edits by the time I was autoconfirmed. 50 would probably work just as well as 150, though. Checking to see if someone has 50 edits is probably a lot easier than checking to see if they are autoconfirmed or has 150 edits, just because the contribution history defaults to 50 edits. Apteva (talk) 05:42, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Question, the 150 edits in the other poposal would be by Nov 1, by the time of the actual vote any editor who met the requirement would also be autoconfirmed. Are you suggestion they need to be autoconfirmed by Nov 1, or by when? Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  00:38, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Good question, I pinged him. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 20:34, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Autoconfirmed by when they need to have the 150 edits. As Jclemens notes, this goes hand-in-hand with the previous statement. And apteva: more often than you might think. As we so often see, what may be true for some, is not necessarily true for all. - jc37 00:52, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 150 edits in less than 4 days? It's hard to believe, especially considering newer editors don't really know about such automated tools, but I still endorse this statement as well as the other. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 22:22, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Depends how new they really are. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:15, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think the point is to cut down on people abusing multiple accounts during the elections. A sockmaster could create another account and start using auto-editing tools that they of course already know about through their main account. Automatic  Strikeout  20:08, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:IRWolfie-
Editors should have had an account for at least 3 months, have 150 edits prior to the election start date, and be autoconfirmed. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:08, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:
 * 1) As proposer, IRWolfie- (talk) 15:08, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) A period of time as an editor is appropriate, enough time to learn a bit of Wikipedia culture and to have some idea for whom to vote. DocTree (ʞlɐʇ · cont) Join WER 01:19, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) VikÞor |  Talk 01:32, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) — Sowlos (talk) 12:48, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) I think that's a reasonable minimum. Everyking (talk) 14:20, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) Agree. ~  GabeMc  (talk 05:42, 25 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who do not endorse this statement:
 * 1) If the point of this edit minimum is to prevent socks, then we must assume all editors with less than 150 edits are socks, which is assuming bad faith and against a fundamental principle of Wikipedia. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 20:37, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Discussion
Change it to 4 months and I'd be more likely to support. - jc37 03:14, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I've reduced it by half. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:18, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:RedSoxFan2434
The only 2 requirements for voting should be that:
 * 1. To be eligible to vote, a user must be an autoconfirmed, registered user.
 * 2. To be eligible to vote, a user must have joined the project at least 4 months prior to the beginning of the nominating period.

A minimum of mainspace edits to be eligible to vote does not protect us from sockpuppets created to stuff the virtual ballot box, since socks can rack up edits and then be eligible to vote before being discovered as a sock. However, there must be some minimum beyond being autoconfirmed, so a 4-month membership minimum should be there to prevent socks better than an edit minimum would. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 01:31, 12 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) As nominator, RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 01:31, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion
While it may seem pointless, the 150 edits should still stay in place. Also, change it to 4 months as well, and I'd be more likely to support. - jc37 03:14, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4 months is fine; but why is a 150-edit minimum so necessary? RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 01:13, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The auto confirmed flag is only 10 edits in a 4 day time period. You are expanding it to 4 months. However, you can see how inexperienced someone may be if they've only made 10-20 edits to Wikipedia and never knew Wikipedia even had an Arbitration Committee and is invited to vote on it? 150 edits is a reasonable assumption of experience to have more accurate votes and a good knowledge of Wikipedia to vote in these elections. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 14:06, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I understand why some would hold this opinion, although I just disagree. If someone has such little experience on Wikipedia and does not know what ArbCom is then they can be trusted to not vote or to find out about ArbCom and the elections on their own (assuming they are logged into Wikipedia during the voting period; there may be some very inactive editors who won't be). I also think an edit minimum is easily surpassed by socks created to influence the election, which some other editors have expressed concern about, whereas a 4-month requirement prevents such a thing for this year's election and makes it more difficult to get away with in future years. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 20:08, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Hiding
We need some minimum threshold to discourage the creation of sock/meat-puppet accounts for the purpose of influencing the election. The threshold of 160 mainspace edits by 1 October to be eligible to vote would ensure no-one is monitoring this RFC and creating sock/meat puppets as we speak. Raising the bar by ten from last year may also help prevent anyone gaming the system. Hiding T 07:15, 16 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Hiding T 07:15, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Makes sense. And also agreeing that this should be by Oct 1, as you noted elsewhere on this page. - jc37 19:22, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) John Carter (talk) 22:07, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Seems prudent to me. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:15, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I might also add a proviso about some minimum number of recent edits. We could, at least theoretically, have problem editors who weren't actually banned might simply return to case grudge votes against people they dislike personally. I'm not sure how likely that is, but the more problems we solve in advance, the less likely we are to face the drama and conflict which would arise if we had to deal with them after the fact. John Carter (talk) 22:07, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Discussion

I disagree. If this is going to be based on a number of edits (which it shouldn't be anyway, although it sure seems like it's going that way now) then good-faith editors like myself deserve a chance to get into the game. By moving it to October 1st, it seems like you're assuming a user currently racking up edits that has less than 150 total edits must be a sock. I am certainly not a sock. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 13:55, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Good faith editors have a chance to get into the game, it may just be that it'll be the next elections for some people. Wherever the line is drawn it will inconvenience good faith editors. Having a deadline does not automatically assume any given editor is a sock puppet. It does serve to prevent sock puppetry such as has happened in the past. Given that this RFC has been edited by a sock puppet, it makes sense to set a deadline that pre-dates this discussions start. Hiding T 17:09, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

What should the method of voting be?
Consensus from last year's RfC: Support/No Vote/Oppose, with percentages calculated via Support/(Support + Oppose).

Statement by User:Neutron
Maintain the existing system: Voters choose among Support/No Vote/Oppose, with percentages calculated via Support/(Support + Oppose). Neutron (talk) 23:19, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Neutron (talk) 23:19, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Rschen7754 23:53, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) I like the system where you get 100 points and allocate it among the candidates as you see fit better, but that has epsilon chance of getting implemented so stick with the boring ol' status quo.   Volunteer Marek   01:56, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) It worked.  --Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:49, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) This is the only way to go, we need a way to voice opposition just as much as support.  Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  15:30, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) No hard feelings to Czarkoff, but I think that even if you vote for only one candidate, that one vote should count as strongly as the support votes of the other voters.  ☮  Soap  ☮  18:45, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) $\color{Blue}\mathcal{M}$$\color{Blue}\vec{( e\ ,}$$\color{Blue}t )$ = ? 20:50, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) Straightforward and logical -- No  unique  names  15:15, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) Simplest system, easiest to use. Jsayre64   (talk)  02:04, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) If it isn't broken, why fix it? RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 01:37, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 11) AGK  [•] 11:42, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 12) DocTree (ʞlɐʇ · cont) Join WER 01:29, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 13) the wub  "?!"  12:14, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 14) Don't think this needs changing.   Mlpearc  ( powwow ) 10:32, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 15) — Sowlos (talk) 12:51, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 16) That seems fine. Simple and intuitive. Everyking (talk) 14:23, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 17) LoganLopez (talk) 15:20, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 18) This method has worked better than past methods. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:49, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

But why do we need a "no vote" button? Can't we set up the voting page so that voters can just choose not to click a button for a candidate if they have no opinion? Jsayre64  (talk)  02:04, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd probably like that too, though I suppose it's a good thing that an explicit decision has to be made about every candidacy by each voter. AGK  [•] 11:42, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The "No Vote" choice should be renamed to "Abstain". Some people may confuse "No Vote" with "Oppose".  —  Rich wales 18:53, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * As for changing the buttons, we should avoid interface changes in order to minimize voter confusion. If my memory serves, a previous iteration of the ballot used Support/Abstain/Oppose, and that was confusing because of the different ways abstentions are calculated in voting systems. I would prefer Support/No Opinion/Oppose--Tznkai (talk) 19:12, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * "No Opinion" would be fine. I'm just worried about the possibility for confusion between "No Vote" and "No" Vote.  —  Rich wales 19:31, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * As the person who proposed "No Vote" last year (or was it the year before) to replace "Neutral", which was creating a few different issues, I would have no problem with changing again to "No Opinion." The main purpose of changing from "Neutral" to "No Vote" was to clarify that this option means nothing -- it's not counted at all, it doesn't affect the result, it doesn't necessarily mean you are really "neutral", it doesn't mean "non-support", it just means that you are not voting either Support or Oppose on a particular candidate.  If it is understood that "No Opinion" means the same thing, and if it corrects the slight ambiguity that (admittedly) is created by "No Vote", that's fine.  Neutron (talk) 20:44, 23 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Why is there any need for a "no !vote/no opinion/abstain" option? Users shouldn't bother !voting if that's how they feel. Stick with support and oppose. Neutral !votes are usually self-serving drivel that just boggs everything down. ~ GabeMc  (talk 05:49, 25 October 2012 (UTC)


 * People need a "no opinion" option so that they can vote for/against some of the candidates, even if there are other candidates about whom they have no opinion. If someone were to vote "no opinion" on everyone, you would certainly have a point.  Or are you in fact suggesting that no one should be taken as a serious voter unless they are prepared to vote either for or against each and every candidate on the ballot?  —  Rich wales 18:08, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:czarkoff
I would suggest Modified Borda count with each voter given the number of votes (n) corresponding to the number of vacant seats. That is: each voter names m (but no more then n) candidates in a descending order; the first candidate receives $${m \over n}$$ points (1 point if all voter's votes are cast), the second candidate – $${m-1 \over n}$$, the third candidate – $${m-2 \over n}$$, ..., the last candidate – $${1 \over n}$$. Such method would allow for more precise vote casting. — updated 23:27, 8 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Notes:


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 11:36, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Ebe  123  → report 15:41, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) <small style="font: 12px Courier New; color: #000000; display:inline;border:#009 1px dashed;padding:1px 3px 1px 4px;background-color:#fff">mabdul 00:43, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) ~  GabeMc  (talk 05:45, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Discussion
 * And how would the support percentages be gauged in such a case? Jclemens (talk) 01:09, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * They won't. It's a feature: the wider accepted candidates would outperform the candidates with low performance by perfectly great number of points, so picking top n would suffice. Though if really needed, they may be calculated as $${supporters \over voters}$$, though a better way may be to count a bar as a half of points best scoring candidate receives, or half of difference between best and worst scoring candidates. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 07:03, 6 October 2012 (UTC) updated 10:46, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * If someone votes for only one person, does that person get m/m (1) votes, or 1/m votes?  ☮ Soap  ☮  12:10, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 1/m votes. Voters are expected to participate in election for all seats, not just express support for their favourite editor. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 16:43, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Question for Czarkoff: Is your proposal considered a "proportional representation" system? In other words, is it designed to elect some candidates who do not have the support of the majority, as long as they have strong enough support from a minority? I read Borda count, but it isn't clear to me since it mostly discusses the single-winner system and has only one paragraph on the multiple-winner version. It says the Quota Borda system is a proportional representation system, but I am not sure whether that is the same as what you are proposing. Neutron (talk) 21:42, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * This system is supposed to raise the scores of the candidates that the electorate generally weakly favours and lower the scores of candidates with highly split opinions; in other words it promotes the candidates with less opposition, as opposed to candidates with most support. The effect on election outcome is assumed to be the same both in case single- and multiple-winners elections. Effectively you may see the calculations for single-winner examples in the article, as they are exactly the same in both single- and multiple-winners elections. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 22:02, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:John Carter
I would propose that the ballot be constructed to allow those casting ballots to be given some ability to indicate who are their most preferred and less preferred candidates. I would thus suggest the ballot be constructed in such a way as to allow multiple "levels" of support for candidates, in addition to the neutral and oppose options. So, the ballot would have at least a number of "levels" of support equal to the number of open seats divided by the number of candidates, in this example two, in addition to the "neutral" and "opoose" options. The voter could then choose a number of "first level" support votes equal to no more than the number of open seats, and use the additional level(s) of support to indicate any others who receive less support. Seats would first be filled by those individuals who receive the required number of votes in the "strong support" section, and, if that is not equal to the number of seats open, those with the highest percentage of the votes in the "support" sections combined would fill out the vacancies. John Carter (talk) 21:42, 13 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) John Carter (talk) 21:42, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

For those of us who think certain candidates are "musts" for the ArbCom, allowing some form of "tiered" voting to indicate who those individuals are would seem to be important. As it is to my eyes unlikely that anyone will have "strong" support for more candidates than positions open, I do not see any particular problems arising from this differential. I unfortunately am in no way anything like a mathematician, and I acknowledge that the structure proposed might be somewhat flawed or vague. If it is, please propose any changes that seem required. But I do think it likely that there might be at least a few candidates who are highly enough regarded that they would "win" by simply the number of votes they would receive in "strong support," and I very definitely think it in our interests to ensure that those with such strong support definitely be included. John Carter (talk) 21:42, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Discussion

Statement by User:Yair rand
Arbitrators should be elected using the Schulze method, just as is used to elect members of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. --Yair rand (talk) 12:45, 14 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Yair rand (talk) 12:45, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Markus Schulze 08:31, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Hiding T 07:17, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) The most useful method for voters by allowing preferences to be specified, and therefore fairer to the candidates themselves. If Schulze can work for the WMF Board, then it can work for ArbCom. CT Cooper · &#32;talk 18:38, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

The Schulze method isn't actually working well for the Board, as far as I am concerned: there is no way to oppose a candidate that one feels would be a detriment to the committee (or the Board), it is remarkably unintuitive, and it is not, actually, designed for multiple selections. It is designed to give *one* successful candidate. In fact, the WMF board and a few Pirate parties are pretty well the only users of this system anymore, as it has been superceded by many other better processes. Almost every other prior user of the system has moved on to something else, or is now defunct. Incidentally, you might want to check the identity of the primary contributor to the article. Risker (talk) 20:30, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment
 * One can oppose a candidate by ranking him or her lower than other candidates that one prefers instead of said candidate. If you'd like, you could even simply take all candidates that you'd support, abstain from voting on, and oppose, and rank them 1, 2, and 3, respectively. That would give a clear vote that you prefer the "support" candidates over the "no vote" candidates, the "no vote" candidates over the "oppose" candidates, and of course the "support" candidates over the "oppose" candidates, giving much clearer final results than a primitive +1/-1 system. (Or you could be more specific in rankings, giving even better results...) And are you sure that it wasn't designed for multiple selections? I don't think that's correct. I'm also amazed that any organizations actually would stop using the method; could you give specifics? Schulze method seems pretty clearly far superior to all other voting systems, with the possible exception of Ranked pairs. --Yair rand (talk) 22:11, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yair, your response illustrates that the Schulze method is generally poorly understood and counterintuitive. There is no way to oppose a candidate. The only method that does not give some degree of support to a candidate is to not rank the candidate at all, but that is not in any way an oppose vote. This misunderstanding is very common, however. If there are 10 candidates, and you rank them 1, 2, 10 and don't rank the other seven candidates, the one you've ranked #10 will come out ahead of every single unranked candidate. Risker (talk) 01:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Exactly how would it be better than what we have now? Neutron (talk) 22:18, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It would allow users to give clear preferences, without being forced to lump candidates into three groups; they could vote "I prefer this candidate over that candidate, that candidate over that candidate, etc.", without complications. It would give clear, and correct, results, where the majority rules when it's between candidates; if the majority ranks A above B, the results have A above B, period. (Well, unless there's a Condorcet cycle, but that's pretty unlikely.) It would essentially eliminate tactical voting. It would give voters equal influence, even if, say, their standard of how suitable a candidate needs to be to deserve their support differs. It would allow users to decide by clear majority decisions who will and who will not be among the members of the Arbitration Committee. --Yair rand (talk) 23:12, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The ranking of candidates works just fine as it is. Everyone can vote support, oppose or neutral for any candidate, and the communal summary ranks the candidates. Why do you think the individual preference rankings of individuals is of any benefit when multiple candidates are being elected? There's some pretty good evidence that a completely reviled candidate whom many voters rank at the bottom will do better than any candidate for whom a large number of voters are neutral (i.e., whom the voters don't rank) using the Schulze system; in fact, I am absolutely certain it has happened at least twice in WMF Board elections. Risker (talk) 01:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes

 * To avoid the formation or appearance of cliques. &mdash; Cup co  02:48, 1 October 2012 (UTC) Banned sock


 * 1) To avoid the possibility of retribution. --Rschen7754 05:59, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Davewild (talk) 09:31, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Has worked well for the past few elections. Neutron (talk) 13:51, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Standard common sense practice in all elective systems intended for groups of more than two people.   Volunteer Marek   01:44, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) Open ballots are notably non-secret in a handful of elective systems, Robert's Rules of Order being the most prominent. Open ballots are designed to keep the voters fully accountable. Secret ballots on the other hand are designed to protect a voter's true choice, by putting a firewall between them and outside influences. It can also maintain help maintain a good working environment by shielding a voter's decisions from "friends and enemies" and keeping our mind on what matters. Speaking personally as a former arbitration clerk, frequent election coordinator and election admin, I avoided voting in the open ballot 2008 elections precisely to maintain neutrality not only with arbitrators with whom I would have to work, but to avoid even the appearance of impropriety to any case participants.  Secret ballots are a net plus.--Tznkai (talk) 04:46, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) The Committee is the last word on handling and resolving disputes. It would be too easy for someone to try to force the recusal of an otherwise impartial arbitrator because "I voted against them, therefore they are going to screw me over"/ Best that each person be free to vote his conscience and that potential issue be avoided in the most expeditious fashion possible. SirFozzie (talk) 06:15, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) ArbCom is special, and per the others above, the vote should remain secret. — This, that, and the other (talk)  06:21, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) It would be a serious impediment to the conduct of open justice and fairness that each arbitrator know who voted for them and against them. I could not trust such a system. We've had SecurePoll for three years now: it seems to work just fine.  Tony   (talk)  13:27, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) Bandwagon effect cognitive bias is a strong thing here on Wikipedia.  The success or failure of an RfC has much to do with how the first few editors respond to it.  We can't cancel this completely, but a secret ballot at least helps mitigate it slightly. Gigs (talk) 13:30, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) There's a difference between Arbs and CU/OS/Stewards/Admins, in that most everything CU/OS/Stewards/Admins do is public and bound by very strict rules, while most everything that Arbs do is private, and they have a good deal more leeway as to how to respond to a given situation.   S ven M anguard   Wha?  16:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 11) I was on the fence on the this issue as it doesn't matter to me whether my vote is public, and it would be interesting to see individual voting patterns, but out of respect to the commenters who feel uncomfortable voting publicly I am supporting the secret ballot.  Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  19:14, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 12) No reason to change this  Hot Stop     (Edits)   21:26, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 13) Per SirFozzie. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:51, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 14) I think it's good to protect voting from outside influences. TimidGuy (talk) 11:36, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 15) Pretty much per Tznkai. There is no reason here to make voters accountable for their votes, indeed when it comes to electing a body such as ArbCom which will address issues involving many of the voters, there is a very good reason to not hold them accountable. In that way we avoid any suspicion that ArbCom members are repaying favors to their supporters. People who want to discuss are free to do so, but those who just want to cast their ballot should be able to do so without being hassled about it. Sjakkalle  (Check!)  13:20, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 16) Secret ballots are surely a central part of any election. Discussions, no: but elections, yes. The Cavalry (Message me) 14:20, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 17) --<span style="font-family:Comic Sans MS,sans -serif"> — <b style= "color:#090;">Keithbob</b> • Talk  • 16:17, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 18) Doh. --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  17:58, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 19) SirFozzie sums it up well. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:58, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 20) The nature of ArbCom makes secret balloting more appropriate - it will be a vote with discussion on the side whether the ballot is secret or otherwise. CT Cooper · &#32;talk 11:39, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 21) I'm actually a bit torn on this, as I am a strong proponent of transparency in community processes such as appointing an Arbitration Committee's members, but the reason I prefer secret ballots on balance is basically for the same reason as outlined by Gigs above. Never underestimate the solubility of individual opinions in a groupthink solvent, which tends to form a bandwagon solution. Not a very good chemical equation for promoting members of dispute resolution's most indispensible venue. Kurtis (talk) 21:29, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 22) Weakly. I'm a big fan of transparency, and I miss being able to comment explaining. However, this being an actual "election" with multiple simultaneous "candidates", rather than a consensus/voting hybrid concerning reviewing a single candidate just tilts me slightly to secret/private. And SirFozzie's comment seals it. - jc37 21:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 23) <i style="color:#FF4500;">76</i> Strat String da Broke da (talk) 20:03, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 24) Absolutely.  It's not only about fairness that arbitrators cannot be influenced by who voted for or against them – it's about perception of fairness which is, arguably, even more important.  There should never be a doubt that such-and-such decision went one way or that because a party voted against some arbitrators.  The secondary benefit of reducing the bandwagon effect is also positive, but not the most important reason to prefer secret ballots.  &mdash; Coren (talk) 23:36, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 25) Agree that this solves more potential issues than it seems to create.  -- No  unique  names  15:13, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 26) Pretty much per Sir Fozzie.  There must be plenty of opportunity for folks to expound views and discuss with other voters, but minimal opportunity for voters to be swayed by thoughts of repercussions from anyone, or for anything that smells even remotely like a 'votes for favours' opportunity. Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:43, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 27) For privacy and to prevent/reduce vandalism and disputes. Jsayre64   (talk)  02:06, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 28) As per comments above, a secret ballot system seems both more likely to protect the voting from a number of external influences not directly related to whom the voters genuinely believe are (or are not) best qualified for the position and also better serves the prospect of smoother interactions between the participants after the fact.  As SirFozzie has pointed out, there is not just the question of the possibility of genuine bias on the part of a member of ArbCom ruling on a matter involving someone who voted against them, there is also the possibility that their neutrality can be brought into question regardless of their approach.  Definitely a complication best avoided. Snow (talk) 03:55, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 29) Per SirFozzie and Tony. AGK  [•] 11:17, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 30) Most discussions on Wikipedia are open because they are about forming consensus, not voting.  This is a vote, so it should be secret.  Closed ballots help prevent intrigue by eliminating the threat of retaliation or harassment because of the way an editor votes. Jehochman Talk 12:53, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 31) Yes. While we discovered when securepoll was implemented that it didn't have much impact on the number of voters, I think we haven't seen any negative repercussions to the secret ballot nature of the election itself. There are plenty of opportunities for discussion, so it isn't purely a "vote" in the "voting is evil" sense. <strong style="color:#0033CC">Nathan <strong style="color:#0033CC"> T 19:34, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 32) Yes. To prevent brainstorming. --sicaspi (talk) 00:23, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 33) Above arguments for secret ballots convinced me though I prefer openness whenever possible/practical. DocTree (ʞlɐʇ · cont) Join WER 02:02, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 34) Because, as per Sir Fozzie and others above, there are clear advantages to using secret ballots, both for avoiding the possible (if unlikely) threat of retribution toward the voter, but also to avoid the possibility of someone before ArbCom requesting the recusal of someone on the ArbCom s/he did or did not vote for. ArbCom is, so far as I can tell, the only supervisory body that potentially any editor might be voluntarily or involuntarily before at any time. I can't see the need for dramatizing the situation simply to allow some individuals to thoroughly review who did and did not vote for or against a specific candidate, possibly for the purposes of using that information for their own benefit in an ArbCom case. Particularly with the number of ballots likely to be cast, I cannot see why anyone would make such an effort unless they had possibly questionable motives of their own, and, in any event, even for people who have been around a long time like me, the amount of information which could be usefully gleaned from knowing who did or did not vote for a given candidate would be of minimal if any use otherwise. John Carter (talk) 00:20, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 35) Per Nouniquenames.  It Is Me Here   t /  c 14:28, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 36) In order to allow editors to make their choice without fear of hurting their friend's feelings, or facing possible ill will from those whom they do not support; and to encourage wide participation in the election due to the peace of mind given by not worrying about the above stated potential concerns. KillerChihuahua ?!? 19:51, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 37) All the arguments above are good ones, most notably the concern about outside influences. I see maintaining that integrity outweighs some good reasons to make it public. If this discussion is close, the tie should go to the status quo method: secret ballot. Lord Roem (talk) 03:44, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 38) It is important that Wikipedians are allowed to participate without fear of retribution. Dennis Brown - 2&cent;    &copy;   Join WER 19:23, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 39) As long as discussion and the !voters are visible (not the result of the !voters, only the !vote) I believe that this can help; the voters and the candidates! <small style="font: 12px Courier New; color: #000000; display:inline;border:#009 1px dashed;padding:1px 3px 1px 4px;background-color:#fff">mabdul 00:51, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 40) the wub  "?!"  12:16, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 41) Viriditas (talk) 22:33, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 42) Especially given current events.-- Gilderien Chat&#124;List of good deeds 00:02, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 43) Has to be. We figured this out over a century ago. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 00:26, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 44) Draw the curtain and vote. ```<em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black">Buster Seven  <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black"> Talk  07:32, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 45) Fixes problem of retribution and attempts to buy votes, and quid-pro-quo deal making (no way to check if voter honored deal). Churn and change (talk) 19:37, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 46) The benefits of secret ballots are numerous. — Sowlos (talk) 12:56, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 47) Definitely secret ballot for all of the above reasons. Peacemaker67 (talk) 23:43, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 48) Yes, secret. It's interesting that there have been more oppose votes since secret balloting was adopted. Wikipedia isn't a social club, and the empirical evidence is that public voting leads to currying favor. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:52, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 49) Tznkai and Fozzie know where it's at.  Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 16:35, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

No

 * 1) There are cliques whether or not there is secret balloting. Why should they not show themselves?  We did open discussion before and it worked, and was consistent with WP:NOTDEMOCRACY.  We switched to secret ballots after a slight numerical majority got called "consensus" in an RFC, which was a bit bogus IMHO.  I'd be interested how the arbs and former themselves feel about the secret-ballot elections, especially those who served under both systems.  I think the outcome of the elections has been ok (I worried that it might be worse) and I'm not strongly opposed to them but I think we shouldn't feel bound to it, and should be willing to switch around between approaches from election to election, try new ones, etc. The whole concept of arb elections bothers me because the people most interested in them seem to have the goal of enabling more crappy editing (that's how I see the "arbcom reform party" for example).  The old old system where Jimbo appointed the whole committee had its attractions but in practice didn't work that well because IMHO he made some rather poor selections (and some good ones).  I wouldn't restore that system but I have an idea using some elements of it, that I might write up later. 67.117.130.72 (talk) 22:31, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Secret voting isn't very wiki, and is against our open spirit. We should avoid it outside of the limited cases where legal or serious privacy cornerns make it necessary, and this isn't either. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  23:05, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Secret balloting? Well: 1. see Starblinds comment. 2. WP:Consensus, not simple voting.--Müdigkeit (talk) 00:43, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Agree with all three above.  Ebe  123  → report 00:51, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Steward elections, RfX's, CU/OS elections happen just fine publicly. No reason to make ArbCom elections a secret. LegoKontribsTalkM 04:34, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) Nearly every other type of discussion in EN is open. The ArbCom elections should be open too. --Elonka 04:45, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) As per WP:NOTDEMOCRACY and WP:Consensus. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:59, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Absolutely not. There should be nothing taking place in the project that is not transparent except in very extreme circumstances. Trusilver  03:49, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Ballot box stuffing is a lot tougher when voting is subject to open inspection. --B (talk) 15:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) From what I can see nothing like what SirFozzie suggests has occurred or would be reasonable if it did. Have it in the open for transparency. As B points out, it lowers risks of sockpuppetting to ballot stuff by having many independent eyes to look over things. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:16, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) Transparency and to avoid mass canvassing through IRC and rogue admins exerting their powers through candidates guides.--NWA.Rep (talk) 00:36, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) I fight against the current on this every year. Transparancy is key to consensus-building.  Them From  Space  20:41, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) No secret elections, that's very much not Wikipedia, not very consensus minded, not very transparent. Justice should not just be done, it must be seen to be done. Hiding T 09:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) Per Trusilver, we should not forgo transparency unless absolutely necessary. --Yair rand (talk) 21:08, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) The secret voting is laughable and flies in the face of everything Wikipedia supposedly stands for. This site needs more transparency, not less. The Garbage Skow (talk) 19:07, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 11) I find that open voting, as in an RfA, helps me figure out how I feel about things better than a voting guide or whatever. Hobit (talk) 03:17, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 12) per Themfromspace -- В и к и  T   21:22, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 13) Transparency.   Mlpearc  ( powwow ) 10:37, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 14) Transparency is better suited to our project. Just stand up and say what you think. No secrecy. Everyking (talk) 14:25, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 15) Transparency. ~  GabeMc  (talk 05:28, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion
Steward elections, RfX's, CU/OS elections happen just fine publicly - except they *don't*. At least not RfAs. Also last time there quite a bit of concern over turnout and whether low turnout could really be "consensus". You make the ballot non-secret and that turn out will sure plummet. And rightly so.  Volunteer Marek  04:42, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * RFA drama is a totally different issue, and probably wasn't a good example to use. Why do you think voter turnout would plummet if elections were open? LegoKontribsTalkM 04:46, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * For starters, because I wouldn't vote.  Volunteer Marek   04:57, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I would not vote either. Davewild (talk) 12:58, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Nor would I. I have no intention of ever doing anything that would get me brought to ArbCom, and as a guide creator there's little secret that there are certain Arbs I do not like, but I'm still not comfortable with public voting on Arbs. There are certain doors best left unopened. Per BEANS I will leave it at that.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  16:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Standard common sense practice in all elective systems intended for groups of more than two people. That is surely not correct. E.g. votes within the US Congress are not secret, including internal elections such as for choosing the Speaker of the House. Without it reflecting on some of the other arguments made for secret ballots, I'd say this particular one is bogus. 67.117.130.72 (talk) 19:22, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * In a way - the way that is applicable to the analogy - those votes are in fact secret in an iterative way; people vote for their delegates secretly then these delegates vote for the Speaker openly. The reason why this is the appropriate way to analogize is based on the issue of accountability (elected officials are accountable to the public, hence they vote openly) vs. protection of the public. As, I believe, someone already mentioned above.  Volunteer Marek   20:41, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * (e/c) As I implied in my endorsement above, the elective systems that use open ballots are essentially all parliamentary (corporate boards included) nature. The need there is to have complete accountability for each of the voting members. Arbcom elections on the other hand, have a completely different purpose and have different pressures. Different systems for different goals. So while the statement you object to was imprecise, it is reasonably accurate once so corrected.--Tznkai (talk) 20:45, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

CU/OS elections are not public; it is possible to send private comments to ArbCom. --Rschen7754 20:37, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * VM and Tznkai: as I see it, arbcom doesn't "represent" editors and its ultimate accountability is to Wikipedia's principles and its readers, rather than its editors. All editors (by editing) are part of Wikipedia's governance and as such they are also accountable to WP's principles and readers, which by VM's reasoning would call for open ballots.  So I still don't see any philosophical or fundamental reason for secret ballots (or for elections at all, per NOTDEMOCRACY).  There are only various practical reasons for and against them.  67.117.130.72 (talk) 23:35, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * While Wikipedia is not a democracy, that doesn't make the the opposite of one either. Democratic norms didn't spring out of pure reason, despite what Enlightenment fanboy political writers tell you. They came out of the practical problems of making decisions. We face many of those same problems, thus, we come up with many of the same solutions.
 * Whether or not Arbcom is representative, as that term is used in political theory is a red herring. The issue is whether they are credible and competence. Secret ballots preserve voter's preferences better than open ballots, thus improving credibility, and they prevent certain collegiality problems, thus improving competence. Now, if you value the voters being publicly accountable over that, that is a philosophical reason. If you value preserving voter choice, that is also a philosophical reason to go one way or the other.--Tznkai (talk) 23:47, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Tznkai, I do understand the collegiality issue and sympathize with it. Still, if you vote in secret, that still means you have a preference to which you're sufficiently committed to try to influence the election outcome (by voting)–we just don't know what the preference is.  Woodward and Armstrong's book "The Brethren", about the US Supreme Court in the 1970's, mentions that the Supreme Court judges of that era chose to abstain from voting in US political elections, to avoid having such a committed preference even if it was known only to themselves.  So I don't think secret ballots help with actual neutrality, and they don't help appearances except possibly with people you work with directly. As for credibility, I'd say an arbitrator is more credible if I can see they were elected by a good cross-section of editors, than if I think they might have gotten in through a factional bloc.  I don't see much value in preserving "voter preference" in a non-democratic institution (NOTDEMOCRACY) if I think those preferences are likely to be in conflict with the project's principles (similar to COI editing).  If my actual preference will make me look like an idiot or factionalist if I say it out loud, maybe it shouldn't weigh into the end result.  My preference has no credibility if I'm not willing to indicate that it's what I think is best for the project. Note: another non-secret voting institution comes to mind, the town meeting.  But those are supposedly democratic and as such, they'd be better off secret.   67.117.130.72 (talk) 00:32, 3 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm a little staggered any editor would not vote publicly for fear of retribution. Does this not imply that editors are secretly voting to stack the arb-com in case they ever appear before it? Is that really what we want to encourage? No, it should all be transparent; that way any bias or repercussions can be publicly seen and dealt with. Hiding T 18:10, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * A vote is to measure bias, which should have repercussions only in who is elected—without the risk of favouritism or retribution through public discosure of that voting bias. People can secretly conspire to vote publicly in one way, as well as privately. You can't stop that. Tony   (talk)  03:48, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Terribly sorry if my opinion frustrates you Tony, but the point still stands. Any bias that is conducted in secret is not preferable to any bias conducted in the open. Hiding T 08:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

What general questions should we ask each of the candidates?
''Consensus from last year's RfC: A list of general questions will be asked of each candidate. See Arbitration Committee Elections December 2012/Questions/General for a draft list of general questions to be asked.''

Statement by Cupco
There have recently been detailed proposals and extensive discussions pertaining to ArbCom reform. I propose asking candidates to comment on all such proposals in general, and the idea of a jury system in particular. Arbitrators suffer repeated harassment from parties to many of the cases before them. This abuse is extensive enough that reasonable people believe it can influence arbitrators' demeanor, making them more predisposed towards harsh remedies than a randomly selected jury of editors' peers would be. Worse, arbitrators through no fault of their own frequently become involved in multiple recurring disputes, which can cause the unjust effects associated with star chambers without any misconduct or unjust arbitrator behaviors at all: editors who merely suspect that one or more arbitrators are predisposed for or against them might act differently at even the beginning stages of disputes -- they might be more likely to bully other editors or succumb to bullying. If the final decision in arbitration cases concerning the findings of fact, principles of policies and guidelines, and remedies imposed were drafted by arbitrators but voted on by a randomly selected jury of editors' peers, these two issues could be substantially alleviated. So I propose asking the following additional questions:


 * What are your favorite and least favorite proposals for ArbCom reform (such as those in the ArbCom Reform Party's "Bill of Rights") and why?
 * What proposals for reform would you suggest? Are there any reform proposals you agree with strongly enough that you would pledge to support?
 * Would it be advantageous for a randomly selected jury of editors' peers to vote on proposed findings, principles, and remedies instead of arbitrators? Why or why not?
 * What are the potential downsides of relying on randomly selected jurors from a volunteer pool instead of arbitrators to cast votes on drafted cases?
 * Is it technically feasible to raise sufficient volunteer jurors for a pool from which to randomly select editors' peers, to vote on cases after they have been drafted and proposed by arbitrators? How large do you think a volunteer jury pool would need to be for it to be free from problems involving self-selection by insincere jurors?
 * Would you support a pilot project using volunteer randomly selected jurors for RFC/U to judge the feasibility of using juries in arbitration?

&mdash; Cup co  02:47, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * &mdash; Cup co  02:52, 1 October 2012 (UTC) Banned sock

Statement by Rschen7754
I do not believe that asking arbitrators to comment on jurors or the ArbCom Reform Party would be productive, because the community is not behind either of these proposals.


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Rschen7754 03:23, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:34, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) LegoKontribsTalkM 16:20, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) 67.117.130.72 (talk) 22:33, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) Yup. Might as well ask them what they think of "Editor XYZ".   Volunteer Marek   01:46, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * WP:DENY comes to mind.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  06:26, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) Very promotional, get rid of it. Gigs (talk) 13:31, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) An ArbCom election is neither the time nor place for promotional activities. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:55, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Not appropriate as general questions, and arguably not appropriate at all. CT Cooper · &#32;talk 11:43, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) - jc37 21:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) the wub  "?!"  12:18, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) Inappropriate. ~  GabeMc  (talk 06:02, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Newyorkbrad
A standard question asking the candidates what changes to the arbitration process they would support is appropriate and should be included. The standard question should not refer directly to specific platforms or proposals. Editors who would like the candidates to respond to particular ideas or proposals are of course free to ask individual questions about them. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:48, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:
 * 1) Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:48, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Rschen7754 18:48, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3)  Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  18:52, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) LegoKontribsTalkM 19:34, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) given we're a Work in Progress.... Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:12, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) Of course.  We don't want to limit it to "will this make it better," but expand it to "what will make it better." --Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:56, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) Sure, asking what reforms (if any) a candidate thinks are appropriate is not only acceptable but advisable. The question just shouldn't favour any particular reform proposal or package thereof. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 06:40, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) Seems to be a good idea. CT Cooper · &#32;talk 11:44, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) - jc37 21:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) AGK  [•] 11:41, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 11) the wub  "?!"  12:18, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 12) Yep. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 00:28, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 13) Agree.   Mlpearc  ( powwow ) 10:40, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 14) Agree. Peacemaker67 (talk) 23:45, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 15) I'm endorsing this, and I also agree with Rschen7754, just above, and with Monty845, just below. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:56, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 16) Standard questions should be broad and neutral. --Lord Bromblemore (talk) 18:10, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Monty845
For questions that are not particularly controversial, we should draft them at Arbitration Committee Elections December 2012/Questions/General through normal discussion on the associated talk page. (Initial version copied from last year's questions) If there are specific questions that can't be agreed on there, they can either be brought to the main RFC, or a short RFC can be held on the talk page once it is clear what the points of contention are. Any consensus developed regarding specific questions here at the main RFC should take precedence. Monty <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  19:04, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  19:04, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) I agree that a lightweight process of normal editing might be more productive than this type of comment-limited RfC. Gigs (talk) 13:32, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) I'm rather partial to that list, seeing as I helped write it. Most of those questions have several right answers (some more right than others, perhaps). I also feel that complaints about its length are misplaced. If you can't answer that amount of questions, how ever would you process a case?  S ven M anguard   Wha?  17:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Yaris678
I don't know if these should be questions for candidates or requirements of voter guides, but I would like to see: Yaris678 (talk) 18:52, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Describe you work in developing new content
 * Describe your work in patrolling the encyclopedia
 * Describe your work in dispute resolution


 * Users who endorse this statement:
 * 1) And I don't think it should be a disqualification for someone to say they do nothing in one of those areas. It's just that I think it would be useful to know.  Yaris678 (talk) 18:52, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

How should voter guides be handled for the election?
''Consensus from last year's RfC: Serious voter guides may be included for the election, but those that are not should be discarded. Their order should also be randomized to equalize their order influence.''

Statement by Risker
Individually compiled voter guides are well–established and accepted within the community. Their core purpose is to communicate useful and detailed assessments of the candidates. Many are serious reflections by individual editors, who make their personal preferences and biases clear to the reader. There have even been some humorous ones, which lighten the mood of the election. These should continue to be permitted, and I would go so far as to say that even the humorous ones should be included in the "voter guide" template. However, a summary table of voting guides fails to provide the reader with insight into the values being emphasized by the creators of the individual guides and instead encourages the reader to weight all of the guides and their recommendations equally. It's the Wikipedia equivalent of that popularity contest known as pre-election polling, with its lack of meaningful information. These should be discouraged, and should not be included in the "voter guide" template. Risker (talk) 05:06, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Risker (talk) 05:06, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * &mdash; Cup co  19:35, 1 October 2012 (UTC) Banned sock
 * 1) Ironholds (talk) 20:36, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Very good observation by Risker. 67.117.130.72 (talk) 22:34, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Endorse, though I'm not sure I would go quite so far as to "discourage" summary tables. I grant they're not really useful as voter guides, but I found them interesting for statistical purposes, and don't think there's anything bad about using them for that. I do agree not to link them in the voter guide template. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 01:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) I understand this to be an objection to a summary of voter guides table rather than summary tables within each voter guide. And I understand that "discouraged" here means that you can make such a table if you want to, but don't expect any of the ArbCom election pages to link to it or anything. If so, support.  Volunteer Marek   01:49, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) With some reservations about humorous guides.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  06:25, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) Provided they have a standard disclaimer about being the opinion of the writer(s)   Hot Stop     (Edits)   06:05, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) TimidGuy (talk) 11:39, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) An excellent suggestion. The Cavalry (Message me) 14:12, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) --<span style="font-family:Comic Sans MS,sans -serif"> — <b style= "color:#090;">Keithbob</b> • Talk  • 16:20, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) I generally agree, although I think the commentary on summary guides is a little harsh, even if I agree that they should not be listed with normal guides. I do also have some reservations on the inclusion of humorous guides. CT Cooper · &#32;talk 11:49, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 11) I'm planning to create another guide for this year's elections, contingent with the one I created last time around. Kurtis (talk) 01:30, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 12) I'm not hot on "humorous" guides being listed amonst the earnest ones; but I have no strong feeling against them either (I see them as without informative value, not as detrimental). I agree, however, that "summary guides" are detrimental and should not be linked from the election pages.  &mdash; Coren (talk) 23:49, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 13) This sounds reasonable.  MBisanz  talk 18:18, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 14) AGK  [•] 11:16, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 15) IRWolfie- (talk) 12:24, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 16) While I believe oversight with the guides is necessary, it is not sufficient. The idea advanced in Risker's statement is a balanced way to handle this issue and ensure the process is fair. Lord Roem (talk) 22:42, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 17)   Mlpearc  ( powwow ) 10:43, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 18)  Generally agree. Voter guides are interesting and (usually) useful, and I read all of them. Summary guides, not so much. Partially because, as Risker points out, they tend to weight all the guides evenly as though they are "votes". Some summaries have gone even further, such as to only list guides that the summary-creator agrees with, and to ignore those guides that disagree, which even further distorts the data. So the best way to handle things is to simply provide a template which lists the guides in a neutral manner, then make sure that all voters can easily find the template. Then the voters can review the guides, or not, and make up their own opinions from there. --Elonka 17:00, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 19) I'm fine with this. I wouldn't mind separating "humorous" guides from the not, but I don't particularly care anymore. I disagree with Jehochman below, as I have for one or two years now. <b style="color:navy;">NW</b> ( Talk ) 21:57, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Oppose

 * 1) Oppose. The summary chart was useful and well done (NPOV): One could see clusters of guide-authors with similar opinions, and one could see where there was serious disagreement among like-minded authors: Such enigmas were worth special attention. Seeing some ArbCom wannabes with no support saved us time. Polls are useful in elections, of course, and in democracies for voters and rulers. Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  20:31, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose Defeats the Style and purpose of Wikipedia style articles. A short intro at the top with further detailed information below.  Clarification by the position proposer suggests that a proposed gude I was intending to write is the exact kind that Risker was opposing. This suggests in my mind that there may be editors who spend so much time in the sausage factory that all they see is sausages instead of ways to create/improve the articles Wikipedia needs. Hasteur (talk) 12:24, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Hasteur, this has nothing to do with articles. If you want to create tables in article space, go for it. Create your election table, even, containing any information you like. The point of my statement is that guides whose only purpose is to summarize other guides are inherently biased in that they weight all voter guides equally, without providing any context, and thus shouldn't be put on the voter guide template. They can still exist, of course. Risker (talk) 23:22, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * To provide an example of the type of guide that would not be allowed to be linked under the proposal, see User:Monty845/ACE2011. Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  00:50, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) I found the chart useful last time. Hobit (talk) 03:20, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose Pointless censorship. Johnbod (talk) 00:23, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion
Question: Would this also include a summary table in the lede listing the Support/Oppose/Neutral positions with a anchor link into the rest of the guide explaining the reasoning for the viewpoint? I ask because I'm considering penning a voter guide and envision such a described structure so that at a glance people can see the recommendations, and the deeper reasoning (via a anchor link) Hasteur (talk) 13:51, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * You've pretty much described exactly the kind of guide that I was objecting to in this statement. Risker (talk) 02:20, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * My innovation was providing hyperlinks from candidates to my evaluations. What was the problem with easing access, Risker? Why don't you oppose all guides? Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  11:55, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Clarification The proposal does not stop an editor from compiling a table, and it does not stop other editors from linking to that table. Anybody is free to create an alternative guide, which would transclude the official guide and which would contain or link to a chart. The rest of us would be free to use that guide in addition to or as a replacement of the Risker-knows-best official guide. Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  14:41, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by NWA.Rep
While voter guides seem to have its merit on paper, it is often counterproductive to its stated objective. Too often, rogue admins who write such guides such as User: Sven Manguard use it as a platform to taunt, harass, and stalk arbitration candidates to intimidate and suppress editors from running from arbCom. Sockpuppet_investigations/NWA.Rep/Archive Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:NWA.Rep/Andre_DeAngelo_Wallace_Jr Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:NWA.Rep It also further perpetuates Wikipedia's clique and cabal problem and could be seen as a way to canvass. Canvassing through IRC is bad enough. Why have the election at all if good faith editors who are not Wikipedia insiders are penalized, harassed, and baselessly accused without a shred of evidence by voter guide writers on a fishing expedition? I see the same individual still attacking me in this very Rfc despite me being driven away from Wikipedia after last year's abuse as a candidate. Such character assassination defeats the purpose of voter guides and Wikipedians with such track records should NOT be allow to write voter guides to mislead and intimidate average Wikipedians from participating in the election process.--NWA.Rep (talk) 00:50, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Obviously --NWA.Rep (talk) 18:54, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Sven is not an admin. IMO if a voter guide has a character assassination, it should be dealt with via harassment policies, rather than rules about whether or not people are allowed to write about arb candidates in their userspace. John Vandenberg (chat) 05:32, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I simply don't think it is right to use voter guide as a mean to either settle old score (as Worm pointed out in his statement right below mine) or conduct a harassment campaign to sabotage a candidacy.--NWA.Rep (talk) 18:31, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) As John said, I'm not an admin. 2) The pages that were put up for deletion were inappropriate, and the community decided so in the deletion discussion. 3) My saying that you were massively unqualified for ArbCom was a reflection of my belief. Everything you did up to that point, and everything you've done since has reinforced my feeling that I made the right call.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  23:09, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * You fail to mention that you also went on a fishing expedition and character assassination campaign (that you have persisted to this day) to sabotage my candidacy by launching a pointless sockpuppet investigation with zero evidence despite respected Wikipedians such as Bishonen telling you to look at the facts and other editors telling you that those editors you claimed to be my sockpuppets are actually harassment accounts against me with diffs provided. You constantly stalked my contributions and fucked up my userpage despite numerous editors warning you that previous consensus has been established multiple times that my userpage was appropriate Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Certified.Gangsta Wikipedia_talk:User_pages/UI_spoofing while turning a blind eye on similar userpages when others raised the issue . Then you shamelessly canvass to push the deletion through without significant community input. You continue to mention my username in a negative way almost one year after my departure from Wikipedia and "downplays" my previous candidacy as a "joke", a blatant lie you continue to repeat, despite explicitly being told by Bishonen it was definitely not almost a year ago. You choose to ignore my credentials in vandal fighting, contributions to various ArbCom cases (IRC, PoolGuy, Giano, TingMing, Ideogram), history of sockpuppet fighting (against RevolverOcelotx and PoolGuy), and participation on AN/I. That is not the optimal behavior of a voter guide writer. It is Wikipedia politics at its worst. You should be ashamed of yourself.--NWA.Rep (talk) 03:55, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I have [ warned] NWA.Rep that this conversation must end now. AGK  [•] 11:40, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yet turning a blind eye on Sven Manguard...That's why I love Wikipedia. Even RFCs are gang patrolled now.--NWA.Rep (talk) 18:03, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Also please note that I made a statement not to engage in a conversation. I have no desire to engage in a "conversation" with Sven Manguard. He chose to chime in and made misleading accusations in response to my statement. And the only reason I even came back to Wikipedia to make this statement is because Sven Manguard can't seem to stop slandering me and keep my name out of his mouth even one year after my departure from Wikipedia (see his statement above and in many other discussions).--NWA.Rep (talk) 18:40, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Worm That Turned
I think there should be a little more care taken over the guides. As a candidate last year, I followed the guides with interest. I felt most of the comments made last year were fair, though I did find a few guides which were unreasonable and clearly created to present old grudges. Other editors spotted this and it lead to "guide on guides" and even a "guide on guides on guides". Now, I'm not expecting to put criteria on who can write guides or what can be said in them, but I believe the election co-ordinators should keep an eye on the guides and nudge the guide creators if they overstep reasonable bounds. <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 11:51, 11 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:
 * 1) <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 11:51, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Some care and oversight would be good, yes, and I hope people who notice a problem will tell the coordinators about it (not that it did much good when I did, but I hope that can change). I can certainly remember guides being used to air old grudges in a non-obvious way. An honest guide writer ought to declare a COI for a candidate they have history with, but meh, honesty is not a precondition for publishing a magisterial and objective-sounding guide. Bishonen &#124; talk 12:30, 11 October 2012 (UTC).
 * 3) Couldn't agree more. Voter guides should not and must not be used to settle old scores and conduct personal assassination harassment campaign--NWA.Rep (talk) 18:30, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Not sure how but supportive of the idea. A guide-to-guides, or even just a direct comparison, is helpful here. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:23, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) IRWolfie- (talk) 12:27, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) Per Bishonen. General principle of oversight is fine; I trust the community to know when a guide is particularly slanted. Lord Roem (talk) 22:38, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) Support. ~  GabeMc  (talk 06:05, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I believe that in the past, election coordinators have occasionally (at least once) determined that material in a guide was "over the line," so this has occurred without a guideline specifically permitting it. It does raise the question, however, how do the election coordinators know what is "over the line" without some specific guidelines? Or to put it another way, how much leeway do editors get when commenting on whether they believe a candidate is suitable for ArbCom? And are the coordinators (who are self-designated editors with no specific authority) supposed to research whether a guide-writer and a candidate have a "personal history" that may be behind a comment in a guide? Except for extreme cases, shouldn't it be left up to the voters to determine how much weight to give to a particular guide-writer's recommendations? Hopefully, voters are not placing "blind faith" in the statements of a guide-writer who they don't really know. Neutron (talk) 15:35, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment
 * The line between airing legitimate past grievances with the candidate and dragging out an old grudge is likely in the eye of the beholder. While it would be fair for anyone to nudge a guide writer if they feel the guide of out of line, without specific guidance on what is and is not permitted, having coordinators take direct action to remove a guide is likely to lead to more trouble then it is worth. (At least without developing a consensus first.) Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  01:59, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree with Neutron and Monty that "the line" has not really been set, and I can't say I'm terribly comfortable asking the coordinators to enforce that boundary without more definition. As an example: a user who was party to an ArbCom case disagrees with its outcome, and publishes a guide opposing the arbs who voted for the decision while supporting candidates who took a stance against that decision. Is that airing old grudges, or is it simply advocating a new direction for the committee? Of course the answer is that it will depend on how it's written, but that shows it won't always be a clear-cut decision. I'm also not totally clear what we mean when we say "nudge", is this just a friendly notice or does it come with the possibility of the guide being removed? If the latter, I'm very skeptical about giving that power to just a few people; if the former, it seems fairly toothless. I'd be more comfortable with allowing removal by discussion. Basically, I'm sympathetic to the idea behind this proposal, but it just doesn't seem ready for prime time just yet. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 05:01, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The line between airing old grudges and pointing out relevant flaws for the community to discuss is a blurry one, certainly. However, looking at WP:ACE2011/F, there was a lot of feedback regarding the voters guides, and the atmosphere they caused. All I am suggesting is that the co-ordinators consider the guides within their remit and send emails/talk page comment to nip a possible situation in the bud. I found out during the feedback phase that Skomorokh did a great job at this reactively last year, and was hoping that perhaps the co-ordinators might be a little more pro-active this year. <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 07:59, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree. And I think any prescriptive rules and guidelines for guide writers couldn't help but turn into a horrible morass of rule creep. But surely we could do one thing in advance: make it clear to guide writers (say round about now) that the community would like them to declare any personal history with a candidate they comment on. With such disclosure under their belt, guide writers can and should feel free to say exactly what they think, and it will be up to the voters to evaluate the possible COI of, for instance, Heimstern's hypothetical party to an ArbCom case whose guide reflects how s/he feels about the way sitting arbs voted on that case. There is nothing wrong with personal opinion. Obviously guides are all about one person's opinion anyway. Full personal background disclosure would mean something, while the general disclaimers I've seen around ("Disclaimer: This guide expresses my personal opinions and observations only") are quite meaningless. Bishonen &#124; talk 08:42, 12 October 2012 (UTC).
 * In the community discussion of last year's election, I endorsed Skomorokh's actions last year (although I quibbled with a few details in his email to me). A rogue election' administrator's threat to remove Monty's guide, etc., were weird, but lacked support in the community, so they were ultimately harmless.  Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  14:19, 12 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I think guides, and even guides on guides are a useful part of the process as someone forms an opinion, but there should be a disclosure of past interactions. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:27, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't understand this concern that there should be "disclosure of interaction". What are you all talking about? Sven? (Badger Drink and I both had notice that we had had RfC/Us signed by Worm That Turned.)  Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  23:07, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't know who Sven is beyond seeing the name on this page. I have seen past guides (actually I only found out about them on reading this RfC, I went and read up a bit); I was only starting to edit significantly last year. I see individuals whose names I recognise from ArbCom cases. I may agree or disagree with their statements, but the connection should be made more clear. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:06, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Jehochman
In the past voter guides have been used as a vehicle to settle scores, engage in personal attacks, and organize voting blocks. Guides are the opinions of a few random editors, some very well thought out and neutral, others not so much. Who will curate the guides to determine which are publicized or rejected? Placing the voting guides on the official election pages gives them too much weight and a false impression of neutrality and officialdom. Users are welcome to publish guides in their own userspace, and link their guides when they make comments, but there should be no "official" list of guides on the election pages.


 * Users who endorse this statement:
 * 1) Jehochman Talk 13:06, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Jehochman has a valid point. It's not necessary to link to voter guides from main election pages. Risker (talk) 13:58, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Exactly. It would be an overreaction to ban people from writing guides on their own subpage but a joke to publish them on the election page.--NWA.Rep (talk) 18:51, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Good points above. John Carter (talk) 00:27, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) Hiding T 07:25, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) Agreed Davewild (talk) 08:28, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) After some thought, I think this view gets it right (although I don't think the guides really do much harm). --Tryptofish (talk) 18:59, 28 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Comments
 * I just don't see how they're going to be visible enough without a list. I rely on guides to help me make the decision, particularly now that there is no opportunity to see how others are voting due to the secret ballot. Unless there is a clear way that the existence of guides will be publicized, I oppose this. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 14:11, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * There is nothing wrong with links to the guides as long as those links are placed with the placer's signature. They should not be placed signaturelessly or by the election staff.  The election pages contain many areas where the electorate can comment.  The comments may offer up guides.  The guide writers may link to each other's guides to help publicize them. We can every create a page where the guide writers can post a link to their own guide.  This page should be open to all and only subject to the normal editing rules of Wikipedia: WP:NPA, WP:BLP, and so on. Jehochman Talk 17:04, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I strongly encourage Heimstern to do his own research on candidates rather than relying on the misrepresentation of the candidates' records written by individuals with clear agenda.--NWA.Rep (talk) 18:52, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * NWA Rep, I assure you I do so. Seeing what others have to say is part of that research. And while certainly there are those who have a clear agenda, it's not true of all the guidewriters, and many are quite useful. I think you might consider painting with a bit less broad of a brush in your characterizations.
 * Jehochman, I like the idea of a central page where guide writers can post, but how visible will that page be? Will we be able to find it without a hunt? Like Hasteur below, I don't really like the idea of chasing guides down. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 14:48, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I assume good faith for the most part but it is hard to see the merit of voter guide and give undue weight to certain guide writers to canvass and dictate elections like Jehochman said. There are a lot of tools available to evaluate candidates. Quite frankly, I think everyone should do their own homework or not vote at all rather than relying on someone else's opinion.--NWA.Rep (talk) 18:58, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I think a central page, open to all on equal basis could be linked from the election header template. Election Guides can be linked to that page.  The big problem is having somebody decide what's a serious guide and what isn't.  It is not fair to highlight the guides of a few particular "in" editors with individual links in the header.  Jehochman Talk 18:21, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * So basically what you are proposing is that there still be a list of guides, but that it be one click from the template rather than right in the template... and that the election coordinators no longer provide information to the voters about which guides are serious, which are attempts at humor, and which are just summaries of other guides. I fail to see how that is better than what we had last year, which actually worked just fine.  Let's treat the voters like adults, make it convenient for them to find information and opinions, and leave it to them to decide how to evaluate all of it.  Neutron (talk) 02:51, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd rather you wouldn't sarcastically paraphrase and misrepresent my position. The guides should not have the appearance of being official, the way they did last year.  They can be listed on a page by the guide writers themselves.  At the top of the page it will say that the guides are unofficial and that the opinions therein are those of the writers, and that the ordinary Wikipedia policies are in effect and that anybody can be sanctioned at any time for violations of WP:NPA and other relevant policies.  It is most definitely not the job of the election coordinators to curate election guides to produce a pseudo-authoritative list of "approved" guides.  No, no and no. Jehochman Talk 03:03, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * No sarcasm intended, and no misrepresentation accomplished. But let me ask you a question:  The voter guides have been linked from the election template for at least three years; in that time, how many guides have been rejected by the election coordinators/administrators?  (I think you do have a point regarding the election coordinators, who are unelected, self-appointed editors, but I think someone in this system must be well-suited to make these decisions.  Maybe this should be a job for the Electoral Commission proposed by Tznkai, below.  Neutron (talk) 17:45, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * So a Section on the "Candidate Slate" talk page where guide writers are encouraged to post a link to their guide (in addition to what the thesis of the guide is) would be permissible? All things being equal, I'd rather have one list of guides than chasing down guides all over the election articles. Hasteur (talk) 17:55, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Just because no guide was rejected does not mean there are no instances in which voter guide writers do use it to engage in ad hominen personal attacks, settle old score, or even to canvass for support to launch a harassment campaign against certain candidates. In fact, many voter guide writers are no longer part of the solution, they are part of the problem. It is Wikipedia politics at its worst.--NWA.Rep (talk) 18:50, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * If you are responding to me, that is a different issue than the one I was addressing. In fact, so many different sub-issues are being discussed here at once that this discussion has become hopelessly confused, not to mention it should be taking place on the talk page anyway.  Neutron (talk) 21:43, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem is that if you write a guide and put it in your userspace no one (except maybe a few editors who keep tabs on you) will see it which sort of defeats the purpose. On the other hand I think guides can (and often do) serve a useful function of disseminating information. What's needed is a general page, linked to from the main candidacy page or something, which lets users look over the guides, but which has a big bold disclaimer saying that none of these are "approved" or "official" or anything of the sort and that they only represent the (perhaps non-neutral) opinions of the author. Basically provide access to the information but let the readers beware, and then make up their own minds.   Volunteer Marek   19:01, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I disagree with Volunteer Marek. It gives undue weigh to a few power brokers. If anyone is planning to vote on the election, he/she would be better off doing his/her own research free from the bias of the voter guide writers.--NWA.Rep (talk) 20:38, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I could see some value in maybe having the Signpost perhaps get some hopefully neutral editors in an edition before the election, or at least editors on different sides, maybe including links to a few of the personal guides the Signpost editors think are most informative, or, perhaps, having them get together editors with different opinions to collaborate on a single guide including both the "pro" and "con" points on a given candidate. I would myself possibly support such an effort. John Carter (talk) 00:27, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

How should we deal with unforeseen problems?
''During last year's election, user:Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry resigned from his seat, without clear direction of how that was to be handled. As a result, the three Election Administrators: User:Happy-melon; User:Tznkai; and user:Skomorokh researched precedent and decided the issue.''

Statement by User:Tznkai
During last years election, Happy-melon, Skomorokh and I were in the position of having to make a decision on how many seats would be available. We had no mandate to do so, we were not elected or appointed by any authority. We were, if memory serves, just the three users identified to the Foundation who volunteered for the job. We managed to pull it off last year, but I would rather not rely on hope and prayer again.

I propose that a three member Electoral Commission be established, its members drawn from Foundation identified volunteers, who will volunteer and be commented on in a Request for Comment. This Request for Comment is not to be an election, but a way for the community to weed out bad apples by supplying comments on their judgement. Jimbo, in lieu of his traditional reserve powers, will close this Request for Comment and appoint three voting members and any qualified volunteers as reserve members. To ensure fairness and stability, all voting and reserve members of the Electoral Commission will be appointed by the second week of November, and none may run for a seat on the Arbitration Committee.

The mandate of the Electoral Commission would be to deal with unforeseen problems, adjudicate disputes, and as Jimbo continues to shift his role, to ceremonially announce the final results. Despite how impressive that sounds, it would really be grunt work. Tznkai (talk) 02:46, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) As drafter Tznkai (talk) 02:46, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * &mdash; Cup co  03:00, 1 October 2012 (UTC) Banned sock
 * 1) Partial endorsement. I do think clarifying certain ambiguities about what happens in case of unforeseen occurrences is a very good thing.  But I don't intend to relinquish or step back from my role in the appointment process, particularly as it continues to transition to being ceremonial!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:46, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Partial endorsement. Establishing an electoral commission wouldn't actually solve the main process gap; "What do we do in response to unanticipated Problem X?" En.wikipedia is not good at process change, least of all preventive rather than reactive process change, but it is good at generating drama around things like this election; clearly naming people to deal with problems is nice but won't actually prevent the drama/uncertainty/compromise when something goes wrong, I feel. And then somebody who disagrees with an ElCom decision will push for a rigorous election of ElCom members next time, and so on :-) bobrayner (talk) 13:46, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) I agree there should be an Elections Commission (under whatever title), in fact I suggested it last year but never really pursued it. Although I would rather see it be a "fully elected" body, rather than an RfC followed by appointments, I realize there isn't time for that this year.  I also think the RfC should define what the authority of the commission is, which may be affected by the comments that Jimbo has made.  It is also possible that this RfC may establish a rule for what happens if a vacancy occurs right before or during the election process, which is the major event that occurred last year that a commission would have dealt with.  Neutron (talk) 19:47, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Partial endorsement from the man who created the whole mess, broadly agreeing with Jimmy here. The Cavalry (Message me) 14:10, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) Better an electoral commission than Jimmy, given the latter's (commendable) desire to relinquish his substantive authority over the entire process. AGK  [•] 11:16, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) Feel comfortable with this. Lord Roem (talk) 16:53, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 7) Prudent. -Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:15, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 8)  Mlpearc  ( powwow ) 10:51, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) —  Rich wales 02:27, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) - ~  GabeMc  (talk 06:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion
Drawn by who, appointed by who? I don't strongly oppose the idea, but I'm nervous anytime we add more layers of bureaucracy.- jc37 21:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I have no idea why it's such a big deal for the number of vacant seats, right up to just before the announcement, be simply filled from the list in order of the voting strength for the candidates. So what if nine rather than eight candidates take up their seats because an existing arb resigns at the last minute? Tony   (talk)  03:58, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
 * In a nutshell: volunteers raise their hands, community given a chance to say that volunteers have good judgement/bad judgement. Jimbo picks 3, remainder are available in reserve. Those three sit on their hands and do nothing unless something goes wrong, like it did last year.--Tznkai (talk) 04:25, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Monty845
I would modify Tznkai above statement slightly, and emphasize that to the extent time permits, the community should be asked to deal with unforeseen problems via RFC, even if they are abbreviated due to time constraints, following the model of the Supplemental RFC on number of seats to fill: ACE2011. Monty <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  03:03, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  03:03, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Only if time permits for such a short RFC... RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 12:56, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Apteva
Too much bureaucracy. I see no reason why ARBCOM can not do this, with the assistance of anyone interested. Unless I am mistaken, we do not have an elections commission for Stewards, Bureaucrats, or Administrators, why do we need one for ARBCOM? Something for Jimbo to do? Apteva (talk) 23:41, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Apteva (talk) 23:41, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Obviously, any arb running for re-election should recuse him/herself from these issues, but yes, ARBCOM should handle it. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 16:27, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Ebe123
There should not be a commission, do what we do for threads at AN, any uninvolved sysop may close. If an commission must be made, the commission should not have anything else than to determine the results of this election. Ebe 123  → report 01:01, 2 October 2012 (UTC) "The mandate of the Electoral Commission would be to deal with unforeseen problems, adjudicate disputes" No. Problems shall be resolved through community discussion (and dispute resolution processes). It can be grunt work, but for you, let the community in on it. Ebe 123  → report 01:04, 2 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Ebe  123  → report 01:01, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Too much was made of this last year, in the end clear consensus was against a commission.    Hot Stop     (Edits)   12:37, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Not convinced that a full blown commission is the way to go. Speedy discussions/RfCs while not perfect, do work. CT Cooper · &#32;talk 11:52, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Per CT Cooper, no need for even more bureaucracy. Hiding T 07:29, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:jc37
Treat the situation of someone resigning from arbcom during the election that same way as proposed above:. While noting that since it was not "prior to the election", then whatever system for filling vacancies throughout the year prior to next year's election, should apply. - jc37 21:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Me - jc37 21:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Agree. Let's not agree to do this differently in different sections, anyway.  --Philosopher Let us reason together. 12:35, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Comment
Jc37, there is no system for filling vacancies throughout the year, that is one reason why there is some difference of opinion over what the cutoff date, if any, should be. 68.195.124.76 (talk) 22:15, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * In the past, JW has filled seats at his discretion (typically from the "next runners up). I dunno if we should call that a "system", but it's what I know of. - jc37 23:02, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Jehochman
You can't decide in advance how to deal with an unforeseen problem, by definition of "unforeseen". I trust that the election coordinators will make common sense decisions, and if they fail, they will be run off by an angry mob presented with logical arguments why they should change plans. Jehochman Talk 03:08, 15 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:

This would mean that you think that the election coordinators should make the decision in unforseen problems. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:21, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comments:
 * That seems to be what he means. I think it all depends on what the issue is.  If it is an issue such as the one Tznkai is referring to from last year, i.e. how many arbitrators should be chosen in the election, I don't think self-appointed coordinators are the ones to make the decision.  A better argument could be made for the election administrators, who are limited in number (three I believe) and seem to be more "drafted" than "self-appointed."  But even then, the election administrators were uncomfortable with the position they were put in last year, and handled it well by calling a "snap" RfC that only lasted a few days.  That was not a perfect answer, since the RfC was so short, but it was probably the best answer.  I think it makes sense to "formalize" that position so that the election admins/commisioners/whatevers will have a more solid base of authority to make decisions.  Neutron (talk) 18:12, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * if the solution is obvious, just do it. If not obvious, hold an RFC in the time available and get an administrator to close and summarize the result. Don't let perfect be the antgonist of good.  This process shoud e handled like all others. Jehochman Talk 05:07, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Not entirely hypothetical situation: a situation presents itself (say, a candidate is forced to vanish due to real life complications). There is no precedent and a snap RfC gets no clear consensus. What then? Let's further speculate: an administrator, seeing an obvious solution, closes the RfC one way. Another administrator, full of righteous indignation reverses the close. What do we do then, and who should do it? Standard procedure, such as it is, would point to the conflict being resolved by the Arbitration Committee, who could still refuse to decide the underlying policy question. Even if they do not, should the Arbitration Committee really be deciding how the elections are run? RfCs run on the assumption of time and wide participation, and the election of the Arbitration Committee is done different having, unlike everything else on Wikipedia, a time line and non-reversible consequences. --Tznkai (talk) 20:00, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think there can be any doubt that if ArbCom was placed in a position of deciding whether to accept, and if so of then deciding, an issue concerning the way an ArbCom election is to be run, a great deal of drama would ensue, regardless of what the decision is. And, depending on what the actual issue is, it could very well disrupt the election, because the drama would likely be occurring while the voting is going on, or just before it.  We have a way to avoid this, by giving the Election Administrators (under whatever title) the power to make decisions (appealable only to Jimbo, if anyone).  But if they are going to be given that power, there has to be some sort of community selection (or approval) process, in order to give them a degree of "legitimacy" that is commensurate with their increased authority.  That is my understanding of Tznkai's proposal.  Neutron (talk) 22:17, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Kiefer.Wolfowitz
Proposal: Members of ArbCom, including members whose terms shall expire soon, shall be liable for removal, each by having more votes for his removal than for his support (a plurality, not necessarily a majority of the total votes). Persons being removed must immediately resign or be removed, and are not allowed to finish any term(s). Kiefer .Wolfowitz  16:30, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Initial list of ArbCom members proposed to be removed

 * Proposal. The following members of ArbCom should be removed: JClemens, Hersfold, and AGK. Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  16:30, 20 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement

Discussion

 * Comment. Well, Jclemens' term expires this December. Are you seeking some sort of "confidence vote" for Hersfold and AGK, or all sitting Arbs? Just a bit confused which direction this is going. -- Lord Roem (talk) 17:00, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Reply. JClemens should be removed ASAP, following the tallying of the votes, unless he has the good sense to resign, or his colleagues remove him. Hersold and AGK should also be removed. Others may amend the proposal, e.g., by suggesting additions or subtractions, including all Arbitrators. I wrote the proposal in two parts, to allow the community to amend it. Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  17:15, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok. Thank you for clarifying. Lord Roem (talk) 17:18, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm confused; are you proposing that they be removed now, or...? Ironholds (talk) 17:23, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * As I wrote, any members being removed should be removed ASAP after the votes are tallied. (I would favor their immediate resignation or removal, but this is a page for an electoral mechanism.) I thought that I had answered this. Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  17:30, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Are you looking for a special election?--Tznkai (talk) 17:33, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe that the upcoming election should serve this purpose, also. The community's time should be respected.
 * Alright. How? Are we just ending their terms early if this RfC issue hits "consensus," or are we running a different process in parallel? Are we putting two sections on the ballot? Since one term is expiring, are they being subjected to a different threshold, or just a purely punitive confidence vote? How are we going to avoid voter confusion?--Tznkai (talk) 17:50, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I suggest having a section on the same ballot. I have suggested 3 members to be listed for removal. Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  18:10, 20 October 2012 (UTC)


 * While in theory I could support some sort of annual retention vote for Arbcom members with multi-year terms, I could not support a proposal that permits a recall vote on any Arbcom member at any time during their term. Such a procedure would provide an excessive disincentive to tackle difficult when any single misstep could result in a recall being issued. I also would not support recall of members with expiring terms as that would be a purely punitive measure that would not serve to alter the composition of Arbcom, which is the intent of the election.  MBisanz  talk 17:32, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The Wikipedia community should be trusted to use removal only under extraordinary circumstances. Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  17:44, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Erm, Administrators open to recall/Past requests compared to Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall and WP:FORMER would tend to indicate the community has never been good at gauging extraordinary circumstances from routine operations. If it was, WP:FORMER would be populated by a large number of former members of Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall and most recall requests wouldn't have ended in stalemates. Also, just looking at my watchlist notice on a regular basis and seeing what people consider extraordinary enough to list there tells me the community has a fairly non-existent consensus as to what constitutes extraordinary.  MBisanz  talk 18:03, 20 October 2012 (UTC)


 * "Somebody I like is in danger of being banned" is not an "extraordinary circumstance." Given you are not presenting your reasons for this motion, nor are you even attempting to justify why you are seeking to remove these three specific arbs, I am struggling to understand why anyone should consider this anything but a bad faith motion. Resolute 18:17, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Resolute,
 * Others may note that these arbs's behavior has been disavowed by other arbs, many of whom also have suggested banning Malleus. I have not suggested removing SirFozzie, SilkTork, etc., of course.
 * Kiefer .Wolfowitz  19:01, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Even if KW was doing this under the best of circumstances, this would still be a complete non-starter, as Arbitrators must be free to make unpopular decisions. There's already a way to remove arbitrators you disagree with and that's voting against them should they run for re-election. I understand KW is very upset about the current cirumstances, however, that does not mean this idea is a good one. And KW, let's be completely honest. If I hadn't made it clear months ago that I was not running for re-election, would my name be on that list since I proposed the ban motion on Malleus? SirFozzie (talk) 19:05, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi SirFozzie,
 * I disagree with your vote, as already noted, but you have behaved reasonably but mistakenly, and have not made personal attacks against Malleus: "net negative", "not a Wikipedian", etc. Further, others may well wish to remove Hersfold from the list. It's clear that AGK and JClemens should resign or be removed.
 * Kiefer .Wolfowitz  19:09, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Clear to you. Evidently not clear to, well, anyone else who has participated here. This is not a proposal for how to structure elections, this is an attempt to organise a witchhunt remove some specific arbitrators out of the existing process based on your opinion of their judgment in one case. Ironholds (talk) 20:27, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * You should read about recall elections and impeachment, if you don't understand how non-authoritarian organizations work. Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  20:56, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm confused as to whether you're calling a body with regular elections "authoritarian", or claiming that recall elections are an essential element of a non-authoritarian environment - in which case any nation that isn't Canada, Venezuela, or bits of the US and Switzerland would like to have a word with you ;p. Ironholds (talk) 13:47, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Please re-read what I wrote, noting the "and impeachment". Please drop the passive aggressive "I'm confused", which is almost as bathetic as "I'm so sad to have to block/ban....".
 * And perhaps you should read about lynch mobs and vigilante justice. Resolute 23:55, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Resolute, keep working on your comparison of removing an administrator and lynching, and with luck you can play the Nazi card after Glenn Beck's retirement.  Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  13:54, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest both of you end this conversational thread now. It's not going anywhere productive. Ironholds (talk) 13:56, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you would strike your witch-hunt comparison, which set a bad example, and perhaps inspired the lynching hyperbole. Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  13:59, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Now struck and rephrased :). Ironholds (talk) 14:00, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * You can Godwin the thread all you want, Kiefer, my point stands. The entire premise of this thread is "I don't like these guys.  Lets get 'em!  Who's with me?" You're pushing mob justice, not "impeachment". Impeachment, I might note, requires the application of a specific process with specific criteria to be met.  Given we have no such process at present, and given you have not presented the slightest bit of evidence to justify your position, I do not believe you can claim to occupy the high road here.  As other have noted, you are in the wrong venue if you wish to build such a process.  I suggest formulating something more in depth than "I hate this guy and I want to remove him" and propose it at a village pump. Resolute 15:06, 21 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Kiefer, you probably need to reformat this and take the discussion to another location. At the moment, Arbitration/Policy only refers to a method by which other Arbs can vote off a malfunctioning Arb. If the community wants a method of getting rid of a malfunctioning Arb itself, it will require a change to that policy, not the elections procedure. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:00, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The community can give a no confidence vote, and failed arbitrators would probably choose to resign, at least arbitrators besides JClemens. Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  22:25, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * You would still need to find a different venue for the discussion. And get some rule as to how you'd conduct the vote - eg onwiki vs secret ballot, how long would the poll be open, who can vote; also what constitutes a passing vote of no confidence - majority of those voting or consensus, how would you determine consensus? In the real world, you can do all this stuff because the rules got laid down a long time ago - who can request an EGM/impeach the president/call for a vote of no confidence, how a ballot is conducted, what happens next. Here, you are in the position of having the make the rules first, because all the previous instances of Arb resignation seem to have involved a spontaneous and massive groundswell of opinion, or the closet opening and all the skeletons tumbling out, and in either case the individual concerned then picking up the pearl-handled revolver themself. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:40, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I suggested a plurality of voters (not "consensus", which on Wikipedia seems to be a super-majority of 60-80%, not true consensus).
 * Regarding details, whatever the community decides on this election would suffice. Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  23:03, 20 October 2012 (UTC)


 * This proposal is clearly outside the scope of this RfC, which is about election of arbitrators, not their removal. I don't know where and how would be the right place to make such a proposal, but it isn't here.  I thought about removing it, or hiding it in a box, or moving it to the talk page, but I am allergic to "drama", so I am choosing a more "democratic" solution, see below.  Neutron (talk) 00:33, 21 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I've no comment on the proposal itself other than that it strikes me as rather POINTy and that I honestly have no idea what I've done to personally offend Kiefer.Wolfowitz so much. However, since it was mentioned above, I am open to recall as an administrator, should anyone feel that I am in some way abusing the administrative tools or in some other way have become unfit to hold them. As it is my personal belief that adminship is a prerequisite to holding other advanced permissions, including Bureaucrat, Checkuser, Oversight, and a seat on the Committee, I would voluntarily resign all of them should a recall petition succeed. My process for recall is outlined at User:Hersfold/Recall. Kiefer, sorry, but you're not eligible to request my recall until July 17th of next year at the earliest due to your block a few months ago, but you should know in advance I do not intend to run for another term on the Committee. I'm tired of being a punching bag in what's supposed to be my free time, but I'm going to stick out this term out of fairness to those who voted me into this one. <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:blue">Hers <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:gold">fold  (t/a/c) 00:48, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Neutron
Proposals regarding removals of sitting arbitrators, whether general or specific, are beyond the scope of this Request for Comment, and no decision or "consensus" regarding that subject that is reached on this page will have any effect.


 * Users who endorse this statement


 * 1) Proposed.  Neutron (talk) 00:33, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) I would have said it belongs at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Policy. It's a legitimate discussion about Arbitration policy, but outside the scope of this RfC, which is about procedures for electing Arbitrators, not procedures for getting rid of 'em. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 02:01, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Rschen7754 02:06, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) This RfC is about the election. Not a coat rack for other issues people feel they have about ArbCom. If they were to be seriously proposed, here is certainly not the place. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:01, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion
This proposal nullifies itself. Kiefer .Wolfowitz  07:19, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * In fact, if passed, it would "nullify" (as far as this particular RfC is concerned) this entire section that you started, including your proposals, the discussion in response to them -- and yes, including my counter-proposal. I wanted to give the community the ability to, in effect, rule your proposal "out of order" as being outside the scope of this RfC, and this was the only effective way I could think of to do it.  As I said in my comment above, I considered making that decision on my own (subject to someone else reverting me, of course) by simply deleting your proposal, or moving it to talk, or putting it in a show/hide box, but I suspect you would not have liked any of those solutions any more than this one.  Neutron (talk) 18:53, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Why bother? You're giving unnecessary oxygen to an idea that doesn't have the support to pass anyway, and an idea that is clearly outside the scope of the RfC because a statement on scope already exists. Seriously, I'd advise just hatnoting this section. Ironholds (talk) 20:38, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. IRWolfie- (talk) 20:40, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Feel free. I think I am a little too "involved" in this page at this point to be "clerking" it as well.  Neutron (talk) 21:20, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

=Post-election=

What should the minimum support percentage be in order to be considered for appointment to ArbCom?
Consensus from last year's RfC: A minimum of 50% is required for consideration.

Statement by User:Müdigkeit
Change it to 75%. Reason: The meta:oversight policy states that any oversighter(and checkusers have similar restrictions) must have at least 70-80% approval, if they are not appointed by an arbitration comittee. I think the percentage should be similar here. Reasons: An arbitrator with 52% support, for example, would not be backed by consensus, usually. Arbitrators have a lot of rights and are very important(do not forget that they appoint oversighters and checkusers). Nobody has ever been made admin by our bureaucrats with 52% support. Arbitrators are in positions with high responsibility. Imagine an arbitrator abusing his admin or even checkuser/oversight rights. No, 50%+1 is too low. Müdigkeit (talk) 05:00, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Users who endorse this statement:


 * 1) Müdigkeit (talk) 05:00, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Discussion
 * Don't you think that this was a wee bit WP:POINTy, given that your proposal had failed to garner even a single support by the time you posted it? Jclemens (talk) 01:17, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Müdigkeit, the meta policy on oversight does not have any bearing on how we choose our arbitrators. In fact, it has little to do with the English Wikipedia at all, since we don't elect our oversighters and checkusers at all. This argument is really lacking in merit, and your action on meta, whether POINTY or not, was clearly pointless. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 09:28, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Rschen7754
Keep it at 50%. If we had done 75% last year, we would have elected only 2 arbitrators to fill 8 slots. (WP:ACE2011) --Rschen7754 05:10, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:
 * 1) Rschen7754 05:10, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) On a secret ballot without rationales, the cutoff necessarily must be lower.  Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  05:50, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Heimstern Läufer (talk) 08:11, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) Davewild (talk) 09:31, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 5) Nobody Ent 11:12, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 6) Neutron (talk) 11:26, 1 October 2012 (UTC) (Actually, a majority; S>O)
 * 7) Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:33, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 8) LegoKontribsTalkM 16:19, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 9) AutomaticStrikeout 20:11, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 10) I appreciate Müdigkeit's concern, but the nature of this election means that even the best candidate can expect far lower % of support !votes than, say, RfA where all !voters are considering a single candidate. Setting the threshold so high would make it impossible to fill seats. bobrayner (talk) 12:12, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 11)   Hot Stop     (Edits)   12:36, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 12) As I noted above, open ballots lead to bandwagon effect which tends to make the winners have much higher support percentages. It is impossible to compare the biased results of open voting with a secret ballot.  Gigs (talk) 13:35, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 13) Per Bobrayner, Müdigkeit's statement was comparing apples and oranges. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 04:02, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 14) Until we move to PR or AV :-) The Cavalry (Message me) 14:13, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 15) Per above, secret ballots drive down support percentages compared to open elections and user's standards for ArbCom are high anyway. Appointing candidates with less than 50%+ 1 vote is clearly inappropriate, so this threshold should remain. CT Cooper · &#32;talk 12:09, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 16) 50% sounds perfectly reasonable to me. An ArbCom candidate should at least have a majority of participants supporting their election for them to be appointed. 75% is far too high &mdash; as Rschen7754 notes above, if we were to use that percentage as the threshold for last year's elections, only Courcelles and Risker would have made it on. Kurtis (talk) 21:39, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 17) With the presumption that this is actually: 50% +1. - jc37 21:56, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 18) Given the voting pattern in secret ballots, 50% is entirely adequate.  I should also opine that there is no need to make that 50%+1, as the difference has no statistical meaning whatsoever.  &mdash; Coren (talk) 23:45, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 19) But only for 50% +1. It might not matter statistically, but it does visually. And lets face it, ArbCom cases a lot about how it looks.   S ven M anguard   Wha?  23:28, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 20) Support, although presuming this means at least 1 vote more than 50%. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 01:46, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 21) AGK  [•] 11:43, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 22) A key point here is that if we don't elect enough arbitrators to fill the empty slots, they should remain empty.  Them From  Space  20:45, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 23) We're not talking about adminship here. We're talking about users, most of who are already admins, looking for a given number of seats. I doubt that any arb candidate who couldn't become an admin had any chance of getting the 50%. And while we're granting them the rights for the CheckUser tool and the Oversight tool, that isn't the primary thing we're voting them in for. I think that more support than oppose is the bare minimum to be any sort of consensus, and combined with a pre-decided number, that should be the passing requirements. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:24, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 24) Keep it at 50% — ΛΧΣ  21™  04:03, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 25) Yes. No reason to change the 50% + 1 standard. A 50% cutoff sounds fine. Lord Roem (talk) 16:54, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 26) the wub  "?!"  12:31, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 27) The nature of the voting here allows for some editors who have recently been barely, if at all, active to vote against someone they might have a longstanding grudge against. Raising the minimum percentage above 50 would make it too easy for people to canvass for no votes from enemies of the candidates. Unfortunately, it is rather hard for anyone to get enough respect to be a viable candidate without also getting some enemies. Maybe if the process were changed in some way I might go for a 66% minimum, but given the current system I have to say 50% is probably as much as we can reasonably demand. John Carter (talk) 21:59, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 28)  Mlpearc  ( powwow ) 10:53, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 29) ~  GabeMc  (talk 06:09, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 30) Reasonable and practical. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:01, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 31) How about a clear majority, say 50% plus 1. It can't be plain 50% as it is a tie. You should have a narrow margin as a minimum and unanimous as a maximum.   TruPepitoM  Talk To Me  13:17, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion
From an ego point of view 50% + 1 may seem different from 50-50 (out of 100 votes, 50 for, 50 against), from a statistical point of view they are identical. For every person who votes there are hundreds who do not vote at all, and it is impossible to conclude that had they voted they would have tipped the vote one way or the other, so in fact all vote results are only statistically valid to within a percentage range, so in my opinion, saying more than 50% or 50% are identical, and not important, though yes it is not only possible, but I would say probable that someone could get exactly 50% - and if there are enough candidates would not be selected because there were plenty more who got more votes - and only if there are not enough candidates would that one or more persons get appointed with exactly 50%. Apteva (talk) 23:22, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It is very unlikely that there will be a case any time soon of someone being elected on a 50:50 result, so I don't really see the point of dwelling on it. However, the idea of 50% + 1 in voting systems is the principle of majority support for something to pass, not statistical significance i.e. that all arbitrators get elected with more support votes than oppose votes, which therefore adds some basis to the 50% threshold rather than making it some arbitrary number. The fact that people choose not to vote is never ideal, but that is ultimately a choice, so I consider it irrelevant. CT Cooper · &#32;talk 21:57, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:czarkoff
≥1 vote. Just pick the best scoring candidates, as we already have a number of vacant seats as a natural limiting factor.


 * Users who endorse this statement:
 * 1) — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 11:56, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) The only way the election will deliver without risk. Why have a process that can fail? It's just a vote ... Tony   (talk)  04:00, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) Under the current voting system the more good candidates we have in excess of the number of seats to fill the lower the percentage votes will be for the winning candidates, so it is illogical to combine this electoral system with a minimum support percentage. A minimum support percentage works fine when we are deciding whether an individual candidate should be an admin or crat, but that is a very different electoral system.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  23:38, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 4) If you want us to vote on two separate propositions, then put them on separate ballots: one to vote based on which candidates we want to occupy the top n spots, and a second to vote on which candidates, if in the top n, should be seated on the committee. Combining them means voters will be voting on different things and their votes can't be compared. Kilopi (talk) 01:40, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion
Not possible. I would ask the stewards not to appoint and to desysop(if necessary) those who fail that. Appointing arbitrators as oversighters and checkusers with under 70% is questionable enough, but you can be sure that the stewards won´t allow it with under 50%, not even for admin rights.--Müdigkeit (talk) 19:48, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Note that Mudigkeit has just discovered that the Stewards will give rights to any user correctly elected to the Arbitration Committee of the English Wikipedia under the currently prevaling rules, and won't take them away again because the % support was below 75% --Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:53, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Although I disagree with Müdigkeit's argument, I still oppose this proposal. I don't believe it's appropriate for anyone garnering more opposes than supports to sit on the committee, even if it means the committee begins below capacity. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 09:30, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ The minimum standard has to be more supports than opposes. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:52, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * You mean like three supports and two opposes? Yields a nice big "support" rating under the current system. Tony   (talk)  06:57, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree it should be "more supports than opposes" (which is actually one vote more than "50%", which is currently the leading proposal; we seem to be sort of collectively hoping the issue never comes up), but why do you say it "has to be"? Last year there was a proposal that got significant support, for there to be no threshhold at all, the top n candidates get elected.  And what's with the green checkmark?  Neutron (talk) 21:12, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment. Those who fail to get one vote are unlikely to pass a voting requirement of greater than or equal to one vote. All comments in this section are in the wrong place. Apteva (talk) 22:53, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Wikiwind
Results must be announced within five days after the end of the voting period.

I think that five days is a reasonable period in which 700-900 votes can be processed. Last year the results were released after eight days, which is, I think, too long (considering the number of votes). Faster publication of the results contributes to greater transparency of the process.-- В и к и  T   13:37, 23 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this statement:
 * 1) -- В и к и  T   13:37, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion
Deadlines are non-enforceable. The current election set up involves three outside stewards working as election scrutineers, who make the final decision between them what votes are or are not valid, the results are published, and then passed onto Jimbo for final due diligence and ceremonial appointment. Rushing the scrutineers gets us approximately no where, in 2009 there was actually an error caused in part by the rush. So, any deadline established here is purely aspirational.--Tznkai (talk) 19:27, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree with Tznkai. We need to get the results right as opposed to getting it quickly. The last thing we need are discrepancies caused by hastily-released results, which would certainly cause a bigger firestorm than who gets elected. --MuZemike 17:38, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

=Advertising=

Discussion
How should this election be advertised? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:08, 22 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, I presume the Signpost will have a story about it. Are you thinking of anything specifically? -- Lord Roem (talk) 04:09, 22 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Nope. I'm wondering if an article banner (à la the annual fundraiser banner) would be the fair thing. It would ensure every eligible voter (including those who aren't logged in or editing) knows about it, and it would tell the general readership something about how this community works. But I don't know if those benefits outweigh the down side of having a banner on all our articles. Then there's watchlist notices; and those banners that seem to only be visible to autoconfirmed logged-in users. Don't know really. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:26, 22 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I think a watchlist notice is the way to go. It's not too intrusive as a banner and it's "advertising" that people will actually see. Lord Roem (talk) 04:30, 22 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I think an article banner is a bad thing - many of the people who look at the artocles aren't editors here, and the inner worlings of the community shouldn't be there. Maybe just for eligible voters who are logged in. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:38, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * many of the people who look at the artocles aren't editors here, and the inner worlings of the community shouldn't be there. -- Why not? Shouldn't we be open and welcoming to the idea of readers learning about Wikipedia (including its community structure) and joining us? Readers are merely passive editors, just not active yet. That's how we should treat them, like adults, if we're expecting the best of them to contribute. --78.35.243.237 (talk) 17:54, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * We are. The disadvantage would be that there are already certain minimum criteria regarding contributions to cast a vote, and many of the editors who might see a banner will not meet those requirements. That being the case, the net effect might be to further alienate some of those "readers" who might think something like "they tell me to vote in their election, then say I'm not qualified. Well, &#($ them." There is a very real chance that overadvertising the election might be counterproductive. John Carter (talk) 21:24, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, the banner shouldn't go up until after the last registration date for voters, and I doubt that it would alienate a reader to realise we expect some project experience before voting for arbitrators. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 14:18, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by User:Lord Roem
For "advertising", we should simply ensure the word is out on the dates of the process. This should be done in a non-intrusive way (i.e. no banners). We should simply create a watchlist notice, in the same format as the one announcing this RfC, when nominations open and when voting opens.


 * Users who endorse this statement:
 * 1) Lord Roem (talk) 04:48, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 2) Seems reasonable.  A banner isn't needed (or desired IMO) but a watchlist notice should hit most folks who are eligible to vote. Hobit (talk) 04:17, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 3) No banner, just a WL notice. ~  GabeMc  (talk 06:10, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Discuss User:Lord Roem's advertising proposal
Can one of you explain why that's a good idea, over and above the simple assertion that it is? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 14:22, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * As I say above, a simple watchlist notice informs active editors (those who check their watchlist), just like the one announcing this RfC. It's a simple, non-intrusive way of spreading the word. Lord Roem (talk) 20:59, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * And a banner ad would mostly hit those editors who are just reading Wikipedia, don't edit and aren't eligible to vote. Seems like a waste of their time and potentially disruptive as they go to vote and find they aren't allowed to.Hobit (talk) 21:49, 31 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Does your proposal include the traditional notices posted to various community noticeboards? Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  07:22, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It doesn't say that explicitly, but I'd support that. A short note is probably okay. Lord Roem (talk) 20:23, 29 October 2012 (UTC)