Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Checkuser and oversighter selection

On May 31 the Arbitration Committee announced that the May 2010 CUOS elections had led to an "unsatisfactory result", in that of 4 candidates for Checkuser and 7 for Oversight, only one passed the 70% threshold set for the process.

These roles are important ones for the community and the purpose of the election is to ensure high quality appointees. The purpose of this RFC is to consider the Arbitration Committee's request for community input.

Background
Checkuser and oversight cover two major areas where trust and privacy are required. It is the direct responsibility of the Arbitration Committee to choose and manage these roles on this project. In the past appointments were based upon internal discussion, and then internal discussion informed by communal feedback. Since 2009 appointments arose from internal vetting discussion (Arbcom affirms its trust in each resulting candidate), followed by a community election with a 70% hurdle. 2009 involved public voting and 2010 non-public voting.

Without undue analysis of what went on, the questions at this RFC are:
 * 1) How should the Committee proceed now (the roles need filling), and
 * 2) Is there some change that might help ensure a satisfactory result in future.

Four concrete possibilities to kick-start initial discussion (there may be others):


 * Keep as is - but mandate the appointment of candidates who have the highest results (although under 70%).


 * Keep as is - but reduce hurdle in future. (The Arbcom election itself only requires 50%)

Disadvantages - community voting doesn't take place, checking of issues and final decision left to Arbcom. Note that in both election and input versions, the reasons for a final selection are nonpublic - SecurePoll does not record comments under voting, nor did arbitrators provide detailed reasons.
 * Change in future - revert appointment system to being based on communal input rather than communal voting. (Example how this would work).
 * Advantages - concerns are heard (not just vote count), takes less community time, guarantee of successful results, previous use produced very high quality input ("a very high signal to noise ratio").

Disadvantages - May lose Arbcom checking of competence and suitability (by users who use that tool daily and know it well), where an Arbcom exists it is always responsible for supervising/removing CUOS, no better result (a 70-80% hurdle is mandatory for community-only elections).
 * Change in future - make appointment system completely community based.
 * Advantages - point of principle for some that the community should decide all matters directly, gives community full control.


 * Other...?

FT2 (Talk 05:43, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

View by Shirik
The majority of the Wikipedia community avoids oversight-level issues and WP:SPI. This is not a fault of the community; this is a good thing, as these are areas which we would rather not have, but as a necessary evil must have to control problematic users. The overwhelming majority of users on Wikipedia do not follow the day-to-day processes in these areas, and thus may not be aware of their daily needs and issues.

At present, the sockpuppet investigations area has been struggling to keep up with its checkuser backlog. There is a desperate need for checkusers, especially in the "quick cases" area, where urgent cases have unacceptably remained open for days without attention. However, the majority of Wikipedians do not realize this dire issue because it is in an area they do not venture into frequently. This is not a fault of the community; the community benefits from leaving only a few, dedicated people to deal with this problem. However, the community must ensure that those dedicated people have the tools necessary to do that job.

For this reason, a fully-open, unchecked election cannot satisfy the needs of the community. Election by users that are not intimately familiar with the current needs of these areas will typically result in indecision, as the roles of checkuser and oversight are understandably met with fierce scrutiny by electors. While such scrutiny is necessary, it is better dealt with by users that are familiar with the area in which these candidates will be working, and by users familiar with the current need for those positions to be filled. The Arbitration Committee is the best group to fill this role. They are familiar with the needs of both the oversight and checkuser areas. While their decisions may periodically be met with opposition, it is perfectly understandable that this decision will not reach 100% support and the primary purpose of the Arbitration Committee is to make those decisions which the Wikipedia community at large is too indecisive to make on their own.


 * Users endorsing this view:
 * 1) As author -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 06:33, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Support and comment on the Oversight election.
 * While on the surface it seems disappointing to the candidates and those that did not pass the vetting process, the need for Oversighters in a couple of different timezones is needed. However, in my opinion as one of the most active non-arbitrator oversighters, we do handle requests in a timely manner.  There are slips in the cracks and gaps to be filled, but overall the system is running well.  I don't follow checkuser so I can't comment there.  As mentioned, though, it does on the surface end up in hurt feelings by all the nominees and editors and supported them.  This does not mean a failure of the system, but does imply a bit of malaise.  Keegan (talk) 07:00, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) I couldn't agree more. In cases where the community is incapable of showing a unified voice such as in this election, (and probably all CU/OS elections in future) I honestly feel that Arbcom needs to play an active roll. Arbcom should handle CU and OC appointments on the proviso they do take note of the community input. No matter what way you look at it, we need more checkusers to deal with the ever growing backlog. As it stands Arbitrators get CU/OS by virtue of being Arbitrators and they can hand that permission out to whom they wish, they may as well handle the elections too.  « l | Promethean ™ | l »   (talk) 08:19, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Agree. Clearly, SecurePoll-voting hasn't worked out for us very well. However, it is the most fair system we have out there, and replacing it with public voting a la Arbitration Committee/CheckUser and Oversight/August 2009 election would not be acceptable to me, as it only encourages herd-voting. Unless we are willing to move entirely to a system like RfA (public voting with comments being judged), this seems like the only way to go. NW ( Talk ) 13:29, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) This is exactly what I said when the results were announced. ( X! ·  talk )  · @671  · 15:06, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) Agreed. I think these results have shown that these rights are not best assigned by means of popular election. Voting is great for many things, but I don't think it was appropriate here. These rights should be assigned by ArbCom. (For what it's worth, I'm one of many who didn't vote, because I don't know enough about the candidates or the position; but had I been aware the results would turn out like this, I would have simply voted 'support' for every single one.) Robofish (talk) 23:08, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) Tim Song (talk) 05:17, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 6) Those who want to turn this into a political process must be the ones compelled to walk a day in an OS'er or CU's shoes. This isn't a matter of McCain vs. Obama, this is a matter of keeping Wikipedia free of vandalism and libelous dross. —Jeremy (v^_^v Dittobori) 17:00, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 7) Agreed. I believe that this is the best option, in that the people elected and entrusted with handling privacy related issues (ArbCom) have the best ideas of the potential candidates and their appropriateness both technically and with regards to safety. However, the community's input should always be welcomed and considered. As an aside, as one of the four people who underwent this process, I do know that community concerns were raised and discussed, and that the input was respected and investigated. -- Avi (talk) 17:36, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 8) Endorse. I can see the benefit of forcing some amount of open community discussion on the candidates so that Arbcom does not accidentally (or not, I guess) pick someone that large swaths of the community would distrust, but beyond that let's recognize that most community members do not have exposure to judge who would be a good CU/OS. Martinp (talk) 02:07, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 9) Endorse. OS and CU are basically fulfilling the tasks that need to be done under the authority of either ArbCom or the WMF anyway, might as well be done by people whom they have vetted as being the best people for the task. There were no comments from anyone who voted on any of the candidate pages which doesn't let anyone know for what reason people voted the way they did, if any. This gives neither the candidate nor Arbcom (who vetted the candidate) any rationale why the person is suited or unsuited for the job. Might as well put it in Arbcom's hands as it used to be Valley2 city ‽ 02:38, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * So why not let the community have an open discussion on the candidates- at least that way people know what the rationales for opposition are? 03:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * HJ, Arbcom set up pages for that very purpose (see mine for example). Nobody commented on any of them AFAICT. Valley2 city ‽ 03:51, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I know, but there was a bit of an impersonal feel to having some tucked away sub sub sub sub page to comment on and then going to a different page to vote. I did my part and asked a few questions, but there's not much point in making a comment if you end up talking to yourself. I still think an RfA-style system would work better. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   02:24, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see how it's much different. Regardless, I would not be opposed to an open discussion. In fact, I would encourage it. However there's no reason to tie "support" or "oppose" !votes to that. Beyond that, there are certain things that should not be said about users publically, and there are certain things that you might wish to say without fear of retaliation. For that reason, in my opinion, arbcom must leave the door open for a private discussion and have the final say. -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 04:21, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) My brilliant colleagues above are absolutely right. I do want to note that previous CU/OS elections have worked, which makes it hard to say that this process is totally broken.  That being said, this isn't a table in a college dorm - just because it might not be broken doesn't mean we can't try to fix it. ~  Amory ( u  •  t  •  c ) 22:31, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2)  Wizardman  Operation Big Bear 18:14, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

View by zzuuzz
The high levels of neutral votes, particularly seen for the oversighters, indicate a strong indifference about the candidates among the community. This indifference, neither an acceptance or rejection of the candidates, is mainly due to a lack of information about them. It is often implicit support pending any substantial objections. Several of the candidates are either relatively inactive, or relatively inexperienced, and not much is generally known about them. Despite a section for it, there was only one comment made about any of the candidates in this entire election. More discussion about the candidates should be encouraged and voters should be able to see what concerns are being raised so they can either accept them or reject them. Failing that, an open voting system where concerns and support are expressed openly should be re-adopted. Voters generally react to what has gone before, adding support or opposition as it is required to achieve the right outcome. Arbcom should also consider going by the opposition alone as for these types of roles they should be weighing community opposition more strongly than community popularity. But more importantly they, and the community, should know what these objections are.


 * Users endorsing this view:
 * 1) -- zzuuzz (talk) 09:59, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 2)  Aiken   &#9835;   14:58, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) --The Evil IP address (talk) 17:42, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) Absolutely. To make decisions without enough information is problematic; let the voters talk with the candidates a bit to understand them and their history. —Jeremy (v^_^v Dittobori) 17:01, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) Tim Song (talk) 21:38, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 6) --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 01:42, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 7) Agree. I feel like a spammer posting this all over the place, but I think an RfA-style system would at least partially solve this problem. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   02:25, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 8) I'm not thoroughly in agreement with the latter portion of the statement (i.e. "an open voting system where concerns and support are expressed openly should be re-adopted.") but I do agree that more information is always desired. I've never been thrilled about the use of subpages, but generally it seemed very very vague this time around (I recognize that is itself rather vague).  FT2's 'zilla is a good one. ~  Amory ( u  •  t  •  c ) 22:31, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

View by BirgitteSB
I believe the largest factor in the non-result of this election was the use of SecurePoll. While public consensus gathering has its own downsides, it is reliable in gathering a greater and more conclusive input. SecurePoll may continue to be effective for Arbcom elections so long as they held so infrequently, but for most other decision people are too ambivalent to skip the consensus gathering part of the process and precede directly to voting. Open voting brings more people into the process. They may come by the page just out of curiosity to see who's voting for who, but once they are on the voting page there is a greater chance they will cast a vote. And those who are nuetral can often come to a conclusion by reading the comments left during open voting. So what if people end up voting by aping those whose judgment they trust, or other less preferred means than a careful review of information leading to a balanced and personal decision. These less preferred means of reaching decisions should still be preferred over the absence of a decision.

For my own part I never voted in the election. When it first started I looked over the names and didn't see anyone that I felt I knew well enough to decide off-hand. There was no discussion about the candidates to glean information from. I thought to come back later and read all the statements and see if there was any useful discussion once the election had some time under its belt. One thing led to another and I never paid attention to when the election was closing so I forgot to come back. I doubt my experience is unusual.

It is common failing of people to design systems that require humans to be more perfect than they are or else systems that try and push them to be more perfect than they are. SecurePoll relies on both these failings. It requires people to devote time energy to informing themselves and coming to a conclusion for not even the filmiest of incentives. As this election has proven the majority of people simply will not devote themselves to this task without such incentives. It requires this because people have decided to try to push the community away from what some may see as "ugly motivations" for making such a decision and instead try to force the decision to rely on "pure motivations". I would call "ugly motivations" instead "human motivation" and "pure motivations" as "angelic motivations". The world is made of humans not angels. If you try to cut out those motivations that make humans tick, you won't end up with a community full of angels rather you will have an empty community. Humans are driven by social interactions. If you restore the social interactions to the decision making process you will gain candidates who attain 70% approval.
 * 1) As author-- Birgitte SB  14:47, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 2)  Aiken   &#9835;   14:52, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) ( X!  ·  talk )  · @671  · 15:06, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) -- zzuuzz (talk) 16:07, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) LessHeard vanU (talk) 17:33, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 6)  Salvio ( Let's talk 'bout it!) 17:46, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 7) There is a possibility that the secret vote impacted on the voting, and that might be worth considering, though looking at the numbers involved in the 2009 secret ArbCom election compared to the 2008 open ArbCom election, this may not be the full reason. I do, however, support the notion that as many of the candidates were not well known it would have been helpful to have had more open discussion.  SilkTork  *YES! 18:57, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 8) Partially agreed - the voting system certainly affected the result, and the lack of visible discussion or support for candidates probably reduced the resulting levels of support. I'm not sure how many would have passed even with an open system, though. Robofish (talk) 23:12, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 9) Except the second paragraph, which does not apply to me. Tim Song (talk) 05:17, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 10) Definitely. Brigitte's explanation of non-voting applies to me exactly. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 13:19, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 11) —Jeremy (v^_^v Dittobori) 17:04, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 12) There is some irony in doing CU elections by secret ballot, since that is likely to increase participation of the very same sock accounts that are the intended targets of CU scrutiny, plus their enablers.  The problem isn't the number of participants, it's the type of participant.  Oversight faces different issues that I may comment on later.  69.228.170.24 (talk) 18:36, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 13) It's easy to hit the big anonymous "NO" button without thinking twice about your decision. Wikipedia is a collaborative process based around discussion and not vote counting.  Discussion oftentimes leads to a consensus that wouldn't be present with a plain up/down vote.  Them  From  Space  19:29, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 14) Endorse. The discussion generating consensus is an important part of how we make decisions. In some cases, we may need to bypass this for a straight poll - so I don't object to e.g. SecurePoll for ArbCom elections - but by and large we need to make this the exception and work hard to ensure adequate community engagement and discussion whenever we need this. Someone above said "herd voting" is a reason SecurePoll is preferable, but frankly I don't care if people herd vote on this. If I become comfortable with candidate X and vote for him/her not due to my own experience, but because lots of people I trust have endorsed him, that's great. Ditto for the reverse. Martinp (talk) 02:10, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 15) SecurePoll remains a very poor idea. Juliancolton (talk) 20:11, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 16) I'm not much of a fan of SecurePoll. Wikipedia is built on discussion and consensus, not on anonymous headcounting of users by machine.  Unlike RFA, SecurePoll can't tell the difference between a valid oppose and a random or nonsensical oppose. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  00:13, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 17) Endorse, and agree with Martinp.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 01:47, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 18) What Starblind said. These things should be done by consensus, not a simple vote count. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   02:28, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 19) I dislike any form of a secret ballot on Wikipedia, even for Arbcom elections, and even more so for less high profile elections. Nsk92 (talk) 23:58, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

View by Davewild
The idea that open voting leads to more people voting, as opposed to an election held via securepoll, is not substantiated by the evidence of the checkuser/oversighter elections. This election conducted by securepoll saw the highest turnout (support+oppose votes) for one candidate of 325 and a lowest turnout of 172. Compared to either the February 2009 election (highest 123, lowest 57) or the August 2009 election (highest 262, lowest 76), both conducted by open voting, turnout was increased this time. While there is a problem with this situation here due to a lack of successful candidates, reduced numbers of people involved in the election is not a problem.


 * Users endorsing this view:
 * 1) Davewild (talk) 15:21, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Very factual and non-POV view. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 17:08, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) Statistics. LessHeard vanU (talk) 17:35, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) Accurate and well though out. Alzarian16 (talk) 18:29, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) Agree. I feel that lack of information and lack of discussion was an issue. It appears to be a lack of deciding factors (either positive or negative) rather than lack of numbers that returned an unsatisfactory result.  SilkTork  *YES! 19:00, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 6) Purely based in fact. The turnout was fine. The indecisiveness was not. -- Sh i r ik  ( Questions or Comments? ) 19:54, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 7) Nothing to disagree with here. Robofish (talk) 23:13, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 8) Per all preceding. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:16, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 9) Per Shirik. Tim Song (talk) 05:17, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 10) Endorse everything except the suggestion that an election can see something. It can't. It doesn't have eyes :) Stifle (talk) 12:47, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 11) Hard to argue with the facts. SecurePoll may have issues, but voter turnout is not one of them. -- Avi (talk) 17:44, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 12) Indeed - turnout has increased and we may even get a better range of views represented. Orderinchaos 23:42, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 13) Agreed. Numbers of voters aren't the issue. - Bilby (talk) 02:25, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 14) Can't disagree, even though I hate to defend the current voting method. Juliancolton (talk) 20:16, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 15) True, although the increased turnout may well be the problem - how many of those neutrals were due to lack of information?  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 01:49, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 16) Sole Soul (talk) 22:32, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Couldn't the higher turn out be explained by a net growth in the number of editors eligible to vote? HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   02:30, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Unlikely given the flatlining of the number of active, very active wikipedians and edits per month, unless there has been some big upsurge since January, which I have seen no sign of. Davewild (talk) 07:16, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Undeniable. On a personal level, I'll add that it was the type of votes, not the number. ~  Amory ( u  •  t  •  c ) 22:31, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) It is a fact.--M4gnum0n (talk) 08:34, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

View by Aiken drum
Clearly, arbcom are out of touch with what the community wants in a candidate. Looking at the results, there are three candidates with more opposition than support, and all except one oversight candidate have less than 60% support - something considered a fail if it was on RFA. This demonstrates, to me, that the choice of candidates was not a particularly great one, as most failed to gain a strong majority, let alone 70%. In future, anyone should be permitted to run (assuming they met basic requirements), and they should not have to be vetted by arbcom. Arbcom can and does get things wrong, as can be seen here. Barring good candidates (as did happen on this occasion) is unacceptable, especially when there were accepted candidates who clearly have a poor endorsement. Also, take note of Xeno's current RFB. He was a potential candidate, who arbcom decided was not worthy of becoming one. And yet, the community is giving him a clear endorsement of trust.

In short, allow anyone to run, and don't bar good candidates for the role, otherwise we'll end up with nobody getting it.  Aiken   &#9835;   15:08, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Is there evidence other trusted seasoned candidates would have been likely to get 70%+, had applied to stand, got rejected by ArbCom, and the rejection reason was flawed? It seems possible the comment might be over-quick to assume a specific interpretation or "fault". Can you clarify on the talk page if the clearly.. assertion has evidence? FT2 (Talk 18:00, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * No, because they were not given a chance. However, I gave the example of Xeno's RFB as an example of demonstrated trust. I know they're different roles entirely, but it's an indicator all the same. I've stricken clearly.  Aiken   &#9835;   18:34, 31 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Users endorsing this view:
 * 1)  Aiken   &#9835;   18:30, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Support mostly (do not support statement that ArbCom is "out of touch") Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 17:26, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) Every admin who's been here for some time should be given the option to be a candidate. Bad ones will fail anyway. --The Evil IP address (talk) 17:42, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) I wouldn't support the notion that ArbCom are out of touch, though - given the example of Zeno - the vetting process needs looking at. Let us be more open in our processes - allow any admin in good standing to become a candidate, and if ArbCom members have concerns, they should be raised during an open discussion on the candidates.  SilkTork  *YES! 19:08, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) If it's true than Xeno and PeterSymonds were rejected as a result of the vetting process then I'm inclined to agree with most of this. Alzarian16 (talk) 15:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 6) I'd say that the vetting process shouldn't be so strict. Xeno is exactly the case I was thinking of.  If there was a huge problem there, we probably should have been informed of it during the RfB.  If there wasn't, he should have been allowed to run. Hobit (talk) 21:31, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 7) I agree with the spirit of this view. Certainly all capable and trustworthy candidates should be allowed to stand. ArbCom should only weed out the blatantly inappropriate candidates (jokes, socks, others who have pretty much 0 chance of getting through) and let the community decide the rest by consensus. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   02:34, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 8) Agree with spirit William M. Connolley (talk) 13:40, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 9) Support letting everyone run.--M4gnum0n (talk) 08:37, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 10) OhanaUnitedTalk page 12:50, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

View by Suomi Finland 2009
Support for the Other proposal listed by ArbCom. Take the fuel conservation approach to the oil shortage as a partial and temporary solution to CUs. Try to resolve the CU/OS issue in the meantime while employing emergency conservation.

Details
 * Perhaps the duties of CU could be reduced so there is no need for so many? Note that I do not imply that the positions don't need to be filled, just that we might do as well if we take a fuel conservation approach to the oil shortage and CU shortage.  (When there is a fuel shortage, fuel conservation by having smaller cars and more people taking the bus is a partial solution; drilling for more oil is not the only solution).  Many CU requests do not need to be done.  Perhaps we should act like adults and real editors and think whether an edit would be suited for the Globe and Mail/Wall Street Journal/Sydney Morning Herald or Encyclopedia Britannica?  This stance would solve many problems that are brought to the CU.  For example, DavidYork71 is accused on 29 May 2010 (see WP:SSI) of being the sockpuppetmaster of Noconcept.  The evidence is that Noconcept changes "controversies" (section heading) to appraisals.  CU was done but was a waste of CU manpower.  Nocontact's edit would fail the Globe and Mail/Wall Street Journal/Sydney Morning Herald test without need for CU.
 * When I have a shortage of milk, I use it only when necessary. Milk with cereal but not guzzling down cups of milk.  The same is with money.  If I have a shortage, I buy food, not fancy shoes.


 * Users endorsing this view:
 * 1) Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 17:12, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

View by Tony1
Summary: (i) SecurePoll community elections are highly desirable and can work; (ii) SecurePoll suppresses the % support results, and a 60% threshold now looks more appropriate; this doesn't equate to 40% oppose; (iii) ArbCom should be free to appoint further down the ranking list than 60% if it sees fit; (iv) ArbCom should continue to short-list the candidates for such critical, skilled, sensitive roles; (v) re-run the election in a couple of months.

Details
 * SecurePoll is a major improvement. I strongly support the use of SP, which minimises the potential of the old system for influence and pay-back, and removes the inconvenience factor—a significant contaminant—that plays on how much time voters are willing to devote to scrolling through the morass. Going back to a completely ArbCom-selected wouldn't be the end of the earth, but community voting ensures wide support for an essential group of functionaries. We should allow SP to work.
 * Let's make the new system work. Introducing SP to any vote requires a careful reconsideration of the minimum % support vote required for election. As I pointed out during the WP:ACE2009 election, SecurePoll provides new anonymity and convenience for oppose voting. This was born out in the dramatic rise in oppose votes (vertical axis) and the significant suppression of the ranking % (horizontal axis) for each candidate in 2009 compared with the old public, manual voting system used in 2008 (Figure 2). Fortunately, the arbitrary 50% floor in that election was reached by comfortably more candidates than necessary to fill the eight seats vacant. Introducing SP into any election risks overestimating the minimum required vote once voters are given private and convenient access to the oppose button for any candidate for whom they are not hitting the support button. Unfortunately, it's difficult to predict the extent to which the ranking % (i.e., the % support) will change, although the direction is highly predictable.
 * Here's how. May I suggest that 60% would be a more appropriate threshold for CU and OS elections in future, with latitude for ArbCom to lower this on the spot, according to the results? This would be in recognition of changed voting circumstances rather than, necessarily, a drop in standards of community support. Why not hold another vote in a couple of months with 60% threshold, now we know where the figures stand. A 60% ranking does not mean that 40% of voters oppose a candidate; please see Figure 2 again on that issue.
 * Users endorsing this view:
 * 1) As author  Tony   (talk)  15:31, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) LessHeard vanU (talk) 17:38, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) --Tryptofish (talk) 19:28, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) Broadly agreed - I'd rather resume full ArbCom appointment, but if we're going to keep using SecurePoll, 60% would be a better pass margin than 70%. Robofish (talk) 23:15, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) In general. Another thing I'd like to see is a (anonymous as well, of course) comment box for an explanation of vote if desired. I was frustrated by having five little radio buttons and no ability to elaborate the nuances of my decision. {&#123;<font color="#CC0099">Sonia &#124;talk&#124;simple}&#125; 02:13, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 6) Per Robofish. Tim Song (talk) 05:17, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 7) Stifle (talk) 12:50, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 8) Orderinchaos 23:44, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 9) Sole Soul (talk) 23:47, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 10) Alzarian16 (talk) 09:28, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 11) Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:43, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 12)  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 02:00, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 13) I agree that the margin should be lowered if we are going to keep SecurePoll, given that use of such a process drives up the number of oppose votes. Camaron · &#32; Christopher · &#32;talk 17:45, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 14) Wholeheartedly agree with I, III, and IV.  A number of other proposals and comments suggest going to an open system because then candidates will get the requisite 70%.  All that says to me is that if voters are under scrutiny (aka open), people are more likely to support.  None of that pressure is there in SecurePoll, so a change would just be a way of lying to ourselves.  I probably agree with II, but it's hard to say; if we can fix the neutral problem rather than change the percentages the latter would be unnecessary.  As for V, this is contrary to my views elsewhere about returning to appointments, but if we stick with elections, this is the way to do it.  ~  Amory ( u  •  t  •  c ) 22:31, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 15) --<b style="color:#3773A5;">Cyber</b> cobra (talk) 14:26, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

View by involved user Beeblebrox
When this process began I was in favor of using the secure poll method as it seemed the low-drama route and all the candidates had already been vetted. Now that we have arrived here I see the downside of it. Not because I "lost" but because I don't know why. I was only asked the same general questions as the other candidates, and received no feedback of any kind on my answers to those questions. Among the oversight candidates, my numbers were the third highest in terms of both support and opposition, yet I have no idea why that is. Did I do a poor job answering the questions? Was there some other problem? Is there simply a large group that participated in this process that just does not like me for reasons not related to Oversight at all? I really have no idea, meaning I also have no idea how to improve things for next time. It's very frustrating. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:54, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Not sure if this is really something one endorses, but this sounds like an argument for RfA-style "voting". <b style="color:navy;">NW</b> ( Talk ) 16:43, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's is more or less the gist of it. If we don't know why a candidate is being opposed, how do we find a better one? This process is all sizzle and no steak, there's a pile of numbers, but no reasons behind them. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:47, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Beeblebrox, I appreciate your frustration, but are there not advantages in the larger scheme in a veil of privacy, a distance between voters and candidates in the actual vote? Perhaps we need to encourage more dialogue between the parties before the vote. How can this best be done? I definitely oppose an RfA-style system; too many people look to see how their friends vote and do the same. Tony   (talk)  16:51, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure simply adopting the RFA format would be best, but clearly what we just did didn't work. Perhaps a longer discussion period followed by a shorter voting period? As soon as voting started, discussion pretty much stopped. At RFA you have to have a reason, even if that reason is just "per whoever." We can't find better candidates if we don't know why these were rejected. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:40, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I share the same frustration as Beeblebrox. Talk pages were set up for each of us to discuss our candidacy and as far as I can tell each of our talk pages remained empty for the duration of the election. There is no way of knowing what we did wrong, what we did right, and what we need to improve. In RfA arbitrary opposes are usually attacked by other users. In securepoll we have no way of knowing whether they were arbitrary.<b style="background:blue; color:white; font-family:Comic Sans MS;">Valley</b>2 city ‽ 06:38, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Instead of SecurePoll we could have SecureComment. Prodego  <sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk  06:53, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I bugzilla'd this earlier. FT2 (Talk 09:55, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, if the ArbCom elections can embrace open comment and privacy of voting, we can do that for other elections; best of both worlds. Tony   (talk)  07:15, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't agree with this one. I got no relevant feedback in the open vote on why people were opposing me for oversighter last time out. Stifle (talk) 11:20, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this view
 * 1) Beeblebrox (talk) 16:47, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Should not be a straight vote, but a consensus based discussion - ya know, like all other processes on Wikipedia. WP:NOTVOTE, WP:CONSENSUS etc.  Aiken   &#9835;   17:13, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) --The Evil IP address (talk) 17:42, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 4)  Salvio ( Let's talk 'bout it!) 17:49, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) Absolutely, I have the same issues. I have suggested in the ArbCom page discussion that may be the provision of a anonymous comments box, for recording rationales where desired, in some future poll. LessHeard vanU (talk) 18:41, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 6) Yes. Open discussion is the Wiki way.  SilkTork  *YES! 19:11, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 7) <b style="color:navy;">NW</b> ( Talk ) 21:25, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 8) NW is on to something above... I think an RfA type process would work the best. (And, FWIW, I think that the "RfA is flawed" idea is wrong. RfA is not flawed, people are flawed) ( X! ·  talk )  · @981  · `
 * 9) Agreed - RFA-style voting has its flaws, but the lack of discussion and feedback with this method is an even more serious one. This would be a major advantage to going back to open voting. Robofish (talk) 23:19, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 10) The lack of discussion and feedback here is a huge issue. Tim Song (talk) 05:20, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 11) Beeblebrox identified something that is simply fundamentally unfair with the current system. Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 05:35, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 12) As I indicated above in comments <b style="background:blue; color:white; font-family:Comic Sans MS;">Valley</b>2 city ‽ 06:38, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 13) The fact that there was practically no discussion of the candidates except post-facto is flat-out insulting to the community. The only thing that keeps me from feeling sorry for them is the fact that they didn't speak up at all. —<font color="228B22">Jeremy <font color="00008B">(v^_^v Dittobori) 17:10, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 14) Endorsing the points made, but not the experience (of course, since I didn't run).  Them From  Space  19:31, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 15) I feel the same way as Beeblebrox here; I can accept the community's decision, but it would be very helpful to the candidate in the future if we could receive direct feedback on how we might improve for next time around. I feel that this is a major shortcoming of the current system.  Lankiveil (speak to me) 10:09, 2 June 2010 (UTC).
 * 16) Per Tito. Juliancolton (talk) 20:13, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 17) Agree that we need to have more discussion and securepoll seems to interfere with that. I like the idea of secret ballots but the loss of discussion is a bit painful. Hobit (talk) 21:34, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 18) Perhaps we should have a week of RfA-style discussion, and then a secret ballot? Anyway, agree that more feedback is vital to the process. --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 02:02, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 19) --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:13, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 20) Good point. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  01:59, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 21) HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   02:39, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 22) I am not anti-secret ballots, but lack of discussion is a big concern. Camaron · &#32; Christopher · &#32;talk 17:48, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 23) I very much see where you're coming from. And the 'neutral' votes just exacerbate this problem. --  &oelig; &trade; 09:00, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 24) I would have to agree fully in this aspcet, It's not rocket science to know "One does not grow or learn without input"  Mlpearc   pull my chain   'Tribs  17:43, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 25) Agree that we need a source of comments and feedback for the candidates; doing so would probably let once-failing candidates more successfully return.  A chunk of the comments are likely to be crap (like whenever you allow write-in candidates) but any amount of serious feedback is good feedback.  The bugzilla proposal is a good one. ~  Amory ( u  •  t  •  c ) 22:31, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 26) William M. Connolley (talk) 13:42, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 27) With caveat that the rationales for opposition or support be divorced from signed votes - the idea being to try prevent people from auto-agreement with some, or auto-opposition to others based on who votes first.  Collect (talk) 14:15, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 28) Nsk92 (talk) 00:01, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

View by The Evil IP address
SecurePoll clearly played a role in the relatively low voting people, but there are other things as well. This election, as well as actually the whole Arbcom, is extremely difficult to find. By this, I mean how one person gets to the information pages about it. It took me months until I first found a page where the word "Arbcom" was mentioned, long after I had read the help pages several times already. It's obvious that this organization is in only too few help pages, hardly linked (for example not within all those navigation boxes) and pretty difficult to find. It was also just randomly that I noticed that there was a Checkuser and Oversight election ongoing. So, this is something that really needs some fixing. But also the usage of SecurePoll played a clear role: Things like RfA, RfB have the advantage that they're transparent and you see what other people think. The candidate is able to see what they could make better and potentially improve this behavior in the future. This is not given by using SecurePoll. And I expect from every Checkuser/Oversight candidate that they're able to handle critic on their own person, otherwise they're clearly unable for their job. Seeing what other people oppose for (for example if they give links) makes it also easier to make oneself a judgement. One argument for SecurePoll seems to be that more people might oppose, but honestly, if you don't have the courage to express your opinion publically, then you should absolutely reconsider why it's like that and if your opinion then might not be wrong. People shouldn't be given the possibility to oppose someone if they're in doubt of their own opinion. Concerning privacy, I consider privacy issues to be unlikely, and if there are really some, we have oversighters to deal with them. The last reason for SecurePoll seems to be the influence by so-called friend's votes, but I must say that this is solely the voter's problem. If they're willing to throw their own opinion and vote away for someone else's opinion, so let'em, it's their problem. Not stuff that we have to worry about. --The Evil IP address (talk) 17:37, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Users who endorse this view:
 * 1) Obviously. --The Evil IP address (talk) 17:37, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

View by Alzarian16
The use of SecurePoll does not appear to have reduced the number of users participating in the elections, so its use should not be discouraged. However, the problem of low support percentages is one which clearly needs to be overcome if the system is to be satisfactory. I suggest that in future elections voting Neutral should not be an option. The incredibly large number of Neutral votes has led to a number of users' valid contributions proving unhelpful in determining a consensus. If Neutral is not an option then users who intend to support or oppose one or two candidates would be encouraged to give a firm opinion on the other candidates, leading to a firmer consensus either way as opposed to the 50-70% support ratios seen in this election. If this is adopted it could also be useful to rerun this set of elections using the new system, although this would have to be at ArbCom's discretion. Note I have struck last sentence as this has been superceded by the Immediate Options poll below. Alzarian16 (talk) 18:27, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Users who endorse this view:
 * 1) As author. Alzarian16 (talk) 18:27, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) (except "no opinion" on the last sentence.) LessHeard vanU (talk) 18:43, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) Partially agreed - I'm not keen on SecurePoll, but if we're to use it in future this would be a good change to make. Robofish (talk) 23:22, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) Agreed. The neutral votes are useless and just take votes away from ones that count. -- &oelig; &trade; 08:57, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

View by Collect
It is unclear that "the roles need filling" is perceived as a truism by the majority of voters. If anything, the large amount of negative and neutral votes indicates that a large number of editors do not agree with that claim.

The only area where there might appear any urgency at all is in the area of sock investigations. To that end, ArbCom could institute a new position of "SPI checkuser" as a limited subset of what "Checkuser" entails, and restricted solely to that area. There appears no appreciable need for more Oversighters as far as the general population is concerned.

Changing the normal election percentages or the like is probably unwise, as would be re-running elections until one can convince 70% of the editors that a person must be elected for a position. Collect (talk) 19:02, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Other Users who endorse this view:


 * I agree with this. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 05:48, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Sensible interpretation.--M4gnum0n (talk) 08:43, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

View by LessHeard vanU
A suggestion for "other"; As the process is for a position of trust, then only oppose votes are permitted. Any candidate not receiving an oppose in the SecurePoll is default supported, per WP:AGF by the registered voter. On this basis, nearly all candidates in this most recent vote would have achieved the statutory percentage to the nearest round figure (all the CU candidates pass, and all OS apart from me and Ryan Postlethwaite; the 1st and 2nd most opposed - and 2nd and 1st most supported.)

Users who endorse this view:
 * 1) LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:53, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Agreed, in the sense that this is essentially the same as Alzarian16's proposal above to remove the 'Neutral' option. Robofish (talk) 23:23, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) 100% yes. Myself and LessHeard vanU clearly didn't get elected in this election because most people expressed a view either way. The others were less clear and I suspect that in an open poll, most would have been elected. In my opinion, the people with relatively small number of opposition gained a large majority of their opposition from people who simply voted because they didn't want to support them, not because they opposed them. The high number of neutral voters (i.e. they couldn't care less if they were oversighters or not) is telling.  Ryan Postlethwaite See the mess I've created or let's have banter 23:40, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) Close to my own view but slightly more popular, so I'm in. Alzarian16 (talk) 09:27, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

View by X!
I'm taking an opposite viewpoint from LessHeard vanU above me. If we do have the "other" method were only one section is counted, I would rather have it be "Support". The standard is to have the status quo, which is no promotion. This is not my preferable option, and I would rather have an ArbCom-only system as Shirik proposed on WT:ACN. However, if LessHeard vanU's proposal is in consideration, I would rather support a system where a high level of support is required to promote instead of a system where a high level of oppose is required to not promote.

Users who endorse this view:
 * 1) ( X!  ·  talk )  · @009  · 23:12, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) I agree. Or else just let arbcom appoint who they want. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 05:50, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

View by Lar
Go back to the old way of doing things. Arbcom decides, perhaps with a short period of soliciting comment from the community first, which candidates are appointed, after vetting them. Worked fine for quite some time.

Users who endorse this view:
 * 1) As proponent. ++Lar: t/c 17:05, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Agreed. I believe that this is the best option, in that the people elected and entrusted with handling privacy related issues (ArbCom) have the best ideas of the potential candidates and their appropriateness both technically and with regards to safety. However, the community's input should always be welcomed and considered. As an aside, as one of the four people who underwent this process, I do know that community concerns were raised and discussed, and that the input was respected and investigated. -- Avi (talk) 17:45, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) WP as currently constituted has monstrous privacy problems that bikeshedding over the CU/OS appointment process is not going to help. 69.228.170.24 (talk) 19:09, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) We need people who are functionaries, not ones with titles.  I remain unconvinced that votes are the way to solve much when we need people who act in the background to resolve backlogs.   Collect (talk) 21:46, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) Isn't this the same as Shirik's view? Anyway, I'd be happy with it. Robofish (talk) 21:56, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I think mine is shorter. I read Shirik's and wasn't totally clear if the above was what was meant (with no addons) so I put this one in. ++Lar: t/c 14:56, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it's not an opinion that it's shorter :) And I agree, I spent more time on the "why" instead of "what". I noticed this later but didn't want to change it as several people had already endorsed. -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 03:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) I agree as much with Collect's comment as with Lar's view. Orderinchaos 00:52, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Yes. It's worked in the past. It should keep working. We tried something new, and it failed. Time to go back to the way it was. ( X! ·  talk )  · @093  · 01:14, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) Yes. Martinp (talk) 19:34, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) Deskana (talk) 20:57, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) Per Shirik I always wanted to say that -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 03:02, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 6) Tim Song (talk) 13:51, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 7) Agree.  Icestorm815  •  Talk  05:41, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 8) Akirn (talk) 08:11, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 9) ~ Amory ( u  •  t  •  c ) 22:31, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 10) YES.  Wizardman  Operation Big Bear 18:13, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

View by Sole Soul
Two points: Users who endorse this view:
 * Dismissing secure polls or elections in general is short sighted, as we are likely going to face similar situations in the future ArbCom elections.
 * What is good for ArbCom elections should be good here. When Jimbo appointed ArbCom members he said "I am not appointing anyone who gets less than 50% support. Fortunately, the lowest candidate needed to fill all available seats got 59.9% support, so we are not faced with any issue there."
 * 1) Sole Soul (talk) 00:44, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Mostly right, but the system does needs refinement. Alzarian16 (talk) 09:59, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) M4gnum0n (talk) 08:44, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

View by Orderinchaos
My overall view is well represented by other comments, but in direct response to Alzarian and LessHeard vanU, in my view the biggest problem is lack of knowledge of the candidates. We don't instantly know who all the candidates are just because they stand for election, and it's very difficult to form a view on somebody based simply on an election statement (many of which tend to look rather alike after a while) and a quick overview of their contributions and talk page. This situation isn't unique to Wikipedia - local council elections where I live suffer from the same problem. Compulsory preferencing would simply lead to uninformed voting, and I don't think that helps anyone. One modification which may work, however, is not having a "default" setting; i.e. someone would actually have to pick neutral to vote neutral, otherwise their vote is unrecorded for that particular candidate. Orderinchaos 01:00, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Users who endorse this view:
 * 1) As proposer. Orderinchaos 01:00, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) In respect of the suggested modification. I supported two candidates and opposed one. "Not voting" would have been a much better summary of my views of the other candidates - who I knew little about - than "neutral".--Mkativerata (talk) 01:38, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) FT2 (Talk 13:25, 2 June 2010 (UTC) "No vote" would have been more accurate than adding to a "neutral" count for me on several, even if neutral would technically be accurate. Also concur with observation many people don't know most candidates and are (quite responsibly) not voting for or against in these technical/trust roles unless they know them somewhat - which is hard to ascertain without considerable work.
 * 4) Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:41, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) Although I am among the ones who do not see a big difference between a Neutral and a null vote, I nonetheless support the distinction in following elections to give it a chance to prove its usefulness.--M4gnum0n (talk) 08:55, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

View by Parent5446
Well, I'm not going to say that I am all experienced in the entire Checkuser voting process, I did not even vote in this election, but from reading the comments on this page and looking over the election results, I believe I see what the problem is. In the current procedure, Arbcom pre-vets candidates and then the community votes on them. The problem with this is that the candidate list is reduced dramatically, and while you could argue that the quality of the list increases with this pulling of the weeds, so to say, considering only Arbcom is vetting candidates, this is not necessarily true. The first change, therefore, that needs to be made to the process is:

1. The entire thing is reversed: the community votes on candidates and then any candidate that reaches the 70% rate will be reviewed by Arbcom.


 * Reason: this method is more effective is because if the community does not approve of a candidate, they will not bring them forth in the first place; it will be much more likely that a given candidate for checkuser will be passed by the community. From there, Arbcom just needs to look everything over and make sure there is nothing the common editors missed, and pass it on to WMF. By no means is this a panacea for all of our problems, so a few more changes need to be made. A

2. Ability of Arbcom to nominate their own candidates.


 * Reason: before anybody jumps in all confused, listen to what I'm saying. While the entire community-submitted candidate process is all and well, there is a chance that the community will have nobody to nominate, or at least not enough candidates, whether it be from inactivity of the community or whatever. So the Arbcom should reserve the right to nominate candidates if and only if a situation where no other candidates have been presented comes up.

3. On a similar note, a set of standards should be implemented to censor clearly inelgible candidates. This would be a simple list of items like how many edits they must have, how long ago their last warning was, etc.


 * Reason: This change has a more obvious backing. You just want to filter out candidates who are obviously ineligible.

4. Finally, the last thing I would change is to add a list of predefined questions that the candidates must answer, questions that specifically relate to their job as a checkuser/oversight


 * Reason: So we would not have to just rely on their own statement and editor-created questions.

5. I would not get rid of the 70% bar.


 * Reason: To address the first option, making it just the highest percentage, what if a candidate receives 5% approval and that is the highest acceptance rate, do we really want them being approved? Obviously, this is an exaggeration, but the point stands: highest acceptance rate does not imply community approval. To address the second option, lowering the bar, this topic is really arbitrary as the percentage is just a number. Seventy percent just seems like a good balance between the majority of 50% and total consensus of 95% or 100%. In fact, if I were to change the percentage at all I would only lower it to 66% (or two-thirds of the community) and no lower than that.

6. I would not change SecurePoll either.


 * Reason: It is ill-advised to allow other editors to see how everybody else voted and then just follow the crowd. Bad idea. While comments and discussion are good, because they genuinely change people's opinions, having everybody's votes public would not be a good idea. And as said above, there is no evidence that SecurePoll reduced voter turn out, rather it is the opposite.

That is all I really have to say, any comments or approval?

Users who endorse this view
 * 1) In general, this makes a decent amount of sense. {&#123;<font color="#CC0099">Sonia &#124;talk&#124;simple}&#125; 09:50, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Support most of the statements here. Of the hundreds of thousands of users, ArbCom only appointed a few to run.  Surely, there must be a few more good users that ArbCom is not aware of. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 14:50, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) Support all points.--M4gnum0n (talk) 08:57, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

View by Bilby
Summary: Allow anyone who get's over the 70% mark to automatically take on the role, irrespective of how many do so. Or change to a voting/counting model that doesn't encourage oppose votes for reasons other than genuine opposition to the candidate.

Details: My concern is with the use of a oppose votes, as that makes it in the voter's interest to oppose someone in order to get their preferred candidate through. In an RfA/RfB there's no current limit to the number of possible admins/bureaucrats. Thus if I like candidate A, and kind-of like candidate B, opposing or supporting candidate B makes no difference to my preferred candidate's chances. However, when there are limited places, if I honestly believe that A is better I'm almost obligated to oppose the other candidates, irrespective of whether or not I think they can do they job, in order to see the person I think will do the best job over the line. (Voting neutral is a non-vote in the current model, and won't help my candidate). When combined with the threshold, if only a small percentage of people oppose because they don't think the candidate is as good as another, (instead of because they don't think the candidate is capable), we end up in the current situation. It seems to me that there are six options that may help, many of which are listed above: I'm not opposed to the first or third option - in government elections you only vote for someone, irrespective of whether or not you are opposed to another - but if dropping the limit to the number of appointments is viable then it might be neater, although it probably won't fix the problem.
 * Drop the oppose option (although doing so means that it is difficult for people to express genuine opposition to a candidate they think is poor in the final stage)
 * Drop the threshold (reduces the effect of people voting oppose in order to support their preferred option, but they will still have an effect)
 * Choose a different voting method (for example, optional preferential voting, which may increase complexity)
 * Allow anyone who gets over the threshold to hold the position, irrespective of the number who do (meaning the only reason to oppose is because you don't know that the person can do the job)
 * Go back to ArbCom appointments (dropping direct participation)
 * Move the focus back to consensus building as opposed to voting (which may create a more painful process, leading to fewer candidates, per RfA)
 * Users endorsing this view:
 * 1) Bilby (talk) 02:29, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

(Short) view by Deskana

 * 1) In my opinion, we should go back to the system used in late 2008 where ArbCom says they're going to appoint new checkusers, invites applications, pre-vets the applications to remove joke/blatantly unsuitable candidates, then posts the shortlist so that people can comment via e-mail. This let ArbCom make a decision, advised by the community, and several new checkusers were appointed. I know for a fact that ArbCom valued the feedback and that it was taken into consideration, because I was one of the ones doing the appointing at the time :-)
 * 2) Regardless of whether or not the new system worked, trying it was not a mistake. We should always be trying to find new and better ways to do things. Sometimes that'll work, sometimes it won't. As a checkuser, if your check comes up negative that doesn't mean it wasn't justified in the first place. This is similar.
 * Regarding your point 1, the old method has the same pitfall as SecurePoll: candidates do not get comments on why they failed it. <b style="color:#0000FF;">OhanaUnited</b><b style="color:green;">Talk page</b> 12:57, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Users endorsing this view:
 * 1) Deskana (talk) 15:56, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Per my view, just above. ++Lar: t/c 18:01, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Addendum, the difference from my view is the "and it's good we tried voting even if it didn't work" part. Which I heartily agree with. ++Lar: t/c 21:52, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Mild endorse to first point, to enable a comment; wouldn't mind people commenting in public view rather than email, since it then might generate further discussion and disclosure - and if people are wary about having their remarks held against them then they can log out and comment as ip's. Endorse second, anyone who never makes mistakes never make anything. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:05, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, no they can't log out to comment, at least not under the current iteration of WP:SOCK, which does not permit the use of alternate non-linked accounts to comment in such discussions. Risker (talk) 21:33, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with public commenting, as long as people don't lose sight of the fact that ArbCom reserves the right to completely ignore what they've said (to put it bluntly). --Deskana (talk) 09:29, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Per above; this is Shirik and Lar :-) -- Avi (talk) 21:20, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Agreed -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 03:00, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) As was stated above. ( X! ·  talk )  · @609  · 13:36, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) Tim Song (talk) 13:51, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) Support both this and topical analogies. ~ Amory ( u  •  t  •  c ) 22:31, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 6)  Wizardman  Operation Big Bear 18:23, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 7) Stifle (talk) 11:18, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 8) Except comments should be public, not via email William M. Connolley (talk) 14:14, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 9) agreed --  AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 18:59, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

View by User:Fetchcomms
We go back to the old ArbCom-appointed method, and try to focus less on vote percentages and more on community input/discussion. Obviously, securepoll hasn't helped much, so I see no point in continuing with an ineffective system.

Personally, I supported all the candidates in this election. As ArbCom vets all of them, I saw no reason to oppose based on whether I've had disagreements with them in the past or whatnot. (Of course, I'm not entirely satisfied with the vetting process, and think that any administrator in good standing with the community demonstrating a need for the tools should be allowed to run, plus the procedural stuff like identifying to the WMF.) The focus here is a need for more CU/OS users, and if they won't abuse the tools, there's no reason to oppose.

Obviously, not everyone who voted shared my views, but if ArbCom says someone's good enough for them, then it's good enough for me.  — fetch ·  comms   21:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Editors endorsing this view


 * 1) Per my view, just above, and my endorse of Deskana's view. This is yet another restatement of "go back to the old way", I think. ++Lar: t/c 21:51, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) As was stated above. ( X!  ·  talk )  · @609  · 13:36, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) Tim Song (talk) 13:51, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) As author.  — fetch ·  comms   20:37, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) Rinse, repeat. ~ Amory ( u  •  t  •  c ) 22:32, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 6)  Wizardman  Operation Big Bear 18:23, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 7) As above -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 01:50, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 8)  Diego Grez   what's up?  17:06, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

View by HJ Mitchell
We select our administrators and bureaucrats via an open community process and administrators are far more numerous than those with CU/OS access. The downside of RfA is, of course, the number (around 2 a day) of editors who submit an RfA with their 20th ever edit, but I think the use of securepoll for this election underestimated the value of community discussion and consensus. It's my opinion that the result would have been better and candidates like Beeblebrox wouldn't be left scratching their heads with an RfA-like process where ArbCom weeds out the obviously unsuitable candidates and every competent editor who applies and has a reasonable chance of gaining enough support is allowed to face a community discussion (not vote). It's not the perfect system, but there is no such thing, though I couldn't agree more with Deskana's second point 2 sections above. HJ Mitchell &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   21:34, 2 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Editors endorsing this view
 * 1) As author. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   21:35, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2)  Them  From  Space  01:57, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) An excellent summary of the virtues of an RfA-style process, though I'm not sure I agree with the NOTAVOTE sentiment here. —Emufarmers(T/C) 02:41, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) William M. Connolley (talk) 14:15, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

View by Emufarmers
I'm not sure why there are so many people calling for a return to ArbCom appointments: the elections before this one produced results that I assume most people found satisfactory. If we think we've taken a wrong turn recently, we should take a step back by returning to public voting, not return to the start. Admittedly, this assumes that the problem actually lies with the nature of private voting; we can't control for other factors, such as the strength of the candidate list. Indeed, given that the best candidates will (or at least should) be appointed/elected first, and that further candidates of the same caliber will appear only gradually, we shouldn't be surprised if we are forced to reconsider either the number of CU/OSes we want or what we want in CU/OSes. In any event, a new election with public voting would likely feature many of the same candidates, so we would get a good idea of the extent to which the change from public to private voting was responsible for this election's results.

I'm not sure whether I agree or disagree with the notion that the position of CU/OS is unsuitable for elections (best expressed here). The main counter-example that comes to my mind is stewards: they're elected, and their jobs are much more like those of CU/OSes than of Arbitrators. —Emufarmers(T/C) 02:10, 3 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Other users who endorse this view
 * 1) Agree. There appears to be two main threads in this RfC. One is saying, let ArbCom decide - which appears to be against the way the community have been moving; the community appears to be looking for more community involvement, and a bit less cabalism. The other is saying that perhaps the secret nature of the vote was responsible for the deadlock. One of the things that attracted me to Wikipedia, and which I still find to be it's greatest asset and example to mankind, is that we do things here in an open, cooperative and consensual manner. We talk through issues, and keep a public record of what we say. Any move away from that spirit diminishes what we are, and diminishes our example to others. Let us do this as we do all else - openly, fairly and equally. Let's not encourage secret votes or the suggestion of any sort of cabal. Let's have an open discussion and an open vote.  SilkTork  *YES! 23:21, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

View by LiberalFascist
SecurePoll has definite weaknesses, such as the lack of comments, but I believe that we are simply setting the bar in the wrong way. 70% is fine for an open election, where 95% vote either support or oppose, but using SP, there is no barrier to neutral or oppose votes. I suggest that we use a system that promotes a candidate if: With this system, we would have promoted 3 CU & 2 OS. The candidates would enjoy majority support among those with strong opinions, and they would also not be controversial or heavily opposed. Combined with vetting by ArbCom, I believe this would produce an adequate number of successful candidates to fill needed positions, as well as demonstrate community consensus for the candidates. --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 02:24, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Less than 30% of the total voters (including neutrals) oppose them, and
 * They receive more support than oppose votes.


 * Editors endorsing this view
 * 1) --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 02:24, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 05:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) Sole Soul (talk) 22:29, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Why try to predict using thresholds at all? ArbCom vets; ArbCom determines how many places to appoint; the community votes on their order of preference. Tony   (talk)  07:03, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

View by SmokeyJoe
There was not enough information on the candidates. The lack of real discussion cemented this problem. If in doubt, I'll go neutral or oppose. As the candidates are supposedly vetted, I suggest that someone involved with the vetting process formally and thoroughly introduce the candidates. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:21, 3 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Editors endorsing this view:
 * 1) To an extent, yes. I think this problem, or the perception thereof, would be solved by an RfA-style discussion where candidates introduce themselves and their achievements any why they're suitable to the role and they can attempt to address the concerns raised by opposers. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   14:23, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * There is something unseemly about people selling themselves for these senior positions of trust. I see CU and oversighters as holding roles of greater delicacy and trust than arbs or any role in the project/foundation.  I suggest that it is not the candidate who should make the substantive nomination (although the candidate should say why he volunteers), but that one (or more) senior wikipedians do it.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:30, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) This would be an idea (however the appointment process worked). FT2 (Talk 19:56, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Endorse, I hate to add more to ArbComm's plate it would help a lot. Hobit (talk) 02:18, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

View by Arakunem
I'm pretty much in agreement with Shirik, Lar, and Deskana, but wanted to add a few comments here so as not to cause unnecessary clutter. I think a big issue with SecurePoll is the lack of any rationale for votes. In previous open elections, I recall seeing opposes with rationales such as "Opposing so my preferred candidate gets a better %" and similar. On the flip side, one of those SecurePoll opposed could have been a user with some information that would have swung many other voters if it were only openly stated. I think it should go like this: Nomination: People could nominate anyone, including themselves. This ensures that the candidate actually has an interest in doing the job, as it can be taxing. Vetting: Vetting of CU candidates should be done primarily by the CU corps, present as well as past CUs not "under a cloud". OS candidates should be vetted by the OS corps. I think the best ones to evaluate a candidate are the ones currently doing that job, as they will be able to judge based on real-life knowledge of what that candidate will be facing. Open Comment: Open commenting, for/against/neutral with rationales for ones comments. The biggest thing we're looking for here is any glaring piece of info that may have escaped vetting, that may demonstrate a candidates suitability or unsuitability. This will also moderate the effects of frivolous opposes or herd-vote supports. Private comments to the deciding body would also be appropriate. Decision: The decision would be made by a body trusted by the community to interpret consensus. My preference would be a discussion amongst the Bureaucrat corps as a group since they have the most stringent election criteria of any functionaries, and interpreting consensus from open comments is right in their wheelhouse. That's all. So much for keeping it short. For the record, I opposed only one candidate in the election, and supported only those that I felt from experience with interactions would be suitable. The majority were neutral. I kind of see this as a flaw in the system, but it's what we had. Arakunem Talk 14:37, 3 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Editors endorsing this view
 * 1) Yeah, he's right! :) Arakunem Talk 14:39, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2)  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:42, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) So long as the open comment step stays as such (no "voting") then I could potentially get behind this. Better than SecurePoll at least.  Wizardman  Operation Big Bear 18:25, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

"Immediate steps" poll by FT2
Separate from the extremely thoughtful and useful discussion, the community may wish to provide Arbcom with its views on any present CU/OS appointments. Assuming Arbcom's assessment of need is correct, there are very few options for this round of elections - rerun hopefully with improved results, reuse existing results, or don't appoint.

Option 1: Community prefers to appoint as needed from those obtaining 51%+ but under 70%, starting with the highest result, as a once-off

 * Advantages - simple, direct, quick, no need to rerun election. (Highest first provides objectivity and attempts to respect the result in some form)
 * Disadvantages - moves goalposts (likely to be seen as fair only if community itself endorses and requests it), could be seen as unethically changing the rules after an election


 * support
 * 1) Support—although I'd leave it up to ArbCom to establish a numerical threshold this time. Minimum fuss, please, then let's talk about the system for next time. Tony   (talk)  11:56, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Support as the least (ie, most practical, in terms of keeping things running smoothly) of three evils, I guess. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:23, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) Support on balance. Not perfect but clearly necessary. Alzarian16 (talk) 15:43, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) If it takes 50% to get CU+OS+arb, why does it take 70% to get CU/OS? Of course changing the goalpost after the election is not the best idea, but rerunning the election is IMO worse. Lesser of two evils. Tim Song (talk) 17:17, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) Support per Tim Song. Not the best idea to change the percentages needed, but holding another election is a bit pointless.  — fetch ·  comms   20:18, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 6) I'd want a specific implementation of this - Arbcom can get appointing now, but only candidates who have passed these two criteria: 1) Support greater than opposition (more than 50% support); and 2) Opposition less than 50% of support and neutral combined (less than 50% opposition). Of those not yet appointed this would yield 3 for checkuser and 3 for oversight. It matters not what order they appoint them in, but I think it would be most unwise to appoint anyone where more than half the voters registered opposition. I've put the table containing opposition results on the talk page. -- zzuuzz (talk) 20:23, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 7) Sole Soul (talk) 07:04, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 8) The best option for this situation. Besides, even if support was under 70%, all candidates were still vetted beforehand so they still are trusted and capable, so appointing those with the highest support, even if under 70%, doesn't really worry me that much. --  &oelig; &trade; 09:07, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 9) Support, but only for this situation - While I do agree that moving the goalposts should never be done, the issue is that Oversight and CU are ultimately necessary jobs that should never be politicized. If we can't get enough CU and OS candidates to pass due to politics, then the politickers need to be the ones working the phones, so to speak. (And bear in mind, you political pundits, I do contact Oversight and file SPIs very frequently! :)) Failing that, let those with at least 51% support do the job. No comment on future elections. —<font color="228B22">Jeremy <font color="00008B">(v^_^v Dittobori) 20:12, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 10) Weak Support, as long as ArbCom just takes the minimum number needed from the highest supported candidates.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 05:06, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 11) Support - per Tim Song. Running the election again? -.- Just no. A le_Jrb <sup style="color:blue;">talk  14:00, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 12) Support - The candidates were pre-vetted so should be able to do the jobs they are running for competently. Moving the goal posts should be avoided but I think doing this once off for the situation won't be a huge issue, and the Committee should still respect the result by appointing the required number from the highest supported downwards. Camaron · &#32; Christopher · &#32;talk 15:49, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 13) Support - the option. I also support promoting all the candidates from this election as they are all fully able to  do the work required. Off2riorob (talk) 22:14, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 14) ~ Amory ( u  •  t  •  c ) 22:34, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 15) Support--Banana (talk) 04:32, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 16) Support. Fixes the problem. Cla68 (talk) 05:09, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 17) As a disclaimer, I was never convinced of the need for a 70% threshold anyway. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 09:21, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 18) First choice. It fixes the problem, and is the more sensible of the first two. ( X! ·  talk )  · @965  · 22:10, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 19)  Jujutacular  T · C 02:03, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 20) Not exactly what I would prefer to do, but I'm OK with the results if this is to be implemented. -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 01:48, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 21) Not ideal, but no solution can be at this point and this is the best way to move forward. Orderinchaos 04:48, 11 June 2010 (UTC)


 * oppose
 * 1) Oppose Wikipedia elections are free, unlike government elections, which cost money to hire poll workers, print ballots, etc.  Changing the rules after an election is very bad. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 19:08, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Strongest possible oppose- moving the goalposts is just not fair to those who voted and, in my opinion, would shatter the community's trust in ArbCom and those CU/OS access. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   21:56, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Not sure of the logic of the 2nd part. Presumably if the community were to express a preference in open discussion, then it can hardly shatter trust in AC for acting on that communal consent, nor in any candidate for being appointed in line with that communal consent. FT2 (Talk 21:29, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Strong Oppose regardless of the reasoning or circumstances, holding an election of any sort and then changing the rules after it's started is a very, very bad idea. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  16:59, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose, further noting that you guys would probably be attacking arbcom had they done this. This is exactly why I'm not a fan of elections anyway. Wizardman  Operation Big Bear 18:12, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) Oppose, moving the goalposts after the election is very poor form. Stifle (talk) 11:14, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) Oppose The community needs to have total confidence in its oversighters because they deal with the most sensitive edits made on the encyclopedia. Anything short of 70% for the oversight election (which is most affected here since none of the candidates hit the mark) raises red flags on their qualifications. Perhaps we can work these issues out through discussion or perhaps we just need some more candidates.  Them From  Space  11:59, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) Oppose, per above. I think I have commented negatively on undefined election thresholds in the past, changing the selection threshold once the result percentages are known is even worse. (Opining since I wouldn't be directly affected, despite being somewhat involved). Amalthea  12:13, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 6) oppose per my preferences earlier William M. Connolley (talk) 14:16, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 7) Strong Oppose - unethically changing the rules after an election.--M4gnum0n (talk) 09:04, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 8) Oppose drawing a circle around the holes doesn't make a good marksman. <b style="color:#C72">Verbal</b> chat  18:46, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 9) Oppose The election as described did not produce a result - the fair and appropriate way forward now is to make adjustments to the process and run again. If this means moving from 70% to 50%, then so be it, but changing the rules because we don't like the results, and in the face of opposition to such rule changing, reduces confidence in the whole notion of having rules in the first place. If ArbCom ignore rules then the community ignore ArbCom then we have chaos. Rerun the election with open questions and discussion, and with a 50% approval pass mark.  SilkTork  *YES! 09:14, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 10) Oppose Moves the goalposts ex post facto. Courcelles (talk) 16:26, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 11) Oppose per Verbal and Courcelles reasoning. Spevw (talk) 22:49, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 12) Oppose. Changing the rule after the results are out is a farce. <b style="color:#0000FF;">OhanaUnited</b><b style="color:green;">Talk page</b> 04:28, 28 June 2010 (UTC)


 * neutral
 * 1) Uncomfortable as to what this might say about future elections - doesn't matter how many or what disclaimers are used. Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:31, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Makes fir a dubious precedent at best. Collect (talk) 20:41, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Option 2: Community prefers to rerun the election, in a format that encourages on-wiki discussion and comments, as a once-off

 * Advantages - community can reflect, goalposts not moved once voting completed, main perceived reason for problems may be removed.
 * Disadvantages - extra time, stress (on candidates), and distraction of community endeavors; possible disinterest ("too many elections").


 * support
 * 1) Support though this is the most painful option for all involved. The issue I have with Option 1 is that it essentially dismisses a lot of opposing votes. With no way to know the basis for those opposes, it doesn't seem fair to those who opposed in good faith. Assuming the same list of candidates, a new election could be started quickly, as all the vetting and statements have already been made. Arakunem Talk 13:36, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Support Though SecurePoll was worth a try, I think this is the format it should have been done in in the first place. The community relies on consensus for just about every other major decision- admins and crats in particular- so it should be here, despite the added stress for ArbCom and the candidates. If this option is taken, though, I would ask ArbCom to consider approving some of the other applicants. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   15:59, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) It isn't fair to change the minimum percentage after the results have been announced IMO, so I prefer this option. Juliancolton (talk) 16:20, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) Let's not fudge it - let's do it right.  SilkTork  *YES! 23:29, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) Support We must get it right. We can't fudge the results after the election because they didn't turn out well. Rerun the election (open election-no vetted candidates) with a more collaborative process.  Them From  Space  08:27, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 6) Support Some suggested the benefits of leaving comments. There can be a secure poll where people leave optional comments but go behind the curtain to vote in Secure Poll. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 19:09, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 7) Support We got to get it right. Spevw (talk) 23:44, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 8) Support as best option. Seems to solve several of the issues raised, and eliminates the problem of moving the goalposts.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 05:01, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 9) I see no sizeable advantage to a secret ballot, and several critical disadvantages. A second election would help prevent this round of voting from being a waste of volunteer time, and also result in some (presumably much-needed) new checkusers and oversighters.  AGK   11:37, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 10) Support We did it wrong, it didn't work, now let's do it right. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  17:06, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 11) Second choice. I'm just concerned that this will make unnecessary drama, which the 1st one will avoid a lot of. ( X! ·  talk )  · @966  · 22:10, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 12) support as probably the best option currently on offer William M. Connolley (talk) 14:17, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 13) support but not as a one-off, it seems we need to fix this without taking things off the table. <b style="color:#C72">Verbal</b> chat  18:48, 10 June 2010 (UTC)


 * oppose
 * 1) Oppose - "encourages" on-wiki discussion is not guaranteeing it. This is essentially overpoliticization of the CU and OS tasks, neither of which should have politics thrown into the mix. Not only that, but SPI is overloaded to the point of uselessness as is. We can't afford to wait a few more weeks while an election plays out. —<font color="228B22">Jeremy <font color="00008B">(v^_^v Dittobori) 20:12, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Running another one may be fine, but that's an awful lot of elections, plus too much community involvement. Wizardman  Operation Big Bear 18:16, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) Expends lots of community time and resources for little practical benefit. Tim Song (talk) 18:19, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) The open elections generate massive wastage of editor time and resources due to incessant amounts of questioning, with low if any benefit. Stifle (talk) 11:15, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) Per Tim -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 01:44, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 6) Too much effort for too little reward. Turnout would in all likelihood be very low - why would users want to vote for/against the same users applying for the same positions twice in a month? Alzarian16 (talk) 10:27, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 7) Oppose - This election should not happen again, if you want to start again then you should start at the beggining with a request to users to offer candidacy again and the Arbcom should re-evaluate the nominees from the new perceptive, simply rerunning the same election with candidates that in the previous case did not get the level of support is imo unfair to the previous nominees that were turned down. Off2riorob (talk) 20:50, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 8) Oppose. The community has spoken. ArbCom has to live with whichever the community decided. And just because ArbCom is not happy with this election's result, they shouldn't start another election in such a short period just to please themselves. <b style="color:#0000FF;">OhanaUnited</b><b style="color:green;">Talk page</b> 04:31, 28 June 2010 (UTC)


 * neutral
 * 1) Am still reflecting on this; though there's no guarantee of discussion, this seems to be the most sensible solution. Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:26, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Option 3: Community prefers not to appoint further CU/OS appointments at this time (if Arbcom is agreeable), as a once-off

 * Advantages - room for longer discussion by community, will not affect CU if a solution is looked at and approved soon
 * Disadvantages - will impact the work of these roles (likely to compromise community's processes against sock-puppetry related abuse and privacy breach, may be seen as unnecessary or "too much WP:BURO").
 * Note - Privacy/abuse prevention are overriding issues and Arbcom is responsible for appointing tools that enforce these. Hence AC could have concerns on this option.


 * support
 * 1) Certainly support no need to re-run for oversighters. RevDel has killed any remaining risks arising from a lack of oversighters. I'm not as au fait with the requirements (i.e. demand) for checkusers. Stifle (talk) 11:17, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Support, agreeing with View by Collect.--M4gnum0n (talk) 09:17, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3)  Noting the implicit meaning of all those negative votes. Collect (talk) 20:42, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * oppose
 * 1) Oppose Strongly - No. As the "disadvantages" section notes these roles are in dire need of more manpower. —<font color="228B22">Jeremy <font color="00008B">(v^_^v Dittobori) 20:12, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose. If ArbCom says we need more CUs and oversighters, I trust their judgement and if it improves response times for urgent requests, especially at certain times of day, then great. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   21:53, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) Oppose. Most would agree that we need more, so this is not a viable option. --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 04:59, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) Oppose per HJ Mitchell. If we need more people to take up CU and OS, appointments are needed. A second election is an option too, I suppose.  AGK   11:39, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) It's easy to understand. We need more people. This is the worst possible solution. ( X!  ·  talk )  · @966  · 22:11, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 6) It is unacceptable to remain in the condition we are in. -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 01:44, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 7) No. Just no. Tim Song (talk) 19:54, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 8) Oppose the elections were not run for fun. There was deemed to be a need so this seems to be least satisfactory line to take. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:40, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 9) Oppose, just way too much of a backlog and need to just not do any at all. --  AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 19:00, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 10) Oppose, this is not satisfactory :/. --  Luk  talk 20:05, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * neutral
 * 1) Neutral Additional discussion of 3-4 weeks won't hurt but will help.  FT2 kindly has helped in this RFC but the same person listing the problem then shoehorning into 3 options has the potential to overlooking solutions.  The innovative solution is often made by the geek in the corner who is not one of the appointed leaders on the stage.  I oppose the community "not to appoint" for months on end but a comprenhensive analysis is not forever. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 19:12, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
 * See below for explanation. If more is needed, raise on talk page. FT2 (Talk 06:10, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Option 4: Community prefers to throw away the results of the SecretPoll election and endorse Arbcom choosing appointees on this occasion with no input from the community

 * Advantages - method has worked in the past, appoints more CU/OSs, less of a popularity contest
 * Disadvantages - removes community input, enforces Arbcom's "power", seen as unfair to throw out the wishes of the community.

(this seems to have support above, so I'm being bold and adding this option here) ( X! ·  talk )  · @068  · 00:37, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Modified the title to be clear and consistent in wording that this entire section is options for this round of appointments, not future ones. FT2 (Talk 23:34, 7 June 2010 (UTC)


 * support
 * 1) Weak Support. We don't have to throw out these elections, so I don't like that part, but returning to the above where we vet then ask for input without having people oppose for political reasons is our best bet to actually have people with those tools. Of course the community is going to beg for input, even though I'm reluctant to trust them with great control, despite being a member of said community. Go back to how it was in 2008. Keep in mind many arbs have CU/OS, so they actually understand what to look for and how people will react. The community, most having not had the tools, are naturally not going to understand the little details of the job that matter. Heck I don't understand CU myself. Wizardman  Operation Big Bear 18:20, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Weakest possible support? I would support this, but where did the "with no input from the community" come from? Strike that and I support completely. -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 01:46, 9 June 2010 (UTC)


 * oppose
 * 1) Strong Oppose. What a hypocrisy, on one hand requiring a high percentage support from the community for a candidate to be chosen, and on the other hand ignoring the community altogether. The "popularity contest" argument can be said about any other voting process. Sole Soul (talk) 03:11, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose. Not a good idea: we don't like the outcome of the elections, so we default to appointment by a small group of trusted individuals? Option 1 would achieve similar results based on community input, which is surely preferable. Alzarian16 (talk) 03:21, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) Strong oppose. I think even ArbCom is sensible enough to realise that this kind of thing requires some form of community input and if it were just to appoint whomever it saw fit, it would feel like saying "bollocks to all the people who voted in the election" and would be completely disregarding the more conclusive results- ie the firm opposition to some of the candidates (for the record, I supported all but one of the candidates). These things should be done by consensus, not voting and certain not in camera. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   03:22, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) Can't be having this really. Stifle (talk) 11:17, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) Strong Oppose - Were this the only option available to us I'd support (as we are in dire need of more CUs and OSs, since RevDel does not render Oversight (which can handle more complex cases than RevDel's designed to tackle) obsolete), but in the face of better options this isn't even fathomable. —<font color="228B22">Jeremy <font color="00008B">(v^_^v Dittobori) 01:51, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Can I ask what, in your understanding, can be done with oversight but not revdel (besides hide deleted revisions from sysops)? Stifle (talk) 08:46, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Oversight, like I said, is intended for situations that are more complex than /b/'s usual barf or the editor-being-logged-out-in-middle-of-edit. We're talking stuff that even administrators have no business seeing, such as blatant and non-sarcastic (or, alternatively, sneaky) libel (i.e. not the "kevin is gay" variety, but accusations of serious crimes and the like), outing attempts (again, not from /b/), and attempts to use WP to further or provoke the commission of a crime. The Oversighters identify to the Foundation because they are trusted not only to suppress such data, but also to inform it if any of the data that's suppressed needs to be brought to their attention posthaste. —<font color="228B22">Jeremy <font color="00008B">(v^_^v Dittobori) 20:40, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Strong Oppose - removes community input.--M4gnum0n (talk) 09:19, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) No; those "advantages" are disputable. Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:22, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) Oppose - appointing who you want when the election doesn't give you the result you wanted isn't only corrupt and dishonest, it seems almost like a deliberate attempt to create drama for the sake of it. DuncanHill (talk) 14:24, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) Strong oppose <b style="color:#C72">Verbal</b> chat  18:50, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) Strong oppose. Such a manouver would rubbish the existing systems of selecting CUs and Oversighters, even if this was done as a one off. This would not be acceptable, what faith can there be in ArbCom if we end up with a system where the community gets no input if it's viewpoints are 'not satisfactory'. Why bother setting the bar high if it will be ignored? Set the bar lower, to a point where we can recruit a fair number of candidates without ignoring opposition. Don't just rubbish community views. -- Taelus  ( Talk ) 22:35, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * neutral

Option 5: Some other option or variation
Consider looking into history and see how elections have been handled when there is a dispute. Are the election rules changed? Western European experience? North American experience? African experience? Asian experience?
 * In general Wikipedia handles issues by practical goal-oriented commonsense (as best it can with diverse users), throwing it to consensus (this RFC) or bouncing it back to Arbcom. The question for this section is not what went wrong or what should change in future (that's the long discussion above), so ideas like "change the election" aren't useful here. There are 3 basic choices what to do with current appointments - appoint with no rerun (draw on existing results), appoint with a rerun (using results from a rerun), or don't appoint. Other choices like "let Arbcom decide" collapse into the first of these when you ask how Arbcom would decide (more here). FT2 (Talk 05:44, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Prodego was disruptive by removing the options and calling someone else disruptive. Some of the options were valid choices and not covered by the above.  Things like temporary appointment, temporary paid CU, appointing those who reached a certain threshold (but not everyone).  Wikipedians are not so stupid that they cannot go down a list and decide what they support and what they don't. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 16:35, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * No... Prodego was considerably well informed about the tools. Posting a blizzard of some 17 more options was unlikely to help though, and others thought the same. There are threads at the Arbcom noticeboard discussion (before this),at this page's talk page, and on my talk page clarifying why ideas like "temporary" wouldn't work (link) and why "paid" positions have been consistently rejected as unlikely to work (link), if those help. FT2 (Talk 19:43, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * One of the proposals was to appoint those with 60%, which would be some, not all. This is a legimate proposal but removed by Prodego. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 20:20, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Correct. Again, falls mainly within option #1, plus probably better in this case to have few, focussed options. This is a "once-off". 51%-70% captures the idea of "reuse the results but with a lower percentage hurdle". It's a once-off case dealing with a single election where every candidate is already scrutinized and considered viable for the tools by the appointing committee. Also since "highest first" is also specified this is not the situation it might appear (under option #1, AC wouldn't get into the 51-59% band in the first place, unless they felt even appointing all 60%+ for CU or OS would still not be enough). FT2 (Talk 21:22, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Option 6: Hybrid compromise option of appointing some of the losing CU and OS candidates for a 3-6 month term while deciding what to do (new election or change election rules).

 * Advantages - compromise between not changing the rules after an election and selecting new CU and OS.
 * Disadvantages - does not adopt anyone's position exactly so is likely not to be liked by anyone (being bold and adding this option here following the lead of User X! Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 15:27, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * As covered elsewhere WMF tools are not the kind of positions where temporary or provisional appointment works. To repeat from discussion elsewhere, they are trusted enough to view the data, or not. There's no halfway. FT2 (Talk 16:04, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * They may be trusted but they lost the election. This is probably a solution hated by all but incorporates parts of many ideas.  Arb Com is trusted but only for a fixed term. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 16:48, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Please please read what is already explained. Arbitrators role in a judicial sense of deciding cases and non-public dispute issues (so far as Wikipedia does 'judicial') is time limited. But arbitrators trust with the exact tools we are discussing here is not. They keep CU/OS after their Arbcom role ends, as the WMF tools are trust rather than time based. FT2 (Talk 17:33, 7 June 2010 (UTC)


 * support
 * 1) Grudging support as a compromise measure but don't really like it. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 15:27, 7 June 2010 (UTC)


 * oppose
 * 1) Strongest Possible Oppose - No. for positions that violate privacy and handle toxic situations as much as CUs and OSs, we should  NEVER  grant them on a provisional basis. IINAL, but I'd believe that would actually cause legal issues? —<font color="228B22">Jeremy <font color="00008B">(v^_^v Dittobori) 20:44, 9 June 2010 (UTC)