Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Establishing coordinator election pages

Under the current system used by the Military history Wikiproject, coordinators are tasked with handling certain project-specific operations such as closing A-Class reviews. Because coordinators are held accountable to the project an election is held once a year to determine who among the community's members will serve as a coordinator. While the election itself is a simple approval vote, creating the pages needed for the election can be tricky. Therefore, this Academy page will serve as a walk-through on how to correctly set up the election pages.

Before the election
Before any election pages are created, the matter of the coordinator election must be brought up with the current coordinator tranche. Ideally, this should be done sometime between mid-July and early August. The reason that the coordinators must first discuss the matter of the election is to settle on the finer details of the upcoming election. Three key aspects should be decided.

The first detail relates to the project's activity level: as the activity level in the project rises or falls, the number of coordinators judged to be needed to effectively run the project increases or decreases. Accordingly, then, the coordinators need to establish how many slots should be opened to the project members. In general, the project currently operates efficiently with roughly 8–11 coordinators, although the exact number settled on for the upcoming tranche must understandably be decided based on the workload and the efficiency of the current coordinator tranche. The coordinators must also decide if the total number should include or exclude the Lead Coordinator, which can cause the total settled on to fluctuate by one.

The second factor that needs to be discussed is the election format. Historically, when the system was introduced, the format was 14 days for nominations followed by 14 days of election, which worked well for the community but created an illusion that the process was "slow". As a result of this perception the community approved a change in the process that now sees the election format using a 10-day nomination period followed by a 10-day voting period. This process is marginally faster than the older two week system, which helps speed the process up. While the coordinators have used this option for several years, they also have the option of introducing or implementing a new nomination/voting scheme if one is judged to be needed. Accordingly then, the coordinators will need to settle on which of the three options they feel will work the best for the upcoming election.

The final matter that must be discussed is the exact date of the election. Ideally, the entire election should take place in the month of September, but as there are 30 days in September the coordinators will need to officially designate a starting day for the nomination period. Once this day is decided, the format the coordinators have agreed upon can be used to determine when the nomination period will end, and by extension when the voting period will start and end. Collectively, these three points once settled will provide the information needed to establish the election pages.

Creating the election pages
Once the above three factors have been settled on an editor can move to create the election pages. The first page that should be created is the election page proper. (A completed example can be found here: WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/September 2017.) This page should be created as Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/(MONTH) (YEAR) replacing the MONTH and YEAR with the month and year in question. Once you have the correct red link the following information should be added to the page verbatim:

{{pre| {{WPMILHIST Navigation|no-banner=yes}} {{/Tally}} {{TOC limit|3}}

Overview
This election is to appoint the project coordinator team for one year, from (ADD THE DATE OF THE INCOMING TRANCHE HERE USING DAY MONTH YEAR FORMAT) to (ADD THE ENDING DATE OF THE UPCOMING COORDINATOR TRANCHE HERE, USING DAY MONTH YEAR FORMAT). Coordinators are generally responsible for maintaining all of the procedural and administrative aspects of the project. All of the coordinators, and especially the lead coordinator (or lead coordinators), serve as the designated points-of-contact for procedural issues and focus on specific areas requiring special attention. They are not, however, endowed with any special executive powers.

Responsibilities
From WikiProject Military history/Coordinators: "The primary responsibility of the project coordinators is the maintenance and housekeeping work involved in keeping the project and its internal processes running smoothly; this includes a variety of tasks, such as keeping the announcement and open task lists updated, overseeing the assessment and review processes, managing the proposal and creation of task forces, and so forth. There is fairly little involved that couldn't theoretically be done by any other editor, of course—in only a few places have the coordinators been explicitly written into a process—but, since experience suggests that people tend to assume that someone else is doing whatever needs to be done, it has proven beneficial to formally delegate responsibility for this administrative work to a specified group. The coordinators also have several additional roles. They serve as the project's designated points of contact, and are explicitly listed as people to whom questions can be directed in a variety of places around the project. In addition, they have (highly informal) roles in leading the drafting of project guidelines, overseeing the implementation of project decisions on issues like category schemes and template use, and helping to resolve disputes and keep discussions from becoming heated and unproductive."

Practical information on coordinating may be found here and here.

The current coordinators are:

Election process

 * Nomination period: (Add the day and month the nomination will begin and the UTC time, day, and month the nomination will end here. For example, "8 September to 23:59 UTC 18 September")
 * Voting period: (Add the day and month the election phase will begin and the UTC time, day, and month the election period will end here. For example, "19 September to 23:59 UTC 29 September")
 * Any member of the project may nominate themselves for a position by adding their statement in the "Candidates" section below by the start of the election. The following boilerplate can be used:

Name

 * Statement goes here...

Comments and questions for Name

 * What have been the achievements of which you are most proud within the Military history WikiProject?
 * What skills/qualities can you contribute as a coordinator?
 * What skills/qualities can you contribute as a coordinator?

Votes in support of Name



 * The election will be conducted using simple approval voting. Any member of the project may support as many of the candidates as they wish. The candidate with the highest number of endorsements will become the lead coordinator (provided he or she is willing to assume the post); this position may be shared in the event that multiple candidates receive the highest number of endorsements. The remaining candidates with twenty or more endorsements will be appointed as coordinators to a maximum of eleven appointments (including the lead coordinator). The number of coordinators may be increased or reduced if there is a tie or near-tie for the last position.


 * Both project members and interested outside parties are encouraged to ask questions of the nominees or make general comments.

Candidates
}} }}

Create the status template
The second page that will need be created will be the status template. (A completed example can be found here: WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/September 2017/Status). This template uses a set of established parameters to inform editors, readers, and other interested parties when the nominations will open, when the voting will open, and when the elections have concluded. The template itself resides at the top of the Candidates section, and will be present in the page you just created by virtue of the its presence in code copied from the preceding section.

To access the template, add /Status to the current election page so that the election page looks like Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/(MONTH) (YEAR)/Status It should give you a red link, click it and then add the following to the status page:



Current time is, 29 July 2024 (UTC) Once the above has been added take care the you change the year and the days to match the current election year and the days for the nomination and voting periods. Once the information has been updated save the page, this will result in the template on the election page being created and if done correctly should automatically switch messages to notify interested parties when the nomination and election phases open and when the election concludes.

Tally Box
The final page that must be created is the Tally Box. This table tracks the number of editors in the election and the number of votes that each has received, respectively. To create the Tally Box, add /Tally to the current coordinator election page so it looks like this: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/(MONTH) (YEAR)/Tally taking care to replace the MONTH and YEAR tabs with the current election month and year. Once you have the red link, add the following to the page verbatim, taking care to not that MONTH and YEAR in the example below will already reflect the current election month and year:

{

After adding the section save the page, this will result in the Tally Box being created and added to the election page proper. With this done all three pages for the coordinator election should be created and no further action should be required on your part. With all three pages now live, the current coordinators and the editors of the Military history Wikiproject will be able to edit the pages to announce their candidacies or their decision not to seek reelection.

Notify the project
See WikiProject Military history/Academy/Using MassMessage for Project Notification for details on how to send a mass message.

Suggested form is: Nominations for the upcoming project coordinator election have opened. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next coordination year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 UTC on 14 September! Voting will commence on 15 September. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the current coord team.

Close the voting
to the top of the election page and

to the bottom of the page.

Notify the winners
For the newly elected coordinators, a suggested form is {

For the lead coordinator, a suggested form is:

{ For a coordinator emeritus, a suggested form is:

{

Update the coordinators list
Edit the lead of WikiProject Military history/Coordinators to reflect the current list.

Update the notification template
Edit Template:@MILHIST to reflect the current list.

Update the category
Edit the coordinators' user pages to add Category:WikiProject Military history coordinators and remove it from coordinators who are no longer active.

Update the Bugle
Add the election results to The Bugle at WikiProject Military history/News/October 2024/Project news