Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-11-07/Discussion report

Members of the Arbitration Committee are voted into office at the end of each year in elections that are entirely designed, implemented, and overseen by community volunteers. Since the December 2009 elections, each election has elected roughly half of the committee, usually for two year terms. The Wikimedia Foundation has a small number of requirements that candidates must meet because members of the committee have access to non-public data, but other than that, all of the structural and procedural decisions about the election are made by the community. With the 2011 Arbitration Committee Elections approaching, a Request for Comment was opened by on September 18 to solicit the opinions of the community, and ended this week after running for 45 days.

Smallest ever general election
A proposal was put forward by sitting arbitrator to reduce the size of the committee from 18 to 15 members on the basis that a larger committee has more difficulty coordinating, and acts more slowly than a smaller committee would. With 37 comments in support, it was one of the more heavily endorsed proposals in the RfC.

As a result of the reduction in size (and assuming no departures from the alpha tranche occur), only six positions will be open for contention in the upcoming election – tying it with that of 2007 for the annual election with the lowest number of seats to be filled. Only a special election in July 2004 (which was held to fill two vacancies for six month terms) has ever had fewer available positions. While the "topping off" method of determining term lengths was reaffirmed by this RfC, since more than half of the positions on committee are not up for election, all six editors elected in 2011 will be granted two-year terms.

Requirements for candidacy set
A proposal was put forth by to make the editing requirements for running in the election the same as those for voting in the election. While SirFozzie personally advocated 500 edits as being the threshold for voting, consensus settled on a requirement of 150 mainspace edits.

The community also came out in large numbers to reaffirm two existing policies, set by the Wikimedia Foundation and by ArbCom respectively. 49 editors, the most to endorse any statement in the RfC, supported a statement that all candidates must be willing to identify themselves to the Foundation if elected. Another statement, confirming that candidates are required to meet the Foundation's requirements for access to non-public data, and that they must disclose their prior accounts, also met with strong support.

Election timeline takes form
Dates for the election have been officially set. The election will open with a 10-day-long nomination period, in which candidates will step forward, deliver an introductory statement, and begin answering voter questions. Following the end of the nomination period, a five-day-long fallow period will allow the candidates to finish answering questions, and allow the rest of the community to research the candidates. The voting period itself will follow, and will last for 14 days. The schedule was built around having an end date of December 11, after the community adopted a suggestion that the voting period end no later, to give the Arbitration Committee and the WMF time to ensure that incoming members are ready for the start of their terms on January 1.

Secret ballots return
The upcoming election, like the 2010 election, will be conducted using a secret ballot, and will be run on the SecurePoll MediaWiki extension. Voters will be presented with a list of candidates, in a randomized order, and the ability to select one choice of "Support", "Oppose", or "No Vote" for each candidate, with the "No Vote" option being the default option. To vote in the election, editors must have a registered account that has made over 150 edits to Wikipedia's mainspace by 1 November 2011. Editors may not vote while blocked, however being blocked after voting does not invalidate the vote, and editors who begin the election blocked may still vote if they are unblocked before the election ends. While a proposal was put forward to prohibit candidates running in the election from casting votes, that proposal was closed as unsuccessful. It should go without saying that editors with more than one account, such as bot operators, may only vote with one of their accounts.

More support than opposition required
Candidates will have to attract the support of 50% of non-ambivalent voters to assume positions on the committee this year. Ballots returned with "No Vote" for a candidate will not factor into their support percentage. In the 2010 election, all 12 of the candidates that were seated had more votes in support than they did in opposition.

The RfC was initially closed with the determination that a 60% threshold had the most support, however the administrator who closed that section issued an apology stating that he misjudged the consensus, and set the threshold at 50%.

The question of what to do if fewer than six candidates received 50% support was debated, although participation in the discussion was low. Three options were put forth; that Wikipedia co-founder Jimbo Wales appoint members to the committee, that a supplementary election be held, and that the 2012 term begin with fewer than 15 members on the committee. It was decided by a 4:1 margin that if necessary, the committee will start the year below capacity.

Parody voter guides restricted from election template
Voter guides that are serious and written in good faith may be included in the ACE2011 template, which is attached to every page in the election. In a break from last year, non-serious or parody guides are to be omitted from the ACE2011 template. The community endorsed a suggestion to randomize the order that the guides are listed in the ACE2011 template. Finally, all guides linked to the template area are also now required to transclude the template at the top of the guide pages, to improve navigation through election-related pages.

RfC started on the general questions
While several sets of questions were put forth during the RfC, participation in the discussion on general questions was the lowest out of any of the sections of the RfC, and no lists of questions achieved a consensus. Election coordinator took a set of questions from a subpage that was created and linked to during the RfC, and moved those questions to the election's general questions page. Monty845 then initiated a new RfC seeking community input on the questions. The RfC will run until the beginning of the nomination period.

The discussion report will return on 21 November. Tips for the upcoming issue may be left here.