Wikipedia talk:5-minute guide to ArbCom elections

Candidate Selection
I have not participated in an ArbCom election in at least 8 years, but I would suggest paring way back on what candidates need in order to be eligible and instead put more in about the actual mechanics of the question/answer time from candidates which is something a voter who wishes to learn more would want to read, presumably. Having only looked at these retrospectively I don't feel qualified to make this change. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:22, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Typo in requirements?
Pretty sure this is a typo, but I didn't feel comfortable changing this on my own: under "Who can be a candidate," criterion 1 reads has a registered account and has made at least 500 mainspace edits on English Wikipedia before 1 November 2018 - that should be 2019, right? creffpublic  a creffett franchise (talk to the boss) 19:25, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, I went ahead and updated it for this year.  Calidum   19:35, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Weekdays shown in timeline
Regarding [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:5-minute_guide_to_ArbCom_elections&oldid=prev&diff=1093024414 this revert]: my preceding edit was a purely technical change to ensure the weekdays displayed always lined up with the dates that are configured in Arbitration Committee candidate/data. The setting of the actual dates remains something subject to consensus agreement each year. isaacl (talk) 03:02, 14 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Granted both diffs are broken in the sense that the dates work in neither. But I would suggest that having the days of the week things occur - which is an actual planned thing for a reason - and the length of time that the phases runs is more helpful in this broken state than having completely nonsense dates that the technical change does. For now these are things that have consensus; if that consensus changes then this page can be updated but while consensus can change, and is checked yearly, that is different from saying there is no consensus at the moment. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:04, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand; the dates are even more nonsense now, as they are just based on the current date, and so don't match up with the hard-coded weekday (except once a week). I think having the weekday automatically calculated makes it easier to catch when a configured date is changed and it doesn't match the current expectations as to what day of the week a phase starts or ends. Too often in the past the date was changed, and midway people asked which is correct, the weekday or the date? I've submitted an edit request for Arbitration Committee candidate/data to add placeholder values for now, which follow the same weekdays as were used in 2021, excepting the 30-day elections RfC, which I kept from September 1 to 30. isaacl (talk) 03:12, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Voting advice
The "Voting process" section has the following sentence: The influence your ballot has on the results of the elections is maximized when you select Support or Oppose for every candidate, and support approximately the same number of candidates as there are vacancies. The first part of the sentence is fine, but the second isn't really true. I created User:Isaacl/Advice for approval voting to explain why, but the nutshell summary is if a voter doesn't vote support for all candidates that they actually support, they risk having a candidate they don't support win. In a real-world election where there is polling done, you can estimate the chances of candidates losing, but generally speaking, it's hard to determine that any serious arbitration committee candidate has no chance. I think the second clause should be something like "and support everyone that you would be happy to see as an arbitrator." I feel anyone wanting to get into advanced strategies of supporting just their most preferred candidates won't need prompting from this guide. What does everyone think? isaacl (talk) 23:00, 7 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree that information about voting strategies and similar (especially those that are of disputed accuracy and/or only hypothetical relevance) doesn't belong in a guide that is intended to be quick and/or simple. Thryduulf (talk) 14:46, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Does that mean you propose removing the entire sentence? isaacl (talk) 21:42, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes. It is disputed how to have the greatest impact on the election, so it shouldn't be part of this quick guide rather this should link to other essays etc that present the different viewpoints. 22:12, 14 November 2022 (UTC) Thryduulf (talk) 22:12, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If I understand your original statement correctly, you said you felt information about voting strategies didn't belong, in which case it sounds like whether or not the content is disputed is not important, and that links to other discussion is unnecessary? I'm not particularly opinionated either way and so am personally fine with removing the sentence. We can see what everyone else thinks. isaacl (talk) 22:26, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Fine with either approach, slight preference for Isaacl's solution - I feel like one sentence on tactical voting inside of a 5 minute primer is proportionate, but it's certainly not necessary. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:18, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I think we should kill that entire sentence; influence on the election is vague -- indeed if you vote on every candidate you will have more influence, but tactical voting will cary depending on what your tactical goal is. If it is to elect any slate of candidates you think are sufficient, you should support everyone you approve of -- if it is to elect only the top n candidates you may want to oppose people you actually think are good; this is nuanced and can also be impacted by how many other people you think may try to do this, and how many of them you think will think that others will...and on and on and on.... — xaosflux  Talk 15:28, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Removing the sentence has the broadest base of support at present. If there are no further comments, then I will proceed with this change. isaacl (talk) 06:19, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I have removed the sentence. isaacl (talk) 03:55, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Confusing date ranges for 2024
In section 5-minute guide to ArbCom elections, the dates are weird:

And after I purged the page, the range changed to 08 June – 07 June 2024. This seems to be caused by the fact that Template:Arbitration Committee candidate/data doesn't contain anything for 2024 (as of Special:Permalink/1182853414).

Perhaps the usage of magic word for the example date ranges could be improved? —⁠andrybak (talk) 22:04, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'd just as soon update the dates. In 2022, though, I submitted a request in June and I got the response There is no need to have anything for 2022 setup yet. (Forty minutes later, an admin made an update.) So I personally don't plan on making a request until later (last year I made it in July) if no dates have been entered by then. You can try making a request earlier and see what happens. isaacl (talk) 22:44, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and added the expected dates for 2024. DanCherek (talk) 01:53, 16 June 2024 (UTC)