Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Audit Subcommittee/October 2009 election/SecurePoll feedback and workshop

At present, the RFC is almost evenly split regarding secret/public voting. This page is written as if secret voting is going to happen. If that is the case, why would I comment here when it's already been decided?  Majorly  talk  17:18, 12 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I disagree with your take but I've added a banner to both sections to clarify. There's also far more to SecurePoll than just the ArbCom elections; for instance, it's used as standard for the WMF elections and feedback/suggestions will be of benefit there.  Roger Davies  talk 17:35, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Neutral option
Could someone please explain to me how "Neutral" votes are reflected in the outcome? I see people supporting a "Support/Neutral/Oppose/Abstain" setup, but don't understand what the difference in effect is between Neutral and Abstain. Thanks,  Skomorokh,  barbarian   17:55, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think there is any difference at all in practical terms and, frankly, I'm as puzzled as you. It's only Support and Oppose that count.  Roger Davies  talk
 * Thanks for the clarification Roger. We ought to only have three options in that case (despite the fact that a rational voter has no incentive to be neutral/abstain in a private poll).  Skomorokh,  barbarian   18:06, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I am terribly confused by that whole section. But, if I understand where people are coming from, I'd like to propose these two ballot alternatives:
 * Support / neutral / I don't know / oppose / maybe / suppose / eh / abort / retry / fail. Why limit the options? We can always figure out what people meant afterward.
 * Neutral / abstain / no opinion. Since everyone claims to understand the massively different effects these choices have, we could do away with those overly blunt support and oppose votes and still have an election.
 * rspεεr (talk) 09:52, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh right, we need a default too. Fine, then, if you don't click any of those buttons it should vote for "Lizard People". rspεεr (talk) 09:57, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * File:Lizard People.png. :-) Carcharoth (talk) 01:13, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Summary needed
Can someone in the know summarize this into a coder-friendly list of things that should be implemented for the upcoming ArbCom elections voting? We only have a week to get everything in place, so time is of the essence. Any help much appreciated,  Skomorokh,  barbarian   01:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)


 * These seem to be the main points requiring coder action
 * Order of radio buttons: Support/Neutral/Oppose (currently implemented as Oppose/Neutral/Support). Some editors commented on the absence of an abstain button (which could I suppose be added as another option) but as both both neutral and abstain are regarded as null votes it's difficult to see how this has any impact on the outcome.
 * Voting page memory: when returning to their individual voting pages ([Special:SecurePoll/vote/nn]), editors should be shown the last selection they made (it currently defaults to a blank page, requiring all selections to be entered again).
 * Blocked user module: SecurePoll has a standard realtime module which checks whether someone is blocked at the time of voting. Once the block expires, they may return to vote. If they're indeffed, obviously it nevers expires so they can't vote. This needs implementing to prevent blocked socks voting (we forgot to ask for this at the AUSC election and only implemented it a few days into the poll: the list was subsequently swept for blocked editors and one was struck by the scrutineers).
 * The coders need lists of (i) candidates, (ii) election administrators (see below) and (iii) scrutineers (see below) a day or two before the election starts as the usernames are hardwired into the software.


 * Other general points arising
 * You'll need to appoint a couple or three election administrators to look after the behind the scenes stuff (sorting out links on the voting pages - via [Special:SecurePoll/translate/nn/en] to candidate statements, dealing with any wrinkles etc). As they will have access to IP addresses and other sensitive data, these should probably be checkusers (you have some already acting as election coordinators). For AUSC, the election administrators did not strike votes: this was a scrutineer role.
 * The scrutineers were all stewards: Erwin, Mardetanha, Mike.lifeguard, and Thogo. If you need a fifth (not a bad idea given the size of the election), Millosh has already volunteered.
 * I did the alphabetical voting list manually last time. It would be easier if a bot did this, picking up the data from [Special:SecurePoll/list/nn].
 * There are some notes at: Arbitration Committee/Audit Subcommittee/October 2009 election, which could probably be usefully turned in for the ArbCom Elections as most of it is the same.
 * The pre-amble on the voting page needs to mention that editors can check that their vote has registered at looking at the chronological log (for AUSC this is at Special:SecurePoll/list/60).


 * Hope this helps,  Roger Davies  talk 08:16, 25 November 2009 (UTC)