Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/CheckUser and Oversight/February 2009 election

First impressions are the most important
I'm pleased this is happening finally. A community in action is a good thing.  Syn  ergy 01:24, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I am pleased as well, though I dislike how it is simple approval voting. How are we supposed to register our dislike for a candidate besides comments that many editors likely won't read through? NuclearWarfare  ( Talk ) 03:10, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Who is to say they won't be read? They're right above the voting area, so will likely be seen by most people. Most of these people have no issues anyway.  Majorly  talk  11:24, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, please allow us to express disapproval. These are the kind of powers that it makes more sense to say "no fucking way" than "yes please". Grace Note (talk) 03:53, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Also, consider this. There are currently 6 candidates and 3 spots. Say the community dislikes administrators A, B, C, and F. How do we let you know that we only want D and E to be picked. Under the current system, we would have to pick the best of one of those evil four, and that doesn't sound very cool. NuclearWarfare  ( Talk ) 04:00, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I raised this issue several times on the original proposal talk page. The responses I received ranged from completely ignoring it, to something like "having 2 good CUs and one shitty one is better than only having 2 CUs." Mr.Z-man 04:35, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * While several people did not like approval voting, far more people did like the proposal. — Rlevse • Talk  • 10:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, if you oppose someone, don't vote for them. Also note per WMF, these elections require 25 support votes for the candidate to be successful. — Rlevse • Talk  • 11:17, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * They also require a consensus of approval. 25 support votes and 26 oppose isn't exactly brilliant is it?  Majorly  talk  11:24, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Arbcom retains complete authority to appoint checkuser/oversight, the election is merely advisory. The question being asked is not "Who should be elected to checkuser/oversight" but rather, "Of these editors we have already decided are suitable for appointment, whom do you prefer?"  This is not necessarily a bad thing, and may be an improvement over direct appointments with no consultation.  My concern is that there is no direction given on how to introduce negative information.  By announcing these particular candidates, the Committee is presuming that they have already had a chance to privately consider any negatives about the candidates.  At a minimum, the Committee should solicit negative information via email.  I also expect that negative information will be posted to the question/comment section and talk page (unless the clerks censor it).  Some sort of reasonably civil discussion should be permitted regardless of the voting system used. Thatcher 13:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The aim is that the commenting and questioning will complement ArbCom's vetting. People are free to introduce negative material (though the usual rules about civility apply) and editors can respond to it by voting, or not. Also, editors can also later withdraw support votes if they change their minds as a result of new material that comes to light. -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 14:03, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Do you actually believe that? Look at similar process, like RFA. A handful of people stay and discuss, the majority vote and leave. As for the 25 vote thing, Kmweber managed to get more than 30 votes in support of his ArbCom candidacy. I presume the 25 vote rule in the global policy was mainly meant to prevent a small group of people from taking control of such things on small wikis, its pretty meaningless here. Mr.Z-man 16:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * We're not going to appoint everyone who gets 25 or more votes, just the top three in a field of six. The 25-vote thing is just protection against a really low turn out. -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 19:47, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Will an arbitration committee member please explain this to me
I'm really tired of having this question be ignored. I've probably asked it half a dozen times in several places and been outright ignored or given a partial non-answer each time I've asked it: If ArbCom presents 2 CU candidates the community wants, and 3 they don't, why is it better to have 2 new checkusers that the community trusts and one that they don't rather than only having 2 new checkusers where the community trusts all of them? The only reason I can think of is that this system isn't about community trust at all, in which case its little more than a game. Mr.Z-man 16:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm hard pressed to see the issue here. What give you the impression that ArbCom will appoint wsomeone will little community support? -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 19:47, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, as has been said umpteen times before, the current process forces the community to choose as many people as ArbCom wants. Since only the support votes matter (and how much they matter is questionable), we have no idea what proportion of the community actually supports the candidate, since we only see the number that supports. We can hope that the all people who oppose make themselves heard in the discussion section, and that ArbCom actually reads it (my confidence that they will do so is decreasing rapidly). If say, 50 people support a candidate, we can't know if 50 people in total evaluated that candidate and all decided to support, or 500 people evaluated the candidate and only 10% support them. Every argument I've heard in support of this policy has been some form of a false dichotomy, that we can use this system where we're forced to choose a specific number of candidates regardless of how much we trust them, or we use the old system where the community isn't consulted, yet no one has been able to explain why those are the only 2 options. The process as it stands is little more than a (rather transparent) stunt to improve ArbCom's image by providing a token amount of "choice" to the community. The community gets to choose a number of people determined by ArbCom from a list of people chosen by ArbCom through a process designed by ArbCom that doesn't allow people to express disapproval in a meaningful way, and where ArbCom has the final say. Mr.Z-man 20:13, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The section entitled "Comments and questions" for each candidate is where you would write "I do not support User:Whoever because of A(link), B(link), and C (explanation)." It is a comment that all voters can read and consider. The comments and questions sections open before voting. Risker (talk) 20:43, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Will ArbCom consider the opinions left there (since they judge the consensus and have the final say)? So far the feeling I've gotten so far is that only the actual support votes count. Mr.Z-man 20:47, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * There is a human being at the other end of the voting process making human decisions - you're going to have to trust them to do the right thing.--Tznkai (talk) 14:26, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * My trust in ArbCom to do the right thing was low before this, its even lower now. And the aggressive responses by ArbCom clerks aren't helping at all. Mr.Z-man 18:01, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The issues being raised on this page are being addressed on-wiki by several arbitrators, and discussion is going on off-wiki as well. Please be patient. To those who object to discussion going on off-wiki, please note that several arbitrators have already partly contradicted themselves on this page already. Imagine how much worse it would be if 16 arbitrators were all here, all saying slightly different things. Please give us time to discuss among ourselves and assemble a coherent response. If you feel arbitration clerks are being aggressive, please check first whether they are acting as clerks or not. If they are acting in an official capacity, and you are still concerned, please e-mail the committee or talk to the clerk concerned by e-mail or on their talk page. Carcharoth (talk) 01:14, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Time frame?
When are we allowed to start asking questions of the candidates? Do we start now, or when the elections actually open? Tiptoety talk 05:36, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The initial 4-period runs from 6-9 Feb. The 10-day voting from 10-16 Feb. We're discussing about allowing questions now or not. This area may be the first part of the policy we need to clarify ;-)  — Rlevse • Talk  • 10:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd say that you can ask questions once they've posted their statement. Before, might scare people off :) -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 11:47, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Protected?
So, no questions or comments allowed from peons like me until voting actually starts? Thatcher 11:59, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, please unprotect now. Giggy (talk) 12:29, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Unless you want a madhouse, I'd suggest the questions wait until you and the candidates are ready. Not all have accepted yet, and I think it would be a bad idea to unprotect now (but remove Mzm's question for East718 though).  Syn  ergy 13:10, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I assumed the reason they were listed here is because they accepted the nomination (via email or something). Is this a bad assumption to make? Giggy (talk) 13:45, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah but that could have been, how long ago?  Syn  ergy 13:53, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * A day? Two? A week maybe?
 * I would hope arbcom didn't suck so much they were putting people who nominated themselves for this position years ago up, now. Please don't make it look like I have too much faith. Giggy (talk) 14:02, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If my own experience is anything to go by, some people are opening their talk page to find they've been nominated without prior approach from or to the committee, so you can indeed have faith. I for one am going to take a little time deciding how I wish to respond, so I'm delighted that the page remains protected for now, as I'd hate to see a barrage of objections to my candidature before I've even decided to be a candidate. --Dweller (talk) 14:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I also agree for this page not to be protected, especially for non-administrators in somewhat good standing like myself. Secret account 18:45, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Why would you need to edit it?  Syn  ergy 19:06, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Now using subpages
Just a note that if you still want to protect the voting pages before the election, you now need to either cascade or protect individual voting pages. -- lucasbfr  talk 09:17, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Standard for approval
Does arbcom plan on setting down in advance a standard for approval or just winging it? I think there needs to be a requirement that some percentage of those voting need to support a particular candidate in order for them to be selected. If, for instance, all six checkusers were to get around 40 votes and they were mostly disjoint sets (meaning, everyone only voted for one person), then I would interpret that to mean that every candidate is opposed by 200 people. Eliminating the duplication of support/oppose is not per se horrible, but it does necessitate adding the option for a "blank ballot" (vote against everyone) and looking at support totals in terms of the total number of votes cast. In other words, the community needs to have the option to say, "no, we reject all six of these", "no, we reject five of these six", or on the flip side, "we trust all of these users and approve all of them". But whatever the standard for approval is, it needs to be set in advance, not just made up on the fly. --B (talk) 13:53, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * From everything I've been told, "winging it" sounds about right. AFAICT, arbcom has pretty much made up their mind already and are just going to appoint the 3 with the most votes, as long as they have more than 25 in support. Mr.Z-man 16:25, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * They don't even need 25. That requirement is for wikis that directly elect their checkusers/oversighters.  Here Arbcom holds full authority to appoint people and the elections are purely advisory.  If the best candidate got 3 votes, they could appoint him or her.  (They could also close the elections on the last day, delete the pages, and appoint whomever they wish.  It would be extremely foolish to do so, but it is within their authority). Thatcher 16:49, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually when en.wikinews elected checkusers with fewer than 25 votes, Cary Bass invalidated that election. Mike R (talk) 18:54, 3 February 2009 (UTC) Rereading I realize you meant that candidates on this wiki don't even need 25 votes. Mike R (talk) 18:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thatcher is correct; technically, there is no Foundation requirement that a candidate receive 25 support votes, because there isn't a Foundation requirement for election of candidates in the first place. The WMF standard for non-appointed checkusers and oversighters seems like a reasonable place to start, however. Risker (talk) 19:02, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Reconfirmation
I believe current checkusers/oversights should be reconfirmed (maybe not in this election for those who have only been in for one or maybe two years, but it certainly shouldn't be a position automatically held for life). --Random832 (contribs) 14:40, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It isn't for life. The draft policy says "Please note that CheckUser and Oversight permissions will be subject to periodic review". -- R OGER D AVIES   talk 14:46, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, by who though?  Majorly  talk  16:21, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The Review Board!  Syn  ergy 17:02, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You mean the Review Boards. — CharlotteWebb 17:38, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No!  Syn  ergy 19:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * And The Review Board is a bad idea Secret account 18:46, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Just a quick question
Hi. As I don't want to read through all discussions, just a quick question: Is this intended to be a vote or a !vote? — <span style="border:1px solid #20406F;padding:1px 3px;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;"><font color="#20406F">Aitias  // discussion 16:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Voting is evil remember?  Majorly  talk  16:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Majorly, what about simply answering my question? :) — <span style="border:1px solid #20406F;padding:1px 3px;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;"><font color="#20406F">Aitias  // discussion 17:02, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Technically its neither, ArbCom is free to ignore this entirely and promote whomever they want. <font face="Broadway">Mr.Z-man 19:30, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

So, consensus is irrelevant now?
There are several things wrong here. First, the ArbCom doesn't create policy. Second, policy is made through discussion rather than voting. And third, turning a straw poll for "rough support" as a vote to make official policy is just misleading.

More importantly, the ArbCom simply isn't listening to dissenting remarks. The previous ArbCom was widely disliked because it got so out of touch with the community, so the new ArbCom isn't making a good start by ignoring people.

This is important because we've had arbiters in the past who strongly supported people like Kelly Martin or Essjay, who clearly did not have community trust. Approval voting makes it impossible to filter out such people. Simply put, '''ArbCom trust is not the same as community trust''', and therefore the community needs a way to potentially say "none of the above" to any batch of candidates.

On the vote page for this "policy", I count 16 people who object to approval voting, and only two who express liking it. The other 50+ people didn't opine either way. This indicates that, '''standard voting has a LOT more support than approval voting'''. Sure, the page has 71% support now; but with a slight change, support would skyrocket to 83%. While consensus isn't expressed in percentages, it is obvious that larger community support is a Good Thing. Of course, that is precisely why this issue needs debate rather than a binary vote.

As it stands, this page is just the ArbCom declaring by fiat that consensus doesn't matter. And that is just sad. <font color="#0000DD">&gt;<font color="#0066FF">R<font color="#0099FF">a<font color="#00CCFF">d<font color="#00EEFF">i a n t &lt;  17:32, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * A couple of initial thoughts, without a huge deal of development. This is not really new policy handed down by the AC, but the AC allowing a certain amount of community input into its process.  That seems legitimate to me; the poll is the Committee's request for community feedback on its plan for an internal process.  Secondly, if there was "RFA-style" voting, some (including myself) would undoubtedly oppose the proposal, so the percentages you cite are inaccurate.  [[Sam Korn ]] (smoddy) 17:40, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Like most issues, the Committee is divided similarly to Community about the best approach to use when giving the Community a voice in the selection of people with CU and OS access. The Committee discussed a variety of options with Approval Voting being the one that was compatible with the views of most of the Committee. Our discussion of ideas came first, then we voted to confirm the idea had a majority support by the Committee. The on site discussion was to allow the Community to express their views in order to double check that our idea was not out of line with the broader Community. We did not see anything surprising in the discussion that would cause us to change our plan. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 17:53, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * This is something of a conundrum in a lot of ways. A significant portion of the community has indicated that community input in Checkuser and Oversight appointments is highly desirable, and the Committee has taken this seriously. We're trying to find a middle ground between the "old" method of appointing with limited community consultation (or even no community consultation at all) and holding an RFA-like or ACE-like process; approval voting seems to be a reasonable compromise. It's still widely used in many parts of the world when multiple appointments are being made to a group or body; indeed, "oppose" voting is very rare in any appointee selection system. While I agree that consensus can change, it seemed to be quite in favour of approval voting when we put the proposal forward, and it is on that consensus that this current appointment process should proceed. All feedback on the process will be reviewed carefully and fine tuning made before we carry out the next round of appointments. Risker (talk) 18:19, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Did Essjay and Kelly really not have the community's trust at the time they received CU access? Kelly created RFCU and Essjay was the only one there for nearly a year. Hindsight is wonderful, but let's not engage in historical revisionism. Thatcher 21:24, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Complain complain. Here arbcom has really tried to do something the community wanted, CU/OS elecitons, and all most of you do is complain about it. Let's go back to the old way, it's simpler and easier. Arbcom should be commended for their efforts here.Sumoeagle179 (talk) 21:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Umm ... that's silly. That's the fallacy of the false dilemma.  The only options aren't "do things the old way" and "do things this way".  Some of us would prefer "do things a better way". --B (talk) 21:38, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No it's not what's silly is trying to alter this election right before it starts. They said they're open toward tweaks in future ones. Sumoeagle179 (talk) 21:40, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Then lets consider this discussion to be about future elections, and not the current one. --Conti|✉ 21:43, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Why? Isn't it a good idea to fix a problem while you can?  This voting method is unworkable and gives us absolutely ZERO information about whether or not these people have the support of the community.  We might as well just roll dice.  If candidate Alpha receives 25 votes and candidate Beta receives 30 votes, does that mean Beta has more community support?  Is it only that more people have heard of Beta?  Are there 500 people who think that both of them are horrible candidates who should be desysopped?  Unless or until you or arbcom can answer those three questions with something other than shut up and take it, this election should not happen with this method. --B (talk) 21:49, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Switching the voting method now would essentially be switching things up midstream - after a RFC with significant participation and the candidates accepted their nominations. It is isn't fair to betray those expectations.--Tznkai (talk) 00:51, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Midstream? Has voting started?  Until someone actually casts a vote, there's no reason whatsoever it can't be changed.  In the extremely unlikely event that a candidate doesn't want to stand for nomination if oppose votes are counted, then that's probably a good thing - they shouldn't stand for election.  This argument doesn't even make sense. --B (talk) 01:01, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Many of the people complaining here are some of the people who supported the proposal. Personally, I presumed that a poll with sections titled "broadly agree" and "broadly disagree" meant that ArbCom was just testing the waters so that we could have a real discussion and arrive at an ideal proposal if people liked, not that they were going to use the poll as a justification for taking the proposed terms verbatim and calling it policy after the discussion died. <font face="Broadway">Mr.Z-man 01:57, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Approval voting vs. Support/Oppose voting
I, for one, signed the "broadly agree" section of the poll because I indeed broadly agreed with the new policy/process. But that did not mean I agreed with every single detail, and I'd very much prefer being able to support and oppose here. So why not have a (non-binding) poll on just the voting method? --Conti|✉ 18:43, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If it is non-binding then why have the poll? Do you think you can even get a reasonable response in 53 hours, or do you want to delay the elections and the new appointments for yet more argument about process?  For me, this is one of the reasons wikipedia sucks.  No one has the authority to make a freaking decision and just get things done.  Debates about highway naming and date linking and notability of fictional characters that have gone on for years to no purpose.  Far better to say "Do it this way for now so we can actually write some encyclopedia articles, and we can fiddle with the details later" than to have endless debates about process.  Well, in this particular case, Arbcom does have the authority to say, "We're doing it this way and it starts now, so get to work."  Asking for community feedback is a huge step forward from the previous way of doing things.  Focus on that rather than on the fact that the procedure they are using to ask for feedback is not exactly what you want it to be. Thatcher 18:51, 3 February 2009 (UTC) (who is amazed articles ever get written at all)
 * "No one has the authority to make a freaking decision and just get things done. Debates about highway naming and date linking and notability of fictional characters that have gone on for years to no purpose." HERE HERESumoeagle179 (talk) 21:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I certainly don't want to delay the election, and I'm quite fine with it, whether approval voting is being used or not. But I'd like to find out what the community's preferred voting system is nonetheless. This poll is not supposed to stop the current election, or force ArbCom to change it. It is supposed to show ArbCom what the community thinks, and - if there is a strong support for Support/Oppose based voting - encourage them to change the future Checkuser and Oversight elections accordingly. And if there is support for approval voting instead.. Well, that's good to know, too! --Conti|✉ 19:12, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Deciding who gets access to sensitive, private data is the kind of thing we should be getting right the first time. <font face="Broadway">Mr.Z-man 21:53, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * To me, the appearance of the way this was done was that the whole thing was written in the background by ArbCom, and the details were all fleshed out in secret. Once they figured out what they wanted, they effectively sought a rubber stamp of approval from the community. The process itself demands that ArbCom chooses six people who they think might be okay, and demand that we elect three of them, regardless of how much we like them. I'm sorry, but that simply isn't good enough if you're serious about getting community input. The ArbCom should be promoting consensus decisionmaking, and that is done by, yes, endless wrangling, negotiation and compromise, not a rubber-stamp by the community of the decisions of an elite few. I would hope that the Arbitration Committee actually understands this definition of 'consensus decisionmaking', and are not slaves to the "If more than 80% of the community support it, it's consensus" principle that we seem to have adopted on Wikipedia. So I am thoroughly unimpressed by people who seem to think that "You're getting community input, now shut up and vote" is an acceptable response to questions about the process. If you were serious about community input, you would actually listen to the concerns being raised, and address them, rather than rely on the apathy of the masses to rubber-stamp the decision you made behind closed doors. Wikipedia may not be a democracy, but that certainly means that it is not a representative democracy. &mdash; Werdna  &bull;  talk  19:17, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I understand what you are saying here, Werdna. Something that isn't necessarily obvious, though, is that Arbcom decisions are not usually consensus-based. We are indeed working to bring more transparency into Arbcom-specific processes, more consensus-based decision-making within the committee itself in areas where majority voting (as we use in proposed decisions) isn't necessary, and we truly are listening. We asked for community input in many places when we put forth the proposal, and many people participated, more than is usual for a proposed process change. At this point, the project needs to supplement its cadres of oversighters and checkusers, and it falls squarely into the Committee's scope and responsibility to ensure that these needs are met. We've proposed a very different process than has been used before, that permits significantly more community input, and our proposal received broad endorsement. It's appropriate at this stage to try out the process and find out its strengths and weaknesses. Risker (talk) 19:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * To Risker; where did you receive this "broad endorsement"? As you know, I see a lot of the flameboards/high-traffic talk pages/policy-wonk discussions, and I only even found out this process existed through reading about it on Wikipedia Review. If you've announced it anywhere on-wiki, it's certainly nowhere I've noticed – and it looks pretty clear to me from the thread below that you have nothing remotely resembling "broad endorsement". IMO, this is a worse proposal than Jimbo drawing names from a hat, which would at least have the benefit of simplicity; this setup seems to me to include all the worst of the cabal mentality (with the whole "pre-approval" thing, including pre-approval of at least one candidate whom I wouldn't trust to count their ears and come up with the same answer twice), coupled with all the worst of the drama-flameout of an open vote. In case you haven't gathered, I agree with Werdna 100%. – <font color="#E45E05">iride <font color="#C1118C">scent  22:10, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree and would much rather see post-vetting with, much like arbcom elections themselves, anyone interested being permitted to stand for election. With the current process, there isn't necessarily even any feedback.  Several months back, when FT2 announced the review board and the checkuser elections, the announcement said to express your interest by email (I think Thatcher was the one that it said to email?)  I sent an email, but never heard anything.  Some sort of acknowledgment of your existence like "you are a nutjob and we don't want you" is better than nothing.  I am, as I'm sure are plenty of others, an engineer and more than technically competent to use the tools.  I know I could do a good job of it, but I seriously doubt that I would ever stand a chance of being elected or vetted.  Still, though, a requirement that arbcom (or the community via a vote) affirmatively reject my interest rather than just ignoring it would be a good thing, in my mind.  It wouldn't be the preferred outcome in my mind, but it's a more open process. --B (talk) 22:49, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * To answer iridescent's question, about where the proposal was advertised (to answer why iridescent wasn't aware of this earlier), one way to check (though I'd prefer all proposals had a section saying where they had been announced) is to check 'what links here' for the proposal page. Unfortunately, the "cent" template is put on some template that appears on AfD log pages, so there is rather a of noise there. But still, the places the proposal was advertised were as follows:
 * WT:ARBCOM - 8 January
 * WT:OVERSIGHT - 8 January
 * WT:CHECKUSER - 8 January
 * WP:AN - 8 January
 * Policy Village pump - 9 January
 * Template:Cent - 9 to 31 January
 * Signpost article (2009-01-10 issue)
 * Arbitration Committee Noticeboard announcement - 19 January
 * Signpost arbitration report (2009-01-24 issue)
 * Once closed, the proposal was mentioned again in at least the following places:
 * Signpost arbitration report (2009-01-31 issue)
 * Arbitration Committee Noticeboard announcement - 3 February
 * WP:AN announcement - 3 February
 * Some of those announcements were archived. Some are still there. Maybe the pages where the original announcement was archived could have benefitted from a follow-up announcement. Iridescent, if you can think of more places where such things could be advertised, can you please say so here? I think a watchlist notice announcement was considered, but only for the election, not the proposal stage. Maybe a watchlist notice would have been a good idea? If you (or anyone else) can think of any particular reason why you missed all the above announcements, could you say so here? Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 00:47, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that the proposal was as well announced as most anything we have. I think it's a bad idea to claim consensus for it, though, based soley on "broadly agree" or "broadly disagree".  All we really know is that most people who cared enough to opine think that the community should have a say in the appointments.  That's not an endorsement of this particular procedure or anything else.  Also, I think really important things (like this) need to be advertised on watchlists, but that's a separate issue. --B (talk) 00:55, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (re to Carcharoth) I personally think things like this, which potentially affect hundreds of people in real life, let alone on-wiki (and that's not hyperbole – look at the mess that's still being cleared up left behind by PoetTaxCatoCorn) need advertising on watchlists. I understand why we're reluctant to clog it up with multiple messages, but there's no other way to reach the majority even of active users, let alone the majority of occasional editors. ANI moves so fast that anything posted there will be archived away 24 hours later. AN and the Village Pump are such a mess that – unless one were to read the whole things top-to-toe every day – anything posted there will be swamped by the trolling drones. The majority don't read the Signpost (I strongly suspect even amongst those who subscribe to it); its impressive-looking circulation figures are artificially inflated by the fact that it continues to be delivered even to long-retired users; besides, to read the story one had to click a link labelled "News and notes: Flagged Revisions and permissions proposals, hoax, milestones", which couldn't be more offputting a title if it tried, and in any event the signpost story did not mention this whole "approval only" setup (just "The new Arbitration Committee has proposed a more open process for granting users the CheckUser and Oversight functions"). WT:ARBCOM, WT:CHECKUSER, WT:OVERSIGHT and the Arbcom Noticeboard are irrelevant, as (to be flippant but I think accurate) they're only read by the policy-wonk obsessives, Jimbo-fans and WR/ED dramamongers. That leaves just WP:CENT which is easily overlooked. As I see it, through no fault on your own part you've posted the notifications only at places frequented by those who like reading about the minutiae of Wikipedia policy changes, minor infighting and endless discussion of petty pagemove vandals; hence, your initial survey has disproportionate representation from those who spend a lot of time at policy pages and doesn't represent the broader community. Just look at the original poll and think of all the names you'd expect to be involved in a discussion like this who aren't there; no SandyGeorgia, no SlimVirgin, no Gurch, no Jennavecia (she hadn't retired at that time), no Giano, no Scott MacDonald, no Bishonen – hell, not even a Kohs or Moulton sock trolling. I don't know what you could have done differently other than a watchlist notice, but I do think "the elite" (let's avoid the C word) sometimes forgets the fact that the vast majority are only active in the mainspace and assorted talkpages, and only come to the flameboards as and when they need something specific. – <font color="#E45E05">iride <font color="#C1118C">scent  01:36, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Some very interesting points (if somewhat depressing). Should people make more of an effort to follow places where news like this is announced? Ultimately, if they miss the news, they have only themselves to blame, but if people really are missing stuff, Wikipedia as a whole needs to improve the way such information is organised and distributed. One way I find out about things is when they pop up on people's user talk pages as part of incidental conversation (effectively, a 'grape-vine' type of information spread). Maybe it is also a question of time - of allowing the news to grow and spread. A good start would be to actually follow a village pump or noticeboard for a while and help keep it organised. Sometimes giving up on them as news sources is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Carcharoth (talk) 02:21, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Prefer Approval voting

 * 1) This isn't a popularity contest, a straw poll, or a place for your shenanigans. This method insures no mudslinging and oppose pers (add invalid reason here). This is also the method chosen by those who wish to make the community more involved in this process. Oh, and this poll is evil.  Syn  ergy 19:13, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) Per Synergy's every word. (Voting, despite my distaste at the idea of the poll, only to avoid the impression that everyone is against this approach.)   [[Sam Korn ]] (smoddy) 19:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 3) Rjd0060 (talk) 19:37, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 4) Per Syn, who says it perfectly. Ideally this (and the AC elections) would use unseen blind voting on Special:Boardvote, to completely neutralize drama and popularity as a factor, and so that no lone voice(s) can derail the entire community. <span style="color:#0D670D; font-family:Georgia, Helvetica;">rootology  ( C )( T ) 20:20, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * But it isn't blind voting. If you use special:boardvote, then a non-vote is an oppose vote as you are essentially required to opine on everyone. But with this system, a non-vote is ambiguous - is it an abstention or is it opposition? --B (talk) 01:05, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I honestly don't disagree. For the ability to say No, I want to say Yes to the below proposal of the standard way we usually do things, but this is to me a different can of worms. These are users that are already vetted by the AC for these jobs--the AC could simply say in the next five minutes, "Here are ALL your new CU/OS staff," give them ALL the bits, and that would be the end of it. But they're throwing us a small bone here, to start presumably easing us towards picking our own CU/OS staff in an approaching future. The thing with the drama is this--these are users that are already presumably trustworthy to definitely the AC, and presumably to what is perceived as a "majority" of Wikipedia users, or they wouldn't even be up on this stage. I'm all for No voting, but a standard Support/Oppose with the stuff we often do on RFA/RFB/ACE would be a different thing here--what if someone had particularly scathing opposes, but still had an easy sailing through by percentage? There would inevitably be people that could then question in public the CU/OS work they do, forcing the other CU/OS staff to appear to be defending "their own", even if the call and decision by the person in question was spot on, and dead on. All that could be avoided, and give everyone the chance to say no, by using the Boardvote thing--that's why I started that section below. I don't think the Approval method is great by far, but I think in this case it's by far the lesser of two evils, since 1) we still get a say, 2) the AC09 seems willing to listen to us 3) they, again, don't even have to do this and could just flag all these users right now. <span style="color:#0D670D; font-family:Georgia, Helvetica;">rootology ( C )( T ) 02:05, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If there's a scathing oppose, it's better to hear about it now than six months down the line. If the community knows about it and approves the person anyway, then six months from now, when it is an issue, arbcom, the checkuser/oversighter, clerks, and anyone else can correctly point to this election and say - look this was known and they were approved anyway.  But if the issue isn't made public for six months, then it's only more ammo for opposing whatever action is being called into question. --B (talk) 02:12, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * True, and we're then back into lesser of evils territory. I don't think there is an answer that will work for everyone. Some people will be opposed to anything but a Pure discussion (whatever that is anymore), some will want RFA, some Approval, some a Pure vote... honestly, if it were up to me, I'd say a week or two of questions, and people can ask about any incidents, scathing or otherwise, in the past, then at least a couple days of digestion with no further comments (protect this page), and then a couple weeks of quiet Boardvoting. But I could be wrong. <span style="color:#0D670D; font-family:Georgia, Helvetica;">rootology ( C )( T ) 02:16, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Time for questioning before the start of voting would definitely be a good idea. --B (talk) 02:21, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 1)  --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 20:52, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) Synergy said it best. Peter <b style="color:#02b;">Symonds</b> ( talk ) 20:59, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 3) Didn't we already do this?  Tiptoety  talk 21:19, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 4) Didn't we already do this?Sumoeagle179 (talk) 21:30, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Prefer Support/Oppose based voting

 * 1) Per my comment above. --Conti|✉ 18:43, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) Agree with Conti Secret account 18:46, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 3) --MZMcBride (talk) 19:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 4)  Majorly  talk  19:11, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 5) Since no one has been able to give me a coherent, logical answer to any of my questions, and ArbCom has basically ignored me entirely. <font face="Broadway">Mr.Z-man 19:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 6) — <span style="border:1px solid #20406F;padding:1px 3px;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;"><font color="#20406F">Aitias   // discussion 19:36, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 7) A support-only vote reduces the system from a "popularity contest" to an "I recognize this person's name" contest. If User:A is trusted by 50 of the 53 people who are familiar with him or her, they would clearly be a more suitable candidate than User:B who is trusted by say 75 out of 300, but user B would still win as the 225 people who have reason to distrust User:B are less likely to counter by supporting someone they've never heard of. I don't remember who said during the last arbcom election that "strategic support" votes are even more petty than "strategic oppose", but I know they'd have a fit seeing this circus in the making. Speaking for myself I'll admit that the candidates I'm most familiar with are those which I would not trust to manage a Dairy Queen, but other than cross my fingers and pray for rain I can't do much about that. — CharlotteWebb 19:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC) P.S. If I hold the opinion that there is neither a vacancy to fill nor an urgency to appoint anyone, that the cloak-and-dagger access levels are already fully staffed and then some (a very reasonable position as there are already way too many suspects in the event of a wholesale data leak) should I be completely disenfranchised? — CharlotteWebb 19:53, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Wait, what are you trying to say? ;) --B (talk) 21:07, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) I am also one that went for "broadly agree" but doesn't mean I agree to every single word and letter of this process. Approval voting only shows how many people like that candidate. It hides how many people dislike that candidate. <font color="#0000FF">OhanaUnited  Talk page  20:17, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah but let's not conflate dislike with distrust, which is what this is really about. — CharlotteWebb 20:21, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed: we should be voting to see if we trust or distrust a user with additional userrights, not how much we like or dislike them. Acalamari 03:02, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) There is one candidate that I strongly oppose, who, in my single interaction with him, demonstrated a wholly inappropriate view of our BLP policy.  That he is an admin is bad enough and giving him oversight would be a horrible idea.  How exactly should I go about providing a diff if we don't even have oppose !votes? --B (talk) 21:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You'd put it in the discussion section...  [[Sam Korn ]] (smoddy) 21:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That begs the question, then what's the distinction? The section header? Instead of saying "oppose" it says "comments"? Stop being silly, please. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:24, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * But you said above that you agreed with Synergy that the reason for this method is "This method insures no mudslinging and oppose pers (add invalid reason here)." If I am permitted to add diffs of opposition to the comments section, how is that any different?  I could post "I oppose based on [diff] and ten other people could post "wow that sucks".  Why not have an oppose section and then you confine it all to one place?  Like it or not, the most meaningful question here (or on RFA for that matter) is, "is there anything wrong with this user that suggests giving them the bit would be a bad idea?".  If that "something wrong" is in a discussion section, it makes it too easy to be glossed over and too hard to be quantified.  Take my example above about an admin who re-added BLP-violating material to an article.  Maybe 90% of Wikipedia is up in arms about it and maybe nobody but me even cares.  Nobody knows unless you have an oppose section. --B (talk) 21:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (Reply to MZM and B) One allows sensible discussion with a chance to get facts straight before the vote opens, the other causes uncertainty, confusion and acrimony. Frankly, if there are serious problems, I hope the AC will step in and "unvet" candidates, as it were.   [[Sam Korn ]] (smoddy) 21:49, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The difference is that an oppose section would be facotred into the total vote count. Discussion sections, like the underused discussion sections in RFAs, can be entirely ignored when counting votes judging consensus. One would hope ArbCom would step in, but my confidence in AC's competence is waning fast. <font face="Broadway">Mr.Z-man 21:51, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * But not every problem that makes someone likely to be untrustable in the community's eyes is going to cause them to be "unvetted". For example, in this case, the admin reverted an article blanking where it had been blanked by an IP who was likely the subject.  The article was mostly unsourced attacks and should have been redacted or deleted.  His response was that blanking it was still vandalism and reverting it was appropriate.  I can't imagine Arbcom "unvetting" him for that, but maybe that's because I have no trust whatsoever in arbcom.  I can imagine, though, the community resoundly rejecting this individual's ability to properly enforce our policies.  Analogously, admins have to wheel war or delete the main page for arbcom to take notice and desysop them but that doesn't mean that everyone who doesn't wheel war or delete the main page is a good admin. --B (talk) 21:58, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * B. First, hello! How are you doing? I've had a cup of coffee and I'm here to tell you I understand your woes. Let me do my best to explain. In the comments section, instead of saying "greetings candidate, you failed, i have proof you failed, and heres why i am confident i cannnot support you" you nicely ask them to explain, in the form of a question. If said answer is not explained within reason, or valid rationale is bumpkis, I'm quite confident candidate x for oversight would get minimal support. The difference? Professional courtesy and kooth. Although I doubt Arb Com has overlooked you're example.  Syn  ergy 22:51, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) If everyone else gets to spit in the soup then so do I. Thatcher 21:26, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Right, but don't make us eat this soup.  Syn  ergy 22:49, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Yes. Whether or not arbcom has "pre-approved" these candidates, there is at least one who I wouldn't trust in the slightest. At present there's no way to do so. If we're concerned about "oppose" mudslinging, what's so wrong with a straightforward ballot with no comments at all? With all due respect etc etc, but it looks to me like the all-new arbcom has managed the amazing feat of coming up with a system more screwed up than anything the old arbcom managed. – <font color="#E45E05">iride <font color="#C1118C">scent  21:53, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * there is at least one who I wouldn't trust in the slightest. At present there's no way to do so. You're forgetting that you do this by simply not voting.  Syn  ergy 22:51, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * How do you distinguish a "non vote" as a lack of trust with a "non vote" because I've never heard of this person or a "non vote" because I have better things to do than look through the contributions of all 15 people? --B (talk) 22:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * In an approval voting method, you wouldn't have to worry about that... A non vote is a non vote. I think trying to calculate unknowns would be a waste of time, no?  Syn  ergy 23:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Just saying "I don't care" doesn't mean it isn't important. As has been stated here numerous times, just because two people have 25 "support" votes doesn't mean that the community trusts them both equally.  You can't wave a magic wand and make that concern go away.  Heck, as far as that goes, support-only voting with 15 names on the list is going to be grossly biased towards people at the top of the list.  It's just a fact of life - fewer people are even going to look at the last name on the list to make a decision about them.  That is a problem and deciding not to worry about it doesn't change the underlying reality. --B (talk) 23:12, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (ec) Nonsense. By that logic Giano would be a year into his three-year Arbcom term. "Lots of friends" isn't the same thing as "no opponents". An approval vote would only work if you only allowed three votes to be distributed amongst the candidates – otherwise there's no way to distinguish "I was too busy to read all this" from "None of the above". – <font color="#E45E05">iride <font color="#C1118C">scent  23:13, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) There might be one or two that we wouldn't trust the least bit. Support or Oppose is the only way to weed out the unqualified. No comment ballots could eliminate the "muddslinging" as Iridescent has pointed out.—Sandahl (talk) 23:02, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * We? :) <font color="GoldenRod">YellowMonkey  (<font color="#FA8605">click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model! ) 23:23, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * As in the collective we:)—Sandahl (talk) 23:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose voting has to be an option, otherwise someone can get in just be a very transparent campaign of publicity stunts etc, and the usual partisan stuff <font color="GoldenRod">YellowMonkey   (<font color="#FA8605">click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model! ) 23:23, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) I am always fascinated by people's phobia of the "drama" word and the ability they have to make irrational choices because of it. Evidence in the above section. Giggy (talk) 23:28, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Although if Wikipedia ran on the "only count the supports and ignore the opposes" basis we apparently now have "a broad consensus" for, you'd be in a rather different position about now… – <font color="#E45E05">iride <font color="#C1118C">scent  23:44, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'd be the best admin on Wikipedia by that logic. And thus my point about needing oppose voting is proven beyond doubt. QED. Giggy (talk) 12:15, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Per my views above. I'd rather prefer that we appoint a candidate who runs at 100-25 than one who would get 200-175. NuclearWarfare  ( Talk ) 23:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) I <3 our new ArbCom. It takes a talented group of people to make a change in order to minimize drama, only to get this instead. Bravo. seresin ( ¡? )  00:46, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I sincerely did not want to create any drama when I started this poll. I merely wanted to find out what people were thinking in regards to the voting method. In my opinion, ArbCom did a great job with getting the Checkuser and Oversight elections going, and this is just a (more or less) minor point that I'd like to see them do differently in the next election. --Conti|✉ 01:22, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Having 300 support votes is no good if 301 people also oppose that person having additional userrights. Acalamari 03:02, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) The voting method is my biggest concern with this election. Simple approval voting opens the floodgates for off-wiki canvassing and IRC cabalism. Last I checked, those are not good things. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 04:26, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 3) Yep -  A<font color="#FF7C0A">l<font color="#FFB550">is o n  ❤ 04:34, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 4) I believe it's important to see how many people oppose a candidate in addition to how many support. It definitely gives a better idea. -- vi5in [talk] 04:54, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 5) I fail to see the point in such an election if there aren't oppose voting sections. Skinny87 (talk) 10:47, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 6) Support/Oppose voting allows the best balance of editors being able to voice support for candidates, while keeping divisive or controversial candidates out. We don't want divisive or controversial candidates as checkusers or oversighters.  Lankiveil (speak to me) 10:55, 4 February 2009 (UTC).
 * 7) Yes. Input won't have meaning without nay votes. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:02, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 8) I would prefer to have some way to oppose candidates available, while saying that an election by approval voting is far better, in my view, than no election at all. Davewild (talk) 19:15, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Not concerned with the precise method but believes there must be a way to say "no to all"

 * 1) Whether there is support/oppose voting, or the ability to turn in a "blank ballot" and those who do not receive votes from some percentage (like 50% or 75%) are ineligible for selection, I'm not concerned.  But the process as it is is fundamentally flawed as there is no way to gauge from it whether or not there is actual community support for these people. --B (talk) 20:48, 3 February 2009 (UTC) Striking because I just realized how horrible not allowing opposes is.  MzMcBride is right, as usual. --B (talk) 21:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * There is a way, but it's comparative. Those with most votes have lots of community support while those who get few votes don't. -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 20:59, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Which Mr.Z-man has rather diplomatically been trying to tell you is a very stupid way to elect people to things. As I said elsewhere yesterday, I could find a healthy-sized number of Wikipedians to support killing my cat. And I don't even own a cat. But with 100,000 active users, it's trivial to find people to support nearly anything. Net votes in favor are a far better indicator than simple approval voting. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:03, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Let's look at the cat example. Give people a choice between killing your cat and free bags of gold, and I expect most of them will follow the money. To labour the point, cat = poor candidate; gold = good candidate.
 * You haven't demonstrated though how a net difference between two unrepresentative subsets (support/oppose) is any better than the net difference between n subsets (the total votes for each candidate).
 * The fact remains that there are numerous ways to skin a cat (your poor cat again) and there are strong for/against arguments for each of them. -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 21:34, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Except this is not a binary decision, the community has to choose, in this case, 3 of 6 people. Assuming there's at least one candidate that has community support, its like saying: Choose 2 of the following: get free money, get punched in the face, get kicked in the shins. Or, if there is no candidate the community wants (the "blank ballot" B mentioned), Choose 2 of the following: get punched in the face, get kicked in the shins, get your toes stomped on. <font face="Broadway">Mr.Z-man 21:51, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not compulsory to cast three votes though. If you only think two are up to it, vote for those two. If enough people agree, the other four won't make the minimum. However, even with oppose voting, you can still get huge gaps between the first two and next four, so I don't see this example is really appropriate. -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 22:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * So the only possible way to end up electing fewer people than ArbCom wants is for most of the candidates to be so terrible, unpopular, and unrecognized that almost no one votes for them? You don't see that as a potential flaw in the system? As CharlotteWebb and others said above, its basically a name recognition contest. You pick a bunch of well known admins and advertise the process in highly visible places, they're all going to get a fair amount of support votes, the problem is that we don't know what proportion of the community supports them, only that several people do. Yes you might get gaps with support/oppose, but the important thing isn't the number of supporters, its the proportion of supports to total voters. <font face="Broadway">Mr.Z-man 00:35, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) The issue is your logic. Look at past examples from this project. The one that came to mind first for me was Requests for adminship/Carnildo 3. Over 100 people voted in support, which would normally be a resounding success for an RfA, but not when you see that 71 people voted in opposition. When you don't allow people to vote in opposition (i.e., only allow approval voting), certain polarizing candidates can easily be elected. (Another good example would be Requests for adminship/Danny where there were 250 supports, but 118 in opposition. Imagine just looking at the support number. You'd get a widely skewed view of what actually happened.) --MZMcBride (talk) 21:52, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, the issue is that your logic and mine are different :) Otherwise, any voting system has flaws. The main problem with support/oppose is the attendant drama. If that could be eradicated, there'd be no problem with it. -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 22:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Secret ballot. Any comments take place on a dedicated discussion page or on the candidate's talkpage. It worked fine for the WMF trustee elections despite the potential flashpoint of Greg Kohs; it would certainly work here. And losing the whole pre-approval "here are the chosen ones, choose three; we know better than you" setup would be nice, too. – <font color="#E45E05">iride <font color="#C1118C">scent  22:51, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * So we prefer vague results over potential drama now, and we're using that process to see who gets access to private data as a test. <font face="Broadway">Mr.Z-man 02:54, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Vague results don't even stop the drama - at best, they postpone it. On the sliding scale of bad processes, the WORST option is for there to be a case where a person who has been affirmatively rejected by the community is in a position.  Every time that person takes any action that anyone disagrees with, they will be subjected to the "he/she shouldn't even be here" argument.  That's EXACTLY what would happen if you had a polarizing figure stand for selection under this process.  They would garner more supports than most anyone not named Brad or hailing from the state of New York, but they would also have quite an uproar in the discussion section.  At best, you just postpone the drama until they take a controversial action.  A secret ballot where you are required to make a decision about everyone or an RFA-like process where you can support OR oppose individuals are the only ways around it if you are going to have a community vote.  Not having a community vote is better than the currently proposed process. With all apologies to President Obama, change for the sake of change doesn't accomplish anything unless you are changing to a better process than you were using before. --B (talk) 03:21, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Recusing oneself

 * 1) Kingturtle (talk) 18:49, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 2)  MBisanz  talk 19:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 3) Dweller (talk) 20:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 4) Versa  geek  03:28, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Ralph Nader

 * 1) &mdash;harej   21:17, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) One (talk) 00:42, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 3)  J.delanoy <sup style="color:red;">gabs <sub style="color:blue;">adds  16:04, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Noting that the Committee retains complete jurisdiction over how these elections are run

 * 1) ...and hence this poll is somewhat of a petition and nothing like a binding "vote". Daniel (talk) 00:31, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If the poll shows overwhelming agreement that arbcom's chosen voting method is a bad one, then the voting method needs to be changed. Whether that involves arbcom stepping up to the plate and fixing it themselves or it involves someone being bold and adding oppose sections, I really don't care.  Simply having a vote by affirmation is dumb and is not at all an improvement over the process of Arbcom just picking whoever they want and not involving the community at all.  EVERY single phase of !voting on Wikipedia has support and oppose sections and there's no rational reason to not have it here.  On the other hand, there are multiple really good reasons that we should have oppose sections.  Sorry, but I don't buy the "arbcom says so" as a reason to do something that there is strong agreement is a dumb idea. --B (talk) 00:50, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If anyone adds oppose sections without the Committee's authorisation, I will revert it per the policy (Arbitration Committee/CheckUser and Oversight elections, "Election", point 5) which states that the Arbitration Clerks are to monitor the election for proper process. If anyone reverts me, I will revert them again and block them. Simple. Daniel (talk) 01:10, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Knock off the threats. (a) There's no need for them; and (b) you wouldn't be stupid enough to follow through with them. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:13, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If people are suggesting that disrupting the process is a defensible act per this poll, then yes, there is. And if you don't think I'll follow through with them, you're sadly mistaken. Daniel (talk) 01:15, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, you're suggesting a situation that I don't think is very likely because I think arbcom, for all its flaws, is at least intelligent enough to recognize this system is unworkable and, at the overwhelming request of the community, fix it. So I really don't expect this situation to ever happen.  It's the equivalent of asking, "if arbcom rules that the moon is made of green cheese and you revert their decision, I will block you."  Fine, but that isn't going to happen.  No arbiter, that I have seen, has even weighed in publicly.  Maybe they have privately discussed it - I have no idea - but they haven't said anything here.  So threatening blocks based on a situation that does not exist and is not overly likely to exist is just posturing.  If you were to follow through on such a threat, in the face of obvious consensus otherwise, you should be desysopped immediately, but again, I don't think it's going to actually come to that. --B (talk) 01:26, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It won't come to it if no-one disrupts the process as ArbCom have decided it will implemented. If they do disrupt it, then it will come it. Period. Daniel (talk) 01:31, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You are pointlessly posturing with your threat. This threat serves no purpose other than to squash discussion and create a chilling atmosphere. --B (talk) 01:38, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You are pointlessly posturing with your threat to disrupt the process by attempting to amend the Arbitration Committee's policy and process for this election without authorisation by the Committee, who have sole jurisdiction over the running of this election. It is not a community-run event. By all means, continue gaining support for the petition to change it, but it must be emphasised that community consensus cannot change the process used for this poll; it can only be used as a recommendation to be put to the Committee, who themselves can change it. Checkuser and oversight rights granting is in the sole jurisdiction of the Committee—or do you intend to dispute that, also? Daniel (talk) 01:41, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * There you go again, now you are putting words into my mouth. Of course Arbcom has sole approval over granting the rights.  If they wanted to have the candidates play a game of chess for the position, that's their discretion, but if they are going to create a community process and the community overwhelmingly requests a change in that process and there is no legal reason why the change cannot be accommodated, it should be implemented.  Not having oppose votes makes this process no more likely to reflect actual community consensus than a chess match. --B (talk) 01:50, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thou darest to question the wisdom of the ArbCom? <font face="Broadway">Mr.Z-man 01:44, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No, just of one clerk. Arbcom hasn't weighed in on the issue yet, so there is nothing to question as of yet.  If arbcom weighs in, then there will be something to question. --B (talk) 01:50, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) That's what I said when I started it. --Conti|✉ 00:32, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) But even non-binding, it serves a useful purpose if it stops Arbcom hiding behind a fig-leaf of "consensus" when consensus clearly doesn't exist. At least this way should one of their Anointed Ones screw up, they don't have the "don't blame us, this is the system you wanted" defense. – <font color="#E45E05">iride <font color="#C1118C">scent  00:44, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of whether or not the poll is binding, it would be a really good idea for ArbCom to listen to it

 * 1) Sometimes command decisions have to be made.  We all know that.  (Well, at those of us who live in the real world know that.)  But unless there's some overriding reason that oppose sections can't be used (which, none has been offered), ignoring the will of the community just for the sake of thumbing your nose is a bad idea. --B (talk) 00:58, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) This should be a given, shouldn't it? Giggy (talk) 12:20, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 3) I'm wondering if we're going to have a vote on the vote on who can be voted for anytime soon. Stifle (talk) 09:34, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Special:Boardvote
Would that be a better solution? My reason for supporting the Approval method is so that it doesn't become a public flame-fest, and nothing more than that. Would the opportunity to use a voting tool that let you vote No instead of just Yes but while skipping the public shaming bit be an acceptable middle to some people? <span style="color:#0D670D; font-family:Georgia, Helvetica;">rootology ( C )( T ) 01:43, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You mean would it be acceptable to the Arbitration Committee. Remember, despite the poll used as justification for calling this a community approved policy, the community has absolutely zero control over it. <font face="Broadway">Mr.Z-man 01:47, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, that goes without saying, since it's their process. I'm just glad the AC09 is starting to loosen the purse strings like this--it's a welcome start. But my question was basically, "Would having at least a private way to say No be an acceptable thing to the people opposed to Approval voting?" I think the AC--you ACers can correct me if I'm wrong--are principally looking to avoid this turning into the Khe San of Wikipedia politics. <span style="color:#0D670D; font-family:Georgia, Helvetica;">rootology ( C )( T ) 01:56, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * There's a private way to say no in the current system - if (extreme example) you had been harassed by a candidate and didn't want to bring it up publicly, I'm sure you could email arbcom. But that isn't the point.  The point is that you need one of two things: (a) all voters are required to opine on everyone or (b) oppose votes.  If you don't have one of those two things, then you don't have a vote - you just have unqualified trivia.  It's no more useful than knowing "my company sold 25 units last year".  If we are selling multi-million dollar software packages, we're in great shape.  If we are selling donuts, then we are filing for bankruptcy.  It's the same thing here.  "User XYZ got 25 votes".  If only 25 people voted, that's a lot.  If 250 people voted, that's not a lot.  Special:Boardvote works because you can be assumed to be casting a no vote on anyone you don't vote for.   (It's a bad assumption the longer the list gets, but with 15 people, it's not a horrible assumption.)  If you have oppose votes, then it's an explicit option.  But whatever it is, you have to qualify the number otherwise you just have trivia that tells you no more about the will of the community than if you had read tea leaves. --B (talk) 02:03, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Like I said above in my long reply, I don't disagree. If the AC asked me right now--"you choose, Approval Voting or Board User, pick one for everyone, $User," I'd pick Boardvote to skip the drama and shame factor. How about you? :) <span style="color:#0D670D; font-family:Georgia, Helvetica;">rootology ( C )( T ) 02:08, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * For a position of trust, I think it's important that there be an opportunity to sift through contributions and make known any problematic issues that there are. Whether that is done via an open discussion period, followed by a secret ballot vote or whether it is an open vote, I think is less of a concern. Just from looking at the names and going off of my poor memory, there are probably only two I wouldn't vote for and I have no problem supporting the other 13 as of now, but by the same token, if one of them has abused the privilege of adminship in some way that I don't know about it or have forgotten about, I would like to know about it rather than just voting.  For this particular concern, there's no advantage between having a discussion in advance of a secret vote vs just having open voting.  I really have no particular opinion between the two, except that there's pretty much zero chance of special:boardvote being dusted off and set up in the next 3 days. On the other hand, if we work really hard, I bet we could find a way to add Oppose sections. --B (talk) 05:45, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I personally have no problem at all with support/oppose voting and never have had. However, as a committee, we wished to avoid this election turning into the bear garden that we often see at RfA, with opposes on sometimes fatuous grounds. (Yes, there are fatuous supports too, but it's somehow not so harmful/hurtful.) My preferences would, in order: (i) secret suppose/oppose ballot; (ii) secret preference voting (1st, 2nd, 3rd choice etc); (iii) open support/oppose voting with no appended comments and heavily self-moderated discussion. -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 05:59, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * But we're not talking about 10-year-olds where not hurting their feelings is an overriding concern. I assume that at least with the checkusers, the foundation requires them to be adults, so we're dealing with people who hopefully reasonably mature here and can accept criticism.  That aside, the benefit of not hurting feelings is far outweighed by the problem of an affirmation vote not being a real vote.  If all we do is support and you can't tell the difference between an abstention and an opposition, then you don't have a vote - you have a set of 15 petitions. --B (talk) 06:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I've never understood the meme that holds that it's okay to be downright bloody rude to someone who is volunteering to devote time to helping the project doing (tedious) backroom tasks with special tools. I'm all for very vigorous questioning (read my comments above) but completely against mudslinging from whatever quarter. It's about basic civility. Perhaps, if we can move away from your delicate flower sub-text and onto the substantive issues, we might find common ground. -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 06:41, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Having a discussion and the opportunity for an oppose vote is not inherently rude, nor have I ever defended rudeness. --B (talk) 07:02, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * A discussion, even a frank and full one, has never, ever been off the menu. But, if this was a support/oppose vote, you'd help moderate the election to keep comments and discussion, civil, focused and relevant? -- R OGER D AVIES  talk
 * If the arbitration committee wishes for me to help to moderate such a discussion, I would be willing to do so. --B (talk) 14:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I would very much support this, yes. --Conti|✉ 01:51, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Unless I am missing something, Special:Boardvote was installed on this project specifically to support the WMF Board elections and is based on the Schulze method, designed to give a single winner. It's also designed to be externally audited and relatively non-transparent; English Wikipedia and the Arbitration Committee do not have funds to hire an independent overseer, and if we were simply to appoint an election monitoring panel, people would argue over that as well. The one advantage of Boardvote is the relative face-saving ability for a candidate who receives little support.  Risker (talk) 02:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it be possible to just get access to the results from a vote on it, and the AC look at the raw numbers? It was used like that in the past, I thought? Paging MediaWiki geeks? Also, the only reason I suggested it was exactly for the reason you mentioned--to not leave any nasty stains on the candidates via teh dramaz, which could spill over into their CU/OS work. <span style="color:#0D670D; font-family:Georgia, Helvetica;">rootology ( C )( T ) 02:22, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If I recall correctly, there was an earlier implementation of Special:Boardvote that was just a straight support/oppose tally, and was used for one (or two?) of the early ArbCom elections. Assuming that code is still around, the developers could presumably re-enable it. Kirill [pf] 03:00, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Are you saying that's an option for this election, for future elections, or is this just curiosity and nothing more? --B (talk) 03:23, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If oppose votes are going to be counted, it seems wise to hold a secret ballot as a way to avoid drama, fighting over votes, etc. If special:Boardvote requires an independent auditor, I'd volunteer to take part in that, assuming its not seen as presumptuous of me. Thatcher 16:08, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Checkuser and oversight should be given through a community vote like the other groups

 * 1) There is zero need for ArbCom to be involved at all, let alone be able to overrule the community. I guess it's hard to let go of power. (And yes, RfA has stupidly high standards and is a mess. But with checkuser and oversight, I consider that a feature, there are too many unelected people with access to them already) -- Gurch (talk) 12:46, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Do you genuinely think that qualifications to run CU investigations can be determined in an RFA-like process? Do you genuinely think that being "a mess" is a feature for OS and CU nominations?   [[Sam Korn ]] (smoddy) 13:16, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I can't speak for Gurch, but I think exactly that. CU/OS rights have far more potential to impact negatively both on people in real life and on Wikipedia; we want a process to be hard to pass, with a default position of "fail", in these circumstances. A user of such delicate sensibilities that they'll be upset should anyone oppose them is not someone I'd trust with sensitive personal data. Hell, at the top of this page as I type this is a link to the steward elections, which are an "RFA-like process" if ever I saw one, and for a position more sensitive than CU/OS. – <font color="#E45E05">iride <font color="#C1118C">scent  13:25, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hard to pass, yes, I agree. That is why I specifically quoted "a mess".  Steward elections are different because there is no body that has the detailed knowledge necessary to make the appointments.  Here, on this wiki, we do.  You have a walnut, and a choice between a sledgehammer and a nutcracker to open it.  By choosing the sledgehammer, you may open the nut, but you might not be able to eat it afterwards.  Do you really want inedible CheckUsers?   [[Sam Korn ]] (smoddy) 13:34, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Isn't the point that some of the current CheckUsers / Oversighters taste like shit, even though we used a nutcracker? --MZMcBride (talk) 13:37, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the answer is a new nutcracker?  [[Sam Korn ]] (smoddy) 13:40, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd say yes, it's better to get the right result through a messy process than a potentially wrong result through a backroom Arbcom stitch-up. Firstly, all these candidates have been through an RFA so they know what wading through flamepits is like; secondly and more importantly, I want applicants put under pressure; if they're going to snap under pressure better to know it now. Anyone with sensitive access rights like this is going to come under a stream of abuse from irate sockpuppeteers, angry BLP subjects and the attack sites; we really don't need a repeat of this incident at checkuser level. – <font color="#E45E05">iride <font color="#C1118C">scent  13:43, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Likewise, I have big worries this could be too easy to breeze through. My own take is, either arbcom should take all responsibility and name CUs by fiat (not the most helpful way, but at least it would be straightforward), or throw it open to an RfA-like election with thorough community input. I don't think this middling way can bring the most trustworthy and skilled editors to CU. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:51, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I very strongly believe you won't get the right results. If I did, I would agree with you.  (I was hoping that the AC would be vetting the candidates for more than technical suitability: that they are not makes me uncertain.  If the Committee believed that all these candidates are suitable but was simply asking the community which would be best, this is the right system.  As the Committee's vetting appears to be mainly on a technical level, I am less comfortable with a simple approval vote.)   [[Sam Korn ]] (smoddy) 13:58, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * What results do you expect we will get? Giggy (talk) 14:01, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Voting based on personality, not ability. (I don't refer to the personality traits that are an important part of CU work especially, but to "friend-making" skills, such as we have seen over the years at RFA.)  As I say, my opinion is contingent on the AC's doing a thorough job in vetting candidates.   [[Sam Korn ]] (smoddy) 14:12, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * TL;DR: The community cannot give CU/OS permissions, the WMF won't let us. Its a foundation policy that demands any community with an ArbCom, that the ArbCom serves as the gatekeeper.--Tznkai (talk) 14:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * [citation needed] --MZMcBride (talk) 14:23, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Checkuser--Tznkai (talk) 16:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikinews has an arbcom and also elects their Checkusers/Oversighters if I'm not mistaken. <span style="color:#0D670D; font-family:Georgia, Helvetica;">rootology ( C )( T ) 17:44, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That is not at all true, read the entire thing and stop misleading people:
 * On a wiki without an Arbitration Committee that meets the criterion above, or where the community prefers independent elections, two options are possible:...
 * Emphasis mine. It then goes into detail about requirements for an election. The statement that only ArbCom can give out CU is blatantly false. <font face="Broadway">Mr.Z-man 17:48, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, but… Since Arbcom this time round have specifically said they've only vetted on grounds of technical ability and not on trustworthiness, we need a community process to weed the candidates. I'm sure Grawp has the technical knowledge to operate the checkuser function but it doesn't mean I'd want him in the position. – <font color="#E45E05">iride <font color="#C1118C">scent  14:24, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, where did anyone say that the Committee has "only vetted on grounds of technical ability and not on trustworthiness"? That is certainly not the case. Risker (talk) 16:24, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * "ArbCom should pre-vet only for technical nous and skeletons in the cupboard that the community may not know about. (This is pretty much what has happened.) The community should then vet the list, via rigorous (but courteous) hustings, for trustworthiness and community support." – Roger Davies, in the section immediately below this (my emphasis). – <font color="#E45E05">iride <font color="#C1118C">scent  17:28, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The answer could just as well be to have the Committee do a job that extends beyond mere technical analysis...  [[Sam Korn ]] (smoddy) 14:27, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Why is the Foundation making such policies? Why do they even have anything official to say on the existence of an "arbitration committee" at all, given that it was Jimbo's idea (and one of his worse ones). At any rate, that's another excellent reason to get rid of ArbCom. Or at least have a word with the Foundation about overly intrusive policies -- Gurch (talk) 14:30, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I decline to answer the historical question posed, but the Foundation owns the server, owns Wikipedia, and has, as I understand it, the legal right to ban as all in the blink of an eye if it felt like it, never mind control over access to sensitive server data.--Tznkai (talk) 16:20, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The Foundation also owns the databases involved, and is legally responsible for any privacy breaches. Thus, they get to make the rules about who accesses the databases that contain information deemed private (in the case of Checkuser) and who gets to alter the databases for privacy reasons (in the case of Oversight). Risker (talk) 16:28, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If you read the whole policy, rather than just one paragraph of it, you'd see that it does allow elections even on a wiki with an ArbCom. <font face="Broadway">Mr.Z-man 17:48, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (ec) Meanwhile it's up to volunteer editors as to how much of their time they might donate to building those databases, given whatever policies and implementations WmF might have in sway. How these two mix together is the pith. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:48, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I've reread it and the conclusion I've come to is that the policy text is self contradictory - but if I read this right, the elections are self driven, advertised on policy pages/mls etc, and must reach consensus and/or 70% + approval rating.--Tznkai (talk)18:59, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

The AC's role -- questions for the Committee
I have been making some large assumptions about the role the AC and its members plan to take in this process. Two questions:


 * 1) What did the pre-vetting process involve? Technical competence?  Temperamental suitability for the job?  Other criteria?
 * 2) What role does the Committee intend to take once the discussion and/or voting has started? If facts come to light that would have prevented the Committee's approving the candidate, will the Committee step in?

[[Sam Korn ]] (smoddy) 21:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * My personal views:
 * (1) Arbitrators commented on candidates before during and after they answered a questionnaire. I don't believe the existence of a questionnaire is any secret or anything, and the actual questions asked are pretty much what you'd expect. The questionnaire mostly addressed technical competence, but only to a certain level - it also addressed other things. Knowledge of policy for one thing. Answers were variable enough that I'd personally change the questionnaire next time. Arbitrators effectively had a veto on the candidates. Arbitrators also commented based on personal knowledge of a candidate. For me personally, if I didn't know someone at all, I effectively passed and let other arbitrators raise objections if any. Not all arbitrators participated in the vetting. The big weakness, IMO, was a feeling of not knowing whether the 16 of us as a group knew enough about each candidate. That was why I (and others) felt community input was an important part of the process (quite apart from the principle of the thing). Effectively "are you aware of any problems with these candidates?"
 * (2) As far as I'm aware, the WMF retain ultimate veto over the appointments. If something of concern came to light, it is likely that either they or we would step in. Probably not until after the voting has finished.
 * As a general note, whether the best process should be to ask the community to complete and validate the vetting process (spotting things we might have missed), or whether the process should be ArbCom filtering out the unsuitable (or "not yet") candidates and then having the community decide from what's left, is the big question here I think. And if ArbCom should only be a "large pore" filter for those to be put forward for election, what standards should be applied? My personal hope is that the candidates we vetted are all excellent, and that the community will endorse that, plus spot things we missed. Carcharoth (talk) 01:51, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Where did the names of the candidates that you reviewed come from? (In other words, did arbiters nominate candidates themselves or did the candidates express an interest in the position and then were reviewed?) --B (talk) 01:55, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The current candidates (some of which have been under consideration for over a month - my first comment was on 26th December - some much more recent) were a mixture of names from last time and new names put forward. For exact details, I would suggest asking Rlevse or Roger Davies, as they fielded and processed most of the candidates. See also what I said here, and what Risker said below. Carcharoth (talk) 02:12, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * As a point of information, I've had nothing whatsoever to do with processing or pre-vetting candidates. -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 05:06, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Was that by your choice (ie, you were focused on other issues or didn't have an opinion), because it was done before you took office, or some other reason? In other words, I'm assuming that the process was at least open within arbcom, right? --B (talk) 05:33, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Of course, it was entirely open within ArbCom (why on earth should it be otherwise?). I had little involvement with pre-vetting because I was (and still am) very busy with other things. We are trying very hard to introduce deep and genuine reform right across the board and it is indescribably time-consuming. -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 05:43, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, I was reading too much into what you said. My bad. --B (talk) 05:46, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * To expand on Carcharoth's response, some additional factors considered were activity levels and availability. To respond to B, some candidates contacted the committee, some were recommended by third parties, and others were identified by current or former arbitrators as suitable candidates (some names had been gathered before the most recent Arbitration Committee appointments). Accepting referrals from a variety of sources was intended to help us identify a broader range of suitable candidates, and we have presented a candidate list that includes editors recommended by a wider forum than has previously been canvassed. Risker (talk) 02:07, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Follow up questions, regarding the above discussion: (1) If, through whatever process is used for voting, it becomes apparent that community does not approve of all or substantially all of the candidates, is that an acceptable outcome? In other words, if you have three slots, but five of the six candidates are resoundingly rejected by the community, what would arbcom's response be?  (2) Is Arbcom at all willing to consider adding an "oppose" section for the reasons enumerated above, namely that unless you have either an oppose section or you eliminate abstentions, you have no way of judging community opinion based on support votes alone? (in other words, 25/30 != 25/250) --B (talk) 02:31, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I have always favoured a bilateral process, with clearly defined roles. My personal view is – and always has been – that ArbCom should pre-vet only for technical nous and skeletons in the cupboard that the community may not know about. (This is pretty much what has happened.) The community should then vet the list, via rigorous (but courteous) hustings, for trustworthiness and community support. -- R OGER D AVIES  talk
 * I agree, that is how it should work, the problem then is simply the voting method, approval voting only establishes who is the most popular out of the group, it only works correctly under the assumption that all of the candidates are at least mostly acceptable to the community, which would mean ArbCom would also have to pre-vet for that. If they aren't going to do this, or think they aren't capable, there needs to be a way to express disapproval. <font face="Broadway">Mr.Z-man 17:58, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Start of voting
I suggest that the process does not open on Feb 6th as planned, as there's still some fairly fundamental discussion under way here. --Dweller (talk) 14:06, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree - rushing into it is only going to ensure maximum drama. The more I think about it, I would really like to have a question/review period before voting anyway. --B (talk) 14:37, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Previously voiced opinions
Not sure where in the conversation this is best injected, so this will have to do:previous community involvement--Tznkai (talk) 14:28, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * What's your point? --MZMcBride (talk) 14:29, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Nothing as such - some people took the opportunity to speak up earlier, and if they haven't commented here, their opinions should still matter. --Tznkai (talk) 14:32, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The important thing to keep in mind was that poll was mostly about broad agreement/disagreement. In other words, "do you agree with the proposal more than you disagree with it?"  It was not about, "is rule #7 of the election portion of the proposal a good idea?"  Of the 57 opining in favor, I count 13 who expressed a concern about some part of the proposal.  I don't think this poll could be used to justify any particular element, only that the community was generally supportive of voting on checkusers and oversighters. --B (talk) 14:35, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I linked without further comment precisely because I am not attempting to support one position more than the other. readers should draw their own conclusion.--Tznkai (talk) 16:01, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree, I, for one, did not think the poll was going to be used as a justification for taking the proposal verbatim and making it into a policy. I thought there would be a discussion, and the proposal would be tweaked, then there would be a vote on a final draft presented to the community, you know, like all the other policies are made. I guess that's what I get for trusting ArbCom to act with the community's interests in mind... <font face="Broadway">Mr.Z-man 17:51, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I supported in that previous discussion but based on the opinion that what was proposed was much better than the previous situation. What I was supporting there was the idea of arbcom pre-vetting candidates and then the community having the final say. I would prefer there be some method for opposing candidates as I have said above, but approval voting on a list of pre-vetted candidates is much superior than no election at all. Do not take my support there as a preference for approval voting over some method of being able to oppose candidates. Davewild (talk) 19:24, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Update
Please see here for an update on the voting to be used in this election. Candidates should also have an e-mail about this. Carcharoth (talk) 04:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yay, pretty happy with this; I recused myself from commenting, since my name is up for OS, but I think allowing support and opposition votes is a much better way to get the community's true opinion on a candidate. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 07:27, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you. You guys rock. :) --Conti|✉ 11:59, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Self-proposal
Just out of interest, when/where were people invited to apply for pre-vetting? Stifle (talk) 09:35, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I didn't have much to do with it but I understand that the current list of candidates has been built up by various means over the last six months and were all recontacted recently. From now on, the idea is to hold regular elections with regular requests for candidates to step up. -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 09:50, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Is the intention to have elections whether or not there is a need, then?  [[Sam Korn ]] (smoddy) 09:52, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * [chuckle] I guess the answer is we could always use more :-) (And regular could mean "once a decade, very decade"!) -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 10:07, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think "once a decade" would be too often -- but it is quite possible, in my opinion, that "once a year" would be too frequent, especially if we are considering three new CUs a year. (In terms of OS, I agree that more is probably better, but even then...)  It seems to me that there should be a genuine assessment of need, rather than an automatic "it's February so it's checkuser election time" (best US TV announcer voice).   [[Sam Korn ]] (smoddy) 10:23, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed, it depends on loads of factors but elections should primarily driven by our ability to complete OS and CU tasks reasonably quickly. OS requests, for instance, get turned round very quickly at the moment but that will probably change when the summer holiday arrive and (a) more requests come in and (b) there are fewer people to deal with them. -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 10:35, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The problem with any small number of users is that, if just one or two are taken out of commission (one is on a trip with their family, another is sick), that represents a significant drop in manpower. Oversight is something we definitely don't want to have diminished efficiency on, and additional Checkusers are always in need as well. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 18:46, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Sam, you said "once a year would be too frequent", but the problem is counting this one, we have two within the one year timespan. <font color="#0000FF">OhanaUnited  Talk page  14:26, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that adding six new CUs in six months is overkill, even allowing for the lessening of the activity of some other CUs.  [[Sam Korn ]] (smoddy) 14:31, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see this constant need for new checkusers, EVula. This may be affected by the fact that I did far less as a CU than I could have done -- no small part of the problem was that no-one asked me!  FWIW, I agree that the more OSers we have, the better, though.   [[Sam Korn ]] (smoddy) 14:31, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Election procedures and Arbitration Committee Clerks
Per:"ArbCom clerks will monitor the election for decorum and proper process" from the applicable policy, the Arbitration Committee clerks will be responsible for maintaining decorum and overseeing the boring parts of the election. Some of the clerks are up for elections, and have recused themselves from that duty, or may recuse for other reasons.

Some clarification up front:

Voter eligibility
 * "Any unbanned editor who has made at least 150 mainspace edits by the first day of the calendar month before the election may vote." In this case, Anyone who has 150 mainspace edits by January 1 2009, 0:00 UTC and is not an arbitrator, or who has been an arbitrator in the past 12 months, is eligible to vote. Ineligible votes will be indented. Votes by confirmed sockpuppets will be struck and/or removed.

Decorum
 * Emotions often to run hot during an election. Thats ok, but it is expected you will do your best to maintain a civil tone while participating in the election. In addition, please keep your comments, questions, and votes brief as a courtesy to your fellow voters. If your complaint cannot be said briefly, it should be placed on a user subpage, or a email sent to Arbcom-I

Comments
 * Editors in good standing, including those ineligible to vote, are given free rein to make brief comments in the appropriate section. Comments from banned and sockpuppet editors will be removed.

Recused clerks
 * These clerks are not available to clerk the election.


 * User:Mailer diablo
 * User:MBisanz
 * User:Tiptoety

Editnotice
I hacked together an editnotice for the main voting page: MediaWiki:Editnotice-4-Arbitration Committee-CheckUser and Oversight elections-February 2009. It should only show above the edit screen for the main voting page. Please prettify it. :-) Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:32, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Comments clean up?
I thought Comments were not allowed in the voting section or did I get it wrong? If no, could the official clerks in charge of this do clean up and get that edit notice live? <span style="color:#0D670D; font-family:Georgia, Helvetica;">rootology ( C )( T ) 02:09, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The clerks have been alerted. thanks, -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 02:30, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * You may want to use the editnotice to make it known to users more clearly, simply use:

<font color="#000080">Cenarium <font color="#000090"> (Talk) 10:08, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Every election has one...
User:ST47/CUOS 2009 - The obligatory statistics chart. Kylu (talk) 02:42, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Sortable summary table?
Is there a mark-up wonk willing to make a sortable summary table similar to the one we had for the arbitration election? The page is really long and I confess my feeble brain just isn't coping with the up and down to see where there is strong support or sway toward approval or not. -- <u style="font-size:14px; font-family: cursive;color:#fe2c96">Banj<font color="#FF4400">e <u style="font-size:14px;font-family: Zapfino, sans-serif;color:#FF0066">b oi 10:59, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Lol! Whoops, forgot to look up. -- <u style="font-size:14px; font-family: cursive;color:#fe2c96">Banj<font color="#FF4400">e <u style="font-size:14px;font-family: Zapfino, sans-serif;color:#FF0066">b oi  11:00, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Voter eligibility
If your vote has been invalidated improperly please leave a note here. If you have discovered that a voter is ineligible, please report it here--Tznkai (talk) 15:21, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * User:thegroove appears ineligible but is in fact eligible (alternate account of User:Naerii)
 * User:RoscoHead does not appear to have 150 mainspace edits. I have stricken his support of me. I do not believe he has voted for or against any other candidates. ++Lar: t/c 01:33, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 315 voters' eligibility checked as of 0:00 UTC--Tznkai (talk) 00:05, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well done. Thank you very much for this, and all your other kind help during the election. -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 00:04, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Blanket oppose
I oppose all checkusers that are not verifiably publicly identified and/or do not live in New York or Florida (more information available on email request, suffice it to say for all the lawyers in the house "diversity jurisdiction "). I apologize to all of the candidates, but they may or may not live in New York or Florida and are not identified to me. Nothing personal. Hipocrite (talk) 15:59, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm struggling to understand the article, so I'm less than likely to understand its relevance here - can you explain? --Dweller (talk) 12:47, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I live in New York. The foundation is in Florida. If a checkuser were located in a third jurisdiction, and I were sued in state courts in either Florida or New York (it would be difficult to sue me in a different jurisdiction), the state court would be not able to exert jurisdiction over the checkuser or the foundation without having to jump through a bunch of hoops. My blanket opposes are only relevent because the foundation has not stated that checkusers are agents of the foundation. If they were, this would not be a concern. Hipocrite (talk) 13:25, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I'm being dense here but I'm having a hard time imagining a situation which could lead to you being sued and you wanting to enjoin a checkuser. Or have I misunderstood? -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 23:36, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with comments elsewhere on this page opining that public identification is irrelevant. There has never been any showing that there is a difference in the quality of performance of administrators, arbitrators, checkusers, or anyone else based on whether their names are public knowledge or not. (Checkusers and oversighters do, of course, have to identify themselves to the Foundation.)
 * Your jurisdictional hypothetical does not make much sense to me as a lawyer. In your scenario, if you are sued in state court (and do not remove the case to federal court if the situation permits), and bring on a third-party claim, then that claim will remain in state court in any event. Federal jurisdiction generally is not affected (either created or destroyed) by the presence or absence of an impleaded third-party defendant. In any event, what you seem to want is that we select checkusers who would be geographically convenient for you to file a claim against. Needless to say, if every voter thought of that as a sensible voting criterion, we would select no checkusers at all. All this, of course, is quite apart from the fact that checkusership does not create a basis for suing someone. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:04, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Blanket support
I think that blankets are great, especially those comfy soft ones. No apologies needed or necessary. JBsupreme (talk) 16:14, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Wholeheartedly agree. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:25, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Why...
can't I add myself?  Raiku  Lucifer   Samiyaza  00:51, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Please actually read pages before you place nominations on them. --Deskana (talk) 00:53, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The page is for nominations approved by ArbCom only. And besides, according to your userpage you're in the sixth grade. You need to be 18 or older to have this right. Sorry.  Majorly  talk  01:00, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Offwiki spam
I have received an e-mail from someone called Pyrrhus Frey asking me to vote against East718 and MBisanz. I doubt I was the only one to get that; could someone direct me to any eventual discussion with more developments on this matter? Thanks. <font style="color: #082567">Hús ö <font style="color: #082567">nd  17:41, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for advising of this, Husond. There may be a discussion on-wiki in the future, but none that I am aware of at this time.  Risker (talk) 18:45, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Real names
I'm pleased that the community is finally being permitted the opportunity to select checkusers and oversighters, but, at the risk of being a bit of a wet blanket, I will say that I'm somewhat disappointed that hardly anybody is running for access to these functions that require trust, integrity, and reliability under their own real names.

Checkusers and oversighters should, in my opinion, be accountable to both the community and to the public, and they should be mature enough to safely use their real names as their account names. – Thomas H. Larsen 09:03, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Almost half of the Oversight candidates are identified using their real name, however trust, integrity, and reliability can still be found in people who use an alias. Accountability is more easily obtained when contributors use their real names, but so is undeserved retribution.  Accountability is a responsibility of Arbcom, which we have proposed should be delegated to a Review Board in order that there is enough people power to ensure that the tools are used appropriately.  I know there are concerns within the community that the arbitration committee has not previously been tough on misuse, and I cant say for certain that this committee will be much better, but golly gosh I am going to try, and I have high hopes that others are on the same page too. (just me speaking) John Vandenberg (chat) 12:55, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * If oversighters and checkusers are accountable only to the Arbitration Committee and the Review Board, I'm rather disappointed. These people ask for access to functions requiring a high degree of trustworthiness and integrity, and they are unwilling to accept accountability to the wider community by making their real identities known. As for undeserved retribution, judges make rulings and are identified by their own real names—surely, they are far more susceptible to retribution, even dangerous retribution? Yet the law, in real life, recognises that people should be accountable for actions they make that widely affect others in society. I don't see why Wikipedia should be any different in this regard. – Thomas H. Larsen 23:16, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Why do you care so much Thomas? It's not like you're in the slightest bit interested in writing the encyclopedia. I couldn't care less if the user used their real name or not. There is a lot that goes on with such roles, that you obviously don't know about, that some candidates may not feel safe using their real names. Not because they're embarrassed by their edits here, or that they have something to hide, but because of fear from real life stalkers.  Majorly   talk  23:31, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * is a better link. Actually, in the past I was actively involved in maintaining and improving articles. Now, I feel that my best contributions to the project are those that attempt to turn it from certain destruction.


 * The "fear from real life stalkers" argument personally does not hold water with me, as I demonstrated in the post you replied to. Can you provide me with a couple of examples where somebody has actively been harassed in real life because they revealed their real identity on Wikipedia?


 * Your argument would be stronger if you could demonstrate:


 * that members of the Citizendium community are harassed because they make their real identities known;
 * that judges in real life are harassed because they make their real identities known, and, if they are, why they are still required to reveal their identities. – Thomas H. Larsen 23:42, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * No you weren't. Lack of article work was one of the reasons your RFAs failed. It's interesting you think you're saving Wikipedia from "certain destruction" - mind providing some proof that CUs not giving their real names on wiki is going to destroy it?


 * No, I will not. Not that I cannot; I am not going to post cases of such incidents on here. That you don't know about them is your loss, and proof you don't know what you're talking about.


 * This is not Citizendium. I do not edit there, and never will. So obviously I have no idea about what goes on there.


 * I have no idea why judges come into play here. Wikipedia is not a court of law...


 * It seems to me, Thomas, or Yuser, that ever since you failed your second RFA (rather badly if I recall), you've barely touched the project, only to comment here and there about how you think it's failing. Your own fork, Epistemia, is a failure by my reckoning. I have yet to see one good reason why any such position on here should require one to reveal their real name (this is of course except for the board members of the Wikimedia foundation, and any others required by law).  Majorly  talk  23:55, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm unwilling to dig up the past here, but I will say, for the record, that the main reason my RfA failed (in early 2007, by the way—nearly two years ago) was because I struck an oppose vote that had been added to the RfA page before I had accepted the nomination. That's all I'm going to say about it.


 * If you think Epistemia is a failure, that is your choice, and you are free to make it.


 * You are unwilling to give examples of incidents of harassment, and you don't know anything about Citizendium by your own admission. Perhaps, then, you should familiarise yourself with Citizendium and contemplate the question of accountability of authority.


 * I use judges as an example to demonstrate how people who actually make real-life decisions that may anger some people very much still accept accountability for their actions. I don't see, therefore, why checkusers and oversighters are so fearful of revealing their identities on an Internet project.


 * We're going to get nowhere arguing like this; I suggest that we agree to differ and move along. – Thomas H. Larsen 00:04, 13 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I would actually disagree that that is why your RFA failed. The struck oppose was just the most recent incident to cite, but it really wasn't why that one failed. I know there were many people at that time who were deeply concerned by the prospective of your RfA. Thomas, if you seriously have to ask for "examples where somebody has actively been harassed in real life because they revealed their real identity on Wikipedia" you are so far out-of-touch that you really shouldn't be commenting on meta-level issues until you've bothered to actual find out the facts. Most people who self-identify publicly no doubt have no problems at all but the reality is a not insignificant number of people have had problems, ranging from someone looking them up in the phonebook and calling them at home wanting to discuss edits or some Wikipedia dispute or issue, to Wikistalkers showing up at people's workplace, wanting to meet them face-face, trying to get them sacked and even contacting their elderly parents and other relatives. People have had to go to the police and FBI because of real life harassment and stalking as a direct result of self-identifying on Wikipedia. I'm rather shocked that you would be so dismissive of this issue and suggest it is not really a problem. As someone who has always been very open about my own identity, I now actively discourage people from publicly self-identifying on this project. It's a great ideal and I would love it if people could freely edit under their real names and it certainly tends to make you more conscious of what you say and do when you do so under your real name, however, the reality is that risk of stalking and harassment is very real, such that the account creation page now warns new users: "editors who use their real names have sometimes been subjected to harassment." Checkusers in particular are on the frontline in dealing with the types of people likely to escalate things off-site and so I have absolutely no problem with Checkusers and Oversighters only identifying to the Foundation. Are you suggesting that judges do not get harassed or otherwise targeted due to cases they've been involved in? If so, please do some actual research because there's been plenty of instances of judges and their families being stalked and harassed, murdered or assaulted due to their job. See for example, Darren Mack, who murdered Judge Chuck Weller, the Family Court judge handling his divorce. See also: Richard J. Daronco, Robert Smith Vance, and Charles_Harrelson. You might also recall Joan Lefkow as her case received a fair bit of publicity in Australia.
 * Seriously, dude, looking at your contributions, you seem to only come back here to tell everyone how we should be doing things or to condemn Jimmy for being a "dictator" and it's rather difficult to put much weight into your views when you don't otherwise contribute and appear to be rather hypocritical. When looking at what I understand is your own ideal version of a wiki encyclopedia, I noticed you went on a power-grab yourself, so far as to self-assigning yourself to what appears to be your version of ArbCom which you otherwise designed as community elected positions. And I recall similar attempts here when you tried to assign yourself Godlike power over your "Reviewing Board" etc. On 23 August you wrote to Jimbo: "It's time that dictators (pardon me) like you stop claiming power over the community, project, and project's content." I don't mean to be rude, but it might be an idea to consider your own house.
 * Comparing Wikipedia to Citizendium and whether Cz administrators have had trouble with stalkers is quite ridiculous. If Wikipedia turned off anonymous contributions and required all editors edit under their real names, you might have a point but otherwise your comparison is not valid. Also, you wrote in your opening comment: "they should be mature enough to safely use their real names as their account names". I find it very strange that you would connect maturity to use of real names in this way. The issue of being able to "safely use their real names" has nothing whatsoever to do with maturity of the CU (or whatever). Once you've self identified publicly, that information is out there forever and it's actually the maturity of *other people* - the people who know your personal information - that you're relying on. I would really urge you to rethink your positions on these issues and at least do some research as they don't seem well thought through or grounded in reality. I understand you think you're trying to save Wikipedia "from certain destruction", but I think that is better left in the hands of the community that is actually building it. Sarah 01:46, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thomas, considering reading this article: "While murder is rare, threats against judges are more common. The U.S. Marshal's Service, which provides security for 2,000 federal judges, says there are about 700 threats to federal jurists per year. Currently there are about 20 federal judges or prosecutors under protection, about a dozen round-the-clock, said spokeswoman Mavis Dezulovich. The federal budget for judicial protection is about $486-million annually." Sarah 01:50, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * that judges *in real life* are harassed because they make their real identities known - Why, of course. - Mailer Diablo 22:08, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Requiring all candidates to rename their accounts ("use their real names as their account names") is a ludicrous requirement. My real name is already linked to my username in tons of places (hell, you can even fire up the credits to Escape Velocity: Nova), and I've identified myself to the Wikimedia Foundation, but saying that I must use my real name? No. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 23:45, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I didn't say, though, that everybody should be required to use their real names as their account names when applying for trusted functions. (I'd personally be in favour of this, actually, but that is irrelevant here.) What I did say was that I was somewhat disappointed that hardly anyone is applying under their own real names. – Thomas H. Larsen 23:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Why are you disappointed? What exactly would a "real name" make as a difference?  Majorly  talk  23:55, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * If candidates used their real names:


 * they would demonstrate that are willing to accept accountability to the public and to the community.
 * they would be accountable to the public and to the community. – Thomas H. Larsen 23:57, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * No it wouldn't. I could use my real name, but not be accountable. It's a name, so what. Please explain how the working of Checkuser would be vastly improved if users put a "real name" on their userpage. I'm intrigued.  Majorly  talk  23:59, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, let's put it this way. If somebody misuses checkuser and places somebody's private information on a blog, they can be sued by the victim if the abusive checkuser's identity is out in the open. Is that simple enough? (That's just an example, by the way, and wouldn't actually occur except in very unusual, rare circumstances, I'm sure.) It's also been proven that people are more polite when they are accountable for what they write and do. I doubt checkuser is an exception to that principle. – Thomas H. Larsen 00:06, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think there would be some degree of correlation here in the example you gave. People who summarily waive their own right to privacy often have difficulty wrapping their mind around other people's expectation that their private information to remain absolutely private, full stop. — CharlotteWebb 03:45, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Its about power. CheckUsers have an asymmetric amount of power over other users, or at least appear to. They get to have information that you don't. By having their name, people feel that playing field is leveled - perhaps even tilted back. Having someone's name in this age gives you the ability to mess with their lives, to find their families, to violate their sense of security and normalcy. Which is exactly why people are reluctant to give it. Remember too, that there are many more anonymous readers than there are community members - giving your name can expose yourself not just to Wikipedians who risk their own reputations that they may care about, but you expose yourself to many others who don't. There is a reason we talk a lot about "trust" when talking about permissions.--Tznkai (talk) 13:13, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That example works well if the CU abuses their power to "get" someone in the real world. It goes both ways though, and giving a disgruntled vandal "the ability to mess with their [The CU's] lives, to find their families, to violate their sense of security and normalcy" is a horrible idea. If the CU does something illegal with their power in the real world, I'm sure the foundation would cooperate with LEA's. Arakunem Talk 14:27, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Judges tend to be paid big salaries (which can make up for all kinds of fuss). Judges also have the full weight of helpful magistrates with police powers behind them. On Wikipedia, users who harass unpaid volunteers often hide behind anonymous socks (which by my understanding doesn't happen much, if ever, at Citizendium). Moreover, the harassment is often not illegal, or on the edge of legality and can be expensive to track down and stop. So long as the WmF knows the identity of a CU, I have few meaningful worries about a CU behind a screen name who has already earned community trust through their contribution history. Gwen Gale (talk) 00:07, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Judges also tend to have paid bodyguards.--Tznkai (talk) 00:58, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, also, they tend to make genuinely Life and Death decisions.--Tznkai (talk) 01:01, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Like how to handle ethnic PoV and strife at Hummus. Gwen Gale (talk) 01:05, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

← Thanks for your responses, folks. Obviously, there is a need to appropriately balance the interests of privacy and security with the interests of accountability. My personal argument, though (and, for the record, I do not pass it off as a total, absolute blanket rule that must be followed at all costs) is that accountability to the community and to the public is more important than the very remote risk of off-wiki harassment, whether that harassment is based in real life or not.

Honestly, the amount of FUD that is thrown around whenever somebody on Wikipedia suggests that people in positions of significant trust using real names might actually be a good idea. The major issue with pseudonymous environments is that they promote a sense of two worlds, a "real-life world" and an "online world". For some reason, the rules and standards of each have to be entirely different. That isn't a logical conclusion, and it's a dangerous distinction to make. – Thomas H. Larsen 04:46, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


 * There are many worlds, Thomas. This isn't about people on the internet being inherently more dangerous than in real-life, it's about the unprecedented massive level of interaction where one is almost guaranteed to incur the wrath of at least a few mentally unstable people with seemingly infinite resources, given enough time. Depending on what kind of vendettas they prefer, lawsuits like you said are a real concern. Or depending on how tweaked they are an eye-for-eye approach like "you kill my socks, I kill your kids" could be more appealing.
 * Would you tell your co-workers (or classmates perhaps, you look really young) where you live? I wouldn't. If they ask I'll point in the opposite direction and make something up. The only reason for anyone at work to ask you that would be if they issue paychecks and W-2 forms by mail (rather than hand-to-hand), but in that case one should use a P.O. box to keep thieves and rainwater out. I've noticed over the last ten years or so retail companies (at every place I shop) have been either abandoning the use of name-tags, or changing them from full name to first name only, or from given names to obvious pet names. Wal-Mart or Freddy's or Piggly Wiggly will allow this not because they are against accountability, it's because they don't want to be held liable for damages arising from involuntary use of real names.
 * Most of us wouldn't want internet trolls showing up at our homes or offices any more than we'd want our bosses or the crackheads across the street to bother us on the internet. — CharlotteWebb 09:02, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
 * But, Charlotte, the fact that you might "make something up" exemplifies what I'm worried about: the fact that people are willing to lie about who they are. Personally, I do not support the disclosure of one's home address on the Internet, and I think that nearly everybody who widely uses their real name on the Internet would at least not disagree with me on this. There's obviously a difference between one's home address and one's real name, and the associated dangers of revealing these pieces of information to the public, though. If asked by a co-worker what your real name was, would you give them a pseudonym or (worse) a fake real-looking name? I doubt it. I certainly wouldn't. – Thomas H. Larsen 06:02, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I am obviously not participating to the debate here, but this might be a question you should ask directly to the candidates Thomas. -- lucasbfr  talk 10:14, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

As for why a pseudonym is handy, I'd like to point out that I have received phone calls at my office by someone wanting to discuss Wikipedia-related matters. I can tell you for a fact that it freaked me out; there was nothing stopping them from walking in the front door if they wanted. (I now work from home, and we have no central office; at most, they can call me at work still, but they can only show up at PO Box) Obviously, the use of a pseudonym doesn't stop someone that really wanted to get in touch with me (nevermind the fact that he could have emailed me... seriously, it was creepy as hell), but it's a nice little barrier than can keep the crazies at arm's length. ;) EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 01:05, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thomas, I think you and I have two different outlooks on the use of pseudonyms. You're seeing Username and Real Name as two opposing sides of a coin; I see just the coin, with the names being interchangeable representations of the same person (the same as a person can identified by their name, picture, or Social Security number; all are merely different forms of identifying the same person). I am both Eric and EVula; they are ultimately one person. Eric's actions have repercussions for EVula, just as EVula's actions have repercussions for Eric. I see it as being more akin to a nickname (albeit one that I've chosen for myself) than a new identity; however, I will concede that not everyone has the same blending of their "offline" and "online" lives, and my particular attitude comes from using this name for over a decade (and that decade spanned some fairly important emotionally formative years; I was definitely a different person when I first started using "EVula," and at the time it was definitely a barrier between my 13-year-old self and the rest of the Internet)