Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Archive 5

The sky did not fall
As is true for many voters in many elections, I'm not exactly happy at some of the results. Here is hoping that they do a good job in spite of any apprehensions, and note that none of the dire predictions before the election (not enough candidates, not enough would achieve 50 percent) came to pass.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:06, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I think there were not enough candidates for 12 positions. Surely at least 2 candidates per position would be a minimum, this ended up with 19 candidates for 12 positions. Polargeo (talk) 17:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * My personal viewpoint is that having 12 of this years candidates reaching the threshold is the definition of the sky falling. But that's me.--Cube lurker (talk) 17:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The percentages are very similar to previous years - going back at least 3 years, there have consistently been about 13 or 14 candidates who have gotten >50% net support. (Of course, in past years this was not sufficient to be elected). To me, it's more interesting that success came down to the number of "neutral" (vs. "oppose") votes. If you look only at the degree of support, we have people who will likely be appointed with the support of <33% of the voting electorate. It's not clear to me that this has been the case in past years, although I haven't done the math because I don't like numbers. MastCell Talk 18:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * To do MastCell's arithmetic for him, this year the lowest successful candidate had 34.35% of the electorate, last year lowest successful candidate had 31.02% of the electorate. Last year the average neutral vote was 45.39%, this year 37.50%.  But remember that 95.3674% of statisics are meaningless. :-(  - David Biddulph (talk) 18:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In 2008, the last year of public voting, there were about 900 community members who voted for one or more candidate. The support/oppose vote log is found at User:ST47/ACE 2008. Note that the candidate with the most total support + oppose votes only had 410 votes total, or well under 50% of the electorate; some had less than 25% of the participating community members vote either support or oppose. This year, with an even lower voting turnout, the lowest number of support + oppose votes for any successful candidate was 432.  I'd suggest that people are stating their opinions on candidates considerably more rigorously than they did in the past. Part of that is a function of the software, since it forces a vote of some sort on every candidate.  Risker (talk) 19:47, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

←Yes, I noticed the same discrepancies when I did the stats for 2008–10. I went with the lower voter numbers, since the maths just didn't add up otherwise. I do wish the number of excluded votes (and which ones) were written somewhere on the log. Only five candidates were supported by half or more of the voters in these years (four of them in 2010), which makes a mockery of the hue and cry about a 50% threshold. The ranking formula we seem to be set on using hugely boosts the values on which candidates are elected, to make it look as though many of them have more than 50% support. This is not the case. It is the neutral/abstain voting, ironically, that significantly boosts the ranking values over those of actual support votes. You may be interested in viewing the scattergraph and draft text at The Signpost's "Election report", which I'd not usually release this early; but it seems important to do so. Tony  (talk)  04:30, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Under the current system a candidate with 4 supports, 1 oppose and 800 abstain would have outranked all except Newyorkbrad. Note also that a candidate would win by a blowout if they had one support and no other votes. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:14, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I am going to register as User:This line intentionally left blank and try that next year. Jehochman Talk 16:16, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Tony, I suspect your concern may reflect a more local experience. As I recall, you're from Australia where voting is mandatory. Most of the rest of us come from countries where voting is entirely voluntary, and where the styles of voting vary widely. In the most recent election I voted in (for mayors, local councillors and school board representatives), I could leave any section of the ballot blank, and I could select up to X candidates for councillor. Heck, we even have a process for formally refusing a ballot, and write-in candidates are permitted in certain elections in the US as well. "Good" turnout for elections in North America range from 30% for local elections to 60% for national ones.  Given the number of genuinely active editors on English Wikipedia, I'd suggest to you that the turnout for this election was about 20-25%, which is pretty remarkable given the low level of relevance that Arbcom has for the majority of editors participating in the project. That's better than usual for almost any other large voluntary "membership" group I can think of.  SBHB, while I do not agree that this is an issue, I'd suggest that there be a minimal number of support votes that a candidate must receive before being appointed, probably 150.  Risker (talk) 16:52, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Risker, in Australia, it is mandatory to turn up and put the ballot through the slot, but no one sees whether you purposely spoil your whole vote (= neutral). In several Australian jurisdictions, there is no requirement to number every candidate; you can number as few or many as you wish, in which case the rest are the equivalent of neutral. Tony   (talk)  08:23, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

We had an RFC last year that suggested 60% support needed for appointment, we do not need an 18-member ArbCom, and we have 9 members who attained more than 60%, with a natural break there. Although I supported Jclemens, I hope Jimbo does not feel obligated to appoint 18 members when the bottom three obtained only maginally more supports than opposes, and very few supports. We don't need such a large committee made up of barely passing candidates. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 15:41, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Even the 7th-ranked candidate (whom I supported) had far more neutrals than supports. Hardly a ringing endorsement. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:46, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * @Sandy: that same RFC also had a consensus for an 18 member arbcom. So yes, we do need an 18 member committee (even if the committee itself favors a smaller number, the community at-large decides the composition of arbcom).  DC   T • C   16:37, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The RFC was poorly formulated and did not allow for mutually exclusive events. It's hard to argue that size of the committee is more important than composition of the committee-- support is more important than size, a big arb committee made up of poorly supported candidates is not a good thing.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 17:43, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I really don't understand the fuss. Neutral is "Not my pick, but I don't mind"; and it's not a surprise that most people wouldn't feel strongly about many candidates.  Support/(support+oppose) may not be the best metric to measure that, but it does a fair job.  Possibly, a better measure might be the difference between (support/total) and (oppose/total) which would rank candidates closer to the center when there are a lot of neutrals?  It might be worth trying new ranking methods over the past two election tallies to see if the result seem sane.  &mdash; Coren (talk) 17:17, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see this as a defensible position. Neutral is the default choice on the ballot.  If the default were "blank" and a voter had to select "netrual" we could arrive at an imputation from the ballot that "neutral" means much what it means on an RfA--that a candidate is not compelling enough to support but the voter doesn't want to oppose.  Absent the merest signal of intent, however, we cannot make such a judgment.  More to the point, as I said above, we can hardly expect even a rarified electorate to learn enough about ~18 candidates to oppose or support conclusively.  I didn't read all the guides or even all the statements.  I voted for or against the candidates about which I had enough information to make an informed decision and didn't vote where I didn't have the info.  We can't tally support as though it were the same as an RfA or an RfC. Protonk (talk) 18:10, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Neutral may mean "Not my pick, but I don't mind", however, it may also be "don't know, didn't review, and Q&A was tl;dr". Personally, I looked at the candidates I was familiar with (about 2/3) and voted support/oppose or neutral on a "not my pick" basis. I then left most of the rest as neutral because I didn't have time to form a view. I can't be the only one. I suspect also that had the field been larger, the number of neutral "I didn't view" would also have been larger. Thankfully the Q&As I did examine were a good deal shorter than in the past.--Scott Mac 17:31, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I did the same, but as my wikipedia experience is much more limited, I only managed to form some opinion about very few candidates (and that after spending many many hours). The rest were neutral to me. One other aspect which differs here from most other elections was that Q&A and discussion processes went on alongside voting. I delayed voting until the last days but many voted on first day. Interesting. - BorisG (talk) 17:38, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Just noting that I did say all this above (with diagrams and tables and twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog....). I also said I wouldn't take a seat if I polled less than David Cameron. In the event, around 45% of those who voted were supports - Cameron's tories polled only 36% of the vote (support/(support+oppose)) and Cameron polled 58% of supports/(support+oppose) (43% of those eligible to vote, including the 'neutrals' who did not vote either way). So I figure if he gets to fuck up run the country.....Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:04, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with Sandy's smaller ArbCom, but believe for it to be effective, there needs to be a vacancy-filling mechanism. I have no desire for ArbCom to name their own, but simply propose that any vacancies be filled any time during the year that SecureVote is used for something else, as for the election of funcitonaries.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:26, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Having spent a couple of years in the hot seat, I'll tell you honestly that neither size nor percentage of support are as relevant as diversity of the composition of the committee; the decision-making process benefits from being made by people with a wide range of backgrounds rather than a narrow one. Honestly, the amount of angst that is being poured into this is pretty sad given the actual level of authority that Arbcom has; we don't have any fiscal powers, we cannot make policy, and the biggest sanction we can hand out is a project ban; this isn't governance. One almost gets the impression of it being the equivalent of a debate in academic circles: the smaller the stakes, the bigger the argument. Proportionality is important here. Risker (talk) 18:37, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The actual level of authority isn't what concerns me: it's the access to highly sensitive, confidential information. We should only be giving that to highly trusted users-- not users who wouldn't even pass RFA.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 18:40, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * We know from experence that devs with dirrect database acess won't reliably pass RFA. I'd suggest your standards are somewhat missplaced.©Geni 19:43, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Sandy, I share your concern about access to sensitive material, but I think level of support is a red herring. I also don't think ID-ing someone helps much either. The current ID system is a Foundation employee receiving a faxed copy of an ID that says "John Smith, Canterbury, England," and shredding it. That doesn't tell us:


 * (a) whether the user really is John Smith of Canterbury, and the ID is genuine;
 * (b) who John Smith of Canterbury is;
 * (c) whether John Smith of Canterbury is only User:A, who was widely supported for ArbCom, or whether he is also User:B, who was previously banned; or
 * (d) whether John Smith of Canterbury can be trusted with confidential information.


 * The above are all separable issues. Even if you construct a security system to deal with (a), (b) and (c), you still have (d), the largely unknowable. And yet every year as more members are elected, we have more John Smiths of Canterbury gaining access to past files. (I stress that I mean no disrespect to anyone on ArbCom by pointing this out.)


 * The best way to reduce the risk of sensitive material leaking out is to minimize the retention of it. That's something I hope we can discuss with ArbCom in a friendly and constructive manner, because our interests are all more-or-less the same here. My own view is that ArbCom should take a robust view about destroying material as soon as cases or investigations are over. In the few cases where material needs to be stored in the longer term for the protection of the project, we should consider creating a separate level of access for a very small number of users (maybe just a couple of Foundation staffers). SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 19:50, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Good, serious point here. The Local Government Ombudsman for England and Wales only keeps information for 2 years from the conclusion of a complaint. My team has some stuff that has legally to be kept for six years (to do with council tax and NDR), but we shove it in a basement after two years, and if you really want to read it, you can go down and argue with the rats. Get rid of it, or remove it to the securest archive you can find, where the current crew need special permission to see it. Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:46, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm thinking we should consider setting up a Data Protection Committee, with Arbs and non-Arbs discussing how to identify material that needs to be kept in the longer term and how to set up separate access limited to just a couple of people. The idea then would be that, if a current Arb needed to access it, they could ask one of these people "do you have anything on User:X?" and would have to explain why they needed to see it. I'm just thinking out loud here; I realize it would need ironing out, but I think it's the direction we should be heading in. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 23:54, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm willing to join in any thoughts about that at some appropriate point. The people holding the data are often the least best placed to judge how long it should be kept for, as the tendency is to keep it forever, just in case posterity wants it. And a lot of what we are talking about will be information which was provided by the individuals concerned, and they probably would have some expectation that it wasn't left lying around for ever. Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:15, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The other point to make is one I also made previously. The nearest thing I can find to the way Wikipedia wants to work is Athenian democracy, and in Athens, functionaries were drawn by lot every year or so from among all those eligible (in the Athenians case, this was male, freeborn, a citizen and an ephebe - I'm sure we could come up with some combination of time served + edits + articles created/GA noms/DYKs or something). If Wikipedia truly did want to retain its original vision of working as a consensus, it would pick functionaries such as admins by lot for a fixed time period, would accept that soliciting the entire Wiki to put in their opinion at an AfD was not improper (ban leading lights to stop them throwing their weight around.  On the other hand, if you don't fancy that, Wikipedia needs actual rules for things like elections, actual methods for managing functionaries, etc etc. Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:35, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I think Risker has it: "neither size nor percentage of support are as relevant as diversity of the composition of the committee."

In the role of dispute resolution, there is danger in a wholly partisan or blinkered Committee. Diversity is the key. In this respect the best things that have happened to the Committee are its steady growth from an initial establishment of 9 arbitrators to the current level of 18, and the increasing diversity of its membership. --TS 00:09, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * 18 members also offers the opportunity to split the decision and appeal functions, a good extra check mechanism. Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Voter Number discrepancy
854 votes were cast as per the voter Log but only 850 appear to have been counted even assuming that the 2 indef blocked user votes were not counted there is a discrepancy of 2 votes.For example Newyorkbrad got 591 supports 186 Neutrals and 72 opposes 591+186+73=850.Same is the case with all the candidates.For the sake of transparency a clarification is required. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 22:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The election staff are aware of this. I can tell you two things though. First, that the four vote swing did not effect who got elected in any way, and second, you will have to talk to the scrutineers about that. My understanding is that there were other sockpuppets discovered during the election, however, as I said, I am not the one to ask, and cannot give you a definitive answer.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  23:00, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Isn't that the same issue discussed by Skomorokh here? (His comment is on this page in "The Real Results" section.)  If so, then there is no discrepancy between the number of voters on the SecurePoll voter list and the candidates' numbers, because four votes were stricken.  Once the on-wiki version of the voter list is updated (which does not appear to have happened yet), all the numbers will agree with each other.  Of course, if it's a different issue, this explanation is inoperative.  :)  Neutron (talk) 23:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Please read my comments in the above sections, thanks.  Skomorokh   00:48, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Support summary
Only four candidates got more than 50% support from the 850 voters:


 * Newyorkbrad 591 70%
 * Casliber 459 54%
 * SirFozzie 455 54%
 * Iridescent 425 50%

Two more candidates got 45%:


 * Elen of the Roads 381 45%
 * Xeno 385 45%

And all other candidate got about a third of less support from those voting. In other words, if we appoint an 18-member committee, we are appointing 6 new arbs with 300 votes or less, or a substantial number of members who do not enjoy broad support within the community of those who care enough to vote. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 18:37, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Sandy, we can't move the goalposts post election. Can you imagine if Giano had been 12th with 51% and Jimbo had said "I think we'll make it 55% this year"? I can see the argument for re-jigging the system, but changing if after the results are in looks like the worst form of gerrymandering.--Scott Mac 18:54, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think there is going to be any moving of goalposts. The extra column on the table is factual and accurate.  What to make of the facts is open for discussion.  Please don't anybody edit war over this, and especially I'd remind current arbitrators and candidates to keep their fingers off the page. Let the coordinators, scrutineers and community at large manage this page.  Thank you. Jehochman Talk 19:10, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The community  at large   eats the page. There. Managed. Thank you.    bishzilla     ROA R R! !    23:14, 11 December 2010 (UTC).
 * Explain to me why the "community at large" should have the right to modify and mess up the page, but current non-candidate arbitrators should be barred from correcting said mess-ups. You'd think we'd suddenly become pariahs or banned users or something. Risker (talk) 22:19, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Separation of powers. It's the same reason why sitting arbitrators don't publicly endorse candidates. You aren't picking your successors (or future colleagues), except that you each get one vote. It would be a very bad precedent for ArbCom to start meddling in the election. Jehochman Talk 23:13, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In no way was I meddling in the election, Jehochman; I was restoring the page to make it properly readable. That is by no stretch interference in any way. I do not see you having warned anyone else about their improper edits to that page and, in fact, you restored it to an improper version yourself, as if to smite me while granting approval to an idiosyncratic and unsupported interpretation of results. As you have pointed out numerous times, you're an election "official" and should not be condoning, even encouraging, such editorial capriciousness. There was no "power" here to be separated. Risker (talk) 01:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Arbs are free to endorse candidates. You say "Separation of powers" as if that's something obvious. It seems to me not to be a part of Wikipedia whatsoever. "Conflict of interests" might be, but that would only apply if a candidate started mucking with an election page (or someone who clearly had strong views on candidates).--Scott Mac 23:22, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * We aren't moving the goalposts; last year's RFC was poorly conceived, but it did not generate consensus for appointments at the 50% support level. If anything, support level was for 60%, but the problem of the poorly formulated RFC was raised well into the RFC.  It's curious that so many people are relying on process (and the arb election process was too obscure this year, we have a majority of children on Wiki, and with secret ballots, they are likely determining the makeup of the arb committee), and ignoring the issue-- do we want a large committee made up or arbs who don't enjoy broad support but will have access to highly confidential information?  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 19:14, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * 24.2% is a majority?©Geni 19:23, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This is kinda silly. Have we ever counted non-voting users in previous elections like that? Of course not, so why would we start now? --Conti|✉ 19:50, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:34, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I did not say "we've always done it this way", I asked why we should change the current system. --Conti|✉ 01:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Interestingly, the ordering of the candidates by percentage support agrees with the ordering by net support with only two exceptions: Shell Kinney/Jclemens and GiacomoReturned/Balloonman. Also, the candidates with higher percentage support than oppose are precisely the top 13 (Sandstein being the extra). Ordering by most support or fewest opposes also selects the same top 12 candidates, except that for most support Jclemens is 13th, while Sandstein is ranked higher. Geometry guy 22:33, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Data, facts are friends

 * Copied from mainpage by Jehochman Talk

I'm not defending the status-quo. But it seems settled at the top ranking candidates are appointed to fill the number of vacant seats providing they muster 50% support on a s/s+o metric. Now, a change to that requires a consensus BEFORE the election. The RFC was (as Sandy has said somewhat inconclusive). An inconclusive RFC isn't a consensus for change. Actually, I'd support a change, but in a different direction from Sandy. I'd move to a ranking system. That would allow more minority representation - rather than a system which elects the least objectionable middleground. But this is a debate to try to change things for the NEXT election. This one must stand with what the majority of voters expected when they voted. Jimbo changing the goalposts now, will only cause disruption.--Scott Mac 20:11, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * 1) Just imagine what that last column would look like if, instead, it were divided by all registered accounts!
 * But, that said, so what?
 * 1) For those who are unhappy about the process that just ended, don't forget that there is Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Feedback. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:32, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm also scratching my head a bit over the "separation of powers" thing. Wikipedia is definitely not a branch of the American government. --TS 23:27, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Scratch harder! It's a generic concept.  To avoid nepotism, or cronyism, we should not let ArbCom unduly influence the elections.  We choose the arbitrators, not them. Jehochman Talk 00:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Arbitrators are part of the community too; we have to be. It's very harmful to try to create unnecessary and artificial barriers between arbitrators and the community that serve no purpose other than to separate the Committee from the community. We are not politicians, and Arbcom is not a government. Risker (talk) 01:24, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * @Jehochman. No it isn't a "generic concept". It has no part in the Westminster system of constitutional operation, and Wikipedia isn't a constitution anyway. There's no more reason to say arbs can't opine here, for reasons of "separation of powers" than there would be to suggest admins shouldn't edit articles on the same basis.--Scott Mac 01:28, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a generic concept in the sense that the principles of government can be generalized. But that doesn't mean that you can say that organization Y upholds the separation of powers just because you think it looks like organization X. As it happens there is no separation of powers in Wikipedia. It absolutely doesn't exist in Wikipedia. --TS 01:38, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The principles of American government can indeed be generalised to apply to American government (and those with a similar system). There are, however, plenty of other systems. The principle does not and never has applied to the Westminster system (contrary to the ignorance of Tony Blair), where legislators form the executive, and (until recently) the supreme judiciary were also legislators.--Scott Mac 01:43, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Exactly right. I'm not ignorant, just not very good at identifying the blatantly obvious and expressing it to people who don't also see it. --TS 01:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * "Only four candidates got more than 50% support from the 850 voters". That's right, Sandy. In the past three years, only five (four this year) have received more than 50% support. That's how multi-candidate elections work if you don't have a preferential system. "If anything, support level was for 60% [in the RfC]"; I doubt that, and it's whistling in the wind. We'd have almost no arbitrators then. If you have a multi-candidate election, the vacancies are filled by the candidates with the best votes, period. Tony   (talk)  02:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The other problem with that is that it synonymises neutral and oppose votes as far as I can tell. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:43, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The concern is that at the moment we're synonymizing neutral and abstain, which has problems of its own. I'm not sure how to get around that. It would be interesting to have "neutral" as an actual choice rather than the automatic default. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:07, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I thought of SBHS's suggestion a while ago but dismissed it because I think it will make little difference. And then we'd have to explicitly state to voters that they have to make a choice for all candidates (or we'd have to change the system). Contrary to what I believe is a negative interpretation by Sandy for entirely the wrong reasons, a major problem (there are others) with this most unsatisfactory voting system is that we can only ever know a voter's intention if they click on Support. To enlarge on SBHS's comment, yes, we can never know whether a Neutral (by the default or by a voter's conscious click) means (i) "I don't have enough time to research this candidate", or (ii) "I really don't care either way for this candidate". This was Cas's point, too. We can never know whether an Oppose means (i) "I don't think this candidate is suitable", or (ii) "I don't feel strongly about this candidate or didn't have time to research their pages, but I want to strategically advantage the candidates I have supported (the most powerful way to vote)." A voting system that fails to reflect voters' real intentions, given this tripartite grid of choices, is not a good one; IMO, it has only by chance served us well last year and this year (apologies to Sandstein, who must be wondering why he was pipped at the post). We need to change this system, and a preferential vote (already used in one RfC, is the obvious one where there are multiple targets (options in an RfC, candidates in an election). A preferential system can be optional, too, where voters need to number only as many ordinal choices as they wish. The real world has much experience in running preferential voting in government elections. Tony   (talk)  03:42, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Missing the point
It's probably my fault for not expressing clearly enough something that I thought was apparent to all, but appears not to be, so I'll clarify again. There has never been consensus for electing arb candidates on 50% support, and before the unfortunate and malconceived RFC, it was never done; electing arbs on marginal suppport has been an unfortunate side effect of that RFC, which failed to account for low support levels while dictating a number of candidates. Claims above that I want to change consensus are simply wrong; I'm only pointing out that last year's appointments were a deviation from consensus and history, and there's no reason to repeat the mistake this year. I am not advocating that we change anything, rather return to the consensus that was present before the malformed RFC.

The candidate elected with the lowest support tally was Deskana, at 73% (294 S/109 O/+185 Net).
 * 2007
 * User:Mathbot/ArbCom Election December 2007

Raul654 received 65% support, yet was not appointed, while Shell Kinney received 55% support (her perennial support level) and was not appointed.

The candidate elected with the lowest support tally was Coren, at 64% (154 S/87 O/+67 Net).
 * 2008
 * Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Results

Sir Fozzie recieved 59.9% support, yet was not appointed, and Shell Kinney received 47.8% support.

In the 2009, we had an RFC which 1) failed to account for mutually exclusive events, while 2) demanding a higher number of arbs without 3) accounting for the possibility of lower support tallies. This problem was discussed late into the process.  Further, the RFC found some consensus for 60% support, not 50%; the RFC was malformed.
 * 2009


 * Arbitration Committee Elections December 2009

So, as a result of a malformed RFC, in 2009:

The candidate elected with the lowest support tally was Shell Kinney, at 59.9% (309 S/ 207 O/ +102 Net).

In other words, as predicted before the RFC closed, we dipped into lower support tallies to elect a previously (twice) unelectable candidate, only to fill up the committee to a pre-determined size, based on a malformed RFC.

If we follow this trend in 2010,
 * 2010

The candidate elected with the lowest support tally will again be (previously twice defeated) Shell Kinney, with an even lower support percentage, at 56.7% (only a Net of 69 votes).

The result of the RFC is that we are appointing candidates with lower and lower support levels, merely to meet some arbitrary committee size number based on a malformed RFC.

Comparisons to real world elections are silly; Wiki is not the real world and children can't vote in the real world. With the increasing number of child editors, we are now in the precarious position of having children choose arbcom. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 15:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * You speak of "children" and "child editors" quite a bit around here as being a negative to our project. And yet, I have not seen any evidence of any children "choosing Arbcom" or "running Wikipedia". Don't get me wrong, I know children edit Wikipedia. But it's not children who are the problem. Rather it's immature editors, who can be either adults or children. If you happen to have any evidence of children running Wikipedia, or choosing who our arbitrators are, I'd be happy to change my mind on this, but so far I've just seen unsubstantiated allegations - and I know I'm not the only one who is becoming tired of seeing it. AD 16:23, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * With secret balloting, you won't "see any evidence", and neither you or I can draw any conclusions. Point is, unlike the real world, we do know we have child editors voting here, and ArbCom is supposed to be the last defense of sanity on Wiki, which is in short supply lately.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 16:43, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I have never thought secret balloting was a good idea, but it seems to be the choice. I do think though, that if we don't know any better, we shouldn't be making assumptions about who or who didn't vote. AD 16:48, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I have no idea about children, and whether they lack sanity any more than adults do. So far this is just hot air. But one thing common to ALL other elections I heard of is that the number of seats (in parliament, council, court, professional committee, board etc) is always fixed. Leaving it flexible may create a situation where we elect no candidates (if all get less than 60%). If we want to uphold the principle that wikipedia is not a democracy, we may raise the threshold of mainspace edits and thus eliminate inexperienced voters like me who hardly know what ArbCom does. I am not against this idea. Also the percentage is a relative thing and in part simply reflects the number of candidates. I expect that if we have 100 candidates, no one will get even 40%. - BorisG (talk) 17:05, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It must be a theme; no matter how many times I raise the issue of a malformed RFC that arbitrarily raised the number of arbs without considering low support for those arbs, the discussion is diverted to a tangential matter (in this case child editors). Perhaps I'm just not good at expressing a point, or perhaps others just don't want to see the issue clearly. The last sentence of my post mentioned child editors briefly; it's not the main issue, although it most certainly is an issue when a project is increasingly governed by children who wouldn't be voting in real elections.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 17:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not sure, SG if this is an issue at all (ArbCom is not making real world decisions either), but in accordance with your latest comment, I will not focus on it. But please read the rest of my comment. Thanks. - BorisG (talk) 17:22, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Who is missing the point? You? I don't understand your blind faith in this crazy ranking formula to express the community's real intentions. Have you read my post above about this? We can never properly know what an oppose or a neutral really mean, so how can you be so dogmatic in your trust of what the ranking formula delivers? In fact, the ranking formula unreasonably boosts the % fo apparent support over real support, so why aren't you concentrating on raw support percentages? On the size of the Committee, I have no problem with a reduction to 14 or so, since it's a bit unweildy at the moment with 18. Tony   (talk)  17:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If we want on ArbCom people with real like experience, we should have a large ArbCom, otherwise the worlload will be such that we will only have candidates who can devote all their time to this activity, that is, people who either very young or retired. Also we would like them to continue their contribution to the article space. - BorisG (talk) 17:43, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with Tony and would be pleased if we had a return to the consensus level for ArbCom (60% support), which would result in a 15-member Committee per the results of this election; my concern is the dipping down to 50% support levels, contrary to the RFC and to historical procedures, to create an 18-member Committee. A 15-member Committee does not seem too small, and several arbs have stated that a larger committee actually makes work harder, not easier.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 17:50, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm outdenting this to discuss it (nearly) separately. (SG claims it's not the main point, but it is a point she returns to repeatedly.) The project is not "increasingly governed by children". None of the arbs are minors (nor ever have been, or have there been one or two?) Most of the admins are not minors. Less than 25% of the electorate are minors. How on earth can that add up to the project being "governed by children"?

Anecdotally, of the two child editors to whom I mentioned that voting for ArbCom was under way, both of them said "what's ArbCom?" It would be a very rare child indeed who could be bothered going through enough of the voluminous ArbCom election related documentation to get even a basic idea of who they should be voting for and against.

SG's suggestions of Wikipedia being "governed by children" only make sense when taking into account comments on her talk page on what her and others regard as being a "kid". I think "anyone under 60" was mentioned, although perhaps that was a joke. The only reform that would satisfy these concerns would be for all voters, but not the candidates, to have to identify, and to prove themselves at least 60 years of age. Although this rather brings us back to the point of chronological age being no proof of actual maturity - in fact some of those who rather grandly dismiss others as being kids, do sometimes act as though they are having a second childhood.

Proposing retrospective electoral reform, immediately after the results come in, is silly. Would SG have raised these same concerns if Giano had got into the top 12 with 51% support ratio? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:59, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I think we can assume that the "children" comment was simply ill-advised, and merits no further discussion. --TS 21:44, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I also hope that people quoting that silly survey would reflect on sample bias. And Demiurge, yes, I've been raising these same points repeatedly for more than a year, I raised them in the 2009 RFC, so please work on your AGF, get yourself informed, and don't impugn my motives. Since the RFC, I said I don't want to be appointing arbs who don't enjoy widespread support, and I don't care who those are.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 23:04, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

A shrubbery?
Is it new, this notion that qualifying candidates must have obtained 50% or more support from every single person who voted in the election?

If so, why is it being presented now?

As has been remarked, only four or five candidates achieved this quite improbable feat.

I could understand this, even post facto, if there were clear evidence that patently unsuitable candidates had made it and, for some unfathomable reason, Jimmy Wales seemed to be intent to appoint them despite clear problems.

But that isn't the case, is it? --TS 21:42, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * There has, to this time, only been one arbitrator who was chosen with less than 60% support, and that was 59.9%. We have this time 3. With the S/N/O voting we are not sure what Neutral or Oppose mean.
 * There was an old notion that arbitrators would have broad support of the community. That old notion seems here endangered. If it is not restored now (by filling fewer than 12 seats), there should be a new comment process so that we can clarify that Broad Support" ≠ 50% + 1, excluding "neutral" for next year. Jd2718 (talk) 22:00, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * (ec) The argument (as I understand it) is that in the past, there was a rough consensus that the Support/(Support+Oppose) percentage should be at least 60%. Of course, Support/(Support+Oppose+Neutral) percentages have been much lower. However, the meaning of "Neutral" (and the underlying intention) is difficult to define, so (Support+Neutral)/(Support+Oppose+Neutral) might also be an interesting statistic. Geometry guy 22:08, 12 December 2010 (UTC) (Ni!)
 * Geometry guy has the right idea. Prior to SecurePoll, where neutral votes needed to be registered, there was no concept of a neutral vote. There was only support, oppose, and no vote at all. I have yet to hear any logical reason why we should consider a "neutral" as anything other than a non-vote; if people object to User ABC being an arbitrator, they oppose - and there are no perceived social consequences to oppose votes with a secret ballot. Certainly many community members who supported the switch to secret voting identified this as one of the key reasons to support; from that, one might deduce that support levels for many candidates in the past were artificially high due to this perception. Risker (talk) 22:59, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't recall this notion of 60% creeping in, I must say. The bar was set by Jimbo, I'm sure, and it was 50%, presumably meaning that 50% of those who voted either way on a candidate voted for him and not against him. All the rest seems to be stuff somebody made up. It's my impression that it was only ever intended as a way of ensuring that we didn't end up appointing people who were opposed, on the whole, by the community.


 * If there is a problem with Securepoll registering non-votes as "Neutral" (and thus ambiguous) then we obviously shouldn't be over-interpreting the neutral votes because they're essentially meaningless. What does "neutral" mean? If it means "I oppose this candidate" then it should be removed because there is already a selection for that. --TS 23:03, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * TS, I presented the historical data above; did you read it? Yes, it is new; before the 2009 ill-conceived RFC, we did not elect arb candidates with less than about 65% support.  The 2009 RFC called for a bigger arbcom but failed to address what to do if those editors didn't enjoy broad support.  The RFC also found some support for a 60% level (not 50%); why are we electing arbs with only a net +65 or so votes?  Why is it easier to be elected to arbcom than to pass RFA ?  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 23:08, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Well we've got a lot of editors who qualify under broad support so I don't see the problem. I don't see the point of holding an election if we then invent reasons not to fill the required seats.  Surely the fact that so many arbitrators have stepped down tells us something about the dangers of electing too few of them. Filling every seat available, as long as those elected have more votes for than against and they pass muster with Jimbo, I'm sorry I just don't see the downside.


 * It's not the right place to discuss RFA here, but on the whole I'd also like to see more new administrators too. --TS 23:11, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not easier to be elected to arbcom than to pass RFA anyway - it's like comparing passing a fifth-grade math exam at 90% and a college linear algebra exam at 60%. Yes, if you look at the absolute numbers, it is "easier" to get 60% than 90%, but I'm fairly sure that most people would agree that the latter is much harder than the former. T. Canens (talk) 23:34, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Tony, who is "inventing reasons" not to fill arbcom seats? I don't see anyone on this page "inventing reasons".  I see an honest debate occurring with editors giving evidence and using logic to support their positions.  Do you see something different from someone, and, if so, who? Cla68 (talk) 23:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Specifically, I'm accusing those who want to count For/(For+Against+Neutral) this time of inventing reasons. Sure it's supported by reasoning, but those reasons have been invented post-hoc and do not match what we've been doing for the past four or five arbitration elections. --TS 23:43, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * And who is asking to count those (I may have missed it); I'm asking us not to default to 50% support for electing arbs, against historical practice and against the ill-conceived RFC, and I've beeen asking that since the problem surfaced in the malformed RFC. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 23:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Previous RfCs
Could Sandy (or anybody) provide links to the previous discussions where this may have come up. I vaguely recall particpating. Two years ago? It would be good to see what actually has been considered. Jd2718 (talk) 01:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Requests for comment/ArbCom secret ballot established the use of securepoll. Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee 2 set the membership of the committee at 18 elected for up to two years.  More users in that supported a 50% threshold than a 60% one, though participation in that section was limited.  DC   T • C   06:38, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Please read the RFC; consensus is not based on numbers alone. Also, the RFC started on October 27, but the minimum number issue wasn't raised until well into the RFC (November 16), I believe by me, since the RFC was malformed without it.  Most editors didn't get to opine on the matter: there was no consensus for the change from a higher level of support (historically) to 50% support based on this malformed RFC.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 19:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I did read. Did you happen to catch the part that states "no consensus exists to formally state a minimum"? And, why didn't you raise this issue either after last year's election or before this year's?   DC   T • C   20:22, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Do you know where the discussions from 2008 are? Istr an earlier discussion of moving to 2 tranches of 9 arbs. Jd2718 (talk) 02:20, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The decision to move to 2 classes with 9 arbs each was made in the 2nd arbcom RFC which I linked to above. I assume the 2008 discussion you mentioned is Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee (good luck reading through that one).   DC   T • C   02:33, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Sandy is certainly right in saying that this is a complete mess. The November 09 RfC had no clear consensus about the support threshold, with a slight preference towards 60%. We agreed (overwhelmingly) to increase the size to 18 seats without making any firm statement about what we would do if there weren't enough candidates with a satisfactory level of support. Jimbo imposed a 50% threshold by fiat in December 2009, which has been accepted by WP:SILENCE, but that doesn't say anything about the 60% limit, because 60% is a subset of 50%, and the intermediate region has not really been tested in the interim: the behaviour of a community which supports a 50% threshold would have been the same as one which supports a 60% threshold. In fact, we have never had to worry about the 50-60% region, because as Sandy says, the list of seats has never before stretched so far down the table. What a mess... Happy ‑ melon 21:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yep. And although (I believe) I was the first to raise this problem in the November 2009 RFC, and have been raising it ever since, we still find some Johnny-Come-Lately's questioning my motives.  I guess anyone can say anything on the internet, and that they will, rather than look at the concern.  What people don't know, they make up :) Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 23:05, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not questioning your motives since I saw you raised the same arguments in the 2nd arbcom RFC. I just want to know why you didn't raise the issue prior to this election, especially when the admin who closed the RFC mentioned that it should be discussed following last year's vote to account for changes in voting patterns caused by switching to securepoll.   DC   T • C   01:14, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The reason that 50% +1 is pretty much a necessity is because of the number of seats that are open at any election. While I think an 18-seat arbcom might be a bit too big, it worked out more or less okay this past year. During the November 2009 RFC, I think almost all sitting or past arbitrators thought a 15-seat Arbcom with 2 year terms was the best fit, but the community had quite a different take on things and decided on an 18-member committee with 2-year terms. We will always be looking for 10-14 arbitrators every year unless those basic criteria change. Risker (talk) 01:50, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The number of arbitrators resigning, disappearing or otherwise being removed, suggests that the community's take on things may have been right. As has been said before, one approach to dealing with the lack of strongly-supported candidates for the number of seats, would be to try to make it less unpleasant to stand for, and serve on, arbcom for good candidates. (Sadly, Wikipedia does not yet have sufficient temporal authority to adopt Plato's solution of forcing good candidates into positions of power against their will.) An alternative approach would be for the community to accept that arbs get appointed with less than overwhelming support-votes just like real-world politicians do (although even with 50% support Wikipedia is still doing much better than most), and then just calmly ignore the inevitable yearly cries of "ZOMG most of the candidates are awful!" --Demiurge1000 (talk) 05:48, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Sandy, haven't you got better things to do? Like running FAC? What is happening to that process while you play around at this location? Tony   (talk)  08:09, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Tony, that's totally unconscionable, and indefensible. The only analogy I can think of is .  How dare you try to influence how a volunteer donates their time?  It hardly seems that Sandy's neglecting FAC in favour of this discussion, but even if that were the case you'd have no right to dictate what activities Sandy should drop to give more time for FAC.  Happy ‑ melon  11:25, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No need to twist your knickers, HM. Tony   (talk)  11:33, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Perchance Tony1 would be happier if he had some dates to delink? Goodness, Tony1, talk about knickers in a twist-- relax.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:38, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

50% metric goes as far back as January, 2006 election
There seem to be a lot of muddled recollections about how these elections have worked in the past, in particular one statement that the 50% level was imposed as late as 2009 (!)

Here's a quote from the on-wiki page for the January 2006 election when much of our formal election apparatus was set up:


 * All candidates with more 'support' votes than 'oppose' votes were eligible for the ArbCom.

Now that's admirably clear. It shows that we've been using a simple "more supports than opposes" metric for more than four years now.

As far as I'm aware no consensus has yet developed on wiki to move away from that long-established and uncontroversial process, even though wa have had opportunities to do so and alternative proposals have been considered. So that's the justification for sticking to it. We may decide to change it in future elections. Tasty monster (=TS ) 05:14, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * In 2006 things were not quite where they are today. Jimbo Wales chose arbitrators from a list prepared at election. Everyone who broke 50% was on that list, and then Jimbo chose the right number. He did not necessarily chose high to low. His only restriction: he might not chose someone who received less than 50% support.
 * That's what's been cited - a relic restriction on Jimbo - not a process. Jd2718 (talk) 06:11, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * With very minor changes, this seems to be pretty much the same process we've used ever since. It's only a "relic" insofar as we haven't needed to invent a totally new way of doing things. If it weren't a process we wouldn't be able to perform it year after year. Tasty monster (=TS ) 06:43, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't even say there were minor changes: the "election produces a set of elegible candidates from which Jimbo selects N nominees" procedure is exactly what we do today. Sure, for the past few years Jimbo hasn't chosen to deviate from the numerical order, but he still (currently) reserves the right to.
 * On the other hand, the lowest nominee in that election got 84% support, and there were a further eight candidates above 60%. It's still true that the 50-60% region has never been tested for community support, and that means that whatever Jimbo's decision, it will be messy and open to discontent.  Happy ‑ melon  11:43, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No benchmark, so to speak, has proper consensus. The community has made its decision, both to have 18 arbs and in terms of the 12 candidates with the greatest voter support. It is a fait accomplis, and I don't know why we're even discussing it. Tony   (talk)  11:47, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Tasty monster, as the data above clearly shows, it was never done before last year's RFC forced the committee size to 18, and that is equally clear. The RFC did not foresee a large number of candidates with low support percentages.  The community did not make a decision, because the malformed RFC didn't envision this problem and it wasn't added until very late into the RFC, when most editors had already opined.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:36, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Due diligence process
This may have passed people by. Clearly in discussions around the election, people have raised this idea, so this is a response to those discussions. What has happened so far is that the candidates have been asked to suggest what questions should go on a questionnaire to form the due diligence process. The suggestions from Jimbo are:
 * do you have any sockpuppets or previous accounts that you have not previously disclosed?
 * Do you have any facts about your real life identity that might reflect poorly on Wikipedia?
 * are you a convicted felon,
 * are you a prominent politician or public figure of any kind?
 * Are you a member of any group or organization that has had or is likely to have a prominent wikipedia-related controversy?

As this has come up in discussions before, I think it's actually fairer if the community gets to throw in their two penn'orth (and I have said this to Jimbo). For myself, I would probably just have asked "is there anything that you are aware of that might cause a problem". But would I then have revealed that I have been ticketed for speeding in times gone by?--Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * How about "Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the communist party?" Or even, "Are you a terrorist?" Geometry guy 11:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I have said that I think the guy editing from Belmarsh may not be strictly honest. But without an actual means of making enquiries, the most one can hope for is that as with Essjay, the subject will conclude that the game is up - although in Essjay's case, I would imagine this was because he had applied for an actual job, and was asked to provide actual references, qualification certificates etc that he didn't have. I know Chase me Ladies and I have both provided evidence to back up our claims of where we work with that thought in the background. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:42, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Over-intrusive and politically skewed. The only specific question that is reasonable is the first one, about socks. Tony  (talk)  11:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If the due diligence process relies upon identification or additional personal information, then it prejudices future community discussion as to whether arbitrators should be required to identify. That most definitely is "political". Geometry guy 12:00, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This isn't an idle issue. We've had ArbCom members who have not disclosed material facts. It's impossible to have trust in political/judicial figures who prevaricate on core issues. We do expect a lot, perhaps too much, from ArbCom members. But it isn't too much to expect honesty.   Will Beback    talk    13:27, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Arbitration should be about as political as magistrates should be ... not at all. What we want from arbs is good judgements in difficult behavioural matters. They are not a government. Asking whether someone is/was a convicted felon is a very American to do—to tar with a brush for life, even if the conviction was 35 years ago, and I find it objectionable. It also presupposes that a "felon" lacks the ability to do the job; felony is a wide-ranging concept that does not always involve breach of accepted codes of honesty. Tony   (talk)  13:34, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec with Coren) Yeah, and in the UK we have the concept of a 'spent' conviction, which does not need to be disclosed on say a job application (unless you are applying to work with children, when all convictions have to be disclosed). As I've said above, my only brush with the law was to be booked for speeding, but someone who had been in Borstal as a kid may consider themselves within their rights under UK law [to answer 'no' to a question about criminal convictions.--[[User:Elen of the Roads|Elen of the Roads]] (talk) 15:11, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * (undent) I think there is one point that is being missed here: there is no "wrong" answer to those questions.  It's all about knowing in advance rather than let one be hit by a ball out of the left field at some unspecified future time. Oh, and it should probably be worth mentioning that all of the new arb-elects did answer those questions substantively, in full view of the committee even.  While Elen's concerns are understandable, I don't think they are justified.  &mdash; Coren (talk) 15:06, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Since nobody has asked any questions yet Coren, nobody can have answered them. Jimmy asked us what should be on the due diligence questionnaire, and suggested these as options. Several people includin me have responded that these particular options do not apply to them, others have made private responses. I'm not saying due diligence isn't a good idea, what I'm doing is inviting more input, since the question that was asked was "what should be asked about." It ought to be public knowledge that Arbitrators will be asked to disclose prior convictions and information about their political affiliations.  Incidentally, I did try to email everyone with a link to this discussion, but my email seems to have been held in a moderation queue for the past 4 hours. Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:21, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, "volunteered the information" as opposed to "answered the question". :-)  The idea is the same.  &mdash; Coren (talk) 15:24, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * (e/c)To be more clear, it's about being able to say "Sure, we knew about X! It doesn't affect Y's capacity to be an arbitrator -- how dare you be so Xist!"  The fact of the matter is, there are enough people working really hard to find some cause to attack enwp in general, and its arbitrators in particular, that such things _will_ be investigated and likely be found.  We respect editor's private lives&mdash; some external entities have no such constraint on their behavior.  It's much, much easier to defuse a constructed faux-scandal if you can plan for it than if it hits you by surprise months or years later.  &mdash; Coren (talk) 15:24, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I think actually they are not quite the same, which was the point I wanted to make. Providing a checklist of questions is different from asking 'Is there anything I should know about that might be an issue for the project....." If it were me, I'd stop here (not my decision of course), because if one specifically asks say 'are you a convicted felon' or 'are you a holder of political office, then it sets all sorts of hares running.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:24, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "are you a convicted felon?" Why would it matter? Well, I suppose we don't want a convicted fraudster gaining access to private information. But, hang on, a convicted fraudster might lie. Seriously, this is pointless. There's no point in asking question if you've no way of checking. Unless the WMF are about to ask for real-world referenced and do criminal record checking? As for felonies, since there are no such things in UK law, can I deny my nine convictions for bigamy? And does my conviction for smuggling Bibles into Tibet count against me? This simply isn't going to work in an international project. The point is?--Scott Mac 15:25, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The point is, "Is there something in the public record about you that someone can use to attack you, the committee, or the project" that we need to prepare against. Felony convictions, where those exist, are generally part of the public record and can be found.  &mdash; Coren (talk) 15:28, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Only in some countries. In the UK, an individual's criminal record will almost never be publically available outside of a court, and similar will be the case throughout Europe. Yes, a notorious felon will obviously leave a trail through the media, but someone convicted of burglary hardly rates the local rag Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:31, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That is a pity; but it is understandable, since the context in which the questions were asked was intimidating. I'd have encouraged successful candidates to refuse to answer some of the questions. Tony   (talk)  15:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Just to reiterate - no-one has asked any questions. Jimmy has suggested asking these questions, and I thought the community would be interested in knowing a bit more, after his post on his own talkpage.  In my opinion, just asking "Is there anything I should know that might embarass the project...." is enough.  Honest folks will probably provide more info than one wants, and there is nothing to be done if one of the candidates really is Jeffrey Archer, because he wouldn't say.Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Elen, you keep mentioning this one guy. What's so special about him? - BorisG (talk) 16:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Bit of a joke really - would any politician do or does it have to be this guy. He's a disgraced politician, convicted felon, serial womaniser and (MHO) he writes really terrible books. You can read about him in the article. No problem is I can't spell.  Try Jeffrey Archer, should explain everythingElen of the Roads (talk) 16:51, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That's a bit funny. I do know about JA (I lived in the UK when the scandal began) but I couldn't possibly think you've made such a mistake, given that there is a warning on top of GA page:) Cheers. - BorisG (talk) 17:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Complete brain fart on my part. Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:25, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Re: Coren. That's not to be missed.  Jimbo's initial comment on Essjay has been thrown back in his face, inappropriately in my view, because he made the (entirely excusable) mistake of saying something when he didn't have all the facts in front of him.  Thus, when the depth and severity of the deception came out, Jimbo's comments were viewed as either ill informed or showing wanton disregard for honesty.  I don't see a problem with Jimbo ensuring that he won't have to face that kind of a situation again. Jclemens (talk) 17:02, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I sympathise fully with that position - it is an awful one to be in, particularly with someone you trusted. This is all a bit security-theatre though. As one who recruits regularly, my guess is that Essjay thought he could continue his deception indefinitely, and got caught out because someone in the office was asking for a document to set up his payroll or something that would have exposed his fraud. Not because he had a sudden attack of conscience. I think someone that deceitful would just lie. Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:24, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * What I believe actually happened was that Essjay, after years of editing (and administrating and bureaucratting) anonymously, got a job in the office of Wikia, and it was obvious just by looking at him that he was a 23-or-so-year-old and therefore was not a long-tenured professor of theology. This was revealed on-wiki, and was discussed on his talkpage, and, interestingly, for several weeks virtually nobody cared. And then, after awhile, suddenly everyone cared all at once. (I believe what made the difference for some people was the locating in archives of instances in which Essjay had referred to his alleged credentials in content disputes.) Soon thereafter, the Board created the identification requirements for oversighters and checkusers (which might or might not have picked up this issue at the time, depending on how identification was handled), and there was also some discussion of credentials verification for content contributors that predictably went nowhere. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:42, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That would be those obscure edits hidden away in archives, such as the fourth edit he ever made. Essjay wasn't a good guy who made a slip; he was lying about his credentials in an attempt to manipulate Wikipedia right from his very start here. – iridescent  00:19, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It seems pretty glaring now, but at the time no one noticed it, or at least no one pointed it out publicly, for weeks. (My recollection is that Kelly Martin noted the issue on her blog at the time, but I'm not sure if she was first.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:22, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

< oh there were [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Essjay&diff=prev&oldid=107903387#Ethics_etc. some] rumblings - it's a bit of a lie that essjay used his claimed credentials in content disputes (he didn't do much content stuff, and I would think most would agree that the identity thing was really just a case of playing make believe on the internet) - it's certainly a great shame that many longstanding and wise wiki types buy into that minor conflation, hence missing the obvious point / moral of the tale that it's just plain wrong to lie about stuff - whether you use your fibs in wiki games, chat rooms, or elsewhere, they'll often bite you on the bum in the end.... Privatemusings (talk) 00:50, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I've just read through the entire thing. I don't think many people would believe that it was 'playing make believe' - there's a stack of evidence that he used it in content disputes, lied to the reporter from the NYT, and lied to a college professor.  The profile he posted on Wikia seems also to have been a lie (where he claimed to have been a paralegal for 5 yrs and worked for some high profile company). When cornered, he also lied and said that the 'press office' were instructing him not to say anything, and were going to post statements, despite the person who filled the role of 'the press office' posting almost immediately below that post, advising that they had said no such thing and did not intend making any kind of statement on his behalf. Elen of the Roads (talk) 03:11, 13 December 2010 (UTC) Added: anyway I agree with you that fibbing is bad, so thre's probably not much more to be said. Elen of the Roads (talk) 03:25, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I must say that the edit highlighted by Iridescent is pretty damning. It was a gratuitous slotting in of credentials to validate an argument. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:34, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Even worse, he used the wrong form of "its". MastCell Talk 05:21, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * And he used "Catholicism For Dummies" as his source rather than, say, the Catechism of the Catholic Church!?! Reminiscent of an argument I had when certain elements here were trying to clamor for inclusion of their pet theories on the basis that they were found in the monumental book The Complete Idiot's Guide to Theories of the Universe by a professor from University of Phoenix no less! jps (talk) 05:27, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * (ec) MastCell beat me to it; I was going to ask did no one think it odd that someone who claimed to be so educated used a grocer's apostrophe for the possessive of "it" in making the claim? I would think that should have been a clue. Also, while I'm being a stickler for accuracy: Elen, it was the New Yorker, not the NY Times.  Woonpton (talk) 05:35, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The felon thing
I think the felon thing, the idea that candidates disclose felony convictions, could work in some form and might even be the right thing to do, but there are as somebody else pointed out serious problems applying such a criterion on a multi-national project.

Not least of the problems is the fact that we don't all work under the juridical culture of the United States. From a European standpoint this has two main effects: sentencing and trial standards in the US are quite unique, and plea bargains are often offered as an alternative to a trial, so sentences and even convictions do not translate well; but more important, even in the UK whose law system is most similar to the US we dropped the concept of the "felony" long ago.

Also for most purposes, in the interests of privacy and the rehabilitation of offenders, we expunge many criminal convictions from the UK public record after a fairly short time.

More thought required. Tasty monster (=TS ) 06:23, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe we ought to get people to disclose if they're communists, or bite their toe nails, or fuck people of the same sex as them, or of a different skin colour to them? There is something fundamentally sick about this level of intrusion into other editor's lives.  Milo & Minderbinder can quite frankly go stuff themselves; I, for one, want eats. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:48, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Please note that JW wound up not asking the "felony" question, so this aspect of concern appears to be resolved. Excessive and overheated rhetoric should be avoided. Newyorkbrad (talk) 07:23, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Should be avoided, but occasionally people need to be re-oriented. Unless wikipedia plans to undertake background checks (international ones at that!) for arbs, the whole line of questioning ought to be scrapped.  I'm actually quite mystified by the sudden demand for increased external scrutiny of arb candidates.  One lesson we should learn from the wikileaks mess (haha, the iPad autocorrects that to wikipedia) is that the only true way to exude the number of secrets leaked is to have fewer secrets.  Presumably an arb has access to secret info by virtue of the admin and check user bits (variously).  Apart from that, the committee ought to work diligently to ensure that they don't handle secret evidence any more than necessary.  As for the hyperbole itself, it is in fact a serious crime in many countries to have consensual sex with an adult of the same sex, just as it is a crime for the king of England to marry a catholic.  There are any number of absurd crimes in the states which we ought not care about.  More to the point, the whole issue of demanding information beyond the pat ID check stinks of some pent up desire to make the position out to be more than it actually is (not saying that demand comes from the arbs) and to strip the community of one slice of self governance.  Push back ought to be severe, even if it isn't PC. Protonk (talk) 18:54, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The status of the questions
Thanks, Newyorkbrad. I think that's probably good news overall. I'm not normally the kind of person who gets heavy about transparency, as you know, but I think it is important that Jimmy Wales disclose the questions he has asked. Not the individual answers, just the questions.

I note that at least one candidate has publicly said he won't answer the questions. Obviously I wouldn't expect Jimbo to appoint arbitrators with whom he wasn't satisfied. I think this might be annoying to the community but I don't see any obvious solution there.

It would be useful at least to know something of the nature of the questions, if only to save future prospective candidates the bother of running only to be passed over because of some unforeseen sticking point. Tasty monster (=TS ) 08:19, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Tm, when you say, "Obviously I wouldn't expect Jimbo to appoint arbitrators with whom he wasn't satisfied.", it suggests a monarchical system that I was hoping the enwiki community had grown out of. It is becoming increasingly unacceptable that Mr Wales be permitted to unilaterally meddle in the election results and to impose his own, private filtering system. Sorry, I had to say it. Tony   (talk)  08:47, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The questions were basically two - any socks, undiscovered editing disputes or other editing concerns, and anything in RL that might cause trouble for Wikipedia. Arbs-elect were also reminded that they can be given the order of the boot for misconduct.  If folks are interested, I'll post the actual questions later.  I don't think anyone refused to answer those questions. Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:32, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Tony1, I refer to Jimbo's formal role in selecting arbitrators to whom he delegates his powers as final resolver of on-Wikipedia disputes. Some people may see it as an anachronism but that is still how it's done on this wiki.

Elen of the Roads, thanks. If the questions are such as those I don't think there are likely to be any issues with candidates declining to answer. Tasty monster (=TS ) 14:56, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Doubt if there would be, because if someone has gotten this far in the process, I don't think they are likely to drop out just because Jimbo asks about closeted skeletons. If there are such, no doubt the candidate spent two weeks on his knees during the process praying that they wouldn't be discovered, and a question from Jimbo is hardly likely to evoke an honest answer.  Not saying that there are likely to be such; all winners were people of good repute on Wiki.  Still, there are a long list of such people who have proven to have feet of clay.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:21, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * JW is still a constitutional monarch who nowadays refrains from direct interference with the day to day running of the place (and rightly so) but can (and probably should) exercise his formal powers in some unspecified extraordinary circumstances. Much like this guy. More seriously, he has responsibility over the WMF. - BorisG (talk) 15:59, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Tm, "Tony1, I refer to Jimbo's formal role in selecting arbitrators to whom he delegates his powers as final resolver of on-Wikipedia disputes." His ability to meddle in the electoral process has become highly questionable. If there is a hint that the successful candidates have been intimidated into answering, or more importantly, that the decision of the voters has been subverted on the basis of a candidate's answers or a candidate's refusal to answer, there will be an immediate RfC to resolve the matter. There is a big question-mark hanging over his "power", as you put it, to go against the will of the voters. Since when did the Queen start appointing her own members of Parliament because she didn't care for the results of an election? Let's remember what a constitutional monarch is (it's Jimmy Wales's term for himself, BTW). I advise all candidates not to answer the questions: the questions have not been approved by the community, and there is no policy basis for asking them. This sudden imposition is of great significance; if there was a plan to insist that candidates submit to such questions, the time to gain approval for it was during the RfC we held weeks ago, before the election, not after it. Tony   (talk)  16:11, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Tony, thank you for your support for the consistency of rules for the candidates. I really appreciate the fact that you and others have so much concern for our privacy.  Having said that, I signed up to deal with a lot worse than having to attest that there are no facts in my background which would, should they come to light, cause disrepute to Wikipedia.  I think that's the key part of the equation--harm to the project as a whole--and why I have no issue giving away my right to NOT answer such a post-hoc question.  I wouldn't be running (nor would any of the candidates) except out of a dedication to the project and a desire to see it continue and grow, and the final questions that Jimbo asked were indeed phrased in such a manner.  The details can be cleaned up a bit and established before the next election so no one is surprised, but Jimbo already incorporated feedback from the candidates by dropping a question that went too far. Jclemens (talk) 16:26, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Tony, you're falling into the same trap (seeing an element of the election that you disagree with and arguing that it should be changed midswing) that has created most of the rest of the drama in this election. A constitutional monarchy is one where its monarch is constrained from absolute power by a constitution, laws, or in our case policy and consensus; the monarch retains absolute authority everywhere that they are not so constrained. Jimbo's role in the Arbcom election process has certainly become increasingly debatable in recent times, but that debate simply hasn't happened; there is nothing to point to that the unease you feel personally represents the consensus across the community. And equally the current procedure, which is of course open to review but which has not yet been reviewed, is that the results of the election do not represent "the decision of the voters"; they represent the 'community endorsement' element of the process, where our constutional monarch is constrained not to apoint anyone who does not receive >50% S/(S+O); but is not constrained from not appointing members of the list due to a vaguely-defined 'danger-to-the-project' judgement. That too is available to review, and in my opinion, we should be having that review regardless of whether any particular position feels dissatisfied by the final outcome; but such a review is forward looking, not retrospective. Happy ‑ melon  16:41, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * To confirm, I had no qualms about answering a question about issues to the project. I was bothered by the idea of a checklist, but the way the questions were phrased, the enquiry did not seem intrusive or unreasonable, and I would expect it to be asked of functionaries in future. Jimbo believes he has the authority to appoint and dismiss Arbs and even shut down Arbcom. It is the fascinating nature of this project that no-one is completely sure whether this is true or not. Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:47, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * HM, where are you getting all these assumptions from? Most of the points you made in your comment have no basis in policy or consensus. A surprisingly small minority of 39% (I think it was), 18 months ago, endorsed Mr Wales's role. I suspect community opinion since then has evolved. And if you believe what you say, why did you launch in unilaterally and change the ArbCom chart to reflect the one- and two-year terms (three and nine, respectively), without Mr Wales's endorsement? Jclemens, why is it being done behind closed doors, concealing this suddenly hatched process from the community? Tony   (talk)  16:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Why is what being done behind closed doors? This due diligence thing arose from community input, took community input into account in its formulation, and is being discussed by the community as we speak. Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:07, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Well ... I think Jimbo was acting in good faith, but it would certainly have been better if the due diligence thingy was officially part of the election process. Have the actual questions been posted yet?--Wehwalt (talk) 17:14, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll do it as soon as I get home - or if Jclemens is still about, he'll have the same email. Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:26, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That is fine. It doesn't sound as bad as I initially thought, but if was disclosed earlier, I think the drama would have been stillborn.  I would say that Jimbo is more a cross between a monarch and a governor-general.  He is the foundation's representative, so not a true monarch; but as there's no real way to sack him, he's a monarch in that regard.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:58, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That is fine. It doesn't sound as bad as I initially thought, but if was disclosed earlier, I think the drama would have been stillborn.  I would say that Jimbo is more a cross between a monarch and a governor-general.  He is the foundation's representative, so not a true monarch; but as there's no real way to sack him, he's a monarch in that regard.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:58, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

''1. Do you have any undisclosed COI/sock puppet/behavioral issues within the framework of Wikipedia that I should know about? Anything disclosed in the election process is not my concern here.'' 2. Is there anything serious about your real life identity that might reflect negatively on Wikipedia? 3. Do you agree that your service here can be terminated for misconduct?

These are the actual questions. I posted the idea of due diligence here pretty much as soon as I heard about it - and to be fair, Jimbo had posted on his talkpage earlier than that (there's a link above somewhere). So I don't think there was a secret agenda, I think the idea only occurred to him after the election, with the dustup about how feeble the disclosure requirement was.Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:54, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Hm, interesting. They are so nominal, if you ask me, that I suspect they were asked for the purpose of establishing (or reestablishing) that Jimbo has the right to ask them, and that he thus plays a more than ceremonial role in the process  And #3 establishes or reestablishes that he has a right to remove.  I'm a thinkin' that someone legal's thinking that if he doesn't do this, he's risking claims that his right in the process has fallen into desuetude.  But that's because I think that way, as a lawyer.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:22, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think that Jimmy would even consider removing an arb unilaterally. If he requested that the committee made a vote on the matter, however, I suppose we would.  (Then again, any matter so egregious as to get Jimmy to interfere in ArbCom's internal matters would be so dramatic that the probabilities that the committee wouldn't already be examining the matter are minute). Contrary to what many seem to believe, Jimmy's actual interactions with the committee are few and far between, and range from "I received this by email but that's your field" to "Hey, what's your take on X?".  &mdash; Coren (talk) 20:35, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * As I said, it's to say that he continues to assert the right. Not that he has any desire to actually do it, but he's making it clear his position is that he still has the right.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:46, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

As the questions have been given here now, my objections are that a) the first question is unnecessary as the community has now incorporated the sock question into the public nomination process, b) the second question doesn't serve the project (the candidates, community and Jimmy will have different definitions of 'serious', and this question only allows Jimmy to say 'Well I did ask for disclosure and didnt receive it') and I have publicly disclosed sufficient information that it should be obvious that my service is unlikely to bring the project into disrepute, and c) I view the third as trying to reestablish a right that Jimbo not longer holds (or, if he did wield it, it would unnecessarily harm the project and he would lose the right in the process, as has happened many times before). With regards to the third question, the community (inc. ArbCom) and WMF can remove an arbitrator for misconduct, but I reject the notion that Jimmy can or should assert that he can. John Vandenberg (chat) 23:03, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * With regard to the third question, Elen says it is: "3. Do you agree that your service here can be terminated for misconduct?"  She says that is the "actual" question, which I assume means it is an exact quote.  I see nothing there about Jimbo removing anybody; nor anything about anyone doing anything unilaterally or against the opinion of the community.  (Whether that opinion would have to be expressed by a simple majority, or a "consensus", or 71.3 percent of people who have at least 2,457 edits, is one of the Great Current Mysteries of Wikipedia, but it doesn't change the overall concept.)  More simply, the question does not specify who could do the removing; it simply leaves open the option that someone or some combination of someones could do it if necessary.  Could Jimbo do it unilaterally?  I don't know; the exact scope of his "powers" is another of those Great Mysteries, but I have strong doubts that we will ever actually find out.  Jimbo seems to be a pretty smart guy, and knows that one of the ways this project keeps its volunteers happy (speaking broadly) and actively editing is to give them a share in the decision-making.  Presumably, if an arbitrator did something so egregious that he/she needed to be removed, it would be obvious not only to Jimbo but to everybody else as well.  Maybe that's wishful thinking -- but maybe not, since I think in most cases an arbitrator who is "caught" doing something that is really wrong (not just "controversial") would probably just resign.  (Isn't that what has happened in the past?  I'm not positive.)  I do think that, in an "emergency" situation, there needs to be someone with the power to suspend a wrongdoing arbitrator for a brief period pending a final decision by whatever combination of people get to make the final decision.  It seems reasonable to me that in such an emergency situation, either Jimbo or the ArbCom as a whole could take such action -- and I'm talking here about a suspension for a few days, while the situation gets straightened out permanently.  That's ok, right?  Neutron (talk) 23:38, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It's an exact quote. It's a rather vague question - it's not clear whether it's asking 'do you consent to...' or 'do you realise that...'  Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:47, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If I were you (meaning an arbitrator-elect), I would assume it means both of those. (In which case, it becomes effectively non-vague.)  Neutron (talk) 00:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, but I wouldn't agree to the first definition, because no disciplinary procedure should require the subject to consent to potential dismissal ahead of time and without a definition of misconduct (Newyorkbrad raised the same issue). I realise that misconduct (unspecified) may result in a removal from office.Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * ArbCom has a procedure, Arbitration_Committee/Procedures, and it has been used to remove functionaries for misconduct. There is no need for Jimmy to get involved, and he shouldn't.  In fact, more than one of the instances of misconduct should have been caught by Jimmy had he followed Wikipedia policy, e.g. Arbitration/Policy which has been static since 2004?.  English Wikipedia is nearly ten years old, and still we have this anachronism.  The other language Wikipedia projects have managed fine without it.  I don't wish to start a constitutional crisis now, but I am not going to tell Jimmy my life story in order that he can decide whether parts of my private life will bring the project into disrepute or not in the future.  I am very transparent about my real identity, but this is an invasion of privacy. John Vandenberg (chat) 23:58, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

A series of unfortunate events
I am disappointed and unimpressed by what has transpired here. While much care has been taken by the community to ensure rules are not changed mid-election, Jimbo apparently considers it appropriate to make up new processes on-the-fly without any onwiki consultation. Since the election, Jimbo has only contributed to his talk page and only one such post concerns the elections, namely his announcement that
 * "I'm doing some due diligence on the elected candidates and expect to make appointments early to mid next week. I believe the due diligence is purely a formality, and do not expect to deviate from the order of the election results. None of my due diligence is "political" in any way."

Everything else has been revealed piecemeal by arbitrators and arbitrators-elect. Indeed, without Elen of the Roads, we might never have heard that this "due diligence" involved asking specific personal questions to the candidates, some of which invaded privacy in original form, and led to refusals to respond.

No one should be surprised at concerns that this has happened behind closed doors. I am not gratefully reassured when NewYorkBrad announces that "JW wound up not asking the 'felony' question, so this aspect of concern appears to be resolved." The air of fait accompli is just too Kafka-esque. We should have outgrown this on enwiki by now.

The most disappointing thing of all is that incidents like this are totally unnecessary, being caused by a lack of transparency at a crucial stage in the appointments process. I've no doubt that Jimbo means well and that this was an idea that occurred to him after the elections in response to concerns about the robustness of screening of candidates. However, such decisions simply cannot be made off-wiki any more.

Almost every year, the ArbCom elections involve some controversial move (lapse of judgement? unnecessary stress?) by Jimbo. This process should instead be a routine ratification of election results to fill vacant positions according to well-defined principles. The constitutional monarch then congratulates all involved on a job well done, and perhaps raises idea for improvements for community consideration; that is leadership without authority. Geometry guy 23:18, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The reason for all of this is that (as John Vandenberg hints) it is not as settled as one thinks that Jimbo is a leader without authority. Happy Melon is coming across a bit like a protocol droid, but I believe he is accurately repeating something that Jimmy has said: that he has directly delegated his own authority to Arbcom, and retains the rights to hire and fire. Since he considers this to be the case, he takes very seriously the responsibility of deciding whether or not these are fit and proper people. Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:34, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree, actually; I'm trying to remind people that the "we must not rewrite the rules in the middle of the election" position must be enforced universally, not only when it suits a given faction. As soon as Jimbo announces the nominations and brings this election to a close, I'm all in favour of opening the whole can and dicing all the worms up on the chopping board of RfC.   Happy ‑ melon  14:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * (blinks) A little Polyannaism there, Elen, I think.  If Jimbo took this responsibility truly seriously, something more than a self-statement would be required.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * More to the point, almost every year there is an issue with a member of the committee that results in a resignation. For example, we didn't use to ask about sock-puppets but now we know that we have to. However not all questions can be asked in public. As a hypothetical, if there is an editor who does good work on Wikipedia, gets promoted to admin, and runs successfully for ArbCom, but who has a conviction for child molestation, do you think that it would be a bad thing for Wales to find that out before making the appointment? Since we don't really know much about the people we elect to oversee the project, I think it's worthwhile to have some check in place to avoid bigger problems later.   Will Beback    talk    23:39, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The procedure, however, does not meet the stated objective, as no one who has done as you said without disclosing said conviction (as if he would) and probably found quite a bit of redemption in the process is going to disclose it to Jimbo.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:48, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It has long been policy that arbitrators-elect disclose their sockpuppets to Jimbo and the rest of the committee. Obviously this policy was not followed.  The policy can be improved upon, and I wouldn't object to additional requirements, such as disclosing felonies that remain on the public record.  John Vandenberg (chat) 00:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If you think this battery of questions will have any bearing on those problems, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Protonk (talk) 15:36, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

(ec) I was careful not to state a position on whether Jimbo has the authority (some say) he claims to have, but would advocate that such authority causes unnecessary strife, and damages his ability to provide leadership. I am also not against more scrutiny of ArbCom candidates, on or off-record as appropriate, but that is something the community needs to discuss. What has gone wrong here, and badly wrong, is the way checks have been introduced without consultation. I predict similar disagreement/strife/misunderstanding will happen again next year if we (including Jimbo) do not learn from it. Geometry guy 23:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm all for a serious discussion about long term project governance (and man do I have a lot to say on the subject), but this isn't it. Every year, the same protestations come back with the occasional flavor-of-the year on the same theme.  Every year, there is a lot of angst over the election/appointment of the committee.  Every year, the matter is abandoned without said serious discussion having taken place, and exactly one year later everybody acts stunned and shocked that the same matters are raised again. This needs to be discussed, but not days after the election nor days before an election.  It needs to have cogent, serious proposals that are worked on collectively (or representatively), and selection.  Not bickering with everyone trying to get their own preferred way of "doing things right" with the resulting chaos giving no result over the past.  We need to look at governance, not process.  This requires setting up, discussion, and *gasp* actual work.  Over months (perhaps years). In the meantime, the current system works fairly well in practice even if everyone has a pet theory of why it doesn't.  It could be better, but repeated cries of constitutional crisis do not a solution make.  &mdash; Coren (talk) 00:19, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Interestingly, this came up in the brouhaha over identifying, and I said at the time that I would undertake to work through some of these issues. Interestingly, Skomorokh, who is a very old hand Wikipedian, and some others, actively do not want a set of agreed rules, as they would rather have Jimbo leap in like Spiderman to clarify doubts.  It's a different model of governance. Rules unsettle some people, because they feel they go against consensus. In this model, it is impossible to have a good set of rules.Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:24, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure where you encountered that philosophy, Elen, but I certainly do not espouse it. Jimbo's peculiar role in the ArbCom elections on the English Wikipedia is not much other than a superfluous historical accident, or courtesy if you want to be generous about it. Since the election I have been weighing the clarificatory benefits of a procedural policy for the elections with the added bureaucracy it would inevitably bring, with an eye to undertaking the work Coren describes above and soliciting feedback from the community to that end.  Skomorokh   00:36, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I apologise in that case for attributing the comment to you. I shall go back and find who it was (it was not in any case intended as a criticism, but there's no point saying it was you said it, if it wasn't) but not at the moment, as it's 2am here, and I need to go to bed. Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I find it strange that some editors, all of whom I respect greatly, are filling in the time waiting for Jimbo to announce the new arbitrators by questioning whether the final decision is up to him at all.

If it were not we would all just get on with installing new arbitrators, and I can imagine nobody feeling happier with that than Jimbo himself. But we don't and so here we are filling in the time by reiterating the perennial arguments about his role. Tasty monster (=TS ) 03:25, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The community has just gone through an elaborate election to decide on the new arbitrators. If Mr Wales says nothing, there's no problem. Tony   (talk)  07:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I've resisted weighing in on the various messes above for a very long time. I have great respect for Coren's above statement, where he states that these dramatic discussions take place every year and in the end nothing is resolved. I have an even stronger, and darker, view of the current state of affairs. I have been of the belief, and the many above conversations have reinforced this belief, that there is a large group of people who are complaining endlessly for the sake of complaining, or worse yet, hearing their own voices. Throughout this election, there have been numerous long batches of complaining, of various levels of validity, and various lengths. Therefore, when I gave my feedback at ACE2010/F I made a proposition that boils down to "put up or shut up." Coren is right. An RfC is needed on the Jimbo issue. An RfC is also needed on election personnel, a third is needed for new election techniques, a fourth on self-identification, a fifth on various election policies/procedures such as candidate questions and guides, heck there could be up to eight very valid RfCs based off of the issues from this election. They should be done no later than August, so that there is time to implement them. My perdiction though, is that these RfCs won't take place. We'll have a last minute RfC on the election in October 2011, when it's too late to change anything, and then right after the election, we'll have pages upon pages of complaints. It will be miserable, and completely expected, and will repeat in 2012 and 2013 and so on and so on. That's because most people don't really care about the issues enough to try and fix things, they just want to complain.
 * Think I'm wrong? Prove it. Put up (the RfC) or shut up (about a lack of consensus and issues about things that the RfC could have solved) . My confidence in the community to solve election problems is low. I honestly doubt that the tiny number of people that read this are going to care, or do anything about these issues, but I'll put them out anyways. Nothing will change, the elections will always be a mess, and people will complain endlessly about it. Now please, go prove me wrong.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  17:24, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I understand your frustration and pessimism, but I do think there is at least a shot at things being different next year, because based on my reading of the election-related pages from past years and this year, this year has been different. There have always been debates about how to proceed with the elections, but it seems to me that the discussions have "boiled over" this year in a way they never did before.  You list some of the issues, and there are indeed so many issues that I think they may very well provide an impetus to actually do something about them for the next election.  Or to at least try to do something.  The Wikipedia "decision-making process", such as it is, makes it very difficult to get anything done, especially on "governance"-related issues.  This is because decisions require a "consensus", and so many people have such strong and divergent opinions that a "consensus" is difficult to achieve.  Not only does this make "change" difficult, but I think it deters a lot of people from even trying, as they know that all their time and effort may very well come to nothing, either because there truly is no "consensus" (or even a majority) on any issue, or because some random administrator comes along and decides there is no "consensus" where a different admin might decide otherwise.  There is no "management" of the decision-making process; in RfC's (especially those relating to elections) it seems that people just make proposal after proposal after proposal and it all spins off into nothing.  In the "real world" moderators, facilitators and the like exist in order to try to help a group narrow down its options and hopefully come to an agreement.  But on Wikipedia we seem to be scared of anything that looks like "bureaucracy", and any attempt to agree on a structure for decision-making is treated with disdain.  Without any structure at all (except for conduct-related issues, which are under ArbCom's jurisdiction), what we end up with are non-decisions in which the "default position" ends up becoming the "decision", and even then there is no agreement about what the "default position" is.  And then when Jimbo finds it appropriate to step in, there are arguments (apparently increasing in volume) about his role.  How is this to be resolved?  I don't know.  I'm just a semi-regular contributor with less than 2,000 edits but who does know something about organizations and elections, and frankly Wikipedia baffles me when it comes to the issue of "governance."  There does need to be an RfC, but as I have said elsewhere and suggest above, that should not be the first step.  There really should be more of a free-form discussion first (or actually separate discussions of the different issues so things don't get too chaotic), to try to narrow down the issues, and an RfC where people state support or opposition should probably be the second, or maybe even the third step.  It would be nice to try for some agreement on what the issues are, and what the options are within those issues, and how we are actually going to try to make the decisions, instead of rushing headlong into an ill-defined process that is doomed to failure.   Neutron (talk) 22:12, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I understand too. I guess that, as a variation on put-up-or-shut-up, when there's a vacuum, it becomes a matter of who will just go ahead and step in to fill it. (And, like so many of us, no, I'm not volunteering.) --Tryptofish (talk) 22:19, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Jimbo chooses the arbcom mebers taking into consideration the voting tally, if he feels he needs more information such as sock pupets or felonies he has every right to ask in private. This thread is just another "YOU INFRIGIN OUR POWAH" spew, but people need to understand that Jimbo has ALWAYS asked these types of questions after certain incidents in the past and good on him for doing so.  « l | Promethean ™ | l »   (talk) 02:11, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I welcome the announcement made by Jimbo today. In my view, there have only been two serious problems arising during this election process: the issue of identification, and transparency/clarity concerning the appointments process/Jimbo's role. His statement refers specifically to both of them. Perhaps in retrospect it is fortunate that these matters have arisen, as there is now an opportunity to address them. Jimbo has indicated that he will make a further announcement related to the second topic. Community involvement will be needed, perhaps in the form of RfCs, to ensure that these issues are ironed out for even smoother elections in 2011! I hope there will be such engagement in a positive and collaborative spirit. Geometry guy 20:54, 17 December 2010 (UTC)