Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2018

Election after expiry of one-year term
With the passage of Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December 2018, I'm unclear what happens after the end of the one-year term. Will the position be opened for a two-year term election, thereby permanently altering the balance of positions open each year, or will there be a special one-year term election, to eventually restore the balance? isaacl (talk) 16:49, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I imagine it'll be the same as if that arbitrator (with the <60% one-year term) has resigned. Someone would only be elected for the remainder of the two-year term (that is, one year) regardless of the percentage they receive. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:43, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Agree. This can ultimately be decided next year during the RfC, but my assumption was that it would work like any other elected seat. The open seat from this year's tranche would be filled for the remaining one year before going up for election again with all the other seats in the tranche. ~ Rob 13 Talk 05:05, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * When you say "work like any other elected seat", though, this implies it will be subject to the same rules with the current election (which, at the time of my question, was before [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2018&type=revision&diff=864214605&oldid=862250058&diffmode=source this change] (*)), where support above a threshold results in being elected to a two-year term. I can't quite identify the cause, but something about how a lower-tier of arbitrators will artificially introduce more short terms is making me uneasy.
 * (*) Though I agree the change follows the pattern of seats that open up early due to resignation, it feels premature to codify this without a broader discussion. But of course as you say, should the situation occur, then the RfC for the subsequent election can decide on another approach if desired. isaacl (talk) 06:29, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It's also worth noting an arb hasn't received a two-year term with less than 60% for some time. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:02, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, I followed the discussion in the RfC. I appreciate for this election, it's probable that the elected arbitrators will be selected for two-year terms. All the same I wish there had been a discussion on what happens in subsequent elections to try to shake out any possible issues. isaacl (talk) 21:04, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * With respect, I think you're overthinking this. The fact that the RfC did not touch on this can only realistically imply that nothing else with the current system is meant to change. The fixed two-year "tranche" system is still in place due to longstanding community consensus, and can't be modified without an explicit community consensus, so the one-year term seats need to be treated the same as any other open seats during a 'mid-term' election. There's already an established practice to fill open seats for one-year terms. I modified the wording to reflect this practice, just so that it's clear going into the next election. Of course, the community will have a chance to change the rules again before the next election, but short of any explicit changes, current rules will carry forward into the next election. Swarm  talk  00:03, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I believe there is a difference between a seat being vacated in the middle of a two-year term, and the creation of a tiered system where a threshold determines the length of a term. However I agree it's all moot until the circumstance in question comes to pass. isaacl (talk) 01:48, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, I suppose that's the point of contention. I interpret a "one-year term" as being the same thing as a "half-term", which should be treated precisely as "a seat being vacated in the middle of a two-year term". I think the intent of the proposal was pretty clearly to increase the requirements for appointment from 50% to 60%&mdash;nothing more, nothing less. If you look at the RfC, the original proposal was to simply raise the percentage threshold, which was getting some resistance, so this was proposed as an alternative, more moderate way of achieving this. There was clearly no intent to create a complicated new system that throws the straightforward two-year "tranche" system out of whack. It's simply meant to exist within current bounds. Swarm  talk  03:35, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, like I mentioned, I have followed the RfC, and I understand the history. As we both know, there's no discussion of the one-year terms being half terms. There's nothing inherently complicated about saying candidates above one threshold are elected to a two-year term, and below another are elected to a one-year term (which I imagine is why no one delved further than this basic description). It's arguably more complicated to make the length of the terms in the following year dependent on both the level of support received by the outgoing arbitrators and the level of support for the newly elected candidates. If, one day, it became a regular circumstance for candidates to receive support between 50 and 60 percent, then the concept of half terms wouldn't have much practical effect (since many seats would be open every year for re-election anyway) and the tranche system can be revisited. But we can defer discussion until there actually is an arbitrator elected to a one-year term. isaacl (talk) 03:57, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, this comes down to two varying interpretations, neither of which were confirmed or even touched upon via the RfC. I'm under the impression that my interpretation is the common sense, most natural one, and I can't even comprehend how you're coming to a polar opposite interpretation (not offense intended). I suppose it's worth asking what the actual intent regarding this proposal was, and whether this interpretation is accurate. Regardless, we're certainly on the same page that this discussion is purely academic and may not even be relevant, and even if it is, it won't be formally clarified until next year's election.  Swarm  talk  05:46, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think I am; we both agree the RfC didn't address this aspect. isaacl (talk) 08:27, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with Swarm. The point is that you cannot be elected to a two year term without 60%+ support, nothing else should have changed. Treating the one year term as a two year term which will be vacated half way makes sense. And Swarm is completely correct - because this was the fallback choice, I don't think anyone specifically thought about this issue. That said, I think we should interpret the RfC in a way that gives effect to the decision (60% needed for two year term) which changing as little as possible else, which I think gets us to the same place. WJBscribe (talk) 10:14, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, I had agreed that this issue was not specifically considered. Treating a one-year term as a half term means that in the next year, someone can get over 60% support and be elected to a one-year term. This is consistent with previous practice where the elected arbitrators with the lowest levels of support were assigned the balance of the terms for vacated seats, but it means a 60+% level of support alone does not determine term length. I imagine this will be fine with most (all?) people who might weigh in. I just expressed a personal desire that it would have been nice to discuss it beforehand, but of course it's fine to discuss it later when the scenario actually becomes relevant and not just theoretical. isaacl (talk) 14:48, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I just realized my earlier comment "I don't think I am" was ambiguous regarding the referent; I meant "I don't think I am coming to a polar opposite interpretation". isaacl (talk) 15:01, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

What would be good on the Committee?
I'm wondering what would be good on the Committee, in terms of what we should look for.

What works well and doesn't work well with the current set of arbitrators, and what has historically not worked well with ArbCom? Discuss-Dubious (t/c) 01:30, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not in the hot seat this year, so I'll give this a go. In terms of concrete skills: 2-3 people who were community CUs or former arbs who kept and used the CU bit; 2-3 people with good general technical skills, of whom at least 1 hopefully has some experience with bots; 4-6 serious content writers (not necessarily FA-hoop-jumping, but experienced developing longer articles through in-depth research beyond the scale of what you can find by googling your subject and picking through the first page or two of results); 1-2 recent clerks are awful handy for knowing how to get all the paperwork done; 1-2 arbs from Ye Olde Tymes for institutional memory and half a chance of finding stuff in the archives; and as much as I rag on AN/ANI, 2-3 people with experience specifically with calming angry dramaboard mobs and with closing complex RfCs really helps. Of course, I'm sure I've missed things, one person could fit into multiple categories, and some people don't really fit in any of them but fill important roles as Havers of Common Sense.
 * Assuming that you have the time for the job (which can be hard to predict over 2-year timespans), probably the top qualifications are being flexible, changing your mind when new evidence comes up, and not being too thin-skinned or having a history of overreacting to minor drama. Oh, and a good memory. Partly for the "I think we got an email about this problem six months ago" issues (search doesn't find it because the username was misspelled and there wasn't much to be done about the problem, but there's still 12 emails in that thread because it diverged into a discussion about pie) and partly for the "I can't remember where I learned this tidbit of information and don't want to accidentally disclose something private" issues. Opabinia regalis (talk) 10:02, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your take. Which of these do you feel we are losing this year in from Tranche Beta? I'll have to look for good drama reaction Arbs. Is the relevance of content-creators about the experience in how good content should look, and because Arbitration is designed to focus primarily on content? Discuss-Dubious (t/c) 23:53, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, we don't know which of the outgoing arbs are going to put their hats in the ring again yet! (*cough cough* hurry up guys!) As for content - arbitration is actually designed not to focus on content directly, but rather on conduct issues, disputes, and other problems standing in the way of good content development. But I think having significant experience with content helps in dispute-resolution roles in general, because you have a better feel for how routine content-related disagreements escalate into disruptive behavior and more empathy for people's emotional investment in their work. Secondarily, I feel like drafting cases is exercising a lot of the same mental muscles as article writing - you have a big pile of sources, some unreliable, some mutually contradictory, and you need to turn it all into a coherent, evidence-based result that cites its sources, doesn't overinterpret, and is readable by a general audience.
 * While I'm here: another thing you can do to build a good committee (assuming you don't want to run yourself) is recruit good candidates! Especially people from outside the usual drama circles who might not give much thought to the idea without a sharp poke encouragement :) Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:36, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
 * One thing I don't get is why the election period is longer than the nomination period. This, combined with the real life events like the elections in the US which probably has some people tied up in real life, likely led to the dearth of candidates this year (I'm honestly surprised that some outgoing Arbs have not declared their intention to run again as well). Maybe for 2019, we should consider a longer nominating period or a provision to extend the deadline if the number of candidates is less or equal to the number of open seats. At the moment, voters would have to support all candidates to fill the open seats which kind of defeats the point of having an election. Regards So  Why  11:22, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
 * There's no requirement to fill all the seats, and the purpose of the election (which is for the community to decide whether or not to select the candidates who do stand) is most definitely not defeated. If, say, none achieves the minimum 50% vote for a one-year term, then none will be elected. Also, it's been very common for candidates to leave it until the very last minute to throw their hats into the ring, and we have more than two days left yet. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:50, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
 * My point was that a voter who wants to see all seats filled, has no choice but to support all candidates if there are only as many candidates as there are seats. Regards So  Why  10:38, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I understand that, but the election is not only for those who want to see all seats filled, and so the purpose of the election is not, as you claim, defeated by the possible frustration of that subset of voters. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:53, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I'll add that if someone is prepared to vote for a candidate they otherwise think unsuitable simply to see all seats filled, then the problem is with them and not with the process. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:56, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Instructions for Filing Candidate Statement
I have tried to follow the instructions for submitting a candidate statement. However, when I enter my name on the line above the blue button and then click the blue button, it displays a page containing a template within a template, and does not give me instructions on where to enter my statement. Can someone please look at the instructions for how to submit a candidate statement? I am sure that someone intended to make it somewhat more self-explanatory how to submit a statement. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:59, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
 * If you preview/create the page you're taken to that substitutes's the templates, you'll see that you're then given the option to create a candidate statement. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 05:16, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Temporary checkuser permission for election scrutineers
The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that: For the Arbitration Committee, --Cameron11598 (Talk) 23:01, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard

Questions for the 2019 RFC
This seems possibly the best place to note things that should be considered ahead of the 2019 election, based on things that come up this year. This is not a venue to discuss any of these questions now, it is a list of things for discussion in September next year. Thryduulf (talk) 04:15, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * What is meant by "good standing" in terms of candidate requirements? Options include:
 * Not blocked or banned - at the time nominations close or at some other time?
 * Not subject to active sanctions - at the time nominations close or at some other time? - any sanctions or just some types?
 * Have the trust of the community - determined how? determined by whom?
 * Not been recently desysopped - what counts as "recent"?
 * Whatever the consensus of the commissioners is - does no consensus mean good standing or not?
 * Some combination of the above. Thryduulf (talk) 04:15, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Has the smaller committee size helped, hindered, made no difference or is it too soon to tell? Thryduulf (talk) 04:15, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Are candidates allowed to remove and/or move questions asked of them to the talk page? Other editors? Only the commissioners? Do the usual exceptions apply? Thryduulf (talk) 04:15, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I've started Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December 2019 to collect things, perhaps that would be better? — xaosflux  Talk 05:24, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Indeed it probably would - I'll copy over my comments above. Thryduulf (talk) 11:26, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Voter guides
There's at least one guide listed in the ACE2018 template that's not in the 2018 voter guides category, and there's at least one guide included in the category that's not on the template. I assume these listings should be the same? (I haven't fixed it myself just in case there's a reason for the difference that I've overlooked, though I don't think there is.) Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:00, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I've fixed it by, adding one on template to category, adding two in category to template, and removing Collect's from the template as it appears to be a copy of questions the editor wish to ask candidates and not a voter guide. -- KTC (talk) 15:26, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Historically, Collect bases his recommendations on the candidates' responses to his questions, so I am sure his is going to be a voter guide even if it isn't just yet. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:48, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I hadn't looked at previous year. My apology Collect, I've restored your entry. -- KTC (talk) 21:05, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * TY. I would have noted its removal, but as NYB points out, my page contains my opinions of answers only after candidates actually can answer them.   Giving my opinions before the questions are answered seems like tachyon opinionating. Collect (talk) 21:17, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

"None of the above"
Could we add "None of the above" to the ballot please? It seems reasonable give we are relentlessly re-electing the same old figures because there's nothing better to choose, and there's no option for the voting community to register dissatisfaction with the current process. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:11, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * A candidate will only be appointed if they have reach at least 50% support calculated via "Support/(Support+Oppose)". If you do not wish any of the candidates to be appointed, you are free to oppose all of them. -- KTC (talk) 23:17, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * That doesn't answer the request. Can we add "None of the above" to the voting slip please.  The Rambling Man (talk) 23:18, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * It does answer the question if the reason you want "None of the above" is because you don't want any of the candidates to be elected. By voting Oppose all of the candidates, you would be doing exactly that. To answer the narrow question of can it be added: No, you would have had to propose it in the pre-election RFC and gain consensus for such an addition. -- KTC (talk) 23:23, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * No, you all keep missing the point. A "none of the above" candidate would get "positive" votes, against the status quo.  It's incredible that you all don't get it.  In fact, it's something that needs to be addressed.  The Rambling Man (talk) 23:26, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * , I’m so confused. I apologize. — CYBERPOWER  ( Chat ) 23:37, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * No need to apologise. It's just that we're seeing nothing more than the same old characters who will be inevitably re-elected.  The "safe" option.  But the ineffectual option.  I'm thinking we should have a "Brewster" option, or a "none of the above" option, where we get to actively register dissatisfaction.  Alternatively, I'll run again and people who really hate the system will vote for me.  Or people who like the transparent no bullshit approach might vote for me.  Or we could simply use "None of the above" to note to WMF that the current nonsense of recycling old Arbs is simply a waste of time and jettison Arbcom altogether.  After all, what have they achieved in the past year?  The Rambling Man (talk) 23:47, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * This is approval voting, so adding non-candidates would just allow them to also be approved, but it would not be at the exclusion of also approving other candidates so I only see such an option as confusing to voters. As far as sending a "note to WMF", the foundation does not require the English Wikipedia to have an arbitration committee, we could disband it ourselves. —  xaosflux  Talk 00:06, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I am generally in favor of (nearly) every election, regardless of level, having a "none of the above" or something to the effect of a positive, active "Abstain" for exactly the reasons you point out, TRM. While I don't agree with you as to the current situation, I do think it's an important option that most elections leave out.  Thankfully, ArbCom Elections have, as long as I can recall, presented the voters with three options: Support, Oppose, and Neutral.  That third is exactly what I would like, and I believe what you're after as well.  It may not be worded as strongly or as correctly as you like, but the effect is the same: while there is indeed a difference in meaning between neutral and abstain, their effect and message is largely the same.  Neutral votes are shown alongside the Support and Oppose totals, so the message is clear (see Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2017). ~  Amory  (u • t • c) 01:59, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think "Neutral" is remotely what TRM wants. Neutral simply means you have no preference for whether an individual candidate is elected or not, and that definitely does not appear to be what TRM is saying. I think opposing every candidate is closer to what TRM means, but still not sufficient - I take it that he wants a way of actively voicing disapproval with the whole process, which we do not have. Perhaps the closest that happens in a real-world election is spoiling one's ballot paper (and some elections do include the number in the results), but obviously that can't be done with online elections. One obvious alternative is, as TRM suggests, to run for ArbCom himself - and being the cantankerous spanner-in-the-works that he is, he'd probably get my vote again ;-) Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:00, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, most of the folks here should already know that "neutral" votes are absolutely useless, so why do we continue to deceive many potential voters that could be clueless about the system? This current system gives advantage to candidates that doesn't do nor say much and avoids controversy at all costs, and as a result it increases the number of potential arbitrators completely lacking any independent thinking. As often as I disagree with TRM, this is a shame and should be fixed. Alex Shih (talk) 07:11, 13 November 2018 (UTC)


 * If anyone feels that we reelect the same people, there are two obvious ways to change that: (1) run yourself, and/or (2) invite suitable editor(s) who you would prefer to see on ArbCom to run. Since the period to declare candidacy is over, it's too late for either of those, but it's an option for next year. For instance, this year I invited a variety of people to run for ArbCom, many of whom had never been on it. Many people respond that they don't have time for the responsibility, as it is extremely time-consuming. It's worth noting that two of the candidates this year have only been on ArbCom for a single session, and they were, obviously, new in that session. It's also worth noting that a year ago five brand-new members were elected, so it's definitely not true that we reelect the same people or that new candidates do not get elected. Softlavender (talk) 10:27, 13 November 2018 (UTC); edited 10:47, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I didn't say it never happened. But yes, we certainly do re-elect the same old lot.  Just look at this bunch of nominees.  And I did run last time round, remember?  People just lump onto the familiar "they didn't quite break it" brigade.  The Rambling Man (talk) 10:30, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * To repeat, last year five brand-new members were elected (that's 5 out of the 8 elected; 63% of those elected were newcomers), so it's definitely not true that we reelect the same old lot or that new candidates do not get elected. If you wanted to see different nominees this year, the time to have addressed that by inviting new people to run is long past, so there's no point complaining about the candidate field now, but inviting new prospective candidates you like is something you can do next year. Softlavender (talk) 10:43, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * No need to repeat yourself, I acknowledged that on that occasion new individuals were elected. That is definitely not the trend, to repeat myself.  The Rambling Man (talk) 10:46, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * It's only the trend when administrators who have never served on ArbCom do not step up to run. It's an extremely time-consuming position, and fairly thankless, so candidates usually need some encouragement to come forward. Softlavender (talk) 10:53, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * That is the usual trend. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:55, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * And if you want to change it, next year encourage some admins who have never served on ArbCom to run. Softlavender (talk) 10:59, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * It shouldn't have to be admins, and once the old brigade throw their hat into the ring (e.g. this year) it will be pointless. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:05, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The Rambling Man, I believe you are absolutely correct. I don't know if adding your option will be a change for the better, but if someone would draw up a list of names of arbs, and compares that to all the possible slots we've had over the years, your point would be made very clearly. I have no solution either; I asked someone to run but they had other obligations, as many people no doubt do. And I have no doubt that many will look at this list and go, ah, there's them again. Ha, it's like Hillary running again. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 00:45, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * This year has been an outlier in that few viable admins initially threw their hat in the ring; therefore many of the old guard apparently felt an obligation to step up and run again. That's how it works. It is not true that new candidates are never elected or never unseat/defeat old candidates; my stats listed at the bottom of this thread disprove this. In terms of "It shouldn't have to be admins", being an administrator is not, and to my knowledge has never been, a requirement. However, since arbitrators are given advanced tools, and since ArbCom deals with highly sensitive information, and since abritrators have, one way or another, a considerable amount of power, people automatically feel more comfortable electing those persons who have been vetted by the thorough !voting process of RfA, and whose history/style as an administrator can also be examined. I doubt that will ever change, which is why non-admin ArbCom candidates are invariably asked why they don't run or re-run for RfA before self-nominating for ArbCom. Softlavender (talk) 01:08, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The candidacy period is "from Sunday 00:00, 4 November until Tuesday 23:59, 13 November, UTC". It is not over yet. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:32, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh but it is. We have sufficient ex-Arbs to fill the void now, and excluding Bauder (who definitely should not be allowed to stand as he is hardly in "good standing"), the void will be filled by ex-Arbs.  The Rambling Man (talk) 10:33, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, how else could it be filled if you don't run yourself or get other people you would want to see on ArbCom to run? Voters can only choose between the candidates actually running after all. Even a "none of the above" option cannot lead to positive change itself because knowing that "people are dissatisfied" only helps if people have an alternative they could vote for instead. Try to convince some people you would rather see on the Committee to run so that people who want to vote for someone besides the "same old" can actually do so. Regards So  Why  10:47, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I covered that already. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:49, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * You're right, Boing! said Zebedee; I calculated incorrectly. We still have 12.5 hours. Softlavender (talk) 10:47, 13 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I think it's a reasonable request and shouldn't be too difficult to implement technically. We shouldn't be afraid to lay our processes open to the kind of scrutiny this option would give, and it'll save time for some voters, too. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 11:01, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Feel free to propose any changes to the voting system at next year RFC when it comes around, or even a complete overhaul of everything related to ArbCom in an out of election cycle RFC. -- KTC (talk) 11:15, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Seeing as that the request was based on the fact that there might be some dissatisfaction with the lack of fresh faces on the Committee, how about instead next year half of the spots are reserved for newcomers (if they achieve the necessary support of course)? Regards So  Why  11:21, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Feel free to propose that in the RfC for next yera's election which will almost certainly be open for the duration of September 2019. That is the only time changes to the structure of Arbitration elections can be decided. Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December 2019‎ is being used as a place to collate such suggestions so they don't get forgotten. Thryduulf (talk) 02:00, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I've checked the actual stats since December 2010 (I didn't go back any further than that), and here they are:
 * December 2010: 6 new people elected
 * December 2011: 3 new people elected
 * December 2012: 4 new people elected
 * December 2013: 6 new people elected
 * December 2014: 7 new people elected
 * December 2015: 6 new people elected
 * December 2016: 2 new people elected
 * December 2017: 5 new people elected
 * -- Softlavender (talk) 11:21, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * So, on average, 5 new people a year have been elected since December 2010. This current election is probably going to actually go against that trend, since except for one the only admins who are running have already served. But there's definitely not a trend that no or few new people get elected. And indeed it is good that there is at least some degree of carryover each year, to preserve some institutional memory and to help and instruct the newcomers. Softlavender (talk) 11:30, 13 November 2018 (UTC)


 * There is no trend of the same people being elected, besides the fact that they are all generally well-known admins. That apart, though, this suggestion may have been reasonable had it been made at the RFC about this election, which was opened more than two months ago, and was active for a month. I cannot believe any of the folks commenting above were unaware of this RFC; in which case, why is this option being suggested now? Vanamonde (talk) 18:37, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Unlike you perhaps, I missed the RFC on the election. And unlike you, perhaps, my thought processes are not synchronised with Wikipedia's calendar of events.  That's why it's being suggested now.  Is that clear? The Rambling Man (talk) 07:19, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't want to insult any of the people running. I'm sure they all have the best of intentions. I've been trying to think of a way to formulate my question so that I might wind up being able to vote for at least one person, rather than against all, which I believe would be tantamount to "none of the above" or a spoiled ballot. But it would take a lot to restore my trust in Arbcom not to continue making Wikipedia more bureaucratic and harder to work in for those of us still here to write an encyclopaedia. Yngvadottir (talk) 01:15, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Yngvy, there are three candidates running who have never been on ArbCom. Beyond that, there's a total field of 13 candidates. If out of all of those 13 you don't see even a single person you want to vote for ... the best course of action is obviously to think ahead and determine whom you would like to see on ArbCom, and pro-actively cultivate and encourage that person(s) to run in one year's time. ArbCom isn't perfect because humans are not perfect, but overall the committee members at any given time have tried their best and in good faith. If you want different people on the committee, cultivate them and encourage them to run. Softlavender (talk) 01:47, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Lavvy, I think you may have forgotten the beginning of what I typed by the time you got to the end of it. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:24, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * No, I never said or implied you were insulting anyone or their intentions. I am merely providing suggestions for remedying the situation. Another suggestion would be that you ask each current candidate specific detailed questions about specific ArbCom decision(s) you have disagreed with over the years, and see how they respond. That way you both make your point about what you consider to be ArbCom's past deficiencies, and also you might find that someone's answer(s) sway you to vote for them. Softlavender (talk) 00:26, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps a special oppose all radiobox would be better. It can be used only on neutral candidates. Votes using this option can be tracked and tabulated specially. Discuss-Dubious (t/c) 18:30, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how would an oppose all option be used on neutral candidates? Are you suggesting there be an oppose all option and voters can also vote for individual candidates? If so, why should the oppose all option alter a choice to vote neutral for a candidate? isaacl (talk) 23:09, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
 * If they press oppose all, all neutral (assumption being that a user who desires to oppose all candidates has not bothered to touch neutral radioboxes specifically) votes shift to oppose, but the user can manually make them neutral, I guess. Discuss-Dubious (t/c) 15:21, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, so if I understand correctly, you're suggesting there be a one-click method to mark all candidates as oppose, except ones that have been explicitly marked as support. This is somewhat different than the original suggestion, though, which is seeking an option that communicates a more general opposition, rather than just opposing each candidate. isaacl (talk) 17:30, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm not convinced of a need for an option to register dissatisfaction with the arbitration committee system as currently implemented. Whereas in the real world it can be tricky to gain attention to raise issues, English Wikipedia has some well-defined venues for this, and everyone has equal access to open a discussion and work towards a consensus for a change. With all due respect to those who are saying "wait until September", there's nothing particularly sacrosanct about that time: it just happens to be when people have agreed to start discussing proposals. For the type of adjustments that have been made in the past to the arbitration committee election rules, it has worked reasonably well. But if someone seriously wants to try to gain consensus for a larger reform, then I think getting that discussion started earlier is better than later (though personally I would wait until after the current arbitration committee election). isaacl (talk) 23:26, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

&rarr; I voted Oppose all candidates... it seemed the least bad choice. Now I'm delighted to find I'm not alone. But what I want is Abolish ArbCom.

ArbCom is unwikilike, a process monster, a quack cure for a preventable illness. I could swallow a little coven of ravens pecking over history of talk page summary archives but for the self-sacrificing, self-important busybodies sporting bright fezzes as they stream from the tiny clown car. That makes ArbCom a bureaucracy: a weapon much older and far deadlier than a nuclear bomb.

ArbCom was conceived as an end to wheel wars... much as nukes were meant to end world wars. Both weapons have merely changed the nature of war, the parties, and the ground.

It has long been obvious that RfA is a broken process; but a necessary one. The obvious solution was and is to fix that process; the route chosen was to create a process-spawning process to smother everyone. The only solution to this suffocation is to clear away the foam and... elevate users to admin who are able to share a common goal and basic ruleset. This requires character and patience, not a befuddled worship.

Elsewhere I see process wonks protest that now is not the time to alter process; now is the time to Obey process. I disagree. I desire to vote to dismantle the process and a good fine start will be the inclusion on the ballot of such a checkbox.

"I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how."

- Joseph Stalin

&mdash; Xiong &#29066; talk * 09:41, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Official statement on Fred Bauder's standing as candidate
The electoral commission has discussed the issue of Fred Bauder's nomination and agrees that he is to appear on the voting ballot. After discussing the the definition of being in good standing, the committee has opted to consider good standing as "to not be subjects of an active block". Fred's block was lifted before the nomination period was closed, thus his nomination has been restored. Fred Bauder is also reminded that unless the questions outright attack or out users, questions cannot be moved or removed from the candidate's questions page.— CYBERPOWER  (Around ) 01:58, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Then what remains the purpose of the phrase "in good standing"?  Remove it and simply state "Not subject to active blocks or site-bans". The Rambling Man (talk) 06:01, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Because the phrase "in good standing" is what was approved in the pre-election RFC. The rules for the election cannot be changed at any other time. Thryduulf (talk) 11:52, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * , it was removed after the discussion. You’ll find it no longer is there. — CYBERPOWER  ( Chat ) 13:59, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * It's still there. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:06, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * A slight anomaly. If, as says, the rules for the election cannot be changed at any other time than the RfC, then how can the phrase be—as posits—removed after the discussion regarding FB's standing...?   ——  SerialNumber  54129  14:12, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Well I was going to say that, but was waiting to see where this "removal" had occurred. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:14, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, seems to have been in two minds over it, removing it and then replacing it.  ——  SerialNumber  54129  14:24, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, the job of the coordinators is to interpret the rules when they need interpreting and so the clarification is certainly within their remit. I suppose it could be argued that the removal was/would be a clarification, but that's not an argument I would support. I'm not a coordinator though. Thryduulf (talk) 14:29, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * When you say "the wording was approved", it actually wasn't. The specific rules are determined by the community, and the wording needs to reflect the community's consensus. The RfCs are a chance for the community to change things, or implement new rules in regards to the election; anything not specifically changed or implemented by the RfC is carried over from the previous year, and so on. So, what is the actual rule that was originally implemented via an RfC, and where did the wording in question come from? Well, the answer is, surprisingly, actually pretty straightforward. When MuzEmike created the 2011 election page, he changed the wording from the previous year's "in good standing, that is, not subject to active blocks or site-bans" to "in good standing and is not subject to active blocks or site-bans. (subject to change in the request for comment)". So, what ended up happening in that RfC? Well, as you can see, the set requirements were to comply with the confidentiality policy, disclose alternate accounts, and "meet the voting requirements". So, what did the community decide for the voting requirements? Here: "registered account, 150 mainspace edits by 1 November 2011, and is not currently blocked". The community did not endorse the change in wording performed by that one user, which split off "good standing" into its own requirement, and, in fact, nobody in the entire RfC never even used the phrase "good standing" to mean anything, the entire time. Yes, that means the wording was erroneous the whole time. There was no Electoral Commission overseeing the integrity of the 2011 election, and none of the volunteers fixed the wording, and it's just been copy-pasted year after year, with people assuming that it was an actual rule, when it was never intended to be. I, personally, would be in support of making "good standing" a requirement, but if we want that, it needs to be explicitly added via an RfC. This isn't even a case of "unclear rules". This is clearly just an oversight that was never caught until someone actually took the time to dig through the RfCs. Swarm  talk  21:14, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Also pinging  Swarm  talk  21:15, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Crikey! Thanks, for that forensic investigation! ——  SerialNumber  54129  08:25, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Erm... -- KTC (talk) 13:05, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes,  wholeheartedly deserves the credit for the both original investigation reported at WT:COORD18, and the subsequent analysis and centralization of past RfCs reported at WT:ACERFC, which is what I'm merely summing up here. This was most likely the finest work ever performed by an election volunteer, and makes 's high praise look like an understatement. Swarm  talk  07:28, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

2019 RFC
Anyone who would like to be notified when the 2019 Arbitration Committee Election RFC opens (which will almost certainly be early September 2019) can add their name at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December 2019. That RFC is where the rules, procedures, qualifications for candidates, etc, for next year's election will be decided. Thryduulf (talk) 15:00, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Service Temporarily Unavailable
As I like to get my voting out of the way early on I tried to do so already but I'm getting a "Service Temporarily Unavailable" error when I try to submit my vote. In case anyone else is getting the same this isn't just you. --Majora (talk) 00:04, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
 * A fix is actively being worked on. -- KTC (talk) 00:08, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Just a thought but perhaps the watchlist notice should be removed until the issue is fixed. That way we aren't instructing people to go to a broken process. --Majora (talk) 00:15, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
 * And the "Vote" link disabled on the template, so people don't waste time filling out the voting form only to have it not be accepted. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:56, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
 * , yes, I'm working on disabling everything. Give me a few minutes.  The commission has agreed to move the vote back 24 hours as sysadmins work to figure out why the server is borked. — CYBERPOWER  ( Chat ) 00:59, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, no problem. (Well, a problem, but -- you know what I mean.) Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:01, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
 * , They should all be inaccessible until tomorrow now. — CYBERPOWER  (Around ) 01:06, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:13, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Voting has been delayed
Due to technical difficulties of the voting server, voting has been delayed by 24 hours. From the electoral commission— CYBERPOWER  (Around ) 01:12, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Are we good to go? --Majora (talk) 00:00, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * , yes. Voting is open. — CYBERPOWER  ( Chat ) 00:00, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The support column is missing its header but I assume that won't make a difference? --Majora (talk) 00:01, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * And...nope. No difference. Looks to be working now. Thank you to all those who worked on this in the last 24 hours to get it up and running. It is appreciated. --Majora (talk) 00:04, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * , no problem. It's what we are here for.  Now that everything is in working order, it seems our jobs as commissioners is slowly coming to an end.  Here's to making the process smoother for next year. — CYBERPOWER  ( Chat ) 00:54, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Notification that I can't participate
Why would you send me a notification that ArbCom elections are happening but I'm ineligible to participate? It should be fairly easy to select count from revision by namespace, after all, the contributions tab renders that content in seconds. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:36, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * , Because the WMF staff used their own script to regenerate the list I provided them. It's very possible their list may have a problem with filtering out users.  I'll get it looked into. — CYBERPOWER  (Around ) 01:43, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * , It appears you are on the eligibility list. What's the message you are getting? — CYBERPOWER  (Around ) 01:51, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I misunderstood "made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018". My sincere apologies, thanks for looking into this. --LaserLegs (talk) 12:13, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Notifications
Two things: For some reason, I got two notifications this year. While it's not the biggest of issues, it would be nice if that didn't happen. Secondly, I noticed a complaint in that there was no opt out. I know generation of the list is already a complex process, but it seems like keeping a list of people who wish to not receive the notification and removing them from the MassMessage list would be a good idea. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 04:33, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The duplicates were sent to ~16% of the targets due to human error, see Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2018/Coordination for more details. If you opted out of MMS altogether you should not have gotten a message.  Adding a MMS opt-out list wouldn't be too hard for next year, please list it at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December 2019 for discussion when we coordinate the rules next year. —  xaosflux  Talk 04:38, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * In general, Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery can be used to opt out of massmessage in toto. ~ Amory  (u • t • c) 11:55, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

How many voted?
I found the voter-log, but is there a page that list participation from previous years? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:37, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Just go to Special:SecurePoll and click on the "List" link for the previous election you are interested in. Regards So  Why  13:49, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Sounds great, but . Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:57, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * they were there a few hours ago, I was looking at them - perhaps WMF purged some old data? — xaosflux  Talk 14:06, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * do you have any information this? — xaosflux  Talk 14:07, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Disregard, was looking at the wrong page (need to stop multi-tasking at work!) — xaosflux  Talk 14:18, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Heh, glad to hear it! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 17:48, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * we have the on-wiki results summary pages here: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014. — xaosflux  Talk 14:06, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Use the SecurePoll interface in vote.wikimedia.org. &mdash; regards, Revi 14:14, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * , and .  SQL Query me!  14:16, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * (ec)SoWhy's list is WP, but this one on WM seems to work. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:17, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The vote links on en.wikipedia are just references to the actual election data at vote.wikimedia, that is why they are empty. — xaosflux  Talk 14:19, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * When I clicked "Vote" on votewiki, it said "you aren't logged in thru Wikipedia", and on enwiki when I clicked "Edit" on the SecurePoll interface, it said "hey, go to votewiki to do that". So SecurePoll installed @ Wikipedia is just a log in vendor (and eligibility checks), and all the actual business happens on votewiki. &mdash; regards, Revi 14:24, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks everybody, I got what I wanted. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:21, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Hate-based voting system
We need to stop using this "oppose"-counting voting system, since it amounts to hate-based voting. This is not consistent with our WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL, and WP:NPA policies' clear intent, nor with WP:5P. I'm unaware of any system of government that uses such a voting system. There are plenty of well-tested alternatives to the simplistic "one person, one vote" Athenian voting system, and we should be using a preferential, tiered voting system that is well-studied in the real world. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:37, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * 🙄 --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:42, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know what face means. With my eyesight I can tell it's got eyes, and that's about it. I blew it up 300%, and it's got a neutral mouth expression, and is gesturing with its eyes up at my OP.  Words may work better.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:03, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Nevermind. I'll wait to comment until the 2019 RFC.  Perhaps the hyperbole will be toned down by then. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:09, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * , It means they're rolling their eyes on you. :p — CYBERPOWER  ( Happy Thanksgiving) 15:53, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, okay. So it's non-substantive input. Moving on.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:55, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * By definition, voting is making choices. "Support" means yes; "oppose" means no. "Neutral" does nothing. That has nothing to do with hate. Jonathunder (talk) 18:46, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * To the contrary, our present system let's you "vote extra against" people, not just vote against them flatly by not voting for them. It's a unique, and uniquely terrible, idea.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:18, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes indeed, the system is seriously geared up for the haters. I can't think of a single good reason to perpetuate it. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:47, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Normally I'm a fan of systems such as instant-run-off for dealing with multiple candidates that you want to reduce to one winner; the goal of this election is different: we have a maximum number of "winners", but no minimum number (i.e. this election could result in no positions being filled). Are you proposing changing the goal of the election? What do you suggest is used instead? —  xaosflux  Talk 18:52, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * "Ranked list" could work, if "none of the below" was an option perhaps. — xaosflux  Talk 18:53, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Just use "support" as mostly every democratic election system in the known universe does, and add "none of the above" to register no support for any candidate. Can you describe any election system in the world which advocates the use of opposition votes?  The Rambling Man (talk) 18:55, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I think there's a good reason that approval based elections are not common. Personally I would be in favor of a proportional representation single transferable vote method, but this feels like something to add to the 2019 RfC page. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:57, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure, but this isn't an RfC, it's just an "exploratory" discussion, at the talk page of a page people are paying attention to right now, and with broad editorial "eyeball sets" looking at it. I posted it here on purpose for initial brain-storming.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:47, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * So the options for each would be "Support", "!Support" (implied if you don't "support")? One of the current goals is not to make anyone a winner that doesn't have at least 50% support and we currently have an option to "don't count me on this person" with neutral.  Do you want to change the goal of requiring 50% support? Alternative proposals are certainly welcome, please draw up a complete set of Goals and Rules so they can be openly evaluated. —  xaosflux  Talk 19:01, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure, it's trivial. Only allowed to support.  Count the supports.  Top N supported candidates fill the N gaps in Arbcom.  See how easy that is?  The Rambling Man (talk) 19:34, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * are you proposing removing the "goal" of only appointing people with "50%+ support" (including the possibility of appointing 0 to n-1 people)? — xaosflux  Talk 20:19, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Well it can't be implemented using my proposed voting system, so clearly. It's also not used in the vast, vast majority of all democratic elections, why should Wikipedia think it necessary?  The Rambling Man (talk) 20:27, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * the goal of the "vast majority of democratic elections" is to select exactly one "winner" from a candidacy pool of "2 to n" candidates, and most use the first past the post system. It can easily result in the winner being someone "most voters" don't want when there are 3+ candidates. I don't think that direct system would be good at picking 0 to 6 "winners" from a pool of say 14 candidates. — xaosflux  Talk 21:18, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Well we already have that system, just with a contrived way of getting to the 0 to 6 winners. It's still ranking "votes" from top to bottom, just using additional rules layered on top, and including hate voting and tokenism boundaries of "success".  Why on earth Wikipedia thinks its doing a better job of picking individuals using this crackpot scheme is beyond me.  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:24, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I added a suggestion to next year's RFC that we consider switching to ranked choice voting. That would eliminate the "oppose" counting. From what one of the devs who worked on SecurePoll said, the system currently supports the Schulze method which might be useful. I wanted to test it on test-wiki though but there is currently a problem with the system (cf. T209804). Regards So  Why  19:02, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * from the into to our article the Goal of that method is to "select a single winner" something from Category:Multi-winner electoral systems may be better to look in to. — xaosflux  Talk 19:06, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * According to the article, it can also be used for multi-winner elections. What's relevant is how SecurePoll implements it which I have yet to test due to the bug I mentioned above. Once the system works again, I'll check whether the system will support that. Regards So  Why  19:17, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * For my part, I don't seek to change any of the goals (50% for one year, 60% for two-year terms, and so on). Just to eliminate "fuck that person, and fuck that one, and fuck that one, too" pseudo-voting. That's not really voting, it's just unconstructive vendetta pursuit. It can badly skew the results (and definitely did so in the last election). If someone has "wiki-enemies" due to some prior contentious content issue, those people get to effectively vote twice: against you by voting for others, and just directly against you.  People with a bone to pick are highly motivated to do so.  Meanwhile, no one is motivated at all to vote for someone when they're not dead certain they want to cast a support vote, nor to vote punitively against anyone they don't have a definite issue with (and the "neutral" selection further discourages doing the latter). Consequently, the assumption of good faith and giving of benefit of the doubt are directly suppressed; any uncertainty leads in an entirely negative direction, and pre-conceived negativity has its own special lever.  In other words, anyone with a WP:NOTHERE or WP:BATTLEGROUND agenda  that any normal, constructive, even-tempered Wikipedian who is not here to right the WP:GREATWRONGS or advance their WP:POV at all costs; the former get to and strongly want to double their input, while regular people will mostly go support or neutral. Visual analogy: It basically works a lot like brightness and contrast sliders in a graphics application. If you raise/lower one and leave the other alone, you'll make gradual, mild changes. If you drop brightness and raise contrast at the same time you get a very strong, synergistic posterizing effect.  A direct and Wikipedian comparison: when we run an RfC (or other process – RM, AfD, etc.), you don't get to !vote once indicating oppose on the proposal, again for support for your own idea, and yet again as oppose on someone else's idea, and get your position counted three times independently as if they're not one person with one viewpoint.  Rather, the closer simply assesses you as against the proposal (and is likely to admonish against WP:BLUDGEONing and trying to WP:GAME the process).  Even in an RfC that presents multiple mutually exclusive choices, if you support A, and oppose B and C, the closer assesses you as in favor of A, not as three independent views; your support of A already auto-excludes B and C. [Yeah, yeah, we can also do "second and third choice" stuff, but that doesn't come into play at all unless your supported A is clearly not going to pass. Various proportional voting systems also account for this, by ordinally tiered choices or by some statistical method.]  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:45, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Eliminating the oppose and neutral options while keeping the percentage thresholds effectively means you're voting oppose for everyone that you're not supporting. So I don't think it changes anything regarding the "vote twice" issue; everyone's support percentages will just drop a bit. isaacl (talk) 22:30, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Addressed this in the "To answer all of the above ..." grouped reply below.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:21, 22 November 2018 (UTC)


 * How is it fundamentally unreasonable to factor in both support and opposition, as is the norm everywhere else here? Let's say we just allow support or neutral options. Why should we prioritize a controversial and polarizing, but well-known candidate who gets 150 supports over an uncontroversial one who only came up with 90 due to a lesser degree of popularity and name recognition? Allowing us to measure opposition might show the candidate who got less votes has a 95% support rate, whereas the candidate with 150 supports may only have 50%. In what universe does it make sense to promote the candidate based only on number of support votes? Also, apart from what essentially seems like a pure argumentum ad misericordiam, I don't actually see any convincing argument to support this notion that allowing for the expression of opposition is tantamount to encouraging "hate". It seems a little, I don't know, 1984-ish to suppress the voice of dissent in favor of 'preventing hate'. This just comes across as a thinly-veiled attempt to change the system in a way that would allow more controversial candidates to get through. There would be some upsides to that, but ultimately, I don't think that's what's best for the project. Swarm  talk  21:47, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Hyperbole is not a counter to alleged hyperbole. No one is being "suppressed". If you oppose someone's candidacy you have plenty of venues to say so and why, including your own voter guide and an "official" discussion-of-the-candidate talk page, and can vote for someone else (which is voting against who you don't like). You shouldn't be able to double-vote against who you don't like. I'm not "thinly veiling" jack; I'm stating outright that this system is directly manipulable and being manipulated.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:01, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * , can you kindly provide any evidence for your assertion that this system is .....being  manipulated? Thanks,  &#x222F; WBG converse 13:23, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, I voted "oppose" on at least one candidate, and it is because I didn't think they would be good for this position - it had nothing to do with "hate". Coming up with different election system mechanics aren't too difficult, and different systems are best suited for different goals. Having the "goals" of the election well (re)defined should happen first, then the mechanics can be selected to support it. —  xaosflux  Talk 22:16, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Statistical manipulability of an electronic voting system is a computer security matter. Like all of those, the existence of a vulnerability doesn't mean everyone aware of it will exploit it, or do so with bad intentions. They get patched anyway. As noted above, no actual changes are required to the goals to fix this problem, and changing the goals is not my intent.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:17, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I support a preferential voting system called Meek STV. I hope that it be added to SecurePoll: T117127. 4nn1l2 (talk) 08:13, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Doesn't the inclusion of an oppose vote reflect RFA's inclusion of "oppose"? To me, an oppose vote at ACE is not much different than if anyone were to do an oppose !vote at RFA. It wouldn't be a personal attack on them, it wouldn't be inherently incivil, and AGF just says to assume they aren't coming from a malicious standpoint, even if the downvote comes from a vendetta place. I'm not sure most of the editors who are upset about content disputes even vote, if you mean like SPAs and stuff, so I assume it's minimal. Discuss-Dubious (t/c) 16:45, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * No, because only one person is running; you are making a binary choice. You don't get to vote against acceptance in the support section then also vote to affirmatively oppose in the oppose section.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:55, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * To answer all of the above "I don't see the problem" posts: You're not accounting for the behavioral factors and the differences between them. I just got an e-mail yesterday about ArbCom, and someone said "I need to leverage my opposes right, to single out my supports better". I.e., people are definitely using it to "spearhead" their votes and increase the amount to which they count. Someone doing so is approaching the entire matter psychologically differently from how the average person is doing it. The latter are apt to vote neutral when they don't feel strongly, definitely support who they like, and vote an oppose only when they feel they have a strong reason to do so. It's our natural approach to such matters. However, anyone with a bone to pick, or who has studied how to manipulate the voting statistically, is not doing that, but "shaping" the influence of their vote by voting oppose on everyone they do not actively support (if they're not going after an "enemy"), or are active haters voting oppose on who they're angry with and supporting everyone else. This is not right, and it skews the results in favor of both the manipulative and the angry, and away from good-faith-assuming, civil, collaborative Wikipedians.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:55, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * My comment was not a "I don't see the problem" post; rather, I'm not sure your proposal addresses the problem. By only having a support option, then the number of implicit opposes will go up to encompass the neutral votes. Voting is still biased against those who aren't being actively supported. To mitigate this bias, we would have to remove the minimum support percentage threshold, or move to a voting system that involves ranking the choices. isaacl (talk) 18:48, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I have no opposition to such adjustments; I just didn't want to mire this in change proposals that do not directly relate to the issue I'm raising. That is, if I come in and propose different cut-off numbers or whatever, people would start raising objections unrelated to anything I care about.  And the FAQ page is probably where to get into the details anyway.  This was just a "feeler" post to see if people understand the problem and are amenable to doing something about it.  I think they will be when it's presented in different language.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:46, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes first past the post has done so well recently. Any system is open to abuse by those who know how to game it ("but if you do not vote for me THEY! will get in"). But I think the ability to say "NO!" (or even "none, not one, of the above" is important. Also I dod not agree it is motivated by hate, it is motivated by far more then anything else "I have asked this candidate a question they do not like and they have made it clear they are going to get their own back if the win" (for example). The Arbcom election is about the community showing (and having) trust in your ability to judge them. We have to be able to say "well no I do not trust that person to be fair or impartial. If it ends up wit ha user being "hated" upon, maybe the problem is not with the voting system but with that user. It may not be perfect, but I think it works to force you to show proper decorum, respect and tolerance of criticism (to show you have the kind of personalty that will not holds grudges or abuse power), because you have to not offend anyone.Slatersteven (talk) 17:06, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with Slatersteven. An "oppose"vote is not a "hate" vote any more than a "support" vote is a "love" vote. It simply says, as xaosflux says, that you don't think that person is qualified or fitted for the job. I would strongly object to using a "first past the post" system, although I could be convinced that a ranked voting system might work, though I believe they're more suited to converting a multiple candidate system down to a binary one, and using one in our circumstance would be more complex than it's worth. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:45, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, the complaints here are based almost entirely on the supposition that something's wrong with the current system, when no evidence is presented to support that contention. The U.S. Presidential election system is obviously broken, and there's plenty of data to support that, but there's little to no chance of changing it because of the difficulty in changing the Constitution.  In the case of the ArbCom election system, there has been absolutely no data provided to support the contention that the elected arbitrators are the "wrong ones", not the ones the voters intended to win, or that the system produces bad arbitrators.  Without such data, this discussion is founded purely on an emotional response. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:53, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I have a major problem with the use of the word "hate" in this discussion. If I oppose someone for ArbCom that most certainly does not mean that I hate that person. It simply means that I have concluded that either the person is not yet prepared for the job or perhaps does not have the type of personality or skills that I believe that the job requires. I have opposed many candidates in past ArbCom elections without any feelings of malice or animosity, and will do so in this election as well. Discussion about the election process is well and good, but the highly emotive word "hate" makes it really hard for me to take this conversation seriously. Cullen<sup style="color:#707">328  Let's discuss it  05:07, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree completely with Cullen328. One of the candidates I voted to oppose because I feel I have insufficient evidence by which to judge their suitability for the role, even though (based on limited on-wiki interaction) I think they're a really nice person. If HJ Mitchell were to stand I would vote oppose because I believe they are completely unsuited to the role, despite them being a serious contender for best man at my wedding (if I have one). Nothing to do with hate at all. Thryduulf (talk) 12:39, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Ditto, I will vote based (in many cases) on one or two answers that seem to be symptomatic of a number of issues I have with (for example) administration and believe that their presence on the arbom commute will just exacerbate those problems. Some I will make no choice, as I neither support nor oppose.Slatersteven (talk) 12:49, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Cliff Notes on ArbCom Elections
Greetings,

Could someone give me the "cliff notes" on ArbCom Elections...in short, how many positions are available? Can we vote for more than one candidate? Can we change our vote before the deadline? And, is there public information on who is leading currently? Thanks for summarizing if you can. Ryoung 122 01:52, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
 * try 5-minute guide to ArbCom elections — xaosflux  Talk 01:59, 21 November 2018 (UTC)


 * 1) From WP:ACE#Vacant seats: There are six vacant seats to be filled in this election for either a two-year term, or a one-year term. Over 60% support gets two years, while over 50% gets one year.
 * 2) Yes. You will vote support, oppose, or neutral on every candidate.
 * 3) Yes.
 * No.
 * The link from Xaosflux will also be useful. ~ Amory <small style="color:#555"> (u • t • c) 02:01, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Vote Server Bug
You need to make up your mind before you go to the vote server.

I went over to the Vote server found the list of all the candidates along with the oppose, neutral, support buttons, and then went through the the candidates again along with the Q&As plus the blocking dispute etc etc etc.

Net result that by the time I had created my vote my login to the vote server had expired.

So I figured out that I had to hit the vote link again, which gave me the list of candidates in a new order (just to make moving the votes over more challenging :).

So decide how you are voting before you hit the vote server, or be prepared to go through the voting process a couple of times. RonaldDuncan (talk) 20:25, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
 * , Yes, to be fair to all the candidates - they're shuffled on each load. SQL <sup style="font-size: 5pt;color:#999">Query me!  18:03, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Changing a vote
A week ago, I visited the pages of the ongoing election, made notes on all the candidates, decided how to vote, and voted.

Yesterday, I revised my opinion of one of the candidates (upwards, as it happens), and would like to change my vote for that candidate. But I've lost my notes on all the others, and forgotten my views about most of them. Is there a way I can find out how I voted a week ago? Maproom (talk) 10:05, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * No, the vote is by secret ballot and encrypted. It is not possible to retrieve the vote of a specific user. -- KTC (talk) 10:52, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks. I'll take care to keep my notes next time. Maproom (talk) 14:29, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * It is a general principle of secret voting that there must be no identifiable record of any particular voter's ballot content -- even accessible to the voter himself -- once he "drops it in the ballot box", for if you can see the content of your own ballot then there's nothing stopping you from displaying it to others, which leads to the possibility of corruption or coercion. <b style="color: red;">E</b><b style="color: blue;">Eng</b> 14:43, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Deadline for voting
Hello, ARE committee,

I was looking at one of the voter's guide and it said that voting would continue until December 2nd which is today. I thought it was open until the 3rd but I figure it was something tricky like one minute past midnight and that is what accounted for the date difference.

So, I looked at the election notice on my talk page and it says "Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December" which would mean midnight tonight. But the notice on your front ARE page says it's 23:59 UTC on Monday, 3 December which would mean midnight tomorrow. I'm guessing that the voting notice posted on our talk page was incorrect but I came here thinking that others would be asking the same question and I don't see anything here about the mix-up. So, which is correct?

Nothing like waiting until the last moment. Liz <sup style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: #006400;">Read! Talk! 22:52, 2 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Sunday 3 October will be in 2023, but what do you expect from an arbcom voting message? - The 2015 and 2016 messages (still on some pages) say "now open". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:00, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, considering that the days one can vote is the solitary piece of necessary information meant to be included on a voting reminder message, I expected it to be accurate! Liz <sup style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: #006400;">Read! Talk! 23:02, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Voting was originally scheduled to run from 19 November to 2 December inclusive. (2 whole weeks.) The start of voting was then delayed for one day due to technical problems, hence the close of voting was pushed back one day correspondingly. Pages, including the mass message were updated to say 3 December but the word Sunday wasn't updated to Monday by mistake initially, hence the talk page message error. If in doubt, you can look at Special:SecurePoll to see what date the election is set to run from and to. -- KTC (talk) 23:29, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, KTC. That's what I needed to know! Liz <sup style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: #006400;">Read! Talk! 00:59, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * , additionally the watch list notice will remain visible as long as then vote is open. All vote links will disappear when the poll closes tomorrow. —  CYBER POWER  (<span style="color:\#FF8C00">Merry Christmas) 02:44, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Liz, that's what I also think: the message - if deamed neccessary - could just provide the dates af the procedure, hopefully correct, and a link to how it works for those who don't know. (Should anybody be invited to vote who doesn't?) - It would be nice if these messages "disappeared" after voting is over, but no, clutter. I met one of the 2015 "now open" on a talk page just today. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:50, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

What's taking so long?!?!
I thought I'd be the first to ask this year. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:48, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * now go sit in the corner . — xaosflux  Talk 02:52, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * /*me goes and sits in corner until xaosflux asks if I've learned my lesson*/ --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:56, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * LOL &mdash; regards, <span style="color:green;font-family:Courier new, serif;font-variant:small-caps">Revi 03:41, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * , you’re always woke: scrutinize. Noaw. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:47, 4 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Damn, I didn't even know, and I just answered a few more questions. Ah well., kindly leave Floq alone. Whales are heavy and Floq is delicate and irreplaceable. Drmies (talk) 04:46, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * You posted this almostthree hours after the close of voting? What took you so long??!!1 Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:31, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Floq was probably just being a sensible selfish coward, hoping some other poor sucker would get squished by the whale. Just like the rest of us. Except me of course - I was unselfishly worried the poor whale might get hurt if it crashed into my huge beer belly. Tlhslobus (talk) 14:50, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Are we there yet? Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:43, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * No, the scrutineers are waiting for the confirmation of my bank transfer through to them before they release the results I want. SchroCat (talk) 02:03, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Just tell 'em the cheque is in the post, then keep 'em waiting. That way we may get the pleasure of seeing a few more fellow editors deservedly squished by whales. Tlhslobus (talk) 13:22, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Except that my bank does not accept non casher's check at all. (And afaik no bank in Korea takes non cashier's checks unless you have some weird circumstances.) (/taking jokes into drama) &mdash; regards, <span style="color:green;font-family:Courier new, serif;font-variant:small-caps">Revi 13:51, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Prediction by page views
Out of curiosity I just looked at the page views of each candidate's question page. Page views would generally indicate the level of interest in a particular candidate, and so might suggest that those who get the most views would get the most oppose and support views, while those with the least are likely to get the most neutral votes. Because the Fred Bauder page resulted in drama, the numbers there are misleading. So taking that one out of the equation, the top six, and therefore those who are likely to get the most votes are: Drmies, Robert McClenon, Courcelles, GorillaWarfare, Kelapstick, and AGK. SilkTork (talk) 12:38, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Fred Bauder 11K
 * Drmies 4.5K
 * Robert McClenon 2.6K
 * Courcelles 2.1K
 * GorillaWarfare 2K
 * Kelapstick 1.9K
 * AGK 1.9K
 * Lourdes 1.8K
 * SilkTork 1.8K
 * Isarra 1.6K
 * Mkdw 1.6K
 * DGG 1.3K
 * Joe Roe 1K
 * I doubt that works. I could easily argue that those with less view are the candidates people had already made up their minds about and thus did not need to see their candidate pages. Regards  So  Why  13:29, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * (ec) I'd be interested in the number of voters in relation to these figures, wondering how many ever look at a questions page. The "middle field" looks quite close, perhaps too close to draw conclusions? User:Gerda Arendt/ACE 2018 received 907 views, recommending 4 of the 6 ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:32, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Funny that (actually NOT). Any reasonable person could reasonably expect Isarra's answers to be the funniest, yet she has among the fewest views. This clearly proves that most Wikipedia voters are profoundly unreasonable people, which presumably helps explain why Wikipedia is such a profoundly unreasonable place. . Tlhslobus (talk) 13:34, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * And Fred's huge viewing figures suggest most Wikipedia voters see Wikipedia as an entertaining bloodsport, which presumably helps explain quite a lot more about Wikipedia. Tlhslobus (talk) 13:40, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I can predict with a high degree of confidence that the top six will win, or not. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:58, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I think these figures are meaningless if you don't take into account that some candidates declared their candidacy as soon as the option was available while others snuck in right at the wire, declaring their candidacy on the day that option closed. I also don't think curiosity about a candidate is necessarily tied to their chance of getting the most support votes. A candidate could just be expected to write more interesting answers to the questions posed to them than other candidates. You also might expect that candidates who are current arbitrators might have less inquiry about them since editors can know more about their positions through the cases they have been part of than candidates who were arbitrators some years ago or those editors who have never been arbitrators. Liz <sup style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: #006400;">Read! Talk! 01:56, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

If we really want to read these tea-leaves (which I don’t especially), someone could look up year’s page views and compare them to the results. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:38, 6 December 2018 (UTC)


 * KrakatoaKatie 81.83% 920pv
 * Callanecc 77.50% 867pv
 * Opabinia regalis 74.24% 1,514pv
 * Worm That Turned 70.38% 1,144pv
 * RickinBaltimore 68.12%  1,603pv
 * Premeditated Chaos 63.35%  1,045pv
 * BU Rob13 60.90%   1,733pv
 * Alex Shih 60.16%  2,142pv
 * Mailer diablo 57.92% 1,150pv
 * SMcCandlish  57.45%  1,173pv
 * The Rambling Man 47.82% 2,688
 * Sir Joseph 39.82% 2,305

From that, nothing much can be learned, except, perhaps, very roughly, the fewer page views a candidate gets, the more likely they are to get more support views. SilkTork (talk) 14:43, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Other predictions

 * I don't see any clear correlation of the above page views with this prediction (if the link gets stuck at the top of the page, scroll down to the post at 10.26 on Nov 21), which is 'scientifically' based on counting the guide recommendations:
 * 1. AGK and Mkdw (exact tie)
 * 3. SilkTork
 * 4. Courcelles
 * 5. GorillaWarfare
 * 6. Kelapstick
 * 7. Joe Roe
 * 8. DGG
 * 9. Drmies
 * 10. Robert McClenon
 * 11. Lourdes
 * 12. Isarra
 * 13. Fred Bauder
 * 13. Fred Bauder


 * Nor do I see any clear correlation with this prediction, which is based on Carrite/Randy from Boise allegedly being successful in the past and defended here (tho allegedly also sticking closer to voter guides in the past):


 * 1. GorillaWarfare
 * (2. Doug Weller -withdrawn)
 * 3. SilkTork
 * 4. Courcelles
 * 5. Drmies
 * 6. DGG
 * 7. AGK


 * ============== (winning post moved after Weller withdrawal)


 * 8. Kelapstick
 * 9. Mkdw
 * 10. Lourdes
 * 11. Joe Roe
 * 12. Robert McClenon
 * 13. Fred Bauder
 * 14. Isarra


 * Tlhslobus (talk) 15:46, 5 December 2018 (UTC)


 * (Critics are referred to below).  Tlhslobus (talk) 01:36, 6 December 2018 (UTC)


 * As long as we're speculating while waiting for the real results, it would be interesting to do a prediction based on who the guides support/oppose, weighted by how many pageviews each guide got. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:32, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * . Thryduulf (talk) 12:31, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * and ✅, see below. Thryduulf (talk) 13:46, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Prediction based on page-view weighted recommendations
Methodology: Some guides were not explicit about what counts as a support or oppose, so some interpretation was needed:
 * The page views of each guide in the last 60 days were divided by the minimum number of views received (595 by TParis') to produce a weight from 1.000 for TParis' guide to to 3.176 for the most viewed (Ealdgyth's). Each recommendation interpreted as a support vote (however strong) was given 1 vote, each interpreted as neutral given 0 votes and each recommendation interpreted as an oppose vote (however strong) given -1. These votes were then multiplied by the weighting given to the guide and all recommendations for a candidate were then summed.
 * If every guide explicitly supported or opposed a candidate they would receive 24.418 or -24.418 respectively.
 * Withdrawn candidates were not included in the analysis
 * Carrite's "Respectful declination" interpreted as neutral
 * Boing! said Zebedee only offered supports, other candidates scored as neutral
 * DeltaQuad's "? Fail but close" scored as neutral
 * Gerda's "voted for" interpreted as support, all others scored as neutral
 * Collect's A, B and C ratings interpreted as Support, Neutral and Oppose respectively. Those removed interpreted as oppose.
 * Whenever a candidate was not mentioned in a guide this was interpreted as neutral.
 * For those whose weighted total is >0, "% possible" is the proportion of the score they would have received if every guide explicitly supported them (24.418). The figures in parentheses, for those whose weighted total is negative, are the proportion of the possible score they would have received had every guide opposed them (-24.418). Thryduulf (talk) 14:02, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

As for the past several years I produced my own private guide, debating publishing it every year. Doing this exercise means I'm more likely to next year. Thryduulf (talk) 13:46, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Interesting, thank you. My collection of answers (not really a guide) marks my support. Would it change much if you counted the others as oppose? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:08, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The only significant changes would be Joe Roe and Drmies swapping places with each other; Robert McLenon and DGG swapping places with each other; and a few changes to scores and percentages e.g. Rober McLenon would now be negative with -0.437 / (1.79%) and Fred Bauder would be -20.012 (81.95%). You supported AGK so his figures would not change. Your guide was the third-most viewed and had a weighting of 2.057. Thryduulf (talk) 15:29, 6 December 2018 (UTC)


 * I cannot summon the requisite conceit for expecting to receive a seat in so strong a field. If I do, let alone receive the most support, then it would be a delightful surprise.  And I can't say I agree that pageviews or guide votes might be bell-weathers.   AGK  &#9632;  21:39, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Like AGK, I have no presumed expectation to be re-appointed to the committee amid such a qualified group of candidates. While the guides seem to have varied recommendations, quite a few suggested supporting more than six candidates indicating plenty of options. The trouble with using guides to predict the election results is that many of the guide creators do not write them for that purpose. Instead, the guides are written based upon who they would like to see appointed, even if it means recommend[ing] someone who they know has a low probability of being appointed. I think if you asked the guide writers to create a list of who they think would most likely be appointed, the lists would look very differently. <span style="color:black;text-shadow: 4px 4px 15px white, -4px -4px 15px white">Mkdw  <span style="color: #0B0080;text-shadow: 4px 4px 15px white, -4px -4px 15px white">talk 03:22, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * As someone who wrote a guide that's certainly true. I have actually been surprised by the relatively consistent page views among the different guides I checked, even comparing my guide to that of far more well known editors, and so just as I'm not sure that the arbitration page views is an indicator, I don't know that they're an indicator for the guides also. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 05:32, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The Devil's Advocate's comment on their above unweighted prediction (which basically is the same as the pageview-weighted prediction for the top 7 places) says that those at the top of such tables have consistently been the top vote-getters in the past. So I guess the two of you (AGK and Mkdw) should probably be feeling quietly confident.Tlhslobus (talk) 16:41, 7 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Very nice analysis. However, it relies on the theory that guide recommendations translate into votes, right? That would make sense, but has that assumption actually been confirmed before, or will this be the first test? Swarm  talk  22:24, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Well I suspect some people have done it for previous years, but to my knowledge this is the first time anyone has incorporated the page views of the guides into the mix. My guess is that this will, at best, loosely correlate with the actual results but I did it mainly because I saw GW's suggestion and thought it would be interesting to see how much did did correlate. Thryduulf (talk) 22:36, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * , despite Thryduulf's great work (for which many thanks to them), their results for the top 7 are almost identical to The Devil's Advocate's above unweighted prediction (with link) which helped kickstart this exercise. That link also briefly discusses the past significance of such tables.Tlhslobus (talk) 16:21, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you're getting at. Thryduulf took two different theories that were behind two predictions shared here and combined them to make a third prediction. What difference does it make? Swarm  {talk}  06:46, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * To try to clarify what I was getting at, you asked above had the assumption that guide results translate into votes been tested before, and I was trying to answer that question. The answer was that, at least according to The Devil's Advocate (TDA) in the above link, it has been tested before, and found to work reasonably well, especially for the top votes. However those tests did not involve Thryduulf's modification (weighting guides by page views), but as Thryduulf's mod has in practice made almost no difference for the first 7 places, I guess that we can presumably expect Thrydulf's prediction to be about as reliable as the previous tested method. (Perhaps I should now add that TDA doesn't go into any great detail about precisely how well it has worked in the past, at least not in the above link; perhaps that has been done by somebody somewhere else, or perhaps some analyst here might enjoy having a go at that exercise now, with or without weighting by page views, tho it would certainly be far too much hard work for me). I hope that helps. Regards, Tlhslobus (talk) 11:29, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
 * As for your more recent question about what difference it makes, I can't say that it will make any difference for anybody else, but knowing that a particular prediction method is reasonably reliable is quite likely to make quite a significant difference to how I vote tactically next year. It helps answer such questions as whether I really need to support a candidate I merely dislike in order to improve my chances of stopping a candidate I really hate, while possibly thereby weakening the chances of a candidate I really like, and so on. For instance, if I know fairly reliably that the candidate I hate is a no-hoper or a shoo-in (and if some checks show that I can be reasonably confident the predictions aren't Fake News), then I have no need to support the candidate I merely dislike, and so on.Tlhslobus (talk) 11:36, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Neat, thank you for putting this together Thryduulf! GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:58, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Predictions by Oblique Strategies

 * 1. Think of the radio
 * 2. Short circuit
 * 3. Destroy
 * Nothing
 * The most important thing


 * 4. Disconnect from desire
 * 5. Fill every beat with something
 * 6. Decorate, decorate

Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:17, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Connection of candidates to predictions is a task best performed on the back of an envelope in the privacy of your own home -- and kept there. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:45, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * (#Mushroom:) You're quite right, Beyond My Ken. Letting other editors see which predictors seemed reasonably accurate this year and which didn't just might help voters make better informed tactical voting decisions next year, and how can we possibly keep Wikipedia as bad and mad as our esteemed Supreme Cabal would wish if we start allowing Evil Would-be Righters of Great Wrongs do things that might lead to a more informed electorate? There are no Reliable Sources telling us that the Mushroom Treatment ("Keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em loads of sh*t") isn't working to the Cabal's satisfaction, so if it ain't broke don't fix it. Tlhslobus (talk) 01:09, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Why is any of this relevant? Speculation can be posted at Wikpidiocracy or some other site. I'm not clear why the results aren't published already, but this is not place to just chew shit over what could be. Take that to an approved social media site, not Wikipedia. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:27, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh, golly-gee-whiz chill out already. It's just a  bit of harmless fun, stop being a wet blanket.  And results aren't in because the scrutineers haven't finished scrutinitizing, you should know that from last year. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:45, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, sorry "already", I forgot that this was a half-baked social media site and not an encyclopedia. Mea culpa.  The Rambling Man (talk) 22:56, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * said on a talk page about an election to a committee of a website ... power~enwiki ( π, ν ) 23:04, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, I forgot it turns into Facebook when Arbcom elections are running. Sorry, good work, carry on.  The Rambling Man (talk) 23:08, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * (See above).  Tlhslobus (talk) 01:40, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * TRM: Really, you've gotta chill or you're gonna blow a gasket. Not everything on Wikipedia is ultra-serious business.  You might find that you get along better with other editors and are reported to AE and ANI fewer times if you just lightened up a bit and didn't take everything so gol'darned seriously.  I'm sure this advice is unwanted, and especially so (perhaps) coming from me, but it's meant in the friendliest way possible, without rancor: try to take things a little easier, won't you?  It would really be best for you, and also good for Wikipedia. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:47, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Ken, no disrepect, but I think you're probably just about the last person here that I'd take advice from on "getting on better" on Wikipedia. Cheers though! The Rambling Man (talk) 07:29, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * TRM, that's a legitimate point, but it really doesn't invalidate what I wrote earlier. Best, Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:32, 6 December 2018 (UTC)


 * I find myself in agreement with TRM. I have this page watched because I'm (still) waiting for the results to be announced. Having it constantly pop up on my watchlist is annoying. Some side discussion is tolerable, but this silly prognostication is not in line with the purpose of this page.- MrX 🖋 14:07, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * (and others who feel similarly) Before RFAs were put on the watchlist, I had the same problem with constantly seeing dumb WT:RFA threads, when all I wanted to know is when there was a new RFA. There's a solution: Help:Hide Pages in Watchlist.  You can hide this talk page while still watching the main page. I find myself surprisingly not grumpy about goofing around on this page (in fact, contributing to it), so maybe this is an imperfect way we can both be happy less unhappy.  --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:52, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's a handy tip. I just set it up for this page. Hopefully I'll be a little less grumpy once the election results are posted.- MrX 🖋 23:07, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Assessment of above predictions against actual results
Tlhslobus (talk) 20:31, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The two predictions based on Guide votes did very well, predicting 5 of the 6 winners, with the remaining winner (Joe Roe, who won in 4th) having being predicted to be 1st loser in 7th. Kelapstick was predicted to win in 6th, but lost in 9th. Both these guides underestimated GorillaWarfare's support, but correctly predicted her election (she was predicted to win in 5th but won in 2nd). TDA's prediction (the one without weighting by page views) seemingly did best at the lower end, correctly predictiing that DGG would finish ahead of DrMies and Robert McClenon, and also did slightly better at the top, having AGK and Mkdw tied instead of having AGK incorrectly ahead of Mkdw.
 * Carrite/Randy from Boise's prediction was inferior to the above two, picking only 4 of the 6 winners (instead of 5) including having Mksw in 9th instead of 1st, tho it did better than its rivals with GorillaWarfare's result (being only one place out, predicting 1st instead of 2nd, whereas the above two predictions were 3 places out, predicting 5th instead of 2nd).
 * The Guide Page views prediction (which doesn't count guide votes, only views) has no real predictive value.
 * (The Oblique Strategies prediction has no predictive value whatsover. )

When are election results posted?
So when will the real results be posted? Eschoryii (talk) 23:15, 6 December 2018 (UTC) Are not votes counted and not scrutinized?
 * It usually takes about 2 weeks. Last year the results were published on the 18th; the turnout is higher this year so expect them to take a bit longer to cross-check and count, but assume some time between the 15th and 20th. &#8209; Iridescent 23:20, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * , for the ignorant amongst us (probably just me), what needs to be cross-checked and counted? Dealing with the raw numbers should be a straightforward task that a bot could do, so what other bits need to be done first? (yes, I know I've been too lazy to search for it myself, but I'm trying to polish up the late lamented Pete Shelley for an RD on the front page - so cheers for your patience in dealing with lazy fuckwits like me!) - SchroCat (talk) 23:50, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * There are some mechanism to detect if you are stupid sock voting more than once. It is not easily accessible and checking for that information takes time — especially when you have 2209 to check. System is also not perfect and might allow you to vote more than once without your previous vote discounted. We manually remove duplicates except the most recent vote. &mdash; regards, <span style="color:green;font-family:Courier new, serif;font-variant:small-caps">Revi 23:54, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The Scrutineers manually count the votes, to ensure that the "raw numbers" are actually correct. On top of that, they need to independently examine each individual vote to ensure they're all valid. This means checking every editor's pre-November edit count to confirm that they met the minimum requirements to vote, checking every editor's block log to confirm that they didn't vote while blocked, and examining votes and technical data for indications of socking or duplicate voting of any kind, and then re-examining any votes that were thrown out to ensure that they were legitimately stricken and there is no abuse on the securepoll side. It all needs to be done manually, because part of their purpose is to act as a safeguard against technical errors. Swarm  {talk}  01:05, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Many thanks to you both for the explanation! - SchroCat (talk) 13:49, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * In addition to all the above, the three scrutineers doing the manual counting, cross-checking, trying to work out if, and  are the same people, trying to figure out it two people voting from the same IP address is evidence of sockpuppetry or just people sharing a wifi hotspot, etc, are all people from other Wikipedias who aren't active on English Wikipedia (by design, to reduce accusations of favouritism  or bias); they're from Korean, Arabic and Iranian Wikipedia respectively so they're not only doing all this in a foreign language, they're doing all this in a foreign alphabet. &#8209; Iridescent 17:53, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * All is now clear, and I understand entirely while it takes so long (not that I was complaining before, just that I was ignorant of the turning wheels behind the surface). In that case, I'm surprised they clear through it all quite so quickly! Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 20:03, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * As a matter of interest, how many such "sock votes" have been found in the past? If the number is sufficiently low, the number of man-hours per sock removed is about how much?   This may be the time that we not "scrutinize" votes quite as thoroughly - 20 or 30 votes is unlikely to make a difference, and only the voters involved in those cases need to be "scrutinized" by normal logic. Collect (talk) 18:13, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * According to WP:ACE2017, last year there were 2109 votes cast of which 1991 were valid. Those won't all be sock votes (IIRC there were only two actual attempts at fraud caught last year); most will be people below the eligibility threshold, or good-faith double voting (e.g. a voter changing their mind about a candidate and going back to vote again to deliberately invalidate their previous vote), but assume about 10% of votes rejected. &#8209; Iridescent 18:20, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * In other words, the sock armies that some banned users claim to be using to vote probably don't exist. The scrutineering still needs to happen though for the other reasons mentioned. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:24, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * If the sock armies exist, I'd imagine they'd have better things to do than vote in arbcom elections. Since it would take huge swings to get one of the actual hasten the day candidates into a winning position—and to have any significant on Wikipedia, one would need to get eight HTD candidates onto the committee as otherwise they'll constantly be outvoted—the most any sock could do is boost the chances of someone who already has significant support anyway. &#8209; Iridescent 20:17, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I thought voting again replaces a previous vote, it doesn't simply invalidate it. Have I misunderstood something? Tlhslobus (talk) 03:42, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The old vote still exists in the system, but is invalidated when a new vote is cast. The new vote then becomes the valid vote. The effective end result is the vote is replaced. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:46, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * That is what is intended to happen but, as -revi comments above the software isn't perfect and doesn't get this right 100% of the time so some votes don't get invalidated as they should. Also it's possible that some votes might be invalidated incorrectly. I imagine both these problems occur most often when there isn't a 1:1 relationship between voters and IP addresses (but that's a guess). Thryduulf (talk) 11:38, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The other one that comes up reasonably frequently is when a user accidentally votes with two different accounts—e.g. if I were to vote while logged on as User:Iridescent 2, change my mind and revote but this time logged on as User:Iridescent. There would obviously be no intention to deceive—even the stupidest observer could see that the two accounts are the same person—but because there's no method to retract a vote once cast, both votes would sit on the SecurePoll server until one was manually struck, and that in turn requires someone to manually check the two accounts and make sure that they actually are the same person, not two people with similar usernames. (In my case it's fairly straightforward, but in some instances like Bishonen/Bishzilla/Darwinbish the overlap between the accounts isn't immediately obvious.) Because the electorate and the margins are both quite low, even a few dubious votes can affect the result—for instance, in last year's election just a handful of votes would have seen the bottom two winners and the top two runners-up trade places—so minor irregularities that wouldn't impact larger elections can be a genuine issue here. &#8209; Iridescent 16:03, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the interesting and helpful clarifications, everybody. Tlhslobus (talk) 10:56, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Can't we get provisional results for now? Onetwothreeip (talk) 10:36, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
 * No. See last year if you want to know why. -- KTC (talk) 10:54, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Link to the relevant discussion: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2017. In summary it's not possible, and even if it were it would be a bad idea for several reasons (explained in the linked thread). Thryduulf (talk) 11:44, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
 * They're saying too many different things for me to figure out what's the real reason and to what extent. If provisional results are possible to release, there should be no problem doing so. This is perfectly normal elections procedure. Onetwothreeip (talk) 05:52, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * , It isn't going to happen. The results will be posted when they are ready to be posted. SQL <sup style="font-size: 5pt;color:#999">Query me!  05:56, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * TLDR: The ballot data is encrypted and WMF staff must decrypt the value with the secret key they have. Stewards (scrutineers) do not hold the key (so we cannot release the preliminary data) and WMF will not decrypt the data until the scrutineers are done with their work to protect election's integrity. &mdash; regards, <span style="color:green;font-family:Courier new, serif;font-variant:small-caps">Revi 11:05, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I'm likely jinx'ing this, but I'm told that we will likely have results by this weekend. SQL <sup style="font-size: 5pt;color:#999">Query me!  05:46, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * We're done with the checking, currently waiting for WMF to open the Pandora's box. &mdash; regards, <span style="color:green;font-family:Courier new, serif;font-variant:small-caps">Revi 11:05, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Now that the scrutineering is complete, is the subsequent count done manually or electronically? If not done electronically, why not? If done electronically, why are there still no results over 16 hours after scrutineering was completed? Tlhslobus (talk) 03:29, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Because we're all volunteers in various time zones and this is just Arbcom, not the Intergalactic High Council? <b style="color: red;">E</b><b style="color: blue;">Eng</b> 03:32, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh no! I entered the wrong election... GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:34, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I think you needed to enter for the Interuniversal High Council - those whose power lust is not satisfied by Arbcom will sadly probably also be dissatisfied by something as puny as the Intergalactic High Council .Tlhslobus (talk) 04:03, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Aw, I thought we were having fun here. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:14, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Aw, I thought you had just complained that the Arbcom election wasn't enough fun for you, so I thought I would kindly suggest where you could have a lot more fun Tlhslobus (talk) 04:51, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I was just enquiring, not criticizing. I'm well aware there may be perfectly reasonable answers to my questions. just as there eventually emerged a perfectly reasonable set of answers to my question last year about preliminary results. But answers that mention Intergalactic councils, while possibly amusing, are not necessarily all that credible, and, partly as a result, not necessarily all that informative either (for starters, I still haven't been told whether the count is manual or electronic). Tlhslobus (talk) 03:46, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, to be strictly accurate, we're not actually all volunteers. Apart from the alleged presence of undeclared paid editors, last time I heard, the WMF had about 200 paid employees, about two thirds of whom were supposedly employed in software projects (something which periodically leads to rows when the wider community refuses to implement much of their software), tho admittedly their time is not necessarily deemed worth spending for the perhaps one-off 3 to 5 person-days that might be needed to write electronic vote-counting software for the various elected bodies of the various Wikipedias. Tlhslobus (talk) 04:29, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Long story short, we (S) verify the tally WMF made with the tally in our own MediaWiki instance before publishing it. (And yes, after published as well) &mdash; regards, <span style="color:green;font-family:Courier new, serif;font-variant:small-caps">Revi 04:37, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Revi. Do you by any chance have any idea roughly how long might be left as a result? Tlhslobus (talk) 04:43, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * , The scrutineers are 100% volunteers, and I'm betting most are not on US Timezones. We will get the results. Please be patient. SQL <sup style="font-size: 5pt;color:#999">Query me!  04:54, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I know perfectly well that we will get the results eventually. And I'm not being impatient - I'm simply asking questions. Tlhslobus (talk) 05:06, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * (But you are of course correct that not all scrutineers are on US Timezones - for instance Revi is one of the scrutineers, is from Korea, and is the person who has been kindly providing us all with the most informed replies here (which, incidentally, is mostly why my above question was addressed to them)).Tlhslobus (talk) 05:47, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * No offense, but your commentary on this page is a bit excessive, and you’re definitely not coming across as patient. This is not a forum to obsess over the results. Go work on the project while you wait like the rest of us, the results will come out when they come out. Swarm  {talk}  05:54, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Enjoy your result now. &mdash; regards, <span style="color:green;font-family:Courier new, serif;font-variant:small-caps">Revi 06:51, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks to you, -revi, and all the other scrutineers for these days of painstaking work. --AFBorchert (talk) 07:22, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

(Personal) thoughs for next election
If you want (even) quicker result, consider helping us next year by assisting us finding socks blocked after their vote cast. &mdash; regards, <span style="color:green;font-family:Courier new, serif;font-variant:small-caps">Revi 07:23, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * That's a fair point. Maybe the CU scrutineering period should happen during but not after the voting period. Alex Shih (talk) 08:20, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I checked some votes during first few days of election, but locals find new socks every day. Scrutineering during the election could be doable for fawiki (where you have approximately 100-200 voters), but not on enwiki. That's way too much. &mdash; regards, <span style="color:green;font-family:Courier new, serif;font-variant:small-caps">Revi 09:21, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * And you don't know if there's a sock until the election is officially over. &mdash; regards, <span style="color:green;font-family:Courier new, serif;font-variant:small-caps">Revi 09:22, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * It might be useful to adjust the elections page to explain in more detail what goes on with the scrutineering process, and what the time frame has historically been. I'm somewhat aware of the effort involved and so I completely understand why it takes the time it does, but I think a lot of the people clamoring for results early on are doing so because they think it's taking 1–2 weeks to just sum up the support/neutral/oppose columns and publish the results. GorillaWarfare (talk) 11:08, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Probably good idea, I'll assume someone else will do it (and eventually do it myself next year)? &mdash; regards, <span style="color:green;font-family:Courier new, serif;font-variant:small-caps">Revi 14:23, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Excellent suggestion, GorillaWarfare; it would also improve transparency and reduce opportunities for stress and conflict, perhaps especially if accompanied by notification of which stage(s) of the process was/were currently ongoing. (And, by the way, congrats on your election, even tho you thought it was for the Intergalactic High Council ).Tlhslobus (talk) 20:23, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * And also congratulations on doing much better than predicted by the two most reliable predictions. Tlhslobus (talk) 20:36, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Mass message
If you have to send a mass message next year - which I doubt - design it so that it will be archived normally. I still see that voting is open "now" meaning 2015, - senseless clutter. - Consider cleaning up 2018 messages unless there was a discussion. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:24, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I think we will have to send a mass message every year we have an Arbitration Committee election if we want the same level of turnout. In 2014, the year before we started doing mass messaging, we only had 593 valid votes. In 2015, this went up to 2674 valid votes, and it has remained above 1900 ever since. In 2017, there was an issue with the mass messaging, and the message did not get sent out until we were well into the voting cycle. During the period between the start of voting and the mass message, there was worryingly little turnout – only a few dozen votes were trickling in each day. This happened despite our usual advertising at WP:CENT, WP:AN, MediaWiki:Watchlist-messages, etc. It's eminently clear that the mass message is integral to ensuring a consistently high amount of turnout.
 * Regarding whether to archive old messages, I'm afraid that's for the users to whom we send the messages to decide. Imagine if someone removed a message on our own talk pages without first asking us; I'd imagine a lot of us would revert, since many of us have personal preferences on how we like to keep organize our talk page archives. I don't really think there's that much confusion caused by the now open verbiage – it's followed immediately by until 3 December. Mz7 (talk) 09:36, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Regarding whether to archive old messages, I'm afraid that's for the users to whom we send the messages to decide. Imagine if someone removed a message on our own talk pages without first asking us; I'd imagine a lot of us would revert, since many of us have personal preferences on how we like to keep organize our talk page archives. I don't really think there's that much confusion caused by the now open verbiage – it's followed immediately by until 3 December. Mz7 (talk) 09:36, 14 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you. Let's distinguish:
 * What I observe is that the arbcom mass messages are not archived by automatic archiving, possibly because they are not dated the normal way.
 * "Old" arbcom messages are clutter on talk pages. What can we do?
 * I will not argue if a higher turnout is good for a good result, - it could be the vote of the uninformed ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:25, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * It could be, but it could also be the vote of valuable editors who (understandably) prefer not to watchlist the ArbCom/admin pages but who care about who is involved with deciding ArbCom cases. The mass message links directly to the candidates page, which displays all the statements and links to the questions pages, so people certainly have a clear opportunity to familiarize themselves with the folks who are up for election. I've seen a lot of comments on these various election pages about how the ArbCom should represent the community (and I agree), and if the only people who vote are the people who actively watch ArbCom pages and admin noticeboards, that absolutely won't be the case. If there's an issue with the mass message not being auto-archived properly it should certainly be addressed; I just wanted to mention my disagreement about the mass message being discontinued. GorillaWarfare (talk) 11:14, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The message should probably go to WP:PR first, too. :) ——  SerialNumber  54129  11:25, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * (ec) I didn't say it should be discontinued ;) (but confess that a simple message auch as I get when an RfA is open would suffice, for me, and I can't imagine that a user who hasn't looked at Wikipedia for a while and gets alerted by a message will invest the time to inspect candidates thoroughly.) - The message could look different (see discussion linked above), shorter for example, and it could disappear after it served its purpose. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:28, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Fair, I guess I misconstrued your "which I doubt" comment to mean you believed it should be discontinued. I think the point of the mass message is to reach active editors who either don't watch the venues where the election is publicized and tune out watchlist notices/banners (as I am often guilty of), or to reach active editors who didn't realize they were eligible to vote. I don't really follow the logic that there are tons of inactive editors who meet the voting requirements who don't care enough to look into the candidates but are also willing to take the time to cast an uninformed vote. GorillaWarfare (talk) 11:36, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * @Gerda Arendt, there's no way for any message on talkpage to "disappear after it served its purpose", that's not problem with ArbCom message. Also if you set automatic archiving, it will be archived when it's due just like any other message. It's fully dated. –Ammarpad (talk) 11:46, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Some older messages implied elections continue to be open long after they close - e.g. user talk:Steeev might be interpreted as saying this user (who hasn't edited since 2005) could come back today and vote in the 2015 election. I don't think that's a reasonable interpretation though, and the 2018 message did specify a closing date. Thryduulf (talk) 12:34, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * In an attempt to address that I have created which basically updates the timelines on its own.  It’s central and unified.—  CYBER POWER  (<span style="color:\#FF8C00">Merry Christmas) 12:53, 14 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Re: Archiving: For automated bot archiving, the message needs to have a date and time stamp. To prevent the message from being archived too quickly for those with very speedy archiving settings, the message should also contain a hidden DNAU template set to, say, at least 24 hours after the last day of voting. Would those two changes be doable? Softlavender (talk) 06:13, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The message does have a date and a timestamp, or at least the message I received on my talk page did. Thryduulf (talk) 11:12, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

2019 RFC
The best place to note suggestions and improvements for 2019 is Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December 2019. Thryduulf (talk) 09:35, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Historically, I think items for next year's discussion were posted to Arbitration Committee Elections December 2018/Feedback. Mz7 (talk) 09:37, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I think I saw it earlier last month but left it here since I thought this wasn't worth RFC. &mdash; regards, <span style="color:green;font-family:Courier new, serif;font-variant:small-caps">Revi 09:53, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Both are fine. — xaosflux  Talk 15:21, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Neutral voting option?
I asked when we would know the vote results and 30 edits were made and a blue box was added to stop comments. Now I wonder why there is a neutral box for voting on the candidates? Eschoryii (talk) 12:50, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I think the best interpretation of the election is not as one big contest, but as 13 separate polls – one for each candidate. You may vote support or oppose based on how you think of each candidate, irrespective of what you think of the others. (Of course, there are many people who decide to vote strategically, e.g. only supporting the same number of candidates as there are open seats, but it’s not clear how effective these strategies are.) The neutral option exists to allow you to abstain from voting in one of the individual polls, e.g. if you are not sure which way you lean. The support percentage used for determining the results is calculated by support / (support + oppose), so it’s like you didn’t vote at all in that particular decision. Mz7 (talk) 16:46, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eschoryii (talk • contribs) 10:25, 15 December 2018 (UTC)