Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December 2012

Meta voter guides
I wanted to remind everyone that there was an outstanding question from last year regarding the propriety of meta-voting guides and their inclusion in the guide list. As my guide was the primary point of contention, I want to let others make the initial proposals. Just as a reminder, opinions varied including creating an official meta guide, allowing as a regular guide, and prohibiting meta guide inclusion in the guide list. Monty 845  03:16, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Voter guide consensus from last year

 * "Consensus from last year's RfC: Serious voter guides may be included for the election, but those that are not should be discarded. They should also be randomized so that not everybody believes the top of the voter guide list says. "

Would someone please clarify the underlined sentence? I don't understand it. &mdash; Cup co  05:29, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Per the request at last year's RFC, we made the order in which voter guides listed in ACE2011 appear pseudo random, every time the template generates the order should randomize. You can test it by purging the template page. This was so that no one's guide would get a better spot then any other. I think that is what the comment refers to. Monty  845  05:44, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes. Psuedo-random being that a computer cannot generate true randomness, being a deterministic machine, but it should be random enough for our purposes. --Rschen7754 05:54, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, afaik the wiki software doesn't even provide a Psuedo-random number generator, so we kinda hacked it together, but I think it is more then sufficiently random for our purposes. Monty  845  06:00, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

In other words, Cupco, ordinarily the guides would all be listed in the same order. Most likely it would be alphabetical order, meaning that User:Aardvark's guide would come first, and User:Zebra's guide would come last. Some people thought this meant that the Aardvarks' guides would get more readership than the Zebras', which wouldn't be fair to the latter, and so the intention was to give everyone an equal chance. I believe the same was done with the order of the candidates' names on the ballots, too. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:57, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Understood, and I agree with this because ballot order is apparently a 5%+ advantage in some cases. &mdash; Cup co  02:22, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Sitenotice
Last year there was a problem with getting the voting listed at MediaWiki:Sitenotice. If we desire to have it appear there, we will want to make sure its addressed again this year. Monty 845  15:49, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Can the RFC be put on the watchlist notice? Neutron (talk) 19:31, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The RFC has now need added to the watchlist notice. Monty  845  20:25, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Note
I would like to comment in this RfC, but am holding off due to a current RfARB (not sure of the appropriateness). However, I may still, if time becomes an issue. So please drop me a note prior to closing this to allow me the chance to comment please : ) - jc37 22:14, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't mean this to sound harsh, but it is probably fairly unlikely that anyone is going to "drop you a note" to remind you to comment in an RfC. I, for one, have enough trouble remembering what I am supposed to do tomorrow.  If you are going to comment, you need to do so by Oct. 31 to ensure that your comments are considered.  There's your note.  Put it on your calendar. Neutron (talk) 01:47, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It wasn't so much a request for a reminder, as just wanting to still have the opportunity to comment : ) - jc37 21:15, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * jc37, I don't see any reason why the pending request should prevent you from commenting here. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:50, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the clarification. - jc37 21:15, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Quick question
How many slots are we talking this year, assuming that we keep it at 15?  Volunteer Marek  01:59, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * There should be 8 seats available based on the tranche. I'm not aware of any planned resignations, but it has happened somewhat frequently and I doubt I'd be the first to know, so it could be more. Monty  845  02:03, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Eight. The arbitrators whose terms are expiring are Casliber, David Fuchs, Elen of the Roads, Jclemens, Newyorkbrad, PhilKnight, SirFozzie, and Xeno. See the table at Arbitration Committee/History. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:06, 2 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Hmmm, given how dry RfA and RfB have been this year, you think we're gonna have enough candidates for 8 positions?  Volunteer Marek   02:58, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well...even last year, there were only 10 over 50%, so maybe not.--Müdigkeit (talk) 03:11, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * (ec)Last year we had 10 candidates who passed the 50% threshold. I'm not sure how correlated nominations are with RFX, on the one hand, most of the harsh criticism is found in the voter guides that a candidate could ignore, rather then on a community discussion, so in a sense its less unpleasant, on the other they are signing up for 2 years of unrelenting criticism as a member of the committee. Monty  845  03:13, 2 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Volunteer Marek, if you promise to reprise your 2010 Voter Guide this year, I am sure we'll have large numbers of highly qualified candidates competing in this year's election. If you reprise last year's guide instead, maybe not. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:18, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe I'll go all out crazy and be serious this year.  Volunteer Marek   03:31, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well,even if nobody wants to be everbodys punching bag, which would be understandable, there would still be 7 arbitrators. At least until 2013...--Müdigkeit (talk) 03:52, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Stuff from last year
Some things that popped up last year. Any opinions on these? 64.40.54.32 (talk) 06:33, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Are election committee members allowed to create voter guides? To put it another way, does creating a voter guide disqualify an election committee member from impartially performing their duties?
 * When closing the RfC, how is the support percentage determined?.
 * What happens if not enough candidates reach the minimum percentage to fill the empty seats? Do the seats go unfilled?
 * To respond to your points in order; There are 3 types of editors who you may be referring to, Election Scrutineers, Election Admins, and Election Coordinators. The first two groups have special access to information on voting, and their impartiality is critical to the integrity of the election. In those two cases I think endorsing or in anyway supporting a candidate is a big problem, but as far as I know has never been an issue. The latter group, election coordinators is a trickier question. There is no limit to coordinator numbers, anyone who self identifies as one is one. Further there is no defined special authority of coordinators, though the community does look to them to sort things out if there are issues. At least in my opinion, they are not in a position where supporting a candidate or creating a voter guide should automatically disqualify them, however they should still be extremely careful not to do anything on the election pages that could be seen as favoritism. As to the second issue, I don't see any issues where we are likely to end up in that circumstance, though we will probably want to discuss it if it looks like that type of a situation may be about to reoccur. Finally, on your third point, I think its clear that the seat would remain empty as far as this RFC is concerned. If a signifigant number of seats remain empty, I imagine someone would start an RFC after the election to discuss what to do, but we don't really need to worry about it now. Monty  845  22:07, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe that if someone is identified as an "election coordinator", even if they are self-identified, it would be best if they do not publicly support or oppose candidates in that election. That is just my opinion, there is no rule against it.  I just think it does not "look right."  As for the RfC closure, the answer to the IP-editor's question is that like almost all other RfC's, it is determined by a single admin (usually) based on the comments.  The problem last year is that no single percentage threshhold received a majority, and the closing admin was left to determine how to "count" the "votes" for the options that came in third, fourth, fifth, etc.  I believe that on his second try, he got it right, but it came very close to causing a lot of controversy.  Hopefully that will not recur, but if we really want to solve the problem, the solution is to change the way RfC's are closed in general, not just this one.  (For example, maybe having a "panel" of selected RfC-closers who work in teams, which has been done for a few particularly contentious RfC's.)  On the third point, Monty is correct.  I believe it was specifically determined in last year's RfC that if not enough candidates achieve the minimum support percentage, the seats will go unfilled in that election.  I believe that the most recent "official" word on "what happens then" is that if enough seats are vacant (whether through resignations or insufficient numbers being elected, or both), ArbCom can ask Jimbo to call for a "special election."  That has never happened, although I seem to recall a time a few years ago when there were several vacancies on ArbCom (due to resignations), and there was some discussion of what to do about it, but a special election was not called.  Neutron (talk) 14:39, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The very short answer on voter guides and election staff is that there are no rules. A slightly longer answer is that there have been a couple incidents of some self declared election coordinators endorsing, but the sense I've gotten staffing elections is that this was looked down on by other coordinators. Election admins, to my knowledge, have generally been totally neutral among candidates if possible, but have been varying in how hands on they were in staffing the election. There are no established rules on how anything else works, but people will point at the Arbitration policy, and others will point towards Jimbo's 'constitutional' reserve powers.--Tznkai (talk) 20:09, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Sock Statements
There are two statements from Cupco who I notice has now been blocked as a sock and had his supports struck, one that has no unblocked supporters, and one is supported only by me. (And is the default from last year) Would it make sense to just remove the statements entirely (leaving his struck supports on any proposed by other editors)? Monty 845  16:48, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * For the one about what questions to ask, if it were deleted, I could see someone becoming confused about why the next statement (RSchen's) is there; it is a response to Cupco's proposal. So maybe that one should stay, even though it has no supporters.  On the other one, I think the idea that vacancies be filled for one year (that is, through the end of the original two-year term of the resigning arbitrator) is sort of incorporated in both your statement and my statement in a previous section ("How many seats should be 2-year terms, and how many 1-year terms?"), besides being the default from last year, so it probably does not matter as much.  Neutron (talk) 21:57, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Stewards and sysadmin
I have contacted sysadmin User:Tim Starling, who is glad to volunteer again to help set up the SecurePoll interface for this election again.

Moreover, a number of Stewards have chosen to volunteer to serve as election scrutineers; right now, about 5 or 6 have chosen to step up, though I think we would be fine with 3 or 4. We've normally had 3 or 4 the past few elections, and we should save some available Stewards for next year's election (assuming the likelihood of using SecurePoll again), as we don't want to use the same Steward two years in a row. --MuZemike 23:00, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * How about election admins?--Tznkai (talk) 20:03, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Election admins normally come from the functionaries (e.g. CheckUsers and Oversighters). That should not be difficult to come up with a couple of people for that role. --MuZemike 17:45, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * That doesn't sound quite right. Off the top of my head, last year we had a former func, an non-func OTRS, and an active dev/func.--Tznkai (talk) 19:20, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Did a little more research on my own. We've had 3 Secure poll ACE elections (2009, '10, '11 ), Happy Melon has been an admin all three times, I have done it twice ( '11, '09, ) Mr.Z-man twice ( '10, '09 ), Skomorokh once ( '09 ). It looks like the Audit subcommittee election had Happy-melon as an administrator, and I'm not sure who was the election admin for the 2010 oversight elections. I'd like if possible, to stretch outside of the traditional staff, perhaps a mix of new and old, to try to spread the institutional memory around.--Tznkai (talk) 20:15, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Think it was either Risker or Roger Davies who managed CU/OS10, if memory serves. As ever, I am more than happy to participate, but I completely agree with Tznkai that there should be new faces on the team.  Three remains, in my mind, the ideal number of election admins. Happy‑melon 19:20, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

We will have four Steward scrutineers who will provide assistance in the SecurePoll process: User:Pundit (from pl.wiki), User:Teles (from pt.wiki), User:Quentinv57 (from fr.wiki), and User:Mardetanha (from fa.wiki). --MuZemike 17:45, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Why 4 this time? --Tznkai (talk) 20:16, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Change the idea of that !voting
Why not !voting for a particular requirement line for line instead of a bundle of proposed requirements for the candidates? mabdul 00:09, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Subsection heading on RfC page
On the RfC page, under the section heading "Removing members of ArbCom", I made a statement in response to Kiefer.Wolfowitz's original statement, and he then put a comment under my statement with the heading "Recursive absurdity". I would appreciate it if someone could take a look at that heading and, if you believe it is appropriate, change it to something more neutral like "Discussion" or "Comments" (which appear in several other places on the page.) If he wants to say that my suggestion is a "recursive absurdity", that's fine, but he should say in his comment, not in a heading. I would change it myself except that I don't want anyone complaining that I was changing a response to my own comment. Neutron (talk) 18:45, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Why 2-year terms and not 3-year terms?
Argument for the 2-year terms instead of 1-year terms is often that "it takes some time to learn the ropes". A 3-year term would have the benefit of providing more experience and the possibility to choose 1/3 of the arbitrators each year. So why is there still a 2-year term max? The Banner talk</i> 17:58, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Discussed at lengths at the 2009 RFC RFC/AC2--Tznkai (talk) 19:27, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I can't find the discussion very well, but the decision for two years is loud and clear. <span style="font-family:'Old English Text MT',serif;color:green">The Banner <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 20:33, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, as you can see, the term previously was three years (it was that way for a few years), then that RfC produced a decision to reduce it to two years. There was some support for reducing it to even less than two years, but two years was supported by a large majority.  Neutron (talk) 20:53, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * If we just wanted our arbitrators to be experienced in the job, we could extend their terms even more than that. However, there are arguments for short terms that seem much more compelling. I remember some of the old arbitrators who sat on the committee for years and began to behave like petty tyrants. Long terms encourage isolation from the community, lack of accountability, lack of perspective, and a sense of entitlement. Everyking (talk) 05:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The nice thing of 3-year terms and 15 arbitrators is that you can choose five arbitrators every year, keeping the "petty tyrants" (as you call them) at bay. But I agree with you that really long terms are a bad idea. For growing vegatables, there is crop rotation. That should be used for arbitrators too: rookie, fresher, senior, fallow. But the system will never be perfect, due to the fact that even the arbitrators are imperfect humans. <span style="font-family:'Old English Text MT',serif;color:green">The Banner <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 11:24, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Seeing that this RFC will determine term lengths, why not propose it there? I know there isn't much time left, but anything is possible.    Hot Stop     (Edits)   12:59, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It was a plain question, and I am satisfied with the answers. In short I read it as we have decided otherwise just a few years ago and, more important, adding an extra year to the term is not benefical due to Arbitrator-fatigue. It would only lead to more arbitrators resigning prematurely.. My conclusion based on these readings is that I would not make the (potential) Arbitrators happy when I would try to find support for it, so I refrain from that. <span style="font-family:'Old English Text MT',serif;color:green">The Banner <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 15:02, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Fair enough.  Hot Stop     (Edits)   12:51, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I think the result of the RfC a few years ago was a compromise. Some wanted to stick with three years, others wanted to reduce it to as little as six months, and the majority chose somewhere in the middle, which was two years. I think that what happens is that people who are very upset over one or more past and/or recent (or even pending) decisions (either by the committee as a whole or the statements or actions of particular arbitrators) would like the terms of the "offending" arbitrators to end right now, and this sometimes translates into support for a shorter (1 year or 6 months) term. But the majority of the people are not so upset. A few years ago there was somewhat more widespread "concern" within the community over a series of decisions that had taken place, and I think that contributed to the reduction from three years to two years. Right now there is a "big thing" going on over a statement made by one arbitrator -- but that arbitrator has now been elected to two consecutive one-year terms to fill vacancies, having come in last or next-to-last of the arbitrators who were elected, and now his second one-year term is ending, so if he tries for another term the voters will once again get to pass judgment. If those one-year terms had not been available, the arbitrator would not have been elected at all. Other arbitrators who are apparently less controversial have two-year terms. So one could argue that the system is working consistently with the "wishes of the community", at least as far as term lengths go. Neutron (talk) 15:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe the biggest consideration in reducing the term lengths was the fact that three years is a long time on Wikipedia, and it's at least an equally long time to be an arbitrator on Wikipedia. With the three-year term length, a fairly significant percentage of the arbitrators in each tranche were not serving out their terms&mdash;either they resigned early or they just became de facto inactive on the Committee well before three years were out. And there were some candidates who were willing to commit to serving for two years, but not for three. I don't think that dissatisfaction with the Committee's work was a major basis for the change, though of course having already been on the Committee at the time I may be displaying a selective memory. :) Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:48, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Irregularity regarding candidate eligibility
It has come to my attention that there is a discrepancy between the minimum number of edits to run that was stated as the standard from last year, and what that standard actually was. Last year, the RFC closed with a consensus that in terms of edits, the qualification to run was the same as to vote, which was 150 edits. Throughout this RFC we have discussed candidate eligibility as if 500 was the standard from last year, as far as I see, no one noticed prior to the close and the close indicates we are using the standard from last year. I have notified the closer, who is clearly not at fault, so that they can sort out the issue, and wanted to leave a note mentioning it here as well. Monty <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  19:27, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it should be 150 then. I wonder how many people with fewer than 500 (or 150) edits have ever run for ArbCom anyway.  I'd bet the number is very small.  And the requirements aren't that big a deal anyway, by which I mean we could have an election with no requirements at all, if we had to.  The voters are fully capable of deciding who is qualified and who isn't.  Neutron (talk) 01:54, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I know we rejected at least one nomination last year on those grounds (less then 150 mainspace). Monty  <sub style="color:#A3BFBF;">845  03:01, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * My point is that it is a very rare situation and doesn't really matter much in the end because someone with less than 150, or less than 500, edits has very little chance of being elected. So I don't think there is any significant risk of in setting the requirements at what they were last year, since that may be what some people thought they were "voting" for.  I forget whether I actually voted on this one or not.  If I had, I would not have voted to increase the requirements from what they were last year, and I probably assumed that the 500 correctly reflected last year's requirements.  So under the circumstances, 150 seems fair.  Neutron (talk) 16:04, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The odd thing is that, if you look at last year's RFC, there are a lot of supports for 500 (or higher) in the endorsement section of SirFozzie's statement - which is where the "same-as-voter" came from. In fact, SirFozzie himself mentioned the 500 figure since he supported a higher voter eligibility bar. I suspect that's what confused whoever drafted this RFC. Certainly reasonable people can disagree on the best way to handle this, but I'll stick with 500 as that is the number actually discussed in this RFC. I think it would be rather odd to find a consensus for 150 when that number isn't even mentioned. T. Canens (talk) 01:01, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The votes were based on an incorrect premise. As I say above, I don't think the world is going to end either way.  I don't think this is right, though.  Neutron (talk) 11:34, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

I suggest reopening this one item of the RfC for five days and seeing if consensus changes in light of this new information. But if thee's a desire to do that, we'd better do it right now, given that the nomination period is starting just a little over a week from now. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:57, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

How should we deal with unforeseen problems?:consensus?
I cannot see consensus there... Sure, the statement of the one being assumed consensus by the closer has far more support than all others. But it is opposed by all others in at least one direction. For example, the slight change is a big change, obviously. And the others are clearly against it. On the top of that, even some of those who endorsed the statement by Tznkai did not endorse it fully.--Müdigkeit (talk) 01:37, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I think there was a sufficient consensus for the result that was posted. Even if there wasn't as complete agreement on this as on some of the other questions, closing as "no consensus" wasn't really an option, and the closure that was reached was reasonable. But perhaps it's best that we all do our best to avoid any "unforeseen problems" in the election, whereupon this item will be moot. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:00, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Electoral Commission RfC
I have created an extremely simple RfC to choose Electoral Commission members at Requests_for_comment/Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2012/Electoral_Commission. My apologies for not getting this done sooner, but there was a interesting election in meatspace, as well as some important ceremonies I needed to attend to. If someone has improvements to implement, or to move it elsewhere, please do so with my blessing. Barring any terrible errors I will advertise when I wake in the morning.--Tznkai (talk) 04:41, 8 November 2012 (UTC)