Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December 2016

= Nomination name order = Folks seem to care about what order the names appear during the nomination stage, might want to figure that out during the RFC; please see 2015 discussion NE Ent 23:14, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I have added that as an initial topic, hopefully it will attract proposals. Monty  845  01:29, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Notifications
Following the list from last year, notifications have been posted to: WP:CENT, WP:AN, WP:VPP, WT:ACN, and WT:AC. Monty 845  01:47, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

No need for sectioned discussion
For future ArbCom election RfCs, I think we can bring back threaded discussion (i.e. no need for "Statement by [user]" headers). Mz7 (talk) 00:18, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

To do when closing
From my recollection of last year: If you think of any tasks I've forgotten, add them here for posterity. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:04, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Close each section
 * Remove this RFC from WP:CENT
 * Change the text of the ACE2016 header to indicate it's closed
 * Remove this RFC from Template:ACE2016 (search for the field) and replace with an unobtrusive period or something until election commission RFC up and running (don't leave blank, or it helpfully defaults to EC RFC)
 * Make any changes to ACE2016 pages required as a result of any changes that gained consensus, or notify any people who are needed to implement the change:
 * Add warning similar to WP:CUOS2015 to candidates page (when it's created).
 * Figure out who dealt with last year's mass message (particularly who knows how to limit who it is sent to), and get help developing a way to send it only to those who are eligible to vote, and who have edited in the last year.
 * Craft a new mass message, based on Mz7's template on the RFC page, but with any tweaks needed.
 * Where you asked about who did the mass messaging last year, my recollection is that it was Kevin Gorman (maybe with someone else??). Unfortunately, that doesn't help you much. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:56, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Yes, I believe in fact he was the driving force (or a driving force) behind the idea in the first place.  I'll take a look at conversations about this on his talk page from last year and see if I can find others who were involved and who might know who to talk to. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:00, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Kevin proposed the original idea (at AN, IIRC) but the messages were actually sent out by, in four or five large batches. This RfC didn't really get into the question of when to send them out, but last year it was early in the voting phase, and there were noticeable spikes in voting rate correlated with the message distributions. Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:32, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Mdann52 doesn't seem to be active (I left a note on his talk page earlier today). I imagine we'll have time to figure it out.  --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:38, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Anyone with the mass message right should be able to do the distribution. Last year the WMF generated the list (because it's a large database query) and then it required some processing to divide it up into chunks and format them for use in message distribution. Somewhere along the way, some errors were introduced, and there were (minor but silly-looking) mistakes like trying to deliver the messages to article talk pages, or username redirects left over from renaming, etc. Might be good to get on the list generation part relatively soon, since the parameters will have to be defined precisely. Opabinia regalis (talk) 03:47, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry to be late here (!) but it was me who sent it out. I'm happy to do it again (as some processing of the raw data is needed), or advise others as needed. Mdann52 (talk) 07:17, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Request for more eyes on one of the items here, before the RFC closes in 2 days
If no one else closes this RFC before I find time to settle in and read it, I might close this RFC on or after 30 September (not trying to call dibs; anyone is welcome to sneak in before me). In the course of a preliminary read-thru of this lightly-participated-in RFC, I'm struck particularly by the thread about ordering of the names; four people saying four different things makes finding a consensus nearly impossible. ,, , and , you might want to revisit this thread, review the others' suggestions and comment on those in more detail, perhaps rank the possible outcomes (alphabetical, order of filing, randomize once and keep that throughout, and randomize each time)... anything to give the closer something more to work with. In addition, if anyone else who has commented on other topics (and therefore has watchlisted this page) wants to chime in too, now's the time. I'd be pretty hesitant to change the way we do things (the old way based on a consensus from previous years) based on the thoughts of just 2 out of 4 people agreeing. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:15, 29 September 2016 (UTC)