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# <span class="nowrap" style="font-family:copperplate gothic light;">[[User:Chris troutman|<span style="color:#345">Chris Troutman</span>]] ([[User talk:Chris troutman|<span style="color:#345">talk</span>]])</span> 07:34, 26 August 2014 (UTC) |
# <span class="nowrap" style="font-family:copperplate gothic light;">[[User:Chris troutman|<span style="color:#345">Chris Troutman</span>]] ([[User talk:Chris troutman|<span style="color:#345">talk</span>]])</span> 07:34, 26 August 2014 (UTC) |
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# —[[User:John Cline|John Cline]] ([[User talk:John Cline|talk]]) 07:53, 26 August 2014 (UTC) |
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#- [[user: MrX|Mr]][[user talk:MrX|X]] 17:38, 27 August 2014 (UTC) |
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==Should the voter eligibility requirements be changed?== |
==Should the voter eligibility requirements be changed?== |
Revision as of 17:38, 27 August 2014
2014 Arbitration Committee Elections
Status
This is a request for comment about the upcoming December 2014 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election.
Purpose of this request for comment: To provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the December 2014 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
Background: In last year’s election feedback, one of the concerns raised was that election preparation needed to occur earlier to properly consider changes and implement those supported by consensus. Thus, I’ve started the RfC a month earlier to commence the planning stages.
In the case of proposals that change existing rules, or that seek to establish new ones, lack of consensus for a change will result in the rules from the 2013 RFC remaining in force. Some issues are not covered by the existing rules but will need to be decided one way or another for the operation of the election, in those cases it will be up to the closer to figure out a result, even if there is no clear consensus, as they have had to in the past.
Structure: This RfC is divided into portions, each of which contains a question for the community to discuss. The standard RfC structure will be used, in which any user may make a general statement that other users may endorse if they so agree. An exception is made for the polling methodology, where users are encouraged to voice their support or opposition for the possible methods. The questions will be listed in the table of contents below, along with the users who have made statements.
Per the consensus developed on last year's request for comment, the arbitration committee election timetable is as follows:
- Nominations: Sunday 00:01, 9 November - Tuesday 23:59, 18 November (10 days)
- Fallow period: Wednesday 00:01, 19 November to 23:59, 23 November (5 days)
- Voting period: Monday 00:01, 24 November to Sunday 23:59, 7 December (14 days)
- Scrutineering: Begins Monday 00:01, 8 December
The questions have been chosen in part from the comments from Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Feedback. More questions may be added if other concerns arise.
Duration: This RfC is scheduled to last for about 30 days; on or after September 25, it will be closed, and an uninvolved editor(s) will determine the results of the RfC. The results will determine the structure, rules, and procedures for the election.
12:00, 25 September 2014 (UTC) Date stamp necessary for the RFC bot, or the next several sections get transcluded into announcements
Use the following format below; post a new statement at the BOTTOM of the section in which you want to make a statement. Endorse by adding a hash symbol (#) and your signature.
===Statement by [[User:USERNAME|USERNAME]]=== Comment ~~~~ ;Users who endorse this statement: #~~~~
Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.
Proposals to Amend
Should there be a change in the voting methodology used for the elections?
Statement by Mike V
Over the past few elections, there have been some comments raised about the voting methodology used for the Arbitration Committee election (2010, 2012, 2013). The voting system currently used has not been formally reconsidered since it was set up in 2009. I would like to open it up to the community to see if there is still support to continue using the current system or if an alternative system should be used. Currently SecurePoll supports Support/Neutral/Oppose and Schulze method I (which is designed to produce only one winner), but with enough support it may be possible to coordinate with the Wikimedia Foundation and develop a new method for SecurePoll in time for the election. Listed below are some common methods of voting to discuss. Should anyone want to discuss an alternative, feel free to add it and elaborate on your support.
Support/Oppose (Current system)
The voter has the option of expressing support or opposition for each candidate, but may choose to abstain from making a decision on one or more candidates. The candidates are rated on the ratio of supports to supports and opposes.
*I oppose the continued use of "oppose" votes, and the concomitant "ratio" mode of determining winning candidates. "First past the post" for a minor election in the grand scheme of things seems quite adequate. Collect (talk) 07:20, 26 August 2014 (UTC) noting the problems with "oppose" votes are endemic with people opposing any candidate whom they do not explicitly vote for - or against every proposal which is not precisely the one they vote for, thus giving such people twice or more the effective voting weight of those who only use positive voting) Collect (talk) 12:48, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Support either this or preferential voting or range voting per my reasons for opposing any system where we cannot oppose candidates. Davewild (talk) 12:09, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Support this system. We need to be able to oppose candidates about whom we have concerns, and supporting/opposing each candidate separately is important to determine the community's trust in each of them. BethNaught (talk) 12:27, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Support. This is the system we have used previously, and it has worked pretty well. While there surely may be raised objections to it, its simple enough to be intuitive to voters, produces results that are easy to understand. All while giving room to express a clear opinion on each candidate. Sjakkalle (Check!) 20:33, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Support. The current system has worked reasonably well. At some point I did an analysis of past elections (which I cannot find right now) and concluded that for the large majority of candidates, "plurality voting" (that is, the person with the most votes wins) would have the same result as "Support/Oppose/Abstain." My recollection is that in any given election there were, at most, two candidates who won who would have lost under plurality voting. In some elections there were no differences at all. In some elections, a candidate won a two-year seat who would have otherwise won a one-year seat, or the reverse. The differences between the two systems were not really all that significant. A related reason for my support of the current system is that I have never seen any convincing evidence that any other specific system would be better. Neutron (talk) 22:06, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose - By allowing an "oppose" vote, you encourage dishonest tactical voting (for example, blanket Opposing all candidates except your prefered one). Compared to an honest voter who is neutral, and accurately fills their ballot by abstaining, a dishonest ballot has twice the voting weight, and that is highly undesirable. -- Netoholic @ 02:44, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
- Support, generally. Do we have the data available to make a determination on the actual incidence of tactical voting following the switch to securepoll? Protonk (talk) 14:39, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
Plurality at large voting
In an election with n number of available seats, the voter may vote for up to n candidates, with a limit of one vote per candidate. The candidates with the highest number of votes will be elected.
- Support: With the current Support/Abstain/Oppose system, game theory would advocate running members to vote support for themselves and oppose for all other candidates. With 20+ candidates every year and assuming each candidate votes "optimally", this leads to a "built-in" level of disapproval for all of the candidates. This problem extends even further for editors who have one or two favorite candidates that they wish to be elected at the cost of the other candidates. While all polling systems have their pros and cons, I think the elections may improved with a plurality-at large system. This voting system would reduce the ability of voters to vote strategically and allow the community to elect the candidates that have the most support. Some of the drawbacks of plurality-at-large voting (e.g. bullet voting) are mitigated due to the lack of political parties and the number of available seats. Mike V • Talk 06:19, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Support - In previous elections I limited my support votes to the number of available seats because it made sense to me.—John Cline (talk) 07:07, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Support as above. Collect (talk) 07:21, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- I oppose any system where we cannot oppose candidates (either by support/oppose votes or by ranking candidates). Every member of arbcom must be trusted by the community in view of the role they are being trusted with (such as private information). Unless we can oppose candidates, then candidates who have the support of say 30-40% of people, but who the majority oppose can and will be elected, which will mean that people will be unwilling to trust arbcom as a body with private information. Davewild (talk) 12:03, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose since we need a system for expressing opposition. BethNaught (talk) 12:27, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose per my comment above on the current system. Neutron (talk) 22:07, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Preferential Voting
The voter will have the ability to rank candidates in the order of preference. (first, second, third, etc.) The candidates are awarded points proportional to their ranking on each ballot. The candidates receiving the strongest level of support are elected.
- Place your comments here.
- Support either this or support/oppose or range voting per my reasons for opposing any system where we cannot oppose candidates. Davewild (talk) 12:10, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose: I would prefer a system which allows for explicit opposition. BethNaught (talk) 12:27, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Comment: It isn't very clear what the actual system would be here. There are different kinds of preference voting. Some of them result in "proportional representation," which I have always thought we should try for at least one election - as long as people understand that "pr" would result in some candidates being elected who did not have majority support (which is probably why it has never received anything close to a consensus.) The method described above, however, seems (if I understand it correctly) to be "majoritarian" rather than proportional. I believe that if we are going to stay with a majoritarian system, we might as well stick with the one we already have. Neutron (talk) 22:16, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Range voting
The voter gives a score to the candidates on a scale (e.g. 1-10). The scores are added and averaged. The candidates with the highest average are elected.
- If used, ranges should start at 0. — xaosflux Talk 10:51, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Support either this or preferential voting or support/oppose per my reasons for opposing any system where we cannot oppose candidates. Davewild (talk) 12:10, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose: This system could be self-defeating: if certain voters express an honest rating of each candidate, their top choices may have, say, 7–9 points. Other voters, however, might give all their top choices 10. Therefore everyone would inflate their scores for their preferred candidates, defeating the point of the system and making it too complicated. BethNaught (talk) 12:27, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose per my comment above on the current system. I see nothing here to suggest that this would be better than what we already have. Neutron (talk) 22:17, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose without some further articulation on why this is better than the current system. Also, If I express no opinion on candidate A, marking them as 0 (or whatever the middle of the scale is) and another voter expresses a strong preference do I expect that my lack of a preference lowers their average or leaves it unchanged? Obviously this is a subset of the larger problem of counting "neutral" votes, but it's a practical problem when an "average" is used. Protonk (talk) 12:38, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
Cumulative Voting
The voter is given a vote for each available seat on the committee. The voter may spread these votes across as many or few candidates as they wish. There is no obligation to use all your votes. The candidates with the highest number of votes are elected.
- Place your comments here.
- I oppose any system where we cannot oppose candidates (either by support/oppose votes or by ranking candidates). Every member of arbcom must be trusted by the community in view of the role they are being trusted with (such as private information). Unless we can oppose candidates, then candidates who have the support of say 30-40% of people, but who the majority oppose can and will be elected, which will mean that people will be unwilling to trust arbcom as a body with private information. Davewild (talk) 12:06, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose as I think we should have a system allowing explicit opposition. BethNaught (talk) 12:27, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Comment: This is a "proportional representation" system that would allow candidates to be elected without the support of a majority of voters. In fact, that is one of the purposes of the system. The community has consistently opposed that idea in the past. I would support a "pr" system at least as a one-year experiment, but I think there would need to be a wider discussion of the non-majoritarian aspect of the system, beyond the relatively few editors who participate in these RfC's. Neutron (talk) 16:10, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
Each voter may 'approve' of (i.e. select) as many or as few candidates as he or she wishes by treating each candidate as a separate question ("Do you approve of this person for the job?"). There is no ranking or complex tabulation, and the system avoids problems such as inadvertant vote-splitting ("spoiler effect") between similar candidates. For n open seats, the winners are the n candidates with the most total approval votes. (Video explanation of this system)
- Support -- Netoholic @ 06:57, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- I oppose any system where we cannot oppose candidates (either by support/oppose votes or by ranking candidates). Every member of arbcom must be trusted by the community in view of the role they are being trusted with (such as private information). Unless we can oppose candidates, then candidates who have the support of say 30-40% of people, but who the majority oppose can and will be elected, which will mean that people will be unwilling to trust arbcom as a body with private information. Davewild (talk) 12:06, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- I think you're misunderstanding both how typical voting works and the approval voting system. You would denote your neutral or opposition to a candidate by not giving them your support. What you're asking for in wanting "oppose" votes is the ability to counteract the approval vote of someone else, which leads to strategic voting (for example, opposing all candidates to give your most prefered candidate a better chance). This in effect gives your vote twice the weight of someone that is (accurately) neutral on most candidates. Approval voting as a system has been studied in depth, and shown to be highly resistant to tactical voting. -- Netoholic @ 02:35, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose explicit opposition required. BethNaught (talk) 12:27, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose per my comment above on the current system. I see nothing here to suggest that this would be better than what we already have. Neutron (talk) 16:11, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
How should the selection of the election commission be conducted?
Statement by Mike V
As seen from last year's request for comment, there was a consensus to remove Jimbo from the election commission selection process but it was not implemented because consensus was not determined on how it should be done. I'll get the ball rolling with this proposal. As the election commissioners will have access to IP and user agent data, viable candidates will be limited to administrators who are over 18 and are willing to identify to the Foundation. Successful commission candidates will be ineligible for this year's arbitration election. I would suggest that we have candidates nominate themselves during a seven day period. They will post a nomination statement (250 words or less) with answers to standard questions (about 3-5 questions, which will need to be determined). The community will have a week to ask questions, evaluate, and place comments for the commission candidates. The top three candidates that receive the most support, as determined by a closing 'crat (or more if the close is not clear), will serve as this year's election commissioners. The proposed timetable will be:
- Nominations: Friday 00:00, 10 October - Friday 23:59 October 17
- Evaluation period: Friday 00:00, 17 October - Friday 23:59 October 24
- Commission selection: completed by Friday 00:00 October 31
While I don't anticipate the commission selection period to take more than a couple of days, the allotted week will allow some buffer time just in case. The duration between the conclusion of the election commission selection and the start of the arbcom election will hopefully allow enough time for the commissioners to get aquatinted with position and set up the SecurePoll system.
Suggestions to this proposed process and/or timeline are highly encouraged.
- Users who endorse this statement
Statement by John Cline
Although a non-admin is practically guaranteed not to be elected, the wrong precedent is being set by disallowing their candidacy. "Adminship is no big deal" and we shouldn't lose sight of that fact, let alone attribute more to them, as Wikipedians, than what the t-shirt allows. Only if tools were required would such a requirement have merit. First of all, admins do not have access to IPs and user agent data as part of their admin function so there is no valid correlation. On the other hand, non-admins who are account creators do have such access, and have had it for quite some time. I believe Otrs also has non-admins who perform faithfully exposed to this information as well. So again, there is no requirement to be an admin to be trusted with this information. I propose the rules should allow anyone who is over 18, willing to identify, and otherwise eligible to vote, to nominate themselves – keeping the above stipulated timeline intact.
- Users who endorse this statement
- —John Cline (talk) 17:15, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Collect (talk) 17:31, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Protonk (talk) 13:40, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
Statement by Newyorkbrad
The Arbitration Committee election itself, while obviously necessary given that we have an elected ArbCom, takes up a significant amount of the community's time. If we're going to have a formally selected election commission, which I believe we managed fine without for the first several years of elections, let's be sure that setting up and implementing a process for selecting that body doesn't itself become a time-sink. Cf. infinite regress.
- Users who endorse this statement
- Comments
The reason I specified it as an admin only is that I don’t believe it would be allowed under the Foundation policy. It’s my understanding that access to oversight/checkuser information requires a user to undergo an RfA or RfA-like process with similar rigor. This policy was what prohibited non-admins from serving on the audit subcommittee in the 2013 appointment. I’m not certain that the election commission process would match the level of scrutiny of an RfA; however the final call will have to come from Philippe on behalf of the legal team.
Unfortunately the comparison to account creation and OTRS is apples to oranges. When an individual submits a request through the account creation process, they explicitly consent to having their IP shared with our volunteers. OTRS users only have access to the information supplied within the email: email address, header information, and whatever information is volunteered by the sender. There is also a disclaimer on the Foundation website stating there is no guarantee that the information shared through OTRS will remain confidential. (Though almost every agent I know does their best to uphold this principle.) The information that is acquired through the election process is subject to the Foundation’s privacy policy which has a more conservative approach to accessing sensitive data. Mike V • Talk 23:50, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Should there be a limit to the number of questions posed to candidates?
Statement by Mike V
In the 2013 feedback section, a handful of users raised concerns that the amount of questions posed to the candidates was excessive. This was time consuming for candidates to craft meaningful responses to the questions. Some questions were also regarded as formulaic and/or unable to elicit insightful information about the candidates. Others raised the issue that the large number of questions made it difficult for users to evaluate all the candidates and might have encouraged some users to depend on candidate guides for advice. Thus, I would like to consider a limit of two questions per candidate per user.
- Users who endorse this statement
- Mike V • Talk 06:19, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Doomed to fail, but I prefer it, perhaps with a limit higher than two. Limiting questions has its own problems. The first two questions asked may be trivial or stupid (sorry) triggering a limit before reaching valuable questions which may be asked of the candidate. But allowing an unspecified number of questions sucks as well. Even though they're less well attended year over year, arbcom elections generate lots of questions. Kww saw 23 questions (after the slate of 15 general questions). That's maybe to be expected as their candidacy was not successful, but GorillaWarfare saw 18 as did Beeblebrox. 28Bytes, elected in a relative landslide, saw 15 questions. And I'm sorry but a lot of these questions are asinine. Many are repeated across candidates and used for "voter guides", making for 15 required general questions and 5-10 pseudo-required questions. Of these questions, many are multipart questions, sometimes with mundane questions mixed in with the actual concern. It's perhaps good training for candidates to waste time on asinine things, but I'm not sure it rises to the level of being a guiding star for us. In my opinion Floquenbeam had the right answer to many multipart questions; refuse to answer them either implicitly or explicitly. I'm afraid that doing so forced a candidate to stick their neck out to preserve a principle we all agree on, which is that editors shouldn't be asked to waste their time on pointless or non-germane activities. Protonk (talk) 13:24, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
- I also doubt this will be approved, but let's look at the numbers from the last election.
- There were 22 candidates
- Each them was asked about 60 questions
- That's 1,320 questions
- there were 923 valid ballots
- this means there were 397 more questions than there were people particpating in the election
- This is a ridiculous way to run a selection process. If I run again this year I will be severely curtailing my answers, and I believe we should get rid of the boilerplate questions as nobody reads the replies anyway. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:03, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
Statement by Collect
I oppose a "two question limit" quite strongly. Candidates are free to answer such questions as they wish to answer, and that has, as far as I know, been the case for some time. Personally, if a candidate does not have three hours to answer questions, I am unsure they will have the hundreds of hours reasonably needed to be a member of the committee, but your mileage may vary.
All that is needed is a comment before any list of questions stating that candidates are under no affirmative obligation to answer all questions.
- Users who endorse this statement
- Collect (talk) 07:03, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- —John Cline (talk) 07:53, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Davewild (talk) 12:07, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- BethNaught (talk) 12:30, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Statement by Beeblebrox
I have run in this election twice, and both times it has been clear to me that pretty much nobody reads the candidate replies to the standard/boilerplate/canned/whatever you want to call them questions. There is never any follow up, and indeed many of the questions submitted by users ask almost the same things, as if they are not only not reading the reply but are unaware of the previous questions. Since these questions are seemingly not helpful to the voting public they should simply be eliminated and all questions should come from interested members of the community.
- Users who endorse this statement
Should voter guides be included in the official template?
Statement by Mike V
There were a number of concerns raised regarding the candidate guides created during the election. While users are welcome to continue creating guides and posting them on their userspace, I feel that we should not include them on the official election template.
- Users who endorse this statement
- Mike V • Talk 06:19, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- No. Voter guides exist in the real world, but they're overwhelmingly used (in the US at least) for questions on a specific measure or topic. For instance, shareholder voting guides may contain a statement from the company as well as a statement from the person or organization proposing the resolution. Voter guides in state elections are often limited to statements about ballot initiatives--usually just a pro/con or a statement from a non-partisan organization on the subject. The practice of voter guides developed by random people on individual candidates is peculiar to Wikipedia and hard to justify. Excluding them in the official template is not "akin to saying newspapers should not allow the LWV and other guides for elections to be mentioned in articles" because we don't put the NYT's editorial recommendation on the ballot handed out to voters. People pay attention (or not) because they read the Times. If few people read the times, that sucks for them but it isn't up to the election system to send readers where they wouldn't've gone in the first place. Protonk (talk) 13:36, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
Statement by Collect
Election guides and commentary are intended to assist the voters in any election, not just on this minor election on Wikipedia. In order for them to be of use to the voters, they must be allowed reasonable visibility. Wikipedia would thus ill-serve any electoral process by denying reasonable visibility to such guides. Readers of such guides should be presumed to be interested in their content and commentary, and hiding them in any manner would be akin to saying newspapers should not allow the LWV and other guides for elections to be mentioned in articles.
- Users who endorse this statement
- Collect (talk) 07:09, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Chris Troutman (talk) 07:34, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- —John Cline (talk) 07:53, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- - MrX 17:38, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
Should the voter eligibility requirements be changed?
Statement by Mike V
An issue raised in the 2013 feedback is that the current requirements of 150 mainspace edits does not function well with the way SecurePoll generates the eligible voter list. It's suggested that the criteria be changed to 200 total edits. In addition, to ensure that voters are active within the community it was proposed that a voter's 200 most recent edits must have occurred within the last 2 years prior to November 1.
- Users who endorse this statement
- Mike V • Talk 06:19, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Partially. I support the condition that most recent edits must have occurred within the last 2 years prior to November 1. The difference between 150 and 200 votes seems fairly arbitrary and unimportant.- MrX 17:27, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
Statement by Collect
Solutions of problems not shown to be of significance are always doubted by me. Unless a problem has been shown to exist with voters, the change from 150 mainspace edits to 200 total edits is not needed. If someone has shown that editors with 150 mainspace edits are a problem, or that any significant number of editors who had 150 mainspace edits were deterred from voting, please tell me. If anyone can show that significant numbers of editors voted (enough to affect any winners of seats) with fewer than 150 mainspace edits due to deficiencies in the SecurePoll mechanism, kindly tell me. I did not find such in my reading of results, thus I oppose any change here.
- Users who support this statement
- Collect (talk) 07:16, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- —John Cline (talk) 07:53, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Davewild (talk) 12:08, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- BethNaught (talk) 12:30, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Protonk (talk) 13:37, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
- Partially (see above). The additional 50 edits seems less important than the recency of the edits, in my opinion.- MrX 17:27, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
Should the site notice be changed when voting begins?
Statement by John Cline
Last year when voting began, the site notice said: "Voting is now open to elect new members of the Arbitration Committee." I believe this notice has the unintentional subliminal message that the election's purpose is to replace the current members with new members, and it disadvantages candidates who are sitting members – seeking another term. I propose we redact "new" from the message, making it say "Voting is now open to elect members of the Arbitration Committee."
- Users who endorse this statement
- —John Cline (talk) 08:52, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- BethNaught (talk) 12:30, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- Collect (talk) 14:14, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- But I agree w/ NYB's statement below that this probable isn't a real problem. Protonk (talk) 14:42, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
- - MrX 17:21, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
- Comments
- 187.28.94.2 (talk) 14:10, 26 August 2014 (UTC) Striking out the word "new" would not remove the subliminal message; rather, it would replace it with another one - shamelessly favoring the current power-hungry Establishment.
- I understand the point that John Cline is making, but I don't perceive it as a real issue. I think most editors who vote in the election have well-formed opinions, pro or con, of the incumbents seeking reelection long before the sitenotice reminds them to vote. (As a veteran of three of these elections, I can't be sure why anyone selected me, but I do believe, or at least hope, that it was a conscious choice.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:41, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- I added this statement not because I felt it was problematic, but because I thought it was something we could improve – without expending much effort either. Cheers.—John Cline (talk) 17:08, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
Disclosure of Previous/Alternate Accounts
Statement by Pharaoh of the Wizards
All previous or alternate accounts should be compulsory publicly disclosed to the Community in the interest of transparency and for full scrutiny by the community .(Note the option legitimate accounts which have been declared to the Arbitration Committee before the close of nominations do not need to be publicly disclosed is removed here).
- Users who endorse this statement
The standard questions
The standard question set for candidates had, by last year, become a bit of a hodgepodge. In last year's election RfC, I put forth a streamlined set of questions that I thought could become the basis of a revised, more focused question set. To my surprise, at the last minute someone substituted my draft for the existing list and it wound up being used verbatim for the election. We need to decide whether last year's questions or something else should become the foundation for this year's draft, and then what changes, if any, should be made to the draft. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:45, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- I agree that an organized list seeking to comprehensively cover the major topics covered in the additional questions would be a good start. And I agree that ten-part questions should be avoided. Might you examine the universe of questions asked of all (or substantially all, allowing for a possible candidate not receiving every question asked of the others) candidates last year, and try to generate a list covering the apparent areas of concern implicit in those questions? I suspect that the list might be up to the proverbial twenty questions, but they would then be in a uniform format, and no one could accuse an additional questioner of having an explicit or implicit bias therein. Collect (talk) 14:52, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- FYI: Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Questions/General See its Talk page for drafting history, and we need such a page for this year. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:26, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- I've set up Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2014/Questions/General and would encourage everyone to post and discuss potential questions on the talk page. Mike V • Talk 18:01, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
- See my statement above on the section on the questions. I don't believe we should do this at all as I don't believe it actually gets read by the vast majority of participants I the election. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:15, 27 August 2014 (UTC)