Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Archive 4

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Instructions for scrutineers

I have drafted instructions for the scrutineers at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Coordination/Instructions for scrutineers, which I'd like to request people review and comment on. These need to be finalised before the close of voting, ideally by the start of the weekend. In particular, we need to be very clear about what scrutineers should be looking for in an 'inelegible voter'. Please discuss on the talkpage. Happy‑melon 01:54, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Problems and Issues, technological, voting

It is a bit of a pain that voters who wish to revisit their vote cannot see how they voted previously. I do not believe the issue of "accounts being compromised" here affects the secrecy of ballot issues that displaying a voters own votes to the voter would have. Is there another election security issue which affects this behaviour? Fifelfoo (talk) 00:56, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

It's the principle that, in order to display how the user previously voted, the software has to have access to how the user previously voted. SecurePoll is able to be configured in such a way that each ballot is encrypted and cannot be read by anyone, including the server admins, until the close of voting; that is how the WMF board elections are run, for instance. Happy‑melon 01:19, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
(ec) If I had to guess, I'd say it was designed-in security. That is, if I were building the voting system based on current best known methods, a future ballot simply supersedes, but does not replace, the existing ballot. Thus, there's no way to tamper with or read from the ballots for the duration of polling, and the post-election tally process simply discards (but still has full access to) the voided ballots. Jclemens (talk) 01:22, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Balloonman

In all the kerfuffle elsewhere, has anyone noticed yet that Balloonman has resigned? --Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:45, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

It took some digging to find it (here). There is no mention of it on the main candidates' page. One of the coordinators should probably place a notice there, linking to his statement on his questions/talk page. Although I think it has been established that technically there can be no "withdrawals" at this stage, in order to respect Balloonman's wishes the voters should be informed that he no longer wants to be elected. Neutron (talk) 20:14, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
As done on the top of Loosmark's candidacy page, I wouldn't oppose, with Balloonman's approval of course, placing a notice on top of his, as well. –MuZemike 20:53, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
I think User_talk:MBisanz#If_you_could_take_care_of_this is a decently clear indication he would be ok with that. MBisanz talk 22:00, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I've noted these developments in both candidates' statements. Skomorokh 22:10, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Electing vs. appointing arbitrators

Not for this election cycle, but--has there been any discussion on electing versus appointing arbitrators? Say for example having administrators (since they've already been through a vetting process) decide who among their ranks seems most fair-minded, most evinces a judicial temperament, and recommending a slate of candidates either to face general election, or for some grand poopaw (dare I mention Jimmy Wales himself) to choose which to appoint? I merely ask whether the issue has been discussed; if not the discussion itself is for another time and place. SeeJustice Sandra O'Conner's views on electing v. appointing judges. Not all her points are pertinent to Wiki-arbitrators, but some might be. ElijahBosley (talk ☞) 15:32, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

The old system in which Jimbo appointed people he liked to Arbcom, instead of community elections, resulted in major damage to Wikipedia's reputation which has still not fully been repaired. I imagine the support for going back to it would be zero. – iridescent 15:39, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks--that's just the kind of "institutional memory" I was looking for. Could you link to previous discussions on this? ElijahBosley (talk ☞) 15:54, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Major damage to wikipedia's reputation? really? Off2riorob (talk) 15:56, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes.--Cube lurker (talk) 16:00, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) See Essjay controversy for some background. Jehochman Talk 16:01, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
So Essjay was appointed and not elected? Has anyone got the links to those appointment? Off2riorob (talk) 16:36, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Here. You know, you could just look this stuff up yourself. – iridescent 16:42, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks I will have a look at that. I was just going over his edit history, he was only very minimally involved in any arbitration from the 25 Feb to the 1st March, 2007. Seems more of a bit of a storm in a teacup and naval gazing than "major damage to Wikipedia's reputation" but clearly displays why it is a good reason to support identification. Off2riorob (talk) 16:51, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Considering he was a paid employee at the time I think they knew who he was.--Cube lurker (talk) 17:10, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
I never understood that part of the story. You'd think a company (Wikia in this case) would check their potential employees' background. DC T•C 17:14, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
It didn't take long for it to come out anyways, Jimmy promoted him on the 23rd of Feb and a week later it was all over. I imagine Essjay realizing it was going to come out exposed himself first. Off2riorob (talk) 17:20, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Time of results

Any projected time for these this year? Will it be a few minutes after closing, a few hours, days? Probably a FAQ, I know, but didn't see anything on skimming. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 23:02, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

The results of the voting will be released once the scrutineers are satisfied with the integrity of the vote. How long that takes depends entirely on the nature of that work. Last year the results were released early under pressure four days after the close of voting.Skomorokh 23:11, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Just tell people that finalization of the preliminary count and request to initiate the results are subject to cancellation without further notice. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:16, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
No comment on the above (I think people should just be patient), but if a final check can be taken to ensure that the number of votes in the results matches with the number of voters in the log, that would be good (or a reason provided for any discrepancy). And any other final checks needed as well. Also, maybe a daily update to let people clamouring for the results know that progress is being made? Carcharoth (talk) 00:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to see the raw data now, with the understanding that it wasn't final. Having more eyes on the data would be helpful. And after all, in pre-2009 elections, everyone saw the raw data anyway. I think the community could handle it. There's no compelling reason that I can think of to keep things secret. --Elonka 01:00, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
How could you release the raw data while preserving the secret ballot? If you release date/time of vote, that can easily give the name of the voter from the logs. Jclemens (talk) 01:27, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I imagine quite a few editors might object to having their IP address and useragent splashed across the wiki. Even if it weren't a completely inappropriate time to suggest such a thing, you really think releasing the voter data would be a good idea for conducting elections? Skomorokh 01:33, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I did not mean date/time/IP data. More I'm thinking preliminary totals, like so: Wikipedia:ACE2009 --Elonka 01:36, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
(ec) I think Elonka means release the raw data about number of votes before any votes get struck. The problem with this is that if you have results before and after vote scrutiny, you can sometimes deduce which votes got struck. If, for example, only one set of votes was struck due to socking, you could work out who the socking person voted for. Again, I think everyone just needs to be patient. There are plenty of other things to do, and if you (I mean Elonka here) want to help scrutinise the list of voters, that is publicly available to look through. Carcharoth (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

< From my perspective, seeing provisional vote tallies within, say, 24hrs of voting closing would be a good thing :-) Privatemusings (talk) 01:36, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I have no problem waiting. The issue last year wasn't necessarily the amount of time taken to release results, but the lack of updates from the scrutineers; the community was given little info on what their job entailed. DC T•C 01:40, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
See link below. That tells you what is happening. Please also remember that the scrutineers are in different timezones, so that will delay things somewhat as well. In my view, the election admins should liaise with the scrutineers and provide updates. But please don't expect more than one update per day. Any more than that is unrealistic. Carcharoth (talk) 01:48, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
As I pointed out last year, having provisional totals is a bad idea, because of the degree of transparency in the data. If between the provisional data being posted and the final data being posted a small number of votes are struck, then the public will be able to deduce the details of the struck votes: as in who voted for who. This would compromise the secrecy of a secret ballot.
On a purely pragmatic level, having potential shifts away from even "provisional" data risks drama with no appreciable gain other than slaking (or perhaps feeding) the curiosity of election watchers.--Tznkai (talk) 02:57, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Hi Tznkai, good to see you here. When I said "updates" I meant along the lines of "the scrutineers have confirmed that they are doing the work needed and have not been called away urgently to deal with other stuff, and work is progressing satisfactorily". I agree completely about the lack of any need for provisional totals, and made the same point earlier that you made above, see here. Carcharoth (talk) 03:05, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Ah, good to see I'm safely redundant in my cane-shaking warnings then. I wouldn't worry too much about getting updates from the scrutineers either. The way it worked last year followed the following pattern:
Community: "We want updates!"
Election admins: "Uh, scrutineers, the natives are getting restless"
Scrutineers: "We're working on it! Right now now, except for replying to you."
Except with more jokes.--Tznkai (talk) 03:20, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Everyone commenting here should also read Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Coordination/Instructions for scrutineers to see what is involved. There are also bits of this that anyone can help with, namely checking for the double-counting of votes mentioned there. That is easily double-checked by the community by taking the list and looking at those that voted through the "secure" interface and then again through the normal interface. Also, the public log can be easily checked to see if the correct number of 'greyed out' entries are there. And so on. Of course, the scrutineers will still need to do this themselves, but any errors caught before results are released would help. Carcharoth (talk) 01:38, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree with that - it would seem to me that technically, a provisional tally is immediately available to scrutineers here - I suspect that the current practice of taking several days to confirm all votes prior to releasing any tally is one we've more ended up with, than designed. I think it would be preferable for the community to set an expectation for the staged release of tallies, with the understanding that they're provisional. Perhaps others feel this would create drama, or maybe there's another good reason not to that I'm missing :-) Privatemusings (talk) 01:43, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I would be happy to help examine the tallies to make sure everything adds up. I agree with Privatemusings that it would be nice to see the initial data, as that way we could best help by making sure that everything added up properly. I've already put together a spreadsheet with data from the voter guides, so I am very interested in plugging in other numbers to compare the percentages. Granted, the voter guides may not be an accurate cross-section of the community, but they can still be used as a doublecheck to see if anything looks terribly off. --Elonka 01:53, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
How about a more detailed analysis of the public voter log? Number of entries. Number of duplicate entries. Analysis of domains voted from (and discrepancies there, if any), number of times people "re-voted", and number of people voting per hour/day. Did most people vote at the start of the election or near the finish, or was it spread out? Carcharoth (talk) 01:57, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, John Vandenberg conducted a very helpful analysis along those lines last year. If someone with the wherewithal could do likewise with this year's log that would be great. Skomorokh 02:14, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

further thoughts about admin and scrutineer behaviour

I just wonder if it might be worth clarifying what the community view as acceptable / unacceptable behaviour in regard to the handling of the provisional tallies? I would presume that both the secure poll admin.s and the scrutineers are aware that sharing the information about tallies with absolutely anyone except each other prior to the results being released would be unethical, and unacceptable. It might be worth this community spelling that out to avoid any shades of doubt :-) Privatemusings (talk) 02:02, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I have not clicked the Tally link yet as I have no reason to know the results before anyone else does, but I agree that any disclosure of any results to anyone would be prohibited. MBisanz talk 02:17, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I don't think this ever was or will be an issue, but definitely agree. NW (Talk) 02:18, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Actually, I thought WP:BEANS covered this... :-) Jclemens (talk) 02:20, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I confess to being fairly disturbed by the presumption that unethical behaviour will occur unless strictly prohibited. This constant assumption of bad faith is exactly the reason that we had so few candidates in this election. Risker (talk) 02:36, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
No, I think it was the heavy abuse of candidates in prior elections that discouraged a few candidacies, as well as the difficult working conditions on ArbCom. Jehochman Talk 02:54, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Well, one of the more difficult working conditions is the constant assumption of bad faith that arbitrators and other functionaries are expected to tolerate for having volunteered to assume additional responsibilities. And yes, the bad faith shown toward candidates in the past also played a role. Risker (talk) 02:57, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Maybe I've just got a super-thick skin, or no one took me seriously enough as a candidate to want to attack me outright, but I did not feel abused by the process. I was expecting much worse. Jclemens (talk) 03:15, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I am glad you did not feel put upon. On the whole we need to do more to curtail the assumptions of bad faith, both by asking editors to chill, and arbitrators to behave with greater professionalism. Sometimes assumptions of bad faith are brought on by foolhardy actions of the arbitrators, such as dropping unexpected proposals out of the clear blue sky, or announcing the results of secret cases that haven't been properly considered, or insulting disputants. Jehochman Talk 03:45, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I think I recognise at least 2 out of 3 incidents you are referring to there. Are there any recent examples of this? Carcharoth (talk) 03:47, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
If you are interested, I can arrange (upon receipt of a small "consideration") for someone to privately subject you to the style of abuse of your choosing over your internet connection - public abuse is rather more expensive, I am afraid. Simply let me know the manner of the abuse you would prefer, the kind of body shape and hair colour that would be most suitable and I will buy a wig and get back to you will see what can be arranged. Psssst! Not a word to anyone! Discretion assured! LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:56, 6 December 2010 (UTC) (Damn...!)

Number of candidates and available seats

Split this off from the above sub-thread as the topic has changed. Carcharoth (talk) 03:11, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't see an alarming dropoff in the number of candidates. In 2007 there were 23 candidates; in 2008, 28; in 2009, 22; and this year, 21. To me it looks like there was an anomalously high number in 2008 but otherwise it's been steady at 22±1. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:03, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

In all of those previous years, there were considerably fewer seats to fill, and the candidate:opening ratio was considerably higher. Long ago are the days of 30 or more candidates. Risker (talk) 03:07, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
This is why I think there should be x seats per year (in this case, nine) and not a variable number. Leave seats empty rather than have the number of available seats fluctuate wildly and the ratio also vary wildly. You would have expected with a larger number of seats available, more candidates to come forward, but that didn't happen for some reason. If there were any potential candidates who were put off by specific events or possibilities, that would be very useful for the community to know. Carcharoth (talk) 03:13, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
The main "reasons not to run" that I've heard include: (1) The workload on ArbCom is immense, and many people who might be well qualified emotionally and intellectually to be arbitrators, simply do not want to make the time commitment; (2) Some who work in controversial areas of the project, do not feel they are electable because they have too many enemies; and (3) Some who ran (unsuccessfully) in the past, did not want to run again out of concerns they would just get shot down again. --Elonka 03:38, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Curiously enough, I think those three reasons are exactly right. Jehochman Talk 03:40, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Remind me (it would take too long to look it up) - have you both run in previous elections? Maybe a survey of previous candidates to find out who is still active and if they considered running this year? Carcharoth (talk) 03:45, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I ran twice, 2008 and 2009, and am probably unelectable because I've issued way too many blocks and bans, and because I've got a few well-connected detractors who will make sure I never get elected. This is okay. I've accepted that my role is more about doing than deciding. Jehochman Talk 03:48, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Most of those who voted were never blocked by you. Plus, arbs are among those who issue high number of bans, yet the community have voted for them the most in this election and in the previous year election. 62.120.231.66 (talk) 02:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Blocks and bans are only temporary solutions. I think what the community is looking for is some introspection from those who have been in a position to pass enforcements on how to
  • reward content creation and
  • not reward content control—extended bans and blocks offer their own reward and up the stakes in any area of topic conflict.
The issue is not enforcement per se, it is when labels are applied to editors a priori to judging a situation and behavior is seen as confirming expectations. In some cases, such bias is on the money; but in some cases, not. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 19:12, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

←Suggestions:

  1. ArbCom needs to update its protocols and procedures to deal with the big nasties that are now its mainstay. Its infrastructure owes too much to the relatively innocent days of 2004/05. Better ways of limiting evidence bloat and time bloat are essential. And better ways of protecting individual arbs from bullying and disruption on their talk pages. Inducting specialist clerks, some with WMF identification, would help. The position should not be hell, and should allow arbs to contribute their talents to the project in other ways (like writing content). The new Committee might come up with measures that would enable it to deal with a case like CC in six weeks, not five months, which might involve some clever evidentiary rules (I don't have the answers right now).
  2. ArbCom has grown too big. The RfC last year raising the numbers from 12 to 18 appears to have been motivated by the need to give arbs specialised duties and to allow space for plentiful time off for recuperation; I've been told that these purposes are not well served by the current size. Internal communication may now be a little cumbersome with 18. And it may continue to be difficult to fill 18 seats with editors who have suitable skills and experience. I suggest a size of 14 from 2012 onwards.
  3. My impression is that the questioning process was more under control than in previous years, despite complaints from those who like to ask a lot of questions. Tony (talk) 14:46, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
On No. 2 above, I suggest that we not suggest a size at all. We simply should not appoint anyone with less than 60% support, as suggested by last year's RFC, which was poorly formulated and failed to provide for mutually exclusive events. We have 12 openings this year, and good guides show support for an average of only eight candidates; if arbs are appointed with less than 60% support, we will end up with a large but unpopular and unsupported Committee. If that happens, a good number of editors are going to be unhappy. Let's not make the same mistake again as was made in last year's RFC, which took away common sense and discretion in appointing arbs.

On No. 3, I think we moved the wrong direction this year; we are possibly going to end up with the least supported ArbCom ever, based on the little community discussion because of the restrictions on questions and the extreme bureaucracy that surrounded this year's elections. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:38, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

1. I agree 100% with Tony1. Hopefully there will be some progress with improving the procedures soon. Perhaps some experienced arbitrator can take the lead here?
2. Could be, but is there clear evidence that 18 is too much? It would be nice if some experienced arbitrator would share us his experiences especially regarding whether 18 makes internal communication too difficult.
3. I think it was annoying that one was not allowed to ask the same question from all candidates on the main question page. Instead, some users mass-posted the questions on the talk page, and most of them seem to have been answered. So what was the point of keeping mass-posted questions away from the main question page? I don't think the general questions provided by the election organizers were enough. There was clearly a need for more questions which can be asked from all candidates. (Still, I fully understand it's not good if answering the questions takes dozens of hours from the candidates). Offliner (talk) 15:59, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
1. Agreed. More stringent evidentiary and other procedural rules to keep proceedings on track are a must. Not sure about the talk page issue; even arbitrators can just revert unhelpful additions to their talk page.
2. Size is a problem if we continue to insist that all arbitrators have to take part in most decisions. But a large number of members allows the ArbCom to delegate minor issues to panels and subcommittees. That approach should be used more often.  Sandstein  21:55, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to hear from sitting arbs as to how effective the delegation of special tasks was during 2010. I ask this with an open mind. Tony (talk) 07:22, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

on questions

I am not surprised to see Tony1 getting in another question dig... "My impression is that the questioning process was more under control than in previous years, despite complaints from those who like to ask a lot of questions." He's correct in that the questioning process was more under control. But that's the wrong metric. The real metric needs to be "was it more useful". And I think the answer clearly is no. The standard questions were weak and were it not for a few brave souls threading the byzantine rules, the community would have had fewer chances to find out what candidates really believe. I think if there is an RfC about the election, one thing we need to do in it is put paid to Tony1's notions about questions once and for all. His interference was actively harmful to the election process. ++Lar: t/c 02:48, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

No, it was much more useful this way. I had less time to devote to this election than those in the past, and the reforms made the question and answer page a manageable length. It still took hours and hours, but in previous years it literally took days. If every soul was "brave" enough to believe they have the right to monopolize hours of other people's time, demanding answers to a lengthy list of pet questions, opposing those who don't take the time, etc., then the page becomes absolute mayhem. Part of the reason for ArbCom's inefficiency is no doubt that the process self-selects those who enjoy an extreme level of tedium. The person willing to be the most strenuous is seldom the person we should be listening to most carefully. --JayHenry (talk) 01:47, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

A penny for your thoughts, while we wait

Since many of us (myself included) will have nothing better to do until the results come out but to sit around jawing about how things might be done better, I've gone ahead and set up a feedback page for everyone to review and discuss all aspects of the election.

There has been a tremendous amount of talk kilobytes expended on the intricacies of election process so far, so if we could channel that into constructive analyses and suggestions for future elections we might be able to avoid some of the pitfalls of this year.

Please share your thoughts

For the coordinators, Skomorokh 02:11, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

The wait

It is surely frustrating to wait for the tally, but could I make a plea for patience on the part of all candidates and other members of the community? The scrutineers need to get on with the job in the absence of pressure from WPians: please allow them space. Progress reports are not possible. You can be assured that the time will be well spent in guaranteeing a scrupulously honest election.

On a humorous note, the election coordinators are unable to provide pop-corn or present tap-dancing and stand-up comedy (it's just not in our contract). However, we can divert you momentarily by displaying an image one wit put up on the ACE2009 talk page, entitled "Yet another request for a progress report". We regret to inform you that the request failed. Tony (talk) 10:47, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Australia's most recent federal election took a month or so to resolve. But luckily we got updates from the AEC. Perhaps next time we could include a spurious update indicator (well, the AEC's update was pretty spurious in some ways). Fifelfoo (talk) 10:56, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I made a progress tracker page here. --bainer (talk) 12:33, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
needs a progress bar stuck at 0.5% :) Fifelfoo (talk) 12:54, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Instead, the election coordinators will recite Vogon poetry until the results are released. Jehochman Talk 13:05, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
110 / 100
ACE2010 results progress

I've managed to make a progress bar for the results. Hope you all find it useful. --RexxS (talk) 20:12, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

It appears to be defective in that if I understand the code, it will never get past 95%... how disheartening. Zeno, call your office. :) ++Lar: t/c 15:35, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Defective??? Harumph! The word you are struggling to find is "accurate" :D. To be helpful, I've tuned its performance further. --RexxS (talk) 16:52, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Wow, you know eking out those last few percent is the hardest... all the way to 98% now! But mine goes to 11. ++Lar: t/c 02:27, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
  • The progress meter now, appropriately as the results are reported, goes to 11. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
The scrutineers certainly gave 110%. --RexxS (talk) 19:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
  • as with last year, the wait is only nettlesome when we consider the size of the electorate. Scrutineering 850 some-odd votes with completely electronic ballots shouldn't take very long. Protonk (talk) 21:05, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
    mebbe they're having trouble contacting Julian Assange... Cheers, Jack Merridew 03:16, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

The results

Election guide page traffic stats bar chart
Page traffic statistics for the 2010 Arbcom election guides, during the voting period

I have put together the page traffic stats for the election guide pages (see figure) I am aware of how crude this measurement is. For example some guides were not even available for the whole of this period. Also guides being worked on extensively by their authors during the election will have a boost to their traffic, although many of the guides were completed before voting began and I have purposefully left out the pre voting period to reduce this anomaly.

I find it interesting but not surprising that three well established guides come out on top in the page traffic, possibly giving them considerable influence. SandyGeorgia (1051), Lar (889) and Elonka (837) were 1, 2 and 3 respectively, these guide writers also published guides linked to by the election templates in 2008 and 2009. Two other guides came close to these established guides in traffic numbers and those were NuclearWarfare's (825) and my own Polargeo (768) at 4 and 5. The rest of the guides were some way behind in the traffic stats and headed up by Wizardman (582).

I invited and engaged in a discussion before the voting regarding election guides being linked to from the template (see Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Archive 1#Election_guides) because I was concerned about the potential for excessive influence of established users on the election. Several established guide writers defended their positions at the time. I think it is good to have some post election reflection, rather than just leave it to the mayhem of the run up next year. I also think the guide writers (including myself) should not dominate any discussion as involved users. Obviously I hope to be able to write a guide next year :). Polargeo (talk) 10:46, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

  • Just a small point, it was mentioned that my arguments had something to do with tall poppy syndrome [1]. Now I can modestly claim to be a tall guide writing poppy myself (see figure) I still present the same argument. More seriously this election is about the candidates, they are the tall poppies and I would not wish them to be cut down for being good, we want tall poppies on arbcom. Polargeo (talk) 10:54, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

The real results

Are we going to be in the absurd position where we have no choice but to appoint candidates who had more opposition than support? I see only 8 with more supports than opposes. AD 00:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

You might be looking at the neutral column instead of the oppose column. I see 13 with majority support. --Mkativerata (talk) 00:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Aha! I'm used to the order at RFAs :) AD 00:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
There are only 4 whose Supports exceed their Neutrals + Opposes, which is alarming Johnbod (talk) 00:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
It would only be alarming if "neutral" was inconsistent with an acceptance of the candidate's suitability, which it isn't necessarily. "Neutral" can simply mean "I don't know the candidate well enough to go either way". --Mkativerata (talk) 00:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
But even though it's not an oppose, it is still a lack of support for a candidate, which is not a good sign. AD 00:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
The instructions for voters said that a "Neutral" vote will not affect the result in any way. Therefore does not affect how I look at the result in any way. Of course, anyone else is free to look at it differently, but "officially" the Neutral "votes" may as well not exist. The calculation of the "support percentage" ignores them completely. Neutron (talk) 01:00, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Hmmm, dunno, hopefully "neutral" is seen as "I am receptive to this person possibly being ok" rather than a polite way of saying "no, but thanks for trying". I am amazed that after four years and 76k edits there are folks Ive never interacted with...Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I think it is interesting that the net support ranking almost exactly follows the percentage rankings, with only positions 11 and 12 and 18 and 19 being reversed. I think that means something, but I'm not sure what. I suppose it is mildly disconcerting that only 6 7 candidates had more supports than neutrals. Having hundreds of people not bothered to vote for you is a bit strange - suppose it implies that many people voted for only a few people, and ignored the rest. Four candidates had more opposes than neutral, and one candidate had both more opposes and more supports than neutral. I do think some form of voter survey is needed at some point, to gauge this sort of thing. Carcharoth (talk) 01:57, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I don't think it's worrisome. It's some (very simple) ranking of candidates, effectively, between "would like to see elected", "wouldn't mind if elected", "would not want elected". Eyeballing the numbers bear that out: the highest neutrals tends to be to the "middle of the pack" rankings, as one would expect. — Coren (talk) 02:16, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
(random indent) It's hardly shocking at all, given the fact that "neutral" was not just an allowed choice but the default choice. I personally clicked oppose or support only for candidates about whom I had enough information to make an informed (or what passes for informed) decision. Everyone else I picked neutral. Imagine if real elections had a neutral column! How many (for the americans in the audience) country clerks have you really known enough about to vote affirmatively? Or state senators? Protonk (talk) 23:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations to the new electees. I look forward to working (again) with all of you.

I would also like to take a moment to congratulate all the candidates who stepped forward, whether they were elected or not. Placing yourself in the line of fire by volunteering for one of the most visible and scrutinized positions of the project is a hard decision to take, and quite the gauntlet to run. That all of you cared enough to make this effort that could, at best, be rewarded with a year or two of thankless work for the good of the project is to be commended. — Coren (talk) 00:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

To adapt an old adage, it ain't over 'till the bearded man sings ("Oh jimbo, if it is possible, may this job be taken from me..." and all that.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 01:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Well, there's always the possibility that a couple of the top rankers suddenly realize what happened in time and flee for their lives, too, but if history is a guide there are no more surprises in store for onlookers.  :-) — Coren (talk) 01:25, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Congrats to all the successful candidates, and my thanks to all who ran. Just some final procedural notes; we may be waiting on the sign-off of the fourth scrutineer Millosh, for personal reasons. Four votes were ruled ineligible by the scrutineers as can be seen on the securepoll list (and will hopefully be logged on-wiki when the chance arises). This margin is likely too small to make any significant difference in the outcome in any event. It's worth bearing in mind of course that the outcome will not be assured until the bearded one descends from Olympus with the stone tablet of appointments. Skomorokh 01:30, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks to me like there are 12 names with over 50% support and no known issues preventing their appointment. I hope Jimbo will quickly confirm all 12 and let them get to work right away. Cla68 (talk) 01:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Have some pity, Cla68, and let them enjoy their small reprieve before throwing them in! — Coren (talk) 01:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Please post this poster in the ArbCom break room. Cla68 (talk) 01:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
If you haven't noticed, ArbCom doesn't get paid. :) Mr R00t Talk 'tribs 01:52, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
It's a labor of love. I don't think you could pay me enough to do this job if I didn't really love this project.  :-) — Coren (talk) 01:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I can't bear to imagine how awful the election process would be if it was a paid gig. --Mkativerata (talk) 01:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Cla68, I actually have a T-shirt with this on it, FWIW. Jclemens (talk) 01:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
If only you had mentioned that earlier. I surely would have voted for you then ;) No seriously, I actually probably would have. NW (Talk) 16:07, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Not enough support for 12 candidates

Trying to get 12 at once was going to be a challenge. Just getting enough nominees was almost a challenge. And now some of the support vs oppose numbers, would, were they at an RfC, lead to "no current consensus." We should think about supporting filling some of the vacancies now, and some in a later election. The numbers just do not support community confidence, and it is unfair to both the community and the candidate to ask them to take a seat under these circumstances. Jd2718 (talk) 02:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

You know, I was looking at this, but at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2009, the lowest candidate had about 3.3% higher support than the lowest candidate in this election, so there's not really a recent precedent for not filling seats when there exist candidates with >50% support. Jclemens (talk) 02:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) It's a bit rich to start up about this now; the pre-election RfC established a non-binding suggestion that candidates need have more supports than opposes to be elected, and even last year an arbitrator was appointed with less than 60% support. If you felt so strongly about it, you could have proposed a more demanding requirement before the election; it's rather too late to perform a volte-face now. Skomorokh 02:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
RFA is a different !voting system with only one candidate at time. If we ran RFA as a monthly election with the system we use in these Arb elections, then in months where we had more suitable candidates than places I would expect to see lower average support for those candidates. The election system we used made no distinction between "oppose not suitable for Arbcom" and "Oppose I prefer 12 other candidates". So we simply don't know what proportion of the oppose !voters thought the candidate wasn't suitable to be an Arb. If we want to know that then we need a very different electoral system, ideally one that allows people to put candidates in order of preference, but at a minimum one that allows voters to differentiate between those two very different types of oppose. ϢereSpielChequers 21:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I'm reasonably sure that a lot of opposes were tactical. I felt like something of a chump going neutral on some of the candidates, as it theoretically would have improved my preferred candidates' positions to oppose them too, and I was sure everyone else was doing it. Of course, it would have also made it more likely that someone I actually did oppose could overtake those I didn't feel strongly about. I would love to see a ranking system like WSC describes. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:47, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
In the end I supported 10 out of the 12 who won and 4 or 5 of the 9 who didn't, like you I was voting on the basis of whether I thought the candidate was suitable for Arbcom and not whether they were amongst the 12 I preferred. So you weren't the only one whose oppose vote meant you didn't think a candidate was suitable, but it would be mildly interesting to know whether there were many who opposed candidates who they thought were suitable but not amongst the 12 best running. Equally it would be interesting to know how many couldn't be bothered to assess a score of strangers and just voted for one or two favourites. If the organisers are willing it would be nice to have a chart by number of supports/opposes. I suspect that we'd see a distinct spike at 12 supports and also that some just voted for a single candidate. We might also find that a number voted for 20 which would be the logical tactical vote for anyone who wanted anyone except a particular candidate (and could explain how a banned user got 5% of the vote - far more than I'd expect a novelty candidate to get in a real world election). ϢereSpielChequers 13:57, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I very much doubt if there were many tactical negative votes this time. It was beyond guessing who the candidates who would come say 9-14th in the results would be, and without knowing that there's not much point to it. My figures were similar to wsc (though not all the same people I expect). It would be interesting to get breakdowns. Johnbod (talk) 15:41, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations!

I would like to congratulate our twelve election winners. I am very pleased to see that despite our worries about a constitutional crisis, or of there not being enough people to serve, the 12th place winner still mustered a respectable 56% support rate. All in all, this was a successful cycle. May I also be the first to say "Thank God James Hare is not going to be serving on ArbCom in January!" harej 03:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

And to my 195 supporters, may I say you have made my candidacy for ArbCom worth all the while. harej 03:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I join in Harej's congratulations to the twelve people elected, who are all fine Wikipedians and will, I'm certain of it, be up to the task. I also thank not only the people who have supported my candidacy, but also those who've opposed it, since I've realized that thanks to them I'll get to have something approaching a life after all in the next two years :-)  Sandstein  07:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
<en_au> You poor poor poor poor bastards. </en_au>Fifelfoo (talk) 07:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I was asked while the tally was pending if not being elected would be a dissapointment or relief. I said "Both".
To those elected: Congratulations!
To those who voted: Thank you!
To those who counted: Good job!
To those not elected: Whew!
Now back to work 8-) Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 08:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations. A good mix, may candidates who I opposed exceed my expectations :) good luck, 12 seats was a lot to fill but it has been managed. Polargeo (talk) 09:35, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Congrats on another successful election!! -- Ϫ 14:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

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