Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2009…

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Archive 1

Archive 2

Thanks

Thank you to the scrutineers for posting results.--Tznkai (talk)

~~I looked at the results table, and it looks like some of the "net" numbers have the plus/minus sign wrong. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:51, 18 December 2009 (UTC)~~ Sorry, corrected while I was typing that! --Tryptofish (talk) 22:53, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I echo Tznkai's thanks. Volunteering to do this kind of thing would be thankless, if it weren't for the thanks. And I can't imagine that they feel like a fair payoff at this point. Steve Smith (talk) 22:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you scrutineers, great work. Unomi (talk) 22:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll join everyone else in making sure that the job wasn't thankless for our scrutineers: Thank you. :-) — Coren ^(talk) 23:04, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Happy to join in on the thanking, with best wishes for the holidays, and always! Jus da fax 23:08, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you indeed! NW (Talk) 23:13, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Ditto. But am curious why there are 996 recorded votes in the result table, while the voter log lists only 994 voters ? Abecedare (talk) 23:20, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

The software creating the log page could have missed a few. We need to check that.

And I think three of the 994 voters are banned for being socks, so those ballots should have been discarded. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:39, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

We have investigated this issue, and identified its cause. See the post here. Happy‑melon 01:29, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for finding the problem, and also taking care to not "fix" the problem by amending the results where there was no reason to do so. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:50, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I join in the chorus of "thank you"s, both for the work that was put in relating to this election, and for the promptness in finding (and the cluefulness displayed in) the fixing of the discrepancy. And though this may constitute a breach of good manners and the proper expression of gratitude, I simply can't let it pass unmentioned: that little zinger about "pressure from the community". :) While I -am- properly chastened (and thoroughly amused), I don't believe many of us were asking for results to be posted ASAP; instead, we were asking for some notion of WHEN they would be posted. Had someone said "We'll be posting the results the day after Christmas," I for one would have gone about my business with my curiosity satisfied. (I do not, however, dispute that others might have had more to say, in some cases a great deal more, about the timeframe. But that's a hypothesis that will never be disproven, alas. I only know what -I- meant.) And now, my bad manners and I are off, perchance to drink a beer, and likely, to find an inappropriate place to belch. GJC 02:46, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Happy-melon, for looking into this minor glitch and adding the clarification; I am glad that it's effect is inconsequential. The diligence exhibited by the organizers and scrutineers is much appreciated. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 12:46, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, many thanks to the scrutineers for giving up much of their free time at this busy time of year to help us out. MBisanz ^talk 05:06, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Moderately interesting stats.

There were 996 valid votes this year among 22 candidates with a total of 6120 support votes, 9795 neutral votes, 5997 oppose votes. The statistically average voter supported 6.14 candidates, was neutral on 9.83 candidates, and opposed 6.02 candidates.--Tznkai (talk) 23:28, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

More moderately interesting stats:

The 8 most-supported candidates were seated, as were the 7 least-opposed. This is socially very nice. It would be awkward if someone with heavy support was not seated or someone with heavy opposition was. Interestingly, only 1 candidate, an incumbent, garnered 50+% support from all voters. All but two new arbitrators will take their seats with less than half of the voters voting neutral. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 23:39, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

It is clear that the community fully intended to drag Kirill back to the Committee. Whether that's a show of support or a punishment is left as an exercise to the reader. :-) — Coren ^(talk) 00:00, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

It is not at all clear. I am part of the community, I don't want Kirill anywhere near the Arbcom mailing list. Majorly talk 00:02, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

As expressions of the community's will, each vote counts for about .1% of the total. Will Beback talk 00:08, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

It wouldn't be the first time, he served until earlier this year. I assume he read his email. For what it's worth, 188 people opposed. You can't please all the people all the time. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 00:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I know; he demonstrated poor judgement in using the mailing list to co-ordinate a case behind the community's back. I know you can't please everyone, but claiming "[i]t is clear that the community fully intended to drag Kirill back to the Committee" is not appropriate when they did no such thing. Majorly talk 00:23, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I think everyone knows that he meant "by majority vote, the community..." rather than "by common consensus, the community..." After all, this was a vote, not a !vote. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:08, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Will, what are you basing this .1% figure on?

The definition of which editors to include as "our community" can have a very large impact on stats derived from it. See for example the recently reported "editors are leaving in droves" stats, which were rebutted here.

I have compiled stats at User:John_Vandenberg/ACE2009_voting_analysis#very_active_editors regarding how many of our "very active" editors voted. It would be nice to have stats for how many accounts have been "active" in at least one month in 2009, and what percentage of them voted. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:03, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The community of voters is about 1000, hence each vote is .1% of that community. The degree to which the voting community is representative of the total editing community is a good topic for debate. Will Beback talk 01:23, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah. thanks for clarifying. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:53, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Based on only the 28 candidates who stayed in the election, I count 963 votes with a total of 3550 support votes, 3251 oppose votes, and neutral votes were not recorded as such. The statistically average voter supported 3.69 candidates, and opposed 3.38 candidates. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 18:29, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. So that means that while the predicted effect of higher opposes is observable, it was almost exactly matched by a corresponding increase in supports as well! I'd venture to guess that the same effects are in play: some people didn't support in past elections for fear of what their circle of acquaintances might think and are now able to. — Coren ^(talk) 18:42, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Or, IMO more likely, people didn't support/oppose because they didn't feel the need to support/oppose as they already knew what the results were, more or less. I know that I wouldn't bother to oppose Kurt or support Kirill if I had access to a running tally. Rami R 18:51, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

If you're equally vehement about wanting some people on the committee and not wanting some others on the committee, then I think that's where it makes sense to remain neutral on the rest. Otherwise these two desires would dictate the opposite approach in dealing with the people where you're basically indifferent. That's my feeling, at least, on why you might still have a balance rather opposes for all "neturals" (which may help that one person you really don't like). Mackan79 (talk) 18:52, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Meaning of "Neutral"

I was surprised to see that the sum of Support + Neutral + Oppose is constant across all candidates. How were the "Neutral" tallies determined in this ballot, given the concerns expressed at What's supposed to be the difference between "neutral", "abstain", and no selection?? - Pointillist (talk) 00:55, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

AFAIK, they weren't included in the calc. Just support and oppose matter. Protonk (talk) 01:01, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
What's interesting is that on average 445 out of 993 votes were neutrals. That's an average of 44.8%. That sort of scares me, especially with several people hitting more than 50% neutral votes. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 01:36, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Protonk. Yes, maybe that's the way it works. Nevertheless, I know that I cast no vote in respect of 17 candidates, and I made it unequivocally clear in advance that this abstention should not be counted as a "neutral" vote. Either the "Neutral" column should be struck out as invalid, or it should be renamed "Abstain", or (if there is some way to determine the difference between the two) both "Abstain" and "Neutral" results should be reported for each candidate. - Pointillist (talk) 01:42, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I think what happens is that the system was designed so that Abstain = neutral. In theory they shouldn't, because it bloats numbers. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 01:45, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

If so, there was no consensus for such design, and the "neutral" column should be redacted as soon as possible. - Pointillist (talk) 01:50, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

What? Why? What's the problem? Protonk (talk) 02:04, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
Because of the way we calculate support, there is no difference between not voting for a candidate and voting "neutral"; the effect is strictly null and does not affect the result in any way. — Coren ^(talk) 02:05, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

There should be 4 categories: for, against, deliberately neutral, and abstain/no vote for this candidate. Deliberately neutral votes should count as 0.5 for and 0.5 against, and would have the effect of dragging the candidate's % up or down towards 50%. A candidate with 100 yes, 200 deliberately neutral, and 0 oppose should rank the same as a candidate with 200 yes and 100 no votes. Abstentions would have no impact on the candidates. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:14, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
- That sounds complicated. What's so wrong about neutral being analogous to "abstain"? Protonk (talk) 02:16, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
  - It's significantly different. Neutral means "I've considered the candidate and can neither support not oppose." Abstain means I haven't considered the candidate or have some conflict of interest that requires I not participate in electing this candidate. 100 for and 900 neutrals with no opposes or abstentions is a far weaker candidate than 100 supports, no neutrals or opposes, and 900 who didn't bother to look. Odds are of those 900 who didn't bother, far more than half would support. On the other hand, at least you know candidate A was really and truly unopposed and has the consent of 1000 people to serve. You can't say that about someone with 900 abstentions. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:22, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
    - Why are those important articulations? To be glib, who cares? I see we use neutral/oppose/support as a convention in RfAs, and it works reasonably well there. But the notion is that "neutral" represents some concern is most salient when I'm able to articulate that concern and when people are made to listen. In the case of a secret polling system with no live results, it becomes an empty statement. You want the person to be seated, you don't want them to be seated, or you don't feel strongly either way. I'm unsure that we need another graduation. Protonk (talk) 02:40, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
    - If we want to allow people to split up their votes like that, we should switch to a new system. But having 2 options, which are synonymous in every other situation on Wikipedia, where one does something different, is too confusing. Mr.Z-man 04:33, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
    - Nobody could articulate before the election what the functional difference between "neutral" and "abstain" should be. Some wanted them to count differently (but not necessarily in the way you propose), while for others it was a philosophical/moral difference. Some wanted the ability to "publicly recuse" from voting on a particular candidate, under the assumption that the votes were going to be made public, which was not the case. While there were a number of people who requested separate "neutral" and "abstain" options, you can't really say that they formed any kind of consensus. rspεεr (talk) 06:28, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
- Personally, I think the entire support-oppose system is teh suxxorz and should be scrapped in favor of a preferential system. This time, though, if we are to discuss this, let's take the time to do it before the election process is already underway. :-) — Coren ^(talk) 02:18, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I am questioning the decision to add this column to the results:

The 2008 ballot did not include a "Neutral" option (see here).
The 2008 Results did not include a "Neutral" column (see here).
In the workshop prior to the 2009 ballot there was no consensus that neutral and abstain were equivalent (see here) – rather the opposite, in fact.

Despite this history, someone has decided to include a "Neutral" column in the 2009 results. Why? What does it mean? - Pointillist (talk) 11:48, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Unlike previous years, all voters were required to register some form of vote for each candidate. 996 votes were cast for each candidate; the "neutral" column is simply the total votes, minus supports, minus opposes. What connotations you choose to attach to it are your concern, but its existence is simple mathematics, and is essential to demonstrate that the numbers of supports and opposes have been counted correctly. Happy‑melon 11:59, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. What did the ballot form look like? - Pointillist (talk) 12:19, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

(1) Protonk, I thought of that, too—having separate "abstain" and "neutral" button, and came to the same conclusion as several others here: we'd be set upon by people wondering WTH was the difference. Too complicated. (2) Coren, I strongly agree with your point about preferential voting. We were really lucky this time in that the support–oppose system didn't throw up bad discrepancies. I do not want to see the possibility of significant distortions in another election. Truth is, if I'd run and received 3 supports, 1 oppose, and 992 neutrals/abstains, I'd have trounced the field with a score of 75.0%. Nice work if you can get it. Tony (talk) 13:01, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

If you had gotten those results, Tony, I think it is safe to say that nobody would have cared that you got a seat. :-) — Coren ^(talk) 01:59, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

sortable wikitables

I've been asked about my reverts to good-faith edits to the sortable wikitable. At least two editors replaced hyphens with − per WP:MOS. Another editor reverted one, I reverted the second. For technical reasons, you must use a hyphen instead of the minus character (−, −) in sortable wikitables for negative numbers if the sorting is to work right. I've updated the Manual of style and put a note on its talk page, and there is already discussion on how better to address the general problem. I also reverted the addition of {{nts}} as this template does not work with negative numbers according to its own documentation. It also has the effect of breaking the sorting. Hopefully, with the html comments I added in place, there won't be any more sorting breakage. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:46, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Sadly, you're right, David. Someone needs to make sortable wikitables work with minus signs. There's a glitch that causes the minus values to be sorted from most to least negative down the column, instead of least to most. The mathematicians are very strict about not even using an en dash for a negative value. Oh, the election has come down to hyphens and en dashes already! Woohoo. Tony (talk) 04:12, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh good, I was hoping WP:DASH would cause problems here the way it does everywhere else. Approximately 1/1000000000 of the world's population cares about these guidelines and for the other 999999999/1000000000 it's another little barrier to entry for participation on Wikipedia and something to get confused about. Just yesterday I had to fix someone who moved an article to St. Louis–style pizza as if, even if an en dash were called for, it would be worth buggering up the search results to address some trivial typographical flub that people accept because they don't have endashes on their keyboards and because it cannot possibly cause misunderstanding. --JayHenry (talk) 15:12, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Not the place for a MOS argument. Take to MOS. --Tznkai (talk) 20:45, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Stats

Just to kick off, on average, voters supported 6, opposed 6 and left 10 at the default neutral. Precisely:

Support: 6.1
Neutral: 9.8
Oppose: 6.0

I wonder how this compares with last year's election. I predicted a much lower neutral rate and a much higher oppose rate this time, from the privacy and convenience of SecurePoll, but I'm not sure this was borne out. Tony (talk) 04:20, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The "neutral" stat is different to the stats at #Moderately interesting stats.

I am working on comparable 2008 stats now. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 05:14, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

John, looks the same to me (except to two deminal points above). Tony (talk) 06:34, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

you are right. sorry. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:45, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

What is interesting is that the proportion of neutral votes cast for the nine successful candidates, and that cast for the 13 unsuccessful candidates, were almost exactly the same, at a little more than and a little less than 45%, respectively. Tony (talk) 07:44, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd love to see histograms on this. Was the incidence of editors voting for or against just one candidates comparable, for instance? — Coren ^(talk) 14:49, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Is the anonymised raw data available somewhere for the official votes? If not, is there a reason it shouldn't be for us aspie types that like mucking around in s~~and~~p~~its~~readsheets? ‒ Jaymax✍ 15:05, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I can think of no reason it can't be made public (and it would double as a sanity check), but I'm pretty sure the current iteration of SecurePoll doesn't have that capability. — Coren ^(talk) 15:20, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

←The don't care factor. The following scattergraph illustrates several aspects in which the 2008 and 2009 elections differed.

Each point on the graph represents two features of a candidate's vote. First, the percentage of neutral votes (equivalent to abstains) for the candidate as a proportion of the total number of voters (996 in 2009; 984 in 2008). This is on the x-axis, so the higher the point vertically, the more abstains and the fewer voters cast a substantive Support or Oppose for that candidate; second, each point represents the overall support percentage of the candidate—the one that will get them elected or not.
The solid diamonds are the 2009 election; the open circles the 2008 election. The election points are so distinct that a line could be drawn between them.
The blue in both cases represent successful candidates; the red unsuccessful.
the averages for both years are a black × for the 2009 and a black + for the 2008 election.

The two elections differed strikingly in terms of the proportion of neutral/abstains. For the 2008 election, the average abstain rate was 75% (see "+"); in 2009 it was 45% ("×"). This disparity is probably caused by the relative privacy and convenience of voting Support or Oppose in the SecurePoll method, compared with the arduous task under the old system of voting by scroll and type in public. Most candidates in 2008 (including three successful candidates) received no votes from more than 70% of voters, and for many this "don't care" factor was in the mid-80s. The average neutral/abstain rate for the 10 successful candidates in 2008 was 64%, but for 18 unsuccessful candidates was 81%.

By contrast, in 2009 the abstain/neutral rates were on average virtually the same for both successful and unsuccessful groups—at a much lower 45%. This appears to have arisen from voters' tendency to oppose the unpopular candidates and support the popular ones, with less room for abstention. There was nevertheless surprising variation in the don't care factor among the individual candidates in both groups.

The 2009 election was a field of only 22 candidates, rather than the 29 28 candidates the year before. In 2009, the calculated support percentages were confined within a narrower range than that for the previous year, which saw support percentages stretching from a cluster around 10% right up to more than 90%. Tony (talk) 20:47, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Now that is interesting. SecurePoll may not be getting us more voters, but it's certainly getting us more useful votes. I think that's a good thing. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 21:28, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean by "useful vote"? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:12, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, votes that had significance towards the outcome are unarguably "useful" given that the objective is to reach that outcome. I suppose another way of putting it was that, while we got about the same number of voters we got twice as many meaningful votes. — Coren ^(talk) 02:03, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, "useful" probably wasn't the best choice of word. Sorry about that. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 03:42, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

The scientist in me says that we have to be careful about distinguishing what we know from we suppose, or from value judgments. What we know is that there were fewer abstain/neutral votes. There could be any number of reasons for this:

Secret balloting lets people vote their conscience without fear of backlash.
The simple radio-button format makes it easier for people to vote for/against without much thought.
This year's candidates were more polarizing, so more people had an opinion one way or the other.
There were more candidates in 2008, so people didn't have time to look into all of them.

There are other possible reasons but this is enough to make the point: we know what happened, but we can't say why it happened absent further information. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:12, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

No indeed, but we can make hypotheses and note that some of the alternatives are more or less probable than others. For instance, there are no external indications that the candidates this year were particularly polarizing or that ArbCom's composition was especially controversial (unlike last year), so that alternative seems rather less probable. Likewise, it is true that there were fewer candidates this year, but hardly enough to justify the effect size we are seeing.

So, I would expect a little from column A, a little from column B, and a dash of column D. But while why is an interesting question, the effect itself is notable and (IMO) desirable: the number of actual opinions expressed has almost doubled. — Coren ^(talk) 05:25, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Your second bullet needs to be said more strongly I think. It is not only easier to vote with SecurePoll; the voters are forced to make a decision.

In 2009, a valid ballots must have a tick in one of the three columns for every candidate. In 2008, that wasn't required.

I am sure this does result in less thoughtful votes at times, and "gut feeling" voting at times. I think those are both better than extremely numbers of high neutral votes.

John Vandenberg ^(chat) 05:36, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Not acceptable

These results are not acceptable, because they are impossible for any of us to verify. How would I go about challenging them, and getting them made open? I shouldn't think it'd be too difficult, since there was never any consensus to move to the wholly inappropriate secret ballot in the first place. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!: 13-0) 02:10, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The secret/open ballot conversation happened weeks ago. The community wanted secret ballots, they got secret ballots. If we want secret ballots next year and we can't trust non-en scrutineers, maybe we should hire an auditing firm to count the ballots. I'm sure they can be trusted more than the community. WP:AGF. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the community never acceded to the use of secret ballots. There was never any consensus for the move; it was imposed from outside. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!: 13-0) 02:37, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

For what its worth, for true numerical elections where the electorate are not acting on behalf of someone else, I prefer secret ballots. For discussions-type !votes like XfD, open !ballots are appropriate. If this election were truly a recommendation to Jimbo and he was judging the candidates not purely on numerical support but also on the overall strength of the candidacies, then it would be like an XfD discussion with Wales being the closing admin. But this is a true election, so my personal preference is that it be a secret ballot. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:59, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

This is going to go well. Protonk (talk) 02:19, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The result of your vote looks very similar to last year when we had public voting. Were you expecting any different?

If you like, we can have a public vote right here where hundreds of us push and shove to oppose you, with some using nasty words.

Or you can accept that the private vote is accurate.

Have some sense, please. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:24, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

What makes you think this has anything to do with how I personally fared in this election? Kurt Weber (Go Colts!: 13-0) 02:37, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

If you wish to challenge the election, it is somewhat constitutionally dubious which body you would lodge your appeal to. I would suggest either ArbCom, AUSC, or a request to stewards-l. In any such case, the appeal process will consist of the relevant body nominating one or more of its members (identified to the foundation), Tim Starling making them election admins, them looking at Special:SecurePoll/tally/80 and verifying that the numbers match up, and them returning a response to your appeal. Please let us know on this page if you intend to make such a challenge. Happy‑melon 14:18, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

On a social / technical level, is there any reason why we couldn't have a switch at the end of an election which makes the tally interface public? There are potential issues with doing that before the voter list has been scrutinized, but once that's done I don't see any theoretical problem with allowing Kurt or anyone else to be able to get the tally report directly from the database. Dragons flight (talk) 21:02, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that is the grand plan. A switch that locks the translate and strike interfaces, erases the private data, and makes the tally publicly-viewable will kill an entire flock of birds with one stone. Happy‑melon 15:31, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think Kmweber is asking (demanding) that the "tally interface" be published, but that everyone's votes be revealed, which would not be consistent with having promised a secret ballot. (I didn't have a position on whether to have open or secret balloting, but saying the ballots were secret and then publishing them seems impermissible.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:19, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I for one demand that we know the names of these so-called scrutineers before accepting the results of this ele... oh wait, um, nevermind. Hehehe, seriously, I want to thank the volunteers who worked long and hard to get these results out under pressure from all of us here. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:29, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, thanks for the work put into getting these together, and please forgive our (including my) impatience awaiting them. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 02:38, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

My thanks

I just wanted to thank everyone from those who set the pages up to the scrutineers for all the work you put into the elections, including answering an unending stream of questions (possibly sufficient to rival those posed to the candidates!). It was very much appreciated. Best wishes, Fritzpoll (talk) 13:22, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I would like to second that and add that despite the delay, I believe that nearly everyone understands the task of setting up this election. I also wish the best of luck to all the candidates who get elected and ask that you all prepare your selfs for the hordes of drama that is about to dominate your time on wiki. Do us proud please. Seddon ^talk|^WikimediaUK 16:51, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Tally announced as breaking news at The Signpost

Sage, the editor of The Signpost, agreed to the insertion of a "Breaking news" update in last week's Signpost election report, which I have just done. I've also flashed a thank-you message to the scrutineers' en.WP talk pages. Example. Tony (talk) 14:20, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I know I withdrew but...

I want to find out what I managed to get. Thanks Secret ^account 19:12, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The scrutineers made the decision that your results would not be revealed at all. While I understand your pressing curiosity, there is no reasonable way for us to account for (assumed) sharp drop in support after you withdrew, which will muddle the voting metric terribly.--Tznkai (talk) 20:43, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Identification

I assume they are already aware, but for those who were elected, they need to identify at m:Steward_handbook/email_templates#Notification_that_identification_is_required. Note that this is different than the email sent for those who are on OTRS. Even if Jimbo still needs to formally announce things, there is no reason people cannot identify in advance, particularly since I expect the Foundation to be closed for parts of the holidays and there is no reason to let that delay things. MBisanz ^talk 05:27, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

By what I suspect is a fluke, most of us already are so-identified: Fritzpoll, KightLiago, Shell, and Foz seem to be the only ones who still need to do so. Steve Smith (talk) 12:52, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm already identified when I received Oversight privileges. For the rest, just a simple formality. :) - Cheers, Mailer Diablo 13:31, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth:

Tony (talk) 08:54, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

For those wondering, there's no way SirFozzie could have overtaken Steve Smith even if we removed the 3 irregular/double votes since even if we removed 3 support for Steve Smith and removed 3 oppose to SirFozzie, SirFozzie would still be lower. Also if someone resigns and JW decides to appoint another arbitrator there's no way Ruslik0 could overtake AGK. However if it comes to appointing another member to beta we may have a problem in that Hersfold could overtake SirFozzie under some scenarios. Nil Einne (talk) 14:58, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

An alternative approach, given the community's apparent preference for 2 year terms, would be for Risker, Roger Davies, Cool Hand Luke and Rlevse to agree to their terms being shortened to 2 years. That would allow all of the top candidates in this election to be given 2 year terms and still have half up for reelection in a year's time. All existing Arbs would become tranche alpha and all new arbs would become tranche beta. WJBscribe (talk) 17:03, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd support this proposal. 2 years was chosen because the community thought 3 years was too long, and one not long enough. No reason I can see to have most the arbs have a term length that most of the community thinks is the wrong length.--Cube lurker (talk) 17:09, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems a good idea but on the other hand could result in issues if one or more of those arbitrators don't agree Nil Einne (talk) 17:19, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

This issue was actually discussed during the poll and it was decided to grandfather in those of us with 3 year terms, who were appointed in accordance with the election rules in place at the time. On the other hand, I have no doubt that there will be resignations during the course of the next year and don't see any problem with appointing all of the newly elected arbitrators to two-year terms. I actually see no logic at all in appointing anyone to a one-year term. Risker (talk) 17:26, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I would prefer to leave it as Tony indicates above, as that seems to be the most conservative approach. MBisanz ^talk 17:42, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I am in agreement with Risker that everyone who was elected in the current election, should receive a 2-year term. The community consensus is that a one-year term is too short. It is also very likely that some of the existing arbitrators will resign over the next year anyway. And even with no resignations, and the current batch at 2-year terms, the 2010 elections next year will elect a minimum of 5 arbitrators, which is a reasonable amount of turnover. I see no reason to shorten anyone's terms at this time. --El on ka 18:59, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Another possibility is to appoint them as Tony indicates but if any of those whose terms end in December 2011 resign over the next year, Sir Fozzie gets his term extended for a year, if another resigns then Hersfold gets his term extended, etc. As long as we don't get more than 4 resignations among those with terms ending December 2011 then this will mean that half of the arbitrators will be up for election next year. Davewild (talk) 19:14, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think giving the 2 year-term to all electees is wise in the circumstance. Last year, we supposed to elect 7 seats among "34 candidates" (the number does not include pre-withdrawn candidates), so each candidate has 18.9% chance to be elected as an arbitrator (though, Jimbo appointed 10 people, so the rate was increased to 29.4%). However, this year, only 23 candidates ran for the election while the 9 seats (one is due to Johnvdb's resignation) are offered after the RFC, so they had 39.1% chance (lucky for them with the really high chance). In addition, the highest support point only reaches at 73% (Kirill), which strikingly contrasts to one in the 2008 election (92% for Casliber). Given Coren's successful reelection this year, I think if any new arbitrators with one year term perform pretty well, I don't think the reelection would be any problem for them. Moreover, that is also a good chance to recruit new faces and to reconfirm the ArbCom member's qualification every year.--Caspian blue 19:54, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
I think the candidates that get one year seats find themselves in much the same position I was last year: with a more ambivalent endorsement by the community, but with an opportunity to show their stuff for the next year. At the end of that first year, they'll be in a much better position knowing what the job is and with a year's worth of track record to show to the community.
I think one of the benefits of shorter terms is that we'll tend to see more arbitrators electing to serve two terms which, with three year terms, was a daunting prospect at best. — Coren ^(talk) 20:57, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

So if one year terms are so fantastic, why didn't more people support the idea of 1 year terms in the RFC?--Cube lurker (talk) 21:00, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

One or two members having a single-year term may be okay, but anything more than that is very likely to have a destabilising effect on the committee, in part for the reasons that Coren has pointed out. People who are worrying about their re-electability are considerably less likely to take actions that are perceived to be unpopular with a segment of the community, whether or not they are the right thing to do, especially in the leadup to the election period. As well, I do have a serious concern about the learning curve. Even with full two-year terms for all new members, we are now entering a process where there is going to be about 40% turnover of the committee each year. As to serving two terms, I wouldn't consider that an advantage one way or the other, and it appeared extremely rarely in the comments on the RFC. Risker (talk) 21:49, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

One-year terms for everyone would involve either the whole committee being renewed each year, which would be massively destabilising, or half the committee being elected every six months, which would require this circus every six months. I would agree with giving all the new arbs two-year terms to allow for inevitable resignations. That way the 2010 elections would fill five Tranche Alpha seats + any vacancies. That would probably sum to half the committee. It is, however, entirely Jimbo's choice. -- EA Swyer ^Talk _{Contributions} 23:55, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea of having elections every six months. I realize it would require more work from the volunteer election scrutineers/admins, but I think they'd be able to pull it off. We could also shorten the circus to a month, if we had 10 days for nominations, 10 for discussion, and 10 for voting. ~ DC (Talk|Edits) 00:43, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2009/Archive 2