Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Coordination

2015 Arbitration Committee Elections

Status

• The December 2015 Arbitration Committee Election results have been posted.
• Please offer your feedback on the election process.

Electoral Commission selection

(Cross-posted from here.) I take it that there is consensus that the three Electoral Commission candidates are selected? Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:05, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Secure poll

Can someone confirm that the Office has been contacted regarding the need to set up SecurePoll for the election? Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:10, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

@Newyorkbrad: I can confirm we have emailed them about this, and this has been acknowledged by them. Mdann52 (talk) 12:49, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

@User:Mdann52: Next year, we are going to run the Persian Wikipedia's ArbCom election using SecurePoll. Currently I am watching you guys to learn about the details. Which office did you contact with to set up SecurePoll? Couldn't the volunteers do that themselves? 4nn1l2 (talk) 11:30, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

@4nn112: User:Jalexander-WMF is probably the best person to contact about this. Mdann52 (talk) 13:15, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, if you wish to run the election through the WMF's vote wiki you'll need to talk with James to set up the poll and select the election admins. Mike V • Talk 22:47, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

MassMessage?

I saw Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#WP:ACE2015_MassMessage and glanced at it briefly, how many people do you plan on messaging exactly? Legoktm (talk) 05:51, 19 November 2015 (UTC)#

@Legoktm: I believe the plan is to send one to every eligible voter, if this is technically possible? (I was planning on coding a bot to do this if the extension would not handle this...) Mdann52 (talk) 09:52, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Right...how many eligible voters are there? Legoktm (talk) 16:43, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

@Legoktm: NO idea - the WMF are running scripts at the minute, but I'm going to estimate somewhere around 10000-20000 at the very least, based upon nothing but complete guesses. Is there some sort of limit that the tool can handle? Mdann52 (talk) 17:41, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

@Legoktm and Mdann52: I just looked at last year's eligibility list on the vote wiki. There were 108,996 eligible accounts. Mike V • Talk 19:25, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

That's A LOT of messages. I would recommend using batches of a thousand, and watching the queue count (Special:Statistics) and sending the next batch once the queue is under 100. There are API modules for both sending (action=massmessage) and checking the queue count (action=query&meta=siteinfo&siprop=statistics) so it should be all scriptable. Legoktm (talk) 06:33, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

• The proposal as I had originally envisioned would only message eligible voters who had been active in the previous ~3 months, which would cut 110k eligible voters down a _lot_. Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:53, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

• Why make it only three months? Seems completely arbitrary to me - either we email all eligible to vote or we don't. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:42, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

I think we should keep it as low-key as possible. A well-informed vote is worth a thousand ill-informed votes. I think the quality of voters is much more important than high voter turnout. Don't forget that English Wikipedia, in contrast to, say, German Wikipedia, is widely edited by Wikipedians from other communities, with me being one of them. IMO most of these users don't bother reading all of those long candidates' statements and Questions. Consequently, they will probably cast an ill-informed vote. Even those English-speaking users who do not edit regularly cannot cast a well-informed vote. I suggest to tighten the threshold of eligibility for the ACE2016 (for example voters should have made at least 50 edits in the last preceding year) to cut 110k eligible voters down a lot and then send out the mass-message through their talk page. Those who supported Kevin Gorman proposal at ANI were not informed about a staggering 110k eligible voters. 4nn1l2 (talk) 13:57, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

(AN, not ANI). I've got this all set up and ready to go, I'm going to launch this tomorrow as and when I get a chance. I plan to send the messages out over 2-3 days to avoid too much watchlist clogging. I would note the close read "To be sent to all users who meet the voting criteria but utilising all realistic efforts to avoid spam etc." - Unfortunately, the list of names I have has not been filtered down, and we are utilising an opt-out system at the minute - if anyone wants to reduce the list down further, be my guest - They are in my sandboxes at the minute. Mdann52 (talk) 19:25, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

• Cas: I had suggested three (or six) months because I anticipated a lot of worries about spam - plus I figured that it would make it slightly more likely that people relatively up to date on ENWP issues would be informed, rather than dead accounts from 2004. Given the people who voted in my original proposal 4nn, I think most of them would realize that this would be a large massmessage - many of them were familiar with the voting requirements, are total editor pull, etc. Mdann, thanks for carrying out the mechanics of this. best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:48, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

• Why not give those editors active over the last three months two votes, while all others only get one vote? That should make things more fair. Also, admins and pro-science editors should each get three votes. Cla68 (talk) 06:27, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Cla68, I agree with you that every eligible user must be notified, otherwise serious doubts can be cast on fairness of the election. But I think the threshold of eligibility must be tightened to exclude those users who are not familiar enough with English Wikipedia to cast a well-informed vote. As I said before, English Wikipedia is the hub for all Wikimedians who may not bother reading all of those lengthy statements and question pages. German Wikipedia, which is not as international as English Wikipedia, uses a stricter threshold of 400 edits. I think English Wikipedia should use a combination of criteria to define eligibility: one based on total number of edits, and the other based on the number of edits within a certain period of time before the election. For example Any user who satisfies all the following criteria will be eligible to vote:

1. At least 150 edits overall in main namespace (to ensure enough familiarity with Wikipedia)
2. At least 50 edits in the last preceding year (to ensure enough activity, and familiarity with modern Wikipedia)
3. At least 3-month old account (to reduce the possibility of sock-puppetry)

These criteria must cut 110k eligible voters down a lot and then all eligible voters must be notified through mass-message. What Kevin Gorman proposes seems arbitrary and unfair to me. 4nn1l2 (talk) 14:49, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Temporary CU for 2015 Arbitration Committee election scrutineers

For the purpose of scrutineering the 2015 Arbitration Committee elections, stewards Mardetanha, Shanmugamp7, and Einsbor, appointed as scrutineers, are granted temporary local CheckUser permissions effective from the time of the passage of this motion until the certification of the election results.

For the Arbitration Committee; Courcelles (talk) 22:37, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Temporary CU for 2015 Arbitration Committee election scrutineers

Central Notice banner

WP:ACE2015/RFC#Should there be a change in the methods of publicity for the election? closed with a consensus to implement some sort of Central Notice banner to advertise the election in general to eligible voters. Will this be implemented this year? Mz7 (talk) 02:08, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Currently Mdann52 is sending mass messages to every eligible editor on his or her talk page. While we could still go ahead with the central notice, I'm not sure that's the best idea. The mass message is targeted towards only those who are eligible to vote whereas the central notice will be seen by *everyone* with an account. Also, it seems to be a bit of overkill at this point, with 100,000+ messages sent and a watchlist notice to boot. Nearly 24 hours into the election we've seen 555 ballots cast (as of the time I'm writing this, including spoiled ballots). That's roughly only 100 short of what we had last year for the whole 2 week voting period. Thus, I feel the mass messages have been quite effective and the central notice is unnecessary. Mike V • Talk 23:48, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Seems you need more scrutineers, given the dissatisfaction with prolonged scrutineering period in the last election and the probable high voter turnout in this election. 4nn1l2 (talk) 00:50, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

That was actually discussed this year during the ACE RfC. It was closed with no changes to the procedures for this year. I'll be sending out instructions to the scrutineers soon and will be strongly encouraging them to look over the technical data as the votes roll in. Mike V • Talk 01:41, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Mike V, it makes sense to go without the central notice. It would probably be overkill given the mass message. Mz7 (talk) 19:03, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

ACE questions pages

I have been wondering if ACE is exempt from NPA, not that a user calling me dishonest ruffles my feathers much, I've been here too long to let that worry me.

I am pretty certain, however, that questions sections are meant to be between the candidate and the interlocutor, not a free-for-all, as this edit seems to assume.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 12:01, 26 November 2015 (UTC).

I've moved the comment to the candidate discussion page. Mike V • Talk 18:02, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Scrutineers

Could someone say who the scrutineers are this year? There are discussions in various places about the effect of the mass messaging, which they need to be aware of. SarahSV ^(talk) 22:17, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: See the section three sections above this one. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:33, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks, Newyorkbrad. SarahSV ^(talk) 23:46, 29 November 2015 (UTC)