View source for Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015


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{{Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Header}}
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The thirteenth annual [[Wikipedia:Elections|election]] for the English Wikipedia's '''[[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee|Arbitration Committee]]''' took place in November and December 2015. This election, [[meta:Wikimedia Arbitration committees election processes|by practice on Wikimedia projects]], was organized by community volunteers, independent of the Arbitration Committee itself.
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==Election process==
===Timeline===
# '''Nomination period''' (from ''Sunday 00:00, 8 November'' until ''Tuesday 23:59, 17 November'', UTC) → interested editors are invited to submit a candidate statement. An editor is eligible to stand as a candidate who:
#:(i) has a registered account and has made at least 500 mainspace edits before 1 November 2015,
#:(ii) is in good standing and not subject to active blocks or site-bans,
#:(iii) meets the Wikimedia Foundation's [[Meta:Access to nonpublic information policy|criteria for access to non-public data]], is willing to sign the Foundation's non-public information [[Meta:Confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information|confidentiality agreement]], and
#:(iv) has disclosed any previous or alternate accounts in their election statements (legitimate accounts which have been declared to the Arbitration Committee before the close of nominations do not need to be publicly disclosed).
# '''Voting period''' (from ''Monday 00:00, 23 November'' until ''Sunday 23:59, 6 December'', UTC) → eligible voters can vote on the candidates, using the '''''[[Wikipedia:SecurePoll|SecurePoll]]''''' system. An editor is '''eligible''' to vote who:
#:(i) has registered an account before Wednesday 00:00, 28 October 2015
#:(ii) has made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday 00:00, 1 November 2015 and,
#:(iii) is not blocked from the English Wikipedia at the time of their vote.
# '''Scrutineering period''' (immediately following the voting period) → scrutineers, consisting of [[m:Stewards|stewards]] whose main wikis are ''not'' the English Wikipedia, will check the votes (e.g. for duplicate, missing, and ineligible votes), and compile a tally of the results. The instructions for scrutineers are outlined [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Coordination/Instructions for scrutineers|here]].

===Results===

Following the voting period, the scrutineers examined the votes, and released a tally of the results. The tally ranks candidates by their performance according to the [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015|criteria for success in this election]], defined as the number of votes cast in support of the candidate divided by the total number of votes cast both for and against (commonly described as "support over support plus oppose" or "S/(S+O)").  "Neutral" preferences are not counted in this metric. A total of [https://vote.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:SecurePoll/list/560 2846 ballots] were cast (including duplicates) and 2674 votes were determined to be valid.

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders sortable" style="text-align: center;"
! scope="col" | Candidate
! scope="col" | Support
! scope="col" | Neutral<ref name="nbNoVote" group="note" />
! scope="col" | Oppose
! scope="col" | Net<ref name="nbNet" group="note" />
! scope="col" | Percentage <ref name="nbPercentage" group="note" />
! scope="col" | Result
|- style="background:#cfc;"
|{{user|Casliber}}||1118||1249||307||811||78.46%||Two-year term
|-
|- style="background:#cfc;"
| {{user|Opabinia regalis}}||1121||1164||389||732||74.24%||Two-year term
|-
|- style="background:#cfc;"
| {{user|Keilana}}||1118||1149||407||711||73.31%||Two-year term
|-
|- style="background:#cfc;"
| {{user|Drmies}}||1038||1197||439||599||70.28%||Two-year term
|-
|- style="background:#cfc;"
| {{user|Callanecc}}||848||1429||397||451||68.11%||Two-year term
|-
|- style="background:#cfc;"
| {{user|Kelapstick}}||738||1562||374||364||66.37%||Two-year term
|-
|- style="background:#cfc;"
| {{user|GorillaWarfare}}||1111||987||576||535||65.86%||Two-year term
|-
|- style="background:#cfc;"
| {{user|Kirill Lokshin}}||965||1196||513||452||65.29%||Two-year term
|-
|- style="background:#cff;"
| {{user|Gamaliel}}||902||1219||553||349||61.99%||One-year term
|-style="background:#fff;"
| {{user|Thryduulf}}||764||1395||515||249||59.73%||
|-style="background:#fff;"
| {{user|LFaraone}}||657||1505||512||145||56.20%||
|-style="background:#fff;"
| {{user|Hawkeye7}}||783||1268||623||160||55.69%||
|-style="background:#fff;"
| {{user|Kudpung}}||692||1373||609||83||53.19%||
|-style="background:#fff;"
| {{user|Rich Farmbrough}}||822||1125||727||95||53.07%||
|-style="background:#fff;"
| {{user|Kevin Gorman}}||663||1289||722||−59||47.87%||
|-style="background:#fff;"
| {{user|Timtrent}} (withdrawn)||385||1855||434||−49||47.01%||
|-style="background:#fff;"
| {{user|NE Ent}}||553||1446||675||−122||45.03%||
|-style="background:#fff;"
| {{user|Hullaballoo Wolfowitz}}||588||1320||766||−178||43.43%||
|-style="background:#fff;"
| {{user|MarkBernstein}}||582||1242||850||−268||40.64%||
|-style="background:#fff;"
| {{user|Wildthing61476}}||403||1599||672||−269||37.49%||
|-style="background:#fff;"
| {{user|Mahensingha}}||349||1428||897||−548||28.01%||
|}
{{Reflist
| group="note"
| refs =

<ref name="nbNoVote">
All voters were required to register a preference of either "Support", "Neutral", or "Oppose" for each candidate. The "Neutral" column is simply the total votes for which voters did not select the Support or Oppose option.
</ref>

<ref name ="nbNet">
Net = Support − Oppose
</ref>

<ref name="nbPercentage">
Percentage = (Support / (Support + Oppose)) * 100 (rounded to 2 decimal places)
</ref>
}}


; Results certified by:
# [[User:Einsbor|<span style="color: blue; font-family: courier new;">einsbor</span>]] [[User talk:Einsbor|<sub><span style="color: blue; font-family: courier new;">talk</span></sub>]] 19:38, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
# [[User:Mardetanha|<span style="font-family: Rage Italic; font-size: large; color:#000000;color:black"><i>Mardetanha</i></span>]] <sup><span style="font-family:Italic;color:black">[[user_talk:Mardetanha|talk]]</span></sup> 19:39, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
# '''[[User:shanmugamp7|<span style="font-family: Comic sans ms;"><span style="color:#193FE9">Shanmugam</span><span style="color: #D7111F;">p7</span></span>]]''' <sup>[[User talk:Shanmugamp7|<span style="color: #0A6F04;">(talk) </span>]]</sup> 23:53, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

==Vacant seats==
For 2015, six current arbitrators will remain on the committee. The committee will continue to have 15 seats, leaving eight vacant seats with two-year terms and one vacant seat with a one-year term to be filled in this election. In the event that any of the six arbitrators with unexpired terms resign or otherwise leave the committee before the start of voting on 23 November, the seat they vacate will be filled, and will be for a one-year term. Seats will be filled based on support percentage, as calculated by <math>\frac{\text{support}}{\text{support + oppose}}</math>. There will be an ''neutral'' option; choosing this option will not affect the support percentage for the candidate, and will be treated as though you did not vote in the election with respect to that candidate. The minimum support percentage is 50%. If there are more vacancies than candidates with 50% support, those seats will remain vacant.
<div class="center">{{Arbitration committee chart/2010–}}</div>

==Guides==
===For candidates===
Nominations for candidates will open at 00:00 UTC, 8 November and will close at 23:59 UTC, 17 November. During this time, any editor in good standing who meets the criteria stated in the [[#Timeline|"Timeline" section above]] may nominate themselves by following the instructions to create a candidate statement on the [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates|candidates page]]. Once a candidate has made their statement, they may proceed to answer individual questions as they wish (see the [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Questions|questions page]] for details and instructions). Candidates may continue to answer questions until the end of the voting period (23:59 UTC, 6 December).

===For voters===
{{hatnote|See the [[#Timeline|"Timeline"]] section above for voter eligibility requirements}}

Once candidates have nominated themselves, voters are invited to review and discuss them. Voters may ask questions throughout the election.

To facilitate their discussions and judgements, voters are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the candidates. This can be done through reading the [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates|candidate statements]], the answers to the questions put to each candidate (linked from their candidate statements), and the discussion of each candidate (a centralised collection of which will be made available at the [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates/Discussion|discussion page]]). In addition, a [[Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2015/Candidates/Guide|summary guide]] to candidates will be made available, and augmented by a [[:Category:Wikipedia Arbitration Committee Elections 2015 voter guides|set of personal guides]] by individual voters.

Voting will run for 14 days, from 00:00 UTC, 23 November to 23:59 UTC, 6 December. The process will be conducted using the [[Special:SecurePoll|SecurePoll]] extension which ensures that individual voter's decisions will not be publicly viewable (although technical information about voters, such as their IP address and user-agents, will be visible to the WMF-identified election administrators and scrutineers).

Voters will be invited to choose one of three options for each candidate: "Support", "Oppose" or "Neutral"; and the number of "Support", "Oppose" or "Neutral" preferences a voter can express is otherwise limited only by the number of candidates. After voters have entered their choices for all of the candidates and submitted their votes, they may revisit and change their decisions, but attempting to do so will require expressing preferences for all candidates from scratch. Because of the risk of server lag, voters are advised to cast their vote at the latest <u>an hour before the close of voting</u> to ensure their vote will be counted.

{{ACE2015}}
{{Arbitration Committee Elections}}
[[Category:Wikipedia Arbitration Committee Elections 2015]]