The Signpost

Election report

Voting in full swing

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By Tony1
Real-life voting the hard way, by queue. While there are no queues for the SecurePoll ArbCom vote, editors are urged not to risk server lag by leaving it until the last moment to vote on Sunday.
Voting in the annual Arbitration Committee election began last Friday. One editor, General announcement, managed to register their vote in the first minute after midnight; DC voted in the second minute. Since then, voters have been out in force: well over 400 votes were cast during the first three and a half days, which puts the election on track to repeat last year's total of around a thousand. In this shorter voting period—10 days, down from 14—North American voters are reminded that voting will close on Sunday before 7 pm (east coast) and before 4 pm (west coast).

Last week's Signpost reported that there were 15 candidates. Since publication, there was a last-minute surge of nominations, bringing the total to 23; however, two candidates withdrew before the start of voting, bringing the total down to 21 (now 20 due to the events reported below). The resignation of Arbitrator Steve Smith just before the start of voting has increased the number of vacancies from 11 to 12, since Steve Smith was not due to retire at the end of this year.

One-year block for candidate

In breaking news, checkuser Avi issued a one-month block to one candidate, Loosmark, for "abusing multiple accounts". Avi announced at the election talk page:


Loosmark almost immediately appealed the ban: "I have not abused multiple account. I request who 'informed' the checkusers about alleged 'irregularities' in my editing is disclosed." This was reviewed and declined by Hersfold: "Checkuser evidence very conclusively shows [on both technical and behavioural grounds] that you have used several dozen accounts". Within four minutes, admin and election coordinator Jehochman had banned Loosmark for one year: "Loosmark, I have blocked your account for a full year as a matter of arbitration enforcement under WP:DIGWUREN discretionary sanctions. You've been socking to evade a six month topic ban.[1] The matter is further compounded by deception in the candidate statement where you did not declare any of these 40+ socks. So we have WP:SOCK, WP:DIGWUREN and WP:GAME violations of a very serious nature."

Less than 12 hours later, admin Gwen Gale informed the candidate that "there has been a consensus at AN for a community ban." Loosmark replied "Ok. I will respect the decision of the community, and will not edit wikipedia anymore. I apology to everybody and ask that somebody puts that tag "retired" here."

Voting guides

Candidate Harej poses for the camera, as displayed in Polargeo's guide
Voting guides are an established tradition at ArbCom elections. This year, there are 21 of them, more than the number of candidates. Voting guides explicitly represent the views of their authors, and are linked to from the official election page. The guides reveal surprisingly different approaches to the election, the candidates, and ArbCom. Among the more colourful pages was that of Polargeo, which took a humorous view of the candidates through a gallery of pictures, many of them visual puns on usernames. Among them were a picture of a hare, a royal cavalryman (no ships in sight), a sheep, a crustacean poking out of a shell, a teddy bear, and (you guessed it) a real live bot to stand for a member of the Bot Approvals Group. The sole objection by a candidate resulted in Polargeo's removal of an image of a toilet bowl.

The Signpost has compiled a quick round-up of the numbers of supports/opposes/neutrals in each guide, where provided, and a few quotable phrases. In a few cases, we've had to use a little guesswork on the numbers; we disregarded the words "strong" and "weak". The numbers were calculated before Loosmark's site ban.

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== Two notes ==

Thanks: so, back on topic after the diversion with false stories; I was asking if The Signpost could not mention that last year's RFC put us in the spot of having to fill up 18 seats even if candidates get less than 60% support; in other words, it's easier to be elected to ArbCom than to adminship. Only three guides endorse as many candidates as they are vacancies-- most do not. Perhaps a new RFC might be run now, since it looks like we'll end up with arbs that may have marginal support, we shouldn't be appointing arbs who are oppposed by half the voters, last year's RFC was shortsighted and didn't provide for this circumstance (although it was raised), and the 18-member Committee hardly seems necessary with declining participcation across all areas of Wiki and declining numbers of cases. A good ArbCom is better than a big ArbCom. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:29, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is not easier to be elected to ArbCom than to adminship, because voters' standards are higher for ArbCom. The two can't be directly compared like that. Powers T 15:47, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Minor query

"Voting guides are an established tradition at ArbCom elections. This year, there are 21 of them, more than the number of candidates."

Is it really notable that there are more published views than candidates. This is commonplace in elections around the world. If there is a point being made here (too few candidates? more guides than ever?), it should be explicit rather than implicit, should it not? Geometry guy 23:20, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure it needs to be says because most of the guides are minimal and incomplete. More were encouraged to add on this year, so more did, but about half a dozen of the new guides don't really say anything. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:26, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Guides still being added

I will leave it to others whether to add my guide there, but at the very least, "This year, there are 21 of them", is no longer correct, as mine brings it up to 22 :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 00:52, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's a bit late in the electoral cycle, and in terms of this edition of The Signpost. We let through some hasty updates by authors of voter guides, but a completely new one cobbled together today is rather too much, I'm afraid. Tony (talk) 02:45, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't it in a wiki spirit to update articles with new information? A traditional newspaper has no choice but to do its readers a disservice by providing inaccurate, obsolete information that it can only correct in the new edition; it cannot magically update the printed sheets. Obviously, this is not a problem for us - so what's keeping us from correcting it? And don't say that inaccurate reporting is traditional :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 04:45, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For the same reason Wikinews doesn't allow updating of its articles after a particular point in time: because news articles are a snapshot of the situation at the time they were written. Powers T 15:48, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly adding a note at the end of the article that more guides are being written, and a link to the template, might help. Or even just display the template here. I might write one myself, but probably not until the weekend, or maybe just after the election finishes. More to remind myself why I voted the way I did (haven't actually voted yet), than to influence others (guides should not really be written with that motivation). I may also just turn up on the talk page of various guides and disagree with the authors. :-) What would actually be better than a guide is a link to what people think are the best questions and answers. Indeed, I was hoping that the Signpost would cover some of the questions and answers, rather than taking the easy option of a tour around the guides. BTW, Tony, I've updated the template here. I think I filled it in right. Carcharoth (talk) 04:04, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"rather than taking the easy option". I spent a whole night doing this page by myself. There were concerns enough about balance in treating the voter guides alone; doing a story on discussion pages would need a lot of work and careful balance. I also had to write the entire F and A page by myself, and copy-edit some of the other pages. Any volunteers? Tony (talk) 06:52, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, Tony, I was overly critical there. I, for one, do appreciate the Signpost reports, and especially the F&A page (which is much improved in its new format). I am just hoping that voters take the time to look through the questions and the discussions, and don't just read the guides. Carcharoth (talk) 22:50, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]



       

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