Nominations for the ninth annual elections to the Arbitration Committee have now opened, and will remain so for approximately a week (closing 23:59 UTC Monday, 21 November). Any editor is eligible to run as a candidate provided they meet the requirements for voters (at least 150 mainspace edits with their registered account by 1 November 2011), are in good standing and not subject to active blocks or site-bans, meet the Wikimedia Foundation's criteria for access to non-public data, and are prepared to identify to the Foundation if elected, and disclose any alternate accounts (barring those which have been declared to the Arbitration Committee prior to the close of nominations) in their nomination statements. At the time of writing, four eligible candidates have stepped forward, two of whom have served multiple terms on the Committee: AGK, Coren, Hersfold, and Kirill Lokshin.
The elections are run by the community independent of the Committee and its clerks; editors interested in helping to organise the elections are encouraged to sign up as volunteer coordinators. Election pages have been created, incorporating nomination statements, a guide to the candidates, questions for those running, links to individual voter guides and discussion pages. The 10-day nomination period (12–21 November) will be followed by five "fallow" days (up from two last year) to ensure all election pages are complete and accurate, to configure the SecurePoll voting interface, and to allow voters additional time to research, discuss and pose questions to candidates.
The voting period will last 14 days (27 November – 10 December), up from 10 days last year. The vote will then be audited for up to a week by independent scrutineers drawn from the ranks of non-native stewards, to ensure the election is free of double-voting, sockpuppetting, and other irregularities. The results will be announced on the election page. Jimbo Wales is expected to ceremonially announce the appointments shortly after.
A well-attended community RfC established the Committee's numbers as 15 (down from 18 in 2011 and 2010), with a uniform two-year term for incoming arbitrators. Due to an extraordinary last-minute motion by the Committee to remove a sitting arbitrator, Iridescent, for inactivity, eight arbitrators are due to continue their service in 2012 without re-election. Seven vacant seats are expected to be filled by this year's election, with terms starting on 1 January 2012.
The RfC determined that the minimum level of support necessary for a successful candidacy will be 50%, and that a shortfall in successful candidacies would be acceptable, opening the door to the possibility that the Committee will begin the new year with fewer than 15 arbitrators. Another conclusion of the RfC was that that unlike last year's election, there will be no limit on the number of questions voters may ask of candidates (although replying is not mandatory), and that any serious voter guide will merit inclusion in the election navigational template.
The Arbitration Committee is a critical institution of the English Wikipedia; experienced and committed editors are urged to seriously consider standing for election.
Asaf Bartov, head of Global South Relationships, announced the finalization of a Wikimedia Participation Grants Program this week. In his post, Bartov explained that "Wikipedians can often make additional progress toward our vision of free knowledge freely available for everyone in the world, by participating in physical meetings, events, or conferences. Such participation often entails travel costs, and sometimes accommodation, visa, and other costs too. These costs are often prohibitively expensive for a volunteer’s personal budget, who is already donating valuable time and effort."
The new program, funded jointly by the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Germany (see the German chapter's post), aims to alleviate this cost by providing Participation Grants for community members to "cover travel, accommodation, registration, and other costs associated with participating in an event or activity, in furtherance of the Wikimedia Mission." Other self-sustaining Wikimedia chapters (ie. not funded by the Foundation) are also invited to contribute to the community "pool."
This program is similar to the general grant program, which funded 44 projects in 2010–2011 totaling $300,000. To receive a Community Grant, members must apply at Grants:Participation by creating a subpage with a description of their planned participation, background information about themselves, and the expected impact of their participation. The submissions are evaluated on a weekly basis by a special committee; in addition to the open process outlined on the page, participants must also send an e-mail to participation at wikimedia dot org with their full legal name. If their request is accepted, participants are also expected to write an open report describing their experiences with the program. A list of current and closed requests, from when the process was still in the works, can be found here.
In a continuation of its analysis of this year's Readers Survey, the Wikimedia Foundation has posted its results on reader perceptions of quality on Wikipedia. The overall quality of Wikipedia was graded based on five individual measures on a 10-point scale:
These results were then compiled into a Quality Perception Index, shown above. The global QPI average (the survey was administered in 16 countries) is 7.92 out of 10. Readers in predominantly English-speaking countries (US, Canada, UK, South Africa, Australia and India), where 94% or more of respondents used the English Wikipedia, were above average with an 8.02; as compared to other areas, with 7.85. Japan "was a definite exception, with only 16% of the readers reporting similar ratings." How readers compared Wikipedia to other top websites is next on the agenda.
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