Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Vote

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Pre-vote comments

I think that the creation of this page was a bit previous. Would it not be better to use the existing candidate statement pages, such as Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2005/Candidate statements/Filiocht, instead? Filiocht | The kettle's on 15:56, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused - I'm a prospective candidate in all this, and now this has turned up! What's going on?! doktorb 16:35, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking we could have another subpage for each candidate's vote so that the transclusion would be easier and the statements and questions wouldn't clutter up the page. We could use the statement pages, though - perhaps use <noinclude> to make only a brief statement appear? Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:40, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like we won't be using this method, according to the main Elections page. --King of All the Franks 19:25, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I changed it over to point to this since this is the logical way to do things, the page move seems to have broken everyone's subpages though. JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 22:54, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Remember

someone should remember to add a link to this vote page to the top of the watchlist notice at 00:01 so that people know that voting has started and they know where to go vote. JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 23:39, 8 January 2006 (UTC) JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 23:39, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'll do that (I'll probably still be around) Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:40, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawl

I going to be inactive and I don't want to run anymore, and I even opposed myself, could anyone withdraw my statement as I been wanted to withdrawl., Thanks --Jaranda wat's sup 00:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've protected the page, added comments indicating your withdrawal, and stricken out your links. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statements

Why is the voting separate from the candidate statements? Either this page or the voting subpages should have a link to the statements for each candidate, too. — Omegatron 00:40, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

They do.Geni 00:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Um... that's... very strange. Nevermind. — Omegatron 01:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sentence

I'm not crazy about the following sentence, but I'm not an admin so I can't edit it: You may vote in favour of, in opposition to, or abstain from (i.e. not voting) for any number of candidates. How about this: You may vote in favour of or in opposition to any number of candidates. Not voting for a candidate is equivalent to an abstention. Thanks, Chick Bowen 01:25, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Changed. Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:27, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Chick Bowen 01:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statistics

For what it's worth, there are mostly real-time statistics at http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/arbcom. --Interiot 02:28, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OMG! That's awesome. —Ilyanep (Talk) 04:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like it caught a case of gremlins and stopping working. I may be able to fix by repairing the offending page. – ClockworkSoul 06:03, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This would be great if it worked: only a couple entries upfront are currently displayed properly. Keep it up! E Pluribus Anthony 06:08, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, technical details, the text of the pages are no longer available directly from the database. Should be fixed tonight or first thing tommorow morning. --Interiot 06:14, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have a replacement tool, at User:Mathbot/Results. It is a silly script, works every hour only (so not on demand), but might be of use till Interiot fixes his own tool. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 07:08, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Great. I wonder why the candidates are ordered so. E Pluribus Anthony 09:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I sorted them now as Interiot, by percentage of support votes over total votes. I also fixed a bug which was counting neutral votes as oppose, and the bot will upload the new results soon. Seems that my bot's information is a bit more up-to-date than Interiot's tool for the moment, I guess because of the slow server. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:45, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thought so; looks good. The more information, the better. :) E Pluribus Anthony 06:48, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Mine's working now. It's now subject to the cache that logged-out users use, but it's not too bad. --Interiot 09:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It looks great! E Pluribus Anthony 09:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Watchlist

Can we vote to get this annoying thing off the Special:Watchlist and instead, put it on the Special:Recentchanges? ⇒ JarlaxleArtemis 04:23, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My vote would be no, actually. We want as many people to be aware of it as possible--fewer people check recent changes than look regularly at their watchlists. Chick Bowen 04:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Chick Bowen. The watchlist is exactly the right place. The most visible page for editors, and rather invisible to people who do not contribute. About the recent changes, unless you are a vandal fighter, I don't know why you would want to see the recent changes to the last almost one million articles on Wikipedia. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:36, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with these two. Personally, it doesn't bother me, but it might mobilize some people to vote that wouldn't otherwise. And we're looking for the voice of the community here. —Ilyanep (Talk) 04:54, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep it on, and keep changing the colour (every day?) ... it will incite Wikipedians to vote who might otherwise be unwilling or unknowing ... strabismus notwithstanding. E Pluribus Anthony 06:03, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral votes

Neutral votes are quite deliberately left off as an option: You may vote in favour of or in opposition to any number of candidates. Not voting for a candidate is equivalent to an abstention.. Should it be made more explicit? All a neutral vote is is a long comment, since it has no effect on anything. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 04:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think there are sufficient notices regarding the non-status of neutral votes and, upon glancing at some vote pages, seems to not be an issue. E Pluribus Anthony 06:06, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Interesting. Are there other instances? In this instance, if I were an Admin: I'd reiterate to those who have so voted that "neutral votes" shall not be counted by Jimbo – only those asserting/dissenting approval, as per point 5 of the election rules/procedure Jimbo has edited. Moreover, as they also contravene point 2 to "vote for or against each individual candidate", they are effectively extra comments that should be moved/removed at Admin discretion ... just as any comment can be – i.e., I agree with you, jpg. Any toleration of such comments on the talk page will foster others to follow suit.
  • And if said Wikipedians are content to abstain, then it shouldn't make a difference if those comments are moved to the talk page instead. E Pluribus Anthony 06:39, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Just put them to the talk page, as neutral votes were not an option. feydey 08:17, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree: I'm not an Admin (and would prefer if an Admin were to do it); should I do so? E Pluribus Anthony 08:20, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I added a mention of this to the rules just now, feel free to improve upon it; and yes, I think you should move them, you're just as uninvolved as admins are. If you feel uncomfortable with doing so, or if someone gives you a hard time, call me. ;) —Nightstallion (?) 08:46, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks again! I'd only suggest amending the amendment to say they're "not permitted and will be moved to the candidate's vote talk page" or similar. My knees still wobble. ;) E Pluribus Anthony 08:55, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And, of course, the person put the neutral vote on Tony's vote page reverted, saying it hadn't been discussed. The hell it hadn't. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 15:57, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
11 hours of one-sided comments by 3 people is not "discussion". — 0918BRIAN • 2006-01-9 16:13

Of course neutral votes should be allowed. Many of the votes that resulted in creating the rules for this election included neutral votes. More importantly, the current voting rules (prior to your unilateral insertion) do not say "neutral votes aren't allowed", but that a "neutral vote is considered an abstention." So, the rules endorse the use of neutral votes, not oppose them. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-01-9 16:00

They are allowed ... as comments on the talk page. And as they are abstentions, neutral Wikipedians shouldn't object to the indifference of having them moved. Reverts should be treated as disruptions and dealt with appropriately. E Pluribus Anthony 16:09, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, this rule was unilaterally created/added/enforced in the space of a few minutes. You are applying an opinion to neutral voters and then enforcing a rule based on that unfounded opinion. A neutral vote is not an indifferent vote. And don't bother with this "reverts should be treated as disruptions..." nonsense; I can just as easily say "attempts to bypass discussion and enforce one's own opinion should be treated as disruptions and dealt with immediately". — 0918BRIAN • 2006-01-9 16:15
These notions have been extensively discussed (above and on the ArbComm election talk page), supported and expeditiously implemented by uninvolved parties to ensure propriety and to prevent disendorsements through abstention. Anything else is "nonsense." E Pluribus Anthony 16:24, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Don't bother, I'm not falling for it. The original rules provided for neutral votes by specifically mentioning them and saying they counted as abstention. You're now trying to rewrite the rules and ignoring comments that go against the changes. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-01-9 17:54
You're the one that shouldn't bother. Observe the ArbComm election talk page, where I and others have discussed these and other issues thoroughly: you'll note that any number of us have been involved in writing the rules. And your solitary dissent/reverts, even ignorance of that, is not at all a defence and doesn't obviate any prior discussion/consensus to the contrary. E Pluribus Anthony 18:04, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Just because you were involved in the original discussion doesn't mean you now get to make up whatever rules you want. You are a volunteer just as much as everyone else, so don't bother with the almighty-enforcer spiel. Jimbo is fine with neutral votes in this election (see his comment below). — 0918BRIAN • 2006-01-9 18:08
My involvement isn't the point: the discussions that numerous Wikipedians have had leading up to this are ... or were. E Pluribus Anthony 18:17, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral votes are important. They show us that someone looked at the page and voted 'neutral'. That's quite different from someone perhaps not even having time to look at the page at all. It can inform others. Therefore they should remain.--Jimbo Wales 18:06, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Jimbo, thanks for weighing in. I don't think the issue is whether they are important (they clearly are), but whether given our discussions they belonged on the vote page. If a significant number of people assert neutrality, whose to opine what those votes mean, with or without comments? Are they, effectively disendorsements? And can they not serve the same informational purpose by being moved to the talk page?
But fair enough – in any event, mea culpa for any offence. However, this is perhaps a learning point for everyone for incorporating or editing rules that more clearly state this from the onset. E Pluribus Anthony 18:17, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm fine with my neutral vote not counting. That's not the point of it. The point of it is to weigh in on the matter. The system has been set up to have neutral votes discounted, but they could easily be set up in a different way, such as splitting each neutral vote as .5 support and .5 oppose, or some other way. Long comments are a different matter entirely, and trying to say that neutral votes are just comments is entirely wrong. If comments aren't allowed, that's fine, but deleting all neutrals, even those without comments, just makes no sense. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-01-9 18:27
Understood. The point throughout was that the system could've been designed any which way, but this and other notions were discussed and common-sense rules arrived at ... overlooking them notwithstanding. :) This was a well-intentioned attempt to address this apparent grey area in the rules and, given prior electoral challenges, to ensure things not run amok. I'm glad that Jimbo has weighed in to clarify matters and trust that we can move forward with this in mind.
To that end, I regret any offence or challenges posed through my comments or actions. Thanks. And now I must sleep. ;) E Pluribus Anthony 18:46, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All these brand new candidates

All these newcomer candidates makes me think that perhaps I should have thrown my hat into the ring? Oh, well, there's always next year. – ClockworkSoul 06:01, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You aren't that new buddy, so if that's the main reason, then you are out. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:54, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Heh. Well, I figure I could have made it into the top 10 simply by virtue of the fact that I've been here long enough to know my way around, but not so long as to make too many enemies. – ClockworkSoul 07:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Moving comments to talk page

Someone added an excessive, and inappropriate, comment to Kelly Martin's vote page. I'd move it though feel I'm not in a position to do so ... in any event, someone should move it to the talk page. E Pluribus Anthony 07:23, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Removal or archiving of snowball-in-heck candidates?

Just wondering, will candidates be removed or archived when it's extremely clear that the nomination cannot possibly succeed? There are currently several candidates with one or two supports and 30-40+ opposes. We do of course want everyone to have their chance, but at some point leaving these candidates up just seems like needless piling-on and might do more harm than good. Also, many of the least-likely candidates are themselves very new and may not fully understand what they were getting themselves into. I do not plan to remove any candidate myself, I'm just throwing the idea out there for consideration. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 15:48, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion is that these "snowball" candidates should be contacted after the vote has run for 48 hours. At this point, they should be asked if they'd like to withdraw or remain in the election. As for determing which candidates are "snowball-in-heck" candidates, I think that anyone with less than 10% support would qualify. After the vote has run for a full week, the "snowball" candidates should be archived. Carbonite | Talk 15:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think that nothing would be served in removing/or archiving them: let the election run its full course for all candidates equitably. This will also provide the community and Jimbo with a complete picture that will aid in decision-making regarding the ArbComm. E Pluribus Anthony 16:03, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that the election has only been going on for 16 hours and there's already some candidates that are being opposed 70-4 or such. Voters who want to avoid pile-ons still have to click on 60+ links to see the vote totals for every candidate. Here a few options I'll throw out:
  • Ask "snowball" candidates to withdraw
  • Archive/remove "snowball" candidates
  • Include vote tallies next to canidate links on the main voting page (updated periodically either manually or by a bot)
  • Move "snowball" candidates to a separate section
Implementing any of these options should wait until the vote has been running for at least 48 hours. The option to withdraw should be made known to all candidates, especially newbies who may be unaware. Carbonite | Talk 16:29, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to mention, I'm one of the people who has voted for those "snowball" candidates. It is akin to saying my vote doesn't count. I agree, let the election run its full course.Davidpdx 20:16, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't seen anyone talk about actually deleting the votes, just recognizing that certain candidates (mainly brand-new users) are being nearly all voters. Once a few days of the election have passed, it's sensible to make modifications so that voters don't have to visit every single candidate's page before seeing if it's a pile-on oppose or not. On RfA, it's possible to see the tally of every nomination before deciding to vote. With this election, you have to visit the individual subpages in order to see the tally. If the tally could be placed on the main voting page, I'd see no problem with keeping the "snowballs" until the end. Carbonite | Talk 20:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To some extent, that's what things like this and this are for. --Interiot 03:31, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, I and D. Given Jimbo's position/clarification to include neutral votes, I'm guessing he'd prefer to maintain all candidate votes and pages until the end of the election. This would dually provide voters with a better picture of whom to vote for and allow him to form a complete picture of whom to nominate afterwards ... not one based on arguably selective criteria regarding nascent "snowball" candidates. My two cents. E Pluribus Anthony 06:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Inexperienced candidates

I am quite annoyed that I am spending over half my time in this process looking at newbie candidates, many of whom do not have enough time and/or edits here to even vote in this process! I for one strongly call for there to be such requirements for the candidates in future elections. My suggestion is to require at least one year in Wikipedia and 1,000 edits by the date of announcement for nominations to be eligible. --EMS | Talk 21:03, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree but for a different reason. It's unfair on candidates to have been allowed to nominate to then be dismissed out of hand. Regards, Ben Aveling 22:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why?Geni 23:25, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I will assume that the above "Why?" is addressed towards to original proposal. New editors
  1. lack the experience in Wikipedia, its processes, and its problems to be good arbitrators,
  2. lack an edit history that can be used to judge their suitability, and
  3. lack any evidence of a long-term commitment to Wikipedia or of the staying power needed to see the aribitrator's job through for its full term.
As a result, more experienced editors like myself will automatically and overwhelmingly oppose them. As Ben noted, this is not fair to them, nor is it fair to those of us who are voluntarily and on our own time participating in this process. --EMS | Talk 23:36, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I was asking why it was unfair to candidates.Geni 23:41, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Nominating, answering all those questions and putting yourself up to be rated by your peers like this is a big investment of time and emotional energy. To then be shot down without a fair hearing, because you are 'obviously' unqualified for the job, well, I know I'd feel hurt if it happened to me. I think most of the inexperienced candidates are well meaning, and looking to make a contribution. If it is absolutely necessary that each and every member of Arbcom is highly experienced, then we should say so up front. Instead, it's why did you bother to show up? It's a bit unfortunate all round. Clearly, there are enough people who hold the view that experience is necessary that it might as well be offical policy and spare everyone the effort. Regards, Ben Aveling 02:14, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, as I said above I think removing these "snowball" candidates because some people think it is wasting their time seems trival. In addition, I think those who are pushing for removing candidates before the end of the election should look at their own motives behind the idea. If you don't want to vote for the "snowball" candidates then don't, but otherwise let them have their chance. Davidpdx 11:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that once you have let someone into the process that you need to let then stay in it and see it through to its proper end. So I would oppose on fairness grounds any changing of the rules while the process is ongoing, including the removal of "snowball" candidates in the absense of prior rules for doing so. However, do note that I made my suggestion for future elections. The harder that it is to participate in a process such as this, the fewer will do so and the worse off Wikipedia will be for it. There "snowballs" are only bogging down the process, and can by proper rules be easily excluded. I strongly call for the creation of proper candidate standards for future elections. --EMS | Talk 16:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I concur, ems. I think given the plethora of notions and setup required for this year's elections, with the hope of mitigating last year's challenges, some things are bound to slip through (and have). In any event, I think this should be a learning experience for voters and candidates, "successful" or not.
And I took the time to peruse, formulate opinions, and cast votes for each candidate ... so fairness is a matter of perspective. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 16:59, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with both EMS and Ben Aveling. There should be some criteria for not letting newbies run for Arbcom. It's bad for voters and it's bad for candidates. One year, 1,000 edits seems fine. JoaoRicardotalk 20:46, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
While I'm not opposed to having such criteria, one year is far too restrictive. Dmcdevit, currently one of the top runners, would have qualified only by a month; his first edit was on December 2, 2004. Nandesuka (March 27, 2005), Redwolf (April 20, 2005), and Phroziac (June 2, 2005) also currently meet the 50% minimum. —Cryptic (talk) 07:44, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Display of results

I was, out of curiosity, visiting the voting page... and felt quite surprised to have to visit one page after another to have an idea of results :-( (of course, it makes sense to have individual voting page for each candidate given the amazing number of people interested in doing this rather tiring job). Would there be a way to follow the voting process and to estimate who will be most supported by the community ? Anthere 23:54, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is; see http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/arbcom. Do you think we should add a link to that page? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The results it gives seem to change rather fast in both dirrections.Geni 00:10, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
yes, if accurate, certainly :-) Anthere
I've added some suffrage-checking code just for fun. If you do want to link to the tool more directly, I maybe should move the suffrage checking to a different URL, because it's somewhat error-prone. But the counts themselves should be spot-on now that I made some code changes, as far as I can tell, it's been working well for the past 4 hours. --Interiot 08:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The tool appears to be slightly lagging (down up to 20 votes in my case) but according to the note on the page, it should be cleared up soon. —Ilyanep (Talk) 00:45, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The tool relies upon a mySQL database which is subject to a variable replication lag. In addition, issues of caching will cause it to be a little out of date also. Rob Church Talk 01:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Again, an alternative tool is User:Mathbot/Results. It is run every hour, so there is a one hour lag, but in current conditions seems to be more accurate than the SQL tool (at the moment, Mindspillage has 173 support votes, my tool shows up 172, and the SQL tool 114). Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, it should be 100% fixed now, it's now 100% realtime. --Interiot 03:31, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Z.Spy has withdrawn

Z.Spy has withdrawn his candidacy per this edit in response to a message on talk from freestylefrappe. Is there some special procedure in place for withdrawals, as in should it be done by an admin who has not voted? - BanyanTree 02:45, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Delt with.Geni 02:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

prospective size of the arbcom

how many people will be in the arbcom? My voting behaviour will depend on that. If the arbcom is large, I will concentrate on opposing people I don't want to see in the arbcom. If it is small, I will concentrate on supporting people I do want to see on the arbcom. dab (ᛏ) 10:46, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

that rather a difficult question to answer while there are 5/6 seats (I can't remeber the exact number off hand) up for election the rate of drop outs that we are likely to get means that all of the top ten have a good chance of ending up on arbcom at some point.Geni 10:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to focus on where you'll make a difference then I suggest you vote for or against everyone between 5 and 15, as appropriate. Regards, Ben Aveling 11:00, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are eight seats definitely up for election. As I read the main election page, there's a possibility that ArbCom might be expanded assuming more people gain majority approval, but it hasn't been decided pending the election outcome. FWIW, I calculate that as of now, the eighth most popular candidate has 77% support, and there are a total of 24 candidates with majority support. David | Talk 16:57, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

where do you get these numbers, short of looking at 65 subpages? Yes, it would make sense to enlarge the arbcom, seeing their backlog. Arbitration is scaleable, you just form several "courts" that take up cases according to their capacity, it wouldn't hurt to have 15 arbitrators, provided they are 15 good, trusted people. dab (ᛏ) 18:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I actually have been looking at 65 subpages, before I noticed that two people have written scripts to do it! (see above). In fact it's interesting to compare what would have happened if the election had been on the old system, when you could only vote in favour of candidates, not against them. One particular candidate, who has a majority against her at present, is in eighth position on the total number of votes in favour. As for enlarging ArbCom, a higher power will take that decision after the election finishes, as I understand it. David | Talk 18:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Date

Those who are able to edit the article, please add links to the dates.

Random candidate order for future elections

I'd like to float the suggestion (albeit it may not be in the right place) that for future large candidate list elections such as this, that the name-order be randomised rather than alphabetical. I'm basing this on my own growing fatigue at reading through each of the candidates' statements/questions one after another-- which means the lower down, the more likely the candidate is to be given short shrift-- but also on the real-world research which shows that there is positional bias in elections for candidates with names near the top. California court, for example, held that alphabetical listing was unconstitutional, and the state legislature enacted a requirement for randomisation in 1975. [1] (California Election Code Section 13112)

—LeFlyman 18:39, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The above all apply to situations where you can only vote in favor of the candidate. There doesn't appear to be much of a correlation between alpha bet position and the amount of support you recive at present.Geni 19:02, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for pointing out the significant difference. However, the core of my contention is that the order candidates are placed results in decreasing attention for those lower down the list. The Princeton paper noted above found that even randomized, the candidate nearest the top would gain more support/votes, due in part to what they called "cognitive cost": "Our results are largely consistent with... a simple cognitive cost model of voting, where ballot order effects are due to cognitive costs of processing each candidate." Randomization would reduce the benefit of having a Wikipedia moniker which comes earlier in the alphabet-- although it wouldn't answer the benefit of being earlier in a list of candidates. To see if the cognitive cost is an issue here, we would merely need to wait until final results and count the amount of support/opposition comments each candidate has, with a focus principally on "unknown" candidates, and compare those to name position. —LeFlyman 19:34, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, the user with the most votes right now is Mindspillage who is about halfway down the list if not further. —Ilyanep (Talk) 20:28, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The concern would be most visible in lesser known candidates (as I noted above). Wikipedians will naturally respond first to those whose monikers they recognise, and then move onto those whose they don't. Now, whether this really matters (i.e. in terms of "fairness") is certainly a viable question; perhaps unknown candidates don't deserve recognition and no matter how the list is structured, they're not going to get votes anyway. But one might just as well say that this could be likened to a popularity contest, rather than an election based on qualifications, with an intent that all candidates receive equal attention/opportunity.--LeFlyman 20:50, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Users Without Suffrage

Interiot's tool shows some users that may not have suffrage; could some people check up on that? —Ilyanep (Talk) 02:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone through and marked some that the tool had red-flagged. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 02:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:blankfaze withdrew

User:blankfaze have posted a statement of withdrawal on his voting page. Can an admin please update Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Vote and his voting page. -- KTC 04:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dealt with. —Nightstallion (?) 07:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of inexperienced candidates

I think that it may be helpful to make a list of the inexperienced cadidates, when they joined, the number of edits they had (as of 1/1/06), and the votes that they are getting. I have been thinking of a standard recently of 1 year and 2,500 votes as a qualification for this post. It may be on the high side, but I think that it would be helpful to list all of the current candidates who would fail to fit that bill (as of 1/1/06) and are running. I think that it would do a lot to quantify the need for a standard and help to determine what the standard should be.

I will start the list, but I am looking for the help of others in completing it. Even now I am putting more time into Wikipedia than I should. --EMS | Talk 04:14, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Inexperiencd Candidates for ArbComm
Name First edit Number of editsTemplate:Fn Votes forTemplate:Fn Votes against
Ajwebb 9 October 2005 130 10 111
Aytakin 24 March 2005 580 9 89
DG 21 September 2004 450 9 89
Svartalf 13 November 2004 140 2 49
Z.Spy 6 August 2005 120 1 46

Reminder: This table is currently incomplete.

A possibly better way: Can someone generate a script which would collect this information on all of the candidates? --EMS | Talk 05:53, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Z.Spy withdrew.Geni 13:21, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawn candidates

I'd propose to not only strike them out and replace their candidate statements, but also place them on the very bottom of the table and page. Your thoughts on this? —Nightstallion (?) 07:16, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Candidates voting for themselves

One candidate has recorded a vote supporting themselves, citing the fact that it's not actually prohibited. I don't know if this situation had been thought about before the election. David | Talk 15:59, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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