Revision as of 07:47, 29 August 2020

2020 Arbitration Committee Elections

Status as of 15:21 (UTC), Saturday, 28 December 2024 (Purge)

• Thank you for participating in the 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections. The certified results have been posted.
• You are invited to leave feedback on the election process.

• WP:ACERFC2020

The purpose of this request for comment is to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the December 2020 English Misplaced Pages Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.

Background: In the case of proposals that change existing rules, or that seek to establish new ones, lack of consensus for a change will result in the rules from the 2019 election remaining in force. Some issues are not covered by the existing rules but will need to be decided one way or another for the operation of the election, in those cases it will be up to the closer to figure out a result, even if there is no clear consensus, as they have had to in the past.

Structure: This RfC is divided into portions, each of which contains a discussion point for the community. The standard RfC structure will be used, in which any user may make a general statement that other users may endorse if they so agree. The points will be listed in the table of contents below, along with the users who have made statements.

Per the consensus developed in previous requests for comment, the electoral commission timetable is as follows:

• Nominations: Saturday 00:00, 3 October – Friday 23:59, 9 October (7 days)
• Evaluation period: Saturday 00:00, 10 October – Friday 23:59, 16 October (7 days)
• Commission selection: completed by Friday 00:00, 23 October

Per the consensus developed in previous request for comments, the arbitration committee election timetable is as follows:

• Nominations: Sunday 00:00, 8 November – Tuesday 23:59, 17 November (10 days)
• Setup period: Wednesday 00:00, 18 November to Sunday 23:59, 22 November (5 days)
• Voting period: Tuesday 00:00, 23 November to Monday 23:59, 6 December (14 days)
• Scrutineering: Begins Tuesday 0:00, 3 December

Anyone is free to raise any new topics that they feel need to be addressed by adding them as level two headers.

Duration: In order to preserve the timeline of the election (see above), we should aim to close this RfC as soon as 30 days have passed, i.e. on or after September 30, 2020. The results will determine the structure, rules, and procedures for the election.

Use the following format below; post a new statement at the BOTTOM of the section in which you want to make a statement. New statements must also have an opposing statement, or the option to oppose the statement. Endorse by adding a hash symbol (#) and your signature.

===Statement #N by ]===
Comment ~~~~
==== Users who endorse statement #N: ====
#~~~~

Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

Points of discussion

Guides

Statement #1a by Rschen7754

Candidates in the election are not allowed to write voter guides.

Rationale

This is a conflict of interest. Openly disclosing this conflict of interest and declining to support oneself in the guide does not resolve this and does not prevent more insidious forms of canvassing. (For example, if I was running in the election and used my guide to oppose Newyorkbrad, nobody would take me seriously. But I could use my guide to encourage voters to not support candidates who are on the "bubble" between being elected and not elected and thus improve my own chances - and this would be very difficult to prove or rectify.) Rschen7754 00:07, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #1a:

1. ~~~~

Statement #1b Thryduulf

Any editor may write a voter guide.

Rationale

This is the status quo. Thryduulf (talk) 12:38, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #1b:

Statement #2a by Thryduulf (guides)

In the case of dispute about the content of an election guide, the election commissioners are empowered to make a binding decision for the purpose of ensuring a fair election and compliance with acceptable uses of election guides. Such decisions are to be based on core Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines, Arbitration Committee Election RFC decisions and their own discretion.

Rationale

Last year there was such a dispute but it was unclear what the process was and who had the the ability to make decisions about what was and was not an acceptable use of the guide. Thryduulf (talk) 10:01, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #2a:

Statement #2b by Thryduulf (guides)

There should not be any specific rules regarding disputed content in election guides.

Rationale

This is the status quo. Thryduulf (talk) 12:38, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #2b:

Statement #3 by Thryduulf (guides)

Election commissioners may, at their discretion, enforce their decisions regarding guides by:

• 3.1 Removing content from guides, including (partially) blanking a guide
• 3.2 Adding official commentary to guides
• 3.3 Removing a guide from official templates and/or categories
• 3.4 Protecting a guide (at any level of protection)
• 3.5 Deleting a guide or one or more of its revisions
• 3.6 Taking administrative action against a guide's author. Such action may not extend beyond 1 week after the posting of results, but may be shorter.
• 3.7 None of the above

Rationale

These are supplements to Statement 2a and as such if that statement fails to gain consensus all of these statements will automatically fail. Each statement is independent and one passing does not mean another does or does not pass. Thryduulf (talk) 10:01, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #3.1:

Users who endorse statement #3.2:

Users who endorse statement #3.3:

Users who endorse statement #3.4:

Users who endorse statement #3.5:

Users who endorse statement #3.6:

Users who endorse statement #3.7:

Statement #4a by Thryduulf (guides)

Candidates have the right of reply to comments about them made in election guides.

Rationale

Last year it was argued that some comments in election guides were vindictive or misleading but it was unclear whether candidates had the right to respond to such comments. Thryduulf (talk) 10:01, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #4a:

Statement #4b by Thryduulf (guides)

Candidates do not have an explicit right of reply to comments about them made in election guides.

Rationale

This is the status quo. Candidates may comment on talk pages of guides but the guide author is not obliged to respond or add their comments to the guide itself. Thryduulf (talk) 12:38, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #4b:

Statement #5a by Thryduulf (guides)

The content of election guides must comply with all relevant Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines, including but not limited to Misplaced Pages:No personal attacks and Misplaced Pages:Casting aspersions.

Rationale

This should be obvious, but there were accusations last year that some guide authors were not doing this. Thryduulf (talk) 10:01, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #5a:

Statement #5b by Thryduulf (guides)

There should be no explicit requirement for election guides to comply with policies and guidelines.

Rationale

This is the status quo. Thryduulf (talk) 12:38, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #5b:

Statement #6a by Thryduulf (guides)

Only guide authors may add guides to official templates or categories for guides.

Rationale

Last year there were disputes about this. Thryduulf (talk) 10:01, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #6a:

Statement #6b by Thryduulf (guides)

Only election commissioners may add guides to official templates or categories for guides.

Rationale

This would prevent disputes about what is and is not an official guide, and would ensure only those guides which met the requirements were included in official templates and categories. Thryduulf (talk) 12:38, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #6b:

Statement #6c by Thryduulf (guides)

Any editor may add guides to official templates or categories for guides.

Rationale

This is the status quo. Thryduulf (talk) 12:38, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #6c:

Statement #7a by SchroCat

Editors are dissuaded from keeping online guides to candidates

Rationale

Guides are frequently thinly disguised attack pages against individuals and groups and contain personal attacks; such guides breach WP:POLEMIC. The gudies are of questionable use - people do not need to be told how to vote by someone they don't really know, who may be working to a different agenda.

Users who endorse statement #7a:

1. ~~~~

Statement #7b by SchroCat

Editors are allowed to have an online guide to candidates in their userspace

Rationale

This is the status quo

Users who endorse statement #7b:

1. ~~~~

Statement #8a by SchroCat

User guides to the candidates will not be advertised on the ACE banner.

Rationale

With an official guide summarising information about the candidate, why do people need to be told how to vote by someone they don't really know, who may be working to a different agenda or be carrying inherent grudges against, or favouritism for, particular candidates. Officially advertising user guides, which may breach WP:POLEMIC, seems unwise.

Users who endorse statement #8a:

1. ~~~~

Statement #8b by SchroCat

User guides to the candidates will be advertised on the ACE banner.

Rationale

This is the status quo

Users who endorse statement #8b:

1. ~~~~

Withdrawn candidates

Statement #1 by Wugapodes

Show withdrawn or disqualified candidates on the candidates page.

Rationale

Status quo. All nominees are listed regardless of when or how they stopped being a candidate.

Users who endorse statement #1

1. ~~~~

Statement #2 by Wugapodes

Show withdrawn or disqualified candidates on the candidates page unless their questions page can be or has been deleted under WP:G7.

Rationale

If a candidate withdraws or is disqualified without having interacted with anyone, there's no real point in listing them. Whether the question page is eligible for G7 seems the easiest metric for whether they've actually interacted with voters as a candidate.

Users who endorse statement #2

1. ~~~~

Statement #3 by Wugapodes

Do not show withdrawn or disqualified candidates on the candidates page.

Rationale

Clutters the page with unnecessary information. If we can't vote for them, why list them?

Users who endorse statement #3

1. ~~~~

Nomination timing

Statement #1 by xaosflux (nomination timing)

The self-nomination will only be considered completed if both the nomination page has been created, and the page has been properly transcluded to the candidates page prior to the cut-off time as recorded by the server. Candidate directions should suggest not attempting to perform this activity very close to the cut-off time, so there will be time to recover should any user or technical errors occur.

Rationale

Following up from last year when the commissioners had to make a decision regarding incomplete last-minute nominations by reevaluating the 2015 RfC notes. — xaosflux 02:15, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #1:

Statement #2 by xaosflux (nomination timing)

A self-nomination may be considered completed if the candidate makes any effort to complete the process prior to the cut off time.

Rationale

This is in opposition to statement #1 above.

Users who endorse statement #2:

1. ~~~~

Voter suffrage - "renamed" accounts

Statement #1 by xaosflux (renamed accounts)

Exclude users with usernames beginning with Vanished user... or Renamed user... from eligibility to vote.

Rationale

Such users have purposefully departed from participating in Misplaced Pages with that account, and as such usernames are afoul of the username policy should not even be editing under such names. This was a carry over from last year about why we were mass-messaging these accounts to vote, but instead of fixing that by suppressing their advertisement a better fix is to simply not include them in the voter rolls. — xaosflux 02:53, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #1:

1. ~~~~

Statement #2 by xaosflux (renamed accounts)

Allow users with usernames beginning with Vanished user... or Renamed user... eligibility to vote.

Users who endorse statement #2:

1. ~~~~

Voter suffrage - fulfilling requirements under multiple accounts

Statement #1 by xaosflux (multiple accounts)

For purposes of determining voter eligibility factors related to tenure, edits, or edit timing all required factors must be met using the same named user account.

Rationale

Last year there were questions/requests from some ineligible voters if they may claim and combine actions performed under multiple usernames to meet qualifications. Such allowances would complicate the creation of the voter rolls, and claimed activity across multiple accounts belonging to the same person can be difficult to independently verify. — xaosflux 02:34, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #1:

1. ~~~~

Statement #2 by xaosflux (multiple accounts)

An editor may combine tenure, edits, or edit timing from any number of named user accounts to meet eligibility requirements.

Rationale

This is the opposite of Statement #1. Note: this would require someone (the commissioners likely) to evaluate such requests on a case-by-case basis and have staffers manually add such accounts to the secure poll rolls. — xaosflux 12:03, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #2:

1. ~~~~

Electoral Commission - Arbcom confirmation requirement

Statement #1 by xaosflux (Commission confirmation)

Repeal the Appointments to the Commission should be confirmed by the Arbitration Committee per the CheckUser policy. requirement.

Rationale

The Electoral Commission is not given access to CheckUser tools or data, and is already specifically not be allowed to assess private matters and/or have access to voter data, and/or related permissions, and will instead defer private matters to the current ArbCom and/or the WMF as needed. — xaosflux 02:52, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #1:

1. ~~~~

Statement #2 by xaosflux (Commission confirmation)

Require the Arbitration Committee to confirm members of the election commission.

Rationale

This is the status-quo.

Users who endorse statement #2:

1. ~~~~

Electoral Commission - Endorsement period

Statement #1 by xaosflux (endorsement period)

During the RfC to select the Election Commissioners, editors may express their endorsement of a commissioner at any time.

Rationale

This is the status-quo. — xaosflux 03:15, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #1:

1. ~~~~

Statement #2 by xaosflux (endorsement period)

During the RfC to select the Election Commissioners, endorsement of a commissioner will not be accepted until the second week of the RfC.

Rationale

Last year it was brought up that commissioner candidates that self-nominated later in the process may be at a disadvantage in collecting endorsements. (Note: in general, commissioners are appointed based on "most endorsed" not as a support:oppose ratio). — xaosflux 03:15, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #2:

1. ~~~~

Questions to candidates

Statement #1a by Thryduulf (questions to candidates)

Impose a limit to the number of questions any editor may ask of a single candidate. This limit includes follow-up questions.

Rationale

Some candidates get asked a bewildering number of questions, some duplicating others. If supporting this statement, please state what you think the limit should be (a specific number or a range). This statement is mutually exclusive with statement #1b so only the one with greatest support can pass (but both may fail). Thryduulf (talk) 10:55, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #1a

Statement #1b by Thryduulf (questions to candidates)

Impose a limit to the number of questions any editor may ask of a single candidate. This limit excludes resonable follow-up questions. In the case of dispute about what is a reasonable follow-up question the Election Commissioner's decision is final.

Rationale

Some candidates get asked a bewildering number of questions, some duplicating others. If supporting this statement, please state what you think the limit should be (a specific number or a range). This statement is mutually exclusive with statement #1a so only the one with greatest support can pass (but both may fail). Thryduulf (talk) 10:55, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #1b

Statement #2 by xaosflux (questions to candidates)

Do not limit the number of questions any editor may ask of a single candidate.

Rationale

This is the status-quo, candidates are not obligated to answer editor questions. — xaosflux 13:46, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #2

Statement #3a by Thryduulf (questions to candidates)

Content explicitly permitted on questions to candidates page is:

• Questions to the individual candidate
• Responses to questions by that candidate (including answers, requests for clarification, etc)
• Reasonable follow-up questions
• Responses to requests for clarification
• Short responses to answers by the person asking the question (e.g. thanks)

Content explicitly prohibited from questions to candidate pages is:

• Statements of policy, philosophy, opinions or other general comments
• Analysis of candidates, questions or answers
• Endorsements or disendorsments of candidates
• Reference to other candidates, except as necessary context for a question, answer or clarification request.
• Personal attacks or aspersions
• Adverts for voter guides or similar pages.

In the case of dispute about whether something is or is not permitted, the Election Commissioners' decision is final.

Rationale

There was dispute last year over what was acceptable to post on a candidates' question pages. This proposal limits it to just questions, answers and things needed to support them. There are other appropriate venues (e.g. candidate discussion pages and election guides) for everything else. Thryduulf (talk) 10:55, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #3a

Statement #3b by Thryduulf (questions to candidates)

There should be no specific rules about what is and is not acceptable on questions to candidates pages

Rationale

This is the status quo. Thryduulf (talk) 12:44, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #3b

Statement #4 by Thryduulf (questions to candidates)

If inappropriate questions, questions in excess of any limit set by statements 1 or 2a, any content prohibited by statement 3a and/or other disputed content is added to the questions to candidates page it may be removed by Election Commissioners, and:

1. The candidate
2. Uninvolved editors
3. Nobody else (i.e. Election Commissioners only)

Rationale

This was again disputed last year. Options 1 and 2 are mutually exclusive with option 3 but not with each other. This statement is not dependent on statements 1, 2 and/or 3 passing as some questions may be inappropriate regardless. Thryduulf (talk) 10:55, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #4.1

Users who endorse statement #4.2

Users who endorse statement #4.3

Order of candidate listing

Statement #1a by Floq (candidate order)

Candidates should be listed on the candidates page (and any other WP-space pages) in a static order that doesn't change upon reloading the page (alphabetical order, chronological order, or something else decided in Statement #2a-c below) rather than using coding magic that randomly reshuffles them each time.

Rationale

The current way the candidates change each time the page is refreshed is disorienting, making it more difficult to match voting guide to candidate list; harder to write a little cheatsheet for oneself on who to vote for; harder to go back to follow discussions you've previously read; and harder to debug the pages when something goes wrong. The benefit to the random order, as I understand it, is the bias of voting for the first person listed, but I find it very hard to believe that occurs here, where each candidate gets a yes/no/neutral vote, and there is no limit to the number of each type of vote. I don't think the theoretical (and, IMHO, questionable) benefit outweighs the cost. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:54, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Users who endorse statement #1a by Floq (candidate order)

1. ~~~~

Statement #1b by Floq (candidate order)

Candidates should be listed randomly on the candidates page (and any other WP-space pages), using coding magic that randomly reshuffles them each time the page is refreshed.

Rationale

This is the status quo.

Users who endorse statement #1b by Floq (candidate order)

1. ~~~~

Statement #2a by Floq (candidate order)

If Statement #1a passes, then the preferred static ordering should be alphabetical order.

Rationale

I believe it's OK to agree with multiple Statements #2a, #2b, etc., as long as you clearly indicate a first and second choice.

Users who endorse statement #2a by Floq (candidate order)

1. ~~~~

Statement #2b by Floq (candidate order)

If Statement #1a passes, then the preferred static ordering should be chronological by order of transclusion of their statement.

Rationale

I believe it's OK to agree with multiple Statements #2a, #2b, etc., as long as you clearly indicate a first and second choice.

Users who endorse statement #2b by Floq (candidate order)

1. ~~~~

Statement #2c by Floq (candidate order)

If Statement #1a passes, then the preferred static ordering should be something besides that described in #2a or #2b.

Rationale

I can't think of any, but just to be safe....

Users who endorse statement #2c by Floq (candidate order)

1. ~~~~

Statement #3a by Floq (candidate order)

If Statement #1a passes, the order of candidates on the voting page (i.e. the ballot) should be the same as the order of the candidates on the WP pages.

Rationale

Per the rationale described in #1a.

Users who endorse statement #3a by Floq (candidate order)

1. ~~~~

Statement #3b by Floq (candidate order)

If Statement #1a passes, the order of candidates on the voting page (i.e. the ballot) should still be randomized.

Rationale

Breaking it out separately in case there's a good reason I can't think of to have the ballot be a different order than the candidate list.

Users who endorse statement #3b by Floq (candidate order)

1. ~~~~

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