Knowledge:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December 2024

157:: 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 2023 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. 1669:

scrutineers will consciously let this affect them, but I think it would akin to there being bad weather during your scheduled jogging time: it subtly nudges you into putting it off. Thus I think the community will have to expect that having some votes examined < N times would not be a rare situation. Given the past history of the results of scrutineering, of course, a double-check of each vote may be perfectly reasonable versus a triple-check.

1737:, speaking as someone who'd otherwise support this proposal, your experience is giving me pause. isaacl is saying above that this proposal would not lengthen the pre-scrutineering process. If I'm understanding it right, the lack of a deadline for the scrutineering period means that the length of that period is not directly affected by this proposal. Which part of the process might feel more drawn out under this proposal, and why? 1804:

deadlines. While there is no explicit recent activity requirement, this can be judged by those commenting on the nomination. An editor blocked from the Knowledge or Knowledge talk namespaces would not in practice be able to undertake the role (there is no requirement for only self-nominations, and someone blocked only from Knowledge talk could self-nominate so I feel it is a useful provision to have).

51: 4215:

judgement, so it may be more time-effective to let them exercise it when situations arise. On the other hand, given the amount of pressure that may be exerted by those seeking results to be released earlier, it may be helpful to have some general principles in place to help the commissioners avoid prematurely making exceptions to the usual process.

3774:

and that the table produced by the WMF resource (and published on-wiki) matches the system data. This last part is normally fast, but requires the volunteer scrutineer to be available and to act. Some sort of guardrail for this proposal may be wise, such as a minimum wait period and/or requiring electcom to declare the inactive state. —

2813:: the 3 candidates with the most endorsements will be selected as commissioners; additional candidates exceeding 50% of the endorsements of the third place candidate will be selected as reserve commissioners; variances and exceptions, including ties, will be resolved by the RFC closer using the standard consensus-building process. 116: 3339:

when one scrutineer was initially unavailable for certification (although they eventually became available and certified the results). Requiring only a majority (rather than all) of the scrutineers to certify the election to make the results official would prevent a similar situation from happening again.

4065:

I've been watching the discussion below, and I think we have reached the point where I might as well oppose this formally. It doesn't look like it's moving close enough to a revision that would fix it, and I'm not convinced that it would be simple to fix. I also agree with those in the discussion who

3338:

makes no mention of how the election results are certified. Current practice requires all three scrutineers to certify the results for them to be made official, however this can cause problems when one scrutineer is unavailable towards the end of the scrutineering period. This was the case last year,

3254:

Agree, this is one of the more pleasant "elections" we have and wouldn't want to spoil that! The process is vulnerable to apathy (i.e. small number of candidates, having only inexperienced/controversial candidates, having small number of !voters), but I'm not trying to address that with this proposal

3035:

I can't find the page right now, but as I remember from last year we had an eager but somewhat unexperienced volunteer (whose efforts were nonetheless appreciated) close the RFC with some unexpected results regarding the reserve commissioners. It all worked out in the end, but having better guidance

2796:

The current process for selecting the Electoral Commission is to hold an RFC. Historical convention is that this RFC only collects endorsements. The criteria for selecting commissioners from the RFC is not defined, but traditionally is to appoint the 3 volunteers with the most endorsements, appoint 0

1063:

Many years, someone proposes that the support percentage should include the neutral votes in the denominator, and commenters explain that the neutral option is an abstain out of practicality, so all the approval votes for each candidate can be bundled together into one ballot. Using the more accurate

3802:

I too would like some sort of safeguard here, and I think that requiring one of the scrutineers to have been inactive for (5? 7?) days and/or have communicated their unavailability to electcom would be better than what is proposed. If the majority was 3 or 4 of 5 scrutineers I'd be more likely to be

4214:

as much as possible. There are too many variations that can come up with each specific set of circumstances, and the time spent working out hypotheticals seems disproportionate to the amount of time that would be spent in practice by the election commissioners. We're picking commissioners for their

2053:

A bummer then that the least significant part of the proposal is enough to get me to oppose it. If all you'd done is require extended confirm at the point of nomination - the thing that you were trying to fix from last year - I wouldn't be here. On the whole I have more trust in processes with more

2024:

It seems incredibly unlikely the community would elect someone banned from Knowledge and/or Knowledge talk name spaces. But if they did it's likely to be done with a greater number of editors than will support this RfC (winning election commissioners mostly get more supports than successful ACE RFC

4116:

As far as I'm aware, the election commission cannot tell who is participating in scrutineering (or indeed whether anyone is) other than by scrutineers communicating with the election commission e.g. regarding any issues they discover (and it's possible that one scrutineer may take a lead on this).

3999:

If a scrutineer has not participated in scrutineering for the previous seven days, or they have communicated their unavailability, ElectCom may designate them as inactive. In the event that a scrutineer is inactive for certification, the Election Committee may use their discretion to allow for the

3773:

To be clear the part in scope here occurs after the voter scrutineering is done. At that point the WMF resource runs the decryption/tallying routine and produce the results. The scrutineers are able to access the system tally, and are asked to certify that the tally has the correct number of votes

2412:

I cannot see myself voting for anyone blocked from enwiki at the time of their nomination/selection, but I remain aligned with Barkeep49 that voters should be free to select such users. Raising the editing threshold to extended confirmed status to match the criteria for candidates, rather than the

2217:

We may be being distracted by a minor aspect of the proposal, but since it's been made, let me ask: How many editors are there who are blocked from the WP namespace (but not more generally)? Off the top of my head I can't think of anyone, and I'd certainly be surprised if the number reaches double

2076:

that we should narrowly tailor our solution. Asking Electoral Commission members to meet ArbCom voter eligibility guidelines that cannot be assessed until after they are selected is illogical. However, Barkeep49 is correct that since the ArbCom RfC has low participation, we should make the simpler

1616:

Note one reason for some buffer time before the start of nominations is that the overall election process is not officially determined until consensus for the elections RfC has been evaluated, so time to adjust to any changes needs to be allocated. (Ideally, proposals made during the RfC will take

645:

This is more clear in the actual effect of the vote. Unlike at RFA, there is no explanation of a chosen position, no chance to sway others with a comment attached to a neutral vote, or to vote neutral with "moral support" or whatever, it is just the absence of an opinion on the candidate, and this

4195:

Proceeding with a missing scrutineer sounds like reducing the overall level of oversight. Even if this proposal applies only after the main scrutineering work is done, it still means less eyes on the process. Creating rules piecemeal for extraordinary situations makes the process more complicated

3938:

The intent behind the proposal was to accomodate for the latter scenario, although I suppose my wording could be abused to override an objection, as Roy mentions above. If ElectCom get to decide when the results are certified, it might be better to leave it for them to deal with on a case-by-case

3675:

Lack of unanimous support due to the inactivity on the part of one of the scrutineers is very different than lack of unanimous support because one of the scrutineers has concerns with the results. Both are problematic, but the second one especially so. I don't think the inactivity issue occurring

3454:

Essentially, the majority requirement should only come into force if the third editor has made no objections. The current wording does not protect against valid objections being ignored. Furthermore, there is no particular definition of what "inactive" means and I would like to see some kind of X

4174:

The key difference is that in proposal 5a it is electcom determining whether a scrutineer is actively scrutineering (even though there is no way to know that) in the above it is the other scrutineers (who I believe can know) doing that determining with the electcom just acting as a check against

3923:

I think the situation where an absent scrutineer hasn't communicated with anyone is a bigger problem, though, than the case where they have and thus their planned availability can be accommodated. If we are enacting guidance on when to proceed without the certification from a scrutineer, then it

3785:

I'm concerned about just requiring a majority. Consider the case of two scrutineers certifying but the third raising valid objections and being out-voted. That would be not a good situation. Something like "a majority of the available scrutineers with no dissent" would be more workable. And,

2277:

Scrutineers see checkuser-like data when scrutineering (as I understand it, at least some of it is essential to do the job). Being 18+ and signing the access to non-public data policy is a requirement the Foundation makes before allowing access to such data (I suspect at least in part for legal

4159:

I'm struggling to see how your (b) differs from the first sentence of the proposal beyond spelling it out a bit more. The proposal as written does give ElectCom the discretion on whether to declare a scrutineer inactive ("may designate"), and also on whether to proceed with two scrutineers for

1204:

As background, in 2023, the results of the arbitration elections were not released until December 30. This required a very quick turnaround to get the new arbitrators on board, which can be difficult to ensure when all participants are volunteers, and with people often busy at the end of year.

4145:- for starters it is likely this can be simplified (my proposals usually can be) and time periods would need agreeing. One reason for giving the commission discretion is that if it's only a short time until the inactive scrutineer indicted they will be available again they may choose to wait. 1685:

If by "process" you are referring to the nomination, fallow, and election periods, this proposal won't lengthen them. Proposals to shorten the nomination period and election period have failed in recent years, but of course a new proposal can be made. As long as scrutineering is being done by

1668:

about trying to make the scrutineering process finish more quickly. One of the ideas was to appoint five scrutineers but only require results from three. One thing I see with an X out of N approach is that it disincentivizes the remaining N-X volunteers from completing the task. I don't think

4066:

say that this is something where we don't need to spell everything out in detail. If in the future we find that inactive scrutineers have become an ongoing problem, then we should revisit this issue, but for now, it hasn't risen to the point of being something that has happened frequently. --

3049: 1803:

The proposed criteria are stricter than the requirements to vote, but the role is mostly about solving problems and we really want experienced editors for that. Requiring extended confirmed status automatically imposes an experience and edit count requirement without regard to election-based

1794: 1715:

Yes. The proposal states what would change in the rules—the start date of the nomination period—leaving all of the durations specified in the rules the same. This would have the stated effect of giving more time for transition to the new arbitrators. You can see the sample dates for 2024.

2054:

participants and as this process has less participation than the election for the EC, I'd rather let that consensus of editors decide nuances like this. And that's beyond the fact that being blocked from Knowledge/WT is itself a moving target, which is the issue that thread raised. Best,

3919:

If the scope starts after the scrutineering is completed (and thus after any invalid votes have been rejected) and just involves certifying the count and the result table, I don't think we need more than two people to check. I do agree though that if there is a dispute, it ought to be

1686:

volunteers, it's difficult to ensure that it will happen faster, except by reducing their workload. That would probably mean either enhancing the SecurePoll software to be able to verify more voting eligibility criteria, or dropping some criteria that can't be verified automatically.

1649:

I'd agree with the idea of shortening it as well but consensus for such things has been hard to come by in the past. And yes the scrutineers are out of our control. I'm wondering if a 2 of 3 agree and are finished for at least X days would work to account for an inactive scrutineer?

82: 1631:

The late release of the results last year was due to the unavailability of one of the scrutineers. Better to tweak the rules to allow for that. From my perspective as one of the candidates last year, the process was very drawn-out and I'd rather see it shortened than lengthened.

1700:

I want to make sure that I understand this proposal correctly. Am I right that this would start the nomination period earlier, but the duration of the nomination period would remain the same as it is now, and the duration of the voting period would remain the same as it is now?

2610:

I don't mean the rules changing, I mean determining who meets the current rules as eligibility is partly determined by the number of edits by 1 November and within 1 year of 1 November, which is obviously unknowable until after the electoral commission is selected in October.

284:

The arbitration committee election is essentially approval votes on each candidate running in parallel, bundled into one ballot for convenience. The third option allows voters to choose to abstain from participating in one or more votes, while still participating in others.

3556:

Someone who vanishes without contact to the rest of the world is unable to communicate the results of their previous work. That means that the next guy has to start all over again, and someone who is potentially new to the job of scrutineering. This is precisely the same.

3575:

In order to ensure as little delay as possible, the extra scrutineers would have to participate in the scrutineering from the start, which would make them regular scrutineers, and so the community would still have to agree to an X out of N scrutineers reporting scenario.

3880:

The default is for the community to decide on issues that arise, as per English Knowledge's decision-making traditions. The electoral commission was created to address questions that need to be resolved more expeditiously. Issues with certification fit this scenario.

2200:

I addressed this in the background section of the proposal: Someone blocked from the Knowledge namespace could not nominate themselves, but someone blocked from the Knowledge talk namespace could. There is also no requirement for nominations to be self-nominations.

163:: 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 148: 125: 4101:

Since the scrutineers' job is to double check the private votes and compile the results, how would ElectCom be able to tell whether a scrutineer was participating in scrutineering? It does not seem like the scrutineering process is publicly visible.

2797:

or more reservists, and possibly not appoint some applicants. Proposing adding this criteria and closing guidance. While the selection is an RFC, having a guideline for the closing editor helps to ensure consistent results regardless of the closer.

2292:

Certain unexpected situations may expose the electcom to private info, if everything goes normal they will not see any - but if they end up getting exposed having them agree to secrecy (and not be excluded for WMF reasons) is desirable. —

224:== Proposal #: Proposal name == Neutral description of proposal. ~~~~ === Support proposal #: proposal name === # Additional comments here ~~~~ === Oppose proposal #: proposal name === # === Comments for proposal #: proposal name === * 1665: 289: 3708:

scrutineers". There's a big difference between "One of the scrutineers hasn't certified the results because no one has heard from them in weeks" and "One of the scrutineers has not certified because they have concerns about them."

3239:

This looks fine; my only concern is instruction creep about the Electoral Commission selection building up over the years, until it approaches the formidable complexity of the ArbCom election itself. Let's try to avoid that.

3633:

Oppose as written as it does not allow for dissent effectively per Dreamy. Also, the Electoral Commission already have discretion to resolve issues that come up. To me, a scrutineer being unavailable is one of those issues.

4244: 2077:

change of requiring commission members to have 150 mainspace edits on enwiki by 1 October, 10 live enwiki edits within one year before 1 October, and not be prevented from submitting their candidacy by a block or ban.

472:

Sure, this is really what it is and won't change other processes, the election coordinators need to make sure that the configuration resource (usually WMF) changes that name on the poll from the default value. —

4211: 3817:

That makes sense. What about if ElectCom was given the ability to declare a scrutineer inactive if they haven't taken any actions in five days, and instead of needing a majority, requiring unanimous support of

2639:

not blocked/banned is reasonable, and I'm not seeing any real benefit in leaving it out. The point about not knowing until the commission is selected strikes me as over-thinking it. I still support proposal 3.

1972:

I don't have problem with being explicit about the block and ban issue. While it's common sense and may not be necessary to mention, it's nonetheless useful for completeness and avoidance of any confusion. –

519:

Yeah; i've voted in a good number of these elections and i usually have to think through the process and what neutral means; a very small change, but it wouldn't hurt to be a little clearer. Happy days, ~

2136:

I read those, but since I had no idea what makes a person eligible to vote until I clicked through to the link you provided, I thought it might be helpful to spell that out right here on this page. --

3987:

An alternative to proposal 5, with some more safeguarding. I've followed the discussion above and it seems that there is enough support for the idea to give it another shot with different wording.

4120:

The election commission may at their discretion choose to accept certification from two active scrutineers, provided they (electcom) are unaware of any opposition to certification and either:

3866:

If changing the certification requirements is seen to be reasonably within ElectCom's remit then this proposal is moot. I didn't interpret that clause as allowing them to, hence the proposal.

505:"Neutral" sounds as if voting neutral on everyone had any influence on the result, for example by decreasing support percentages. That's not the case, though, so "neutral" can be misleading. 2566:

I don't think we should reduce the current requirements by allowing even those barred from voting to be commissioners (I'm OK with adding that they be ECP to the current requirements). —

4239: 293: 143: 4123:(a) One scrutineer has informed the election commission of their unavailability after certain date/during a certain period and it is currently after that date/within that period; or 4004:

This is intended to address the concerns above about (1) the possiblity of overriding an active and dissenting scrutineer and (2) what qualifies as being inactive in this context.

1078:

This. It is very easy to assume that when "x% support is required to pass" it would be S/(all votes), not S/(S+O); especially as most other processes on-wiki function as !votes. —

805:

Although removing the option altogether would even be better. The choice to abstain is always there (by simply not voting) whether this placeholder option is provided or not. –

2100:

It would probably be helpful for RfC participants if you clearly outlined the changes here rather than just the outcome (ie, show what the requirements are at present). --

984:

Kind of confusing for me, I honestly don't know the difference between 'neutral' and 'abstain', and don't know the need to replace it. I also agree with OlifanofmrTennant.

1208:(*) Note due to the requirement that the voting period start on the second business day of the week, the fallow period is at least one more day than the specified 5 days. 2661:

I'm proposing this because the final clause is proving unexpectedly contentious (it received no comments in the 10 or so months since it was suggested on the talk page).

2259:

They may need to view private data in the course of their duties overseeing the election, particularly if there are concerning accounts identified during scrutineering.

1187: 1186:

To allow for more buffer time when transitioning to a new arbitration committee, it is proposed to start the nomination process one week earlier. In context of

4000:

results to be made official without that scrutineer's certification. All opining scrutineers are required to certify the results for them to become official.

2364:

to Proposal 3. I do see the benefit in making it making it so that those who cannot in practice undertake the role cannot stand, but I can live without it.

3604:

It's how some alternates work... In that case, the concept of a majority out of N scrutineers reporting is in alignment with your concept of alternates.

1746: 3426:

I have to oppose it in this form, due to the issue raised by RoySmith, below: there could be one member dissenting, as opposed to being inactive. --

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stated that there would be an abstain option, the poll was configured with a neutral option, and this has remained the defacto third option since.

264: 1093:

I basically agree. I'm not strongly opposed to this, but I'm unclear that it solves a problem. I'm a big fan of "if it ain't broke don't fix it".

2181:

I know this is shocking, but not everyone is well-versed in the nomination process for the ACE electoral commisssion, so if I may ask:is it even

1269:

A 48 hour turnaround is less than ideal. (I would support bringing it back an additional week, too; adjusting the other timeframes by one week.)

998:

Well, neutral is "I don't care" or "I don't have an opinion either way", while abstain is "I'm not going to vote". There's a subtle difference.

1936:

I agree the blocked clause is unnecessary, but not a deal breaker for me to support this. Would support another amendment to remove this. ~ 🦝

239:

to implement this change, with the main reasoning that "abstain" is more precise than "neutral", particularly due to the effect of such votes.

167:, along with the users who have made statements. Anyone is free to raise any new topics that they feel need to be addressed by filling out the 3624:

Doesn't account for dissent. Set the quorum to be the majority, but the decision of those present must be unanimous. Also, as SmokeyJoe said.—

3524:

I doubt this would be helpful to fixing issues of timeliness or missing scrutineers after the scrutineer has started their work. See also the

4080:

Per my comments below, I think this has serious problems but the comments from Tryptofish have tipped me over the line to formally opposing.

968:

Can you clarify what listed comments you are referring to? The arbitration committee election ballot doesn't have a way to provide comments.

281:

To better reflect the effect of not choosing support or oppose, the third option (other than support or oppose) is proposed to be "abstain".

3303: 2768: 2039:

That's the least significant part of the proposal, which is made to address the real issues encountered last year (see linked discussion).

1158: 253: 1795:

Knowledge talk:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December 2023/Electoral Commission#Qualifications for the commission?

4132:

electcom have not had contact with that scrutineer within that same time period (other than to inform them of their unavailability), and

4117:

This means that I don't think the first part of the first sentence (the key part) is workable. What would work would be something like:

3841:

The three-member Electoral Commission ... are responsible for addressing any unforeseen problems that may arise in the election process

3757: 3179: 2937: 1385:

Even if the timeline of the previous election was a one-time thing, the end result would be more onboarding time for incoming arbs. -

1274: 912: 875: 433: 3354:

The majority of active (non-alternate) scrutineers are required to certify the election results in order for them to become official.

3289:

this proposal, with the main reason being the possibility of a valid rejection being outvoted, which could lead to a lack in trust.

3213: 1599: 934: 1144:

to implement this change, with the main reasoning that the extra time would be a helpful buffer period for the onboarding process.

1255:

Earlier on boarding is a more successful onboarding and (in my experience) can have a huge impact on that arbs entire term. Best,

343:

The way neutral votes are counted has occasionally caused confusion in the past, so this is a tiny, but real, improvement, IMHO.

3667: 3343: 3000: 2488: 2453: 1928: 1363: 609: 4135:

attempts by the electcom to contact that scrutineer directly have not been successful for a further n days (circa 2-3 probably)

3645: 3128: 792: 55: 2333:

Open to anyone who is over 18, meets Foundation's Access to nonpublic personal data policy, and otherwise be eligible to vote.

2120:

Open to anyone who is over 18, meets Foundation's Access to nonpublic personal data policy, and otherwise be eligible to vote.

1799:

Open to anyone who is over 18, meets Foundation's Access to nonpublic personal data policy, and otherwise be eligible to vote.

3022:

The (a) part has been used for many years, the (b) part has been murky, just left to the discretion of the closing editor. —

2122:

It is the last part that mainly caused the issues as who is eligible to vote is determined after the commission is selected.

137: 17: 4210:

I'm of two minds regarding trying to codify specific guidance on this matter. On the one hand, I feel that we should try to

4129:

The active scrutineers tell electcom that they haven't heard from the third scrutineer for n days (circa 5-7 probably), and

3326: