Wikipedia talk:Arbitration policy/proposed amendment revote

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Do the same limits on who may vote (minimum account age and edit count) as on Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Proposed amendment ratification vote apply here? --SPUI (talk) 10:04, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

They shouldn't. I'd previously added a clause "...obvious sockpuppet accounts shall have their votes not counted", but it seems to have been lost. It's there now in any case. -- Grunt   ҈  15:17, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)

Contents 1 100 Vote minimum 2 B1 - highlighting of changes 3 What about discussion time? 4 These should be voted on individually 5 Clarification 6 Removal of amendments pitched after vote initiated 7 This is all a hideous mistake 8 Comment on these kind of polls 9 Speaking of fiascos

[edit] 100 Vote minimum

Isn't that a bit high? There isn't 100 on the original vote, even with all of the attention it was given. Amendment E1.1 won't be changed to a lower number unless 100 people vote on it. On the other hand, if there are at least 100 voters to strike it down, then it would prove that the participation is obviously there, and that 100 votes should be a minimum for something important like this. I'd rather see a month-long voting period than a minimum number of votes. --jag123 19:37, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The other had fairly strict limits on who could vote though; this may get enough. --SPUI (talk) 00:13, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The way this quorum works is pretty silly; the hard part for passing an amendment isn't the yes votes outnumbering the no votes, but getting the 100 votes at all. It looks like voting "no" has a significant chance of helping an amendment pass.

The Debian Foundation has found a way to deal with online quorum; they set the quorum for each option in the vote. In this case, a sensible quorum would be 80 yes votes. (You don't need to set a quorum on no votes because it's the default.)

Not that you should change the voting procedure again. I'm just pointing out the glitch so that maybe next time the vote is implemented more sensibly. RSpeer 20:25, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

It's not a glitch. That quorum is well under 0.1% of the contributors here and not even a high percentage of the admins. Still too low for such a key bit of policy when some changes are very substantial, IMO. On the other hand, some are pretty insubstantial and wouldn't really need it. Making sure that there's been some awareness with a low threshold like this one at least provides some measure of protection against abrupt changes. Jamesday 17:56, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're referring to. I'm not objecting to the number that quorum is set at. The "glitch" I'm referring to is that a no vote can swing the result from failing to passing. RSpeer 07:01, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

I didn't get this at first, but it's pretty simple: Assume 80 yeas and 19 nays. Because it's < 100, it doesn't pass. If someone adds a nay, it passes. — Sebastian 08:00, 2005 Mar 25 (UTC)

[edit] B1 - highlighting of changes

The highlighting is now:

Shouldn't that be:

(Italics have been additionally bolded). It certainly confused me... -- grm_wnr          01:09, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What about discussion time?

Isn't there supposed to be some time for discussion rather than jumping straight into voting? At least four of these I've voted against could potentially be clarified in such a way that I'd vote for them. Jamesday 13:07, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] These should be voted on individually

"8. As a body reporting to the Wikimedia Foundation Board" and "which has the ability to direct the Committee to reach a verdict or otherwise act in a particular way". I'd be happy enough to vote yes on the related changes but not on these two. The arbcom is responsible for implementing our policy and should be reporting to us, not the Foundation. While the Foundation can do what it likes with its computers, that's not the same as us having to agree and enforce those decisions for it if they are contrary to our policies. Up to the Foundation to persuade us to change them. Jamesday 13:24, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The wording of the question makes it appear that both "The Arbitration Committee is a body that reports to the Wikimedia Foundation Board" and "the Board can direct the ArbCom to [...] act in a particular way" are statements about the already-existing environment in which the vote is taking place. In other words, the question makes it appear as if the things Jamesday is objecting to are not changes to the policy, but are explanatory notes given as part of the reasoning for other changes to the policy (such as whether or not the ArbCom has jurisdiction over members of the Board). If these things actually are changes, then I object strongly to the phrasing of the question, which makes them look like already-existing conditions, and I would recommend that an entirely separate vote be taken on whether to add something like "The ArbCom reports to the Board" as a policy. Please could we have some clarification. —AlanBarrett 17:21, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification

May be i do not get the logic but how come we are voting on an amendment and an amendment to that amendment in the same vote. If the amendment does not pass will the ammendment to the ammendment pass, in which case it has obvious logical problems. Nothing has been written on the vote page for clarifying this.

Also why A3 and A3.1 be combined into a single vote as either the sentence of A3 or the ammended sentence from A3.1. How is this different than the vote we are taking now. This can be done to most of the votes which have the same problem. kaal 06:22, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of amendments pitched after vote initiated

As the vote was already underway at the time it was added, I have removed the proposed Amendment 2.2 and direct those that are interested in supporting such a proposal to [[Please do not propose new amendments while the vote is in progress. We have a page at Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Proposals which is currently being used to hold new proposals that were not present when the vote had begun. -- Grunt   ҈  18:15, 2005 Mar 15 (UTC)

[edit] This is all a hideous mistake

This entire vote is based on the concept that the Arbitration policy is a community policy - it isn't. What's commuity policy, currently, is to tackle conflicts by using a series of community steps culminating in using a non-community sourec - Jimbo, through his declared delegates, the Arbitration Committee. The point of the second ratification vote was to decide whether the community still wanted to use Jimbo's delegation in this way, which is why it was a unitary vote - Jimbo was changing the rules, the vote was not about whether the changes were good for the Committee (which is beyon the scope of the commuity) but good for the current dispute resolution process. The contents of the policy aren't the business of the community per se, and thus there really shouldn't be individual votes because such votes are wholly meaningless. James F. (talk) 10:39, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comment on these kind of polls

When I come across a page like this and vote, my first instinct is to go with what my gut feeling tells me. I think that if you have votes like this, there should be official PRO and CON pages, which lay down the various articles. These should be presented very prominently. Right now I am abstaining from voting, because I really have no idea about what the effects of this might be. Jacoplane 02:25, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Speaking of fiascos

Those amendments with at least 80% support and at least 100 votes in total at this point shall be considered to have passed and will be implemented in Wikipedia:Arbitration policy. Those without 80% support or without 100 votes in total shall be considered to have failed and may be subject to a revote at a later date when any concerns raised in the vote for that amendment have been addressed.

Well, unless my count is off, all amendments have failed by these criteria, since none of them garnered 100 votes—that includes the one that proposed to lower the quorum. The moral of the story is that voting is stupid. Well, not really, but you get my point. :-)
I've decided that this is the last vote I've participated in, other than places where consensus still matters more, as with votes for deletion (it's ironic that a place which is usually regarded as a source of acrimony and discontent works so well in that regard). All votes I've seen so far where attempts to short-circuit or even bypass consensus building with a percentage majority and/or time wasters for increasing instruction creep. There has not yet been any issue decided on by a vote that has had significant influence on how I edit, which is the only thing that really matters anyway, so I feel I can do very well without it. Others to whom the issues are important are of course free to decide on them in any way they see fit. I'm thoroughly disillusioned with voting in general, however. JRM 01:08, 2005 Mar 29 (UTC)

The one that proposed to lower the quorum (E1.1) failed to get consensus, as well as a quorum, of course. Perhaps these need to run for longer, and have periodic "waves" of advertising for them. (I managed to forget to vote in time, despite having earlier commented, d'oh.) Or take a leaf out of Australia et al's book, and make voting compulsory -- desysopping and blocking all round for those not voting. OK, maybe not... Alai 03:15, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)