Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-12-19/ArbCom election

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The Wikipedia Signpost


Straw poll closes

By Flcelloguy, December 19, 2005
January 2006 ArbCom elections
A Signpost series
Sep. 19 Introduction
Sep. 26 History of ArbCom
Oct. 3 About ArbCom
Oct. 10 Criticism of ArbCom
Oct. 17 Current ArbCom members
Oct. 24 ArbCom elections, 2004
Oct. 31 ArbCom reform
Nov. 7 ArbCom duties and requirements
Nov. 14 ArbCom voting process
Nov. 28 Last chance to run
Dec. 5 Election procedure poll
Dec. 19 Straw poll closes
Jan. 2 Election candidates
Jan. 9 Election candidates, part two
Jan. 16 ArbCom elections underway
Jan. 23 Elections end; Jimbo appoints
Feb. 6 Elected Arbitrators interview

This week, Jimbo Wales closed the straw poll he had set up to "gauge community input and feedback about the selection process." Citing the result of the poll as a 19-3-25-5 final count with the majority favoring his second proposal, Wales announced that the second proposal, a hybrid approach that requires a Requests for Adminship-like vote by the community, would be used. "The community can and should begin a community approval process immediately, patterned as closely as is reasonable after the RfA process," Wales wrote. "The point of the process should be to generate a pool of acceptable candidates from whom I can make appointments." Wales also stated that his "role in putting forward candidates is essentially just a way for me to communicate pre-approval to the community. I don't plan to do that in this term unless it appears that we are overlooking someone particularly noteworthy."

However, no process has been started following Wales's announcement. Community feedback was mixed. "I think deciding the election procedure based on a straw poll... is [an] inherently bad idea. It's not like there was a significant majority in favour of any one of the proposals, either," commented Talrias. "The result of a straw poll is not to use the procedure with the most support, it is to find out why other people didn't like that proposal, and work on improving it so that people who didn't support the original idea will support an improved version (or at least, not oppose as much)." Wales responded to these comments by citing the need to advance the elections: "Yes, but we need to move forward. We do have the luxury of ongoing investigations as we move forward, and flexibility to analyze what works well and doesn't, for next time around."

In addition, some users also questioned the use of the 50 percent requirement. "Would it not make sense to hold ArbCom polls on the principle of consensus rather than simple majority?" questioned Radiant!. "I realize that RFA's criterion (~75%) would be rather difficult to achieve, but 60%-65% sounds workable." Wales responded by saying, "We'll see how well it all goes" and saying that the percent could be adjusted depending on the average percent.

Finally, this week Edivorce (statement), Rowlan (statement), Maywither (statement), Trilemma (statement), and Aranda56 (statement) announced their candidacies. In addition, Talrias withdrew from the race.


Also this week: Semi-protection — ArbCom election — Wikipedia quality — Steward elections — News and notes — Press coverage — Features and admins — B.R.I.O.N. — T.R.O.L.L.