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ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:04, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the invite. I'm honoured, and it looks fascinating, but unfortunately my work won't allow it right now. – AndyFielding (talk) 09:03, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Returning the spam....

I'd be grateful if you didn't spam my talk page... or try to hide your user ID in doing so. As per the two messages below, with the user IDs revealed. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:17, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

@Hchc2009: This was following a well-advertised RfC, with a notice on AN (as a widely-watched page) asking people to opt-out. Additionally, I made no attempt to hide my userID, I knew it was going to be in the comment after the message, and I did sign it "for the election commission". Mdann52 (talk) 18:40, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Hiding it in a comment that the user can't see without reading the raw wiki text is hiding it, as demonstrated here. I don't find it amusing hunting through pages trying to work out who was responsible for the spamming. NB: You may know who the "electoral committee" is by name but I certainly don't. Anyway, as noted above, please don't leave messages like this on my talk page again. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:52, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Whatever AN is, I don't watch it. I have zero interest in dealing with any of the obsessive-compulsive administrative tasks of Wikipedia. Is there any way to permanently opt out of spam such as this? (And frankly, such spam ought to be something people have to opt-IN to receive.) Carolina wren (talk) 06:24, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

@Carolina wren: Add Category:Opted-out of message delivery to prevent all future notifications using this tool. Mdann52 (talk) 06:47, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

@Carolina wren: It's nothing to do with AN (which is normally understood to mean the administrators' noticeboard), nor indeed is it anything to do with admin work. The message concerns elections to the Arbitration Committee. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:38, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom election notice

Liz

From what I can see from the mass message log that a notice about the ArbCom election went out to editors who appear on a list you maintain (User:Mdann52/list). Was there a reason not to send this notice to all active editors? It seems peculiar to send it to just a few select people. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 11:51, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

@Liz: I'm using an off -wiki list - it's just I'm doing it in bits, as and when I have connection, and to avoid watch list cluttering. Also, doing it all at once may break the site!! Mdann52 (talk) 11:55, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

@Mdann52:, I see you are getting some flak for this message and since I was pro-message in the AN discussion (and elsewhere), I wanted to apologize for overreacting this morning. I wasn't sure who was in charge of sending out the message so I posted in several different places. In the first run, I checked out about 15 recipients and they were all long inactive accounts, who hadn't edited in years and years so I couldn't figure out why they were receiving the message. B

But I didn't realize that you were sending out the message in batches to different editors so I guess I will eventually see one one my talk page. I looked into Mass Messaging and there is a setting where you can send out a message to all "active editors" so I don't know why that option wasn't selected as it wouldn't require user- or WMF-created lists. But good on you for taking on this project and handling the inevitable backlash that occurs when messages go awry. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:28, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

@Liz: Thanks for getting back to me, I understand completely. I can't seem to find anything about messaging active users - if you could link me to where you found that, that would be useful (however, that option has the same issue as it would if I just messaged the list without batching it up...). Mdann52 (talk) 13:42, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Liz has now received her mass-message notice, as of 24th November at 17:03 UTC. Phew!  :-)     So that's one less thing. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 18:00, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm a happy camper now. Haven't decided who to vote for yet though. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:08, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Tevildo

May I draw your attention to WP:MMS#Guidance for use - "Mass messages should only be sent to groups of users who are likely to want their attention drawn to the message." I doubt that more than a tiny fraction of Wikipedia users know anything about ArbCom; still fewer will be interested in voting for it. WP:CENT is the appropriate place for this sort of notification. Tevildo (talk) 13:18, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

@Tevildo: there was a discussion on AN, concluding the tool should be used to notify users of the election, specifically aimed at those who are unaware of ArbCom to encourage further voting. If you disagree, I suggest you start up another discussion there. I can find a link to the consensus of possible. I would also note an optout list was created and advertised. Mdann52 (talk) 13:20, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

In the typical Wikipedia "Beware of the Leopard" style of advertising, as usual. Still, if consensus is for global notification, I won't complain. I've added my user talk page to the "No mass notifications" category. Tevildo (talk) 13:24, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Thego

Hi Matt. "You appear to be eligible" is - uhm - very weird. ;) Either one is eligible or not. --Thogo 13:47, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

@Thogo: to explain this statement - I have an automatically generated list of names that were generated by the WMF, which is very good, but included banned but unblocked user, unflagged bots, and a few other users that are technically not able to vote. This statement is intended to alert people to the fact they may or may not actually be able to vote ;P Mdann52 (talk) 13:50, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Ah ok... Where do I find the rules for eligibility? (Maybe link the "appear to be eligible" to that page?) --Thogo 14:00, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

@Thogo: From WP:ACE2015:

(i) has registered an account before Wednesday 00:00, 28 October 2015
(ii) has made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday 00:00, 1 November 2015 and,
(iii) is not blocked from the English Wikipedia at the time of their vote.

In any case, ineligible users are notified when they attempt to vote, and we can always add/remove people to the list later on if needs be. Mdann52 (talk) 16:06, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

socking

• Hi, Mdann, thanks for the notice that I'm eligible to vote. I see Bishzilla got one too, that's excellent. How about the Darwin twins, can they also vote? Cassandra and Percy Bish Shelley are too green, I expect. Bishonen | talk 16:39, 23 November 2015 (UTC).

• Well, strictly no, but let's see if they're on this list that the WMF have helpfully given me.... you'll find out soon enough :P sorry about the dual notifications, there's no way of filtering these out from my end :P Mdann52 (talk) 16:43, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you Mdann. That's a gracious answer to Bishonen's silly trolling. bishapod talk to your inner fish 16:47, 23 November 2015 (UTC).

Redrose64

Why are some people getting two messages? For example, Oleg Alexandrov, Misza13. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:54, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

@Redrose64: I'm unsure, but it does not appear to be sending the same message more than once. I'll investigate when this is done, as this only appears to be a handful of cases. I suspect it is to do with alt account talkpages redirecting, as the bot follows the redirects. Mdann52 (talk) 13:42, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

That's not the reason, because since posting the above I have also been messaged twice, and my only alternate account - Redrose64a (talk · contribs) - does not have a redirected talk page. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:27, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

I'll have to look into this then - I know a list did send twice, due to my computer having a hissy between when I saved the page and when I sent the message, using the old list for some reason... Mdann52 (talk) 18:40, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

possible syntax problems with the lists?

• 17:08, 24 November 2015 Delivery of "ArbCom elections are now open!" to User talk:..User:User:11soccero11User:User:.. was skipped because the user account does not exist
• 17:06, 24 November 2015 Delivery of "ArbCom elections are now open!" to User:Vacationlandman was skipped because target was in a namespace that cannot be posted in
• 17:05, 24 November 2015 Delivery of "ArbCom elections are now open!" to User talk:Gpwns5277 was skipped because the user account does not exist
• 17:05, 24 November 2015 Delivery of "ArbCom elections are now open!" to User talk:TheG3NERAL John 3User:16 was skipped because the user account does not exist

FYI, in case nobody had noticed these in the logs.[1] Numerals in the usernames causing the trouble, perhaps? 75.108.94.227 (talk) 18:00, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm aware, many of these were due to my primitive way of converting the plainlist of usernames to lists I could run through the tool. Most of the namespace conflicts were due to redirects, and I'm not too sure what the non-existant accounts were doing, these all seem to exist on the list I had.... Mdann52 (talk) 18:40, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

I figured, but just in case you were being driven to distraction, and had missed the errlog... I decided to add one more distraction on top of the pile.  ;-)     The problem with Vacationlandman is a redirect, the user has retired. So I suspect that under the hood, you were trying to post to User_talk:Vacationlandman, but then post-redirect to User:Vacationlandman, the errmsg says "namespace cannot be posted in". Note that the errmsg gives the *second* page, aka the redirect-target.

  The problem with [2] Gpwns5277 seems to be a recent pagemove, on Oct 25th, from another username. The errmsg claims that you could not post to User talk:Gpwns5277, but I *suspect* that the tool (and your list) was *actually* attempting to post to the previously-associated-username, which in this case is User_talk:Soccer8295 (now a redirect to Gpwns5277). Thus the confusing errmsg, that "user account does not exist"... which is referring to Soccer8295 the pre-October-25th user account, and not to Gpwns5277 the post-October-25th user account. You should probably add User_talk:Gpwns5277 to a new list, so that they eventually get notified about the arbcom election, iff your time permits.

  As for the other (bolded) errmsgs, those are definitely parsing-and-processing bugs, which you (again) may or may not have time to work out, during this election at least. I do thank you for your efforts, from looking at the vote-list-logfile pretty clearly turnout has roughly been doubled this year already, and there are still many days to go. Keep up the good work, it is appreciated, 75.108.94.227 (talk) 20:20, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Edit Request on Ariel Fernandez, Nov 8, 2015

Dear Mdann52, I am confused. I read that the edit request for Ariel Fernandez dated Nov 8, 2015 has been answered but the answer has not been posted in the Talk page for the BLP? Sorry for my ignorance.Spinrade (talk) 23:53, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

@Spinrade: I marked it as done as the section below essentially answers this. Apologies I forgot to mention this. Mdann52 (talk) 18:33, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry. I don't see anything beyond an open discussion. Can you tell me what the answer is?Spinrade (talk) 22:26, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

@Spinrade: there isn't one. Edit requests shouldn't be used on open discussions, so I dis-activated it (same as marking it as answered). Once the discussion has concluded, it can be reactivated if needed. Mdann52 (talk) 07:40, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-49

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

The symbol for advanced news items has been changed. This is because the symbols were too similar. If a news item is for more technical readers it now looks like this: . You can give feedback on this change.

Problems

• On September 29 users' skin preferences were removed by mistake on small and medium-sized wikis. This changed preferences back to Vector. Restoring all data would cause even more problems. Affected users who want to have their preference changed back globally can ask for it as a comment on Phabricator task T119206 until December 21 2015. [3]
• Some scheduled tasks were not working properly from September to recently. This meant some pages in the special pages namespace were not updated. It has now been fixed. [4]

Changes this week

• Wikinews, Wikispecies, MediaWiki.org and Meta will be able to use information from Wikidata. [5][6]
• There are no MediaWiki deployments this week (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 1 December at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is using the <figure> tag for media. The meeting will be on 2 December at 22:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Category watchlists are now available on test wikis and MediaWiki.org. The plan is to enable it on most wikis in January. [7]
• Cross-wiki notifications are being developed. When this is done you will not have to go to the wiki where something happened to be notified. [8]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:16, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Missing recipients?

Hi. Have you finished sending out the Arbcom messages? I ask because I haven't received one and, so far as I know, my account is vanilla and I haven't opted out. This isn't a problem for me (I know about the election) but is there a class of people who have been somehow omitted? Thincat (talk) 19:38, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

If it helps I am included in the list here. Thincat (talk) 20:44, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes. I suspect people in that version of the list haven't been notified. They look like real old-timers like me. Thincat (talk) 20:50, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks. It's just arrived! Thincat (talk) 22:16, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Sudhish Kamath

Just to let you know, I just restored a page, Sudhish Kamath, that you had previously Prodded after a request at WP:REFUND. -- GB fan 17:12, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom mass messaging

Hi Matt, I have a question about the mass messaging leading up to the election. The only reason I'm asking you is that I saw you ran the bot, or one of them, but if you're not the right person to ask, please let me know.

I'm wondering where the consensus developed for this; who exactly was supposed to be informed; how many were informed; and anything else that's relevent. Many thanks, SarahSV ^(talk) 19:17, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: The discussion leading to this was at WP:AN - I was approached to run this as an independent party here. Approximately 100,000 mass messages were sent out this year (I can get a more precise figure if needed) - this was to every eligible editor on the site. There were some teething problems, but I resolved them in the end. Mdann52 (talk) 19:25, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Matt. We got an edit conflict there, so I'll just post what I had written:

Okay, since posting the above, I've found this discussion on AN that was closed after 14 days. (Do you know whether it was advertised on cent?) The proposal was "a massmessage be sent out to all editors active in the previous three months who meet all criteria to vote for arbcom." Is that what the bot did? SarahSV ^(talk) 19:29, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

SlimVirgin I went with the closure message, which stated "To be sent to all users who meet the voting criteria but utilising all realistic efforts to avoid spam etc.", which I did with an opt-out list advertised on the same page. The discussion was listed on CENT AFAIK. Mdann52 (talk) 19:32, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Just for the record, I followed the discussion leading up to the mailing and as a member of the electoral commission I fully support Mdann52's actions. I haven't posted many comments because I had nothing to disagree with. I would also note that this went out to a lot of users and that very few of them have come back with any comments or complaints. That being said, I plan on making a point of bringing up this and any related discussions next year so that if we post a mass mailing again we can make it even better. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:43, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Matt. I can't find it on CENT. Do you have a link?

Kevin and ErrantX, I'm trying to find out what happened. Kevin's proposal was: "a massmessage be sent out to all editors active in the previous three months who meet all criteria to vote for arbcom (bold added)". Forty-one supported, nine opposed. But Errant's close was: "To be sent to all users who meet the voting criteria ..."

Did the 41 say they supported, but did not support Kevin's precise proposal? I'm hoping someone can tell me without me having to read the whole thing. The situation seems to be that 100,000 people were invited to vote without knowing anything about the candidates.

I'm not suggesting anyone is to blame for any of this, by the way. It's just something that perhaps ought to be fixed somehow. Pinging Dennis Brown, Iridescent. SarahSV ^(talk) 19:45, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: to be fair, I didn't have much of a clue about many of the candidates before the election, and had to look into them. If users haven't done this, there is nothing to indicate that a notification alone is going to change the general dynamic of the election which, as I've said before, probably has tactical voting whoever is voting for it. And ok, I stand corrected, it appears not to have appeared on CENT, but I believe this was mentioned in various places in any case - if it got 70 comments, this means it was probably well-advertised IMO. Mdann52 (talk) 19:51, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

But you had some clue, Matt. You would be aware of (at least some) red flags, controversies, etc. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people have voted with no information whatsoever. And probably lots of second accounts were included in the mailout. The result is that the Arbs will effectively have been chosen at random.

There should have been a proper RfC about this, advertised at CENT, closed by more than one admin, left open for 30 days, worded carefully. The electoral commission should have closed this down when it saw that had not happened. SarahSV ^(talk) 20:24, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. However, the question is a debate between participation and informed voters - and you can't have both worlds at once, however ideal this might seem. I saw an RfC with high participation (even for AN), with a clear consensus to enact. Hindsight is a truely wonderful thing, and I appreciate there were issues. With the lessons learnt from this years pioneer run, hopefully we can make more informed choices next year - I'm quite happily to admit this was not the most perfect method or ideal implementation. Mdann52 (talk) 20:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Kevin's proposal (which gained consensus in an important, but improperly run, RfC not advertised on CENT) was that editors "active in the previous three months who meet all criteria to vote" be informed.

That didn't happen. Instead, all editors who meet the criteria were informed. There was no consensus for that. The electoral commission should not have let this happen. SarahSV ^(talk) 20:33, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin:As I explained, I went with the result stated in the close - yes, maybe it was inproper or malformed, but it's happened, and there's nothing we can realisticly do now to change that. If you feel that I have acted inappropriately, I'm sure you know where to raise this for review - clearly, this discussion seems to have reached the limit of it's usefulness, and I'm not sure what else you're expecting me to say/recommend. Mdann52 (talk) 20:38, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I really don't care who's fault it is, what matters is that this has the potential to turn into a really big problem. Today is nothing, wait until the vote is counted. Arb is under so much scrutiny right now, if the results are obviously skewed or worse yet, totally bizarre, it will get ugly. By the way, I have not received any messages about voting, and I'm pretty sure I'm eligible. I wonder how many others got missed, and if that is going to also be a problem. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 20:44, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Matt, I said above that I don't regard this as any individual's fault. It was a mix of things: the RfC should have been formatted properly and posted on CENT; it should have been started earlier and left open for 30 days; it should have been worded clearly so that everyone knew what they were supporting; etc. That the close didn't match the proposal wasn't noticed. So it's not your fault. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:11, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: Just seems like I've been targeted over this, that all. I apologise for assuming that you were blaming me per se. Mdann52 (talk) 21:21, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Matt, I apologize for making you feel you were being blamed. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:23, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

A couple of queries, Mdann: a) who is/are the electoral commission (or the "election committee" according to the spam you sent me)? and b) where does one "raise this" for review? Hchc2009 (talk) 20:49, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

• @Dennis Brown: We will have to wait and see - if it does turn ugly as you predict, I guess we will have to await the outcome of that. The reason you didn't recieve a message is because your name got malformed while I was converting it to be distributed, however as I saw you were highly active in terms of this previously, and many other editors have opted-out/berated me for sending these out, I decided it was not really worth adding it back onto the list.

While I have no reason to doubt you, the fact that a human was manipulating the mail list will probably be investigated to ensure that it was a rare thing and for the reasons you state. As I'm quite outspoken about Arb yet wasn't included, I'm sure you understand that. That is a separate issue from the wisdom of the mass mailing itself. Dennis Brown - 2¢

Indeed it was. I believe I repeated all those malformed requests in the logs - if there are any I've missed, I'll happily repeat them. The list was supplied to me in plaintext only, which the tool can't pass, and I didn't trust my own/find any tools to do this automatically, so this was the next best way to do it. I gain nothing from modifying the list - partly because I have no idea who people are going to vote for, I favour higher participation overall, and it's going to be found out eventually. Of course, if you want the message, I can send it round now to correct this. Mdann52 (talk) 21:08, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Sending it misses the larger point. This isn't personal or really even about you. It is a question of process, and just as important is the transparency of, and trust in, that process. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 21:12, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, if you can come up with a better process to convert a list of plaintext usernames to a massmessage list than semi-automatically, feel free to let me know. Until then, we will just have to cope with what's happened. Mdann52 (talk) 21:21, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

• @Hchc2009: It's an elected body that oversees the election made up of community members, independent of ArbCom b) as this was done from my personal account, feel free to raise it at WP:AN, WP:ANI, or wherever else that is appropriate, to request I am removed from my post/sanctioned/keelhauled/whatever. Mdann52 (talk) 20:57, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Uh, yes, but surely the body has names...? Hchc2009 (talk) 21:02, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

@Hchc2009: apologies, I misunderstood what you meant. For 2015, it is User:Mike V, User:Guy Macon and myself. Mdann52 (talk) 21:04, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Cheers. Hchc2009 (talk) 21:08, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

• The question is what to do. I would say there's no doubt this has compromised the election. Does that matter? I suppose the argument is that the electorate is never that well-informed anyway.

We can let it continue, and we will end up with a committee who will not be able to argue that they have a legitimate mandate. Perhaps that won't make much difference; I suppose it will depend on how controversial their decisions are. Or we can ask the electoral commission and scrutineers to stop the election and start again. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:21, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

• My personal opinion is that restarting the election is pointless, because then surely, following the example set in previous years, we would then have to notify everyone who has already edited, and this would reduce participation overall, which seems to be against what most people have already said. In any case, this will then mean that the messages that have not yet been acted on will still be live, could still be picked up and acted on, so we are back to square 1. Ops most likely would not want someone going through and removing them all, so that isn't really an option either.
• However, I'd argue against the fact that there wouldn't have a mandate - in fact, they would have a larger mandate than usual, as so many extra people would have been involved in the process. Without knowing the results, we cannot judge such things though. Mdann52 (talk) 21:27, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I find it remarkable that there is this assumption that casual editors will make disastrous voting decisions. I mean, if they know little about the candidates, they are just as likely to pick an experienced editor as they are an inexperienced editor. Why is there an assumption that editors who edit less frequently have an unerring tendency to pick the worst candidates? What is the basis for this belief?

If there are editors who truly believe that only editors who edit daily or who make thousands of edits a year or who have been editors for 5+ years or who are admins should be eligible to vote, than change the voting requirements. But if someone is eligible to vote, why shouldn't they be told this? I see this panic and I don't understand the "worst case scenario" thinking it reveals. To be honest, these discussions sound like a way for discontented editors who don't like the election outcome to challenge the process which is strange because this mass messaging actually could end up working in their favor, it's impossible to tell.

Besides the discussion on AN, there was also a discussion on Jimbo's talk page about mass messaging and I think on the Village Pump, too. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:08, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Liz, no one has suggested that casual editors will necessarily make disastrous voting decisions. The argument is that they will be less informed than others, and perhaps not informed at all.

As I've argued elsewhere, it's like inviting holidaymakers, including those who haven't visited for many years, to take part in local elections. They might all vote to increase your taxes, or they might vote to abolish taxation, or they might make great decisions that take your needs into account. The only thing you can know is that the local community's voice risks being overwhelmed, and that something with the facade of inclusivity and democracy might achieve exactly the opposite. SarahSV ^(talk) 01:40, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

No, it's not like inviting holidaymakers to vote in a local election. It's like inviting all residents of the city, those who pay attention to the local city council and school board as well as those who don't pay attention, those who just moved into the town a year ago, those residents who moved out of state and just moved back, to vote. In fact, casual editors might reflect the consensus of who should be on ArbCom more than vested contributors or frequent visitors to noticeboards.

What bothers me is not that all eligible voters received notices informing them of their eligibility, but the fact that it looks like if some candidates don't get a ArbCom seat, there are editors who would challenge a valid election based on a mass-mailing. It's like there are people mounting a campaign to disallow the results when we don't even know who will be elected! I have no clue why there are editors who believe that their favored candidates will be hurt from the boost in voters when no one knows the basis of how they will choose to vote! For all we know, they might dive into candidate statements and campaign guides and spend more time making their decision than editors who edit daily but just base their votes on their likes and dislikes. There is a lot we just don't know and have no way of knowing since Wikipedia collects almost no data on the editors who contribute here. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:11, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Liz, it would have been like that (residents, rather than tourists) had Kevin's proposal moved forward, the one that gained consensus. That was to inform all eligible voters who had been active in the previous three months.

Instead all eligible voters were informed, including those who haven't edited for years. Hence my holidaymakers analogy, or if you prefer, former residents. But when writing that, I thought they had been emailed via echo. As I understand it now, the talk-page messages wouldn't have triggered emails by default, so at least it was people who saw the talk-page messages who were told, unless they had changed their preferences. That isn't such a problem.

It's obvious that sending over 100,000 messages might have had a drastic effect on the election, and given that there was no agreement to do it, it's a valid concern. It's definitely worth discussing to make sure we know more about the effects of it for next year. SarahSV ^(talk) 20:24, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

SlimVirgin FWIW, there is preliminary evidence that the expansion of scope didn't actually have as much of an effect as we've all been assuming. Under 10% of the voters as of Nov 26 (after the last round of messages) would have been excluded by the three-month criterion. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:31, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Opabinia regalis, thanks for the information. That's good to know. SarahSV ^(talk) 02:21, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Given what has occurred, the best course of action is to proceed on course with no change. I'm strongly opposed to letting the poll run, viewing the results, and then deciding if the results are "okay". This is subject to personal opinion and some users will likely weigh in based upon the outcome of the candidates they supported or opposed. An alternative is creating a new poll, but that would be dishonest to the voters. We've provided a link to vote and gave them every reason to believe their vote would be counted. It would come across as akin to bait and switch tactics. We could notify the voters of the change, but that would defeat the whole purpose and it would be much more practical to go with the original poll. We have no way of knowing the level of research voters took. Some users may have voted on a gut feeling or spent hours reading through candidate statements, discussions, and questions. (This happens in real world elections too.) Of course, in next year's RfC we can discuss if we wish to continue with the mass message system and if so, to whom the message should be sent. Mike V • Talk 04:04, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Mike V, just to clarify, no one has suggested letting the poll run, viewing the results, then deciding whether the results are okay. (On the contrary, I've stated that we could not do that.) I asked instead whether we should declare the election void and restart it. It became clear that that would not gain consensus, so I didn't try to take it forward. SarahSV ^(talk) 04:12, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

So; the way this has happened is that Kevin proposed to do something, the community agreed and I closed it as such. The problem is, which isn't necessarily anyone's fault, is that Kevin then ran for Arbcom and handed over the task to others. When he volunteered to help the community were clear (probably rightly) that it would be inappropriate. Then my vague wording on the close (and to be clear; i absolutely intended it to mean "what Kevin proposed") has added to confusion. Of course, at the time my (reasonable?) assumption was that Kevin would be implementing the process so it wasn't an issue. I was more focused on emphasising what the community were concerned about (i.e. respecting opt outs) with the original proposal. FYI it was advertised on WP:CENT (I did check, because otherwise the argument about location would have had more impact). FWIW also; there was some discussion about the problem of editors who were less active or out of the loop getting notified and therefore having a negative impact on the vote. Critically, I didn't see any consensus that this was a problem. Many even thought it was a good idea. If you read the proposal it's clear that several people assumed this would notify everyone and didn't object to that (although, of course, others may have). As pointed out, these users all have an absolute right to vote, and the fact they have done so is an indication that they wished to do so. Under the election rules we have no right to claim otherwise (FWIW I'd probably support some sort of activity requirement - edits between two dates) for future elections. Has that skewed the results? Maybe. However we choose to notify heavily active Wikipedians through the watchlist notification, and the community was fairly clear that this courtesy should be extended to others as well. Has this notification run gone smoothly? No, probably not. There were issues with nobots, and it looks like some active editors were not picked up in the run; these all need to be ironed out if it happens next year. -Errant ^(chat!) 10:06, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi Errant, thanks for explaining this. I can see exactly how this happened now, and it's clear that it was no one's fault, just a chain of events. SarahSV ^(talk) 18:57, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Question

• Matt, can you clarify two things: how many accounts received an invitation to vote on their talk pages? And (if you know) how many accounts were emailed? SarahSV ^(talk) 00:56, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: I don't have the exact number, but I believe it was around 107,000 messages were queued to send - however, this included some blocked editors (blocks applied after the list was generated), and some users who had opted out, so 107000 is a good estimate for the total number actually delivered. No emails were sent by me - the only emails that would have sent would be the automatic talk page notifications, and I have no way to measure how many of these were dispatched. Mdann52 (talk) 07:36, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the information, Matt. I was wondering where the account names came from. Some eligible editors have been notified twice, and others not at all. Any light you can shed on it would be appreciated. SarahSV ^(talk) 18:53, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

It looks like a batch of users was missed (see below at #Missing recipients?) but I expect Mdann52 will be able to clarify things. Thincat (talk) 22:30, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Mass mailing and low information voters

SlimVirgin states that Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people have voted with no information whatsoever.

• And Slim knows this how? And more importantly is it any of her business what information they used to vote? If one is qualified to vote, then they may do so in anyway that she sees fit. Considering that most rational people, and those familiar with the wiki (and an argument can be made that those two groups often fail to intersect) can find one of many election guides quite easily. This simple "get out the vote" mailing has only one purpose; to increase participation. I can see no legitimate reason to oppose such notifications. The only reason I can think of to oppose is for the purposes of voter suppression. As a hypothetical, let's say I wanted a particular slate of candidates elected and I worked very hard to develop a group of 100 voters who would vote for my "ticket" and there were only 1,000 people who voted. Now add the mass mailing notifications and assume that we now have 10,000 people who are voting (the increase due to the mailing) -- and further assume these are low information voters who just vote randomly. By sheer dilution the mailings hurt my voting bloc, so that could be one reason to oppose.69.143.176.134 (talk) 06:15, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

• This situation is called democracy — rule of the people. We have set qualifications for voting (arguably too low in terms of number of edits and tenure, but that ship has sailed). Now everyone who qualifies to vote is qualified to vote. Whoops, this year we actually told qualified voters about the election and 2,500 or 3,000 people are going to vote instead of last year's 591. And this is bad, how exactly? But-but-but-but all that off-wiki organizing of "civility" voters is going to go to waste now, submerged by voters who are, you know, reading candidates' statements and voters' guides and thinking for themselves. For those who are all aflutter about now-uncertain outcomes: the world's tiniest violin is playing......... Carrite (talk) 07:48, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

An aside for those not following the play-by-play on Wikipediocracy: based on ongoing charting of votes per hour and the revote rate, it appears that something in the ballpark of 2,750 valid votes will be cast in this election. Carrite (talk) 15:18, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm not really seeing the problem with notifying eligible voters. Some people might prefer different eligibility requirements (perhaps someone should propose the apparently desired eligibility requirements of "X edits during the last Y months plus spending enough time on the drama pages to know that the election is happening without being told"?), but so long as the requirements are "X edits during Y time period", then I think it's desirable for all eligible voters to be informed of the election and how to participate. I think we should consider making this a best practice, and doing it every year.

Also, ACE gets posted as a watchlist notice. Special:Watchlist gets viewed two million times a month (including by people who aren't eligible to vote). I don't see any reason to believe that an occasional editor who sees a brief watchlist notice is necessarily going to vote more thoughtfully than an occasional editor who sees a note on his or her talk page, especially since the note (unlike the watchlist notice) directly links to the candidate statements and says that you're "welcome to review the candidate's statements and submit your choices", rather than sending them straight to the vote.

Who knows? Maybe I'll even vote this year. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:02, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Dear User Sarah SV. By saying we, the village you are mixing various people, from the legitimate administrators to the bullying drama-boarders. By saying they, the holidaymakers you are rejecting all these 100000 writers that only write and and even ignore the existence of the drama boards. Indeed, you are regretting that writers could have their say when choosing those who will arbitrate in last instance between writers and drama-boarders! I am not sure if you perceive how divisive is what you are saying... and if you perceive that such a divisive discourse will not facilitate the everyday work of the legitimate administrators ? Pldx1 (talk) 19:37, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• this is interesting reading - aparently, less that 10% of current votes would have been disallowed by the 3 month criteria in any case. Hopefully, this alleviates some of the fears above. Mdann52 (talk) 10:20, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

• I completely agree with WhatamIdoing. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:00, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

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