Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates/AMA 2006 Coordinator Election

For historical information about the first election for the AMA Coordinator please see:Wikipedia:AMA 2004 Coordinator Election.

/Archive

This page is about the upcoming AMA Coordinator Election.

Voting Procedures and Criteria

The election begins on Friday, 3 February 2006 at 0000 hours UTC. It will last for one week; or, until Friday, 10 February 2006, at 0000 hours UTC.

Votes will be e-mailed to Theresa knott at Theresaknott@gmail.com. The phrase AMA Coordinator Election Ballot must be in the title. Within the e-mail, you must specify your username and list the candidate(s) you choose. Failure to do so will have your ballot rejected.

You may pick either candidate or both. As voting functions by approval method, you simply put down the names of any candidates which you find acceptable. Write-in votes are allowed; however, in the unlikely event a write-in candidate should prove victorious, they would have to first accept the office. Candidates who have already rejected nomination (Neigel von Teighen), accepted but subsequently withdrew (WGFinley), or been found ineligible (Hipocrite) will be automatically discounted, and the next-highest vote-winner elected, should they win.

A list of those members with suffrage is available on the 2006 Coordinator Election AMA page, as well as on the procedure page. The criteria for suffrage is membership as of 21:46 on 6 January 2006. Members who do not reach that criteria may not cast a ballot. Those who were members at that time but have since removed their names from the member list are likewise discounted.

All members who possess suffrage — they are seventy in number — will be informed of the election within the next day on their talk pages. Anyone who would like to volunteer to assist me in passing on the word is welcome to pick part of the list and do so; but all members must be informed by the start of voting.

Candidate Statements

Please keep statements to under five hundred words.

KeithTyler

Wikipedia is an open, collaborative environment, which invites regular people with good knowledge and other positive skills to contribute, with the overall goal of improving the encyclopedia.

The problem with the word "improve" is that it is highly subjective. "Improve" can mean a myriad of things, given the ever-growing corpus of WP guidelines. It can mean more WP:NPOV, more factual accuracy, or broader detail. It can mean deletionism or inclusionism. It can mean being bold and ignoring all rules, or it can mean tempering yourself and waiting for a group decision.

Dispute is unavoidable. What is avoidable is allowing one set of valid philosophies over another to become the dominant approved philosophy. Such practice does not improve the encyclopedia, if you believe that NPOV is more than just a rule for article content, but also for maintaining that content. A POV process cannot produce an NPOV work.

That is why advocacy is important. Unwitting or unfamiliar contributors can find themselves in a multi-step, ever-changing procedure of WP dispute resolution. Even experienced contributors can find themselves in the process through an out-of-hand matter, from well-meaning acts. With policies ever-changing and growing, contributors whose maverick, bold styles were once accepted and even appreciated, find themselves having the minority sentiment, and end up under rebuke or sanction as a result of the obsolescence of their practices. (This is hardly a phenomenon isolated to WP.)

The AMA's job, simply stated, is to "help people through the dispute resolution process." This has a number of possible applications, from simply pointing people in the right direction, to appealing an ArbCom case. It could potentially involve negotiation, informal mediation, or even non-DR processes.

In order for us to help users, we must be responsive to them. We can't let requests for our help go abandoned. For a dispute to fall into chaos, when some simple advice would have sent it through the right process, means that the AMA has failed its job. Misconceptions should be corrected. Overbroad expectations should be tempered. And chaos should be nudged towards appropriate resolution methods.

The AMA is more than just people who argue arbitration cases. People are free to specialize on one form of advocacy, but as a group we should work towards fully meeting our purpose.

Naturally, I have concerns about the ArbCom. For one, the term "wikilawyering" has become an epithet launched at anyone who makes logical conclusions from reasonable precepts of fairness and even WP guidelines. Many feel, and I believe rightly, that Arbitration in practice is slanted towards admins, case initiators, seniority, and certain guidelines over others (e.g. WP:POINT over WP:BOLD). This is not an NPOV tendency, and as the ArbCom is the primary source of enforced member restriction, this can have the effect of making WP less NPOV.

We need to familiarize ourselves with the DR process and become experts in it. And I believe hand in hand with that expertise, we should not only advocate for members using the process, but also consider how our expertise could be helpful in steering that process, in the interests of all members.

- Keith D. Tyler ¶ 19:20, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ambi

I've been observing the AMA ever since it was created, and I believe that it has in many ways failed to achieve the objectives that it set out to do. It is still too hard to find an an active and willing advocate in the first place, and even harder to find a competent advocate capable of actually having an effect on a request for comment or an arbitration case. The AMA is hardly the only element of the dispute resolution process to be struggling, but in my opinion, it's the easiest to fix.

I don't aim to be much more intrusive more than Alex was, but I do want to make sure that the process works. If elected coordinator, I will see that the requests for assistance page is advertised widely and easy to find, and attempt to make sure that a willing and competent advocate attends to the request if one does not come forward of their own volition. As it is, the page is difficult to find, and there are unanswered requests dating back months and months. I believe that no one who wants an advocate should go without one, and a glance at the request pages reveals just how prevalent that problem is.

My second, and perhaps most important, goal is to see that advocates are doing their job as effectively as possible. Some tasks, such as explaining dispute resolution to a newbie, may be very easy, but others, such as advocating in an arbitration case or a requests for comment (particularly where a user has communication issues) take a lot more work. It is the latter where I've seen advocates fail time and time again, resorting to useless "wikilawyering" rather than helping the user put their actual case. To this extent, I will work with interested advocates to try and improve tactics and learn from mistakes made. I'd like to see advocates working together and assisting each other where necessary, and I'd like to help develop an environment where any advocate who is having trouble in a particular case can easily come and seek advice and assistance from their colleagues.

What I propose isn't awfully radical, but I believe it would have an impact in making the AMA significantly more effective. At the same time, I don't want to tread on toes, so if you've got any questions or concerns, feel free to email me. Ambi 06:59, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Voter rolls

The following voters, per the terms of the election resolution passed by community consensus, are known to have suffrage. Please post on the talk page if you feel you've been excluded unlawfully. Wally 10:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A D Monroe III
Alex756
Ambi
Amicuscuriae
Andrevan
Anthere
AtomAnt
Audentis
BD2412
BDD
Bill the Greek
Briangotts
Brian New Zealand
Burgundavia
Chazz
ClockworkSoul
Conradrock
Crazynas
Deltabeignet
Donwarnersaklad
Denni
Dystopian Rhetoric
Flgook
Fred-Chess
Gator1
Ian Manka
Isotopephd
Izehar
Jamesmusik
Jord
Jossifresco (Jossi?)
Journalist
karmafist
KeithTyler
Kc9cqj - the other handle listed was a sockpuppet protector. KC9CQJ 18:53, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Konrad West
Kurt Weber
Ledward
Lejend
Ludraman
Mentality
Metasquares
Mrs.HippieBurning
Oliver Keenan
Olorin28
Pakaran.
Pedant
Perl
Pharotic
Phroziac
R6MaY89
Sam Spade
Secretlondon
Sekicho
Soltak
Silas Snider
Sj
Skyler1534
Snowspinner
Stellertony
Stephensj74
telekenetix
TigerShark
Toby Bartels
ugen64
Vijay Krishna
Wally
Wikityke
Xxpor
Zestauferov