Guild Wars Wiki talk:Elections/2008-12 bureaucrat election

'Sigh'....

I swear we just got this over with...:\ -- W.T. (talk) 00:22, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Obama is responsible. Vili 00:49, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

o.O Election again? poke | talk 08:17, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

wtf, aren't we doing this too often? o.O - Y0_ich_halt 10:27, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

No good sir, we are not. Whose term is ending? ~ Kurd 13:12, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Tanetris's. -- Brains12 \ talk 15:53, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Tanetris --Kakarot 15:54, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

i think terms could well be longer. - Y0_ich_halt 16:27, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I know people need 100 contributions to vote, but what if the person is on the wiki for a long time??? Why can't they vote? I think persons with fewer contributions then 100 who are here for a long time should vote for an important thing, because, well, they know the people who are nominated good enough to know or they are good or not..... (In my head was this a beautifull, well written sentence ^^) |Cyan LightHere!| 18:56, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

If you want it that bad, go to GWWT:ELECT and propose a change ~ Kurd 18:59, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

You know, sometimes these items are fun, sometimes they are not. Let's see!--DAVA 20:27, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Alternatively, you could keep hitting the Random Page button and looking for typos to fix. See, the 100-edit limit is really a nefarious improvement drive to force you into helping the wiki! Vili 02:54, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Firsted :P--DAVA 06:13, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I see, but 100 contributions.... I think I cant make that, but I think I can vote on a honest way... I am here for a long time, and I think I can say which people are ok for bureaucrat and which not ^^ |Cyan LightSnowflakes...| 07:39, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

No offence Cyan but the 100 edit limit isn't a big requirement, if you have been here a long time and not reached that then the question you should be asking yourself is what are you doing while you are on the wiki? Ultimately this wiki is to document the game and provide a wealth of information to the GW community. The social nature of this wiki is only secondary to this. Cyan if you want help to reach the 100 edits I can point you to loads of places which need someone to work on them, be that by screen capping maps or by expanding stubby articles or even simply by editing the article into a clearer and more concise format. E.g. Images Needed -- Salome 10:51, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Ok I see your point, but are there any exceptions one the rule possible??? |Cyan LightSnowflakes...| 18:10, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

No. Mini Me 18:11, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Well then, I think we are finished here. |Cyan LightSnowflakes...| 18:12, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) these things really occur too often. i'd like to not care b/c mostly i don't, but the banner up top is pretty hard to ignore. is there some setting where we can just make it go away forever? --VVong|BA 03:37, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

maybe press "Dismiss"... --Cursed Angel 03:41, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

maybe i said "forever"? --VVong|BA 03:50, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Go to Special:Mypage/monobook.css and add the code div#siteNotice { display:none; } to it. Keep in mind, though, that you'll miss any other important sitewide notices. ¬ Wizårdbõÿ777(talk) 06:37, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

dude, u rock. --VVong|BA 13:17, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't voting have started?

I ask because I have to catch a plane in the forseeable future and would like a chance to vote before I do. Misery 15:57, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Yep, you're correct. I'll go change the stuff with the things. -- Brains12 \ talk 16:05, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I had no idea how to do the stuff with the things, thanks Brains. Misery 16:12, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Current Stats

Auron -3 Antioch 3 Tantetris 17 Gordon (current winner) 30--DAVA 10:06, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

*cough*Leader*cough* since it's not over yet... -- Wyn 10:08, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Why bother counting if you're going to get the math wrong? 16 minus 17 isn't negative 3.

Me -1, PoA 2, Tane 16, Gordon 27. - Auron 10:11, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

If we'd kill the drop out's we'd have my scores.--DAVA 13:28, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Auron's score's are correct, (which have now been updated to Auron 1, PoA 2, Tane 17, Gordon 28) honestly can't see where Dav got his scores from. Either way though this 10 day voting stage is way too long, I think its time for a proposal to half it to a 5 day voting stage. -- Salome 17:16, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Or prolong the inevitable.--Silverleaf Don't assume, Know! 20:45, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

10 days is good, not everyone can access the wiki every day. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Misery (talk). 21:16, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

10 days is way too long. If someone can't access the wiki in 5 days chances are they may not be able to access it in 10 days either. It's an extremely long voting process and needlessly so imho. Take this election for example, its been quite clear Gordon was going to win from about the 3rd day of voting. The rest of the waiting since that point has just been somewhat pointless. -- Salome 04:21, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Go for a draft/change. I think the length is just fine. --Antioch 04:41, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I think I shall, as a 21 day election for a 6 month seat seems somewhat disproportionate. -- Salome 06:33, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

The six month seat is what makes it seem disproportionate, not the election length. You can't seriously expect Joe Wiki User to log on more often than once a week. - Auron 07:57, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

It's especially fitting at a time of year like this, when visiting the wiki might be less frequent for users on vactation. -- Dashface 08:22, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

So let me get this straight... you want to revise the election policy and add a clause which basically says, "if there is a landslide victory apparent, stop voting and move to phase four"? For the simple reason that you can't wait just a few more days? I don't like the implications of that. Vili 09:47, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

If someone can't access the wiki in 5 days chances are they may not be able to access it in 10 days either. Before that earlier comment from me I hadn't edited the wiki in 7 days. I think I had been away 6 days without checking my watchlist. My last edits before my leaving were a request to actually start the voting phase on time because I knew I would be away. Looks like 10 days was very bloody appropriate in an actual case, so consider your comment totally debunked. If I had left one day earlier I would have almost needed the full 10 days and I don't appreciate the implication that my vote is worthless because of a large majority on the part of one candidate. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Misery (talk). 12:33, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay firstly Vili please don't put words in my mouth as that's not what I said, if you are going to point out flaws in my reasoning, I'm all for it as I dont claim to be right all the time and I welcome other peoples view points, however please point out flaws in MY reasoning and not flaws in things I haven't even suggested.

To Misery, your rather aggressive comment doesn't debunk anything, all it shows is that you were away for a period of time and that in this instance it was greater than 5 days and less than 10 days, but this same reasoning can be applied to any period of time and any stage of the election. For example if you were away for 2 weeks would you then argue that the 10 day period is too short or maybe if you were away for 6 days, during stage 1, would you then argue that you didn't have enough time to put yourself forward as a candidate. It's utter nonsense to make a point based on that rather subjective reasoning. People go on holiday or have other commitments and that can last for more or less than 10 days, either way using one persons experience of being away really proves nothing. May i also suggest and please don't take this in an offensive way, but the voting stage would not have suffered greatly without your vote. That is not to say that each vote is not important, as they all are, it is more simply to say that within 5 days we normally have a clear winner or at the very least clear front runners. The extra 5 days may give a chance for a few extra votes here and there but often the election is decided in the first 5 days as that's when you get the first big clump of responses. The problem you sometimes see with this wiki at times is that alot of people seem to feel that without their input on every topic the wiki will simply grind to a halt and that really is not the case. Their will always be enough active users around during any reasonably long period to reach a proper decision in an election and although it's nice to have everyone's votes, it's really not necessary in every instance. We carry these elections out in 2 month cycles at the moment and each voting process takes 21 days, thus meaning that just under about half the time we are going to have a bureaucrat election ongoing, which IMHO is too much and that's not counting Sysop elections. All I am suggesting is a more streamlined process so as to identify candidates and elect them in a quicker and more expedient manner, rather than having the semi constant election process, which from the very start of the page entitled under "Sigh..." we can see that a fair few people are getting sick of.

I do think that Auron makes a good point though. That if we do wish to retain the 21 day voting process, then maybe longer terms for the bureaucrats could well be in order and thus allow us to space out these voting periods a bit more.

Once again though I would just like to reiterate I am not saying here that peoples opinions are not important at the election process, just rather that I think 5 days is enough to adequately gauge the communities feelings. Also guys please feel free to criticize my reasoning and improve upon it as I don't claim to be right here, it's just a possible idea for making this whole process faster and less cumbersome. -- Salome 17:10, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Here's my question: what do we stand to gain by streamlining the voting stage? Of course, if it were up to me, we'd be having many fewer annual elections (or none at all), but I'm having trouble seeing any intrinsic benefits in shortening the voting stage by five days. On the one hand, I suppose, shorter elections mean less potential time spent dealing with election drama, but, all things considered, we really haven't seen much of that in the last few elections. On the other hand, shorter elections mean that if there happens to be a very close election, there's more potential for the voting stage to end "to early." The problem is that there's a slippery slope at work. We'd all agree, I think, that a thirty day voting stage is too long and a one day voting stage too short, but it's more or less impossible to find a happy medium that everyone's going to agree on. That said, consider the two possible outcomes of this discussion. Either you (or someone else) drafts a policy proposal and (more likely than not) the whole thing devolves into a semantic debate about one point or another -- made especially likely by the slippery slope I pointed out -- and a lot of time gets "wasted" debating a relatively minor point or we leave it as is. Unless you can provide an at least semi-compelling reasoning that shorter elections are inherently better, I'm inclined to say that we leave things as is (though I'm more than receptive to a proposal to lengthen Bureaucrat terms, especially considering the relatively infrequency of controversial RfAs and ArbComm cases). *Defiant Elements* +talk 23:02, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

K so..."I think I shall [go for a draft/change]" because "10 days is way too long" and "The rest of the waiting since that point has just been somewhat pointless" since "its been quite clear Gordon was going to win from about the 3rd day of voting" is not even roughly equivalent to "revise the election policy and add a clause which basically says, "if there is a landslide victory apparent, stop voting and move to phase four"? For the simple reason that you can't wait just a few more days?" I'm not pulling empty phrases from thin air; you were free to correct my assumption without making claims that I was putting words in your mouth.

Anyway, I'd like to remind you that "It's utter nonsense to make a point based on ... subjective reasoning." Vili 00:18, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Vili Once again I'm not following you, if you had of read my whole post and not just the first line you would have seen that I went on to explain and develop the point further. Defiant and Auron seemed to grasp the point I was making easily enough as I'm sure most people did. Defiant It's not so much that I think we'll gain anything intrinsicly in the voting process by shortening it, it's more the fact that I don't think we'll lose anything by doing so either. It is just becoming clear over time that slowly users are becoming ambivalent to the inner administerial workings of the wiki and I think in part that is due to the semi-constant elections. I also think alot of people find the semi-constant announcement quite annoying. I hasten to add I'm playing devils advocate here as it doesn't really bother me, but in recent elections I know enough people who have complained about their frequency and length. Thus I thought a reduction in the length of the voting stage might be the way in which to minimise the annoyance caused to the wider wiki community. However maybe the answer lies in reducing the frequency of elections by making the term of bureaucrats longer. As it stands with the current system we average roughly 21 days out of every 56 in elections, which I think is alot of time for us to be spending in election mode. Thus maybe increasing the terms to 9 months or a year might be the way to go about it. As I think it would save us time on needless administration and would allow people to think "oh yay an election" again, rather than "oh bugger another election". Ultimately I'm just hoping we can turn the necessary background admin of the wiki into something that people want to become involved in when needed, rather than something that invokes groans and sighs like the elections are at the moment. (EDIT: also just to point out that up until the 23rd Dec we had over 40 individual voters, from the 24th onwards we've had 6 individual voters.) -- Salome 08:40, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

The point I debunked was the point I directly quoted, that no one would benefit from a 10 day voting period as opposed to a 5 day voting period. Discounting even one vote debunks the entire voting process, the entire voting process is made up of a series of single votes. If you take away even one persons right to vote for any reason, especially a reason related to convenience, the entire process becomes meaningless. In any case, a five day reduction in a 21 day process isn't really going to significantly effect the problem of constant elections, which is more related to the frequency of elections than the length of time required to conduct an election. This problem could be better approached by adjusting the length of terms or perhaps not having elections for each individual seat, but for all seats at once. I think the current one seat at a time election seems to confuse some people as I have seen in the past nominations or at least suggestions of nominations for people who are already bcrats or situations where people seem to think people who aren't currently bcrats are. If no one was a bcrat for the purpose of an election it could make the whole process a lot simpler. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Misery (talk). 14:08, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick thought: the 10-day period is to get people who are active, but only on a weekly basis. If someone is gone for 2 weeks, they know they are bound to miss something. If they aren't gone, but only check the wiki on Saturdays, they'll completely miss voting in some instances. So, it seems like the policy was meant to include people who check at least weekly, plus some buffer. --JonTheMon 14:44, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Salome has a valid point. Going over the stats for the last three elections (the only once since the 10 day voting policy was implemented) shows that most of the voting occurs in the first five days. In all three elections, less than 15% of the voting occurred in the back end of the voting phase. While that may seem like a lot, in each case the winner of each election would not have differed had the voting stopped early. As far as the point made about weekend users being informed, there is 10 days prior to the voting phase that gives notice of the election and impending vote phase.--Pyron Sy 00:57, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Just 'cause a weekend user knows about an election doesn't mean they would have access to the computer during that time. --JonTheMon 01:41, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't a possible fix for that be making sure the 5 day voting period spanned the weekend, thus giving weekday users and weekend users a chance to have a vote. As Pyron said, everyone has 10 days notice prior to the voting phase, so by that point they should have some knowledge of it and also as Pyron said 85% of all voting takes place in the first 5 day period. -- Salome 09:18, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

So if the election was unlucky enough that voting would start on Monday...then what? Postpone voting for two days? Steal two from Discussions phase? Lay down all the election schedules far in advance so they are all calendar-compliant? >.> Vili 09:24, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Vili firstly it was just a very quick suggestion to possibly fix an issue raised by Jon, secondly are you really suggesting that having a 5 day election in some way encompass the weekend or a portion there of, bearing in mind that a week is only 7 days long and the weekend in its strictest sense encompasses at least 2 of those days, would be a difficult task? I think you may be underestimating people here. As an addendum to that point, as I said it was a direct response to a concern raised by Jon, one that I have to admit I do not share because as long as the voting process doesn't begin on a Monday, it will in some way encompass either the whole or a part of the weekend.

As I have said before the point of this discussion is really just to flesh out a possible way of minimising the time we spend in elections. I'm not in any way claiming to be right, however my statement that the biggest bulk (85%) of the voting takes place in the first 5 days is supported by the voting history of the last few elections. If you don't agree with me on the possibility of reducing the voting stage that's all well and good but please understand the point of this discussion is the betterment of the wiki itself, it is not a direct attack on you or anybody else here. Another possible answer to reducing the time spent in elections, which has been raised a few times now, is that of increasing the length of bureaucrat terms, which again is something I think is very viable. As it stands however taking 21 days to elect someone for a 6 month seat is in my view a disproportionate amount of time.

Also Vili I hasten to add that this has nothing to do with apparent "landslide victory" as you keep raising, more simply the fact that in the past elections the first 5 days of voting has decided the winner in and of itself as IMO it is a long enough duration to adequately reflect the greater consensus of the wiki, the voting after this point has really added nothing more to the process than a few extra names here and there, which although nice really adds no intrinsic benefit to the voting process.

Also to Misery once again I must point out that your experience doesn't debunk anything, all it really does is show you were away for a period of time which really is meaningless in this context as its an arbitrary figure and a subjective experiance. All it shows is that in this instance the 10 day period worked in your favor, but beyond that it can't really be applied to the wider scope of the wiki itself, as it doesn't really show anything. As to your comment about 5 days gaining us nothing, it is roughly a 25% reduction in the length of the overall election time, which over the course of a year, if we keep the 6 month terms, will save us over 30 days worth of election time, which is no small amount imho. -- Salome 10:30, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Salome, the changes to the election process took MONTHS to gain concensus last time to EXTEND the time periods and now you are creating walls of text because you want them shortened? There is no problem with the length of time allotted for each stage. Why are you in such a rush to have it finished? Your part in the election process is finished. You had a chance to nominate your candidate, time for your discussion and you placed your vote, you are done. Unless of course you wish to change your votes and in that case, the extra time is a benefit. Is there really a need for this? I really don't understand why it's of such vital importance to you that this be shortened, as any change in admin really has no direct affect on you personally (and I may point out little affect on the wiki overall). As has been pointed out, especially at this time of year there are MANY people who are away for the holidays, and the wiki elections just aren't on the top of their priority list. There is no harm at all in having the extended voting period (as was decided during the discussions changing the policy). It simply allows more of the community the chance to participate. The election process overall has caused little disruption of day to day life on the wiki since the policy was changed. -- Wyn 10:53, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Wyn, You know I respect your opinion alot, however I think perhaps your last comment inferred a wee bit too much "need" or "urgency" on my part. I am under no great urgency to change things, however nor do I agree with keeping a flawed mechanic just for a peaceful existence. As I said before, the length and frequency of these elections are clearly beginning to wear on people as evidenced by the increasing number of people who are complaining when an election comes round. As can be seen above by the post entitled "Sigh...." I also do not think their is anything particularly wrong with discussing with like minded wiki users on possible things we may as a group consider to be a move in the right direction in regards to the admin of the wiki and to be honest I think you do yourself a great injustice with your implication that "normal users" should steer clear from discussions of such topics, which in essence is what your post suggested. I think the one thing that has emerged during the course of this debate is an undercurrent of people thinking that perhaps the bureaucrat term should be increased and that is something I have to admit I agree with. However in conclusion I think adult discussions on how to make the wiki more efficient, while steering clear from name calling and flaming are all in all for the betterment of the wiki. Thus far this discussion has remained mostly civil and positive with people putting forward ideas and suggestions and possible flaws for making the process more time effective and less of a hinderance to wiki users. Which although a small thing I know a fair few people who get annoyed by the semi constant announcement box, who do not wish however to take away the box forever in case they miss a maintenance announcement or the like. I hope I answered some of your questions Wyn, but either way I think this discussion does raise some valid ideas to be considered and not merely dismissed as a "wall of text". -- Salome 11:12, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I guess I'm missing out on loads of stuff then, because I haven't seen much of any complaining about there being another election. As for having the discussion, that's fine, but it doesn't belong here, it belongs on the election policy talk page, since it's a discussion regarding a change to the policy, not anything that really pertains to Guild Wars Wiki Elections/2008-12 bureaucrat election since we can't just end this election early regardless of where this discussion goes. Also, the site notice box is dismissible meaning you can dismiss it and it will reappear each time the notice it contains is changed. So for those who get annoyed by having to click on dismiss every once in awhile, I guess I really have nothing to say. -- Wyn 11:26, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I was going to suggest earlier for the convo to be moved to the relevant place but I got sidetracked like a numpty but you are totally right and I will do that immediately. I don't really notice the announcement box myself but I know some people who do; although on a different point I will say that i only raised this discussion due to the comments at the start of the page and the comments from a few friends in game about the frequency/length of the elections, I will also admit that over the course of this chat my viewpoint has changed that I do think it could be a good idea to lengthen the bureaucrat terms and leave the voting times as is. As I do agree about the 10 day period being more inclusive up to a point and I also think their is alot more consensus for an increase in bureaucrat terms. However I will move this chat over to the relevant page so as to not lumber down this elections chat page anymore. Am I right in assuming that the correct page is over at GWWT:ELECT? -- Salome 11:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

That's a very odd statement from you Wyn. What happened to treating anons the same as the rest? Backsword 20:32, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Technically anons have the same ability to remove that notice as registered users; just that the extension fails to display that button.. However that should not be part of a discussion here. Also when you want to change the election policy, do so by gaining comments on the policy talk page. We had this situations far too often that during an election people got the idea of crying over the bad election policy but as soon as the election was done, nobody ever heard anything about it. This continued far too often until we finally got a good proposal that was finally implemented after a long time, and now all this begins again? Please think about how important it really is to say something about the length of the voting phase; as Wyn said, you can participate at the beginning and are done then, so it shouldn't matter to you. poke | talk 20:48, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

The obvious winner...

is me. Promote whenever. -Auron 11:21, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Isn't. ;-). --Silverleaf Don't assume, Know! 11:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Results:

• Auron: 22/19 = +3
• Gordon Ecker: 32/4 = +28
• People of Antioch: 14/11 = +3
• Tanetris: 28/11 = +17

Gordon is the winner - any objections? poke | talk 14:34, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

grinn No. --Silverleaf Don't assume, Know! 14:48, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

None here. -Auron 16:16, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I think my position on this is pretty clear. - Tanetris 17:15, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

YAY! congrats Gordon! -- Salome 17:53, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Can I demand a recount? I suspect the presence of hanging posts; voter intent must be more clearly measured. Vili 09:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

All of Florida's votes aren't in >.< --Riddle 09:31, 2 January 2009 (UTC)