Guild Wars Wiki talk:Elections/Archive 1

I don't really like the current state of this policy.

Allowing users to give a % of a vote seems overly complex to me. So if I give a 1% of support does that mean my vote is worth 0.01? Calculating a value of each vote based on "the likelihood that it represents a voter who will continue to be a regular editor" is also too complex, and potentially unfair. I don't envy whoever has to tally up these votes! Especially if two candidates come close to each other.

Wouldn't protecting the vote from anonymous or recently registered editors be enough? LordBiro 03:53, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

My worry there is that it still seems too straight-forwardly vulnerable (which can cause problems and encourage counterattacks even if the vulnerability isn't exploited). That said, I also strongly dislike the "likelihood" aspect -- it's an ugly solution to a hard problem, IMO. I think that it'd be problematic only when the potential winners are close to each other, though. If there's an obvious winner, don't even bother tallying.

I changed the partial vote from 1%-99% to "1/4, 1/2, or 3/4". I also wouldn't mind just having "1/2" as an option, but tend to think we should have some sort of partial support available. --Rezyk 05:12, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

Well, I feel better about only have 4 levels of support, but I'm still not certain about it!

As for only calculating contributors level of activity when votes are close, I think that introduces more problems. What is close? If the number of votes are within 5% of each other? If so, what if the votes are 10% apart, but the candidate with the least votes has only votes from long time contributors and the candidate with more votes has only votes from short time contributors? LordBiro 06:20, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

"Close" could be interpreted as "anyone" thinks they is not a clear winner. Thus if noone objects, you directly go to stage 3, if anyone thinks there should be a close count, you start discussion the likelyhoods. --Xeeron 11:03, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

Right, there's no predetermined threshold for examining likelihoods closely. They should be examined just as far as needed to resolve disagreements towards consensus. Here's a hypothetical stage 3:

• User A: "It seems to me that User C won. What does everyone else think?"
• User B: "I tend to disagree. Sure, C has 4 more votes than D in the non-weighted tally, but 10 of C's supporters have no more than 3 edits each (and a some of them are..questionable). There are also 3 supporters for C that are long-time contributors but haven't really been editing in the past few months, so I wouldn't count them as full votes. I'd put C at ~9-11 less than the unweighted tally, and D at ~1-2 less (after looking at his supporters), putting D in the lead by around 4.5."
• User A: "I see what you mean -- although I'd only put C at about 7 less. I agree with naming D the winner."
• If nobody opposes, D wins. Otherwise we examine the disagreed parts more closely and hope it doesn't get ugly..

In principle, the non-likelihood-weighted tally wouldn't mean anything; only the weighted tally counts.

Regarding partial votes, let's see what others think. More levels? Less levels? --Rezyk 13:46, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

I like the way this project is shaping up, so here are my thoughts (if you can use them):

• Edit limit: How does 100 sound? - Just want to get discussion started on this.
• Time limits: Currently missing from the project. I'm thinking approximately two weeks in total, but I have no experience with running these things. I'm in favor of not letting elections drag on so long that politics take over from wikying content, but that's just my personal opinion. - Again, just a discussion starter.
• Final judgement: with the introduction of a time limit, what will be the situation if an election is deadlocked, and hits the limit (or limits for the individual phases)? Will ANet be called upon to resolve or will the election count as failed (i.e. re-election at a later date)? Alternatively, will the sitting bureaucrats have the power to influence the election if it becomes stalled?
• Sufficient candidates: How many candidates are sufficient for the election to proceed? If there is only one candidate, what is the outcome (what happens when no-one wants to be a bureaucrat :P)?
• Partial support: What is the necessity of these? When would these be useful? To play devil's advocate, if I give a candidate a partial support vote, does that mean I believe that they'll do 1/2 the job of a good bureaucrat?
• Deciding the winner(s): I feel that the current subjective weighting may lead to people getting pigeonholed as significant contributers and non-significant contributers and that this may carry across into the discussion about vote counting/decision making. I'm not sure how to resolve this, as users will inevitably feel that way if they see votes from people they have never seen before anyways.

Hope these thoughts are some use, and that they won't bog things down. I'm generally happy with the direction this is going, but I just wanted to point out some concerns of mine. --Indecision 03:50, 24 April 2007 (EDT)

I'm not particularly fond of partial voting. You either think somebody will do the job correctly or you don't. —Tanaric 09:07, 24 April 2007 (EDT)

(Response to both Indecision and Tanaric:)

• Edit limit: There's 2 parts where edit counts come into play -- stage 2 vote-allowing and stage 3 vote-weighing. I see these numbers as roughly setting the bars for which votes count at 0% and 100%, respectively. For vote-weighing, 100 edits seems ballpark-reasonable to me. For vote-allowing, I'd aim for something between 1 and 21 edits.
• Time limits: I was thinking that stage 2 should be the time hog here, and span at least one week to accomodate voters who have some weekly schedule (like only wiki-ing over the weekend). For each other stage, I'd say anywhere from 2 days to a week.
• Final judgment: ANet would be called on to just name the winners, using whatever judgment they choose. I figure the priority for this stage would be to get things resolved in time. (Otherwise, we could just restart elections until consensus..) Sitting bureaucrats should not have any special influence here outside of their normal duties (like arbitration in the case of severe misconduct).
• Sufficient candidates: One candidate should be sufficient for the election to proceed, even if the outcome is pretty much preordained. It'll just mean that stages 2-4 go exceptionally smoothly. =) It's generally not useful to speed things up since the timing of stage 1's end should be well in advance of the elected term anyways. I haven't considered what will happen if we get no candidates..in that case, we might have to re-examine the bureaucrat position.
• Partial support: The question is generally not "would this user be a good bureaucrat" (which is more appropriate when there's effectively unlimited seating, like possibly for sysops), but more like "which candidate(s) would you rather see elected". Suppose there are 3 candidates that, in the voter's mind, would all make good bureaucrats...but candidate A appears significantly better than B, who appears significantly better than C. Would the voter support all 3 (and have zero net influence on the outcome) or give differing levels of support to match their preference? Even if we ask for the former, practicality will give us much of the latter. To answer your questions directly: In my view, allowing voters to express a greater range of preferences is not vital, but would encourage greater participation and also give stronger consensus in stage 3. Giving partial support doesn't mean you think the candidate will do 1/2 the job; it just means you favor him/her somewhat more than the those you didn't support at all, but somewhat less than those you give full support to. What are your concerns against it? (Still too complicated? I tried to keep it unambiguous with respect to how it'd be counted.)
• Deciding the winner(s): Yeah, this draft was largely guided by something like "accept that we cannot give equal votes to everyone without an unwieldy and controversial user-checking system, so try to structure it so that the ugly parts don't matter unless they really have to". The height of the bar in stage 3 (to have your vote count at 100%) should be guided by practical necessity and not elitism, but that doesn't mean it won't become a problem.

Thanks for giving your opinions/questions -- more, please! =D --Rezyk 19:29, 24 April 2007 (EDT)

Ok, you asked for it:

• Edit limits: I don't feel that the two phases of edit limits are sufficiently explained, that being that weighting still seems subjective as opposed to, "a voter will be weighted based on the number of edits they have made, with 100 significant edits representing a full vote". Or something similar with the way I understand it.
• Time limits: I'm a fan of getting things over quickly, so 2 weeks give or take (with one week of showing support seems right. I also feel its important to set an absolute deadline to avoid arguments/discussions dragging on excessively (maybe 3 weeks at the most). How bout we start filling in those ? days in policy aye? ;).
• Final decision: I'm happy for ANet to shoulder the burden, so long as they're happy (depending on Gaile and co's response) :).
• Sufficient candidates: I'm happy enough that 1 candidate = winner for now, but in future (as active user numbers pick up), I would expect more than one to be normal or required.
• Partial support: My concerns against it still stand, as in the case outlined above, a voter should vote for all 3 candidates (or not at all) if they can't pick between them. Otherwise, if they favour one/two candidate(s) they should vote only for that/those candidate(s). I feel that partial votes may just lead to mediocre results as in: Candidate A earns 10 full votes, Candidate B only gets partial votes, but gets 21 of them and Candidate C gets 7 full votes. This would lead to Candidate B winning the election, despite not being regarded by any of the voters as being the best bureaucrat. On a separate but somewhat related note, I wouldn't mind terribly if voters were restricted to a single vote for candidates (i.e. If I vote for Candidate A, I'm not allowed to vote for any other candidates).
• Deciding the winner: If the elements for weighting a vote are clearly spelled out in Phase 3 (i.e. users with 100 significant edits are regarded as full voters, those with less are counted at 1/2 weight), then I don't see as much of a problem. At the moment, its just too difficult for anyone to tell if the weightings are accurate. IMHO, either the weightings should be based off of something easily checkable, or there should be no weightings on votes at all. Again, I'm quite happy for ANet to shoulder the burden of making a final decision, but I'd hope we could make it easy for them :).

Well, here ya go :) --Indecision 08:03, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

I am inclined to think that a user should only be voting for one candidate, not adding partial support for others. As for weighting, I go along with a system where >100 main space edits = 1 vote and <100 main space edits = 1/2 vote. I also favor keeping the process short - 2 weeks is ample time for what we are trying to achieve. Fox (talk|contribs) 08:14, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

I threw in some numbers for the ?'s; the total duration in the current draft is now 16 days. For concerns about edit limits, convoluted weighing, subjective decisions, etc, see draft B below. Regarding partial support, I've taken it out (although my opinion hasn't changed). I actually think that you've highlighted one of its advantages. In your example (10 full votes for A, 21 half votes for B, 7 full votes for C), there are 10 people who prefer A over B, while 11-21 people prefer B over A. Not only is B a superb "compromise candidate", he/she is the only one supported by a strict majority of voters and is actually the condorcet winner. B being elected is very much what should happen. Regarding plurality voting: it wouldn't be suitable at all if we have any elections with multiple seats. --Rezyk 18:10, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

Draft B

I posted a draft B for consideration which simplifies a lot of stuff -- it doesn't mention weighing, doesn't require a discussion over totals, and has a simple edit limit (>100), and no partial supports, but also puts ArenaNet in a different role. --Rezyk 18:10, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

That's a lot more pleasing to me, Rezyk! My only concern is that ArenaNet should not have any jurisdiction over who the bureaucrats are. If ArenaNet are willing to act as a neutral witness to the proceedings then that's great, but I don't think they should have the power to overrule voting. Mike O'Brien said himself that he only wants ArenaNet to get involved in the election process in emergency situations. LordBiro 05:07, 28 April 2007 (EDT)

I like the whole draft, except for step 3. ANet should only become involved if there is no consensus about the result among users after the 3 days set for this step. --Xeeron 14:33, 28 April 2007 (EDT)

Wth? Stage 3 makes the election process pointless. Fox (talk|contribs) 15:06, 28 April 2007 (EDT)

I've edited draft B. How is it now? --Rezyk 18:18, 29 April 2007 (EDT)

Looks good to me :) LordBiro 04:43, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

Much better. --Xeeron 04:54, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

I fully support this current version Fox (talk|contribs) 05:06, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

I don't support involving ArenaNet as policy under any circumstances. For one thing, they may be entirely unwilling to act in this manner. Besides that, however, I like this version much better, and I support the rest of it as it stands. I've removed my bureaucrat rights, as my appointed term was up, so let's hurry up and bang this out so I can run and get my spot back! :) —Tanaric 13:19, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

I dislike involving Anet into policy as well, but as a matter of fact, should there be an unsolvable disagreement over who should be bureaucrat, Anet will be making that decision for us. What I prefer however is writing down in the policy that this should only be a last resort and that there are clear steps before it gets to that stage. Something along the lines of:

• If there is consenus right away => candidate gets elected
• If there is no consensus => we use (potentially lengthy and work intensive) method described in this policy to figure out the winner
• If after applying the described method, we still disagree => we run to Anet crying.

I am not specifying the method yet, but in my mind it should be something like establishing who has a "valid" vote and counting these, where valid could be defined by number of edits/time the account is up. --Xeeron 17:53, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

What kind of scenario are you imagining? I tend to lean towards Tanaric's "no ArenaNet at all" position, but I'm pleased with this version as-is. LordBiro 19:24, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

I tend to think that generally all of us (including myself and ArenaNet) prefer to keep ArenaNet out of policy, but that there's some acceptance that potentially having some of their direct involvement here is among the least bad of our options. I'm mostly waiting for more ArenaNet feedback on this before pushing these proposals farther or banging out worse alternatives (see User talk:Gaile Gray#Election process for some of her initial response). --Rezyk 19:51, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

Since Stage IV is only likely to occur in a massive "tie" I suggest that Arenanets involvement is not likely to occur often, if ever. Ultimately, should it prove that this policy is so unstable (not likely) that it causes these disputes for every election, then we could always adjust the policy. I move to accept as-is. --Rohar (talk|contribs) 20:39, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

I'm not sure if I misunderstood you, Rezyk, but to allow me to paraphrase slightly are you saying "I want to wait for ArenaNet to say yes or no before I look at worse alternatives"? I think a system where ArenaNet comes in and makes an arbitrary decision as to who is the best candidate (as per the first revision) is pretty much the worse scenario I can think of for the final stage of a democratic process! I'm willing to support a system where they cast a deciding vote in the event of a close vote or something similar, but surely there are better alternatives? LordBiro 04:42, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Unrelated to stage 4, can I vote for multiple candidates? I can't see that this is addressed by the policy at present. LordBiro 04:43, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

"Registered editors can add one approval vote for each candidate they support" I interpret that as a clear yes. --Xeeron 07:49, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Yes. --Rezyk 01:26, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

Nah, that's not what I meant -- I'm fine with looking at alternatives (and technically have already looked at very, very many of them.. =); I was just talking about what you might expect in terms of my personal effort in driving progress here. If there's a better alternative to last-resort-ArenaNet-involvement, it's something I either haven't thought of, or has a bigger flaw in my view. We can wait for someone other than me to come up with something concrete, or pick a different poison for me to try -- would you prefer seeing an alternative that has a lot more of ...?

1. ... subjective vote counting and potential ArenaNet involvement
2. ... potential dependancy on ArenaNet judgment
3. ... bureaucracy and complicated/slow voting validation
4. ... Guild Wars coding & maintenance needed
5. ... (abandonment of the notion of equal voices and/or vulnerability/incentive towards fradulent voting) and one of ...
   1. ... coding effort needed
   2. ... encouragement of useless extra edits (I'd generally classify non-subjective vote counting processes under here)

--Rezyk 01:26, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

I reckon if we have 1 vote per person, where that person needs to have met some clear criteria (i.e. 100 edits in x, y and z namespaces before the starting date of the vote), and their vote is binary, then we'll never have a situation where the winner is subjective. The worst case scenario that I can see would be a tied vote. In which case I think that anyone casting a deciding vote is acceptable. Would asking the current bcrats to cast a deciding vote be acceptable? I'm not sure, but at least those bcrats would have been previously elected (of course if they disagree there might be a problem). As I said above, if ArenaNet are just casting a deciding vote then I can accept that, but I would prefer it if someone else cast the deciding vote, even though I don't know who. LordBiro 03:27, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

How about an automatic additional voting phase in case of a tie? --Xeeron 05:22, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

I'd considered that, but does it then just become a game of stamina, with the voters most willing to repeatedly vote in every round getting their own way? What if I don't vote in the second round because I mistakenly believe my support has already been registered? I don't like the idea of voting for my chosen candidate in 2 rounds (or more!), I'd rather have a deciding vote system I think. LordBiro 05:30, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

You missunderstood me: Only new voters would be allowed to vote. Old votes keep standing. --Xeeron 11:17, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

The main problem I see with that is that it doesn't provide a way to deal with outcome-changing sockpuppet voting if the secondary accounts meet the criteria. --Rezyk 14:04, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

I am loathe to involve ArenaNet unnecessarily, and I'm sure there's a better solution, but I believe that the evil of ArenaNet influence is lesser than the evil of deadlock on this policy. I'm switching my notion to full support as stands, in hopes of pushing this through. We can continue the search for a better tie resolution mechanism after this is made policy. —Tanaric 10:42, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

Asking A.net to pick a buereuacrat seems foolish. First, this assumes A.net is going to closely follow the wiki and wants to be involved. I doubt A.net with have any knowledge of wiki politics. A much better solution would be, in the event that consensus cannot be reached put an all or nothing proposition on the table. The two most popular candidates can split the bureaucrat position (each getting half a vote when it comes to bureaucrat votes and being in the position where any full bureaucrat can over ride them) or no bureaucrats are elected and the term of existing bureaucrats is extended. -Warskull 19:31, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

I guess there's more fundamental-dislike of the proposal than I initially thought, even if the dislikers are willing to reluctantly accept. With that being the case, I think we should consider accepting the proposed process for just one election at this time. That should alleviate much of the time pressure without forcing a long-term policy commitment, and we can spend more time working on and discussing alternatives (but not too leisurely or we'll just face the same problem again in 2 months). --Rezyk 13:54, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

I've added a notice to that effect to draft B. Thoughts? --Rezyk 14:04, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

I don't understand the notice. I will copy it here:

"For any election, an explicit consensus to use this process for that particular election is first required from both ArenaNet and the community."

I don't think that this notice is necessary. No policy is set in stone, so let's just accept that draft B is the election process and we'll discuss changes as soon as it's implemented. If they don't get implemented before the next election then so be it.

I also don't understand why we need consensus from ArenaNet before we can use this interim process. When an election date arrives are we going to contact Emily/Gaile/Mike/whoever and ask them if it's ok to use it? LordBiro 14:48, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

Agreed with Biro. —Tanaric 15:39, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

Hmm...so you guys are okay with having this as the "default process" that we would fall back on for as long as we haven't reached consensus for an alternative? --Rezyk 16:07, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

Yes. I would be happy with this being made policy, and then if we can come up with a better solution in the future then we can amend it. LordBiro 16:24, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

I guess I misunderstood or overestimated the concerns. Reverted. --Rezyk 16:36, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

Changed step 4 to reflect that we should first try to find concensus before going to Anet and to 7 days to allow more time to reach it. --Xeeron 17:44, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

I figured stage 3 to be where we try to reach consensus, even if it wasn't explicitly stated there. --Rezyk 17:58, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

Yeah, I don't think that change was necessary. Stage 4 originally said (to paraphrase) "if no consensus can be reached from voting then we contact ArenaNet". I think, though, that if Xeeron felt it needed changing then it probably needed to be more explicit anyway! LordBiro 18:05, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

I shoved some stuff around, trying to keep the explicit attempt for consensus and 7 day length. I tend to see this as just a labeling change (trying to maintain: stage 3 = community deciding, stage 4 = ArenaNet deciding). What do you think, Xeeron? --Rezyk 18:46, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

Much better. I was irritated by the "it does not have to represent consensus" part in the previous stage 3. Now if it says consensus in stage 3, it doesnt have to in stage 4 anymore. --Xeeron 06:08, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

Read This.

Everyone commenting, please read "A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy" (you can focus on part 3 if you're lazy). It says some important things about group dynamics, particularly on the Internet. Here's a particularly relevant snippet:

The third thing you need to accept: The core group has rights that trump individual rights in some situations. This pulls against the libertarian view that's quite common on the network, and it absolutely pulls against the one person/one vote notion. But you can see examples of how bad an idea voting is when citizenship is the same as ability to log in.

In the early Nineties, a proposal went out to create a Usenet news group for discussing Tibetan culture, called soc.culture.tibet. And it was voted down, in large part because a number of Chinese students who had Internet access voted it down, on the logic that Tibet wasn't a country; it was a region of China. And in their view, since Tibet wasn't a country, there oughtn't be any place to discuss its culture, because that was oxymoronic.

Now, everyone could see that this was the wrong answer. The people who wanted a place to discuss Tibetan culture should have it. That was the core group. But because the one person/one vote model on Usenet said "Anyone who's on Usenet gets to vote on any group," sufficiently contentious groups could simply be voted away.

Now, when writing early policy here or on Guildwiki, you had the benefit of the only a dedicated hyper-minority being the only people who cared (this was the "group within the group"). So far, these have all been based on creating a pseudo-democratic structure and then just hoping that only the most diligent and active members self-select as voters. I don't think it's safe, however, to assume that that's how elections are going to work out, too, particularly since this site is trying to be more visible. So, I encourage the policy-makers here to read that article, think about what makes up the "group within the group" on GW Wiki and engineer policy to best address the interests of the project as a whole (avoiding both random democracy and excessively old-guard-ism and cliquishness in the process). I'm not saying y'all haven't been doing that already but... think about this more. It's important. — 130.58 (talk) 18:13, 14 May 2007 (EDT)

Proposed

I've moved draft B into the main version and am officially proposing this as policy. The recent ArenaNet semi-feedback (from User talk:Gaile Gray#Election process) is: "I never got a reply, so I'm going to make the commitment that, should Stage 4 involvement be required from ArenaNet, we will provide that support." --Rezyk 03:35, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

Support as Policy - at least until we're done a round or two of this election system and seen how it works. If there's anything wrong, we can re-evaluate. MisterPepe talk 03:57, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

Seems the talk pages were not moved over. I am still in favor of using this policy. --Xeeron 18:35, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

All of the draft B talk is already here. =) --Rezyk 20:21, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

I am wholeheartedly in support of this proposed policy. Come on, people - fingers out! --Snograt 20:57, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

Looks pretty solid. It gets my support. --  (CoRrRan / talk) 21:29, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

Support. Fox (talk|contribs) 08:21, 17 May 2007 (EDT)

Opposition votes

Breaking this in a new subsection so as not to interfere with all the Supports above. If we're going to rush this through, so be it, I guess. I personally don't support this policy though.

These are not allowed (and should be struck out or removed):
Opposition votes

In general, the strongest support one can give directly to a candidate is to
sign a vote onto the candidate's subpage and give a convincing positive
argument on the candidate's talk subpage. To directly oppose a candidate, one
might give a negative argument on the candidate's talk subpage (but avoid
personal attacks; consider simply giving links to evidence, if necessary) and
support every other candidate.

Why no oppose votes? Why force contributors to vote for someone else (who they may or may not like) simply to say "not this guy!" for a particular candidate? That's assuming that there even is another candidate.. What if there isn't (as it may well happen during this election)? In other words, why isn't the goal of this policy to provide a way for the users to directly express their support (or lack of it) for each of them individually? Be realistic about what we're dealing with here; we're a small wiki, with only a handful of people that will vote and a couple of candidates (if we're lucky). Lack of a Support vote is not the same as an Oppose vote in this context, not even close.

Furthermore, why is there no minimum limit on the amount of votes that a candidate needs to be eligible? You said above, Rezyk, "One candidate should be sufficient for the election to proceed, even if the outcome is pretty much preordained". Even if half the active wiki population refuses to vote for him (since without any Oppose votes that's all we can do)? Why does this policy need to result in someone becoming a bureacurat? If we're really that afraid of running low on active bureaucrats, extend the terms of the active ones if you want, (or maybe make it so that their term doesn't end until a new replacement bureaucrat is elected). Just place some kind of bar on what's needed to become one. Of course, without oppose votes it's hard to measure how many disapprove of a candidate, so some other way would need to be devised (for reference, en-WP uses "the candidate needs more support votes than oppose votes to be eligible" for their ArbComm elections).

Bottom line is that I personally wouldn't mind seeing oppose votes being allowed and taken into consideration, as well as some kind of limit on the a minimal amount of support that a candidate needs to be elected. --Dirigible 15:33, 17 May 2007 (EDT)

Who's rushing it? =P

Would you have preferred something closer to my first idea?

Why no oppose votes?

In other words, why isn't the goal of this policy to provide a way for the users to directly express their support (or lack of it) for each of them individually?

It reflects the difference between positions with effectively unlimited seating (like Wikipedia sysops) versus targeting a specific number of seats (arbcomm). With the former, it's appropriate to ask for the individualized direct opinion of the candidate, independent of other candidates. With the latter, the relevant question is really "out of all our potentials, which do you prefer?" -- it's simply oriented towards the group decision that we have to make. Unlimited versus specific seating radically alters the equation; I'd suggest that this same difference is reflected in why, for example, it wouldn't be appropriate to use an election to decide which X articles should be deleted every week. Besides that, you still can directly express your opinion on the candidate talk page -- we should just be realistic about whether we need to mimic the same form as that for our voting mechanism. Also, we are being realistic about size here; an Oppose option is a bit more suitable for elections with many candidates rather than a few (to lighten the voting chore).

Why force contributors to vote for someone else (who they may or may not like) simply to say "not this guy!" for a particular candidate? That's assuming that there even is another candidate.. What if there isn't (as it may well happen during this election)?

[What] if half the active wiki population refuses to vote for him?

why is there no minimum limit on the amount of votes that a candidate needs to be eligible?

Why does this policy need to result in someone becoming a bureacurat?

That's actually something that should generally be addressed earlier, during stage 1. If you see only rogues who would do a bad job signing up as candidates, then get someone you favor to sign up too! We should not keep a window open too wide such that we could easily keep stalling our decision. Relying on the old bureaucrats is no good -- if they are willing and able, why aren't they simply a candidate? Maybe he/she is the unpopular sole candidate. Maybe the election is even brought on because the old bureaucrat had to resign (perhaps something we frown on, but it'd be wishful thinking to just hope it never happens). If popular opinion is that nobody good enough is available, then what we really have to do anyways is go back and reexamine the structure of bureaucrats/arbcomm to fit our limited resources.

Lack of a Support vote is not the same as an Oppose vote in this context, not even close.

I claim that it pretty much is the same in terms of vote-counting. Consider: Take any election with {support, abstain, oppose} votes counting as {+1, 0, -1} towards a tally. If you remap those votes into {support, partial, no support} counting as {+1, +1/2, 0}, then mathematically you get the exact same winners. The voters really get the same choice, just with different labels. And you are still free to influence other voters with your direct opinion on the candidate talk page. (Okay, this argument I planned actually has a hole in it since I couldn't keep support for partial voting. =P It also doesn't apply if you have something other than a tally in mind. Should we get into those?) And in terms of the effects of different labeling, the option without "Oppose" is preferable because it doesn't breed as much negativity and complications.

Also, for counter-reference: the "more support votes than oppose votes" is only for narrowing down the pool before the winners are to be decided by a single person. It's part of a process that was implemented without even majority support (although it did get a plurality over an approval voting option, 25 to 19).

Another argument that I could see against my case here is that theoretically, we could have a good pool of candidates at the end of stage 1, but the generally favored candidates decide to withdraw in stage 2 (for whatever reason), forcing us to choose from a totally unpopular pool. To deal with this, I suggest a change where we also allow new candidates to sign up during stage 2. Opinions?

--Rezyk 15:54, 18 May 2007 (EDT)

Personally I think Dirigible makes a good point. To deal with one point specifically:

I claim that it pretty much is the same in terms of vote-counting.

I don't agree with partial votes, but for the sake of this example we can imagine a scenario with either partial votes or integer votes (I'm sure there's a better term than integer, but I mean non-partial).

Let's imagine there are two candidates, Mhenlo and Devona. On a partial or integer voting system Mhenlo might receive 10 votes and Devona 20. From this we might determine that Devona should be a bcrat. But we might see very different results if we allowed negative voting. Mhenlo might receive -5 and Devona -2.

While the overall score is the same it's clear that neither of them are regarded as good bcrats.

Even if we were to publicise elections, and even if we were to ensure that all votes were genuine, I fear that disallowing negative votes might lead to a system where bcrats are elected despite concerns from users.

That said, I'm not sure what procedure would be best. Are we allowed to vote for as many candidates as we want? Are we allowed to negatively vote for as many candidates as we want? I'm not sure, but I do feel that negative votes give users more power over the election, and I consider that a good thing. LordBiro 17:11, 18 May 2007 (EDT)

Rezyk, I think you're making a bit of a conceptual error there. You can remap {1, 0, -1} to {1, 0.5, 0}, yes, but you're rebinning some votes when you do that. Let's just call the categories +, +-, and - for now, and distinguish them carefully from the fourth option, which is a non-vote.

100 people could vote

90 don't vote at all (I think even 10% turnout for this kind of thing is a longshot)

2 people vote + Mhenlo, - Devona

2 people vote + Devona, - Mhenlo

2 people vote + Devona, +- Mhenlo

2 people vote + Mhenlo, forget to vote at all for Devona

2 people vote - Mhenlo, forget to vote for Devona

(Why are there a lot of people forgetting to vote for Devona? Mhenlo's a more controversial guy so a lot more people are interested in voicing support or opposition to him.)

So, under the support/oppose scheme, where a lack of opinion counts the same as a moderate opinion, Mhenlo gets (4 - 4 + 2*0 + 90*0 = ) 0 and Devona gets (4 - 2 + 0*0 + 94*0 = ) 2. Under the support/partial scheme, where strong conscious opposition is weighed the same as just no caring to vote, Mhenlo gets (4 + 4*0 + 2*0.5 + 90*0 = ) 5 and Devona gets (4 + 2*0 + 0*0.5 + 94*0= )4. In the second case, the more uninformed drive-by posters Mhenlo can get to voice any opinion of him, the better, because, as long as they're not being diligent enough to vote for every candidate but just quickly expressing their opinion of him, he can only gain votes, not lose them. People who dislike Mhenlo enough to write that they don't want him but figure it's enough to just write "do not want" and don't go looking at the other candidates do not affect Mhenlo at all, whereas those who read the rules more carefully and figure that any candidate they could tolerate as admin deserves a "partial support" are having less of an effect on the overall election. I'm not really comfortable with that. I like support/oppose specifically because it makes you go out of your way in order to voice an opinion either way. — 130.58 (talk) 14:12, 19 May 2007 (EDT)

The remapping only means to show that the Oppose system doesn't really give more power to the electorate. You've shown that the two systems can give different results when you factor in voters' different natural reactions and other influences, which I agree with. But I also think that if we go down that road, we should consider these reactions more thoroughly. The 2 people who "vote - Mhenlo, forget to vote for Devona" under the oppose system are generally not going to do that in the non-oppose system, because it is very obvious to them that they are having zero influence by not voting at all. You also mention that some who "read the rules more carefully and figure that any candidate they could tolerate as admin deserves a partial support are having less of an effect on the overall election" -- but it's plain that a partial vote supports that candidate less than a full vote, so it's something that the voter is comfortable with. I'd worry more about the oppose system causing many voters to have half-influence in a very non-obvious way:

The Mhenlo fan club (with 15 members) and the Devona fan club (with 8 members) each would simply prefer to see their idol as bureaucrat, so they make sure each member voices a support vote for their respective candidate, putting Mhenlo in the lead, 15 to 8. However, in the last hour of stage 2, the Devona fan club adds 8 oppose votes against Mhenlo, putting the score in Devona's favor, 8 to 7. The Mhenlo fan club quickly learn their lesson -- you not only have to go out of your way in order to voice an opinion either way, but you are forced to do so in order to exert equal influence under these rules. From then on, they always make sure to give every other candidate 15 oppose votes right at the start, even if unknown.

I feel that the huge oversight that many are making is to presume that votes generally reflect sincere opinion. That may even be the case initially, but voters are strongly driven toward voting optimally towards their personal preferences instead. Any voting system should generally be designed to handle that, or else its theoretics may not hold up to real voter mentality. Please be careful about assuming that you can determine what the sincere opinions are.

Putting it another way: Why in the world would you guys think that a Support vote means that the voter thinks the candidate isn't a bad bureaucrat? What indicates that a bunch of Oppose votes means the candidate isn't seen as a great bureaucrat? The fact that they're labeled "Support" and "Oppose" is relatively unimportant in the long run -- what matters is how the system incentivizes the user to act according to his/her sincere opinion. In cases such as Wikipedia RFAs, the incentives are such that you would generally expect the expressed opinion to closely match the sincere opinion. Do you guys really believe this will also be true in the oppose system suggested?

I went and polled the imaginary voters in one of LordBiro's given scenarios. Here's their underlying opinions, straight from their imaginary lips:

• 45 voters said they opposed Mhenlo and supported Devona, because "Devona is awesome -- never afraid to enter the fray, and absorbs attacks well while dishing out justice. Mhenlo is absolutely horrible at this."
• 47 voters said they supported Mhenlo and opposed Devona, because "I think Devona would be good for the team, but value Mhenlo more due to his words of comfort keeping us going strong during difficult times."
• 7 voters said they just opposed Mhenlo, because "I didn't have time to research who is good, but feel that Mhenlo is absolutely horrible."
• Do you feel that Devona would make a good bureaucrat? 93%: yes, 0%: no, (7%: don't know)
• Do you feel that Mhenlo would make a good bureaucrat? 47%: yes, 53%: no
• Final action: Since both got a negative score (-5 and -2), it's "clear that neither of them are regarded as good bureaucrats", so we declare no winner and will have another redo-election (without the negative score check, unless a new candidate steps up again). In the meantime, the position will continue to be filled by the incumbent, Mhenlo, for the 4th time in a row.

I'd see this as a great example of not designing things against the group being "its own worse enemy"...

--Rezyk 13:36, 20 May 2007 (EDT)

Sounds like an argument against voting entirely. — 130.58 (talk) 04:35, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think an easy solution to this problem has three parts: 1. Allow oppose votes. 2. Require that a candidate have more approve than oppose votes to be eligible, even if running unopposed. 3. If all candidates are opposed in an election, a followup election should be held immediately after, under the same rules as the first one. If the candidates for the followup election are a subset of the original candidate set, the "support > oppose" criterion is lifted for that election only. Note that I'm speaking mathematically here -- a candidate set is a subset of itself. Put conversely, unless at least one new candidate enters the followup election, the "support > oppose" criterion is lifted for all candidates in the followup election.

This solution allows easy expression of disapproval without the risk of deadlocking the election process based on the lack of any candidate at all -- essentially, the risk of a generally opposed candidate getting a seat is designed to spur additional candidate nominations for a followup election.

—Tanaric 01:43, 20 May 2007 (EDT)

So is it better to elect someone who is not acceptable than it is to elect no one? This is a genuine question btw ;) I'm having trouble deciding. LordBiro 04:51, 20 May 2007 (EDT)

I think it's pretty clear that anyone who gets more opposed votes than support votes clearly shouldn't be a sysop or bureaucrat at that point in time. If you ever get into a situation where none of the big personalities on the wiki are electable, then that should be a queue to look to gentler, quieter folks, not to force a choice between those candidates. — 130.58 (talk) 07:40, 20 May 2007 (EDT)

Fully agreed, 130.58 . --07:43, 20 May 2007 (EDT)

Inherent in my suggestion is the assumption that the users won't allow a generally opposed user to win the second election. If users can't bother getting involved in a manner beyond expressing support or opposition, their right to complain is significantly diminished in my eyes. I'll repeat what I said above, and I'll bold it for emphasis, since the point seemed to be lost: the risk of a generally opposed candidate getting a seat is designed to spur additional candidate nominations for a followup election.

That said, I won't push this hard, as at this point my primary goal is to get a policy in place, and every suggestion so far is good enough for the short term.

—Tanaric 00:26, 23 May 2007 (EDT)

Here's another suggestion: Have no appointment if that is what the majority prefers, and simply ask users that to see if it's the case, instead of trying to figure it out from vote data. --Rezyk 13:56, 20 May 2007 (EDT)

I do not support this option in the long run; anarchy must never be allowed. However, as I don't see this occurring in the short term, I'll support this if it means getting the policy pushed through -- I can argue about it's merit later. —Tanaric 00:26, 23 May 2007 (EDT)

Ready?

Now that we have established that opposing votes should be allowed, is this ready to be made policy? I'm eager to get this settled so that we can look at other matters, and I'm sure many of you must feel the same way. Are there any outstanding issues? LordBiro 17:49, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I am happy with it and I really hope we'll get it implemented soon. Even more than a builds policy ;-) --Xeeron 18:57, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm...I've been trying to point out problems in the reasoning behind oppose votes, and saying that it's not worth the issues it will bring. I know that I haven't been too convincing, but could I get some acknowledgements that you guys have read through my latest arguments/proposal and think that they're flawed (or whatever)? Also, I thought that 103.58 and Dirigible didn't like the "forcing a choice" that the current proposal has (if there are no new candidates). --Rezyk 20:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Can I make a note that I don't see (and I may have missed it) a process by which others can nominate a user for adminship/bureaucracy? The process as it stands now only describes a person nominating themselves. I come from a tradition (and a personal belief) that such people are 90% of the time, NOT the best for the job (see US Presidents). There are humble people who will NEVER nominate themselves. What are we doing about that? --Karlos 21:24, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Gnah. I really want to answer these, but have a hard time doing so, because a) I dont want to be too blunt b) I do want to make people feel I respect their opinion though I disagree c) am to tired to write a funny response. So I'll be short. I am not convinced that is a likely example and Simply write other-nominations into the policy proposal. --Xeeron 22:05, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I thought that was kind of funny, actually. =) Anyways:

• The example is just meant to be illustrative rather than likely. The likely scenario with oppose votes is that we just simply won't get the basic voter behavior expected (and it'll be harder to see why). Is this where people disagree with me? If so, I guess I can justify (to myself) not objecting to consensus here..
• I've now worked in nomination-by-others into draft B. Anyone who is interested, please take a look. Also feel free to try working that (or whatever) into the main draft.

--Rezyk 22:58, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I am fine with draft B that includes non-self-nominations. I'll wait for a day to see if anyone has objections. --Karlos 23:51, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I support. —Tanaric 01:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

And because I believe in learning by doing, I've started an election based on this current policy. If the community is not comfortable with this, they are free to revert. —Tanaric 03:21, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I support giving this a try rather than waiting for consensus and doing nothing in the meantime. If necessary, I would suggest making this official and then argue about any problems that come up while we're conducting the first elections. Otherwise, any highlighted potential problems will forever remain "potential problems". -- ab.er.rant 03:48, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Reverted. Please please please, do not rush this. This is not an urgent matter, there's no reason to rush this through, especially since there's still disagreement. You being tired of "deletion gruntwork" is not a good reason to push a half-baked policy out the doors, I'm afraid.

You wrote earlier, Tanaric, "The risk of a generally opposed candidate getting a seat is designed to spur additional candidate nominations for a followup election." Strongly disagreed, and I think the community deserves to be shown more respect than being forced to come up with new candidates via scare-tactics. With what right would we force them into a corner, possibly in a position of needing to choose the "lesser evil"? As 130.58 said above, if someone can't even get more support than oppose votes then he clearly shouldn't be considered for this position. To answer Biro's question more directly, it's better to elect no one rather than elect someone not acceptable, someone who's obviously not wanted by the community in that position.

Rezyk, I understand where you're coming from with the dislike for oppose votes, but I think the picture you are painting is too bleak and that you are worrying too much about worst case scenarios. From my personal experience with RF[AB]s on GuildWiki and the En/It Wikipedia, when someone votes Oppose, they genuinely have a reason to not want that candidate to succeed. Maybe we can emphasize that somehow? We can probably clearly state that the voting for each candidate should work as a simple RFA, evaluating that candidate and whether she personally would be appropriate for that position, instead of worrying about choosing between available candidates.

Lastly, thanks for mentioning that self-candidacy issue, Karlos. I figured I was alone in disliking it, so I didn't even bother mention it; decided it'd be better to spend my time trying to figure out how to convince those I'd like to see run for the position to nominate themselves. Fully agreed with you, and glad that this was solved so easily. --67.68.51.135 04:27, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Anon, the statement you quoted was based on my own policy suggestion, which garnered no support, is not part of this draft, and has nothing to do with anything.

A practical, hands-on test of the draft will do us more good at this point than pondering voting theory. If you didn't notice, we already have consensus for an earlier draft -- the only opposition was from User:Dirigible, who stated that he was okay with pushing it through without his support and discussing it more later.

Nobody is attempting to circumvent the system or push something "half-baked" through. This is a good policy, and there's widespread support for it.

—Tanaric 04:37, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

That was me above, didn't realise I wasn't logged in.

That statement I quoted was from the section right above this, regarding this line in the current Guild Wars Wiki:Elections page: "Only if no new candidates enter the election, the positive vote balance requirement is lifted". How is that not relevant? 130.58, Biro and I questioned that statement, you answered, I'm answering back, disagreeing with it remaining in the policy.

Also, why exactly are you supporting (in bold, no less) Draft B, which still explicitly disallows oppose votes? Wasn't the consensus that we should have those? --Dirigible

First, let me say that there's no intelligent way of saying "I thought you sounded like you!" :)

And, egg on my face: I didn't realize Rezyk had actually put that in the elections policy proposal. I assumed nobody listened to me. I'd been working off diffs kept in my head, and apparently I got out of sync. Apologies for making a series of completely useless comments.

Let's start over. I've integrated the draft B non-self-candidacy bit into the main proposal, as Rezyk suggested be done above. I support the main proposal as stands, which includes opposition votes and nominating others.

As far as my bolded comment above, I'll say that I didn't intend a "scare tactic"; I wished to express faith in the community. If Ollj was our only nomination for a seat, you can be assured that I'd dig as deep as needed to find another more suitable candidate, regardless of how much work it was, and I assumed others might do the same. If such a mentality of community responsibility isn't desirable, so be it. We need another fall-back plan, regardless of how unlikely such a case is. In the short term, I'll accept leaving the seat open. I will also accept bureaucrat or ArenaNet appointment. None of these options are ideal, though, and I'd like to revisit the issue once the policy made official.

I disagree with you on the urgency of this policy. This (which is really a subpolicy of GWW:ADMIN) was perhaps the only important policy that should have been established before opening the wiki up to the public. It establishes an order to the wiki, and I think that's essential.

In any case, the only issue that seems to remain is what to do with failed elections. Let's hammer it out and finish this. Like I said, I support any of the possibilities mentioned so far.

—Tanaric 05:58, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Nominating someone else did not strike me as a problem, but I'm glad it has been addressed.

Firstly let me say: Poor Ollj!! :)

I would prefer a situation where, if someone receives a negative vote tally in an election, they are not allowed to stand for that election again (although of course they may stand for the next one). Would this solve the problem? LordBiro 08:05, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying that if an only candidate received a negative tally, then they can't be elected and another candidate must be nominated? -- ab.er.rant 10:21, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes. It seems many here agree that if a candidate receives a negative tally then they are unfit to be a bureaucrat (at that time, at least). If this is the way people feel then it makes sense to me to say that receiving a negative tally is an indication that you have not been successful in this election, even if there is no other candidate who is successful. LordBiro 10:58, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm okay with that. —Tanaric 18:45, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

It actually wasn't me who added that. =) --Rezyk 21:23, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent, replying to anon/Dirigible)
Well, I can accept that having been focused on improving election resiliency for too long may be causing me to overworry. Of course, I'm still naturally concerned that you all are not worried enough, or cannot tell well enough where things will head. =P So for the record, I am against allowing oppose votes (favoring the current draft B alternative instead), but am now not objecting to a consensus for it.
I do ask that you guys not take all of my previous arguments as my big reasons "why not" to do oppose voting -- they really were just questioning the assumptions behind its supposed benefits (which I feel are mostly illusory). For reference, here's what I see as the generally likely and dangerous/bad scenarios:

• We eventually don't get whatever "sincere opinions" that the theory is built around and end up with a different vote culture that nobody planned on.
• A lot more natural ire is generated by the oppose votes. (My main reason for pushing against it now -- other effects can generally be "reverted" when they get out of hand, but not this.)
• We unknowingly worsen some of the very issues it was intended to fix -- the candidate pool becomes smaller and we elect someone we generally don't want, oppose-minded voters are forced to do more work to exert equal influence, and/or we create a measurable bias towards the more controversial candidates.

Just...try to watch out for these, okay?
Regarding emphasizing applying your votes as individualized decisions rather than preferences: If it helps guide willing voters to stay on the same page, then good. But if it creates expectancies that don't hold up, then bad. I'm not especially for or against it.
--Rezyk 21:21, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

More than 100 edits

Should there be some clarification on this rule where users with less than 100 edits can't vote? I would say a user with 50 edits on the main namespace is more eligible than a user with 1 edit in the main namespace, and 99 in the User and/or Guild namespaces. -- ab.er.rant 03:07, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

It's tricky though. I would say there's a group of us who have considerably more edits in the Guild Wars Wiki talk namespace than anywhere else. Is this more or less valuable than the main namespace? I do agree to an extent, a user should have to have made 100 edits excluding the user and guild namespace. LordBiro 09:27, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

In total, I have 15 mainspace edits (I should really edit this more, but meh) and around 500 total edits. I would hope that I could vote in something like this >.<, so I'm not so sure I support that :P Ale_Jrb (talk) 09:29, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

What I'm suggesting is that your edits to user and guild should not count towards your total number of edits, but this does not include user_talk and guild_talk edits. Looking at your contributions I think you've made more than enough edits to vote. LordBiro 10:00, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

And then what about a person like me, that has done 3 billion edits to the main namespace, but 99% are done at the armor pages. I don't really care if I'm eligible to vote or not, just want it to be clear who's voting and who's not :) As it seems, it does matter where you have done your edits also? - anja (contribs) 10:30, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

It's quite simple; take your total number of edits. Subtract the number of edits made to User: and Guild: namespaces. Is your number of edits greater than 100? Then you can vote. LordBiro 11:22, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Funny, somehow I thought that the >100 edits part was in there all the time. Seems it got discussed somewhere but not implemented. Anyway, not the policy is pretty clear as LordBiro pointed out above: All edits apart from those in User: or Guild: count (That includes User talk:, Image:, Guild Wars Wiki: Guild Wars Wiki talk: and so on) . --Xeeron 13:02, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Seeking consensus

I am happy enough with the current state of things and support making this policy. If there is anything else that needs to be addressed before we can make this official, please let it be known. :) —Tanaric 05:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

It looks good to me :) support! LordBiro 06:50, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Good to go. -- ab.er.rant 07:14, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

It has my support :) Ale_Jrb (talk) 08:42, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Happy with it. Just one minor thing about understanding the policy: Does everyone agree that the policy should be read such that there has to be clearly more than 3 days between first setting up the elections page (step 0) and the end of step 1? If not I would like to add either a 3 days duration to step 0 or lengthen step 1's duration to 7 days. --Xeeron 09:55, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Support as-is. Xeeron, I'd be fine with that, but I'd like us to be wary of stretching this out longer than we have to. The process is already set up to take three weeks =P MisterPepe talk 18:44, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I do have one small question about this. The naming of the subpage, Guild_Wars_Wiki:Elections/<Date>_<election type> seems to suggest, at least to me, that this policy is to be used for more than one type of election, i.e. not just BCrat elections. Is this policy also intended for Sysop RfAs, or do we need to come up with something else at GWW:RFA? I still support this policy either way, but I'd appreciate clarification. MisterPepe talk 20:40, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Xeeron, I read the policy as written to mean what you suggest.

MisterPepe, this election policy is written primarily for bureaucrat elections, but it is generic enough to apply to other elections should they crop up. Each individual process chooses its own election policy, though I imagine that any that crop up will also choose this one.

—Tanaric 23:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I can only speak for myself, but: I would very much like to see the sysop position not become one where we have to worry about "too many sysops", and for that I'd strongly suggest something simpler and modeled off of GuildWiki/Wikipedia RFAs instead of an election process. The "election type" in the name was originally added for a bit of clarity and on a whim that it would make this system more easily reusable for other potential limited-seat positions (if we ever found a need for some). --Rezyk 23:51, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant to mention that too. While this will probably be used for most elections, sysops really aren't "elected," so.... —Tanaric 23:58, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I have no objection to consensus here, although (as covered previously) some of my stronger preferences lie elsewhere. Regarding Xeeron's question: I would say that the current version does not really make that clear, and support either of your suggested fixes. --Rezyk 22:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Determining number of edits for one's account

Is there a nice and easy way of determining the number of edits one has made with their account in the appropriate namespaces? I found an extension on MediaWiki that does just that, but it doesn't appear to work on this Wiki, so I assume its not installed. If there is not convenient method determining one's edit count, I think it would be worth installing the extension to this Wiki if the right to vote is dependent on the edit count - it would encourage those who are unsure about their edit count to find out whether they are eligible to vote. --IAmAI 13:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

You can also just look here: [1] (example for your account ;)). If there is more than one page this user did more than 100 edits in the main namespace :) poke | talk 17:30, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Ooo didn't think of that! Thanks :) --IAmAI 17:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)