Guild Wars Wiki talk:Elections/Archive 2

Changes for next election?

The second election should probably start in about 2 weeks. Now that we've gone through the exciting half of the first election, it would be a good time to start discussing any major changes/improvements to be made. Thoughts? --Rezyk 22:29, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I suggest reducing voting phase to three days, as the vast majority of votes in the last election were made within the first three days. I further suggest putting a clause in phase 3: "If consensus for a winner is reached before the end of the phase, the election can be terminated early." Or something to that effect.

—Tanaric 22:39, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I wont fight to the death on that issue, but I prefer the longer voting phase. --Xeeron 23:12, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Could you explain why? Even if I don't agree, I'm interested. —Tanaric 01:01, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Because I find it likely that people are not able to visit the wiki during a 3 day period. Since early votes are not allowed, those people would not have the chance to vote at all. It might not be a lot but during this election we still had some 5-10% of votes on the 4th day. --Xeeron 18:51, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

As a somewhat less active user who happens to be here now, I'll say that (1) losing 5-10% of the votes is actually a pretty large margin and (2) Three days feels short to me. As someone mentioned, the only time to research candidates (and not potentially extraneous ones) is after the nomination but before the voting is done. If someone has limited time, they don't want to start that before the nominations are done. --JoDiamonds 02:39, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest limiting nominations to people with the same status as the requirement to vote, it seems bizzare that someone who has just registered could run but not vote. --Lemming64 01:23, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I oppose this notion. The voting restriction is mostly to prevent sockpuppet/meatpuppet voting. I don't think sock/meatpuppet candidacy poses a similar threat. —Tanaric 04:48, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

But what's the point of allowing them? It's extremely unlikely that such a user would get voted in. And since we're electing bureaucrats, isn't it logical to allow nomination only for those who are not newly created or relatively inactive users?

Also, I support the idea for shortening the voting period, but not early termination. Shorten it, yes, but not early termination, as it would mean you need to deal with how you're going to handle ppl who oppose after the early termination but before the original end-date. -- ab.er.rant 07:10, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

By disallowing, we're essentially making the policy "If we don't think you can win the election, you're not allowed to run." Also, my early termination suggestion was for phase 3, the "deciding winners" phase, not the voting phase. —Tanaric 18:47, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

By imposing a moderate restriction it prevents people who have never really done anything before from going on the ticket. I don't think it is saying what you are suggesting at all. 100 edits isn't even that much, make it 50 if you prefer. As it stands all you have to do is register currently and you can be added to the list. While in itself this isn't a bad thing, I think it dilutes the attention away from the more realistic candidates even if they don't have "many" edits. --Lemming64 20:58, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I know you meant early termination of stage 3. And I meant exactly that. Since the decision is based on discussion and bureaucrats, early termination stops further discussion that may start after the early termination but before the normal termination period, which would cut off the opinions of those who joined the discussion late. So either reduce the duration or the stage or maintain it. An early termination clause is just not so good. -- ab.er.rant 08:08, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I can't oppose reducing the voting phase to 3 days. Phase 1 should be publicised for several days before the voting starts, so it's not like people won't know the election is going on. LordBiro 16:20, 25 June 2007 (UTC) (edited my comment because I misread :P)

Fair enough Aberrant, I can't argue with that. :)

Biro, as I noted to Bex earlier, I don't understand the point of announcing "Hey, we're about to start nominations, but you can't nominate yet!" Why restrict allowing nominations? They're not time dependent, so knowing in advance without nominating in advance seems silly. The 7-day phase 1 seems designed so that phase 1 itself acts as the advertisement period for the election.

—Tanaric 23:05, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with not needing to a pre-nomination phase. If the 7-day nomination phase is deemed too short, make it 10 days, although I think 7 is enough. -- ab.er.rant 00:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you guys are misinterpreting LordBiro; he said that it should be publicized before voting, not nominations. That said, I'll side with Xeeron in preferring to not shorten voting time. Even if everyone is well aware of the election, stage 2's duration also represents the only solid time to research and discuss all the candidates (including those added toward the end of stage 1). --Rezyk 00:31, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I put up a schedule for Guild Wars Wiki:Elections/2007-07 bureaucrat election. (any objections?) --Rezyk 02:23, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

It just feels like it's too soon for another election. -- ab.er.rant 03:29, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, we could consider postponing it for a month and then do 2 at once.. --Rezyk 15:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

WHAT?!?! That's ridiculous :P I mean, I feel as though I shouldn't get too involved in these kind of discussions since I don't want people to think that I'm saying this because I have an agenda or anything, but having 2 elections at once is a bad idea. If we postpone this election then we should just shift every other election back as well. It's not a big deal. LordBiro 15:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean 2 elections at once, but one election with 2 seats. --Rezyk 15:13, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's a great idea either, especially not when it would only be our second election. LordBiro 15:21, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that Aberrant was not fully serious in that comment, just go ahead with the normal schedule and ignore that Biro guy... =P --Xeeron 15:44, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Hey :( where's the love Xee? LordBiro 16:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Uhhh, clearly over there. Now back to serious: I dont think that we need to hold 2 elections at the same time (though I dont think it would cause big problems either, given our rules) and there is no need to push elections back as well. --Xeeron 16:29, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

While I don't think holding an election with two positions would cause a huge problem I don't think it's a good idea. And I think if there is consensus that it's too soon (I didn't realise aberrant was joking) then postponing would be favourable. LordBiro 17:18, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Per my thoughts at Guild_Wars_Wiki_talk:Adminship#Extension_of_terms_for_the_next_couple_bureaucrats, I'd rather see this term run until February 29, 2008. —Tanaric 17:59, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a smashing idea. Sorry I missed it earlier! LordBiro 18:13, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Changed. --Rezyk 18:26, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Voting Requirement

I know this is really dumb (really), but I wonder at the 100+ edits for voting, with respect to the old wiki (before it was hosted at ArenaNet). It's not super important to me, but I'd qualify if those (hundreds of) edits were counted and not if only the ArenaNet version is counted. I figured I might as well ask (but given how inactive I've been, I'm sincerely not worried about it.  :) --JoDiamonds 02:43, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

The two are seperate sites ... different policies, different licenses, etc (ArenaNet didn't take over the old one, they started their own). In my opinion, if we allowed the post count at GuildWiki count, then to be fair we should also count forum posts at GWGuru, GWOnline, etc. As a result, I agree with restricting it to only the count on this wiki. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 02:46, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

GuildWiki is not "the old wiki" - it's a separate site, and still exists and operates independently of this one. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 02:49, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, that all makes sense. Thanks. --JoDiamonds 03:01, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Campaigning

I'd just like to mention that the idea of campaigning for a BCrat position amuses me greatly.
That is all. MisterPepe talk 03:46, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Heh, yea, seen that already ;) -- ab.er.rant 03:58, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Hee hee ^_^ Ale_Jrb (talk) 15:09, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I've been handing out leaflets all day, it's exhausting. LordBiro 17:18, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully to actual eligible voters. - Tanetris 19:36, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Man, I'm going to be the first person in the history of the wiki to fail two bureaucrat elections. Maybe I should try some positive advertising. MisterPepe, I feel *wink* very *wink* strongly *wink* that you'll get a sysop position if you propagandize on my behalf. —Tanaric 19:45, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry Tanaric, I'll demand a recount and obfuscate the ballot. *cough* (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 19:51, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Tanaric: All the ladies want him, so should you.

Tanaric: He is, in fact, too sexy for his shirt.

Tanaric: The Chuck Norris of GuildWiki

Tanaric: Now with 70% less sharp corners

Tanaric: It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a highly-qualified bureaucrat candidate!

Aiiane: Don't pull a Florida. It's a computer, there are no hanging chads. Just rampant vote tampering. MisterPepe talk 19:53, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Number of edit

change the number of edits from a 100 to something smaller like 25 or so votes beacuse it is dumb and stupid for only a limited amount of ppl to vote and if this changes next election i would be very happy

sincerely,

Priestess donut 14:46, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Why do you think it is dumb and stupid? The reason a restriction on who can vote is because the position in question is a bureacrat, someone who has arbitration power on this wiki. As such, it is logical to expect voters to at least have contributed to the community. You are only really a part of the community when you start interacting with other users in talk pages and/or helping to contribute articles and content. If you really want to be part of the community, by the next election, it isn't hard to hit 100 edits.

Editing in user space and guild space only, shows that a person is currently more concerned about the user page and guild page. While not absolutely true in all cases, it is true in most cases. I'm just trying to explain my point of view of this, so I hope you try and understand our reasons. But please do explain if you think your reasoning is wrong.

And as a side note, you are not disallowed from voting for sysops: GWW:RFA. If you want to know more about bureaucrats and sysops, take a look at GWW:ADMIN, so as to understand why we're stricter with bureaucrats. -- ab.er.rant 16:48, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Ab.er.rant summed it up exactly as I feel about it. Too many users seem to think that this wiki is here only to uphold their userpage or guildpage, but that's not the case. It is meant to be a game resource, and it is greatly appreciated if people care to make contributions to it.

On another note, a bureaucrat isn't someone that should be chosen lightly. Although 'it is only a wiki', the bureaucrat holds a certain responsibility that isn't for everyone. The votes for a running candidate have to be made by people who know who they are voting for and having a certain number (100) of edits/contributions gets those people to know the person involved, since you eventually will run into them.

And I bet there are at the moment quite a large number of people already over the 100 edits/contributions, so the 'limited amount of ppl' is quite a large group already. --  (CoRrRan / talk) 19:59, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I have to echo the last two comments as well as, if you have 25 mainspace edits you probably have 100, once you start editing the mainspace you can rack up 100 edits in quite a short period of time. If anything I personally think it should be more but I will save that for another day :) --Lemming64 22:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd like clarification on the counting process. Do talk pages count for mainspace articles? Do image uploads for mainspace articles count? How about edits on the old wiki? These specifications effect my democratic rights, so I'd like to know. -- Arkhar 22:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Mainspace talk edits count. Image uploads, by themselves, do not, though editing an image page should. Edits on the GuildWiki or any other Guild Wars wiki do not count. —Tanaric 22:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Looks like I'll have to contribute a bit more if I want to vote then. To the wanted pages! -- Arkhar 01:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, because this election has already started, you are ineligible to vote no matter how much you contribute before the voting phase starts. To be eligible, you must have the necessary edits before the election as a whole starts. Sorry about that -- but you should be able to vote in the next election! —Tanaric 18:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

comment on voting

does anyone find the current voting trends somewhat troubling? i will grant that if i were to vote, i'd vote against eloc, for biro, and basically stay mum on tanaric b/c i don't really know him. but the pattern emanates a "for us by us" feeling. is this really the purpose of the election? shouldn't there be some real competition? the current policy allows voting on each candidate. might it become a bit more competitive w/ one person one vote even if it yielded the same result?

as a disclaimer, i have not had prior experience in elections so maybe there are all good reasons for they way things are set. i just didn't expect to see such complete homogeneity in the votes. --VVong|BA 13:31, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

You are perfectly entitled to question and start a discussion about the voting policy so don't worry about that :). I am interested in the style of voting you suggested though. I agree I think it would be more interesting if you had one vote to cast. or one positive and one negative. I expect the outcome would be much the same though. --Lemming64 16:22, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

The thing with 'one person one vote' is that you can often end up with a candidate that the majority of people don't like - if 30% like A best, 30% like B best, and 40% like C best, that still means it's quite possible 60% don't like C. Especially, if, say the 30% who liked A best also like B, but highly dislike C, and similarly for those who like B best - you might get a candidate that most of the people would have not wanted to be the winner. Allowing people to vote for anyone they find to be an acceptable candidate still results in the person who is most accepted winning, but also creates more separation between those who simply aren't wanted most and those who aren't wanted period. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 18:14, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

that wouldn't seem like a problem if there was a positive and negative vote. or even just a positive OR negative vote. --VVong|BA 18:20, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... he's right Aiiane. It wouldn't be a problem if you can only vote exactly once per election, regardless of whether it's a supporting or opposing vote. It focuses the votes into either "who you want most to be elected" or "who you most not want to be elected". We're allowed to retract votes, so if supporters of A (that dislike C) saw that C might actually win, they could remove their support of A and vote to oppose C. The issue I see with this is that it doesn't support voting for multiple positions. Only one person can be elected per election, since the 2nd place position won't reflect actual sentiments. -- ab.er.rant 02:52, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Howabout "block voting" - your vote carries the weight of the number of mainspace edits you've made? Hehe - only half kidding; that way we would probably end up with "We are the sysop that says "RAAAA!"" --Snograt 06:05, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Personally I prefer this system since it provides more information about what people want (potentially). In the current election it probably doesn't make much of a difference, but in the last election, or any election when there are several potential candidates I think it's important that we get information about all of them. We could allow a system where, if it seemed an unsuitable candidate was in the lead, you could change your vote. But this, to me, sounds a bit flimsy. Firstly you might not be around at the time (or paying enough attention to events) to change your vote, and secondly there may be two candidates who are tied, both of whom you think are unsuitable. I don't think it's fair to say you can only vote against one or the other. That's what I think anyway. :P LordBiro 07:54, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Voting rules

I allowed to vote for other peeps even though I'm running in the Election, right?--§ Eloc § 06:52, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

And for yourself, yes. MisterPepe talk 06:53, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Yep, as the policy states, any votes not explicitly disqualified in the bullet points are implicitly allowed. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 06:54, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, j/w. Tyvm.--§ Eloc § 06:55, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

New Draft (talk page edits don't count for bcrat voting)

This is my proposal for changes. Please look over them. Guild Wars Wiki:Elections/Draft--§ Eloc § 03:55, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

If it's just that tiny little change, you didn't need to have created a draft. Just mentioning the removal of that part of the sentence would have been enough. A completely new draft is only necessary when you have multiple changes in several sections. As for your proposed change, I personally don't feel too strongly one way or another, but could you at least explain why you're proposing a change? -- ab.er.rant 05:08, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I think for people to vote, they still need the 100 edits but talk pages should count as they are not meaningfull contributions.--§ Eloc § 05:18, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

That depends on your point of view. Discussions of content or policy are very meaningful, while talk postings on user pages and guild pages are of limited or questionable value. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 05:19, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm opposed to this change. I believe discussion pages are incredibly valuable, especially for people like me -- I don't really like contributing editorially, mostly because I don't play Guild Wars too heavily. —Tanaric 05:35, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm vehemently against this proposal. Talk pages are a huge part of what makes the wiki work. To exclude talk pages is to say that we value the contributions of two users getting into a revert war more than we value those of the same two users if they both went to the talk page of that article and had a lengthy back-and-forth discussion on the merits of each version, which is simply foolish. If anything I would want to add user talk pages, as a lot of perfectly good discussions can happen there as well. - Tanetris 05:51, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Also opposed. -Auron 05:53, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Opposed. Talk pages in non-user namespace are usually about things just like this, and I think at least as valuable as adding a comma or exclamation point to a sentence and having that count toward the overall amount of edits. Respect the attempt, just don't back it is all... - Thulsey - talk 06:19, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad so many people have beat me to it; oppose. While I can see the reasoning behind Eloc's draft I believe that most talk page contributions are actually even more valuable than contributions in the main namespace. LordBiro 06:30, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

How can they be more contributiful than main articles?--§ Eloc § 06:34, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe because this counts as one main namespace article edit. While not useless, I would rate this conversation right here as being infinitely more "contributiful". ^^ - Thulsey - talk 06:43, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict! - well said Thulsey) Because I could go around and just add punctuation to 100 skill article. No one goes around correcting grammar errors in talk pages. While it's not a hard and fast rule, you can have some certainty that a user who has 100 talk page edits has made mostly meaningful edits. LordBiro 06:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

But the one you showed me is more contributional than this discussion to the entire community, including the people who just come here for information. As a Bureaucrats jobs is mainly with the community, right?--§ Eloc § 06:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I see where you're going with this, and beware that this argument is very subjective (objective?): this is a discussion about what qualifies people to vote for the very people who deal with the community, so how can it be less valuable of a contribution to the entire community than splitting a run-on sentence and adding punctuation? Because less people may stumble across it? - Thulsey - talk 07:07, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Ya, I suppose so. More people who see it, more who will benefit from it.--§ Eloc § 07:15, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

What does one's value have to do with anything? --Rezyk 07:26, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. My point was that perceived value is just that and as such are open to debate. Where and how a person edits is not pertinent to the issue of voting beyond giving the impression that they are interested in furthering the community and are not simply passing through or creating bunch of new accounts to influence results.

Talk pages count as edits. End of story. - Thulsey - talk 08:35, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Opposed for all the reasons already stated above. --Xeeron 09:34, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Discussion benefits the wiki as a whole and a well placed comment could have repercussions over the main articles that benefit everyone. So I agree with most people here that talk pages should definitely stay included. --Lemming64 09:40, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the current policy is fine. Talk page edits should count. - anja 15:57, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Just a suggestion...--§ Eloc § 20:25, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with suggestions, and don't see this as a failure. You have an opinion about how you think BCrats should be elected and a lot of people have differing opinions. And I would encourage you to put items for discussion that in your point of view should be handled differently, but don't place a it's only a suggestion-comment. That's not necessary at all.

Wiki's live by consensus, because everyone can contribute to each article. Consensus is reached by discussion and for that reason alone, talk page edits are fundamental. Therefor, I would vote against changing the text to exclude talk page edits. --  (CoRrRan / talk) 22:33, 21 July 2007 (UTC)