Talk:Stewards/elections 2011

Template naming

I don't thing changing the name schema ("Sr-elections 2010 …" to "Se2011 …") is such a good idea if we want to use last year's templates. There are many complex templates and the simplest thing would be to change every instance of "2010" to "2011". That way, not much should break. Templates that do not need to be modified, can redirect to last year's templates, or we create a set of static templates that can be used any year. --Church of emacs talk · contrib 13:21, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

I've always wondered why don't we use static templates that can be reused each year without needing to create & translate dozens of identical templates every year. --dferg ^{☎ talk} 18:32, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, in some instances you need different templates (or they become even more complex). --Church of emacs talk · contrib 22:41, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Maybe in some cases but I think that we can create standard templates to use every year :-) --dferg ^{☎ talk} 19:11, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Too many disqualifications

Right now, there are 7 valid candidacies and 52 candidacies of people who don't meet the criteria, many without any statement at all. I think that for the next elections some things should be changed:

• The two-click application process may be too easy (Shouldn't steward candidates be familiar enough with templates and stuff that they don't need this?)
• The communication with the projects (Don't encourage every user to apply in the local site notices when the fine print says that only admins are eligible.)

--Tinz 10:52, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you that this year we have a lot of disqualified candidates. Instead of deleting them we are tagging them as disqualified. I think it is not about the "two clicks" process but about the understanding of what a steward is and what is not. 99% of the disqualified candidates might not even know what an administrator is.

Since this are global elections we have no choices but to use CentralNotice (approaching individual users sounds not very useful) Maybe the text can be tweaked to say «if you're an administrator or have been one on any Wikimedia project for at least 3 months, etc...» but I think that the problem will continue to exist.

That said I think that the solution would be to use some kind of script to hide the CentralNotice to those users that are not eligible. The problem is that for running there's no edit count requirement so the thing is much more complicated. I'm not a JavaScript creator, but maybe a script could be created to prevent those who does not meet the requirement of «have an account on at least one Wikimedia Foundation project where you have been active for at least six months;» can be checked.

We also should seriously consider installing a script for the voting banner so that the banner isn't shown to those not elegible. As far as I remember it was done with the global sysops CentralNotice.

Regards,
-- Dferg ^{☎ talk} 11:50, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't that script be very expensive to run every time it displays CentralNotice? ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 09:28, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

The solution could be not to use a central notice that appears on every page but a sort of special notice that appears only on pages like village pump or admins corner etc. - i.e. on pages that are not watched by every newbie but by experienced users only. -jkb- 12:09, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually we have no per-namespace filtering. It has been set to display to logged-in only users. Maybe (another) script? -- Dferg ^{☎ talk} 12:57, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Question: Is this the first year the election uses CentralNotice? Bennylin 13:01, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

No, as far as I know. I think this is the 3rd year we use it. -- Dferg ^{☎ talk} 13:06, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Nope.[1][2] Jafeluv 13:07, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

CentralNotice change

Hi all. I've changed the CentralNotice template hoping that people will now notice that we have eligibility rules. Probably not the best solution but, well... Feedback welcome. Thanks, -- Dferg ^{☎ talk} 16:54, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

if it helps we'll see in some days, but for the first: OK, -jkb- 17:29, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

ehm, the folks do not seem to reed it :-=) -jkb- 19:41, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Identifications

I don't understand why steward candidates need to identify to the foundation before the elections start. Those candidates who do not get elected never get access no nonpublic data, so I can't see any good reason why they should identify in advance. Moreover, the local elections for checkusers, oversights or enwiki-ArbCom members don't require an identification in advance either. --Tinz 15:59, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Informed voting

Let us presume that voting to place a select group of individuals in a position of power over everyone else who uses Wikipedia is a good idea. Then my point here is that this should not be a superficial popularity contest. If people are to vote, they should vote based on meaningful criteria. The candidates should declare their positions on a number of relevant issues to their prospective job. These positions should then be made available as readily available and easily understood information by the voters. Then we would have informed voting.

An example of a major issue to take a position on would be the finer points of contention over what constitutes valid censorship on Wikipedia. I myself happen to be on one end of the spectrum, in such support of freedom of information that I tend to demonize censorship as a tool of deception which, whether intended or not, causes damaging effects in hindering people's whole understanding of things that they would otherwise be aware of. Censorship is the presumptuous act of deciding what another is allowed to know, arrogantly stealing their opportunity to decide for themselves what to think about something. Whether or not people understand what they are doing, there are many who do not allow things to be said on Wikipedia. I say that if a statement is properly worded as a factual report according to an acceptable source and if it is categorized well and presented appropriately, especially if it is relevant to the subject, then it should not be allowed to be deleted by overzealous users. If for example I report in an article on UFOs that a notable ufologist has stated his belief on some particular matter then that is a reporting of factual information even though what the ufologist believes may be incorrect. Moreover, articles being deleted for reasons "not notable"? Bullshit. Not important to you does not mean that it isn't important to others and doesn't deserve to exist as information for those who do want to know.

Without getting too much more into that, my main point there was that this is an example of an issue which people would have differing opinions on and that if I were to vote for anyone to have any amount of power in Wikipedia I would vote for someone who will fight censorship and support freedom of information.

Someone ought to make a list of issues like this relevant to the job of those being voted for. Inform the voter and let them know who they are voting for.

--Sloth monkey 09:15, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Umm... Are you sure you understand the purpose of stewards? --Yair rand 11:00, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

How can I vote?

I have a global account "vaqo" and "vago-az" and basically I'm working in AzViki (account "vago"). It seems I have the right to vote. How can I vote? -Vago-az 08:35, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Simply edit voting pages and add yes/no/neutral in an appropriate section. Ruslik 09:01, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Unknowns

It's a shame to see only two names I even recognise in the non-disqualified candidates. That and the previous paucity suggest that people with experience are being put of from standing for these roles as well as admin roles, for some reason. Rich Farmbrough 16:25 19 February 2011 (GMT).

I recognize nearly all the names, and have interacted with a good number of them. I'm not entirely sure why your lack of familiarity with them excludes them from being "people with experience". sonia 07:59, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Could the candidates provide images of themselves?

It is hard to decide if one wants to elect somebody, if one only gets written, and not even hand-written, statements of him. One could oblige candidates to provide handwritten, and scanned-in, statements, as well as photographs of themselves. --Hans Dunkelberg 18:12, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

A couple of the candidates have a picture of themselves on their user page. I'm not sure how that would help you decide who to vote for, though. Jafeluv 18:18, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

A picture means nothing. The candidates should be judged upon their work they have done and not because how they look like or how good or bad (mine looks very bad) their handwritten statements look. I at least would not provide a picture or a handwritten statement, sorry. -Barras 22:54, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Why are half the names missing from the "entirety" page?

Stewards/elections_2011/Entirety is missing half the names, everyone after Mayur. They're on there, just not transcluding properly for some reason. I have no idea how long this has been the case, but considering that votes are listed there, and people can vote from that page, this is a major problem. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 08:34, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm told by Pathoschild there is a hard limit on template transclusion size, that the page is breaking. This is a big problem -- it is possible for users to vote for several candidates on that page, but not possible for them to vote for me (from that page). As the page is linked in a number of locations, a candidate near but not quite at the 80% mark could reasonably lose the election because of it. It taints the entire election results -- not by a lot but by enough. I have no idea what can be done to remedy this for this particular election (maybe extend the elections another week to make up for the lost time), but something absolutely needs to be done ASAP. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 08:44, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Maybe it would help to transclude the first half to one subpage and the second half to another and then transclude those two subpages on the main page? Not sure if this is really good for the servers, but it could work... -Barras 09:11, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

That page is no longer used due to technical limitations. It's already delinked everywhere, except some old translations of the instructions to candidates explaining how to add themselves to the list. How did you find the page? —Pathoschild 09:20:39, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure? It was included when I added myself, I put a couple links on my userpage, and IIRC I found it from the STEWSTATS page (which is also pointless, because it is always outdated behind the toolserver it gets them from, linked on the same page). And even if it is delinked, you can still find it looking around through the elections pages (which was how I found it the second time, when I was looking for the instructions to candidates, which were no longer on the elections page either). If it's no longer used, it should have been deleted from the beginning; or at the least when it was delinked it was also blanked or fixed, but not left up just delinked. That's the equivalent of walking in to the room, seeing the problem, and simply taking the sign off the door and saying "no more problem". ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 09:24, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

It was delinked after the election started, soon after it became broken. You can look at the list of incoming links, which doesn't seem to include any of the official election pages (just some outdated translations). I've removed the sidebar link from the statistics script, which is an unofficial third-party tool and doesn't compromise the election's integrity. I've also deleted the page, since it's no longer used. —Pathoschild 00:35:55, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Moved from Talk:Stewards/elections 2011/Entirety

The template size is too big. CMIIW, but no more than 20 templates is allowed in the page, thus, WizardOfOz's statement is not visible. Bennylin 03:45, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah this is over the transclusion limit and could get worse. We had this problem last year, to be honest I think we may want to just delete the page. I'm not sure it's worth reworking to fix and as it is is unfair. James (T C) 04:04, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I've deleted the page, and moved this discussion from its talk page. —Pathoschild 00:37:45, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Planning the 2012 elections/confirmations

I'd like to put some thoughts here for consideration. I was thinking in a change on the way we organize and hold steward elections. If you have other ideas feel free to put them too.

• Public voting vs. SecurePoll system: Some objected and some agreed last time it was discussed but I do not remember if there was a consensus on the issue.
• No more year-dependant templates. That's a pain and a waste of time & resources. We must try to standarize this process as much as we can and avoid creating complicated year-dependant templates in mass every time we want to hold steward elections.
• Reducing the election time from 3 weeks to 2 weeks.

Regards, -- Dferg ^{☎ talk} 14:08, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

In regards to whether we should use SecurePoll: I think we could, but for the elections to function we would need a different system. The board's elections use it, but they don't have a percentage threshold. Also clearly illustrative - the ArbCom elections on enwiki, no % limit (besides 50%), only a set number of seats.

From my observations candidates would rarely be able to get over 80% of support, due to the very nature of a closed ballot. Most offline elections use it, but I don't think most have a high percentage requirement (in party elections nearly no one even gets 50%).

So we would need to either lower the 80% threshold or introduce a set number of open positions, which would effectively lower it anyway. If not I suspect the result would look similar to this (not a single >80%).

I agree with the second one; redundant templates are never resourceful (and, by definition, should serve more than a single purpose).

There seems to be at least a single week of relative inactivity in the SE, so two weeks would also be reasonable. -- Mentifisto 16:25, 6 March 2011 (UTC)