WP Sado-Masochism Festival — It's 2019 Arbcom Election Time!

[Poetlister]

I count 22 voter guides this year, a rather large percentage of them are unhelpful or badly conceived.

Some of them are done in a way that suggests the user compiling them is genuinely trying to make a helpful guide based on the best information available, with of course their own opinions as well.

Others are simple "did they give the right answer to my question?" axe-grinders.

And then there's a few that are just.... inexplicable. It's like people who vote "neutral" at RFA with comments like "I haven't done the research yet so this is a placeholder" as if everyone is just dying to know what their specific opinions on the subject are, "ego guides" if you will.

And of course one or two painfully unfunny joke guides.

This is a microcosm of Wikipedia at its worst, the well-meaning but ill-informed editors, the axe-grinders, those with outsize egos. Given the sort of people who contribute to Wikipedia, could we expect anything else?

[C&B]

I’m sure you can come up with a soup kitchen for hungry white nationalists or some such that would inflict sufficient psychic damage upon me if you win. As for me, I will be putting the kitties aside and going straight ACLU for you, baby.

Whattaya say?

tim

Who is a white nationalist??!

[Poetlister]

I’m sure you can come up with a soup kitchen for hungry white nationalists or some such that would inflict sufficient psychic damage upon me if you win. As for me, I will be putting the kitties aside and going straight ACLU for you, baby.

Whattaya say?

tim

Who is a white nationalist??!

Anyone Randy doesn't like, I suppose, such as people who aren't avid fans of Jeremy Corbyn.

[Jans Hammer]

I’m sure you can come up with a soup kitchen for hungry white nationalists or some such that would inflict sufficient psychic damage upon me if you win. As for me, I will be putting the kitties aside and going straight ACLU for you, baby.

Whattaya say?

tim

Who is a white nationalist??!

Anyone Randy doesn't like, I suppose, such as people who aren't avid fans of Jeremy Corbyn.

Well, Corbyn is defo on the raw side of red. Does the US have anything as extreme left wing?

[Randy from Boise]

I’m sure you can come up with a soup kitchen for hungry white nationalists or some such that would inflict sufficient psychic damage upon me if you win. As for me, I will be putting the kitties aside and going straight ACLU for you, baby.

Whattaya say?

tim

Who is a white nationalist??!

I'm just needling Mr. Breitbart... Some of you people are humor-deficient.

RfB

[Randy from Boise]

I’m sure you can come up with a soup kitchen for hungry white nationalists or some such that would inflict sufficient psychic damage upon me if you win. As for me, I will be putting the kitties aside and going straight ACLU for you, baby.

Whattaya say?

tim

Who is a white nationalist??!

Anyone Randy doesn't like, I suppose, such as people who aren't avid fans of Jeremy Corbyn.

Well, Corbyn is defo on the raw side of red. Does the US have anything as extreme left wing?

What, socialists? Yeah, we've got those.

You're so used to Blairite neoliberals in business suits that seeing an old-time Labour red is blowing your minds...

RfB

[Jans Hammer]

I’m sure you can come up with a soup kitchen for hungry white nationalists or some such that would inflict sufficient psychic damage upon me if you win. As for me, I will be putting the kitties aside and going straight ACLU for you, baby.

Whattaya say?

tim

Who is a white nationalist??!

Anyone Randy doesn't like, I suppose, such as people who aren't avid fans of Jeremy Corbyn.

Well, Corbyn is defo on the raw side of red. Does the US have anything as extreme left wing?

What, socialists? Yeah, we've got those.

You're so used to Blairite neoliberals in business suits that seeing an old-time Labour red is blowing your minds...

RfB

Sorry Tim, you're wrong there. I go back to Harold Wilson, George Brown and Tony Benn. Blair, aside from being George Bush's fag, wasn't even a socialist IMO. Corbyn is from the Trotskyist left.

[Randy from Boise]

For your contemplation:

James Maxton (T-H-L)

Manny Shinwell (T-H-L)

Neil Maclean (T-H-L)

[Jans Hammer]

For your contemplation:

James Maxton (T-H-L)

Manny Shinwell (T-H-L)

Neil Maclean (T-H-L)

MacLean is a new one on me. Yes, Labour likes to be known as a broad church, hence the factions. To me Corbyn is more like this fellow: Derek Hatton (T-H-L). [49'ers 10 - 1 ]

[The Devil's Advocate]

While I freely acknowledge that my predictions were off last year, your list of outcomes of “the guides” is actually your own personal prediction wrapped in the guise of a consensus list. Not all polls are equal; some of them are frankly terrible, others are incomplete. Show your math: what weights are you giving to each particular poll? Which ones are you excluding and why?

I am not giving any weight to any particular guide or excluding any of them. All I do is tally up the supports, opposes, and neutrals, in each guide and then rank them by net supports and net opposes. The lowest level of net supports among the top 11 candidates in this formulation has six net supports. Next after that has two net supports. Katie has seven net opposes. Never in a previous election have the guides had that kind of opposition to a candidate with so many others getting high marks and the candidate with significant opposition beat them to the Committee. Only significant outlier in a previous election was Salvidrim, whose support in the guides made him seem destined for the Committee, but that one is easily explained by GorillaWarfare's spiteful revenge action with her carefully-timed unveiling of her oppo file on him after the votes were started and most guides were completed.

I suspect that the thing that has your panties in a wad about such a small discrepancy between our lists is my (fairly safe) prediction that Katie will garner copious support as the only woman in the race; whereas you read the panning of her candidacy in a majority of the guides as indicative. Wanna bet $5 to charity on that proposition: whether she wins or loses? I’m sure you can come up with a soup kitchen for hungry white nationalists or some such that would inflict sufficient psychic damage upon me if you win. As for me, I will be putting the kitties aside and going straight ACLU for you, baby.

There are no panties in a wad. Not a fan of wagering money on things, even for charity. However, I have a more relevant proposition. Should your method be correct about Katie, then I will submit a blog post here. It is a topic that I imagine will meet with no objections as it has no real political angle. Provided my method is correct, then you will create a thread about any future pieces of mine published on Breitbart if there is not already one created and in either case you will provide substantive discussion of the merits of the piece's criticism of Wikipedia without any irrelevant quips about the source or the political topics involved.

[Randy from Boise]

For your contemplation:

James Maxton (T-H-L)

Manny Shinwell (T-H-L)

Neil Maclean (T-H-L)

MacLean is a new one on me. Yes, Labour like's to be known as a broad church, hence the factions. To me Corbyn is more like this fellow Derek Hatton (T-H-L). [49'ers 10 - 1 ]

Niners looked realllllllly good. t

[Randy from Boise]

While I freely acknowledge that my predictions were off last year, your list of outcomes of “the guides” is actually your own personal prediction wrapped in the guise of a consensus list. Not all polls are equal; some of them are frankly terrible, others are incomplete. Show your math: what weights are you giving to each particular poll? Which ones are you excluding and why?

I am not giving any weight to any particular guide or excluding any of them. All I do is tally up the supports, opposes, and neutrals, in each guide and then rank them by net supports and net opposes. The lowest level of net supports among the top 11 candidates in this formulation has six net supports. Next after that has two net supports. Katie has seven net opposes. Never in a previous election have the guides had that kind of opposition to a candidate with so many others getting high marks and the candidate with significant opposition beat them to the Committee. Only significant outlier in a previous election was Salvidrim, whose support in the guides made him seem destined for the Committee, but that one is easily explained by GorillaWarfare's spiteful revenge action with her carefully-timed unveiling of her oppo file on him after the votes were started and most guides were completed.

I suspect that the thing that has your panties in a wad about such a small discrepancy between our lists is my (fairly safe) prediction that Katie will garner copious support as the only woman in the race; whereas you read the panning of her candidacy in a majority of the guides as indicative. Wanna bet $5 to charity on that proposition: whether she wins or loses? I’m sure you can come up with a soup kitchen for hungry white nationalists or some such that would inflict sufficient psychic damage upon me if you win. As for me, I will be putting the kitties aside and going straight ACLU for you, baby.

There are no panties in a wad. Not a fan of wagering money on things, even for charity. However, I have a more relevant proposition. Should your method be correct about Katie, then I will submit a blog post here. It is a topic that I imagine will meet with no objections as it has no real political angle. Provided my method is correct, then you will create a thread about any future pieces of mine published on Breitbart if there is not already one created and in either case you will provide substantive discussion of the merits of the piece's criticism of Wikipedia without any irrelevant quips about the source or the political topics involved.

I will put up two future commentaries against one of your future blog posts.

t

[Beeblebrox]

I am curious about the methodology here, if you're giving all the guides equal weight you probably aren't going to get a result that predicts the actual outcome.

-Collect's guide is an example of one that looked at how the candidates answered the set of questions Collect asked, and leaves literally all other factors out.
-SMCandish's guide seems to suggest they live in an entirely separate reality from the rest of us.
-Lady Catherine de Burgh's guide is a joke

Were these given equal weight with other guides that used multiple criteria and were written by at least semi-sane people who weren't making an elaborate joke?

[Midsize Jake]

It is a topic that I imagine will meet with no objections as it has no real political angle.

I have no objections to your submitting a blog post, but I'm afraid we'll have to be the ones to determine if there's "no real political angle." Also, this proposal seems rather asymmetrical to me, unless the blog post in question is some sort of encomium to Mr. Randy himself...?

That said, we did appreciate your running that recent piece about Fram's WikiData blog post here, so I'm not going to gripe about the particulars as long as everyone's expectations are reasonable.

Provided my method is correct, then you will create a thread about any future pieces of mine published on Breitbart if there is not already one created and in either case you will provide substantive discussion of the merits of the piece's criticism of Wikipedia without any irrelevant quips about the source or the political topics involved.

Now, this actually is objectionable, maybe even a bit censorious. Again, I (and probably most of us) don't mind our having threads about your articles on Breitbart, and I've often said that they're very well-written... but to insist that the political motivations for those stories be overlooked (even if it's just by one person) strikes me as needlessly unfair. Is it really so bad for people here to say something like, "this article clearly goes out of its way to emphasize the anti-diversity angle, but he's right about what really happened on WP in regards to this incident"...? I would think that would actually be preferable in some ways, from a Breitbart perspective — unless y'all think you can still appeal to moderates somehow?

[Osborne]

but to insist that the political motivations for those stories be overlooked

Would be hard to accomplish. There's not much left of those stories if the political motivations are ignored.

[Randy from Boise]

but to insist that the political motivations for those stories be overlooked

Would be hard to accomplish. There's not much left of those stories if the political motivations are ignored.

I'm up to the task — but I'm in it to win it.

RfB

[The Devil's Advocate]

I am curious about the methodology here, if you're giving all the guides equal weight you probably aren't going to get a result that predicts the actual outcome.

-Collect's guide is an example of one that looked at how the candidates answered the set of questions Collect asked, and leaves literally all other factors out.
-SMCandish's guide seems to suggest they live in an entirely separate reality from the rest of us.
-Lady Catherine de Burgh's guide is a joke

Were these given equal weight with other guides that used multiple criteria and were written by at least semi-sane people who weren't making an elaborate joke?

Wikipedia is populated by a lot of unconventional people and those who have a great deal of respect for unconventional people. Just because a guide is presented in a humorous format does not mean there is no seriousness involved. All I can say is this method has proven very good at predicting outcomes every year since the first year I started doing it, which I believe was 2013, and I never adjusted based on whether a guide was humorous or not. I don't know if it is coincidence, but I think it either reflects people informing their votes based on the guides or just the guides providing a representative sample of the community. You can certainly detect a mix of different factions and viewpoints. Katie's support, for instance, came primarily from establishment guide writers.

Now, this actually is objectionable, maybe even a bit censorious. Again, I (and probably most of us) don't mind our having threads about your articles on Breitbart, and I've often said that they're very well-written... but to insist that the political motivations for those stories be overlooked (even if it's just by one person) strikes me as needlessly unfair. Is it really so bad for people here to say something like, "this article clearly goes out of its way to emphasize the anti-diversity angle, but he's right about what really happened on WP in regards to this incident"...? I would think that would actually be preferable in some ways, from a Breitbart perspective — unless y'all think you can still appeal to moderates somehow?

Recently, every article of mine that has been brought up for discussion had no actual discussion of the article or Wikipedia and was instead discussing any political issues mentioned or just political issues in general. I am not saying he can't criticize anything he perceives as bias either, just that it must be directly addressing the Wikipedia-related aspects of the article and it must be substantive.

[Randy from Boise]

So TDA: do we have a bet?

tim

[Moral Hazard]

I am glad that TDA and Hersch have resumed posting.

I disagree with both of them but each habitually documents assertions, which helps others check their work and help develop material for the Wikipediocracy blog.

[The Devil's Advocate]

So TDA: do we have a bet?

tim

Yes.

[Bezdomni]

Only a few blocking hours left till voting closes! 🛍

Will TRM make it?

(AE case filed by Kingo... TRM is always easy pickins', right?)

[10920]

Still a few days left. I' don't think I've ever voted in one of these.

[Poetlister]

Still a few days left. I' don't think I've ever voted in one of these.

Do try. You may enjoy it.

[Randy from Boise]

With roughly three days of voting remaining, only 1,536 votes have been tallied to date, compared to a grand total of 2,118 last year. It's looking like fully a 20% drop in participation this time around, which is surprising given how fast and massive things started.

RfB

[Poetlister]

With roughly three days of voting remaining, only 1,536 votes have been tallied to date, compared to a grand total of 2,118 last year. It's looking like fully a 20% drop in participation this time around, which is surprising given how fast and massive things started.

RfB

Yes, there must be a wave of cynicism and couldn't-care-less.

[Randy from Boise]

With roughly three days of voting remaining, only 1,536 votes have been tallied to date, compared to a grand total of 2,118 last year. It's looking like fully a 20% drop in participation this time around, which is surprising given how fast and massive things started.

RfB

Yes, there must be a wave of cynicism and couldn't-care-less.

Core Wikipedians, hopped up; casual Wikipedians, giving zero fucks.

RfB

[Jans Hammer]

With roughly three days of voting remaining, only 1,536 votes have been tallied to date, compared to a grand total of 2,118 last year. It's looking like fully a 20% drop in participation this time around, which is surprising given how fast and massive things started.

RfB

Yes, there must be a wave of cynicism and couldn't-care-less.

Does a low turnout favour KP or does it make no difference? Where do we think he will come percentage wise, 53% in 2015. Higher or lower?

[Bezdomni]

ARCA has exploded with the Sandstein v. TRM case, of course. David Gerard just popped in to leave his 14.4K in a corner of the letterbox. It's almost like these things were centrally planned.
In any case the
case, KrakowTower Kate has recused from all comment until the votes are counted, and Thrydwlf has shown that he thinks kicking TheRighteousMonster off of the platform would be suboptimal, even steel-toed.

As it happens, I voted against all three of them, for different reasons.

[Beeblebrox]

TRM already had no chance of being elected, but even so the ARCA case won't move the needle on that as few people watch ARCA, seems like the same 5-10 people comment on everything.

And he won't be kicked off the project either. His editing restrictions are so open to interpretation that two people could argue for and against whether he violated them and both be technically correct. So what ARCA should be doing is either fixing that wording or voiding the restriction, whichever seems more likely to solve the underlying issue of TRM being dragged to arbcom again and again without anything coming of it.

They won't though.

[Moral Hazard]

On the contrary, TRM is picking up hasten-the-day votes.

Has Kumioko opined?

[Beeblebrox]

Has Kumioko opined?

I imagine he's probably commented somewhere on how this relates to his ban....

[Jans Hammer]

With roughly three days of voting remaining, only 1,536 votes have been tallied to date, compared to a grand total of 2,118 last year. It's looking like fully a 20% drop in participation this time around, which is surprising given how fast and massive things started.

RfB

Yes, there must be a wave of cynicism and couldn't-care-less.

Does a low turnout favour KP or does it make no difference? Where do we think he will come percentage wise, 53% in 2015. Higher or lower?

1,644 with 10 hours to go.... link

[10920]

Incoming Voters' Guides:

JEHochman (cannon of maximum looseness)

link

Where else ya gonna find stellar insight like this?

Kudpung — Smart editor with lots of life experience. Also provides geographic diversity. I think they would resist groupthink and they have not been an arbitrator before, and show no signs of unhealthy desire for power. I would probably support if they make it through the review stage without any negatives coming to light.

I know he's not running, but I wish I could do a write in Oppose vote for JEHochman.

There is no rational explanation for his bizarre flip-flopping during FRAM.

Him being a supporter of Kudpung makes sense, I guess, as nothing Hochman does ever makes much sense to me.

[el84]

Incoming Voters' Guides:

JEHochman (cannon of maximum looseness)

link

Where else ya gonna find stellar insight like this?

Kudpung — Smart editor with lots of life experience. Also provides geographic diversity. I think they would resist groupthink and they have not been an arbitrator before, and show no signs of unhealthy desire for power. I would probably support if they make it through the review stage without any negatives coming to light.

I know he's not running, but I wish I could do a write in Oppose vote for JEHochman.

There is no rational explanation for his bizarre flip-flopping during FRAM.

Him being a supporter of Kudpung makes sense, I guess, as nothing Hochman does ever makes much sense to me.

He opposes Xeno and Maxim specifically for being 'crats, but supports WTT. I can see where you're coming from.

[Randy from Boise]

I think there's about an hour and a quarter to go and still south of 1,700 net ballots cast, down from more than 2,100 last year. Figure about a 20% participation drop...

RfB

P.S. If I were a political spinner, I would blame it on community disillusionment following WMF blowing up the works for three months with their Framgate fiasco.

[Randy from Boise]

I am enjoying a look at those who wait until the last second to vote — frequently very serious WP politicos as much as the first hundred or so voters.

These include this year (from the most recent page of results) such recognizable names as Rich Farmbrough, Giano, David Gerard, Praxidicae, FloNight, Arthur Rubin, Huldra, and NEEnt.


RfB

[Randy from Boise]

At the close: 1,695 voters in 2019 vs. 2,114 in 2018 — a 20% decline.

RfB




typo fixed

[10920]

At the close: 1,695 voters in 2019 vs. 2,118 in 2018 — a 20% decline.

RfB

Last year was 2,114 per the page.

2018: 2114
2017 1991
2016 1942
2015: 2674
2014: 593

[turnedworm]

This year, you had to have participated on wiki before voting - that is 10 edits in 2019.

There was a bit of a hoohah because JClemens, previous arb, couldn't vote.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... ut_notice?

I think the 20% downswing is almost certainly linked to stopping old editors coming back simply for voting.

[Icewhiz]

This year, you had to have participated on wiki before voting - that is 10 edits in 2019.

There was a bit of a hoohah because JClemens, previous arb, couldn't vote.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... ut_notice?

I think the 20% downswing is almost certainly linked to stopping old editors coming back simply for voting.

Ignoring the test case challenge of a former arb, the measure certainly decreased the amount of sock votes by candidates and sock farm coalition votes for candidates.

He who controls Wikipedia controls the past... And puppeteers with dozens of accounts to offer are a hot commodity in ARBCOM elections.

I wonder if anyone ran an analysis of voters to discern socks from real editors. The rolls are open.

[Jans Hammer]

This year, you had to have participated on wiki before voting - that is 10 edits in 2019.

There was a bit of a hoohah because JClemens, previous arb, couldn't vote.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... ut_notice?

I think the 20% downswing is almost certainly linked to stopping old editors coming back simply for voting.

Ignoring the test case challenge of a former arb, the measure certainly decreased the amount of sock votes by candidates and sock farm coalition votes for candidates.

He who controls Wikipedia controls the past... And puppeteers with dozens of accounts to offer are a hot commodity in ARBCOM elections.

I wonder if anyone ran an analysis of voters to discern socks from real editors. The rolls are open.

Surely the sockmasters will cotton on and just ensure the minimum number of edits before next year?

[Icewhiz]

This year, you had to have participated on wiki before voting - that is 10 edits in 2019.

There was a bit of a hoohah because JClemens, previous arb, couldn't vote.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... ut_notice?

I think the 20% downswing is almost certainly linked to stopping old editors coming back simply for voting.

Ignoring the test case challenge of a former arb, the measure certainly decreased the amount of sock votes by candidates and sock farm coalition votes for candidates.

He who controls Wikipedia controls the past... And puppeteers with dozens of accounts to offer are a hot commodity in ARBCOM elections.

I wonder if anyone ran an analysis of voters to discern socks from real editors. The rolls are open.

Surely the sockmasters will cotton on and just ensure the minimum number of edits before next year?

Assuming the sock vote brokers are sitting anyway on a pile of dormant account (collected via past socking, account donation, and automated password guessing of dormant accounts)) - the 10 edit live requirement probably (assuming they want to make non-obvious gaming edits, keeping the socks edits distinct from each otherto avoid SPI scrutiny) quadruples the time invested in each scok voter (over the time of simply logging in and casting the election - which can probably be automated quite nicely) over the previous situation (150 edits made anytime - so no time invested per sock other than the vote itself).

In ACE2020 they should probably consider requiring 100 edits (live or not) and be more restrictive on namespaces. If someone isn't editing they probably shouldn't be voting for ARBCOM - and this will reduce the power of the sock vote brokers.

[Osborne]

There was a bit of a hoohah because JClemens, previous arb, couldn't vote.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... ut_notice?

I formally protest that a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS in the ACE2019 RfC has inappropriately disenfranchised longer-term Wikipedians who may be less active [correction: inactive], ...

That's the point. That hoohah was just unnecessary dramah. From a former arb... magnificent. Basically complaining that it wasn't made known in time to inactive editors that they need to make 10 edits to game the system.

[Poetlister]

I think it is a pity and unfair that people like JClemens were not told. However, how does WP:LOCALCONSENSUS apply to the ACE2019 RfC? Where should it have been held - on the main page?

[10920]

Announcing the requirements in advance just encourages people to game the system, e.g. admins who have made one edit a year for the last ten years.

It is much more fun when the requirements are a surprise. As has been said, if you're not even making 10 edits a year, you really don't have any business voting for ArbCom anyway. I don't care if you're a former member of the inner circle or not.

[Eric Corbett]

As has been said, if you're not even making 10 edits a year, you really don't have any business voting for ArbCom anyway.

Why not?

[Sophie]

As has been said, if you're not even making 10 edits a year, you really don't have any business voting for ArbCom anyway.

Why not?

Same question. If people have been driven off of Wikipedia predominantly by the actions of incompetent, self-centred, POV pushing bigots on ArbCom who enable their drinking buddies etc., why shouldn't those editors have the opportunity to vote?

[Jans Hammer]

As has been said, if you're not even making 10 edits a year, you really don't have any business voting for ArbCom anyway.

Why not?

Same question. If people have been driven off of Wikipedia predominantly by the actions of incompetent, self-centred, POV pushing bigots on ArbCom who enable their drinking buddies etc., why shouldn't those editors have the opportunity to vote?

Except the guy who has made the fuss is an AC member elected on a platform of improved availability

[Eric Corbett]

As has been said, if you're not even making 10 edits a year, you really don't have any business voting for ArbCom anyway.

Why not?

Same question. If people have been driven off of Wikipedia predominantly by the actions of incompetent, self-centred, POV pushing bigots on ArbCom who enable their drinking buddies etc., why shouldn't those editors have the opportunity to vote?

Of course they should.

[Eric Corbett]

Except the guy who has made the fuss is an AC member elected on a platform of improved availability

You couldn't make it up.