Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 14:20, 23 March 2015

Application question

The nomination statement is made after the applicant receives the first questionnaire; is that right? Thus, the first e-mail is nothing more than asking for the questionnaire.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:13, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• Correct. The first email is to ask for the questionnaire. (We keep a list of those who has asked for one, in order to contact applicants and make sure things don't get lost in the ether if we never get it back; asking for one carries absolutely no obligation to complete it.) The application statement is made with the questionnaire. The statement is the only part of the application that will be shared outside the Arbitration Committee. Application statements may be revised after vetting is complete, for publication on wiki, if candidates desire. Candidates may also edit their application statement after it is published. (The supervising arbitrators will create a page for each candidate, and publish the application statement on it.) Courcelles 02:22, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Just pointing out that according to WP:CU Checkusers are not required to be administrators. If this has changed that (and other pages) need to be updated. If not, I'm wondering why the announcement is worded to imply they must be administrators. 165.91.13.84 (talk) 23:06, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Checkusers don't technically have to be administrators (I think French Misplaced Pages has one), but for them to be selected, they must be elected through an RFA-like process. Since here, the ArbCom appoints functionaries, the WMF restricts us from appointing anyone who has not passed such a process. Courcelles 23:19, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Is there a link to that? Understanding is that that only applied to "access to deleted revisions", which CU doesn't provide. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.91.13.25 (talk) 12:33, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Philippe (WMF), the WMF's Director of Community Advocacy, said it on WT:ACN in 2013. Also note that, per Special:ListGroupRights, the CU flag does provide access to deleted revisions on this project. Courcelles 17:13, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Agreed although one could argue that there are other roles where the WMF has already provided this clearance. For example, a Steward has rights to see deleted revisions on all projects, including en.wiki, and therefore could conceivably be appointed a CU or OS here without being an administrator here. I'm not suggesting this is a good idea by the way, just noting it is hypothetically possible! QuiteUnusual (talk) 08:41, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Do we really need more editors with CU access? A Listusers inquiry turn up about 30-40 editors with access to the tool. Also, on other Wikipedias the access is rotated from year to year. VegasCasinoKid (talk) 09:13, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Audit Subcommittee/Statistics for a much more accurate indication of how many people are actually doing the work. In December 2014, 21 flagged CU's did not run a single check. 21 (yes, I counted the right list) flagged OSers did not do a single suppression. All Arbitrators and Auditors are included in that total, but many do not use the tools operationally, holding them only for review of other's actions. The work is currently concentrated into some by moderately-active functionaries, and most in a few highly active hands. It is my hope, that appointing new hands will solve the issues, especially with the time-sensitivity of Oversight. Courcelles 17:06, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Watchlist notice

Was going to advertise this on MediaWiki:Watchlist-details, but wanted to check with the coordinators first if there was any objection or special verbiage. — xaosflux 23:47, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Speaking for myself, no objection. If we need to modify the wording, I think we can do that live. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 18:39, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

 Done - amend as needed. — xaosflux 18:56, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Questions about Checkuser and IP auditing

These questions for all nominees.

• How willing are you to block a user or shared IP range unilaterally (CU block)? With the advent of "Wi-Fi" and shared IPs would you consider whether or not the IP address was shared before making a decision?
• How much faith do you have in the "Duck Test" theory? With millions of registered editors, how would you to assume a match if you discover 2 different editors share topic interests?
• What is your stance on the tool "not being pixie dust" or "for fishing"? Many editors often question the tool's accuracy — what red flags do you look for? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.87.116.185 (talk) 16:31, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Feel free to ask these on the candidates pages, I'm not sure anyone will see it here (for the candidates, this is a backwater, used to talk to the coordinators of the appointment process.) Courcelles (talk) 18:53, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Some stats: Community % support by candidate

Notes: N* = includes undecided but do not include which clearly indicate a preference but which are not specifically marked "Support" or "Oppose". All, incidentally, are well over 70%, but most don't achieve net 25. If someone has time, it might be worth adding up how many editors in total participated (which probably needs to specify whether the candidates themselves are included or excluded).  Roger Davies 04:38, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Roger, does this also include any comments submitted privately? ​—DoRD (talk)​ 14:35, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

What DoRD said; I'm going to lay odds that a very significant portion of unsupportive comments have been submitted directly to Arbcom - that was certainly the case in the past. The fact that few are achieving "net 25 support" is immaterial to anything, because nobody's suggested to the community that that would be a factor at all in this selection process. It's kind of like comparing who would be elected to the UK Parliament under the current riding-based, first-past-the-post system with the results of a proportional-representation, slate-based system. While not quite apples and oranges, it's pretty darn close. Risker (talk) 15:51, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

@Risker: I'm going to say a few things that inevitably come up in these things. First, there were no candidates who returned the questionnaire who were not put through to the community consultation phase. Second, there were less than five emails that were sent to us in private. It just didn't happen this round in any "significant proportion", the vast, vast majority of comments were made in public. And, yeah, "net 25" here is sort of meaningless. Courcelles (talk) 16:45, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Brad, you beat me to it. I was going to say insignificant, but that's less than 5 anyway. Which is good, it shows that people were happy commenting publicly. The numbers are low, which I think reflects the level both of interest (low) and trust (reasonable at least) that the community has in the process. Dougweller (talk) 17:03, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I see you have taken me literally. Please also include the comments made by functionaries to the functionaries mailing list, where Arbcom had asked the functionaries to to comment. Risker (talk) 17:11, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I answered the exact question you asked, Risker. You asked specifically about non-supportive comments. Going back to that thread, and the private arbcom communication, i could still only find less than ten non-arbs commenting on the candidates in any manner, combining functionaries and others. And quite a few of those vetting comments were simply statements of no objection to any candidate. Given you asked about nonsupportive comments, not supportive ones, I believe my original statement is true. Courcelles (talk) 17:35, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

And those that opposed (a small number), were more or less balanced that those that supported (mainly with responses to the reasons given for opposing). Dougweller (talk) 18:12, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

• Question: Does anyone have any idea why the CU votes seem to reach the net 25, while the OS votes seem harder to come by? — Ched :  ?  17:30, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
  • As a guess, perhaps because CU is seen as being more about trust in the individual than OS and therefore perhaps more people want to chime in on the trust issue.  Roger Davies 17:40, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
• Comment. For me personally, I only supported those who I knew something about. My "lack" of a "vote" simply means that I don't have an impression or choice one way or another (usually because I'm not all that familiar with the candidate). Would that have the same end result as a "neutral"? (so I know for future elections). — Ched :  ?  17:34, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

• Yeah, in an election, it would be. But in this format, there's really no way for us to consider "didn't comment on that candidate" in any way. Nor would it matter in a straight election, the way neutrals don't count in ArbCom elections. Courcelles (talk) 17:44, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

So the request was "Editors are encouraged to include a detailed rationale, supported by relevant links where appropriate." and the evaluation is a straight up vote count? NE Ent 18:50, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Not at all. I really can't quite understand what Roger's table is actually supposed to demonstrate, other than some of th candidates had low levels of community commentary, and some had quite a bit. Which anyone could have noticed by looking over the pages, really. The appointments may or may not follow the amount of commentary recieved, though the quality of it is what matters. That said, though, this very much so is a vote within the Committee. Courcelles (talk) 20:25, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

All candidates who received no oppose votes, independent of the actual (low) number of votes cast, should be appointed without hesitation. Kraxler (talk) 13:23, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

All comments about all candidates will be read and evaluated by each individual arbitrator, regardless of whether there have been any explicitly opposing them or not. All successful candidates will be appointed at the same time, regardless of their level of support. Thryduulf (talk) 14:39, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Does this go by votes or consensus, what is the criteria for passing? VegasCasinoKid (talk) 03:37, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

It is a vote of Arbitration Committee members, who who take into account the community and functionary comments received. The criteria for passing is I believe a simple majority. Thryduulf (talk) 14:20, 23 March 2015 (UTC)