User:MBisanz/ACE Draft

The Arbitration Committee of the English Wikipedia is selected through an annual election held under the procedures described on this page. Candidates nominate themselves for consideration and the community votes to determine who will serve on the committee. Candidates must obtain at least a 50% support percentage – calculated by dividing the number of support votes by the combined number of support and oppose votes – to be eligible to serve on the committee. Those selected are ceremonially appointed by Jimmy Wales to the position pursuant to the certified election results. The elections are coordinated by volunteer self-selected coordinators and appointed commissioners. The integrity of the elections is maintained by the scrutineers who review the secret ballots and certify the result.

Participants

Arbitration Committee elections involve a number of different participants:

• Candidates – Candidates submit themselves for consideration by the community for the position of arbitrator. To be eligible, an individual must:

(i) have a registered account and have made at least 500 mainspace edits by November 1 of the year of the election,

(ii) not subject to active blocks or site-bans,

(iii) meet the Wikimedia Foundation's criteria for access to non-public data and be willing to identify with the Foundation if elected, and

(iv) disclose any alternate accounts in their election statements (legitimate accounts which have been declared to the Arbitration Committee before the close of nominations do not need to be publicly disclosed).

• Voters – Voters give their opinion as to who should hold the position of arbitrator. To be eligible to vote, an individual must:

(i) have registered an account before October 28 of the year of the election,

(ii) have made at least 150 mainspace edits (including deleted mainspace edits) by November 1 of the year of the election and,

(iii) not be blocked or site-banned from the English Wikipedia at the time they cast their vote.

• Coordinators – Coordinators help to run the day-to-day operations of the election. This includes the creation of templates and pages, drafting and delivery of notifications, and general maintenance of the election pages to maintain consistency and readability. Coordinators are self-selected; candidates are ineligible to serve as coordinators. Coordinators may vote, but should generally avoid publicizing their opinion on candidates through the creation of a voter guide or disclosure of ballot choices.

• Commissioners – Commissioners are coordinators who, in addition to helping run the day-to-day operations of the election, assist in the maintenance of the SecurePoll software and resolve disputes or other unforeseen circumstances that may arise in the course of the election. Commissioners are selected in a request for comments discussion (RFC), held October 20–30 of the election year. The RFC is support-only and individuals may submit themselves at any time during the discussion period for consideration. Jimmy Wales closes the RFC and appoints three individuals as commissioners and an indefinite number of other individuals as alternate commissioners by November 5. Should Mr. Wales fail to appoint anyone by November 10, the three individuals with the greatest number of support comments at the RFC is deemed appointed and assume office. In such a circumstance, the three commissioners designate an indefinite number of other individuals from the RFC as alternate commissioners. Commissioners must meet the Wikimedia Foundation's criteria for access to non-public data and be identified to the Foundation by November 1 of the year of the election. Commissioners and alternate commissioners may vote, but may not disclose their opinion regarding any candidate prior to the close of the election.

• Scrutineers – Scrutineers are stewards who verify the validity of the ballots cast in the voting in SecurePoll and certify the results. Scrutineers are self-selected and generally should number between three and five. Scrutineers cannot be individuals who edit the English Wikipedia as their primary wiki or otherwise hold positions of trust on the English Wikipedia. Scrutineers may not vote and may not disclose their opinion regarding any candidate prior to the close of the election.

SecurePoll

Main page: Wikipedia:SecurePoll

The current method for voting in the election is using the SecurePoll extension, and scrutineers use the SecurePoll interface to review the technical information available concerning the votes in the election and to strike ineligible votes.

Pre-election timeline

• November 5: A coordinator files a notice in Bugzilla and notify the head of Community Advocacy of the need for the SecurePoll software. The coordinator should describe the specific voter eligibility criteria to permit the generation of a pre-screened eligible voter list.
• November 12–14: The commissioners submit the XML settings file to Bugzilla containing the names of candidates who meet the eligibility requirements and the names of commissioners and scrutineers who will have administrative access to SecurePoll.
• November 14–20: The commissioners load the appropriate election and candidate specific links in the [Translate] tab of the SecurePoll interface.

Pre-election

Timeline (all periods begin at 00:01 UTC of the first date listed and end at 23:59 UTC of the last date listed; single dates indicate the latest date an activity should be completed by)

• October 1–14: Yearly RFC for proposals to change existing ACE policy.
• October 15: The previous year's commissioners or the current year's coordinators should create an RFC for the selection of the current year's commissioners.
• October 20–28: Individuals interested in serving as commissioners submit their name for consideration by the community. The community discusses the prospective commissioners and indicate their opinion in a support-only section. All prospective Commissioners must be identified to the Wikimedia Foundation before the conclusion of the RFC to be appointed to the position.
• October 20–29: Voters submit and discuss questions for inclusion in the general questions section.
• October 29: November 3: Jimmy Wales reviews the RFC and appoint commissioners and alternate Commissioners.
• November 1–9: Individuals interested in serving as arbitrators submit their name and statement as Candidates.
• November 4: Should Jimmy Wales have failed to appoint commissioners, the three individuals with the greatest number of supports in the RFC are deemed appointed and will assume office.
• November 5: The commissioners email the stewards and request they submit the identities of the Scrutineers.
• November 5: The commissioners contact the individuals who have previously run the bots for periodic tallying of votes during the election to request their services.
• November 12: Candidates must be in compliance with all requirements for eligibility.
• November 12: The stewards must complete their self-selection as scrutineers.
• November 12–14: The commissioners communicate the identities of the scrutineers to the Arbitration Committee for appointment as temporary checkusers.
• November 12 – December 5: Voters may ask candidates questions and discuss the candidates and the candidates' qualifications for office.
• November 21 – December 5: The election begins; voters may vote for candidates.

Statements

• Candidate statements are submitted by candidates during the period of time for declaration of candidacy.
• Candidate statements may not exceed 400 words in length, although candidates are free to link to a longer statement if they wish. The mandatory disclosure of alternate accounts and declaration of intent to comply with the WMF identification policy are exempt from the 400-word limit, although candidates are encouraged to be concise.
• Candidate statements must confirm that the candidate fully complies with the criteria for access to non-public data;
• Candidate statements must contain a disclosure of all previous and alternate accounts or confirmation that all such accounts have been declared to the Arbitration Committee.
• Candidate statements should be created using the inputbox on the candidate page, by appending the candidate's username to the existing text, clicking the button, and following the instructions.

Questions

• If there are no general questions submitted, the previous year's question set is used.
• Once a candidate has declared their candidacy, voters may ask them specific questions on their question page in the format determined by previous consensus.
• Voters may ask follow-up questions, but may not engage in threaded discussion on the questions page, which should instead be on the talk page. Relevant discussion on the talk page may be linked at the question as appropriate.
• Voters may ask an unlimited number of specific questions, but are urged to avoid asking duplicate questions or irrelevant questions. Voters may not ask questions that reference or concern their own previous interactions with the candidate or that reference the voter's past conduct or behavior.
• If there is a dispute regarding the inclusion of a question, it is referred to the election commissioners for determination.
• Once a candidate has made their statement, they may proceed to answer the general and individual questions. In responding, candidates are advised to answer each of the general questions completely but concisely.
• Candidates may refuse to answer any questions that they do not wish to, with the understanding, however, that choosing to not respond to a question may potentially be perceived negatively by the community.

Election

Promotion

• At the beginning of voting, the Commissioners post notices of the election to WP:AN, WP:ANI, WT:AC, WT:RFAR, WP:VPM, WT:ELECT, and WT:COM.
• Coordinators ensure a request for notice is actioned at MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-details before the start of voting.
• Coordinators notify the Signpost of the election.
• Coordinators compile a list of the voters from the previous elections and remove those who vote during the first seven days of the present election. The coordinators request a newsletter delivery bot notify previous voters who have not voted in the present election that the election is in progress and that their participation is solicited.
• On the last day or second to last day of the election, the commissioners post notice of the impending finish of the voting period to WP:AN, WP:ANI, WT:AC, WT:RFAR, WP:VPM, WT:ELECT, and WT:COM.

Discussion and guides

• To facilitate their discussions and judgements, voters are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the candidates. This can be done through reading the candidate statements, the answers to the questions put to each candidate (linked from their candidate statements), and the discussion of each candidate (a centralized collection of which is made available at the discussion page). A summary guide to candidates is made available, and may be augmented by a set of personal guides by individual voters.
• Voters may write guides describing their individual opinions of the candidates. Voters may write guides that evaluate one or more other guides. Voters may create charts and tables summarizing guides. No guide, guide to guide or summary of voter guides may be linked from the projectspace, talk pages of the projectspace, or a template which can be reasonably expected to appear in the projectspace or project talkspace.
• Voters are encouraged to not edit their guides subsequent to the close of voting.
• Voters may discuss the candidates on each candidate's discussion page and on the general discussion page for the election.
• The coordinators work with other users to compose a summary guide listing basic biographical information of the candidates such as account age, userrights, and previous position requests.
• All parties must abide by the general policies and guidelines for user conduct in their participation in the election.

Voting

• Eligible voters vote via Special:SecurePoll. Each eligible voter may vote from one account only.
• The vote is by secret ballot, although technical information about voters, such as their IP address and user-agents, are visible to the WMF-identified election administrators and scrutineers.
• Voters are invited to choose one of three options for each candidate: "support", "oppose" or "no vote"; the number of "support", "oppose" or "no vote" preferences a voter can express is otherwise limited only by the number of candidates. Selecting "no vote" for a candidate has no impact whatsoever on their chances of election.
• After voters have entered their choices for all of the candidates and submitted their votes, they may revisit and change their decisions, but attempting to do so requires the expression of preferences for all candidates from scratch, any prior votes with be totally disregarded. Because of the risk of server lag, voters are advised to cast their vote an hour before the close of voting at the latest, to ensure their vote is counted.

After the election

• Seats are filled based on support percentage, as calculated by support/(support + oppose), filling two-year terms first, and then one-year terms if there are any. There is a no vote option; choosing this option does not affect the support percentage for the candidate, and is treated as though the voter did not vote in the election with respect to that candidate.
• The minimum support percentage is 50%. If there are more vacancies than candidates with 50% support, those seats remain vacant.
• The number of seats to be filled is determined from the number of vacant seats on the committee as of November 21 of the year of the election. All two-year terms are filled first and then any one-year terms (such as due to resignations) are filled.
• Immediately following the voting period, the scrutineers check the votes (e.g. for duplicate, missing, and ineligible votes), and compile a tally of the results using the appropriate procedures.
• The scrutineers notify anyone whose vote was tagged as triggering the cross-site request forgery alarm to permit confirmation that the vote was validly cast.
• The scrutineers also check if anyone voted twice via alternate accounts or sockpuppets. The scrutineers use the checkuser tool as necessary and consult with the commissioners and the functionaries to assist their review. While scrutineers can and should make full use of the checkuser data within the confines of the election, they do not act on identified account abuse except to strike ineligible votes. They should pass on any appropriate data to the Functionaries mailing list, which follows the appropriate English Wikipedia policies and procedures for identifying and sanctioning editors as necessary.
• The scrutineers generally review the votes and voters to ensure they meet the eligibility requirements. They also review the talk page of the voter log for voters and votes that have been flagged by individuals which are requiring further review. As needed, the scrutineers may consult with other individuals who can run structured queries to automate the voter eligibility review. Only the scrutineers may determine a voter is ineligible.
• The scrutineers strike all votes that they determine are ineligible using the SecurePoll interface. While all strikes are logged privately, the fact that a vote has been struck is publicly visible in the vote log; the record of who struck a vote is not public. Only scrutineers may strike votes; under no circumstances should a commissioner do so.
• The scrutineers tally the vote only after having struck all ineligible votes. Scrutineers are the only individuals permitted to use the [Tally] tab of SecurePoll to obtain the results.
• By December 12, the scrutineers post the results and certify their accuracy to the community. Preliminary results are not released in advance of the certified final results. If an ineligible vote is discovered after release of the results, it is not struck.
• The scrutineers cause the removal of their temporary local checkuser rights immediately following the release of the certified final results.
• By December 15, Jimmy Wales ceremonially appoints the arbitrators pursuant to the certified election results. Should he fail to appoint them by December 17, they are deemed appointed and to be eligible to begin serving their term. No individual may be appointed or begin serving their term until such time as they have identified to the Wikimedia Foundation.

See also

• WP:Elections