Wikipedia talk:Administrator elections

Hashing out Details - Voter guides

In WP:ADE#Period 1: discussion and questions, would it be a good idea to add this?

Personal voter guides are strongly discouraged, and will not be linked to from the RfA page.

My thinking here is that editors are accustomed to using Secure Poll for ArbCom elections, where voter guides are used, and so someone might get the idea of creating a guide for the admin elections too. But this would be contrary to the intention of keeping "support/oppose" off of the public page. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:51, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Noting: [1]. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:27, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I removed it for now for the reasons in my edit summary ("not mentioned in Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2021 review/Proposals/Admin elections. policing people's userspaces seems unenforceable"). If this gets more supporters though, feel free to add it back. I am not strongly opposed but I feel it can benefit from more discussion. On the one hand, it could reduce toxicity. On the other hand, it might be weird to have an election without a voter guide. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:27, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I do not have strong opinions either way.

The admin elections does specifically say "No (public) discussion" after 2 day period, so some form of time control over the guides will still be needed, but mostly as a "Do not bypass discussion period" more than anything. Perhaps only allow guides listed while the period is open?

I do find @Tryptofish's "generally discourage guides" the simplest solution though, but we don't have consensus for it. If we don't have that, mentions of guide should be policed at least. Soni (talk) 06:01, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Disclosure: I was the one that added it to the page. Election guides are useful for elections where there is a need to compare candidates (i.e. elections appointing users to a number of seats on a committee), which this is not. Admin elections are basically a bunch of concurrent RfAs with voting on SecurePoll, and so I don't see a real benefit in having the voter guides -- we don't have them for regular RfAs, and I don't think that should change here.

Having voter guides would let people comment on candidates outside of the election pages with the intent of influencing voters. Given how the discussions at RFA2024 lent towards increasing moderation at RfA, this seems like a step in the wrong direction. I don't think we can ban them, but we can certainly discourage them (or ban linking to them). Giraffer (talk) 09:39, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

First, I did this: [2], because that language was really bad. Second, the reason I brought up voter guides in the first place (a long time ago), was because this is an entirely different kind of process than ArbCom elections. ACE-style voter guides would be seriously antithetical to the spirit behind this trial RfA process. As for the argument that we shouldn't police userspace, I'm usually someone who agrees that we shouldn't do that, but this seems to me to be something different, particularly if we are discouraging, rather than prohibiting it. Anyway, I now suggest: "Personal voter guides are discouraged, and will not be linked to from the RfA page." --Tryptofish (talk) 17:58, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

With the high quantity of candidates signing up, do we want to reconsider our official discouragement of voter guides? These may become essential for doing proper research on candidates. It may be unreasonable to expect voters to read every discussion page and/or check the background of every candidate. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:39, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I have considered making one myself and support allowing voter guides in general. It looks like there will be too many candidates for us to reasonably expect every voter to do a deep dive on each. Toadspike [Talk] 23:05, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@Giraffer@Tryptofish@Soni Pinging because this has become a much more important question since you last discussed it a month ago. The number of candidates is extraordinary, which pleases me greatly, but I (as a voter) would love to have a voter guide instead of having to dig through 13 nom/question pages, user pages, xtools summaries, contribs, and anything else myself. Expecting due diligence from voters without a guide will add up to hundreds of hours of volunteer time wasted, with each voter duplicating the same research efforts. Toadspike [Talk] 19:29, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I didn't anticipate having this many candidates, which does change things. My primary concern remains keeping the voter guides consistent with the rules on supporting/opposing candidates publicly, but I think educating voters is the more important thing here, and so I would support allowing them but banning explicit declarations of support or opposition. Giraffer (talk) 19:51, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I think at a minimum we should remove our sentence discouraging voter guides, replacing it with no statement about them. I think another option would be to maintain a list of them on an AELECT subpage somewhere so people can find them, and maybe replacing that "discouraged" sentence with a sentence such as "A list of unofficial voter guides can be found here." I would support allowing them but banning explicit declarations of support or opposition. I don't recommend trying to police what is allowed in the voter guides themselves. Is it really the role of AELECT to tell people what to write or not write in their userspaces? –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:33, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

For those that we link. It just seems odd to me we would ban support/oppose comments on the discussion pages but allow them in linked user guides. It's a minor point, though. Giraffer (talk) 21:52, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm quite happy this is the problem we are facing now. Much better than not having any candidates at all.

I think NL's suggestion is a clean way forward. Link to an (unofficial) list of guides, remove the discouragement line. Let the community have the tools they need, without us explicitly getting in that way. Soni (talk) 03:16, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

If we want to change our minds and allow discussion for (looks at date) two weeks instead of the three days that passed in the RFC, there's a place for that. On the pages labelled "discussion". —Cryptic 03:26, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I do not want to have a 2 weeks discussion process. While 3 days may be too short, there is value in reducing the amount of time candidates would go through fretting and worrying about the questions. A couple months back when we were ironing things or confirming consensus, I'd have supported 1 week and opposed 2 weeks. Now I am against both, as they significantly change the candidate experience, too close to the deadline. Comparatively, voter guides can cause a lot less stress for candidates, therefore I consider them fair game for WP:CCC.

I understand that you prefer something significantly longer. But your goals are not necessarily the idea behind the process at large. It may be worth considering amendments in a future run (or another process altogether) that aligns with how you expect RFA to improve. Soni (talk) 04:32, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

You misunderstand me. I'm not advocating a longer discussion period (at least, not in the comment you're replying to), and certainly not two weeks of it. I'm against changing the schedule that people have already signed up for. Voter guides are discussion. If we permit them then we are, in effect, starting the discussion period right now extending it until whenever it is we stop permitting them. Voting period starts in two weeks; that's where I got that number from. —Cryptic 04:58, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Some background: The one week intermission to set up SecurePoll was my idea. Some of my emails to WMF T&S were taking awhile to get responses, so I wanted to make sure there was plenty of time to set it up in case there were delays. If SecurePoll is able to be set up quickly this election, we could definitely shorten or eliminate the intermission in the future (assuming the community wants to renew admin elections, we'll see how it goes). The length of the discussion phase and probably lots of other things can also be discussed. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:31, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Ah, I understand now. I have no strong opinions on when voter guides should begin/end. My natural instincts say letting them be is perfectly fine (Aka, voter guides can exist) but I also understand if we choose to restrict (listed) voter guides to specific timeframes. Soni (talk) 05:52, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

• I really don't see how voters are meant to assess this many candidates properly. For candidates I don't know, I normally, as a minimum, look through the last 500 mainspace non-minor edits, sample at least five page creations, and look through talk-page archives for the past 18 or so months, as well as reading all the answers to questions. I'm only going to have time to do that properly for a fraction of the candidates. It would really help if trusted editors who have experience in nominating candidates were to provide their insight. Espresso Addict (talk) 21:14, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
• I continue to think the draconic limit on discussion time plus actively encouraging everybody to run at once is the worst idea ever, but if we must do that - and I suppose at this point we must - then the only reasonable way to making voting guides consistent with that is to forbid their presence on-wiki until the discussion period begins. At which point the people who want to make them should just, y'know, discuss the candidates on the candidate discussion pages. Like everybody else. —Cryptic 00:14, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
• Reading the original proposal I do not think there's grounds for discouraging voter guides or blocking linking to them. The relevant parts of the proposal are During [discussion phase], no bolded !votes should be cast, it should be a clear discussion. - I read this as just saying "this isn't the period where voting happens" - it's setting the expectation that it that discussion part of the page is not the vote itself. It's effectively just saying "don't bother writing Support or Oppose on the discussion page because it won't get tallied". The other relevant part is [while the securepoll is running,] discussion should be closed, and while candidates may be asked direct questions on their user talk pages, the intent is that they should not be required to watch their discussion page, nor the election for the full period - this again is just referring to the discussion page - it still explicitly allows further thought on the candidate in userspace (via questioning candidate on their talk page). In my view there isn't any notion in the proposal that would stop anyone writing their opinion/voting intentions in userspace before/during the election, nor does it stop anyone linking to a userpage like that from the main discussion page. BugGhost🦗👻 07:26, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

  To be more specific: I think Novem Linguae's above suggestion of maintain a list of them on an AELECT subpage somewhere so people can find them, and maybe replacing that "discouraged" sentence with a sentence such as "A list of unofficial voter guides can be found here." is the right thing to do here, seeing as we're likely to have at least 13(!!!) candidates being discussed simultaneously. BugGhost🦗👻 08:42, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

  (never hide links behind "here" for accessibility. The wording at ACE is: "These guides represent the thoughts of their authors. All individually written voter guides are eligible for inclusion.") —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:55, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

  I didn't know that was an accessibily concern, thanks. The "here" link was part of a quote from another's comment, and I don't think it was intended as a proposed exact wording. BugGhost🦗👻 08:25, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

• I don't think we have to worry about having to review so many candidates because to be honest, there are a few candidates who if they went with RFA instead would've been closed as NOTNOW by now (which I think is a good thing that we have some brave ones). All we really need to do is review candidates who have at least some chance of passing. fanfanboy (block) 12:58, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
• I've just gotten back from a wiki-break, and I see there have been a lot of comments. A lot of what I'm reading isn't really about voter guides, and I don't think it belongs in this talk section. If some editors feel that there are more candidates than were expected, and/or feel that this makes the trial process more cumbersome than expected, that's a separate issue. For the specific issue of voter guides, I don't think that voter guides as a solution to being able to vet a lot of candidates is a sufficient reason to override the basic premise of the trial: that candidates should be able to run without having public statements of support or opposition. Remember folks, the rationale for the trial is that we might get more good candidates if candidates didn't have to go through being discussed critically in public. That should remain the decisive consideration here. If you don't like having to do the same things you might do for traditional RfAs for multiple candidates at the same time (which doesn't seem like such a big deal to me, but I realize others may differ), then that's a reason to oppose continuation of the the process after the trial. It's not a reason to encourage voter guides, and I continue to be opposed to linking to them from the RfA pages. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:02, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Tryptofish and others – voter guides do not have to express support or opposition. Would you be opposed to a voter guide that summarizes xtools stats, userrights, and objective criteria like "answered questions on discussion page yes/no" in one big table for all candidates? Even that would be helpful. Toadspike [Talk] 07:32, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

  I think an overview of candidates akin to Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2023/Candidates/Guide would be uncontroversial. However I don't think it should include xtools stats directly within the guide, or something like "answered questions on discussion page", as that would make a presumption that those characteristics are important to note in an overview of the candidate, unless a community consensus agreed upon it. isaacl (talk) 21:43, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

  Right – that doesn't go quite as far as I'd like, but it's a step in the right direction that I am happy to support. Toadspike [Talk] 15:23, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

  re: the basic premise of the trial: that candidates should be able to run without having public statements of support or opposition - I think this is a bit of a stretch. The discussion phase will definitely have statements of implicit support/opposition. If, for instance, a discussion participant posts a big list of damning diffs from the candidate, its clearly an "oppose" at heart, whether it explicitly includes that word or not. And this wouldn't be a problem, because the purpose of the discussion phase is to discover and analyse reasons for support/opposition. The election process definitely aims to reduce contention but it makes no promises that candidates will avoid public scrutiny or to disallow voters summarising their due dilligence. BugGhost🦗👻 08:49, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

  I'm absolutely opposed to any sort of personal voter guide that is "officially sanctioned" by linking to it from any sort of election-related page. If someone wants to create one in their user space and let their friends know about it, there's no reason to stop them, and it would be difficult to do so. I think the idea of some sort of wink-wink guide that just has "objective" statistics would either be of little use, or would be endorsing some candidates over others without saying it out loud. I do realize, of course, that there are going to be comments in the discussion period that skirt the line of supporting or opposing. That seems to be an unavoidable flaw in the system (as it was for the two-day discussion trial that the community recently decided was not worth continuing), but the existence of one flaw is not a good reason to allow more flaws. Perhaps some editors paid no attention during the discussion that led to the consensus to conduct this trial, but it is absolutely the case that the rationale for the trial, and one of the most appealing features of it, was that it would reduce the exposure of candidates to being publicly evaluated, and it was hoped that this would make more qualified candidates feel willing to undergo the process. Anyone pretending otherwise doesn't know what they are talking about. Look, I'm someone who has long been writing a voter guide of my own, for ArbCom elections. But this isn't an ArbCom election, and there aren't a fixed number of seats to be filled. Either we conduct this trial according to what was agreed to originally, or we might as well just pack it in. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:33, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

What should the page say on voting guides?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Seeing as the wording on voter guides was removed and then later added again, lets do a quick poll to get some clarity on what the page should indicate regarding voter guides.

• Option 1 - Voter guides should be discouraged, and they should not be linked from election pages.
• Option 2 - Voter guides should be allowed and collated in a list.
• Option 3 - No wording should appear regarding voter guides.

Feel free to add other options above if needed. BugGhost🦗👻 16:42, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 - I think voter guides would be helpful, and the wording from the RFC proposal didn't indicate that they should be discouraged. BugGhost🦗👻 16:42, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

  To clarify - I am working on the assumption "voter guiders" would be like overviews or summaries of due dilligence from the perspective of the writer, not just several lists containing "CandidateXYZ - Support" over and over. I agree that people simply listing their voting intentions is not a net benefit to this trial or the candidates (or even voters) - I was just thinking some unofficial personal summaries of relevant info/diffs for potential voters to read over going in, in addition to (not instead of) participation in discussion pages or gaining their own perspectives on. I personally have started making a couple of notes on candidates (private, offwiki) in order to meaningfully participate during the discussion phase (which I will be IRL quite busy during) - one reason I am pro-guides is that that those notes may be useful for someone else, and so I would have preferred to put this info on-wiki. BugGhost🦗👻 21:50, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

  To anyone counting !votes: I would also be fine with Option 3. Bug Ghost🦗👻 19:14, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

• Voter guides have value in things like the arbcom election, because there's a fixed number of positions to be filled, and the candidates are running against each other; you want to compare them to each other, so that you pick the best ones. That's not the case here: each candidate is running on their own merits independent of the others. If they're all qualified to be admins, voting for all of them is perfectly valid. If they're all unqualified, voting against all of them is perfectly valid. And if you don't have time to assess all the candidates, then - unlike arbcom and other fixed-number-of-positions elections - voting neutral for the rest neither helps nor harms the ones you do vote on. So at best guides would be a distraction from the candidates' discussion pages, which is what people should be concentrating on.
  More importantly, we must not allow voting guides before or after the designated discussion period. There's no way to tell why candidates are choosing to run in this process short of asking them (which we're not allowed to yet), since there's so many changes from the base RFA process; but since restricting discussion to only three days was part of the proposal, it's reasonable to assume that that was at least a factor for some of the candidates, and not unreasonable that it was a major or the primary factor for some of them. The last thing we want to hear when we're trying to figure out whether to do this again is something like "Hey, I signed up for this because I didn't want to deal with everyone expounding upon my flaws for seven days at normal RFA, but you let people say I was the worst candidate running for a full two weeks, in a place where neither I nor my supporters could defend me? Dude, wtf?" —Cryptic 18:36, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
• Disallow them completely (option 1 as second choice). Voter guides are tolerable at ArbCom elections, as there are a limited number of seats that candidates are running for. That is not the case here, where each candidate must be evaluated on their own merits based on your own research of their actions, their nomination statement and their responses during the limited question period. The idea of voter guides at RFA would be laughed out of town, and the same should happen here. If there are too many candidates for people to evaluate in the time available that is a sign that the trial was not completely successful, not a sign that we should outsource determining who should be an admin to a self-selecting group of opinionated people with an agenda. Also what Cryptic said. Thryduulf (talk) 19:30, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

  As the other options are getting much more support than I expected, I'll round out my recommendations by saying that I'm neutral on option 3 and strongly oppose option 2. Thryduulf (talk) 21:12, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 > Option 3 > Option 1 > Disallow. I have not strong enough opinions on this. This was an unfortunate case of something we missed discussing before, so I just want a quick consensus on this here more than anything. I believe as passed, the currently passed RFCs favours Option 3. My personal preference is to have guides than not, because 13 candidates is a lot to evaluate. Ultimately, I still am okay if we disallow guides, as long as this poll is resolved reasonably quick. Soni (talk) 20:00, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3. So far I see about equal numbers of people on the pro-voter guide (4) and anti-voter guide (4) "sides", which to me reads as "no consensus". A "no consensus" on this issue should mean that voter guides are not mentioned nor facilitated by the AELECT process, which most closely aligns with option 3. I think this option 4 that some folks have created ("banning" voter guides) is improper, and would require more than a local consensus in order to reach into people's user spaces and forbid the creation or compel the deletion of voter guide pages. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:20, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
• I appreciate the reasoning behind encouraging more individual research by trying to avoid reliance on voting guides. (I'm more ambivalent about avoiding public critical discussion of candidates as a rationale. Many participants in the RfA review discussions, including those related to the discussion-only period trial, have expressed a desire to be able to openly raise concerns and have them considered by others. A voting guide is essentially that.) English Wikipedia, though, generally stays out of regulating what people say in their own userspace. So I feel if an official rule is to be put in place, even if it's just to say that there will be no links to voter guides from the election pages, I think it should come out of community consensus. Thus I don't favour putting a statement on encouraging or discouraging voting guides on the election page for this election. Afterwards, it can be discussed with the general community. isaacl (talk) 21:58, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 or disallow, per the very reasonable comments of Cryptic and Thryduulf, above, as well as per what I said above the section break. The hypothetical quote at the end of Cryptic's comment really nails the issue here, and the fact that some editors seem to want to have someone else do their homework for them isn't a cogent rebuttal. Just not saying anything about it might seem like a compromise, but it's changing the rules of the game after some candidates have already entered the race. I sense that some editors who want guides are reacting to the apparently large number of candidates to be evaluated, but if this trial is successful, we could have future elections sufficiently frequently that there won't be such a large number of candidates at any single time. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:39, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
• I would not go so far as to discourage voter guides, even if I prefer people create candidate overviews, with simple summary stats rather than opinions to the suitability to adminship. Discussions on suitability should happen out in a place where candidates can respond to them, during the 3-day discussion period. On the other hand, it's difficult to review 20/25 candidates, and having some overviews as a starting point may be helpful to voters. I would be happy for such candidate overviews to be linked on the page. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:01, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

  With even more candidates (yay!), I'm now in favour of plain option 2. I think people feeling overwhelmed might lead to unfair opposes, and voter guides can mitigate this. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:39, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

• I think voting guides, whatever you call them, should be allowed. People are going to discuss it, if not here, than in other places. Here sounds like a better place than certain other places. And given the many candidates, the short time allocated for review, voter guides make sense to me.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:40, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3: We shouldn't control what people have in their userspace. C F A 💬 03:05, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 > Option 3 > Disallow, Oppose Option 2. Option 1 says to "discourage" not "disallow". I agree that we shouldn't control what people do in their user space, but that doesn't mean what they do in their user space should be advertised here. fanfanboy (block) 03:56, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 > Option 3, Oppose Option 2, and do not link. If I am interested in the opinions of another editor in an Wikipedia election, I should ask them. If I think other people are interested in my opinion, I should post it on my talk page, which is my designated forum for communicating about Wikipedia matters. I don't see why we should be platforming anybody's opinion in the way we do via centrally linked voting guides, whether at ACE or AELECT. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:03, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3 > Option 2, I prefer these above Option 1. Discussions about candidates already occur as of October 8th. I don't think anyone expects the "voter guides" to be collated anywhere like they would be for an arbcom election. I hope mine isn't, but I still intend to write about candidates in my userspace (mainly for my own personal sanity, and ability to rationalize my thoughts before the tiny amount of time there is for questions). Something at "/elections" or something. Although, like Femke stated earlier, I prefer the term "candidate overviews", as I have zero intention of trying to influence or "guide" a vote. We won't be publicizing guides/overviews here ofc (at least I don't think so), but I don't think we should condemn people for it either, as long as it's in their own zone. I don't have a problem with people starting it RIGHT NOW either; there are some fundamental truths that won't change within the week for stats people care about, such as edit count, active months, etc. Better to get a head-start sooner, than be frantic managing 37 candidates over 72 hours come next week, to know exactly what types of questions to ask, and to whom. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 06:21, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 > Option 3 While I appreciate the idealism, expecting the average voter to properly evaluate over 30 candidates is unrealistic and a waste of editor time. As Bugghost pointed out at the top, voter guides are objective and informative, and I have never seen one created by "a self-selecting group of opinionated people with an agenda" – language like this makes me worry that folks are missing the point. However, the significant opposition to guides/overviews here means it's unwise to make this change during an ongoing election, so I would settle for Option 3. Toadspike [Talk] 20:38, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Toadspike: - I must object to your statement that voter guides are objective. Choosing what information (and how much context) to showcase is subjective. Supporting or opposing is subjective. Separately, since I am a candidate, my current position is to neither support nor oppose voter guides. starship.paint (RUN) 12:09, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 > Option 3. With so many candidates, I don't see how the average voter is supposed to make an informed decision otherwise. I always found ACE voter guides useful. – Joe (talk) 18:20, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 or Option 3 given the turnout, this election is hard enough to navigate as it is. I'm ok with them remaining unlisted, but not with stating that they are "discouraged". Draken Bowser (talk) 18:50, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Option 3 > Option 2 > Option 1 > "Option 4" (disallow): I think that, for this first trial of administrator elections, we may want to try avoiding any mention of voter guides - particularly wording against them, because, as others have noted, such wording may be considered as an attempt to regulate userspace, and individually looking over each candidate in this election within the next week may be infeasible for many voters. I also agree with what @Novem Linguae commented above. If a lack of wording becomes problematic for any reason, then we can revise in post-election discussions. –Gluonz ^{talk contribs} 20:27, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Consensus?

Given the timescale at which we're operating, we need to close this discussion reasonably soon and decisively. I'd really hate for us to make a decision and have to reverse it again via WP:CR or other incredibly slow bureaucracy. Knowing this, does anyone have opinions on how we process consensus?

I believe we have a consensus already in favour of Option 3. But I'd rather not attempt to INVOLVED-close it if that may get challenged. I am also okay deferring this evaluation to Novem Linguae as the current de-facto elections coordinator (of sorts). Either way, I'd like us to evaluate consensus on this and move on sooner than much closer to our discussion phase deadline.

Soni (talk) 23:44, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Technically, the bureaucrats were designated to manage the process, but I'd as soon have any uninvolved experienced evaluator of consensus determine the consensus viewpoint. isaacl (talk) 23:52, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I tried to provide some leadership on this and cut through red tape, but was reverted. Luckily it's not a huge issue. It's just a sentence of discouragement. It just means that voter guides will need to live in userspace. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:53, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

No, I strongly object to editors engaging in a free-for-all because someone thinks there is consensus for Option 3 (there is no such consensus). This isn't a matter of cutting through red tape. It's a matter of not changing rules while the process is already underway. It's unfair to the candidates to change the rules this way. If someone wants to do things differently the next time, that's another matter, although I think it would make more sense to have that discussion after this trial has been completed. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:01, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I have closed the discussion as someone otherwise uninvolved in this discussion (and the entire admin elections process). Insofar as I understand, voter guides were not a key part of the proposal that was approved at RFC and led to this page, so I believe the matter is appropriately subject to talk page consensus. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:42, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Making changes after candidates have declared

I'm uncomfortable about discussing this kind of change – something that changes the experience of candidacy – this late in the trial process. At this point, we are quite close to having all the candidates already having publicly entered the election process, based on their understandings of what the page currently says. It seems to me to be unfair to the candidates to consider changing the rules about guides this late, almost like a bait-and-switch. There's nothing wrong with discussing changes that might be made for the next election, if there is a consensus to have one, but I think it's too late to change this feature for this election. Of course there's also nothing wrong with continuing to discuss things about making the process run smoothly, but I think the language about voter guides should be left as-is, for now. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:02, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I 100% agree, we are already to far into the process to make drastic changes such as this one. If there is consensus to keep this process, only then should we discuss big changes. fanfanboy (block) 03:59, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Seeing as the above poll seems to be an almost exact tie between the different options (I count four Option 1's, four Option 2's, five Option 3's, and three Disallows when tallying every participants first and second preferences), I'm conceding this and am personally viewing it as a no-consensus, and so I'd be fine leaving the wording as-is for this cycle to minimise surprise for candidates. I still think voter guides (or candidate overviews, however they are framed) would be useful and non-harmful for candidates in future elections, and maybe necessary if we also receive this number of candidates next time round - but I agree there's not a strong enough consensus for changing the wording this close to the election. BugGhost🦗👻 15:57, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

There have been more opinions shared since I wrote the above, and so I'm striking it some of it - I don't want to insinuate the issue is closed when it technically isn't, and interpreting the results should probably be done by someone more experienced than me. Bug Ghost🦗👻 13:49, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think changing the voter guide rules mid-election would be a big deal. The kinds of things I think it'd be a big deal to change mid-election would be the schedule (when and how long each phase is). The fact that we have so many candidates has completely changed the pros and cons of having voter guides compared to when the rule was first created. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:21, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

And it's not necessarily a rules "change" anyway. Option 3 (which I personally favour) changes nothing, but a revert back to this page's status quo. The main RFC didn't add the wording around voter guides, we self-decided here. I do not feel overly attached to keep to that, just because a few more days have passed. Soni (talk) 20:34, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

First, thank you to BugHost for saying that. Second, for those editors who disagree with what I said, I'd like to point to the end of Cryptic's comment in the sub-section just above, where one can see how it might feel for some candidates. I want to avoid making anyone feel like that, and I believe that this is a significant concern. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:57, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

This iteration of admin elections are quite clearly an experimental process, which I think makes any (minor) mid-election changes more justifiable. It would be pretty naive of candidates to enter into the first instance of a process and not expect a couple corrections to be made; there was no way we were going to get everything right the first time. Giraffer (talk) 22:37, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Prohibiting supports and opposes

The original text of the AELECT proposal was During this time, no bolded !votes should be cast, it should be a clear discussion., which I read as meaning that there should not be bolded supports and opposes, but that I read as meaning that "I plan on voting for this candidate" or "I support this candidate" would be acceptable.

Looks like it keeps getting changed to During this time, no votes or expressions of support/oppose (with or without boldface) are cast. and variations of that.

How strict do we want to be about forcing folks to keep their planned votes secret? I am leaning against this personally. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:06, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm the one who changed it to that wording, so don't think it keeps getting changed to that.

True enough, as you state, the original wording is straight from the 2021 proposal (upon which the 2024 proposal was based). My personal feeling is that it doesn't matter if the expression of support was in bold or not, so I don't think it's a good idea to emphasize that. I appreciate the message was that it's not done the way it is during the traditional open-viewpoint RfA, but I see no meaningful difference between "Support" and "I support the candidate". Maybe there's another way to word this without barring people saying things like "At the moment, I'm leaning towards supporting the candidate." isaacl (talk) 18:28, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

A previous wording said During this time, commenters must not indicate their support or opposition, which I read as being a bit on the stricter side. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:34, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't know how to square the circle: I don't think it's sustainable for anyone moderating the discussion to have to draw fine distinctions between "this wording is a clear vote" and "this wording just falls short enough of a vote to be OK". I think a strict rule on expressions of support/opposition is the only way for the restriction to work. isaacl (talk) 18:47, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Also, my apologies: I did not remember making that previous change in April, or else I would have opened a section for discussion. isaacl (talk) 18:53, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

First of all, as I pointed out in another section of this talk page, "it should be a clear discussion" is extremely suboptimal. Are we saying that discussion should not be unclear?

I agree with isaacl, that the whole point of a secret ballot process, being trialed to see if it's less stressful for candidates, becomes moot if we also have editors posting public votes. The discussion should be an opportunity to get questions asked and answered, and for editors to point out strengths of the candidate, as well as areas of potential concern. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:57, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I also don't think we need to say "(with or without boldface)". --Tryptofish (talk) 19:00, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I think the intent was that comments should clearly not be votes, but discussion about the candidate's characteristics, not that everyone should be expressing themselves clearly to everyone else.

I also don't think the parenthetical is necessary. I included it as an incremental step in order to preserve the idea that the discussion is not like the support/oppose/neutral sections of the open-viewpoint RfA process, but am happy with omitting it. isaacl (talk) 19:09, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

My general view would be that making it obvious how you're going to vote is fine, but editors should be strongly encouraged to include some sort of point/evidence/opinion, even if it's a little vague.

Just statements of support/oppose with no further substance should maybe be given a reply to point out the purpose of the discussion phase. Striking/removing any messages would probably be counterproductive, a reminder reply would probably be fine. Examples of the kind of messages I'm referring to:

• Easy support! - Example (talk)
• I think they'd be a great admin so I'm going to support! - Example (talk)
• No chance I'm voting for them - Example (talk)
• I thought they were already an admin - support!!!! - Example (talk)
• Oppose - per ExampleUser2 - Example (talk)

Statements of support/opposition that include any form of point to discuss should be allowed - eg:

• Easy support, always been a pleasure to work with at DYK - Example (talk)
• This diff makes me find it impossible to support this candidate - Example (talk)
• Oppose - sorry, but not enough content creation for me. - Example (talk)

BugGhost🦗👻 13:15, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

I've BOLDly edited some of the wording about the discussion period - feel free to revert if anyone feels I missed the mark here. BugGhost🦗👻 13:38, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Dropping out

I can envision a scenario where a candidate has a brutal discussion phase and decides to withdraw either during the discussion phase or during the election itself. However the SecurePoll software may not allow this or it may become impractical to take someone's name off the ballot after a certain point. We should think about how we want to handle this. This also extends to how widely we publish the SecurePoll results of a candidate that has withdrawn. Say a withdrawn candidate was forced to stay on the ballot and gets 5% support, 80% oppose, 15% neutral. Do we still want to publish this far and wide, or do we want to keep this off of the results page? –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:37, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

If someone withdraws, I don't think we should be publishing the results. We don't force RFA candidates to keep the vote open for a full week either. -- asilvering (talk) 20:42, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I say only publish the results of candidates who haven't withdrawn, no matter how it goes. For those that have withdrawn however, don't publish it. A question I would like to ask though is whether it would be okay to show the withdrawn candidate their results if they request it. fanfanboy (block) 22:34, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

It may not be possible to fully hide the results. For example WMF T&S and/or the stewards might post them on a talk page somewhere, or the software might display it. But keeping it quiet by not reposting it on the results page is probably the way to go, judging by the replies so far. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:36, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

A good way to keep it from getting out would probably be to mention on the AELECT page that withdrawn candidate results won't be published. fanfanboy (block) 23:25, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the above - if a candidate withdraws, results shouldn't be published. The "result" is that they withdrew - the vote outcome stops being relevant (eg. if they withdrew during the vote but still got 95% support, the withdrawal would still be the final outcome) and so the votes casts shouldn't be published, as much as can be avoided. BugGhost🦗👻 12:37, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

People withdraw from ACE elections fairly frequently, just do it the same way? – Joe (talk) 12:45, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Similar to ACE, I suggest that once the discussion phase begins, anyone that withdraws should get listed in a "withdrawn candidates" section (so that other editors that participated in discussion, ect should be able to find out what happened) at Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Call for candidates and so long as it is still feasible should be removed from securepoll. Once voting begins, they can't be removed from securepoll - but there would be no need to report their results as anything other than withdrawn. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:03, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

e.g. see Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2019/Candidates#List_of_withdrawn_candidates, notice the w/d are just simply not in the results table. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:08, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

If someone does withdraw during voting, they should prob be listed in the results table, but could just be as "withdrawn". Hopefully this is rare once a candidate makes it that far. This result should be published, so that editors that did vote would know what happened to their vote - though if the tally should or should not be included is a separate matter. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:11, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

So should candidates who withdrew after the deadline but before the voting be listed or not? (Say, below the main candidates list as "withdrawn") I think there's been one so far Soni (talk) 05:29, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I took the one withdrawn candidate off the list submitted to SecurePoll.

That list has been submitted now though, so going forward it will be harder to drop candidates from SecurePoll, as it will require posting in the Phab ticket and having WMF adjust the list of candidates.

Once the voting phase opens, it will become impossible to remove candidates (I think?). –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:19, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Should candidates be shuffled?

Should the table of candidates on the page Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Call for candidates be shuffled? It would maximize fairness and reduce bias, wouldn't it? —⁠andrybak (talk) 10:41, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

If the intent is to mirror RfAs, then no, as they are presented in order of nomination. Espresso Addict (talk) 11:50, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Unlike other elections, the candidates aren't running against each other, they're being evaluated individually. I don't think shuffling is necessary. Legoktm (talk) 00:07, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I think it is likely that the candidates listed towards the top of the list will receive more attention than those lower down, just because most people will start reviewing from the top and some may not have enough time to complete the process — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:24, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Frankly, shuffling candidates without the ability to sort them was annoying when it happened during U4C and BoT elections. I had notes on how I'd want to vote for each of them, and had to Ctrl-F 30+ names to vote properly.

If we end up having shuffled names via SecurePoll, I will request WMF T&S folks to make it so at least people will be able to also sort them alphabetically/by nom order Soni (talk) 12:47, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

@Soni that feature isn't available so asking election admins to enable it is useless. See screenshot of what the poll looks like. You could file a feature request here to ask software developers to build that. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:04, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I plan to ask for an alphabetical listing of candidates and no shuffling, unless folks object. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:57, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I think it should be shuffled, not alphabetical. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 18:06, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Though I appreciate the concern about matching one's personal notes with the ballot, I agree with randomizing the order of the candidates on the SecurePoll ballot.

I don't really know what to do with the candidate page. With so many candidates, I think there is a risk that the candidates will get an uneven amount of consideration, but there's no readily available mechanism to address that in a satisfactory way. The easiest way to continually shuffle the candidates would be to do something similar as for the arbitration election page: implement the shuffle-on-purge approach, and then purge the page regularly, but that's likely to be annoying, assuming that most voters won't be visiting the page once, keeping that page in their browser without ever reloading it (or the browser restarting). Now that gadgets can be loaded on a per-page basis, it is possible for someone to implement the ability to shuffle the order once for a given user (using the same browser with Javascript enabled) without affecting the page load time for all pages, but it's highly doubtful anyone will do so and that approval of the gadget will attain consensus support in time for the election. isaacl (talk) 18:45, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I support shuffling, as it fixes the (valid) concern that only the top few candidates will be reviewed. There are quite a few people up for election, you can't expect every single voter to evaluate every single one. ULPS ^{(talk • contribs)} 23:29, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

@Xaosflux What I was saying was "In U4C elections, having many candidates on always-shuffled order was a pain". So I'd like either "Candidates are presented in some set order" (I don't mind any, personally) or "Candidates are shown shuffled, but you can re-sort them to alphabetical". I don't know if the latter is available, but surely the former is. Soni (talk) 05:31, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

The latter is not. Charlotte (Queen of Hearts • talk) 07:58, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Currently they can be in the order programmed in securepoll, or shuffled. There is no sorter regardless. Creating a sorter would require software feature request to make that functionality in the securepoll tool (which will certainly not be delivered in time for this election even if you were to submit it today). — xaosflux ^Talk 09:40, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I support shuffling. It makes voters think a bit harder, but it avoids anyone getting an unfair (dis)advantage because their username starts higher or lower through the alphabet or because they were quicker or slower in getting their nomination statement up. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:27, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I think I see enough support for shuffling to go ahead and turn that on instead of fixed order. Will be sure to ask for shuffling in the Phab ticket. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:08, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

If we were talking about a one off then I have no objection. But if they are in a different sequence each time I look at the list, then how am I supposed to keep track of which ones I have scrutinised? And if the ballot paper shows a different sequence to the list I looked at when I was scrutinising them than we have a problem -especially if I can only go to secure poll once for the whole batch rather than vote on each one when I've assessed them. ϢereSpielChequers 12:40, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

No I think you can keep returning to SecurePoll to update your vote. So once you have scrutinised, then place your vote for that candidate, and you'll be able to see that you've already reviewed that one — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:58, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, this poll will allow you to cast a replacement ballot. You will not be able to see your prior ballot response, just cast a new one that will invalidate your last one. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:50, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with others that having a constantly-changing list order is a huge pain. It was a pain with U4C and Board elections, and it will be even more of a pain here. I’m okay with randomizing the order once, but I would really appreciate if the order were then fixed, and most importantly that the nominations page and the ballot have the same order. Since relative performance of candidates doesn’t matter, it shouldn’t be a huge deal. Toadspike [Talk] 21:15, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Solution?

There are way too many candidates to not have some type of system in place. I suggest placing the candidates each on a separate page so that they need not be disrupted any further than that. After that has been done, they should all be given a number on this page and on their own page. Then people should be pointed to a random number generator, and told to use the last two digits to find a candidate to evaluate, and if that does not match anyone, to just keep trying until it does. That is not that many tries for thirty or so candidates. I apologize for making a sub-section, but I thought that no one might notice otherwise. -- Kjkolb (talk) 06:39, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

AELECT monitors?

Adding on to the trend of building the plane mid-flight, should there be something similar to RFA monitors during the discussion phase to keep things civil and to also make sure no support/oppose is expressed? fanfanboy (block) 16:34, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

That would be a good idea, yes! We can ask for volunteers next week, as some people might consider becoming a nominator this week. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:43, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Pretty sure I'm not nominating anyone, so I'll be standing by to monitor :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 18:06, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Also happy to put myself foward. Worth questioning whether the "may not !vote in the RfA" rule still stands? Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 18:27, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Added to WP:AELECT in this diff. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:04, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

@Theleekycauldron, in regard to your edit summary other monitors would be helpful please and thanks!, don't forget that @Pickersgill-Cunliffe has also signed up to be a monitor. Both of you are listed on the main WP:AELECT page right now. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:14, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

So many candidates

Without indicating how I will end up voting, I just want to say that I am very impressed at how many editors have stepped forward and that many or most of them have positive connotations in my mind. If this new method for selecting/electing administrators ends up adding a significant number of new administrators, I for one will be very pleased. Cullen328 (talk) 04:03, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes it is very pleasing to see. I am a little worried about how much time it will take to give each candidate proper scrutiny, but I guess this is a good problem to have?! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:30, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I think this lack of "proper scrutiny" might be beneficial as it may prevent opposes over minor details which we see happen often at RfA, though there are a few potential problems. It might allow for admins who aren't ready for the tools get accepted, though a remedy could be the proposed administrator recall that is currently under discussion. Another problem could be that voters will only do a surface level look through (xtools, edit count, candidate page, etc) and judge solely based on that, which might lead to more opposes than there really should be. I think the latter is unlikely though. fanfanboy (block) 13:35, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I would say that one of the metrics for success here isn't necessarily how many successes we get, but if those successes prove to be good admins. One of the concerns with a process like this is that we get another Lourdes situation. (Not that the traditional RFA process stopped that either, but just an uncontroversial example of a 'bad' admin.) Parabolist (talk) 00:32, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Just to add some additional context, there have been 14 RfAs so far in 2024. There are currently 13 candidates for the elections, with an additional 2 who have sub pages and have not been added - and we're only half way through the sign up period. I believe this vindicates the position that man of us who have worked in RfA have - Candidates do not want to go through the RfA process, even if they are encouraged by those who believe they would make a good admin.

I expect there will be teething issues, I expect there will be disappointed candidates - I am hopeful that the whole process will be more pleasant for everyone, and that it will encourage additional runs in the future. Worm^TT(talk) 13:35, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Really impressive amount of people signing up - I few days ago I worried that there might not be any candidates! Big props to @Novem Linguae for getting this ball rolling from the offset and doing a lot of coordination - I know the process isn't over yet but it's looking very promising and we should get a few good new admins out of it. BugGhost🦗👻 14:59, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

On the "good problems to have" front, has anybody checked with the SecurePoll folks to see if there's an upper bound on how many candidates the system can handle? I don't think there is, but if there is it would be better to find out sooner rather than later. RoySmith (talk) 16:35, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't believe there is, but just noting that we are still far far away from the number of candidates in some past securepoll elections - the first U4C election, for example, had 37 candidates on the ballot. Unless we are approaching 50 or more, we probably don't have anything to worry about. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 16:44, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: Many thanks for the effort to move this forward. Whatever the ultimate outcome, I am very pleased to see a good number of candidates and that some OG Wikipedians from as far back as 2006 have been moved to throw their hat into the ring. It all bodes well. Geoff | ^{Who, me?} 21:42, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Notice not on watchlist

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship § Notice not on watchlist

 – Charlotte (Queen of Hearts • talk) 23:04, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

The notice, and link to the page, has now come off my watchlist (while that for the zzzzArbcom commission remains). Given I think we all agree that proper scrutiny will be a big problem here, that should be fixed. Johnbod (talk) 21:42, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

@Johnbod for the election? It is currently the fallow period, there is no call to action because there is nothing for the community to do right now, the timeline has a much abbreviated discussion period and questions aren't able to be entered until then. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:54, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

@Johnbod, Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Detailed schedule says there will be watchlist notices for the call for candidates and discussion but not during the intermission. WT:AELECT is a better place to discuss this. Charlotte (Queen of Hearts • talk) 21:55, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Could this perhaps be rethought? No-one can properly evaluate 37 candidates in a few days, and this is far more important than the usual watchlist material. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:58, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Exactly! Johnbod (talk) 02:59, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Changing things to account for the larger than expected number of candidates has been suggested multiple times (for various reasons) and as far as I can tell the rough consensus has consistently been that the timetable, etc cannot be changed because the precise details were agreed in an RFC. If the discussion period is extended (and there are arguments both for and against doing so) then absolutely the watchlist notice should be extended similarly, but I do not support a watchlist notice during the fallow period. Thryduulf (talk) 23:22, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Changing the timetable now would indeed seem impossible, but I don't see the same prohibition for changing the way it is advertised; surely that was not discussed in detail in the RfC? And by the way, I've been commenting on Talk:RfA rather than here deliberately, so as to gain a wider audience. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:28, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

We need to let go of the notion that it's important for every voter to vet every admin candidate. Those who want to have like three weeks to do it. For everyone else, there's an "abstain" button. And for any who get through who shouldn't, there's undo, recall, and arbcom. We'll be fine. Levivich (talk) 23:30, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I think it's far more likely there's the oppose button. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:31, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, if I don't think there has been proper scrutiny, I'm liable to Oppose them all, which would be a great pity. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Johnbod (talk) 02:59, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

• Agree vetting is time-consuming and we should help voters make a fair decision. Let's add the following: "People are invited to review candidates in preparation for the WP:administrator elections discussion period, which opens October 22." —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:33, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  Support this - for this to work with this quantity of candidates we need voters to review candidates before the discussion phase. BugGhost🦗👻 10:01, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  The RFC doesn't seem to specify, and tangential question 20 was opposed to less advertising - so a WLN/T:CENT doesn't seem to be a hard no. I'm not loving the idea of using banners to tell editors to 'go read all these pages, but don't even think about discussing them!'... — xaosflux ^Talk 13:20, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  While I see your point, the closer we are to the opening of the discussion phase, the more sense it makes for people to start thinking about questions / discussion points, given that they have 4 days less discussion days than in a normal RfA. We could put this on the watchlist from the 18th to have 7 days in total of prep+discussion. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:46, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I do think this goes against the spirit of the original RFC. Candidates are not really supposed to be "on the clock" and heavily scrutinized for more than 3 days. I think a watchlist notice during the SecurePoll setup phase asking all of Wikipedia to scrutinize the candidates might be going against the RFC. If someone sees a consensus to add a watchlist notice for this then it is what it is, but I do not personally plan on adding one. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:00, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

The amount of scrutiny per candidate is likely less than foreseen due to the success of lowering the bar for nomination, so I don't think a bit of prep time goes against the spirit of how much we wanted to reduce the more over-the-top scrutiny. More importantly, I fear that many questions and discussion points now will be raised at the end of the discussion phase, which would mean that candidates have to hurry to respond if they can at all. By giving voters a heads-up, we allow for a calmer discussion phase where questions are hopefully mostly raised on day 1 and 2. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 12:23, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Side discussion on voter guides

• And remove the dumbass prohibition on voter guides; whoever thought that was a good idea might as well have had a stated aim to reduce voter oversight. SerialNumber54129 13:23, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  You may want to move your comment to Wikipedia talk:Administrator elections#What should the page say on voting guides? –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:36, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Serial Number 54129 I strongly recommend you read that discussion, where multiple people have explained why they hold the exact opposite view to you. Thryduulf (talk) 14:01, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  And since none of those participants could possibly have foreseen an eventual 36 candidates for the relatively short period, the opinions people held then are less pertinent to a very different set of circumstances. Still, thanks for ASSUMING I hadn't read the discussion that i was actually commenting on. SerialNumber54129 14:14, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  Given that the discussion was opened when there were 14 candidates and the last comment was made after the close of nominations, your comment here is clearly incorrect. It is also not clear that you were commenting on that discussion given you left your comment in a completely different section. Thryduulf (talk) 14:20, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  There isn't a prohibition on voter guides? C F A 💬 13:46, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not seeing any policy prohibiting anyone from publishing their own voter guide, the current status is just that the election pages won't advertise them (along with how it actively discourages anyone from discussing how they intend to vote on the candidate discussions). 13:53, 16 October 2024 (UTC) — xaosflux ^Talk 13:53, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  I am apparently the dumbass who originally started the discussion about voter guides. And I did that five months ago, so I'm wondering why the dumbasses who couldn't be arsed to comment then, are suddenly getting worked up now, after the process is underway. The success of this trial at attracting a lot more candidates than anyone expected – remember, the purpose of the trial was to find ways to get more good candidates to come forward – likely reflects candidates' expectations that they would not be raked over the coals in public. And there is no prohibition on voter guides, just a prohibition on linking to them from official pages. But don't worry about what I think, because I'm just a dumbass who doesn't care about voter oversight. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:11, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  The time period from the end of nominations to the last day of voting is 17 days. With 36 candidates, any editor who wants to personally evaluate every candidate before voting ends can evaluate about 2 candidates per day, which doesn't seem so daunting to me, even without voter guides. And there are likely some candidates where one can form an accurate opinion without doing an exhaustive study. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:42, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  so I'm wondering why the dumbasses who couldn't be arsed to comment then, are suddenly getting worked up now, after the process is underway. I think it is normal for more folks to get involved as the event draws closer and affects them more directly. Also consensus can change and all that. Missing an original discussion should not disqualify someone from participating in a new discussion. Finally, a lot has changed between the original discussion and now. In my opinion, the increased # of candidates completely changed the pros and cons of having voter guides. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:08, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  It's made some of the pros stronger, but it has also increased some of the cons by a greater amount, and hasn't really "completely changed" anything in my opinion. If you want voter guides then get consensus for them before the next election (assuming there is one). Thryduulf (talk) 22:30, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

  I agree with Thryduulf. Novem Linguae, first let me say thank you for all the work you are doing on this. But that said, you misrepresent what I actually said. I'm not saying anyone's comments should be disqualified. I'm noting, first, that when I raised the issue in a timely way, I was greeted by crickets, which was unfortunate. And I'm also saying – and here, I feel very strongly! – that it is now too late to change the rules on voter guides, because all the candidates have already gotten into the election. This is about more than just the issue of some editors wanting guidance when there are so many candidates. It's about what the candidates expected when they announced, and whether it's fair to go against their good-faith expectations. Especially since the consensus in favor of conducting this trial was based on the premise that we want to find ways to get more RfA candidates, and that reducing the amount of public evaluation of the candidates was a major reason for the trial. And finally, I don't think my reasons for advocating for this sentence on the page should have been called "dumbass". --Tryptofish (talk) 23:14, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Transclusions

Regarding this edit (and the subsequent modification): I guess it's OK for Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Call for candidates to be transcluded elsewhere, but it feels like one more thing to remember to keep working. Perhaps another approach can be followed, such as section transclusion? isaacl (talk) 03:47, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I think the idea behind the edit was to have a {{RFX_report}} style transcluded report that folks could add to their user-page/user-subpages. (see #User:Cyberpower678/RfX_Report above). My initial edit was a minimal effort way of making it work, we could definitely go for making it a seperate template and use section transclusion if it is easier to maintain. Sohom (talk) 10:39, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Since you made the initial edit, I assume you know the idea behind it ;-). From a user's perspective, though, I think enhancing {{RFX report}} to pick up the election-based requests would serve users better. However to avoid overwhelming specific pages such as the RfA page, it would probably need to be modified to have a collapsible portion, and an option added to control the visibility of entries above a certain number. isaacl (talk) 15:21, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Admin co-nominations / endorsements

Given the large number of candidates and the timescales, would it be helpful if there was encouragement for existing admins to co-nom / endorse candidates before voting starts? I think some already have such endorsements but a lot don't. Is that because the admin-corps don't rate them, or is it for other reason (i.e. they stayed away from the process)?

If a decent number of admins lent their name to endorse a candidate, it would be very helpful to people like me and encourage me to put the time into supporting. Obviously, if they don't rate a candidate, then nothing is added, which is important as I think the avoidance of negative comments has probably been a big draw for attracting candidates. Aszx5000 (talk) 22:23, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Admins are not special, and I see no justification why we should be allowed an exemption from the general discouragement to express support or opposition and prohibition on indicating personal voting intentions. You should form your own opinions on the candidates, not rely on what others think. Thryduulf (talk) 22:36, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I assume @Aszx5000 meant endorse via a nomination (ie, the usual way), not by some other means of endorsement. I'm not sure why more candidates didn't opt to have nominators, but it is what it is. -- asilvering (talk) 01:11, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes asilvering, only the normal endorsement / co-nomination, and certainly no negative comments / opposition comments. Aszx5000 (talk) 08:41, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Per the norms at WP:RFA, it is up to each candidate to ask people to be nominators. The process itself shouldn't seek to connect nominators with candidates, in my opinion. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:38, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

But maybe the reason that this RFA process has been so successful is that WP editors are - on balance - shy and reserved. Hence why some spontaneous endorsements from admins could be helpful (say to a max of 3 so it doesn't become proxy voting). This process runs the opposite risk of RFA, too many candidates and too little voter participation? Aszx5000 (talk) 08:45, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

As much as I'd have loved to be the nominator for several of these candidates (and did offer to be over the past year), I completely agree with Thryduulf. We're just editors with tools, we're not special. You don't even have to be an admin to be a nominator. I'm sure some of us are also terrible judges of character and I'm confident certain admins endorsing/nominating people would do more harm than good. If they wanted any of us to be their nominators, I like to think they would have asked. Hey man im josh (talk) 23:12, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I would be disappointed if a candidate that you endorsed didn't make it, and if I saw your co-nom, I would put the effort into supporting that candidate. Per my comments above, typical editors are probably shy and reserved - hence the huge success of this format - but, we now have the opposite problem of RFAs with too many candidates and potentially lower voter participation? I would limit the co-noms / endorsements to 3, but it would be an "own goal" if candidates that admins were happy with failed? Aszx5000 (talk) 08:56, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I think the ball should be in the court of the candidates. I want to emphasize to the candidates it's fine this week to refine statements, and ask for a co-nom from an experienced editor (or say yes to an offer you've previously had). I'd be happy to be contacted! I love the solution of Ahecht, with a single co-nom statement from somebody else, rather than having two nominators. Feels like it meets the spirit of the admin elections to make it into less of a big deal, but still gives confidence to voters that they've been thoroughly vetted. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 09:13, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Because admins can view deleted edits, an admin can check a candidates deleted edits, and if what they see is OK, give reassurances to the community. An admin checking something we all have access to has no more status than other member of the community. But an admin checking something that only admins have access to can help the community vetting process. For example in the past I've seen a candidate fail because their talkpages showed had a number of non notable articles deleted in the year or so before their RFA. However as someone who can view deleted I could see that they hadn't edited those articles for many many years, which put a completely different perspective on things. More commonly an admin looking at deleted edits can check that a bunch of deletion tagging was accurate and whether it was over hasty or lost anything with potential. We are in the first run of a new process. I would hope that any current candidate who received an email from an admin offering to add a nomination or co nomination statement would be happy to receive that email and would probably accept the endorsement. ϢereSpielChequers 09:35, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

MMS messages

Alright, there was some desire in an above talk page section to keep sending MMSs for each phase, so let's go ahead and do that. Can you all help by proofreading the following? Thanks.

• Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/MMS/Candidate instructions - will go out very soon
• Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/MMS/Discussion phase
• Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/MMS/Voting phase

–Novem Linguae (talk) 10:43, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Is it possible to send out a mass message to all eligible voters (not just those subscribed to the list), or does that require a broader consensus? C F A 💬 15:36, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Mass messaging tens of thousands of editors would probably need a big discussion. I've added this to my notes to possibly discuss in the debrief, but it may be too late to do it for this election. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:29, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Chores

Here's a couple of tasks that are on the todo list. Would be happy to get help with these:

• YMake sure an RFA page for each candidate was created, redirected to their AELECT candidate subpage, taking special care with the numbering and to not overwrite old RFAs. Examples:
  • Point Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ahecht to Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Candidates/Ahecht.
  • Point Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Hawkeye7 4 to Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Candidates/Hawkeye7.
• YMake sure Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Discussion phase transcludes each subpage. You can check the page history for how we were doing it before.
• YCreate Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Voting phase. Should probably have a big button with a link to vote.wikimedia.org. We can specify the exact URL a bit later.
• YUsing Special:CreateMassMessageList or any other technique, create Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Candidate newsletter list and populate it only with our current candidates.

Thanks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:49, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Ongoing : Until discussion phase opens, remove or otherwise mark any candidates who withdraw before then. (We are now at 35 candidates total). Pages affected -

• Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Call for candidates
• Discussion phase list - Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Discussion phase
• Individual candidate page; for example - Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Candidates/Joseywales1961
• Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Candidate newsletter list

Soni (talk) 12:23, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I think the only page that list all candidates right now is the call to candidates page Sohom (talk) 12:25, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Candidate newsletter list and Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Discussion phase also include all the candidates' entries. – DreamRimmer (talk) 13:18, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I blame the cache for not showing me the latest edits :) Sohom (talk) 13:36, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

All the candidates' RfA subpages correctly redirect to their AELECT nomination pages. I have created the voting phase page, set up the candidates' newsletter list, and transcluded all the candidates' nomination pages to the discussion phase page. – DreamRimmer (talk) 13:37, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Novem Linguae, Just FYI: User talk:Pathoschild#AccountEligibility for Administrator elections and AccountEligibility. – DreamRimmer (talk) 13:54, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

• Note. I tried to ask an "additional optional question" at one of the candidate's RfA pages. Maybe I just did something wrong, but the template for doing so didn't work for me: [3], [4]. It may need some fixing. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:57, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Tryptofish: the template was confused because you included an equals sign in the question – see bullet point two at Help:Template#Hints and workarounds :) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 01:53, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

  I've posted a proposal for how to fix for the escaped equals sign problem in that RFA question template, if people want to weigh in or code it up: Template talk:Rfa-question#Named parameters. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:48, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Impractical: nearly 40 candidates is too much to reasonably review in a single batch

Is the expectation really for users to review nearly 40 candidates, questions, discussions, etc.? I always supported having the option of using SecurePoll for RfAs, but for individual ones, not dozens. Maybe five or ten at a time, at most. If the limitation of SecurePoll is such large batches, then maybe it's a no-go. I realize this is a test of the feature (previously limited to ACE on-project, and WMF proposals cross-projects), but this is a lot to review. I don't think the candidacy size was well thought out, and it may end up dooming this approach. Which would be quite unfortunate. El_C 15:52, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

@El C See #So many candidates above. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:58, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

There are currently 35 candidates in this election, which indeed makes it quite challenging to read through all the nominations and answers. We didn't expect so many candidates, but I think this a positive sign that so many users are stepping forward to run. As this is the first time organising an admin election, a lot of feedback has been received from the community, and more input will continue to be gathered until the election concludes. If these elections continue, future ones can be adjusted based on this feedback, such as limiting the number of candidates and tweaking the election and discussion phase dates. – DreamRimmer (talk) 16:18, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

There are two discussions about how we manage this number this time that you might want to join. That is #What_should_the_page_say_on_voting_guides? and #Notice_not_on_watchlist. This was unexpected, and between all the discussion we've had, there seems to be a consensus do to it differently next time. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:22, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

That thread says something to the effect of: 'I'm pleased there's over a dozen candidates.' Whereas mine here says: 'I'm displeased there's nearly 40.' See, one thing is not like the other. El_C 15:06, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I also would have preferred if securepoll allowed us to vote for each individual at our convenience, as opposed to voting on all of the candidates at once. Thankfully, we're able to go back and vote again (albeit on all of them at once again) if we want to change our votes, and our original votes will then be discarded. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:12, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

It's a tradeoff; retrieving the original votes would mean the software would need to store the required decryption key to access that info, which adds a potential surface for attack (and at least partially negates the goal of encryption, which prevents those with access to the database from seeing the votes). Other than a mechanism like that so voting could be broken up over multiple sessions, voting on individuals would require individual ballots, which also affects the user experience. isaacl (talk) 18:37, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Just to say that I, for one, would be happy to withdraw from this election, or be bumped into a later batch, if either of those would help. (Perhaps I'm not the only candidate feeling this way, either?) -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 18:44, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Do a quick pool spilt

If people really are bothered by the number just hold a quick poll, to split into say 4ths by sign up, the first group goes first the second group 10 days latter, etc if one of the candidates can't do it when they are assigned they can go sometime latter when they can (advertise the poll on cent). Some flexibility is part of the job after all. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:47, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that's reasonable at this stage in the process in my opinion. Candidates have been prepping, whether just mentally or actually setting time aside to be ready to answer questions, and it would be unreasonable to change the schedule on short notice. Voters have also been preparing questions, comments, and doing their research to be ready and able to vote appropriately. Though I do think the port-mortem for the process will find consensus to split candidates up into staggered groups if we continue with admin elections. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:51, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

There is also the issue that (as I understand it) voting is held on a separate wiki (votewiki) and communities holding elections need to be allocated slots on votewiki in which to hold the election. This is why the election is being held now - I believe August or September would have been the first choice of those doing the initial organising. If I've stood the comments at WP:VPWMF correctly then this might change in the future, but the "if" in this sentence is substantial. Thryduulf (talk) 19:08, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

@Thryduulf SecurePoll can support multiple elections at once and multiple languages at once. The only limitation is that it cannot simultaneously hold an election for a left-to-right language and a right-to-left language. See Special:Diff/1059611454. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:00, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Agree. At this point, we're in or heading into the weekend, so I doubt we can get the WMF staff who set up the Secure Poll to change it for us. And I think it would only be appropriate to move some candidates into a later set if they specifically agreed to be moved into one (cf @DoubleGrazing above). Though if @Novem Linguae is confident that the relevant WMF staff would be able to attend to a last-minute change of plans on Monday, maybe this is still technically possible...? -- asilvering (talk) 19:13, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Using SecurePoll is expensive in terms of time (of WMF Trust & Safety who administer vote.wikimedia.org and who have a SecurePoll calendar that they use to try to keep polls from other wikis from overlapping, and of the stewards who do the scrutineering). I don't think we can convince those stakeholders to have 4 SecurePoll votes in a short timespan. In fact the stewards have already stated that they probably can't scrutineer for us in the future. This would also be a big change which would disrupt the schedule and candidate expectations, and an 11th hour change. In conclusion, I don't think this is a possibility for this election, but I imagine we can certainly make changes to address this after the election in the debrief. Perhaps capping future elections to 10 candidates, or elongating the discussion phase, or allowing voter guides, or whatever we want to do to mitigate the problems that come with having a lot of candidates. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:39, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the thorough response. I personally think the shorter discussion period is one of the strong benefits of this system (it just becomes difficult when there are so many candidates), so I hope we don't end up extending it. Based on your experience with setting up SecurePoll, do you have a sense of how often we could run these admin elections? Would quarterly be too much? Twice-yearly? -- asilvering (talk) 19:58, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Maybe yearly? WMF T&S didn't respond very quickly to my original emails, suggesting to me they are a bit busy and don't have a lot of bandwidth for elections. (Although they've been great this week with the election setup on Phab.) Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Enabling SecurePoll elections with the electionadmin right is probably the long-term solution to being able to hold multiple elections a year. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:03, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Running elections more frequently on a sustainable scale will require them to be run locally. We've known that it was in the WMF plans, and the discussion to which Novem Linguae linked gives hope that it will come sooner rather than later. How often the community can run elections will probably come down to what decisions it wants to make on the requirements for scrutineering, as I think that will be the first bottleneck. isaacl (talk) 21:28, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Going off on that thread, is there a historical reason we always use stewards instead of local enwiki CU folks for scrutineering ? Sohom (talk) 14:43, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

The idea for using stewards who don't regularly contribute to en.wp to scrutineer arbcom elections has historically been because they are not part of the community. CUs are appointed by and often work closely with the arbitration committee so there is a much greater potential for conflicts of interest, especially if they were also permitted to vote. Whether that degree of independence is needed for admin elections is not something that I can recall being discussed. Thryduulf (talk) 14:50, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Whether that degree of independence is needed for admin elections is not something that I can recall being discussed. - That might be a useful point to bring up when WP:AELEC goes up for a vote after the trial period. I don't see stewards being any more impartial than local CUs in the context of admin elections. And choosing local CUs will probably allow us to increase the frequency in which we conduct these elections in general without overburdening our stewards (who already have a lot on their plates). Sohom (talk) 15:08, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Maybe to avoid WP:NOTFISHING? Checkusers (stewards) that don't know as many enwiki people are less likely to violate WP:NOTFISHING during their checks of enwiki voters. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:04, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Time for a decision on voter guides

Could somebody uninvolved please assess the consensus in #What should the page say on voting guides?. If we're going to have voter guides, people need to have time to write and read them, and the discussion opens in three days. – Joe (talk) 08:25, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I have closed it. No text will appear regarding their encouragement or discouragement on this page. The effects are that editors may write voter guides in userspace. My sense is that the main election page may not link to them, but there's nothing stopping an editor from compiling a list of voter guides, or categorising them for organisation and discovery. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:59, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. It's hard to imagine how people will find guides if they're not linked from some election-related page, but I'm sure we'll figure it out. – Joe (talk) 13:56, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I believe there is already a quarry query floating around that lists all currently available voter guides. (Not going to explicitly link to the query since I'm unsure if this page is considered part of the "main" election pages?) Sohom (talk) 14:40, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Voter guides should not be easy to find (I still maintain they shouldn't be allowed at all, but I accept that consensus isn't with me on that point) and wikilawyering around the consensus not to advertise them should not be attempted. Thryduulf (talk) 14:53, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

The consensus is that they're "not explicitly encouraged or discouraged". I'd say deliberately making them hard to find would fall on the "discouraged" side of things. – Joe (talk) 15:22, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Deliberately making them easy to find would fall on the "encouraged" side of things. Thryduulf (talk) 15:46, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I guess they'll have to be just a bit findable, then. Hooray compromise. – Joe (talk) 15:47, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

That looks and awful lot like advertising their existence to me. Thryduulf (talk) 15:51, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Accordingly, I've nominated the category for deletion as a violation of consensus. See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 October 19#Category:Wikipedia administrator elections 2024 voter guides. Thryduulf (talk) 15:56, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I think the current way to find them (via categories) works. Still not easy to find, but one also doesn't need to know how to find some quarry query. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 15:49, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I feel this way as well. Making them harder to find does fall under "discouraged". Hey man im josh (talk) 21:29, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

This (and this) kind of guide is very useful, and I think given the scale of nominations, some kind of statistical analysis is helpful as very few will have the time to go through all of them. Also highlights the mistake that many prospective candidates are making in not seeking — or accepting the unsolicited offers of — support / co-noms from admins. That is where most people will start their focus on imho. Aszx5000 (talk) 18:43, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Hey man im josh: About this: [5], please see [6]: but any voter guides will not be linked to from this page. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:16, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Tryptofish: Your change implies no one can link a voter guide during a discussion on a candidate page. If voter guides are simply not to be linked from the admin elections page itself then your edit seems like it's not an improvement, as it implies something more. Just don't link to them from THAT page and leave the wording out. I get you don't like voter guides, but no need to include the wording. We should just revert anybody who links to the guides from Wikipedia:Administrator elections with a link to the close. Hey man im josh (talk) 21:27, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Your change implies no one can link a voter guide during a discussion on a candidate page. That's correct, user:ProcrastinatingReader's close explicitly says any voter guides will not be linked to from this page, where the main elections page is the page under discussion. Linking them from other election pages would be violating the spirit of that close as well. Thryduulf (talk) 21:39, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

"This page", to me, implies it should only not be linked from WP:Administrator elections. I don't read the close that way personally, and I see that as falling under them being discouraged instead of neither encouraged or discouraged. I don't see why a voter can't say "I read XYZ at josh's fake guide, would you care to address that concern?", would be inappropriate. Hey man im josh (talk) 21:51, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, on the one hand, the closing statement says: no wording to appear regarding voter guides, which certainly supports your case. On the other hand, it also says: but any voter guides will not be linked to from this page. It strikes me as strange to say that the latter should be enforced by linking to that closing statement, but not by linking to what the page actually says. Admittedly, the closing statement somewhat contradicts itself in that regard. I guess we have a "consensus" that voter guides cannot be linked to, as well as a "consensus" that we cannot say that voter guides cannot be linked to.

But I'm willing to work with a different wording than the wording I used, if you want it made clear that there will be no linking from Wikipedia:Administrator elections, instead of from election pages in general. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:43, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I guess I just don't see it as necessary to mention at all. Any mention complicates things until we get clarification on whether subpages can mention them at all. A candidate should be allowed to address something in a voter guide if a legitimate concern is brought up and someone wants to link the relevant point in a discussion. Hey man im josh (talk) 21:54, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

ProcastinatingReader was the one who removed the original line, I saw no reason to inserting another wording without at least asking them first. It's the exact kind of due diligence Tryptofish was asking from us earlier when editors tried to remove any lines pre-closure. Soni (talk) 21:58, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Let's just have ProcrastinatingReader clarify the close when they get online: User talk:ProcrastinatingReader#RFC close clarification request. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:56, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

The close says Rough consensus for option 3 and Option 3 is No wording should appear regarding voter guides. If the close is more complicated than just "consensus for a specific option", then it should say that. Otherwise, no wording should appear per Option 3. C F A 💬 22:03, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

The close, in its entirety, says what it says. I agree with Novem Linguae: Let's wait and see what the closer says it should be understood to mean. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:06, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Response at User talk:ProcrastinatingReader#RFC close clarification request. Myself, I'm taking this as a clear indication that Josh was correct to revert me, and I'm happy to leave it at that. People can talk about guides on places like candidate pages, but links to guides from this page are to be reverted. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:49, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

this page. WP:AELECT not WT:AELECT, correct? –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:24, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I think that's the only logical interpretation. Thryduulf (talk) 01:30, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes; to quote: ... "this page" was supposed to mean Wikipedia:Administrator elections. isaacl (talk) 01:33, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh, yeah, when I said "this page", I meant it as opposed to this talk page. :) --Tryptofish (talk) 01:39, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Index page for each election

I just noticed that Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024 just redirects to Wikipedia:Administrator elections. This works fine for now but after the election it will be repurposed and we'll need another page maintain a record of this specific election – listing the candidates, results, etc. Are there any objections if I go ahead and create this now at e.g. Wikipedia:Administrator elections October 2024? That's the pattern used for WP:ACE, each election has its own page. – Joe (talk) 16:26, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't object to that, but it is not guaranteed at present that there will be future elections so it's potentially completely pointless. Thryduulf (talk) 16:51, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I imagine if this is the only one, we'll want to turn Wikipedia:Administrator election into something like "Administrator elections were a...", so it'd still be useful. – Joe (talk) 17:39, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I'd like to keep everything on this page for now for watcher count and centralization reasons, and in future elections I'd like to start using that election's talk subpage. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:07, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't plan to change anything on this page or move the talk page. – Joe (talk) 07:44, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

It's not too late to put in a minimum level of support

Sorry folks....but really, we need to put in a minimum level of support for successful candidates; percentage is not enough. We have created a scenario where it would be possible to get adminship with fewer than 15 support votes, and that's just not okay.

I propose the following:

• Successful candidates will have a minimum of 70 voters either supporting or opposing. Of those votes, 70% must be support votes.

Really, it's not too late. Please let's do this. I really hate that we've created a system - even a trial system - where we have so many candidates that nobody can effectively evaluate them, and thus poorly vetted candidates get adminship. Risker (talk) 03:22, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

It's 100% too late to change the rules or format. You're also nuts if you think anybody would actually get less than 15 supports and somehow still pass here, that's an absurd assumption of low participation. Let's be realistic here. Hey man im josh (talk) 03:43, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I strongly suspect that we will have much higher levels of participation than on any normal RFA. But in case we don't, and someone truly unvetted and horribly destructive gets through, we can deal with that when it happens. -- asilvering (talk) 03:50, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

If every one of them gets through, we will still have no more admins than we had last year. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:42, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

My sense is also that it's very unlikely that there'll be such a low turnout. If that or something else wildly expected happens, I think we have to rely on the bureaucrats to exercise common sense and not flip the bits if this process has failed to produce a sensible result. – Joe (talk) 07:50, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the above that it's too late to change the rules here - if there is a low turnout (which, based on the surprise number of candidates, I doubt will happen), then we'll just have to deal with that. The best thing to do here is to vet candidates in advance. I recommend checking out User:Novem Linguae/Essays/2024 administrator election voter guide for a rough overview of the candidates. BugGhost🦗👻 10:05, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Having a minimum makes sense as otherwise, the risk is that voters become very defensive in voting and vote no by defaut even where they have spent no time on the candidate, as they might be concerned that low-participation candidates could slip through. Even a 50 de-minimus would be pretty uncontroversial imho and useful for both candidates and voters. Aszx5000 (talk) 10:14, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) While I agree this would have been desirable, the time to raise this point was during the initial RFC, or during the subsequent discussions, or during the preparation, or (in extremis) during the candidate signup. It is definitely too late to change the rules now. The only thing you can do about this now is to encourage those eligible to vote to do so. You can vote to oppose those you have not evaluated if you are worried they might be appointed with a low number of support votes, but evaluating them is preferable. Thryduulf (talk) 10:21, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I really hope people do not vote oppose just because they ran out of time to assess some candidates. We're a big community, and it's good to put some trust in each other. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 10:27, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

That is why a de-minimus might be helpful (although it would be a late rule-change which is not ideal per the feedback above), and even more importantly, why getting admins to co-nominate (and candidates to accept such co-nominatation) could also be very helpful in encouraging voters to take more risk with this exciting new process. Aszx5000 (talk) 10:32, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

It would certainly not be ideal, especially for the candidates, but it is an option that is open to voters. Thryduulf (talk) 12:13, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, please don't vote all oppose. That would be damaging to the trial. Please just vote abstain if you're unsure about a candidate. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:42, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Those who oppose the process should not be voting all oppose as a protest, that's just inappropriate and disruptive. It's fine to disagree with the process, but the candidates shouldn't feel it as a result. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:23, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

People can literally vote oppose for any reason. Sounds like the process is working as designed. -Fastily 05:05, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Indeed being able to oppose without having to justify (and potentially be badgered about) your reasoning was one of the reasons proponents gave for having secret voting. Not being convinced of a candidate's suitability for adminship (for whatever reason) is a perfectly legitimate reason to oppose. While the candidate (and others) would likely prefer voters to abstain when that reason is due to not having evaluated the candidate in as much depth as the voter would like, there is nothing in the rules or guidance that requires this. Thryduulf (talk) 10:58, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree that a candidate getting low absolute support numbers but passing due to a high support percentage is a theoretical problem but one which shouldn't happen in practice. The number of candidates putting their name forward is already much, much higher than expected and I think the total voting numbers for each candidate in the admin election will follow suit. Gizza (talk) 08:10, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

• I've just had a quick skim through the 2007 crop of admins. 2007 averaged more than one RFA a day, and obviously at times when there were lots of candidates some RFAs had few participants. A 70 participants threshold would have lost us a significant proportion of them, including a current admin who was unanimously appointed by 22 participants that year. Not only that but it would have the perverse effect that voting oppose could result in one admin being appointed by 50 supports to 20 while others were narrowly rejected by 50 supports to 19 opposes and clearly rejected by 65 supports to zero opposes. If after this round of elections we decide on a minimum threshold for the future, I suggest either a minimum support threshold (perhaps 20?), or a minimum majority (perhaps 15?) but not a minimum participation level. ϢereSpielChequers 09:09, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
• I've already commented on the other version of this over at WT:RFA, but the specific threshold proposed here is unworkable. If 69-0 shouldn't pass, 49-21 definitely shouldn't, but the reverse would be true. If we do this, it should be a minimum number of support votes. —Cryptic 03:19, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Talk page archiving

If anyone knows why talk page archiving on this page is broken, feel free to fix it. In the meantime, I just one click archived a bunch of stuff, in preparation for the influx of topics we're likely to get during the discussion phase in 5 hours. Thanks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:06, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Fixed. – DreamRimmer (talk) 07:54, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Removing notice templates from candidate pages

1) Once the discussion phase opens in 3 hours 40 minutes, we should remove the two {{Notice}}s I placed on each candidate page.

This is an important timing to get right, so anyone that is around at this time should feel free to do it. This might be a good job for AutoWikiBrowser since many pages are involved.

2) Thinking long term, bonus points if someone wants to modify Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Candidate subpage template to wrap these notices in some kind of "display until" template, so in the possible next election things are more efficient. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:21, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Done by HouseBlaster. – DreamRimmer (talk) 07:55, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Is this tool any good for apsects of candidate screening?

I have seen this "admin score" tool and put in one of the candidates that I had not prior knowledge of and who almost maxed out on it Bastun. I know temperment / judgement is important for admins but is this tool seems useful in objectively screening for technical competency? Or it is not well regarded as a tool for candidate screening? Aszx5000 (talk) 20:37, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't regard it particularly highly since it places weird emphasis on certain things like userpages and quantity of edits to RFPP. Cremastra (u — c) 20:40, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I haven't seen this tool before but it looks very reductive. To me it looks like it just checks whether a user is active in particular ways, not whether they'd be a good admin BugGhost🦗👻 21:12, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

It's a poor way to decide that someone is ready to be an admin, but it's a good way to decide that someone isn't. That is, you can see whether you (or someone else) have a deficiency in something that often comes up in RFAs before you think about running. For comparison, here's mine (I am an admin) [7], versus the most recent newbie poster to WP:TEA [8]. -- asilvering (talk) 21:17, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

That is what I found useful about it - basic technical competency screening. If somone failed badly on that, then could imply not worth spending much time on (as I can't dilligence almost 40 names). Whether this is the right tool or not, the idea of having some technical screener to see if someone isn't - as @asilvering put it well - could be useful for this process. Aszx5000 (talk) 21:22, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

@Aszx5000 I think you'll find that the discussions will help you, so you don't really need to "diligence" all the candidates. A more useful "objective" look than the admin score thing is this guide by @Novem Linguae: User:Novem Linguae/Essays/2024 administrator election voter guide. That's a list of basic yes/no-type questions that often come up in RFAs. Don't take the red X as a reason to not vote for a candidate if you don't feel strongly about that particular element; they're things that people often care about, but they don't have to be what you care about. -- asilvering (talk) 21:24, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I should add that, despite the name, I don't think NL's "guide" is a guide so much as a grown-up version of the admin scoresheet. -- asilvering (talk) 21:31, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree, and have noted that Novem Linguae's guide (above) is very helpful and objective. thanks again. Aszx5000 (talk) 21:34, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I see that the also helpful User:Femke/2024 admin election notes guide records previous offers of nomination that were made to candidates which I think is very helpful and important to point out. Could this type of information be added to the candidate's RFA page - I think that it is just as relevant as the statistics includes about other activities? Aszx5000 (talk) 10:03, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I will note that my notes are likely incomplete and more people may have had offers. Everybody is free to improve the accuracy of these notes in my userspace. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 10:17, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Template for closing discussions?

I just closed SheriffIsInTown's EFA thread as unsuccessful; any chance someone wants to whip up a dedicated template/tracking cat? I can get on it tomorrow morning if not... theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 04:30, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I really don't think discussions should be closed unless the candidate withdraws, even if the outcome is clear. fanfanboy (block) 12:25, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

This page is too big and I can't navigate

...Well, was hoping this was an improvement, but not when all of the nominations are transcluded on the same page at Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Discussion phase. Not trying to exceed my monthly bandwidth. Thanks, but no thanks. Steel1943 (talk) 05:14, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

@Steel1943, you can get to each one individually from the links at Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Candidates. -- asilvering (talk) 05:53, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Edit section links have disappeared from the discussion page

At Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Discussion phase, when I visited earlier today, the sections/headers had edit links next to them. Just now when I visited it, these were gone. Did someone add a __NOEDITSECTION__ to one of the pages that's being transcluded? If so let's find it and delete it so we get our edit section links back :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:55, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this has been fixed by someone just now, but the edit section links are appearing for me now (they weren't a few minutes ago) BugGhost🦗👻 06:36, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Fixed Special:Diff/1252625597. – DreamRimmer (talk) 06:37, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Are election moderators allowing discussion inside answers to questions?

It appears that in at least one candidate's q&a (Hawkeye7), a participant from outside discussion has chosen to intrude themselves in this formal process in an unusual way (1, 2). I do not feel empowered to respond to what I view as vandalism intended to injure the candidacy. BusterD (talk) 13:12, 22 October 2024 (UTC)