Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2006/Summary table

Examples exhibiting arbitration skills

When I inserted the column, I explained the reason on #Examples exhibiting arbitration skills, but not here. I understand that it was reverted, because I assume that the reverter did not know my reason for adding it:

Actions count more than nice statements, so I would like to see examples of how candidates handled tricky arbitration issues. To this end, I just added a column "Examples" to the Summary table - please help me populate it! I also encourage candidates themselves; and I think it's also fine to insert counterexamples. Thanks, Sebastian

Please allow me to reinsert this column. I really feel it is important, and I don't see that it does any harm, even if many fields will be empty initially. That will only help us see for which candidates we have no example yet. — Sebastian (talk) 00:18, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Our posts just crossed. At the same time, Tra wrote:

"I've merged that column into the notes, for now. It takes up a lot of space and it only applies to one candidate at the moment. If information is added for more candidates, it could probably be given its own column."

I'd like to reply that it doesn't take that much space: No more than the word "Example", which is much less than "Date of first edit" plus "Date of adminship" plus "Date of nomination", which together may be equally important. — Sebastian (talk) 00:28, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the column because adding it caused the other columns to shrink slightly making the table as a whole to be quite squashed and untidy. I moved the one example you had put initially to the notes column, since this is the place where information that does not apply to most candidates goes. If there were arbitration skills information for several candidates, the column could probably be re-added. You say that the blank spaces help show where this information is missing - it's still possible to see where it's missing even without its own dedicated column and I think the slightly extra effort involved to find blanks outweighs the shrinking of the columns.

I am also slightly concerned that a column of this nature may be a bit subjective and would be more suited to discussions, questions or in userspace, rather than this table, which is more for just giving general facts about the candidate. On a side note, if you're copying the wikicode into Word to make the edits, be careful that straight quotes like " are not changed into smart quotes like “ and ” since this messes up the table syntax. Tra (Talk) 00:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your reply. I think I need a little rest right now - I'm embarrassed about the mistakes like the Word quotes, which is something I'm usually aware of. I'm writing more, but just wanted to delete my misleading reply for now. — Sebastian (talk) 01:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

numbers by first edit/adminship dates?

I realize the cat is out of the bag so feel free to tell me to go climb a tree, but why are we 'ranking' candidates according to when they first edited, became an admin, etc? I don't understand the rationale here, and would like to remove it but would like even more to see some discussion first. If this has been discussed elsewhere I apologize; I don't see why we can't rely on voters to do the math themselves if it's important to them. -- nae'blis 00:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This was suggested by Carcharoth. I'm not 100% sure what they are there for but I'd assume it's supposed to, as you said, save voters from doing the maths themselves. Tra (Talk) 00:51, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]