Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Election/Coordination

Tasks

Update dates for election in Template:Arbitration Committee candidate/data, following guidance from Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Election/Rules
Prepare pages for request for comments discussion. The request for comment talk page can be made available once the previous year's discussion is complete, so items to discuss can be gathered.
- Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December nnnn and corresponding talk page. Supporting pages:
  - Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December nnnn/Header
  - Wikipedia:ACERFCnnnn: redirect to request for comments page
  - Template:ACEnnnn
Prepare election pages.
- Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December nnnn
- Wikipedia:ACEnnnn: redirect to election page
- Update Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December (nnnn-1) by uncommenting the link to the current year's election page
- All other pages linked from the header and elections page

Launch RfC on September 1
- uncomment RFC template and timestamp after initial statement to launch RfC (example)
- Request update to watchlist notice (example)
- Update Template:Centralized discussion (example)
Evaluating consensus
- Find someone to evaluate consensus
- Close the RfC discussion to stop new comments and allow the evaluator to determine the consensus
Once consensus is determined, update Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Election/Rules
Create Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December (nnnn + 1) to hold discussion items for next year's election.

Assuming electoral commission continues to be part of the arbitration committee election process:

Electoral commissioners and all co-ordinators: review the current Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Election/Rules and the outcome of the annual request for comments discussion.
Update process to generate voter roll, as required. Modify script that generates list of voters to accommodate latest community-determined criteria
Make any additional changes to process as required by the election RfC.
SecurePoll setup
- Scrutineers:
  - request volunteers at m:Stewards' noticeboard
  - identify scrutineers from volunteers
  - request checkuser privileges for scrutineers (limited to the scrutineering period)
- Poll management (currently poll runs on votewiki server; in future it may be possible to be administered by English Wikipedia users)
  - Ask WMF to assign a resource to setup and administer the poll on votewiki.
  - Schedule election period with WMF resource.
Testing
- Generate voter lists to verify tools operate as desired and to allow for anyone to doublecheck the results
  - SecurePoll voter roll
  - mass mailing receiver list
- Check that nomination process is working
Generate voter lists after the designated deadline date for voting criteria.
- Announce publication of lists to allow for doublechecking

Post request for candidates
- miscellaneous village pump (example: Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 72 § Arbitration committee 2022 election: have you considered who you would like to see as a candidate?)
- administrators' noticeboard (example: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive366 § Self-nominations for the Arbitration Committee open)
Update Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December nnnn/Candidates/Guide
Confirm candidate pages have been created correctly (candidate page, statement page, questions page)
End of nomination period
- Confirm question period has started (purge any candidate questions pages as needed)
- Provide list of candidates to election admin on SecurePoll server.
Remove all election admins other than scrutineers and election admin(s) who will tally the vote
Test poll to confirm it is setup correctly
- Verify options for each candidate are correct
- Verify candidates are correct and in expected order

At start of election period, check that poll is working:
- Verify options for each candidate are correct
- Verify candidates are correct and in expected order
- Verify poll is accepting responses
Send mass message notification
- Check job queue before starting to ensure it isn't overloaded. See status on grafana server
- Send mass messages in batches; repeat until all batches done (example). First batch is a test batch to the election commissioners; verify that message is sent correctly and text is correct.
  - Go to Special:MassMessage:
    Subject: ArbCom nnnn Elections voter message
    
    Body: {{subst:ACEMM}}
  - Check mass message submission log to see that message has been sent
  - Monitor job queue for any problems
  - Pick some recipients from the start, middle, and end of the list and verify that the messages are delivered
At end of election period, check that poll is no longer accepting votes

Ensure scrutineering process is underway.
After scrutineers publish and certify results, notify:
Request removal of checkuser access from scrutineers
Lessons learned
- Review received feedback, such as at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December nnnn/Feedback
- Implement process/documentation changes that can be done without broader community discussion that are immediately feasible
- Update Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December (nnnn + 1) with items to discuss for the next election
- Update Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Election/Coordination with changes to the coordination process. isaacl (talk) 16:09, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Generating voter lists:
- Cyberpower678's PHP tool: generates both SecurePoll voter list and mass messaging receiver lists. Need more info on execution environment.