Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Voting Process

The next elections to the English Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee will commence on 1 December 2008. These are the sixth such elections, and the newly elected members will join Tranche Beta. Voting will run for two weeks (exactly fourteen days), and the results will be determined and announced by Jimbo Wales. Nominations will be accepted from 10 November 2008 – 24 November 2008. Once nominations are open, Users may declare their candidacy by submitting a candidate statement at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Candidate statements.

This page is for listing and describing the voting process, as well as the templates available to editors and administrators who will be assisting in monitoring the election this year.

Voting

Editors who meet the relevant criteria (Registered account with 150 mainspace edits prior to 1 November 2008) are eligible to vote for or against as few or as many candidates as they wish. Some restrictions apply, however.

• Editors may only vote once for a candidate, whether that vote is Support or Oppose. This vote may be changed by first striking the original vote and adding a new vote.
• Editors may not edit the votes of other editors while placing their own. Minor fixes (such as correcting indentation or numbering formats) are acceptable.
• Editors must remain civil while voting; votes with personal attacks or other problems may be removed entirely.
• Candidates may not vote for (or against) themselves, but may vote for or against other candidates if they so desire.

Problem Votes

During the 2007 election, over 7200 votes were cast for and against candidates. A small percentage of these were duplicate votes, votes from editors who lacked suffrage, or votes from sockpuppets. Some were simple oversights, while others were more problematic. It is in the project's best interests to deal with these problem votes in a fair and uniform manner, while avoiding biting newcomers and alienating veteran users as much as is possible.

The table below discusses some of the types of problem votes we can expect to encounter, and recommends actions that may be required in each case. Where a notice to the user is warranted, editors are asked to leave an informal note on the voter's talk page, linking to the voting page where the vote was indented.

Vote	Action Necessary	Notify User?
Voter does not have 150 mainspace edits before 1 November 2008	Indent vote (changing # to #:), Add #::{{ACE|editcount|Voter's Username}} to next line.	Yes
Voter registered their account after 1 November 2008	Indent vote (changing # to #:), Add #::{{ACE|newaccount|Voter's Username}} to next line.	Yes
Voter is an IP editor	Indent vote (changing # to #:), Add #::{{ACE|anon}} to next line.	Yes
Voter has already voted for or against this candidate	Indent newer vote, Add #::{{ACE|duplicate}} to next line.	Yes
Voter simultaneously adds two votes, adds a support and an oppose vote, or otherwise double votes	Remove both votes, Ask voter to replace correct vote	Yes
Voter votes as "Switching to support/oppose", fails to strike or indent previous vote	Strike older vote, Add notation "Striking previous vote per User"	No
Voter makes a personal attack or is otherwise verbally abusive to candidate or other voters	Remove vote entirely, ask user to refactor. Report to WP:ANI for serious or repeated offenses	Yes
Voter is a Sockpuppet of a blocked or banned user (Blocked before or during election)	Remove vote entirely, add to list of Sock Voters. Report to WP:ANI for repeated offenses	No
While voting (same edit), Voter reformats or edits other votes, without explanation	Revert edit, notify voter to repost their vote	Yes
Voter includes comment longer than 2 sentences, 100 words, 5 formatted lines, or including more than 3 diffs.	Copy entire comment to talk page, replace all but voting term (Support, Oppose, etc) and signature with link to comment at talk page.	Yes

In the interests of fairness and transparency, it is always best to be sure before taking action. Feel free to request additional input before removing a good faith vote from the count.

Templates for use in the election

• {{ACE}}, which includes multiple options for indenting various problem votes. See the table above for specific usage.