The main issue of this election should be the election itself and if whatever or not this farce which is the Arbcom should be maintained.
Maybe it is time to recognize that one of the real problem with arbitration is democracy itself.
To win the popularity contest and become an Arb, you must meet those criteria.
1) Be popular. Obviously so that they vote for you, they should know about you.
2) Be cold. If you show any emotions, you're damned.
3) You should be vague, as to not have taken any sides, unless you took side against the not so known individuals of the community.
4) You should not be a very opinioned individual, being an opinioned individual would require opposing and agreeing with things, in the risk of having others in your back.
5) Adhere to 'rules' which the non-adherence would be obvious. Particularly and probably exclusivally those regarding personal attacks and civility.
6) Have popuar friends in the community.
...
The closest thing which exist in the society which comes closest to the arbitration, is the 'Jury' system.
But what makes the arbitration so different than a jury is not much the fact that the Arbitration decisions seems so random, and that for a given case they can take a verry different decision in comparaison to another which was near identical. (this is one of the obvious problems, even a randomnly chosen jury has to consider Juris prudence) No, one of the main problem which is not that obvious is the way it's members are chosen.
In a Jury system, the potential jury members are first randomnly selected from the society, they are not chosen based on a popularity contest. On Wikipedia, the vocals, the opinioned etc., who would initiate debates in the closed door of the jury, are excluded from the system, because they are not the average, and don't pass the popularity contest.
What is so contradictory in this sort of demogracy, is that the democracy does not represent the people quite well. By chosing averages you represent the members which are of the 'average'-type.
But this is just one of the major flaws in this flawed system. And don't expect the things which should be the major issues become the major issues of those 'elections.'
This post has been edited by Xidaf:
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