2009 ArbCom elections Options

[Shalom]

I was just fooling around, wondering if WP:ACE2009 is a blue link. It is, sort of.

What's more interesting is that the discussion page is a blue link. Already before the final votes are in, lessons are being learned for next year.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:ACE2009

[Viridae]

Well no, if i I couldnt see the ranking/votes as the election progressed I would have just opposed everyone that I wasn't supporting, not just those who had a hope of beating them.

[Lifebaka]

Well no, if i I couldnt see the ranking/votes as the election progressed I would have just opposed everyone that I wasn't supporting, not just those who had a hope of beating them.

The other part of a suggestion I've seen thrown around by a few people is to eliminate oppose voting. This would remove the ability to do easy tactical voting, and would make the elections much easier to track. At the same time, it'd be difficult to tell if a candidate is controversial simply by number of supports. A candidate who is well liked by many can also be hated by many, and our current system allows oppose votes to show this (assuming they're used correctly).

A further idea I've seen tossed around is to limit the number of votes each user gets to the number of seats to be filled. Seven, in this election. Whether with or without oppose voting, it certainly be an interesting one to try.

[Shalom]

Well no, if i I couldnt see the ranking/votes as the election progressed I would have just opposed everyone that I wasn't supporting, not just those who had a hope of beating them.

The other part of a suggestion I've seen thrown around by a few people is to eliminate oppose voting. This would remove the ability to do easy tactical voting, and would make the elections much easier to track. At the same time, it'd be difficult to tell if a candidate is controversial simply by number of supports. A candidate who is well liked by many can also be hated by many, and our current system allows oppose votes to show this (assuming they're used correctly).

A further idea I've seen tossed around is to limit the number of votes each user gets to the number of seats to be filled. Seven, in this election. Whether with or without oppose voting, it certainly be an interesting one to try.

I observed after the last election on wiki that different methods would produce different results. A "support-only" method would have given us a second term of Raul654. I voted for him last year. That's one of many edits I'd like to have back. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) We would have also elected Giano, whom I opposed. That's another edit I'd like to have back.

Ah, the wisdom of hindsight!

[Lifebaka]

I observed after the last election on wiki that different methods would produce different results. A "support-only" method would have given us a second term of Raul654. I voted for him last year. That's one of many edits I'd like to have back. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) We would have also elected Giano, whom I opposed. That's another edit I'd like to have back.

Ah, the wisdom of hindsight!

One of the more interesting suggestions is to use a preferential voting system such as the Schulze method or single transferable vote instead of a support/oppose system. One of these systems was used in the last Board election (if I remember right) and it seemed to work there, so it should work for ArbCom elections. A preferential voting system would also help a lot to get candidates without as much name recognition to be able to "win".

Only downsides (which I have thought of) to these systems is that it's difficult without some sort of special page to do it on (or an outside website doing it) and it's difficult to do live tracking of the election due to the complexity of calculating the top picks.