QUOTE(Michaeldsuarez @ Tue 24th January 2012, 10:55am)
Just noticing, my wont, the structural defects. Using pure Approval voting for multiwinner elections is interesting, but was the system Yes/No? If only Yes, people may simply vote for their favorites and leave it at that; the method then reduces to Plurality, in effect.
This is not a method, neither Plurality nor Approval, to produce anything like fair representation of a community. For the same reasons, supermajority election of administrators produces a highly warped representation of the community, it's quite possible for a majority position to end up unrepresented, and that result, over years, will then begin to bias participation. When people don't feel that the results represent how they voted, they stop participating.
Jimbo made an appointment because it was felt that more numbers would increase the depth of analysis. That's not necessarily true, and it became quite clear to me, in my tangles with ArbComm, that arbs were simply voting knee-jerk, often. People are going to do that, it's inevitable, but sane process will make sure that those voting are, at least, *presented* with clear evidence and argument. If they ignore it, they can then be held responsible. But three-year terms militates against responsibility. If you are going to have long terms, then the election process should be far deeper, aiming to gain the most careful and thorough participants as arbitrators. Or at least those who are truly most representative, who *collectively* represent a maximized percentage of users.
Best would be a process which creates a panel that truly represents the community, so that the votes of the panel can be, usually, how the whole community would vote if informed adequately. Asset Voting could do it (an element in Asset Voting could be the proxy method proposed experimentally as
WP:PRX. That alone would not be enough. What would then be needed would be a process whereby the *community* and *staff* present organized and coherent evidence and argument for consideration by the panel. Combining the roles of investigation with decision is structurally unwise, likely to burn out the participants. "Staff" here means that there would be a class of user which does investigation and reporting. They might be given tools that, for example, allow them to read deleted posts. Each arbitrator might be able to appoint this "staff." The purpose of staff is to advise the arbs!
With an Asset-elected ArbComm, everyone who participates in the election could know whom they elected, "their arbitrator." With secret ballot, the arbs would not know who elected them, not the primary voters. They would know who transferred votes to them, that part must be done publically.
It could be done. I'm not holding my breath.
SOPA and a strike, Jimbo requests comments
