Meta:Rewriting/Stewards policy/Vote

Voting is closed.

Introduction and rules

This page will be about the voting process to approve the rewritten version of the Stewards Policy. This policy consists of rules and guidelines on the behaviour of stewards, what their responsibilities are and what not. The document also describes how new stewards are appointed and how stewards are reconfirmed.

This voting process will consist of a single vote. Everybody eligible to vote can vote pro, contra or neutral. Only the pro- and contra votes are taken into account by determining the percentages. To let the new proposal be approved, it must receive 2/3 PRO at least (not counting the neutral votes).

Voting was possible between January 15, 00.00h UTC and January 28 23.59h UTC.

Who can vote?

Just like the previous elections for stewards, anyone can vote provided that they have a valid account on meta with a link to at least one user page on a project where they participated in the project for at least three months (not just edits to their own user page) - Counting January 15, 2008 as date for calculations.

The vote will last two weeks. All votes may be subject to checkuser checks if suspected from sockpuppetry. You may only vote once even if you have multiple accounts which fulfil the voting criteria. Double votes or sockpuppet votes will be cancelled. Votes from accounts which do not link (by the end of the election) to their userpage on a project where the user is active for three months or longer, will be cancelled as well.

Please Log-in to your account to vote

Vote

Subject of the voting

This vote is about the question:

Should Update Proposal be accepted as new Stewards policy? (changes)

A 2/3 majority is required to accept the proposal. If approved, this would be the new stewards policy. If rejected, the old policy would stay as it is (Stewards policy).

Comments

I am concerned that #Neutrality and #Don't decide appear to contradict #Confirmation - unless you define community in some peculiar ways. Hillgentleman 02:46, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pro

~~----Anonymous Dissident^Talk 00:03, 15 January 2008 (UTC)~~[reply]

This is the second time in three days I have not reviewed a comment properly. I did not even properly look at the proposal; I thought I was pro for something else. Nevermind, I abstain. --Anonymous Dissident^Talk 03:18, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Now opposed. --Anonymous Dissident^Talk 00:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

drini ^[es:]_[commons:] 00:51, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Greeves ^{(talk • contribs)} 01:49, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Mr.Z-man 02:42, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent proposal..--Comet styles 04:07, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
--Meno25 04:45, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
--Thogo (talk) 14:04, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
--Netito777 20:04, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
--Nick1915 -^{all you want} 23:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
--Looks fine to me. - Rjd0060 05:32, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support--Nasib Bitar 15:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
--Resped 17:47, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Thunderhead 02:50, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Contra

Per Hillgentleman's comment, per the apparent wish to exclude the community who elected the stewards from the confirmation as far as possible and because I believe eligibility needs addressing after the last election --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:08, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Frankly the changing of the policy, disagreement on what is being voted on etc make this fairly close to a farce in terms of policy making. I think it would be preferable to halt the proceedings now & thrash out something that might get some real support. As this is unlikely given the almost complete disinterest in what the electorate say to happen my oppose is now strong --Herby ^{talk thyme} 19:44, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Per the comments which have come before. The community should not be excluded from the confirmation process. --AdRiley 12:23, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the revision that is being proposed. There was significant discussion on the talk page of the proposal about matters relating to exactly when and how often elections are held. I proposed a minor change in wording to try to address this, as seen in this revision. This change was made prior to the vote start but Effeietsanders chose not to have it be the version put forward for a vote, preferring instead one that makes not even an acknowledgment of a tradition of annual votes, much less a definite commitment. I cannot support that. However I would point out to Herby that both E and the modified version address voter eligibility, making the requirements (but not the mechanics of the vote) the same as the last board election. ++Lar: t/c 16:09, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand why the confirmation should only be decided by stewards (it is imho also a contradiction to 1.1 and 1.3), --birdy geimfyglið _{(:> )=|} ∇ 19:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly oppose section 3.2.2 of the proposal; the community should make the decisions, not the stewards only. --Agüeybaná (hábleme) 20:05, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
--Panic 01:44, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In addition to Hillgentleman's comment, what exactly are stewards' own or home projects are unclear, so I am unable to support a change for now.--Jusjih 02:39, 17 January 2008 (UTC) (admin on 11 Wiki sites)[reply]
The proposal could stand some substantial modification. Cary Bass ^demandez 18:15, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Uh-uh. The status quo was fine. 哦，是吗？(O-person) 05:06, 18 January 2008 (GMT)
I do find there to be some merit in certain general propositions that the rewritten version advances, but because I join in Herby's substantive objections and, a good bit less significantly, in, at least in part, the suggestion by Hillgentleman that there exists in the proposal some inconsistency, I must oppose the changes' being promulgated as policy. Joe 09:23, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - nigh oligarchy - thats what it sounds like. --Anonymous Dissident^Talk 22:08, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Modifications are needed to answer the issues which have been mentioned here (in oppose votes) and the talk page. Huji 22:23, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose —Gives to much power to the Board. The new proposal states "Confirmations will generally be held during steward elections and/or roughly annually." This means they can never call a confirmation if they never choose to. Zginder 01:02, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - The change to the election rules would create an elite class, which would be terrible for Wikipedia. Additionally, I don't like that the "Don't change rights on your own project" ban would be changed to being merely a suggestion. --SMP0328. 19:30, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While we appreciate the comments, #Who can vote? is quite clear; anonymous users may not vote. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 07:10, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, you still can't vote. You need a link on your meta userpage to a project where.... this is all in #Who can vote?. Again indented, as this doesn't count. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 21:39, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Herbythyme has stated my primary objection to the rewrite quite well. The proposed rewrite seeks to remove the community from the decision-making process and hand more power over both to the Board and to the current stewards, creating something of an oligarchy. This approach seems to me to be against the wiki spirit and far less likely of improving the integrity of the steward body. Sure, the simple state of being a steward is bound to make you controversial, at least if you're doing your job right. Yet a decent steward should similarly be more than capable of garnering the support of enough contributors to outweigh the unfounded objections of those users whom the steward has upset despite acting appropriately. Additionally, it seems to me a positive thing for fewer stewards to retain their access for long periods of time, preventing them from becoming worn down and "corrupted by the system" (if such a thing is possible in the wiki world), and a challenging confirmation process also keeps the steward body "younger" by bringing in new stewards who are active and motivated and who come from different backgrounds. I also agree with Zginder above that this proposal gives an unnecessary amount of power to, or rather places an unnecessary burden upon, the board, by allowing them to set the time for confirmations and elections whenever they so please. In short, I do not see these revisions to be necessary and believe that the status quo is working quite well at present. AmiDaniel 08:50, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's important to realise that if the vote fails, the status quo ante is in place. I would be advocating that we immediately start another round of working on a proposed set of changes that WOULD get consensus, but there is no requirement to do so. A few points worth noting about the status quo ante.. current policy is that the steward confirmation process is completely run by stewards. Community input is just that, input, something to be considered and no more. Also, under the status quo ante, under one reading, there is no specific time for elections, and not even an acknowledgment that there is a tradition that they are yearly. Further, this is the first time there has been a vote on the policy, IIRC... previous policy changes were just done by the stewards after some discussion. Those are all points worth pondering. ++Lar: t/c 16:29, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The former policy was implemented after general consensus I think, but I do not know the details. But you are right that if the vote fails, the "old" policy will remain the formal one. I think it would actually be possible to interpret this failure as a rejection of the changes (because we are voting on the changes proposed here, not about the non-changes of stuff) and if it would be rejected, I think stewards ought to follow the "old" policy which is imho outdated... But even though I think that that would not be a preferrable case, I also think that it is not good to rush now, because as you can track, this consensus forming process took quite some time, and most of the mentioned objections (things that did not change) did not come up like that as objections or suggestions even. So I am afraight that a next time, it will have to take even longer to get everybody state it's opinion. I am sad that apperently I did not even succeed to reach all stewards (even though I sent like three messages over stewards-l, and some over public lists) or that they just did not bother enough to mention their objections during the consensus forming process, but care apperently enough to vote against now. Both are to me a failure. Effeietsanders 16:53, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose It appears that consensus for the proposed change was not reached within the smaller community that monitors this process before bringing it to the larger wiki community for a review. It is difficult to assume that an acceptable proposal can exist with a such a significant shortcoming. Jeepday 16:52, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose It is not clear what the problems are that require a change, nor whether the proposed changes will address them.--Poetlister 12:39, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per much of the above. Reminds me of the en:w:WP:ATT situation a little. Sounds to me like the proponents of this change need to gather a lot more consensus for it before putting it up to a vote. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. It is quite possible that there are significant changes warranted, but it feels very much like this process has been rushed in order to finalize a proposal that did not appear to have clear consensus before submitting it to the community. A clear statement of the problems that exist and the manner in which this proposal addresses them would be ideal - especially if this proposal does not adequately address those problems. tl;dr: More discussion required to generate a more comprehensive proposal. ZZ ^Talk 15:08, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Contra due to lack of specificity on election and confirmation details. Stifle 11:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose given the lack of firm commitment to holding reconfirmations within a certain timescale - e.g. every 12-18 months. I am also unpersuaded that stewards should be the ones to decide the outcome of reconfirmations, I would prefer it for this to be determined by voters. WjBscribe 14:09, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose for now - not a bad idea, but needs firming up - too much "usually" and too many poorly written statements add to the vagueness. I'd like to see discussion on the individual sections to gain more of a consensus before approving this. And shouldn't it be translated into at least the main community languages before holding such a major vote on it? Warofdreams 02:46, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
3.2.2 is a bad idea. The problem it would supposedly fix has not been demonstrated at all; the problem it would introduce is quite apparent. Picaroon (t) 04:19, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are no detail on when "next confirmations" will be. After near 1 year? At at the discretion of the Board of Trustees (as it is for Elections)? When there is an Election, "old" Stewards are under confirmation? At "many" users' request? At "some" project communities' request (each by their own consensus)? --ChemicalBit - talk 22:14, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The vote was closed on 28th January.

This may be a late vote, but oppose, and recommend trying this as a series of amendments per various objections above. Triona 00:24, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

As above. Making confirmation a real confirmation (the community showing consensus or not for the steward to continue on) would have resulted in almost (if not exactly) the same outcome, so the planet will not fall into a black hole if we change to that. On principle, we should be doing that regardless. As well, the language needs minor tweaking (things like "grant a right" instead of "promote to a level" since those "levels" are not higher than any others... remember?). – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 12:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC) Changed to neutral due to scope of Meta:Rewriting (not to change direction of policy, but rather a simple update). – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 12:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Mike, 1. Aye, there is only one level. 2. "would have resulted in almost the same outcome" <-- See Stewards/confirm/discussion2007, which shows how stewards can easily dismiss, rightly or wrongly, the comments from the community. Hillgentleman 13:22, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I need to speak up firmly in defense of how things unfolded at Stewards/confirm/discussion2007. I do not think that any comments from the community were dismissed without first having been given very careful consideration to determine if they were valid or not. Retention should not be a popularity contest, it should be an evaluation of whether the steward has the trust of the community and other stewards and whether there are matters of significance which would interfere with the stewards ability to be effective. ++Lar: t/c 16:37, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I confess I am unsure about this "unpopularity" that only happens to some stewards. Some seem very "popular", could it be that they "listen" rather better (some certainly do IMO)? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:42, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lar, Fair enough. But I did not say that stewards did easily dismiss comments from the community, but that they can easily dismiss. And I would not say the final decision is bad. However, on that page alone, one can only see limited discussion, and comments of many are simply described as "irrelevant" or otherwise ignored without giving any full account. That is what I mean by "easy": I have no way to know how much or how little thought is behind every tiny "reconfirm" comment. And I would even say that, Yann's position is nearly identical to that of Aphaia's, execpt that Yann is already a steward and Aphaia is not. The same for guillom; if he were not a steward already, such behaviour would most likely to disqualify him immediately: Though he does some good job, wikimedians may think that his judgment is sometimes unreliable. Note also that objections to guillom's reconfirmation are unrelated to his steward actions. If you want to over-rule the objections, fine, but you should give concrete and precise answers to every issue raised. Hillgentleman 16:49, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Lar here - that the results would have been the same or similar had the community decided instead of the stewards is exactly my point. The community knows what it's talking about & should be trusted to confirm good stewards. The argument against a "popularity contest" is valid, IMHO, but is easily skirted by weighing arguments - that is the way to measure consensus. Looking at past reconfirmations, the stewards' decisions have been more-or-less in line with what the community says, so it doesn't look like there's a danger in letting the unwashed masses have their say. But letting the stewards reconfirm each other isn't a Good Idea. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 17:21, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that is the point. Even though nothing Bad has happened, it is not a good process. Hillgentleman 17:44, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
For now. I am not sure how feasible to adopt Board election voting eligibility without electric voting in any other shape than on-wiki submitted voting: For Board elections we always have a house-developer (i.e. Tim). Without a feasible plan of imprementation, I'd stay in abstaination ...-Aphaia 13:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just for the record, It's only the requirements for "who" can vote that is taken over from the Board elections, not the method. For instance: 300 edits on your home wiki and active for one month. Effeietsanders 14:42, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So how? --Aphaia 14:45, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Vote by hand, as now. During the election, volunteers vet the votes and point out ones that have problems, as now. after the election one final check is done and any votes not vetted get removed, as now. Same process as now, just different numbers on the dial. ++Lar: t/c 19:36, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That was what I was afraid of hearing. Sounds not so much feasible ... handcounting if someone has an account before a specific date is tedious but easy (if you don't mind to put time into that). If you concern edit counts too, and need to check 200 editors or so, while technically we can say it is possible, but it is more tedious than the former and requires an additional step. Too much tedious thing can hardly be said "feasible" I am afraid. --Aphaia 11:33, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I expect a bot could be created to do it, or a function at the toolserver. Luxo's current contributions related code (for instance my contributions ) strikes me as a good basis for a start on this. ++Lar: t/c 18:55, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Conclusion

With 11 pro and 23 contra votes, the proposed changes to the stewards policy have been rejected. The Stewards Policy as it was is still the official policy now. Effeietsanders 13:18, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]