Talk:Stewards/Elections 2021

Where to vote?

Hi. I was directed to the page but where (or how) to vote?! Gharouni 00:41, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Gharouni: After going to the nomination page of valid candidates in the index section of this page, there is a link to their vote page (seems like Please note that the full page with votes can be found at Stewards/Elections 2021/Votes/....). Or you can access the vote pages by clicking yes, no and neutral links in the table. I know like this. Regards. --Uncitoyen^talk 07:11, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Uncitoyen: and thanks for information, I have just voted. If instead of "plus icon yes" it was "vote yes" and "minus icon no" was "vote no" etc. It was easier to understand how to vote. Gharouni 14:48, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

I have been doing this for years. As @Stryn: maybe other methods can be prepared to explain it to users better in the future. --Uncitoyen^talk 15:01, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

This is asked every year. Maybe something that should be made more clear in future. Stryn (talk) 11:26, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

How many candidates?

Hi. Please I would like to know how many candidates can be voted at a time? Thanks DaSupremo (talk) 21:53, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Hello DaSupremo! You can vote in as many candidates you want. Best, —Thanks for the fish! ^{talk•contribs} 21:55, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Thanks for the fish! ^{talk•contribs} DaSupremo (talk) 22:02, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Filibuster

Why do we have a filibuster? Firestar464 (talk) 11:23, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Where is it?--Kocgs (talk) 11:24, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Vote Broken?

Nothing seems to happens when I vote. In prior years when I voted on these my name would appear in the column and eventually someone would verify eligibility and it was done. I voted a few days ago and left the page thinking it was done. When I come back today I see that my vote was not counted and my name is not in the list. I used the tool to verify my eligibility and voted again. Still not working. Anyone know why? DavidDelaune (talk) 22:48, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Hello @DavidDelaune. I am not sure what might be the cause. Your contributions shows that you indeed have not cast a ballot this year. I suggest that you try again. If you used the voting script and your votes do not appear, you can try to manually add your votes to the Yes/No/Neutral sections for each candidate you want to vote. Please let us know if you have further questions or need further assistance. Best regards, —MarcoAurelio (talk) 11:08, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Since MarcoAurelio mentioned it, could someone tell me where can I find (or activate) the voting script? I know it exists but can't find it anymore. Thank you for anyone who happens to read this and can help.--FeralOink (talk) 14:01, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

@FeralOink: the voting script is enabled automatically (the code is on common.js and loads for all users), and you don't need to do anything. It should work if you have javascript enabled in your browser. Stryn (talk) 17:09, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Great, thank you!--FeralOink (talk) 20:53, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Voting using the grey box with "Vote!" in it does not work for me too. After clicking on vote 3 seconds elapse before the windows closes without doing anything. I used different browsers on different operating systems to make sure that this is not a browser related problem. Adding the vote manually worked for me. --Kallichore (talk) 22:24, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Where to vote? (2)

I also found this extremely confusing and nearly gave up without bothering to vote. If stewards themselves are responsible for organising their election, and if they really have the technical knowledge required for stewarship, perhaps they could look into these issues. Compared with the ridiculously bureacratic system for Arbcom elections on en.Wiki, for example, the steward elections are dismally more complex. Kudpung (talk) 01:30, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Just head back to the page and click on one of the votes column links to get to the votes page for each candidate, and click the giant vote button at the top. --Charitwo (talk) 01:39, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

It's like I said. The problem is the same as software designers - they write the instructions and manuals for something they are already perfectly familiar with. They don't have the courtesy to write from the position of the user. Kudpung (talk) 11:11, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Maybe next year we could try something like this, adding a "voting page" link instead of yes/no/neutral links. Stryn (talk) 15:56, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Is it not possible to adapt SecurePoll in such a way that users can see other voters' comments? Leaderboard (talk) 17:18, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Feedback on election timeline

I apologize if this is the wrong place for feedback on the election process. In my view, the three-week voting period could be shorter. I appreciate the desire to give volunteers from across the global community as much time as possible to evaluate the candidates, but unless a candidate is on the absolute knife's edge of 80%, the outcome of most contests is usually distinguishable in less than three weeks. Because of this, I think it would be sufficient to close the voting period after a shorter period, perhaps two weeks, 10 days, or even 7 days. Doing so would also reduce some of the stress of this process for the candidates and would make the election more efficient overall. Mz7 (talk) 02:07, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Disclaimer: I am a member of the Election Committee for SE2021, but this comment is written in my personal capacity, as an ordinary wikimedian, and should not be interpreted as an official statement.

I think that three weeks elections are more than reasonable. Stewards are the highest community position one can be appointed to, with wide-ranging responsibility. I personally believe that the length of an election should represent the position itself. For instance, global rollbackers can be appointed in just 5 days, but global sysops need a two week long discussion - that is simply because global sysops can do more things than global rollbackers.

When I compare global sysops and stewards, the differences are quite clear: stewards sometimes can (and, in some cases, must) act on well-estabilished projects, where the risk of angrying a community member by an improper decision are higher than by actions made by a global sysop. This is for two reasons: global sysops can act only on wikis with little to none community (measured by active administrators), and any project can opt-out from global sysops if they don't trust them. This cannot happen with the stewards: no project can decide to manage ie. CU/OS appointments for themselves.

Since we currently require a two-weeks long discussion for global sysops, it does not make sense to me to make steward election to run for shorter time than global sysop appointments.

Best, Martin Urbanec (talk) 09:23, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, thanks for explaining the context of the global sysop discussions. Naturally, I agree that the responsibilities of stewards are much greater and more significant than those of global sysops, but in my view, we should structure the election process based less on that and more on what would produce a fair outcome most efficiently. As it stands, it seems to me that the current process frequently results in the community being forced to wait out either a clearly successful or clearly unsuccessful candidacy for an excessive amount of time. At the end of the day, I don't think this is a huge deal, but I think it might be interesting to look back on past elections and study how frequently the last week of each steward or global sysop candidacy changed the outcome (i.e. how often would the outcome be different if we had closed in 14 days as opposed to 21 for stewards, or 7–10 days as opposed to 14 days for global sysops?). Mz7 (talk) 02:21, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Saying steward elections should last too long because global sysop elections last too long is a bad argument. Global sysop is one of the least significant rights we have because of the limitations you mention. It just sounds like a lot because of the word “sysop.” It doesn’t need two weeks, and steward elections certainly don’t need three. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:36, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

• Fistly, I'm neither a steward nor a election committee member. These are my opinion as a Wikimedian. 3 weeks is an ideal time for me for now. (This time may be shortened or increased 1 week according the dynamics of the Wikimedia community.) It is required 2 weeks discussion for global sysop and global renamer. On different local projects, it usually takes 1-2 weeks of discussion to become an admin. Also, a period of 1-2 weeks is required for become an checkuser and oversighter on different local projects. Since stewardship is a user right that has an important role for all Wikimedia projects, it is useful to examine the competencies of these users (for new candidates and current stewards) for a longer time and with more participation. Martin has already explained these in his own opinions. Maybe this time may be tiring for some users (especially candidates) but I think this is the best method for now. Regards. --Uncitoyen^talk 16:17, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
• I (also not a steward or an electcom member) also think 3 weeks are a good time. Of course, most votes are cast immediately after the election starts, but there are always some users who are not so early. It can always happen to someone that he can't get to voting for two weeks, and then I can already envision the complaints on a page like this about why such a global election is so short (and they would be right). I also don't think the stress for the candidates is very high, as the outcome of most, if not all elections, is clear after a few days (and you could say: then end the election after a few days, but again, not every interested voter is here every day). --MF-W 08:29, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
• I said it previously elsewhere but I agree with Mz7 that 2 weeks should be enough for stewards' elections and confirmations. We ain't in 2006 where getting 30 votes in some obscure meta.wikimedia project nobody heard about was difficult to achieve. Elections are well advertised nowadays with CentralNotices, etc. A two-weeks election timespan would be fair both for candidates and voters IMHO (anything shorter is not okay). The argument that some people might not be able to vote in two weeks does not persuade me because the same can be said about every other election. Candidates would still require 30 support votes and at least 80% of support to pass, which is a requirement high enough to weight the community trust on the individual. I agree this is not a huge deal and I'm fine if things remain as they're right now. It'd be interesting to get some stats as the proposer said though, e.g. "Did the last week of voting significantly changed the outcome of any election for the last 4/5 years?" Thanks, —MarcoAurelio (talk) 10:38, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Mz7: and @MarcoAurelio: A good starting point would be to analyse the candidates at User:Leaderboard/StewardMark/Raw_data with a StewardMark of 73-79 (/100), because they represent the edge of the 80% support-oppose barrier. You can see that some were just a vote away from losing/winning the election (TBolemink for instance; one more oppose vote and he would have failed). Leaderboard (talk) 10:56, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

  Agreed. I'm happy to change my mind if evidence shows that actually 3 weeks is useful / significantly affected a number of elections. Numbers ain't my forte though. Thanks. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 11:05, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

• I found the three-week elections particularly unpleasant as several users were basically allowed to cast aspersions and make personal attacks on my vote page without penalty. The argument could be made that what was to follow (off-wiki harassment, superprotect, the infamous fight over starting global renamers, a steward resigning under controversial circumstances, significant divisiveness - yes, the 2014-2015 term was likely the worst in recent years) would be even worse, and maybe if a candidate can't handle such a public election, they aren't fit to be a steward - maybe that is valid. I try not to dwell on the past, but now that the duration of the election has been mentioned I thought I would share my own experiences in the matter. Anyway, the only election that I can think of where it would have made a difference would have been Tar Lócesilion in 2014 (I think that flipped to not passing on the very last day). --Rschen7754 06:30, 27 February 2021 (UTC)