Talk:Stewards/elections 2009

List of translators

People interested in doing translations works may put their names here as well as the language they will be translating in here so that we can look for translators in other major languages:

If you want to translate, just start translating! Stewards/elections 2009/Translation. Cbrown1023 talk 19:13, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Times

Someone mentioned on IRC that this shouldn't run at the same time as the fundraiser, due to the work required by the translators. Majorly ^talk 13:46, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

When does the fundraiser end? WJBscribe (talk) 17:46, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

From what I've been told, it will end at an as-of-yet undetermined time in January (probably toward the beginning of the month). --MZMcBride 17:49, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

It is scheduled to run through January 15, according to this. - Rjd0060 17:50, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

This was also mentioned on-wiki as well. As stated there, waiting is probably quite a good idea.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 17:58, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Would it be correct to say that we're looking at making this a 2009 election, then? And if so, shouldn't we change the page to reflect this? At least eliminating the part about voting starting on ?? November seems like a good idea, since it obviously won't start in November at all. Heimstern 09:48, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Changing the page name is a good idea. Majorly ^talk 13:13, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Maybe changing it to something that carries 08-09 in the name to convey that it's not like two whole years are being skipped, more like that it's shifting from the end of a year to the beginning of the next. ++Lar: t/c 13:55, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

As a note, the fundraiser is now over. The thankyou banner has a bit longer to run I think. I see work has been done on some of the pages. The voting requirement has not yet been changed to reflect the thinking, below, which I see fairly wide agreement about. Other than that, what else needs doing. ++Lar: t/c 07:08, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Updated the vote requirements, based on a 01 February start date. The translations will need updating when the rules are finalized. —Pathoschild 09:53:42, 07 January 2009 (UTC)

The "in order to be eligible to vote" part doesn't seem in tune with the below thinking. It's still wide open. ++Lar: t/c 02:42, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Strike that. The Stewards/elections_2009#Rules part is fine. What may still need tweaking is the part at the very top in the light green box that is displayable in multiple languages. The english version of that still says "In order to be eligible to vote, users must have a valid account on Meta with a link to at least one account on a project where the user has participated at least three months. In case of suspicion of sock puppetry, a CheckUser verification will be carried out and sock puppet votes cancelled." ++Lar: t/c 03:36, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Suffrage

I would again suggest that suffrage requirements for voting ought to be tightened, and suggest that the qualifications for voting in a board election be used. What we have now, one edit on any wiki, and a link to Meta, is way too loose and too easy to game. ++Lar: t/c 14:02, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, definitely. The board vote requirements seem to be reasonable for stewelections as well. --Thogo (talk) 18:49, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree; we need broad community participation - it is important to ensure that the results actually reflect broader community confidence in the person's ability to do the role. The board vote requirements seem appropriate. John Vandenberg 12:56, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

obrigada 2804:2D64:E1A:3600:A763:F7F7:3460:440 23:46, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Oh wow, that is just asking for abuse. Tighter is definitely needed; the board vote requirements seem sensible enough.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 20:33, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

ok it seems that we all agree we need board vote requirements.but anyone has any special criteria in mind or any suggestion? --Mardetanha ^talk 00:54, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

The 2008 board election vote requirements are described at Board elections/2008/en#Requirements. There were 3019 voters at the time (see stats), compared to roughly 575 voters in the last steward election. —Pathoschild 01:00:03, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Possibly because the board elections were widely advertised via site notices and such. Stewards elections had no such treatment. Majorly ^talk 01:54, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

There was a pretty good turnout nonetheless. So... change the criteria now, and resolve to publicise elections via sitenotice and such, when the time comes? (this is a reason to wait till after the fundraiser, so that the global sitenotice is "available" for this use) ++Lar: t/c 12:35, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

If we're using the board election requirements, we'll need to decide on what the "prior to" dates in regards to number of edits criteria. - Jc37 21:25, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd say prior to the beginning of accepting candidates (so, roughly two weeks before the election starts). Btw., what about the "special exceptions"? --Thogo (talk) 21:28, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I suggest we follow the board election requirements exactly. Including any special exceptions they include. ...and if the board election requirements change, so do the steward ones. ++Lar: t/c 04:49, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

That means, you favor 600 edits prior to 3 months before the voting starts and 50 edits in the half year before the voting starts? --Thogo (talk) 19:02, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Correct. Those are maybe a little high (I seem to recall last year it was 400) but they are easy to enforce being identical, and are far better than one edit somewhere which is the current requirement. ++Lar: t/c 19:59, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Is it not possible to lower the suffrage? It means I can't vote if I'm correct as I started in April 08 on Commons. --Kanonkas 21:54, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

The current rules seems fine to me, but I'd like to know if it stands. If we're using the 2008 Board elections requirements then it's not. --Kanonkas 20:08, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

As I said at the outset I'm not at all keen on "one edit somewhere is enough to qualify you to vote". Kanonkas I do not want to see you disenfranchised. But I don't thin you would be. The board election commenced, I think, 1 June 08 and required that you had an account prior to 1 March 08 with 600 edits. If this election commences, for example 1 Feb 09, the analogous requirement would be prior to 1 November 08 you had to have 600 edits on one wiki. That seems fine to me. Same numbers, just shift the dates. ++Lar: t/c 04:10, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah. I misunderstood it a little. Thank you for clarifying, Lar. --Kanonkas 15:58, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

With AccountEligibility (particularly with a possible list-check mode), enforcing account-based eligibility criteria is trivial even if we adopt entirely new criteria. —Pathoschild 08:20:43, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Wow, i was hoping for 500 edits between July 31st - December 31st as a better requirement on any one major wiki..but your idea may work

— The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cometstyles (talk) diff (UTC)

Are You serious? Why should someone from a small project be forbidden to vote? I am from a small project actually and that did not disqualify me the last years, people on small projects are just doing the same work as people on bigger projects... Or maybe am I missunderstanding Your comment here? Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 01:00, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I actually meant before 500 edits before December first, meh..i should have eaten before making that comment. what i was hoping for was 500 edits before December 31st and what i forgot to add was atleast 50 edits within the last 5 months (though 6 months may work as well), i.e between July 31st and December 31st, to show that the person is active and around....--Cometstyles 02:51, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to see a distinction between "minor" and "major". ANY wiki is "major" to you, if you care about it. Which is what I think Cometstyles meant. So no worries? ++Lar: t/c 15:26, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

400-600 edits in one Wikimedia project sounds reasonable. I do not say "major project" here, because there does not seem to be clear and objective measurement to determine what is "major" or "minor". Say, is Volapuk Wikipedia, with 100,000+ articles, major or minor?

Also, I would like to propose to add one; Both voters and candidates are not being blocked in any Wikimedia projects. S/he can vote, and/or apply to stewardship after the block period is over, or is unblocked, in the project from which s/he has been blocked. Yassie 00:09, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

No, people can be blocked on a project but do very valuable work on another. I know several examples of such people. If they meet the editcount criteria on another project there is absolutely no reason why they can't vote or run for the job. --Thogo (talk) 10:20, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Since Stewards can affect any project that is not his/her home, even blocked users can use admin tools even for the wiki from which s/he is indefinitely blocked, as long as s/he states "this is not my home project". That does not make sense. At least, I would like to require that candidates are not being blocked at the time of nomination. Yassie 01:05, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I do not favor that candidates have to be unblocked on every single wiki at the time of nomination. There are candidates that may well be very good potential stewards that might be blocked for whatever reason. I think putting the facts before the community and letting them decide it is best. Blocked on the wiki where you hold the edits for suffrage ought to disenfranchise the vote, though. ++Lar: t/c 15:26, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I WOULD favour clarifying steward policy to require that stewards not act on any wiki where they are currently blocked (unless every steward was, suggesting some sort of rebellion against WMF!) which addresses Yassi's concern, I think. (this is an example of the general "avoid Conflict of Interest" thinking) ++Lar: t/c 15:29, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's definitely true. ;) Can we just add that to the policy or does it need a voting? 9_9 --Thogo (talk) 15:35, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Just add it. Majorly ^talk 15:45, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Did. [1] Thx for the nudge. ++Lar: t/c 16:27, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I confirmed the addition. Thanks for your consideration Yassie 03:08, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

If an editor is blocked on any-wiki, I don't think people will support them. I remember the last elections when a really good editor who was blocked on one of the wikis failed because editors from that wiki canvassed and opposed his/her request. So basically if you are blocked on any-wiki, you shouldn't bother running or you may face a similar situation and regarding home-projects, its not usually a wiki in which the sure is most active in, it can also be a wiki in which the user has rights such as sysops on but I'm not sure how much the part of the policy which states that a steward may not change rights on his/her local wiki matter because i see it happening all the time. There are a few stewards who only use the rights fro the benefit of their own community rather than the whole of wikimedia so is that abuse or not?, I wouldn't know but that section of the policy needs changing or clarification before the new elections so that the new stews know what they are doing...--Cometstyles 22:10, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

The net of that seems to be that we ought not to disallow folk from standing if they have a block, but we might want to advise them that their chances are lessened. ++Lar: t/c 04:10, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Cometstyles, please be neutral. I am talking in general, not about a particular person. Yassie 03:42, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm neutral, thats just an example of what may happen, better safe than sorry..--Cometstyles 04:11, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Your saying, I remember the last elections when a really good editor who was blocked on one of the wikis failed because editors from that wiki canvassed and opposed his/her request., is not neutral at all. Obviously you are standing for that person, rather than stating an example. Yassie 12:12, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

This comment may come as a little too late but may I propose that candidates also need to show a certain degree of maturity. There should be a minimum age requirement and that age should be no less than 40.

I hope you realise that most to all current steward (only anthere is barely 40, I don't see others above that limit) would have to resign :) DarkoNeko 03:08, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

What about meatpuppets and/or meatpuppeters?

The word "meatpuppet" is used according the main definition given in the page ([2]):

Editors of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia use "meat puppet" to deprecate contributions from a new community member if the new member was (allegedly) recruited by an existing member only to back up the recruiting member's position.

What about users involved in conclamated meatpuppeting cases, as that detailed in the following RFCs:

• The meatpuppeting attack on the LMO wikipedia
• Origin (source) of the meatpuppets on the LMO

Could they vote? Or better, could be valid their votes?

Could they be voted?

Could they be confirmed ?

-- Yattagat 21:28, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

This (is someone a meatpuppet) is a far more subjective question than "does this user qualify under the same standards as the last Board election"?... I think if we use the board eligibility criteria we cut way down on potential meatpuppets... asking a friend to register, pop in, and make a throwaway comment/vote is far less of an imposition of asking them to spend quite a bit of time editing in things over a span of several months. Doesn't reduce incidence to zero, but does reduce a LOT. ++Lar: t/c 16:12, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree, it's difficult to write a "prerequisite" excluding the meatpuppeting. Maybe an example could help. In the "prerequisites", it's written: "agree to abide by the Steward policies" and in the Steward policies it's written: "Stewards should always be neutral".

But it's difficult to define what is "to be neutral". Maybe it's easier to recognize a behaviour NOT neutral. For example, as reported in this RFC (Lombard wikipedia - problems), the steward Nick1915 was not neutral, because he destroyed comment in the pub/bar [3], he backed up meatpuppets and meatpuppeters, etc... It was possible to recognize his not neutral behaviour.

In the same way, using the main definition of "meatpuppet" [4]:

Editors of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia use "meat puppet" to deprecate contributions from a new community member if the new member was (allegedly) recruited by an existing member only to back up the recruiting member's position.

maybe easy to recognize a conclamated case of meatpuppeting. For example, as reported in this RFC (Analisys of the Fabexplosive's election) (or, better, here [5]), the LMO "admin" Fabexplosive candidate itself after 3 edits, suddenly a lot of new users accessed the LMO wikipedia and, immediately or after few minutes, voted Fabexplosive. Per definition, that was a meatpuppeting case.

Should it be proposed a "prerequisite" as:

• not have (in the present) or not have had (in the past) a meatpuppeting behaviour

or something similar?

Yattagat 21:30, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Wait, I thought you were asking about meatpuppeting in the upcoming Steward election. As I said above, I think using the Board Election criteria for eligibility reduces meatpuppeting to very low levels, because who has time to do several hundred edits several months in advance? If this is about something at the Lombard Wikipedia, this may not be the right place to discuss it. ++Lar: t/c 04:20, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I beg your pardon if I was not clear enough. Of course I didn't want to speak about problems of the LMO wiki, I only would speak about the "steward election 2009".

I wrote about meatpuppeting only for "glasnost". In other words, my questions are:

• if a user now or in the past had a meatpuppeting behaviour in some wiki (for exemple Fabex*** in the LMO wiki), could he be voted or could his votes be valid in the steward election 2009?
• if a steward was not neutral in a wiki (for example Nick*** in the LMO wiki), could he be confirmed in the steward election 2009?
• it could be better to specify something as: "not have (in the present) or not have had (in the past) a meatpuppeting behaviour"?

(The word "meatpuppet" is used as in the main definition given here [6])

Yattagat 17:55, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed that you had replied, till just now. The following is my view. We don't want meatpuppets or sockpuppets to (themselves) vote. The suffrage requirements, and the checking for socks process, do a very good job of keeping that to a minimum, in my view (nothing is perfect of course, but very good). That is different than saying we don't want puppeteers to vote. If someone is allegedly a puppetmaster, but is in good standing on a wiki with enough contributions to pass suffrage, for us to say "well that person is a puppetmaster" is a subjective qualification, a judgment call. I am not sure we want to do that. It seems to exceed our remit. Now, if an alleged puppetmaster runs for an office, then, again, if they pass the mechanical eligibility requirements, let them run. The allegations no doubt will come out during the course of the election (although they need to come out in a "mellow" way, not a highly divisive one... voters will be held to some standards of good behaviour in making their points) Again, this is all my own view rather than official policy but I expect it's the consensus view or close. Comments welcomed. ++Lar: t/c 15:59, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Please be aware that, Steward is not allowed to use his privileges in their home wiki. Thus he can, and maybe should, not be neutral there sometimes. This would be perfectly allright, would it not?

Now as to meatpuppeting. I believe, meatpuppets are unlikely to run for steward. Why should they, when they gain plain nothing in their home wikies? They even run the risk of being reported to abuse their powers.

Meatpuppetmasters are very hard to hold responsible for "their" meatpuppets behavior. There is at least one incident of a user who got some meatpuppet support that he was not asking for, and he was not even aware of it for some time. It had been organized by someone else outside the community. It is always tolerable when one stirs up supporters for ones view in the community, even if waking up otherwise pretty inactive users.

As already said, boardvote rules will filter the huge majority of meatpuppets, and they have little to win at all, anyways, so their existence does not pose a threat, I think. --93.131.42.32 12:23, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Length

I think Feb 1-22 is a bit long - isn't 2 weeks enough? We're already behind schedule since it was supposed to be in Dec - I'm not sure drawing this out more than necessary is a good idea. As well, we have tighter suffrage requirements this time, so the voters are more active users, who don't need a long election - they'll get in & get out quick. We should aim to have a quick turnaround time too.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 02:58, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

yes and i have same feeling about this 3 weeks.i myself personally think 2 weeks would be fair enough for healthy voting --Mardetanha ^talk 03:00, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

It was two weeks last year IIRC, so yes, it's plenty enough. Majorly ^talk 03:01, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather see 2 weeks (Feb 1-14 perhaps?) personally. How about someone toss it on Babel and see if people like the change? Kylu 20:55, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I disagree, this is a voting for all wikis, and affects all wikis, they should have time to decide, I don't see a problem with the length of three weeks. Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 21:07, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

P.S. That would not be something Meta:Babel should decide! --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 21:10, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I made those time changes because Pathoshild thought it was 1 month, then he thought it was 2 weeks, but I checked and last year it ran for 3 weeks which does sound odd but probably fulfilling the vote requirement i.e 30 supports may need longer than 2 weeks though in recent times on Meta, users having RfA here can get 30 votes easily within a week, so I may support the 2 weeks idea if we want to get this done and over with ...--Cometstyles 21:13, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

If it ran for 3 weeks last year, it should be three weeks this year too. Someone above said it only went 2, but surely we could just go check :) ... But in any case I think 3 weeks is good given that this is crosswiki. Can someone start working on getting a global sitenotice ready? Self noms could presumably start now, as soon as folk self-identified. ++Lar: t/c 22:54, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Templates ready for translation

I created {{sr-elections 2009}} and {{sr-heading 2009}} to centralize translation and simplify usage. These are ready for translation now, and the translations will apply to all pages simultaneously. (Why did we not do this in previous years?) —Pathoschild 17:05:54, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Time and translations

Last year, people were still nominating themselves during the election which i thought was a bit unfair and wrong and to maybe avoid that this year, we should have a cut-off date. There is still 3 weeks left before it starts proper and not only that, we must also think about all those translators who will be translating the noms in different languages and if people start nominating themselves when the election starts, the translators would be forced to translate during the election so I was hoping that we should have a cut-off date i.e everyone who wants to run should nominate themselves before a certain date,preferably 5 days before the election and disallow anymore nominations after that, similar to the English wikipedia arbcom elections and then in the remaining 5 days these users who nominated themselves can make minor changes to their statements and will also allow the translators some time to easily and comfortably do their job. Last year it was a mess with noms and translations been done during the elections which seemed a bit disorganised, maybe we should not repeat that mistake this year? ...--Cometstyles 00:41, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I think we need to get the mechanical stuff (rules, procedures, samples, etc) nailed ASAP so that volunteers can begin translating that stuff... has anyone sounded folks out on translating things yet?

As for nominations during the election, if they are to be disallowed after 1 Feb that needs to be publicised ASAP too. I'm not myself sure I agree. Nominating after means you start at a disadvantage, as your statement may not be translated as widely as other statements, but it maybe ought to be your choice. Note that on the other hand the recently concluded ArbCom election on en:wp (as the one before it, and IIRC the board) had a cutoff for nominations before the voting part started. So there is precedent both ways... again, something that needs to get decided ASAP. ++Lar: t/c 00:54, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Definitely, we don't have much time and we need to decide this soon. I hate polls and they also take a lot of time which we do not have so I was thinking about trying to get comments from people about that issue here within the next 12 hours and if we have a consensus to do it, we should try to notify the general public as well through a temporary Central Notice for a few days which should state:

• The cut-off date for nominations
• the need for translators involvement

A larger input from other communities would be useful and maybe we can atleast get this elections a bit more organised .. --Cometstyles 01:07, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Something like this?

• January 13 — Confirming the rules; Translations for CentralNotice start
• January 15 — CentralNotice deployed; Start of nominations
• January 25 — Deadline for nominations (no more changes to statements either)
• January 25 - February 1 — Translation of Candidate statements

...and no, nothing more than two global notices–call for nominations and call for votes–anything more would be bad. Cbrown1023 talk 01:10, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, we probably don't want to have more than two notices and something like that should be fine. --Az1568 (talk) 01:18, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Do we really need to use the central notice? --Brownout^(msg) 01:39, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Do we need to? No - we made do without it previously. Do we want to? Yes - it will let us make announcement which will result in more efficient herding of both candidates and voters. These ones will be minimal (as opposed to the fundraiser banner) etc etc  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 01:52, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Using the centralnotice is one of the reasons these elections were delayed into January IIRC (the other, probably more important, being the load on the translator volunteers, I think). So I think putting this in the global sitenotice is goodness. I agree with Cbrown that 2 notices are sufficient. One on opening of noms, one on opening of voting. ++Lar: t/c 03:58, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I think one of the main reasons was to not put too much of a strain on translators. Cbrown1023 talk 16:08, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that was the more important one, but the other reason was also a consideration, even if lesser. ++Lar: t/c 13:24, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure, now that is settled and I agree with the time set by Cbrown, its time to make it official ...--Cometstyles 07:00, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

In order for us to use the CentralNotice, it needs to be dismissable... *looks at Alex* Cbrown1023 talk 16:08, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Hm, obviously the time of nominations has already begun. *gg* Well, why not. --Thogo (talk) 20:07, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

So let's move on, then? Can we get the language of the rules, processes, etc. nailed so translators can start on that part? What's left to finalise, if anything? ++Lar: t/c 13:24, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I just start the translate to portuguese for not loose much more time, after start the election... :) So, I agree with Lar, let's go to the translate's work. Alex Pereira ^falaê 15:23, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I think we may have to track which languages the rules have been translated to and which they have not. I may be misreading but some languages look like they are the old version. (for example es:) ... I base this on the fact that the digits "600" do not occur in the section, which they would need to if the english "has at least 600 edits before 01 November 2008," had been translated into the langauge. Am I confused? ++Lar: t/c 18:52, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, some languages don't use the Arabic numerals... but yes, we should probably try to keep track of what is up-to-date.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 19:46, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I adjusted the template so you can mark outdated translations (click "Show all" to see example):

<div class="multilingual"> {{ls|en|Some English text here.}} {{ls|es|update=en|Some outdated Spanish text here.}} </div>

→

English: Some English text here. Español : Some outdated Spanish text here. [update needed : en]

—Pathoschild 00:54:31, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Centralnotice

CentralNotice shows for everyone, including anons. It's really not useful to do that, and will make people unhappy. Unless we can get someone to add an option to display to users/anons/both or something then we probably shouldn't use centralnotice. Instead we can use WikimediaNotifier, mailing list(s), and maybe the oldschool sitenotice?

Brion says maybe it'd be possible to get it to display for users only... we'll wait and see, but don't hold your breath, and we should be prepared to not use it as the case may be.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 22:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Er... no it doesn't show up for everyone. :-) It shows up only for anonslogged-in users, as we intended. Cbrown1023 talk 00:37, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

He meant it's hidden for anons. So this isn't an issue then.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 00:40, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

It will be dissmiss-able as well...once I get that worked out. Should be soon. :) --Az1568 (talk) 00:53, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

By the time you guys get this to work, the elections would have begun :p.. maybe we should go to Plan B..--Cometstyles 00:59, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

You wanna try? Alex is almost done, it would take anyone else ages. So let's be nice to him since he's taking time out of his busy schedule to do this. :) Cbrown1023 talk 01:15, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

aww, I don't want to keep Alex away from his online gaming.. :D ..--Cometstyles 02:52, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

LOL! rsrsrsrs Alex Pereira ^falaê 13:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Hehe. It should be live on every wiki now. :-) --Az1568 (talk) 03:18, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

There is currently a conversation going on about the site notice on English Wiki. Your input would be appreciated. - Neutralhomer 05:57, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I think, it should be shown to anons, since they may be capable to login and then use it! Lazybones just reading don't always log in. --93.131.42.32 12:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Anons who've maybe been thinking of registering and working will think A-ha, here's another reason to register, so I can vote next time. - 95.34.13.50 20:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

← There's no point in annoying the vast majority of our readers for this notice - even showing it to registered users is very broad since not all can vote. I doubt voting in the steward elections is a significant factor in getting people to participate, and whatever trivial amount of motivation that may provide is outweighed by the annoyance factor. Furthermore, the current notice is for submission of statements, not voting.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 20:45, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Timing on Questions

In the above timeline there's nothing about question timing. Late questions may not get widely translated. c'est la vie? Or should a cutoff for questions be proposed? I tend to think not but wanted to mention it. ++Lar: t/c 18:33, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether we need a strict cutoff, but perhaps mention at least that questions submitted late are less likely to be answered (or less likely to be answered satisfactorily). Perhaps others (translators and those involved in past elections) would give opinions - if we're expecting a lot, then maybe we do need a cutoff...  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 20:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Nod. Other side of that coin is when to start. I have a few questions for prospective stewards... ++Lar: t/c 02:10, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I think we've been discouraging users from voting, so I'd say the same goes for questions and other such discussion. I think there was at least one user who wanted to create a subpage with questions they wanted to ask all candidates - I wouldn't object to getting stuff ready for showtime beforehand.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 02:25, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Voting early is (mildly) disruptive... but asking questions early? That actually seems something to encourage. More time to answer and more time to translate. ++Lar: t/c 04:08, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Question: does this logic (the earlier it's available to translators, the better) apply to a candidate's answering of said questions as well? I've got a question on mine, but haven't answered it yet because I wasn't sure if I can yet or not. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:58, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

My view: We have a deadline (soft... meaning that we warn people that "late" questions may not be translated) so the earlier they are asked, the better and the earlier they are answered, the better. That's my view. So I probably should go ask all of mine. I am going to try to ask more than I did in the recent en:wp election :) (OK, probably not, but I do have a few) ++Lar: t/c 02:25, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Templates ready for translation

I created {{sr-elections 2009}} and {{sr-heading 2009}} to centralize translation and simplify usage. These are ready for translation now, and the translations will apply to all pages simultaneously. (Why did we not do this in previous years?) —Pathoschild 17:05:54, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Suffrage again

Hi guys, happy new year to you all, and happy birthday to Wikipedia. The rule as of yet reads "users must have a valid account on Meta with a link to at least one account on a project where the user's account was created on or before 01 January 2009, and has at least 600 edits before 01 November 2008, and has at least 50 edits between 01 August 2008 and 31 January 2009, and not be a bot".

I am afraid it is still some vague, in particular:

1. "a valid account on Meta with a link to at least one account on a project". What means "a link to ... one account on a project"? Why not say a SULed account? A half month is enough on the most projects to rename an account and bind it with a meta one, specially concerned about their primary account at their home.
2. "one account ... has at least 600 edits before 01 November 2008". It is a bit unclear for me a foreign speaker. It implies that one account should have accumulated 600 edits until then and that they cannot combine accounts on several projects, even SULed? (It's a matter of expression anyhow)
3. And corner-picking as always: why not say that all dates mentioned are at UTC? Or we'll accept 1 February 1:00 edits if they come from the USA for example

Cheers, --Aphaia 02:11, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

hmm to answer number 1, SULed account is ok but only the stewards can check to see if its unified because a tool that anyone can use to see if its actually unified is lagged by over 15 days and if the user has recently unified to meta, it will be hard to find and for number 2, the user must have "atleast 600 edits before November 2008" , that probably needs to be changed to "January 01" and it refers to any ONE project, not combined and to number 3, hehe well UTC is the most commonly used timezone so we expect people to understand most if not everything we do on Meta is in UTC, but to clarify it, i think we must add it to the page...--Cometstyles 02:48, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

My views on some answers:

1. The "link" is needed so we know WHICH account is the qualifier. Yes, tools maybe can be used to tell but it should be stated fairly clearly which account is it. SUL is preferred, of course, to just asserting the link. Perhaps wording clarification is needed (this was lifted from the Board Election wording I think, when SUL was less prevalent/well accepted)
2. Yes, the requirement is for some project to have had significant level of contributions. This is partly (IMHO) to make it easier to check (without needing to sum) and partly to see that there is at least one project with some level of dedication, not just a dabble here and a dabble there...
3. Yes, let's clarify that to be clear that all dates/times are UTC

Thanks for the nit picking, it's always good to tighten wording. So what next? ++Lar: t/c 15:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

OK on 1 and 2. As for 3, so let us add "UTC". I have no idea why November 1 was chosen, and have no problem to switch it with January 1, but translation seems to have begun. Are we already late to change it? Adding UTC may rather be easier ... --Aphaia 10:33, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

November vs. January: The idea was to make the suffrage requirements the same as the recent Board election, except shifting the dates to match the start date of this one... the board election required significant contributions "at least 3 months back" (see Board_elections/2008/en#Requirements) so using January 1 would be a bad idea, I feel. Further, changing it now is not a good idea from a timing of the process perspective. I hope that explains why November 1 was chosen. ++Lar: t/c 18:27, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

As to #1 - you must not discriminate against users who do not have SUL accounts. There is no obligation to have one, only an option, and there are plenty of reasons, including ones of technical nature, that may forbid or make impossible to have one. --93.131.42.32 12:37, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any such exclusion - a unified account is one method of verification and doesn't exclude others.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 20:41, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

collapsible box

Would there be any possibility of putting the different language requirements in a collapsible box? The page is getting rather overloaded and it's hard to work your way around the page. I'm not a meta specialist so I'm not sure what template would do it, so any help would be much appreciated. Ryan Postlethwaite 13:37, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

There should be a js selector for language. You can simply enter en and hit select to see only English text. I hope that's what you meant.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 00:58, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

That was not functioning for logged-out users due to a glitch in an unrelated script; I fixed it now. —Pathoschild 02:32:12, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Just wanted to note that this page is a total mess for non-JS users (every 20th). The JS lang selector is nice, but on this page all those various translations are a pain if you do not have JavaScript enabled. Wouldn't it be better to make lang dependent subpages/templates for such a page? --- Best regards, Melancholie 15:17, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

We're over the include limit already - Pathoschild (and maybe others) are working on it anyways.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 02:27, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Translation

If there are no further changes needed, all pages are now ready for translation. I've moved candidate instructions to the application guidelines pages; you can see the translation status for each language in the box along the right side. I've rewritten the introduction and parts of the elections page to remove redundancy and simplify text and add details, so you might want to review those. Election candidate subpages now have translation links. I added the new update tag to inline translations that need to be updated. —Pathoschild 07:13:16, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Please update the Translation landing page to explain how to translate these things. ;-) Cbrown1023 talk 18:05, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Looks like you already redirected it to the translators' help section. :) —Pathoschild 19:56:10, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Need to clarify that proof of identity needs to be supplied PRIOR to election commencement or you are not eligible, per previous year practice, IIRC. Bears mentioning in the proof of identity section of application guidelines pages if not elsewhere. The way it reads now implies a "whenever you get round to it" sort of process. ++Lar: t/c 18:38, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Done. —Pathoschild 19:56:10, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Common questions

I'd like to leave some questions that all candidates must respond when Steward election 2009 starts. Posting them on all subpages is tedious to do. Do we have an independent section to post them?--Kwj2772 11:49, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we have such at this time. Given the number of candidates I'd suggest just cutting/pasting (with a note for the translators that your questions are common so they can cut/paste too) But a subpage isn't a bad idea per se. ++Lar: t/c 18:18, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

...

"On any one Foundation wiki, you must:

• have a user account created on or before 01 January 2009;
• have made at least 600 edits before 01 November 2008;
• have made at least 50 edits between 01 August 2008 and 31 January 2009;

At least one of those is redundant to the other two Gurch 03:06, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

"have a user account created on or before 01 January 2009;"? There are some users out there who prefer to edit without registering an account, but may well meet the other two requirements. Or did I guess the wrong one? - auburnpilot (talk) 03:13, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

This wording was lifted from the board election wording (deliberately) with only the dates changed. By stating it this way, it's way easy to winnow out accounts without having to count contributions... any account not created before 1 Jan 09 can be skipped. (actually, any account not created before 01 Nov 2008 can be skipped) No, IP edits don't count to qualify. ++Lar: t/c 05:46, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I strongly suggest changing the date of first rule from "01 January 2009" to "31 October 2008" (at least). It is a common sense that no account can have "at least 600 edits before 01 November 2008" if it is registered after 31 October 2008. -- Kevinhksouth 04:51, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

That may be but it doesn't actually say that. There are 3 requirements. Only the first (date of user account creation) references an account. The two others (total edits by November/minimum number of recent edits) do not refer to a user account but instead refer to "you" i.e. the person behind the account and could be satisfied by IP edits or edits from another account. So actually, there is no redundancy, nor common sense issue to be found here. Swatjester 12:13, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

IP edits would not qualify you, as they cannot be shown to be yours. Edits from multiple accounts also would not qualify you, unless I am greatly mistaken. Again, the intent here is to model after how the most recent Board vote was done, including carrying out the same checks using the same tools. ++Lar: t/c 20:34, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

English-Tagalog User

Hey!, my account DragosteaDinTei is inaccessible in this page. I am a wikipedia Tagalog user.

--124.106.123.124 09:11, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

According to SULUtil, you do not have a SUL-account (note: this tool currently has the last 3 weeks missing, so if you merged your account in that time, please say so, so that someone can check it), and must create one by going to tl:Special:MergeAccount. You will then autocreate an account here. You can also register an account here directly, but SUL is prefered for most users. Laaknor 10:04, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Nominate yourself.

The site notice second paragraph "Nominate yourself." sounds a little strange immediately following another line saying "submit your nomination". It's kind of superfluous don't you think? Swatjester 13:43, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Difficult to put the link in that sentence for linguistic reasons - the CentralNotice uses a template which is translated - the link may not be semantically or grammatically correct across languages if it goes in the same place etc. Redundant perhaps, but simpler.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 20:40, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

How to selected Russian?

Hello! How to selected Russian?--Easy boy 14:35, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Enter ru in the language selector, and press select.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 17:26, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you!--Easy boy 02:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

A problem

{{ls|kh|2=

នឹងមានការជ្រើសតាំងសេវាភិបាលStewardsថ្មីប្រមាណជាមួយឆ្នាំម្តង(លោកអ្នកក៏អាចធ្វើអត្ថាធិប្បាយទៅលើសេវាភិបាលបច្ចុប្បន្ននេះបានដែរ)សេវាភិបាល​ មានតួនាទីអនុវត្តការងារផ្នែកបច្ចេកទេសផ្អែកលើទិន្ននយដ្ឋានវិគីរបស់វិគីមីឌាទាំងអស់តាមមតិមហាជនក្នុងសហគមនោះៗដូចជា កែតម្រូវសិទ្ធិអ្នកចូលប្រើ មើលទិន្នន័យអ្នកប្រើ បើមានការ​ប្រើមិនត្រឹមត្រូវជាដើម (មើលពត៌មានលម្អិត)​បើលោកអ្នកចាប់អារម្មណ៍នឹងធ្វើជាសេវាភិបាល សូមមើលវិធីការស្នើសុំ

When I select Chinese, Here's some extra things. I don't know what language it is and how to correct it. What should I do? (I'm a Chinese and I can't write in English well, Sorry.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Liuyujiaocn (talk • contribs) Revision as of 04:07, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello Liuyujiaocn. This has been fixed now. —Pathoschild 05:00:45, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much!(I'm new here, so something a can't know very well).

Language select: zh-hant and zh-hans > 3 characters

It appear to me that the language select doesn't allow more than 3 characters. Can it be fixed? Or should zh-hant and zh-hans be abbreviated to zht and zhs? Hillgentleman 04:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. —Pathoschild 16:53:29, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

It is disappeared my italian traduction

Why?--Idris.albadufi 18:07, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello Idris. As the comparison for your edit shows, your edit undid several other translators' edits. You were probably told about an "edit conflict", which means that others have edited since you started. This is a common problem on such heavily-edited pages during peak hours. I suggest you edit one section at a time to help prevent these edit conflicts. Also, please place the requirements section at Stewards/elections 2009/Guidelines/it.

Thank you for your translation work. —Pathoschild 19:41:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

18 lat aż

18 lat aż... szkoda :( Michalu gumis 17:35, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

As far as the age is concerned, it is not a pity, but a must, because sometimes steward actions may have legal consequences, for instance when removing (or refusing to do so) private-only data, slanders etc. Tomasz W. Kozłowski 22:31, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, unfortunately stewards must be able to do everything within the privacy policy (including checkuser and oversight actions which one needs to be 18 to do). Cbrown1023 talk 18:34, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Why Meta?

I only discovered the switch to the Meta site when I did the requirements test on toolserver. It showed only two edits, which is obviously impossible since I have initiated two large articles.--John Bessa 18:33, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand you 100% but it might be useful to know that the toolserver's database is very lagged for s3 wikis - it has no data newer than about 3.5 weeks right now, so it will return out of data data in those cases.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:29, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I read the about the stewards' elections as a banner above my Wikiversity articles, so I clicked until I figured out I have to be an editor on Meta, not Versity. That is the confusion. I also read that there is a desire to merge Meta and Wikiversity, which makes sense to me as a class in Media programming would be appropriate.--John Bessa 18:33, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

No, there's no reason to merge Meta and Wikiversity - they have very different purposes. This wiki is for coordination of the other Wikimedia projects.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:35, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, put that aside. If you want to see what I mean just click Wikiversity main page--John Bessa 18:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

What am I supposed to be seeing?  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:51, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Mike: I think John may be asking about suffrage. John, the steward election notice is on (just about?) every wiki. It's a WMF wide election. If you have the required number of edits on Wikiversity, you're eligible to vote in it. You just need to establish that your account HERE is the same as your account THERE. You can do that with SUL, or you can do it by "crosslinking"... posting on your account page there that the account HERE is you, and vice versa (or using a matrix like I did here: User:Lar/WikiMatrix). Does that help at all? ++Lar: t/c 20:55, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I bet I am not the only person following the link here and wondering now what those voting requirements are. --Xeeron 23:55, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

It used to be on the Main Page, but now it's listed on the a subpage. See the text that says "English: For information on voting, translating, or being a candidate, read the guidelines." Cbrown1023 talk 00:12, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

John, between your old account v:User:John van v and the one that you are now using v:User:John Bessa it looks like you only have about 100 edits before 01 November 2008. (600 edits are required before that date to be elligible to vote) Have you been editing any other projects like en.wikipedia.org with either of those two accounts? If you have a larger number of edits on another project (with one account or the other) it might meet the requirements. I'm not sure if it is possible to merge your two accounts to combine the total edits and you might not have enough activity, even if they were merged. --mikeu ^talk 18:03, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

However, I do see a problem with the AccountEligibility results for John Bessa which contradicts v:Special:Contributions/John_Bessa. The toolserver has such a high replag for Wikiversity (35+ days [7]) that none of John's (more than 50!) edits since 29 December 2008 have been counted. I'm not sure that this would make a differnece in John's case, but we need to be sure we are not excluding someone just because the toolserver is not reporting all the contribs. --mikeu ^talk 18:03, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Requiring SUL

See this reversion: [8] and the edit before it. A steward without a meta account is a non-starter, in my view. Won't be able to get anything done. But technically SUL isn't a requirement. However I'd oppose any candidate that hadn't unified most of their accounts, so I suspect it practically is. As a note we probably should be discussing any changes to the guidelines first before making them, at this stage of things, at least until the election is over. ++Lar: t/c 14:31, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

The edit was in the voters requirements, so it doesn't affect candidates. I don't think it currently is a requirement for candidates though. --Erwin(85) 19:01, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree that SUL shouldn't be a requirement. Expected, yes, but not required, especially for those that can't unify (common name) or have renames pending. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:11, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Well unifications was an easy way of checking if the person voting is actually that user via the SULutil tool and since the tool is broken for all the "smaller" wikis and meta, it will be hard to know if the use who voted is the same person he says he is because most people don't even like creating a userpage on meta and that includes some candidates too which is a shame...--Cometstyles 12:38, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Candidates that have no presence on Meta will definitely have that held against them; I'm hardly the most active admin here, but I at least check in, and have always thought that Meta should serve as a second "home wiki" for any editors that do cross-wiki edits. Since this is where all stewards actually work at, it seems confusing that a steward candidate wouldn't also set up shop here. *shrug* A shame the SULutil tool doesn't work at the moment, too... EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:07, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Nominations have ended

Well the nominations for the elections have ended about 13 hours ago and now its time for the harder task for translating the statements of the candidates. I have seen some candidates who haven't even bothered to create a userpage on meta or even put any statement on their nomination form and that is a bit of a bothersome. The timetable discussed and which I believe is the one we will follow is:

• January 13 — Confirming the rules; Translations for CentralNotice start
• January 15 — CentralNotice deployed; Start of nominations
• January 25 — Deadline for nominations (no more changes to statements either)
• January 25 - February 1 — Translation of Candidate statements

Translations have already begun and so I would like to ask the candidates to avoid making major changes to their statement as it may force the translators to rewrite them and if a translator of some certain language doesn't see it, it may not get translated the way you want it too, furthermore, regarding questions..hehe...I don't think the translators need to translate each question and its reply in different languages because it will just make the page size bigger and would cause problems when it gets transcluded and finally for those candidates that haven't identified to the foundation yet, please do so within the next 4 days as those users who haven't identified to the foundation will be disqualified on February 1st...--Cometstyles 13:09, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Transclusion problems

I'm not sure whether we'll be able to transclude them at all... It might have to remain as links. Or maybe if we subst all the translation templates it'll work? Someone should check with Pathoschild whether that'll break anything.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 15:36, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello. My response here is long, so feel free to skip to the solution in my response, or even to the last sentence for your answer. ;)

• The problem is a known issue with the post-expand include size, limited to 2MB, where transcluded content is counted multiple times towards that limit. For example, consider the following content:

  {{ls|en|For information on voting, translating, or being a candidate, [[Stewards/elections 2009/Guidelines|read the guidelines]].}}

  That is 269 bytes of HTML (including the template output). If it is inside another template (such as {{sr-elections 2009}}), it is counted again as the HTML of that template, totaling 538 bytes; and again for any further transclusions. The current structure ({{ls}}→{{sr-elections 2009/ls}}→{{sr-elections 2009}} →statement→ elections) counts those 269 bytes four times, as 1076 bytes. That single sentence in one language therefore contributed to 1KB of the limit, and most statements are not a single sentence.

• The solution involves reducing the number of transclusions as much as possible. (Fixing the glitch in the parser would be even better, but won't happen anytime soon.)

  Making {{sr-elections 2009/ls}} replicate the code of {{ls}} instead of transcluding it should reduce the limit contribution by the size of every statement and translation on the page. Merging that template into {{sr-elections 2009}} would reduce it by as much again, but would make it virtually impossible to localize. Substituting the template entirely into the statement pages will reduce the limit contribution by some 300% of the size of every statement page, but make them much harder to edit. Substituting {{ls}} will reduce further, but also make the pages harder to edit. Merging Stewards/elections 2009/Introduction into the main page will also reduce it by some 72KB, and substituting {{process header}} will reduce it by the same amount again.

  Simplifying template output should also help a bit, but not significantly.

So... yes, substituting templates will help. —Pathoschild 21:51:08, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Transclusion is fixed (for now). The verbose headings also contribute; we should consider more non-textual headings, like these:

• Questions
• Yes
• No

A separate questions page (or pages) is probably a good idea, too. —Pathoschild 22:12:23, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that business of making things difficult to edit was what I was referring to. Would you please subst (when the election starts) subst whatever it's safe to subst (since you've put some thought into what should/shouldn't be)? And yes, iconic headings makes tons of sense - I've always wondered why we bother with translating "Yes" into 20 languages and putting it in the heading (cue eye roll)  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 01:23, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Done. —Pathoschild 02:02:08, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I also created Stewards/elections 2009/Questions, though I haven't moved any discussion yet. —Pathoschild 02:02:08, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I put a question there yesterday but today decided to move it to each candidate myself, by hand. This allowed me to customise it in a few cases (where the candidate had already addressed part of it, or where Drini or someone else had already asked part of it, etc)... so I guess I should remove it from that page? ... or ? Thanks! ++Lar: t/c 21:19, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure. That page may not be used at all, unless we exceed the transclusion limit again. —Pathoschild 23:45:15, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Disqualifications

There are currently 31 candidates; this section tracks their status ahead of the 1^st February deadline for qualification (excluding the Meta activity requirement).

Not ready
Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry	not identified (meets account requirements).
Drakesketchit	not identified (meets account requirements).
Fipplet	not identified (meets account requirements).
Jagwar	not identified (meets account requirements).
Wykypydya	not identified; not linked to an account meeting account requirements; no global account.
Ready
Al Lemos	identified, meets account requirements.
Apteva	identified, meets account requirements.
avjoska	identified, meets account requirements.
Alexanderps	identified, meets account requirements.
Avraham	identified, meets account requirements.
Cometstyles	identified, meets account requirements.
Dorgan	identified, meets account requirements.
Erwin	identified, meets account requirements.
EVula	identified, meets account requirements.
Fabexplosive	identified, meets account requirements.
Fadesga	identified, meets account requirements.
Gutza	identified, meets account requirements.
Jredmond	identified, meets account requirements.
Kylu	identified, meets account requirements.
Laaknor	identified, meets account requirements.
Leinad	identified, meets account requirements.
Loco085	identified, meets account requirements.
Mardetanha	identified, meets account requirements.
Meno25	identified, meets account requirements.
Mike.lifeguard	identified, meets account requirements.
Mywood	identified, meets account requirements.
Orderinchaos	identified, meets account requirements.
Pasquale	identified, meets account requirements.
PhiLiP	identified, meets account requirements.
putnik	identified, meets account requirements.
SpeedyGonsales	identified, meets account requirements.

—Pathoschild 23:24:29, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I informed the remaining candidates on their local talk pages that they still need to identify, except for Drakesketchit, where no local account was given. --Thogo (talk) 10:46, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Remaining candidates disqualified. —Pathoschild 00:22:15, 01 February 2009 (UTC)

Flagged Revisions

So, where do the candidates stand on flagged revisions? It will likely affect the community's votes. --203.114.167.120 00:58, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

You can ask questions of the candidates at Stewards/elections 2009/Questions.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 01:00, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Question back, why would that be of any importance what a steward thinks about flagged revisions for his steward work... Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 01:03, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with spacebirdy, stewards do not decide on anything (especially disputes) and have no control over the implementation of FlaggedRevs (only sysadmins do). Cbrown1023 talk 01:20, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Current standings

Hello. The current standings are displayed on User:Pathoschild/2009 steward election statistics.
{{User:Pathoschild/2009 steward election statistics}}
—Pathoschild 01:10:56, 02 February 2009 (UTC)

Now transcluded on Stewards/elections 2009/Statistics, along with ST47's statistics. —Pathoschild 10:38:24, 02 February 2009 (UTC)

Nothing worse than wasting my time.

If this tool to check for eligibility is valid, could we put a link near the top of this whole shebang to it so that people can know whether they're eligible to vote in this thing? http://toolserver.org/~pathoschild/accounteligibility/?user=&wiki=enwiki_p&event=2 —unsigned by Tchalvak on 05:13, 2 February 2009.

There is a link to it in the voter requirements section. That page is prominently linked to (in bold) at the top of the election page, in several languages. —Pathoschild 05:55:29, 02 February 2009 (UTC)

Could it be worked into the pages via an editnotice? (create a single election editnotice, then create redirects for each candidacy) EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:02, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

We really need a proper voting extension. --MZMcBride 06:23, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. I just went thru and checked on a bunch of the votes for me, and realized that several opposers (yay) and supporters (less with the happy) weren't actually eligible. I'm reluctant to strike/remove/indent/whatever the votes, though, since I feel it'd be horribly improper. It's probably a similar situation for the other candidates as well. EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:53, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Ditto. I would not even dream of having any of the candidates marking any of the votes for anyone. However, a section could be created here to notify that we thought that a particular vote should be checked for validity. Apteva 23:25, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Corrections

• SpeedyGonsales Fix indent to reflect change of vote of Vyk.[9] Apteva 23:40, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
• Apteva Merdis is an eligible vote.

Apteva 23:46, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Done. —Pathoschild 00:24:42, 03 February 2009 (UTC)

A vote for Leinad by IP 85.159.40.26, who seems to not have logged in (and does not seem eligible to vote in any case). Kylu 03:05, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Fixed by Spacebirdy. —Pathoschild 20:29:41, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

*Apteva Fix indent to correct vote count. This is more than confusing:

5. Sorry, I don't believe you have enough experience. Have you thought about en:Administratorship though? With a little work, that might be better. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by NuclearWarfare (talk • contribs) diff, --birdy geimfyglið (:> )=| 00:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC).

:You just voted two lines up... ST47 20:39, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

::—The preceding unsigned comment was added by NuclearWarfare (talk • contribs) diff, --birdy geimfyglið (:> )=| 00:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC). ;) --Thogo (talk) 14:46, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
[[User:Apteva|Apteva]] 18:56, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello, what is confusing about that? I marked an unsigned vote with Template:unsigned and added the diff [10], then someone who seems not have read that correctly told me that I already voted, and Thogo just underlined that I just added an "unsigned" to that vote, best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 19:05, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Still should not add 2 to the vote count. As I see it, either Thogo added a very confusing comment to their vote, as vote #5, or you were being credited with votes #4 and #5. Or some other confusion. Is this what you had in mind?

4. {{Oppose}} Imho the user has not enough experience, --[[User:Spacebirdy|<font color="black">birdy</font> <small style="color:gray">geimfyglið</small>]] [[User talk:Spacebirdy|<sub style="color:teal">(:> )=|</sub>]] 00:06, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
:Sorry, I don't believe you have enough experience. Have you thought about [[en:Administrator]]ship though? With a little work, that might be better. {{unsigned|NuclearWarfare|2=[http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewards/elections_2009/statements/Apteva&diff=prev&oldid=1364205 diff], --[[User:Spacebirdy|<font color="black">birdy</font> <small style="color:gray">geimfyglið</small>]] [[User talk:Spacebirdy|<sub style="color:teal">(:> )=|</sub>]] 00:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC)}}
::You just voted two lines up... [[User:ST47|ST47]] 20:39, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
:::''—The preceding unsigned comment was added by NuclearWarfare (talk • contribs) diff, --birdy geimfyglið (:> )=| 00:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC).'' ;) --[[User:Thogo|Thogo]] <small>([[User talk:Thogo|talk]])</small> 14:46, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
:[[User:Abdullah Harun Jewel|Abdullah Harun Jewel]] 01:05, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
:Sorry, you are not eligible to vote this year, you must have had 600 edits on any project by November 1, and either an [[SUL]] account or a link to that account on your userpage. You must also have 50 edits since August 1 and not be blocked here. [[User:ST47|ST47]] 01:12, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
5. {{Oppose}} [[User:Puntori|Puntori]] 00:13, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Apteva 19:28, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Why should it not count it is a valid vote, by an elibible user (not that it would matter anyway). Confusion is rather beeing created by You here, by pasteing votes of users to this talkpage... Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 19:31, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Your vote is a valid vote, but it should not be counted twice. Apteva 19:42, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It is not counted twice. As you might notice if you read the votes carefully enough, the second one was added by NuclearWarfare. --Thogo (talk) 19:44, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It does not count twice, please read again what I wrote, I did not vote, I just added Template:unsigned, it was not my vote but his, thanks, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 19:44, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I see it now. It is confusing though. I would suggest removing the extra signatures so it is more clear who actually voted, among the four names given, like this (adding your signature only creates confusion):

5. Sorry, I don't believe you have enough experience. Have you thought about [[en:Administrator]]ship though? With a little work, that might be better. {{unsigned|NuclearWarfare|2=[http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewards/elections_2009/statements/Apteva&diff=prev&oldid=1364205 diff]}}

Apteva 20:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

That is the default use of Template:unsigned, usually people who add that template also add their signature in it to make it more clear who actually added that template and that makes it more transparent [11] and I even added the difflink to make it completely clear, I only don't add my signature in the template when I comment something below, because then it is clear who added the template imho. Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 20:04, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

At the time you added it, it was completely clear to me, but apparently not to ST47. If it was unclear to them, it will be unclear to others, and after all the clarifications were added it became totally unclear. I do not believe it is necessary to sign such corrections, as it only causes confusion. For the same reason, we do not sign mainspace edits. Apteva 20:22, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It is not a main namespace edit, but a comment on a voting, which is why they are signed and should kept signed, or if not signed someone will add {unsigned|.....} to it... Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 20:23, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Or in this case, "You just voted". I see no reason to add unsigned to unsigned to unsigned to unsigned to unsigned, and then sign it. The above is much more clearer. I do not care who pointed out that they did not sign their vote, and no one else should either. Apteva 20:43, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Whot? Just leave it as it is, it is fine so, nothing more to add, bye, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 20:46, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• Avraham Snake311 ineligible due to insufficient recent edits. Apteva 19:45, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

*Avraham Betacrucis ineligible due to insufficient recent edits. -- Avi 19:59, 16 February 2009 (UTC) Already fixed. The purpose of this section is not to list corrections but to ask someone who is not a candidate to make them. Apteva 14:46, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I would think that a candidate can remove their own ineligible support votes :) -- Avi 23:33, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Due to the page history, all edits are recorded and can be reviewed. Normally election reviewers ("election officials") are independent from the candidates in any election (in a corrupt, or sham election the results are rigged). Many elections around the world today also have many outside reviewers as well, who check for fairness. It is a lot of work to check 100+ votes for each of 20+ candidates, and normally candidates watch their own votes pretty closely and are often the first to notice any discrepancies. Some of us have demonstrated varying viewpoints on what to do with that information. Apteva 05:33, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

• Avraham:Marilith switched from oppose to support, but did not put a colon (:) before the hash mark that indicates the count, so the count is off. -- Avi 05:34, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Corrected by Werdna, thank you. -- Avi 07:38, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Could we semi-protect the voting page?

I've seen IPs in the votes that have been crossed-out, and other accounts that were just created. Could we semi-protect the page to stop some of this? Techman224^Talk 02:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

No, because accounts which are <4 days old on Meta can still vote, provided they meet the requirements on another wiki which they link to on their Meta userpage. Daniel (talk) 02:39, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

"Please vote."

The site notice window says "The Wikimedia Foundation's 2009 steward election has started. Please vote."

And yet, assuming I understand correctly the elegibility criteria, one must:

1. have made at least 600 edits before 01 November 2008;
2. have made at least 50 edits between 01 August 2008 and 31 January 2009;

to be elegible. That's twenty months of making one edit a day—that's a lot of edits! Most people are *not* elegible. Why does it tell-- no, BEG me to vote, if I'm not elegible? What a bait-and-switch!

So my question is this: if >50% of those who are asked to please vote are inelegible to do that, then we have a majority of users who are seeing, in effect, an error. Right?

That message should be reworded. I propose getting rid of the "Please vote." text and making the whole line hyperlinked. Cognatus 13:11, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

As a minimum I would recommend changing the central notice link from m:Stewards/elections 2009 to m:Stewards/Guidelines#Voters, so that you found out if you were eligible before you tried to load a massive megabyte page. And change "Please vote" to "Voter eligibility", though please vote certainly does encourage participation better. Also, the bit at the top of Guidelines about "Please read each relevant section below." is really not necessary. Voters only need to read that one section. However, the "Voter" section would need to have a link back to Stewards/elections 2009. Something like, "Are you eligible? Great, please vote. Not eligible? Watch results, or view each vote." Apteva 16:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Slow?

The page is huge, it basically tortures my turtle while loading. may be it is fast on faster species. it seems 327.46 KB (335,314 bytes) is too much. is there anything that could be changed to make it lighter?--Alnokta 18:03, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid there's probably not much that can be done. However, you can view the subpages individually, which should be easier on your turtle :D  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:06, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

IE crashed twice. No FireFox on this machine :( (note to my self: make sure I get a portable FF on my USB stick). Had to work through the sub-pages. --Tarawneh 18:18, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

You may need to move the statements to elections 2009 and make the votes into links, like this:

Al Lemos

statement

• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Al Lemos

etc.

• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Alexanderps
• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Apteva
• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/avjoska
• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Avraham

• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Dorgan

• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Erwin
• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/EVula
• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Fabexplosive
• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Fadesga

• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Gutza

• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Jredmond
• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Kylu
• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Laaknor
• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Leinad
• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Loco085
• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Mardetanha
• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Meno25
• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Mike.lifeguard
• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Mywood

• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/Pasquale
• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/PhiLiP
• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/putnik
• Stewards/elections 2009/statements/SpeedyGonsales

My browser gives up part way through now, but I am on dial-up and using W98SE on an old computer. Apteva 19:06, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Or just do something like this:

Candidates (view all on one page)

1. Al Lemos - Statement and votes - Questions
2. Alexanderps - Statement and votes - Questions
3. Apteva - Statement and votes - Questions
4. avjoska - Statement and votes - Questions
5. Avraham - Statement and votes - Questions
8. Dorgan - Statement and votes - Questions
10. Erwin - Statement and votes - Questions
11. EVula - Statement and votes - Questions
12. Fabexplosive - Statement and votes - Questions
13. Fadesga - Statement and votes - Questions
15. Gutza - Statement and votes - Questions
17. Jredmond - Statement and votes - Questions
18. Kylu - Statement and votes - Questions
19. Laaknor - Statement and votes - Questions
20. Leinad - Statement and votes - Questions
21. Loco085 - Statement and votes - Questions
22. Mardetanha - Statement and votes - Questions
23. Meno25 - Statement and votes - Questions
24. Mike.lifeguard - Statement and votes - Questions
25. Mywood - Statement and votes - Questions
27. Pasquale - Statement and votes - Questions
28. PhiLiP - Statement and votes - Questions
29. putnik - Statement and votes - Questions
30. SpeedyGonsales - Statement and votes - Questions

(Move current contents of elections 2009 to Stewards/elections 2009/statements) Apteva 19:25, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

For those with cheetas, having it all in one page is nice. For those with turtles, perhaps Stewards/elections 2009/Statistics is better?  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 20:24, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Just put a link just above "Candidates" to "View all candidates on one page" to a page created like the current page. Since no information has been moved, it makes no difference how you get to that information, through a page with links, or through a transcluded page. Apteva 04:21, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Was something ever done on this? I like the idea of having an 'index' page here, and a /Everything subpage with the transclusions for people who want it all on one page.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 00:10, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Not yet. Go for it. I did all the legwork to create it, just paste the bits together, and take out the extra .... dots. The "Everything" page has already been created at "statements" though. Just change the redirect to a cut and paste from the elections 2009 page, or move it and create elections 2009 by pasting the links above onto the top of the page. It really does not matter which way it is created. You might want to make a link back to the link page from the "everything" page at "statements" though. And check to see if any other candidates have withdrawn in the meantime. Apteva 04:14, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The most usable solution is language-specific subpages, that only send you the text in your language (with English fallback). There are two feasible ways to do this:

• enable labeled section transclusion on Meta (it's already enabled on some Wikimedia wikis). The code would be very simple and easy to template, so the subpages would consist of "{{sr-elections page 2009|ar}}" (for Stewards/elections_2009/ar).
• using template parameters with ParserFunctions is possible, but it would be more complex and slower (for the server).

If we can get labeled section transclusion enabled here, we could have language subpages the same day. Otherwise... we'll see what dirty hack we can come up with. —Pathoschild 20:31:03, 03 February 2009 (UTC)

Why don't you open a bug so that it gets enabled here? if it's already enabled on all wikisource wikis. then it wouldn't be a performance issue if it is also enabled on meta. it will help a lot of users.--Alnokta 19:37, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Request 17363; Brion will take care of it at an unspecified time. In the meantime, we should probably look at the template solution. —Pathoschild 23:49:47, 04 February 2009 (UTC)

Dua Netjer en ek.--Alnokta 01:12, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Language subpages are now implemented on the confirmation pages. This required coding a completely new set of templates, so I'll wait a little bit to catch any glitches before implementing it on the the elections pages. —Pathoschild 08:39:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

The parser limit glitch is simply too crippling to have language subpages for the elections, short of having absurdly complex code substituted onto every subpage. It would be trivial to have a statements-only and votes-only page, though.

We may as well implement the index solution, then. —Pathoschild 06:43:49, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Done. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 07:31, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Vote Notice Box on En.Wiki

Would it be possible to change the "Please Vote" notice box on en.wiki to a watchlist note? In some cases, the box is throwing off the coding (for lack of a better term) on some pages and moving some objects, templates, etc. down behind other things. Thank you. - Neutralhomer 07:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

No, we can't do that. However enwiki admins can. The CentralNotice has an id they can display:none; in Common.css - then replace it with a watchlist notice.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 16:58, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I mentioned it on AN/I (on en.wiki), but it was been moved to the Common.css talk page. Either way, someone should (hopefully) see it. Thanks again...Neutralhomer 05:51, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Index

I think this has worked well. The page is simplified and doesn't kill everybody's browser when it's loaded. In addition to that, we can semi-protect it and in so doing stave off vandals now that we've shed the sectioning. Shall we do this again next year? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:50, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I would say so, yes. It looks very useful and clean. --Thogo (talk) 14:00, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

+1 -- Avi 17:21, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I would recommend adding a column linking to the questions for each candidate. Apteva 14:55, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

central notice broken

The central vote notice looks like <centralnotice-template-plain_text_election_notice> for me on both meta and en wikinews. Bawolff 02:58, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

We know, it's being fixed. Thank you. :-) Cbrown1023 talk 03:03, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Voting requirements

• As there were some last minute changes to the voting requirements, it appears that:
  • either have an account on Meta with userpage linked to your homewiki, and a link to your meta account from your homewiki userpage
  • or have a linked SUL account;

May not have made it into any of the translations other than German and possibly Japanese. Apteva 14:38, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

no more than 2 questions?

This rule is inappropriate. 2 questions are too few to confirm if candidates are appropriate to be a steward. And This rule can restrict voters' basic rights. Even in administrators election, one person can ask more than 3 questions. Why do restrict number of questions per one person?--Kwj2772 (論) 13:27, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

What rule? I see "Please", not "No more than 2". Would you prefer it said 3, or 4 next year instead of 2? I think the idea is that you can always ask a followup question without bending the suggestion, and that some suggested limit should be provided. You have asked only one question of most of the candidates at this time, anyway. Apteva 17:42, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

End of elections

The elections should continue for 21 days. It started on 1 February (at 00:00:01 UTC) and ended on 21 February (at 23:59:59 UTC), so, I will strike any further votes. Correct me if I am wrong. --Meno25 00:37, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

It says The voting has started on 01 February 2009 (UTC) and will end on 22 February 2009 (UTC), it doesn't say what time, which could be interpreted as today is still valid. -- Avi 00:55, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

A current steward has already closed the elections. --Meno25 01:02, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Ah well. 14 votes and an infinity away :) -- Avi 01:05, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

IMHO If elections ended on 21 February (at 23:59:59 UTC) in header of Stewards/elections 2009 should have been "The voting has started on 01 February 2009 (UTC) and will end on 21 February 2009 (UTC)." (not 22 February 2009). Look on Stewards/elections 2007, there is "The voting will start on 26 November 2007 and it will end on 16 December 2007." and on 16 December 2007 elections still continued. Leinad 22:33, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

The precise time should have been specified, but the closure time was correct. They began at 00:00 on 01 February 2009, and closed at 00:00 on 22 February 2009. They were still open on 21 February 2009. —Pathoschild 22:53:51, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Surely time should have been specified... Between elections 2007 and elections 2009 is difference in interpretation. On 16 December 2007 elections still continued and 22 February 2009 were closed. Leinad 23:09, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Leinad, yes, it is frustrating, I received a number of apologetic e-mails from people saying they planned on voting for me, and did not realize it was over, but what can we do. Albeit ambiguous, the ruling was made, and people did have 21 days to make their voices heard. If anything, people should realize that procrastination until the last minute can have unfortunate consequences. -- Avi 00:11, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Very good point. I was going to recommend re-instituting the sitenotice saying that the elections were ending at such and such time, but by the time I thought of it there were only 5 hours, or 29 hours left, I was not sure which. Apteva 18:43, 27 February 2009 (UTC)