Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2004

message: Okay, since I haven't heard any objections, I went ahead and made this more official and opened up the candidate statement page. Now to go advertise this and see how many people we actually get. --Michael Snow 20:47, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opened 

message: Who is eligible to vote?  – Quadell (talk) (help) 19:20, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)
:Anyone who has been a registered user for 90 days is how the software is set up. This cutoff has been used in previous elections without too much problem and the community seems to accept it. I believe Tim Starling explained that the software checks this based on when you vote (not when the election starts). --Michael Snow 07:51, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: That excludes me then.. :-( --Rebroad 00:31, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Voting eligibility 

message: The software has excluded me from voting. I dispute this, I was invited to register on en.wiki when I was told:
* that being registered I'd get the right to vote;
* that my previous contributions under a static IP would be attributed to my new user name.
As my first contribution on the english lang wikipedia dates to 23:45, 11 Jul 2004, may I expect that my vote can be accepted? --M7it 14:11, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Disputing vote exclusion

message: moved to Wikipedia talk:Spam/arbcom elections
Well, the person who made that header obviously has expressed his or her biases, haven't they?
In any case, here is a link to a better organized framework for a discussion of campaign messages. If you have some time to navigate to this subpage and read any of this, I would be encouraged to hear from you. --DV 02:47, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spam about spam 

message: While we are waiting for a consensus to develop as to whether an active, free, and open campaign will be permitted (via messages freely shared between users on their user talk pages during the campaign period), everyone is welcome to copy and paste the following banner and links onto their own user page, to help publicize the upcoming December 2004 Arbitration Committee Elections:
Election Info — Candidates — Voting
Getting out the vote will help to diversify the number of viewpoints that are represented during this election, and insure that candidates who are equally qualified, though perhaps not always a part of the "in crowd", can have a fair chance of winning.
Don't let the insiders control this election.  Please vote!
--DV 02:54, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Get Out the Vote!

message: I will be away during the month of December. Is there any way I can record my vote now? Otherwise I won't get a vote. Tannin 07:44, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Pre-poll voting?

message: Please vote at Software and features, to approve an exciting new feature that allows users to control whether or not they receive campaign messages. --DV 11:14, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: If it turns out to be too technically cumbersome to modify the software to support this feature, but you still support the general idea of indicating your willingness to accept campaign-related messages, please feel free to copy the  tag onto your own user talk page. --DV 14:00, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Exciting new feature to control campaign messages 

message: The page Special:Boardvote has some problems. (I'd mention them there, but that page doesn't have a "talk" page.) 
First it says "The vote for the new members of the Arbitration Committee has begun", but it hasn't. When you click the link to vote, it redirects you to a copy of the page, it seems. Also, the text says "The two candidates with the greatest number of votes will be declared the winner" (emphasis added.) Shouldn't this be "The seven candidates with the greatest number of votes will be declared the winners" (plural)?  – Quadell (talk) (help) 18:27, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)
:It hasn't been updated since the last arbcom election opened. Johnleemk | Talk 18:29, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It also says that the vote will end at 24:00 on Friday 18th, even though Friday is the 17th. Hopefully that didn't disuade anyone from voting on Saturday 18th. Advising that you can vote if it lets you vote might be helpful. Jamesday 19:02, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two? Or seven? 

message: Please see Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2004#Disputing_vote_exclusion. I am concerned that being so high up on the page, this request is being neglected. Sam Spade Arb Com election 14:18, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputing_vote_exclusion 

message: (William M. Connolley 18:16, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe each time you vote, it overrides your previous votes. --Michael Snow 01:00, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Your vote is only counted once. The second vote overrides the first, and so on. So if you vote for Candidate X the first time but vote for Candidates X and Y the second time, only your second time counts. Johnleemk | Talk 13:47, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Voting mechanism? 

message: I have a problem. Although I've been here since 2003 and my first edit is early 2004, I'm not being allowed by the software to vote because my current account is only 74 days old. I had never applied for a username change before since I didn't think the hassle was worth it since I didn't care at all about having my contributions attributed to me really. But now I HAVE filed for an attribution change.
My theoretical problem lies in that the username change page suggeests that it might take weeks or months for the developers to actually get around to it?!?! If that is the case I'll be unable to vote. What should I do? D. G. 23:21, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Then I don't think we can help you, the IP not being a registered account. The little restrictions we have are good since they prevent bad things© from happening. It's not a very big deal, you will be able to vote next time. ✏ Sverdrup 02:47, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disenfranchisement 

message: "Sorry, your first contribution was only 89 days ago. You need to have been contributing for at least 90 days to vote in this election."
Somehow the idea that "well, your vote is NOT that important ANYHOW and you can vote next time!" is not much consolation. Especially since I could have voted if someone had gotten my username change through (filed two weeks ago). I guess I mistakenly failed to realise the types of timescales that the username changing thing works on. I didn't really think they meant it when they said it might take months.
Not that I'm bitter or anything, should anyone take the wrong impression. In the end I guess I lied, the idea that well, it's one vote out of many, IS some consolation. I don't mean to be violent against anyone in this regard, certainly not the hardworking people behing username change, which oddly enough, I understand are actually DEVELOPERS (who we have to thank for their proliferous work on the code and databases behind all this) rather than sysops (of which there's so many and they're so omnipresent at everything else, that if username changing was in their hands, I'm sure it'd be a quick process).
Still I'm somewhat disappointed enough, just enough to mention it to the community. It's annoying. But, eh. Not Wikipedia Administrator 06:20, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Just an FYI on how awfully cheated I feel 

message: Just in case you were wondering, see Wikipedia_talk:ArbCom_Election_Results_December_2004:
:I hereby concede any and all question of relative victory between myself and User:Grunt. He's a good guy (heck, I voted for him!), and besides, all this arbitration business sounds like a lot of work. ;-) -Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 04:05, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  I concede the position and do not want a recount