The next CU and OS elections are coming up!

Has the Cabal announced yet who is supposed to win them?

Timeline:
# May 1–8 – Preparation for election, including offers of nomination to selected candidates
# May 9–22 – Voting using the SecurePoll extension for a secret ballot
# May 22–27 – Arbitration Committee review of results
# May 28 – Announcement of results

No doubt if there are any winners who weren't supposed to win they'll be dealt with appropriately.

Surely it's not a simple vote such that if you get x% you're in and if you get any less you're not. The closers have to determine whether there is a consensus to appoint. As anyone who follows RfA and RfB (presumably most people here) will know, consensus means whatever you want it to mean.

Why vote in an election when, once the polls close, some agency is going to step in and make sure you voted for the right guy?

What is the point of using "secure" voting techniques in such an election?

Simple:

1. The people who vote know who's in good standing with the cabal.
2. The people who vote tend to either support the cabal or are "trolls"
3. Aside from cabal supporters and trolls, nobody else is interested in the elections.
4. After the troll votes are discounted, the vote shows the world how wonderfully consensus-driven Wikipedia is.

Not all that mysterious, after all

So, it's coming down to the Central Consensual Cabal vs the Terrible Taunting Trobal.

Even simpler, in this case; only "pre-approved" candidates are allowed to stand in the first place. No prizes for guessing who dishes out permission to stand. I can see a good-intention reason for that—it stops the pedo-clique from being able to game their members into being the ones who make the decisions on kiddy-porn, for instance.

What is the purpose of the five day post-election "review of results" by the ArbCommies?

I think that's a clumsy wording for "verifying the winner's identities and checking with Godwin that there's no legal objection to the appointment". I don't know if they conduct any kind of background check, but I assume they do something, given that they insist on proof of identity before they enable any of these "ability to view sensitive material" powers. That's one Wikipedia policy I've no argument with at all, however much the information-wants-to-be-free hardliners whine about it.

That's how long it takes to incubate an embryonic Goa'uld Wiki-Parasite.

Jon

The "background check" consists of asking around the Cabal to see if anyone objects.

That window is also used to deal with the relatively unlikely situation in which a candidate which the Cabal wanted elected somehow failed to get the requisite votes. In this case the votes cast against that candidate will be scrutinized to identify what malcontents are opposing the will of the Cabal so they can be deal with appropriately.

Pretty much. But I'd like to think that in the current climate, they at least carry out some kind of cursory check, even if it's just googling the name to see if the first hit is "recently convicted sex offender whose hobby is editing Wikipedia from his cell".

Considering the jobs the winners of these elections will be doing, this strikes me as the sort of thing that should be known to the electorate.

Before the polls open.

Maybe I missed something, but doesn't the WMF at least verify, in advance of the election, that all candidates meet the necessary conditions to stand as candidates?

Depends on the election. Stewards and Board candidates have to verify their identities beforehand, but enwiki checkuser and oversight candidates do it after their election. Both receive access to the tools only after Cary confirms their identity though. How detailed of a process Cary uses to check identities, I have no idea.

Well, the candidates are up!

For checkuser, we have Amalthea (T-C-L-K-R-D) , Jamesofur (T-C-L-K-R-D) , MuZemike (T-C-L-K-R-D) and Tiptoety (T-C-L-K-R-D) .

For oversight, we have Arbitrarily0 (T-C-L-K-R-D) , Beeblebrox (T-C-L-K-R-D) , Closedmouth (T-C-L-K-R-D) , LessHeard vanU (T-C-L-K-R-D) and Valley2city (T-C-L-K-R-D) .

I can barely contain my excitement.

Yes, it should be entertaining. The candidates aren't really surprising - none appear to be editors who spend their time writing and improving encyclopedia entries.

I expect we will also see these three (Ryan Postlethwaite (T-C-L-K-R-D) ; Lankiveil (T-C-L-K-R-D) ; Someguy1221 (T-C-L-K-R-D) ) stand for oversight.

(edit: removed Closedmouth, already noted)

Closedmouth is already there. Why do you think oversight?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=360740638

LessHeard is chosen even though he almost failed his re-RfA for his nasty personal attacks and abuse of others, yet Xeno is not up there even though he is rather polite.

LessHeard makes political attacks and does nothing but what he can show off during, while Xeno does most of the "slave work", is dutiful to the project, and tends to do most of his work quietly.

That is shameful.

The Arbitrators have really shown that they don't care about policy or the community with that choice.

The purpose of an election is to get a nice, clean list of future victims.

Oh crap, I should've known that greedy bastard Tiptoety was going to be in the election. Someone bring up the thing about the cops! Oh, how I loathe that Tiptoety! He's already high enough (what with his global sysopness, his sysopness on Meta, his CheckUser and Oversight on Commons, and his sysopness on the Simple Wikibooks and Wikiquote) - he doesn't need to be any higher! I think Heimstern Läufer would be a much better candidate, seeing as he is an admin on a non-Wikimedia Wiki and that he would probably be the first such candidate.

The election is just a joke isn't it?

Is there any reason you essentially posted the same message on two separate threads? And, you know, did you ever think of asking Heim if he wanted to run?

Out of 11 million registered user, this is the best they can come up with? Dumb, dumber and Lankiveil.





If less LessHeard and Xeno had a fist fight, who would win?



If their photographs on Hivemind are any indication, they also don't put much thought into personal hygiene, grooming and weight control. Come on, aren't there any hotties on Wikipedia who want to be an arbitrator?




You're much too polite.



Speaking of joke elections...Malley, is there a new prime minister yet?

No, there isn't. Just the same unelected crap one we had before. I'm much more interested to see what Wigan can do against Chelsea on Sunday.

Don't forget:

5. The current demented squabble over Jimbo deleting pornographic images from Commons is helping to distract attention away from the CU/Oversight elections. Remarkably convenient.

(And Tiptoety is still a little shit. Just for completeness.)

LessHeard because Xeno wouldn't resort to such pettiness and LessHeard enjoys taking cheap shots.

Glad you agree. That cop wannabe needs to be taught a BIG lesson. He is a disgrace to Wikipedia; if he was stripped of his tools and blocked indeifintely without chance of coming back, Wikipedia would definitely be a better place.



Well, since there are only four CU candidates, there will be only one loser. I think the one we all want to lose is Tiptoety. Unfortunately, he is probably the least likely to lose.

I think a great movie would be the four CU candidates in a Survivor-like situation: they go through numerous activities and whoever has the least points at the end misses out on the promotion. I really, really hope that Tiptoety would end up being the loser.



That's not entirely correct. MuZemike, for example, is a heavy contributor; not long ago, he tripled the size of an article in just one edit ([http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ninja_Gaiden_II:_The_Dark_Sword_of_Chaos&curid=1564794&diff=345148575&oldid=341868761]), and he has quite a sense of humour (see [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:125.136.132.228&diff=360679519&oldid=359822826]). And Tiptoety, the one I hate, loathe, and despise, started his Wikipedia career as a contributor to the article about his police department. (This is exactly why Tyler should not be a CheckUser - he is a police cadet and is likely to give CU data to his cronies).

Bah. Who cares about the EPL Title, Fulham's going for the Europa League title mid-week! (yeah, I know I know, it's a two-bob title, but hey, gotta root for the Yank!)

We now return you to your normally scheduled discussion.

Seems like one would need to know what that "something" is before forming an opinion on it.


Seems like a rational person wouldn't submit that information to WMF unless and until knowing he or she had some chance of winning... i.e. that the process is rigged in their favor (or at least, not rigged against them).

Of course if they don't meet the "necessary conditions" when announced as a tentative winner there should be plenty of runners-up. However there are not.

Of course if nobody qualifies I'd be tickled to death.

Possibly of some interest would be this, over on Commons. Apparently our little Portland whacker pissed someone off.

Abigor, the same admin who abusively retaliated against Ottava Rima and blocked him for a month.

Ty pissed off a Commons porn-lover, to be specific. Because he deleted a priceless photo or two (or three).

You wanna Hasten The Day? Induce the Wiki-mutants to fight among themselves over issues like the Commons porn. Inclusionists vs. deletionists, Jimbo-lovers vs. "we don't need him anymore"ers, that kind of thing. Let the Glorious Project tear itself apart---from within.

Oh, man. If only Tyler would withdraw or be knocked off the election. Someone needs to bring up the police concerns.

They do because...?

Are you going to tell us what he actually did Rick ... to you or not, I don't care. I am not going to judge you.

I would just like to see the evidence documented. It is what we are good for around here.

Thanks.

For once I find myself agreeing with Cock-up. Either explain what your beef is with the guy, or shut up. WR isn't your personal attack site.

Funny, I'd put my $$$ on Xeno -- he looks mild-mannered, but in a bar brawl I'd expect him to turn into a fighting machine.



Ooooh, mama...I didn't know you were ticklish.




Or if you must make attacks, take a couple of shots at Lar.




Well, congrats on getting new leadership.

Ummm, if you had read "High School Kid who Pretends to Be a Cop Up for CU", you'd know. That thread is all about how he was up for CU despite being a law enforcment cadet, meaning he would be very likely to misuse whatever CU data he gets. Oh, and what about the time when Peter Damian improved a stub article and Tyler reverted it all? And yet another reason I dislike Tyler is because HE'S GREEDY! He has admin (or better) powers on at least six Wikimedia projects, as well as being a global sysop! Also, he has used an IP address that is an open proxy, and vandalised while logged out!

Care to share your evidence?

He seems like the type of person that has lots of evidence.

Of course.

Well, in http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=195903356, the IP address 63.105.27.175, which is an open proxy, posts a comment on AIAV, then Tyler immediately changes the signature from the IP address to his username with the summary "oops forgot to sign in".

You still haven't explained why you're so butthurt, Rick.

"You cannot view this diff because one of the revisions has been deleted."

In any case, this seems to have been in March 2008 (which also means that it may or may not have been an open proxy then). There are also no edits since 2008 from that IP, and there is no evidence that all the edits from the IP were actually made by him. Indeed, why would he be vandalizing his own user talk? Other people's user talk pages, I could understand, but his own?

Reichstag fire?