A chat with the elected Arbitrators
6 February 2006
Jimbo Wales appoints 11 arbitrators, increases committee size
23 January 2006
Arbitration Committee elections continue; ArbCom member resigns
16 January 2006
ArbCom candidates (part two)
9 January 2006
ArbCom candidates
2 January 2006
Straw poll closes
19 December 2005
Jimbo starts new poll regarding election
5 December 2005
Last chance to run for ArbCom
28 November 2005
ArbCom voting process
14 November 2005
ArbCom duties and requirements
7 November 2005
A closer look: the calls for reform of the ArbCom
31 October 2005
A look back: the 2004 ArbCom elections
24 October 2005
Current ArbCom members
17 October 2005
Criticism of the ArbCom
10 October 2005
About the Arbitration process
3 October 2005
The history of the Arbitration Committee
26 September 2005
Introduction to a special series: A look at the upcoming Arbitration Committee elections
19 September 2005
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A chat with the elected Arbitrators |
I have removed the poll which was previously here in order to start a new poll, this one based a bit more on reality. (Of course you can see it all in the history and here.)
The previous poll claimed, for example, that "This year, Jimbo has announced that he will appoint candidates directly." This is either false or misleading. I have always appointed people to the ArbCom directly, for one thing. And this formulation suggests (particularly as it was misleadingly contrasted with "a public election") that I intend to do so without any community approval or vote, which is simply false.
So we had a straw poll here with zero relevance to the actual question at hand. For the record, the final votes in the flawed poll were 51-17 and then a host of other sorts of votes for things like "prefer something else", "unsure", "polls are evil" and so on.
Most of the voters seemed to have been misled into thinking that the choice was between direct appointment by me without any community input versus democratic elections. That's really misleading. I apologize if I had anything to do with the misunderstanding.
I would like to emphasize very strongly that none of these deliberations has anything to do with me trusting or not trusting the community. I trust the community with my life. The issue is that voting mechanisms are inherently flawed in some ways. A lot of people are fond, as I am, of quoting Winston Churchill's famous line about democracy being the worst form of government except for all the others. He said this, of course, in defense of Great Britain -- a democracy, but also a monarchy and aristocracy. Like the British system, the Wikipedia system is a mixed system and should remain so for at least the present time.
I have tried, below, to outline the most prominent options, and to write as fair as I can about the strengths and weaknesses as I see them. I encourage those who are filling out this poll to also add their own brief views on the strengths and weaknesses, so that in another round of polling a week or so from now we can try to work on the details of whatever emerges.
- Note: for the ease of Wikipedians, the prior poll has been moved and archived here.