Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Election/Rules

{{see also|Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee election requests for comment}}

• Election: There will be 15 arbitrators, seven seats on "Tranche Alpha" and eight seats on "Tranche Beta" from the 2019 elections.2019#Number of arbitrators A maximum eight 2-year terms are up for elections each year,2013#Length of terms with the eighth seat switching tranche if necessary.2013#Handling of the 8th Vacant Seat Any expected midterm vacancy, announced before voting begins and taking effect prior to 1 January,2012#How should vacancies be handled?; 2022 talk page discussion that brings the total number of vacancies above eight will be filled by a 1-year term. A minimum 50% support is required to be elected for a 1-year term, and a minimum 60% support is required for a 2-year term.2018#Percentage support needed for appointment Successful candidates with the lowest support percentages are given the 1-year term if any.2012#How many seats should be 2-year terms, and how many 1-year terms? If there are more vacancies than candidates with the required minimum, the extra seats will remain unfilled until a special or the next regular election. Vacancies arising between elections will remain unfilled until a special or the next regular election.2019#Runners-up to step up to fill vacancies
• Special Election: An interim special election which is called by the Arbitration Committee in accordance with the Arbitration Policy shall be conducted on an abbreviated timeline.2019#Procedures for emergency elections
• Electoral Commission: The previous Election Commission shall be reappointed unless they are unable or unwilling to perform the job, in which case members of the current functionaries team who are not arbitrators or WMF staff will be asked to volunteer without the need for confirmation. The Election Commission is empowered to resolve by majority vote situations unforeseen in the previous election RfC that may prevent emergency or interim elections from being held.
• Nominations period: One week.
• Voting period: As soon as possible after the close of nominations.
• Terms of office: To the end of the year.
• Number of vacancies: Up to the size of the committee authorized in the previous election RfC.{{efn-lg|As the number of arbitrators cannot be increased, this procedure is only applicable when arbitrators resign or are removed from their position.}}
• Candidates: Registered account with 500 mainspace edits2023#"Candidates" bullet point that is not prevented from submitting their candidacy by a block or ban,2013#Blocking candidates2023#Blocks and bans which disqualify candidates meets Foundation's Access to nonpublic personal data policy,{{efn-lg|name="WMF"|WMF's policy.}} and has disclosed alternate accounts (or disclosed legitimate accounts to Arbcom).2012#What should the requirements be for candidates to run for the election?2014#Disclosure of Previous/Alternate Accounts of the candidates Arbitrators may not serve as members of either the Ombuds Commission or the WMF Case Review Committee while serving as arbitrators.{{section link|Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 159|RFC: Multiple roles for active arbitrators}} Withdrawn or disqualified candidates will be listed in their own section on the candidates page2019#Withdrawn/disqualified candidates unless their candidate page can be deleted under WP:G7.2020#Withdrawn candidates
• Electoral Commission: An RFC to appoint 3 Electoral Commission officials who will solve disputes and problems during the election.2012#How should we deal with unforeseen problems? Open to any extended-confirmed editor who is over 18, meets Foundation's Access to nonpublic personal data policy, and is not blocked or banned from the Wikipedia or Wikipedia talk namespaces.2024 § Proposal 3: Change qualifications for the Electoral Commission Officials will not be allowed to assess private matters and/or have access to voter data, and/or related permissions, and will instead defer private matters to the current ArbCom and/or the WMF as needed.{{efn-lg|name="WMF"}}2019#Electoral commission's scope of purview/access Commissioners, and reserve commissioners, may not run for election to the Arbitration Committee during their term.2012#How should we deal with unforeseen problems?
• Timeline: In the event of significant technical or other issues affecting the election, the election commissioners may adjust the deadline of the affected part(s) of the election process, and/or any subsequent parts, by a commensurate amount.2020#Deadlines
• ACE RFC: (30 days of September)
• Electoral Commission RFC: 7 days nominations during a pre-RfC drafting process,2020#Commission2a 7 days evaluation, selection by 7 days after close of evaluation.{{efn-lg|No community evaluation is allowed until the RFC has been opened.}}2014#How should the selection of the election commission be conducted? (October)
• Nominations: first Sunday of November (10 days)2024 § Proposal 2: Start nomination process one week earlier
• Nomination is hard deadline for creation and transclusion of nomination statement. How to handle any site-wide disruption is at the discretion of the Electoral Commission.2015#How should nomination deadlines be handled? The self-nomination will only be considered completed if both the nomination page has been created, and the page has been properly transcluded to the candidates page prior to the cut-off time as recorded by the server. Candidate directions should suggest not attempting to perform this activity very close to the cut-off time, so there will be time to recover should any user or technical errors occur.2020#Nomination timing
• Fallow period: (5 days)2013#Schedule
• Voting period: (14 days)
• Voting starts at 00:00 UTC on the second business day of the week in San Francisco (in San Francisco local time, 4 PM on the first business day of the week).2021#Voting start date
• Scrutineering: No deadline for releasing or announcing the results.2012#Deadline for releasing the results
• Guides: Allowed2020#Guides7a but with some strong suggestions.2012#How should voter guides be handled for the election? Must be allowed reasonable visibility.2014#Should voter guides be included in the official template?2020#Guides8a In the case of dispute about the content of an election guide, the election commissioners are empowered to make a binding decision for the purpose of ensuring a fair election and compliance with acceptable uses of election guides. Such decisions are to be based on core Wikipedia policies and guidelines, Arbitration Committee Election RFC decisions and their own discretion.2020#Guides2a The electoral commissioners can remove content from guides, including (partially) blanking a guide, add official commentary to guides, and remove a guide from the official templates and/or categories.2020#Guides3 Candidates do not have an explicit right of reply to comments about them made in election guides.2020#Guides4a The content of election guides must comply with all relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines, including but not limited to Wikipedia:No personal attacks and Wikipedia:Civility.2020#Guides5a Any editor may add guides to official templates or categories for guides.2020#Guides6a A candidate who writes a guide must declare in the guide that they are a candidate.2021#Guides written by candidates
• General Guide: Wikipedia:5 Minute guide to ArbCom Elections created and advertised.2018#Write a short general guide to voting
• Voter Suffrage: {{anchor|voter-suffrage}}A voter needs 150 mainspace edits on English Wikipedia by 1 November, 10 live edits on English Wikipedia (in any namespace) within one year of 1 November, and to have registered an account before 1 October,2019#Voter activity requirements not currently sitewide2021#Partially blocked voters blocked at the time of voting.2012#What should the requirements be to vote in the election?2011#What should the requirements be to vote in the election? These requirements must be met from the same named account.2020#Suffrage2a Vanished or renamed users carrying the name "Vanished" or "Renamed" are excluded from eligibility to vote.2020#Voter suffrage Bots are excluded from eligibility to vote.2021#Voter suffrage - exclude bots
• Voting System: Voting system of (Support/Abstain/Oppose) will be used2017#Should_oppose_votes_be_abolished?2024 § Proposal 1: Rename neutral option to abstain with percentages calculated via Support/(Support + Oppose).2012#What should the method of voting be? Secret ballots2012#Secret balloting? via SecurePoll will be used.{{efn-lg|De facto since 2009.}} If a candidate withdraws from the election between the start of voting and the end of voting, then the final results will be calculated as if the withdrawn candidate never ran.2021#Withdrawn candidates
• Scrutineering: 3 functionaries{{efn-lg|Stewards de facto since pre-2012}} from outside en.wiki as scrutineers.2015#Should adjustments be made to expedite the election results? Scrutineers will strike all the votes cast by any sockmaster who voted multiple times, independent of whether the editor was blocked before or after casting the votes.2022#Striking of votes by sockpuppeteers
• Ordering: The order of candidates is shuffled randomly whenever the page is purged.2022#List of candidates on the Candidates page is shuffled randomly when it is purged (current status quo){{efn-lg|Consensus found on the 2020 ACE is repealed due to the technical inability to apply it.}} Candidates are also ordered randomly on the ballot.2016#Should the names of candidates appear in randomized order, and if not, how should they be ordered?
• Warning: Potential candidates are warned of risks from standing for election with message similar to that on WP:CUOS2015 to be incorporated into the candidate instructions page.2016#Should we warn the candidates about the risks involved?
• Questions: No standard questions for every candidates.2014#The standard questions There is a limit of 2 questions per editor per candidate, with reasonable{{efn-lg|In the case of dispute about what is a reasonable follow-up question the Election Commissioner's decision is final.}} follow-up questions.2020#Questions to candidates Questions can only be posed to candidates after the nomination period is over.2022#Start questions to candidates after nomination period ends Candidates are not obligated to answer every question.2014#Should there be a limit to the number of questions posed to candidates? Electoral Commission (as a group, not individually) have the discretion to remove offensive (e.g. WP:POLEMIC-style statements) or off-topic questions from question pages, following discussion among the Electoral Commission members,2017#Should election committee members be allowed to remove questions where appropriate? but has no authority to reword questions to the candidate.2019#Questions to candidates must be phrased neutrally Any candidate that feels a question should be removed/reviewed should contact the electoral commission to review the question, and not take action themselves.2019#Dealing with possibly inappropriate questions While other editors can obviously remove clear vandalism, egregious personal attacks, etc., the determination of what is inappropriate or off-topic is clearly to be left to the Commission. Guidelines for content allowed and disallowed on candidate pages was introduced, with the electoral commission empowered to make decisions on inclusion or removal of related content, inappropriate questions are only to be removed by their author or members of the electoral commission.2020#CandidateQs3a
• Advertising: Traditional notices posted to various community noticeboards,2012#Advertising watchlist notice,2021#Remove Central Notice / Site Notice advertisement options and, optionally, central notice banner at the discretion of the election commission2016#Should we continue or modify the practice of notifying eligible voters by mass message? for the election in general (not individual candidates);2015#Should there be a change in the methods of publicity for the election? the Site Notice should not be used; Mass Message – eligible voters, have edited last 12 months before nominations,2018#Mass message but excluding site2021#Advertisements to such-blocked users where the block duration extends past the the elections, globally b/locked accounts, bots, and accounts in :Category:All Wikipedia bots, :Category:Wikipedia alternative accounts, :Category:Wikipedia doppelganger accounts, and :Category:Deceased Wikipedians.2019#Mass message Extra care should be taken in wordings of advertising to make sure it is neutral.2014#Should the site notice be changed when voting begins?
• Blocking: Blocking policy applies normally, but a candidate shouldn't be disqualified for being blocked (except for sockpuppetry) after nominating themselves.2013#Blocking candidates