Talk:Universal Code of Conduct/Coordinating Committee/Election/2024

Archives 1

Only 7 people elected

Since I learned about the results, I've been giving a lot of thought about why only 7 people could get elected. Especially because the 7 of us elected only represent 4 out of 8 regions and only 4 projects. Questions I'm trying to think through (among others): Did we go about recruitment the wrong way? Are regions the wrong way to try and obtain diversity? Is 60% the wrong minimum to set? Are elections the wrong way to find certain kinds of qualified people? I have some thoughts about all of these but I am very curious what others in the community think. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:50, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

The problem of not being able to recruit qualified folks to positions of higher access is not restricted to the U4C: we've seen it on multiple wikis requests for adminship/admin backlogs, and in other election processes. A lot of people are burning out at the same time, and others just aren't interested. I think COVID is at least partially to blame, but there are likely other reasons. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 01:05, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

@AntiCompositeNumber thanks for these thoughts. It's an interesting perspective and one I've expressed about stewards, enwiki Arbcom/check user/oversight, and the proposed global council but hadn't given as much thought to since these results (but I should have). I certainly believe there are capable people in the movement from the 4 regions who didn't have anyone elected so it's not that they don't exist. But maybe this format didn't allow them to show their qualifications and readiness. I am guessing, however, that you're more likely to suggest hat maybe they're already committed to other things and had no extra capacity. And if that's true I don't know how to solve it. Have the Stewards take on some part of what the U4C is supposed to do and then just have the foundation do the rest? What do you (or others) see as the right next step if your premise is true? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:31, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I had a few thoughts on this:

1. I think the primary issue was that there were too many candidates (or voter fatigue). There were 37 candidates running for 16 seats all at once. There could have been people who intended to vote but did not due to the sheer volume of candidates to evaluate. There could also be lower quality votes because of this, where people might vote Neutral/Oppose for candidates they haven't had time to evaluate, or people will just not spend much time evaluating the candidates. A part of this problem will be resolved automatically now that this election is over. If we call a special election (as per the charter to fill quorum), I foresee getting fewer candidates, and then we could get better voter turnout. Because the length of the terms for CAL seats and regional seats are different, there will also never be an election in the upcoming years to fill the whole 16 seats again.
2. On minimum support: I thought it made sense to require 60% support because of the trust needed to do the work for U4C. I would probably want to keep that for the normal annual elections, but for the special election (if we do decide to host one) we could lower it.
3. On elections: I think it is an okay way of obtaining community support for the candidates. I'm not sure of any alternatives we could try to use. One idea I had was there could be a process/requirement to filter out candidates instead of allowing everyone to stand, if having too many candidates continues to be a problem.
4. On recruitment: I became aware of this election through the community Discord. I habitually ignore banners, so finding candidates through venues like en:WP:AN on enwiki might be nice given the people who usually watchlist those pages on their own local projects.
5. On regions: you pose a valid question. Putting people into different regions is nonetheless arbitrary, where the term length distinction also doesn't have much reasoning behind it. Diverse representation on the U4C is obviously necessary, so I'm trying to figure out what kinds of restructuring we could explore while keeping requirements on diversity. The hard part is drafting rules that would be both reasonable and fair.

0xDeadbeef (talk) 03:25, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

For the term length, both are 2 years but there needs to be someone serving 1-year-term at the first election. 1233 （T / C） 07:18, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I see, had forgot about this part. 0xDeadbeef (talk) 10:03, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

• I have a few thoughts, too. First off, I think 0xDeadbeef is right about voter fatigue, and it is only going to get worse this year. There's the Movement Charter vote starting in a few weeks, and then the Board elections a couple of months later. There isn't a window for a "special election" for U4C to start any time before October. Second, active recruitment and appointment of qualified candidates is the usual method for finding the best members for a very large number of committees (and subcommittees); however, this can be pretty ineffective in ensuring a mix of experienced and less-experienced individuals, and can really mess up concepts like diversity. Third, I suspect that many people chose the individual they thought was the "best" candidate in a region and, for regions that had several good candidates, this split the vote; this was especially true if people were voting "strategically" (i.e., opposing their less-favoured candidates in order to "boost" their most-favoured ones).

  Finally, I think any time that there is an attempt to fill this large a number of seats in a single election, we are going to see this situation repeat itself. We should not be trying to do this; there was not what I would consider an excess of candidates for the number of seats available (it works out to about 2.3 candidates per seat). It is unreasonable to expect community members to invest the significant number of hours required to review all of the candidacies, especially if the community members need to start by translating those candidacies to a language they understand (and hoping that the translations are at least semi-accurate).

  I cannot recall if the U4C charter allows for appointment of members; if it doesn't now, then it should be updated to do so. Several of the candidates from currently unrepresented regions are perfectly well qualified to serve on this committee; they just didn't have enough name recognition to make it through the voting. Risker (talk) 04:03, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  Appointing members sounds like a good idea to me as well. Because elections can be quite overwhelming and take a lot of time. 0xDeadbeef (talk) 04:07, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  Calling a run-off election and filling the vacancies until the new election is over is a good idea. Updates to the charter can be proposed in the meantime. -- Sleyece (talk) 04:41, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  A run-off election would only include candidates who didn't get a lot of support, and I'm not sure I'd want to see any of those get elected. And I did try to look at least some of the essays etc about each one. Doug Weller (talk) 07:11, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  "the U4C may leave the seat empty and temporarily fill it during the next election, or the U4C may call a special election." Currently the charter only allows for either calling a Special Election or holding an entirely new election and filling vacancies during the election process. -- Sleyece (talk) 04:40, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  The Charter allows members to be appointed if, and only if, vacancies result from "resignation or removal". It would be possible for the U4C to call a special election and fill the regional seats using a plurality, rather than majority, vote. Obviously, that method has its own problems, and the U4C will have to decide whether the pros outweigh the cons. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 05:52, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  „only if“? The charter clearly mentions „no candidate was chosen for a regional seat in an election“ as another reason for temporarily appointing members. Johannnes89 (talk) 06:13, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  @Johannnes89: Please look at the context of the conversation before replying.

  I think User:Risker is suggesting that the U4C should appoint members without calling for a special election.

  The Charter clearly specified that, if "no candidate was chosen for a regional seat in an election", the U4C may "temporarily fill it during the next election". The implication is that there must be a next election, and appointments can be made only during that election, not before, not after. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 07:08, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I am confused on whether the U4C can vote right now. On the charter it says that "no decision or vote can be taken by the Committee unless the quorum of 50% (8 members) of the voting members (16 members) is attained" but that assumes that all 16 members are elected. What happens when less than 16 are? Leaderboard (talk) 04:50, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

That's in section 3.4 of the Charter, in case anyone's wondering. @Leaderboard: To answer your question, the Charter allows the U4C to call a "special election" if there's no quorum. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 06:03, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

@Adrianm1110: I know that they can call for a special election, but I'm wondering more on the lines of "can they vote on things with 7 members, if at least 4 support?". Leaderboard (talk) 06:08, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

@Leaderboard: You may have to ask the Building Committee since they drafted the Charter. Perhaps User:Denis Barthel and User:Barkeep49 can answer your question. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 07:31, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

@Leaderboard - 8 members was meant to be an absolute number, not relative to the elected number. The latter would be against the spirit of that rule, which was introduced to avoid a very small number of people making important decisions. Denis Barthel (talk) 08:47, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion, many voters did not realize that the 16 seats can only be filled if they themselves give at least 16 candidates a pro vote. On average, voters cast 20 neutral votes, 7 pro and 7 con. If they had cast 16 pro votes and only 18 neutral or con votes, all 16 seats would have been filled. 4 of the elected candidates come from projects that have good ways to inform the community about the project via the Signpost and the Kurier. C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm - p7.ee/p) (talk) 05:28, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

The U4C does not have a quorum, so the seven members can discuss this in any capacity that does not require a vote. Currently that's about it. -- Sleyece (talk) 05:30, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

my 2 cents: I was a bit surprised that no one got more than 68.8%. So, we should keep the election process, but lower eligibility to 50 % (as in de.wp arbcom elections) since the candidates at 50+ % in the results list seemed perfectly fine to me. We definitely will have to ask the community to change the quorum for decisions to a purely relative quorum of 50% (i.e. remove the 8 out of 16 part), and maybe even also add an inactivity rule as proposed in the questions to the candidates. I am curious about what the community thinks on the regional seat approach - removing it would motivate additional candidates from larger communities albeit at the cost of reducing regional diversity. --Ghilt (talk) 06:05, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

It's not like we have any meaningful diversity right now. Leaderboard (talk) 06:08, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

we'd have a little more diversity with the 50 % cutoff. Ghilt (talk) 06:21, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Lowering the cutoff to 50% would require a quorum. -- Sleyece (talk) 06:50, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

yes, any changes in the charter need community confirmation. The imho most important change is to remove the '8 out of 16', because we cannot decide anything until then. Ghilt (talk) 07:06, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Personally I would suggest not to remove the "8 out of 16" as this might lead to small numbers of people in sessions making decisions later. That seems to me a pretty dangerous way to solve the current problem. I would rather think about lowering the cutoff to 51%. That would bring in more people, which still have a sufficient amount of trust in the community. Denis Barthel (talk) 09:00, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Even if we lower the cutoff to 50 % for elections (which i like), we still wouldn't have reached 16 elected people. If the community wants less than 16 in the U4C, whaddowedo? If the cutoff had been at 50 %, there would have been 3-4 more people elected = 7 + 3 or 4 = 10-11. 8 necessary votes out of 10 then means that there has to be a quorum of 80 % for decisions, which makes deciding much more difficult than the intended 50 %. Ghilt (talk) 11:28, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that electing the U4C as a whole with up to 16 people, resulting in the troubles to find enough candidates and requesting voters to go through so many candidate material, is a one-time effort. I am pretty confident that future votes will be better, as only up to 8 seats are open then and former members might run again, seeking only confirmation from voters.

Furthermore, the U4C does not require 16 people to work. It was always intended to offer up to 16 seats, but will work perfectly fine with less than 16. Denis Barthel (talk) 12:38, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

How do you interpret the 8 necessary for a vote as written in the charter? And will any number less than 16 mean that we only need 50 % for a decision, or more than 50 %? Ghilt (talk) 13:04, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

1. 8 means that no decision can be made, if there are less than 8 persons participating in a decision. Even a fully seated U4C wouldn't be able to decide upon anything, if less than 8 people cast their vote (pretty similiar to the German ArbCom, where at least 5 (resp. 3) persons need to vote to decide upon a matter).
2. No. If the U4C consists of 12 members, it still needs 8 to make a vote, that's at least what I recall. Maybe @Barkeep49 can add his thoughts on this?

Denis Barthel (talk) 13:44, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I am wondering if there are different uses of quorum. As I understand it in the ways I'm used to see it, quorum means the total number of people voting. But this understanding of "number needed for the majority" seems to be a commonly understood reading. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:28, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

• If the community voted to add my example system here to the U4C Charter, then a unanimous vote would allow Ruby and I to agree to break the tie, and the U4C could do whatever it wanted to fill the other seats immediately. -- Sleyece (talk) 07:04, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  In this hypothetical... why would it be you and Ruby to break the tie? The community is not better served by filling a seat just to fill it, especially if the community does not support the person that's supposed to break said tie. Hey man im josh (talk) 11:00, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  Well, my example system was placed as a hypothetical on April 5th without knowledge of this event. If the community voted on it Ruby D-Brown and I would have to break the tie because I did not know to account for other scenarios. Also, I defeated 6 other candidates if you're going by support, and I defeated two others by percentage. There are some in the community that support me. Ruby did better than I did. -- Sleyece (talk) 13:30, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  I'm just going to be blunt: You have the highest opposes, the lowest support-oppose ratio, and the third lowest percentage. There is no chance in you having any role at all in U4C voting matters. ferret (talk) 13:55, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  My example system would fix the current predicament. I would be derelict in my duty as a candidate if I didn't mention it as an option. -- Sleyece (talk) 14:20, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  Bluntly speaking, I don't think anyone understands what your suggestion even means. It is impossible to parse. Even you later admitted the thought process you had on 5 April was mistaken. Please do not bring it up again. Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk) 13:54, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  I was under medical restrictions not to talk publicly about my new medication at that time. My thought process was affected by my regulating emotions in a new way, per here. I could still read a document at that time. We need some solution. -- Sleyece (talk) 15:20, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  Sleyece, you received the third lowest support rate and lowest net votes of any candidate. There is no system in which you'd be breaking any "tie". Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 14:00, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  Currently, there is no system in which there could even be a tie. -- Sleyece (talk) 15:14, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

• I've put most of my thoughts on the Evaluation page, but I genuinely believe a lot of it came down to "There's no clear 'Guides' people can read, most people didn't want to do homework". Had the already made guides been highlighted properly (and a general space given for "general discussion") and securepoll having some easy ways to "sort alphabetical" and "support/oppose all"... Most voters would be more encouraged to actually engage with the elections. With so many barriers to voting effectively, I suspect a lot of them deferred to "Only support people I know" which does not lead to good results. Soni (talk) 07:59, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

• I think the results reflect a lack of qualified candidates interested. The results lined up with the voter guides, and elected people with significant experience (usually some combination of arb, steward and/or functionary experience) which seems an appropriate barrier for the (in theory) highest conduct enforcement body in the movement. It's also worth noting that the job itself isn't exactly fun - the main job of this committee will be to handle the endless small-wiki admin abuse cases at Requests for comment and similar.

If I were to improve the process, I would do a few things: reduce the number of seats, 16 is very high for a high-level body that does boring work. Will always be hard to find that many qualified candidates. Make it 10-12 with a quorum of 50%. Reduce the number of rules in the vote. Ditch the homewiki rule, and consider replacing the regional rule with either reserved seats for underrepresented communities/regions (maybe 3-4/12) or simply allow the U4C to appoint 3-4 members for any number of reasons, to include representing underrepresented regions. This way voters don't need to worry about voting strategically - they know they can just vote for their preferred candidates, and then the U4C itself can work out the details after the election to ensure appropriate diversity. Add flexibility to the charter. Wikis don't usually have such rigid processes, and IMO the charter - especially the first iteration - should be more of a living document than a set of strict rules. I think the failure to elect enough members to fill the quorum reflects the rigidity of this approach, and leaves us all scratching our heads with what to do next. Though I have thoughts on that I will include in a following section. – Ajraddatz (talk) 13:33, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for these thoughtful ideas @Ajraddatz. I am speaking only for myself and have not talked to any other U4C member about this. Given that it's supposed to be a coordinating committee, I am wondering if a smaller body would be possible accompanied with the expectation that the U4C delegate a lot/most/nearly all of the non-systemic issues. That is it coordinates enforcement rather than doing it directly. This would leave systemic issues to be handled. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:33, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Really depends on the workload that the U4C will see, I think. I would imagine that admins would continue to handle UCOC violations on local projects, and the U4C would only see appeals from projects without mature governance processes for the most part. Those (and systemic abuse cases) tend to be very rare and can usually be dismissed, based on my experience at RFC on Meta - think on the order of ~10 cases per year in both categories, with all but 2-3 being dismissed right away. With that workload a body of 10-12 wouldn't need to delegate anything. But it isn't clear how that workload may change once the U4C is in place and able to work (i.e. with quorum). I would generally favour an interative and flexible approach that can be scaled up, as opposed to something very rigidly defined from the start without any way to adapt to the circumstances. – Ajraddatz (talk) 17:34, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

@Ajraddatz on the one hand yes, iterative would be great. On the other hand, this is (as you note) potentially the most powerful enforcement body in the movement and so people wanting protections/safe guards in place also feels important to me. Any thoughts on how to practically balance those things? Barkeep49 (talk) 17:44, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Rigidity does not equal protection. The stewards group, for example, came about from a much more iterative process and has nonetheless not (systemically at least) overstepped local processes or local consensus. I think the same degree of protection against abuse from the U4C could have been achieved with some general policy rules (that it doesn't take over from other high-level bodies outside of systemic failure, etc.) without the need for a giant numbered page. Ironically, the very rigid charter also leaves two things - the user rights accessible/usable by the U4C and the rights granted to their delegates (and the manner by which that happens) - wide open and without any protections in place. It's not the end of the world, there is the annual review process, but we just wasted three months on an election that didn't produce a usable committee and are now going to spend more months wasted on discussion and further elections when a more bottom-up process could have avoided all of this in the first place. Just my 2c. – Ajraddatz (talk) 18:01, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

• I think 60% is good and changes to it just to fill seats might result in unsuitable candidates being elected. The election process was lengthy, the candidate pages and overall layout was poor. It was hard to navigate through candidates and I had to open several tabs just to get the details on one candidate. Honestly, I don't think expecting 16 competent candidates to be elected from first election is realistically possible. Also, I would like to point out that UCoC itself only passed with ~60% support, so it is likely that there are many who opposed the candidates as opposition to U4C as a whole. Maybe if the U4C is able to establish itself and resolve issues they were created to resolve and as a result gain community trust, more community support and participation can be expected.--BRP ^ever 15:42, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  @BRPever the UcOC has never been voted on. The enforcement guidelines were rejected with ~57% approval and then amended and ratified with ~76% approval. The Charter was ratified with ~70% approval. I think opposition to the U4C and/or the UCoC could help explain why support maxed out at ~68% and partially explain the fact that more than 50% of voters voted neutral for every single candidate but do think it important to note that there was fairly robust support for both the enforcement guidelines and the charter. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:41, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

  @Barkeep49 I might be recalling the First community ratification vote, but I think this is the major reason for lack of support. Many just don't want a body that dictates the civility of their wiki. I think the opinion in several cases only changed from, 'we don't want U4C' to 'U4C won't affect us'. BRP ^ever 05:30, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

  The amended guidelines and the Charter were ratified with Super-majority Approval. -- Sleyece (talk) 12:43, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Prequalfication before appearing on the candidate list

I notice that the two voter guides given above under that heading, closely corresponds to the end result. In the first one all green + one yellow was elected, in the second none of the red or yellow was elected. So if the red ones in these two had been taken off, the list to look through would have been reasonable. And I believe this would have lead to more people to participate in the voting, and more people elected Yger (talk) 05:00, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

The issue seems to be how they define the red list, as it is represents a much higher barrier. It also carries and considers only edits and contributions on-wiki where off-wiki activities (where the U4C are also supposed to work) are not decided at all. There are always reasons why people decide not to run for administrative posts. If communities are large enough and working, it is completely fine. However, for communities that are not working until recently (read: zhwiki), there are little to no incentive to run for these admin/functionary posts.

I think the issue seems to be the inability for the list to be flexible, but the current lower limit is technically also too low. I support the idea of increasing the lower limit, but not too much. Another solution is to limit the candidates to 24, though everyone can nominate themselves, only 24 people (who may be ranked through number of edits / roles that they hold, etc.) will appear in the final list. That may also be one possible solution. 1233 （T / C） 07:17, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

U4CBC yet not dissolved

Just as a reminder: the charter says "After the first session of the U4C, the U4CBC will be dissolved and the U4C will begin work as soon as possible." - That means, if the U4C would unanimously reject to meet and begin it's work, the U4CBC would be in charge again to modify the charter properly. It's up to the designated members of the U4C to make that decision first. Denis Barthel (talk) 09:24, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

The U4C does not have a quorum, so this is moot. -- Sleyece (talk) 13:32, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Appointment seeking confirmation in a RfC

The problem at the moment is that the U4C is unable to make any decisions due to its small size. At the same time, the realignment of an election is only possible very late in the year. Proposals that require a change to the charter cannot be implemented in the short term either.

What is needed, therefore, is a solution that can be implemented quickly, does not require a full election in the narrower sense and is within the rules of the charter.

I would suggest creating an RfC in which the U4C proposes the appointment of those three additional persons with more than 50% approval for one year and has this appointment confirmed by the community in the RfC? In this way, the U4C could quickly become operational without violating the charter and its spirit. Denis Barthel (talk) 09:38, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to this in principle, another alternative would be just appointing an additional member to reach minimum quorum. Here would be the seats to fill for the three people with approval >50% but <60%:

• RXerself for CAL seat for one year
• ProtoplasmaKid for CAL seat for one year
• NANöR only ran for Middle East and North Africa and did not choose CAL, and the MENA seat is already filled, so I'm unsure if they can fill any vacancy.

0xDeadbeef (talk) 10:18, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Appointing a very small number of candidates to reach the quorum is the best solution I've seen so far. I would be more in favor of appointing only one (RXerself), not because of any personal judgement against the candidates, but because that's the minimum needed to make a functioning U4C, and as Deadbeef points out it's not clear where we would put NANöR. Toadspike (talk) 11:55, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Having just 8 is very much sub-optimal - means the committee is just as dysfunctional if one of the members goes inactive for any reason. Leaderboard (talk) 11:58, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

My former suggestion actually was flawed, I am sorry for this. Appointments are only possible for persons who ran and received more than 60% approval and not for vacant seats. ("If there is an empty seat, whether because of resignations, removals, or no candidate was chosen for a regional seat in an election, the U4C may leave the seat empty and temporarily fill it during the next election, or the U4C may call a special election.An additional option in the case of resignation or removal is that the U4C may appoint a member who ran within the most recent election and received at least 60% support.")

There is only the option to call a special election for the vacant regional seats, which are North America (USA and Canada), Latin America and Caribbean, Central and East Europe (CEE), Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

If a RfC fits the definition of a "special election"(?), the U4C could suggest to include the most successful candidates of these regions there and ask for their confirmation. That's what is possible. Denis Barthel (talk) 13:04, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

The U4C would need a quorum to decide what counts as a special election. -- Sleyece (talk) 13:36, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes. That is why the community discusses it here. And asking for the validity of a RfC is pretty much a standard question in their texts. Denis Barthel (talk) 13:46, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

@Denis Barthel: Your suggestion is good because it's simple and complies with the Charter. A special election is the best way forward, whether or not it takes the form of an RFC, unless the community wants to wait a whole year for the next election. We only need the existing U4C to give the go-ahead. Ghilt, Ibrahim.ID, 0xDeadbeef, Barkeep49, Superpes15, Civvi, and Luke081515: You're all on the U4C. Can you make Denis' idea happen? Adrianmn1110 (talk) 11:42, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

The U4C is currently discussing possible options and next steps. 0xDeadbeef (talk) 12:15, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Noted below that I suggest an RfC to allow the U4C to appoint 3 members to a one-year term at their discretion, but fine to go with three-four runners up instead. I don't think we need to be worried about fiting in the wording of the U4C charter for this, consensus-based decision making is a general wiki principle and at worst, this seems like a good IAR situation. – Ajraddatz (talk) 13:45, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Not strictly opposed to using RfC to resolve a problem, however it should be as well advertised and attended as the RfC that recently created the rule requiring 60% support for members to override that consensus. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:10, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Denis, saying it in German to avoid misunderstanding: Ich befürchte, daß die gewählten Mitglieder in ihrem Amt durch die Misere bereits beschädigt wurden und weitere Versuche, durch Verbiegen der Satzung das Amt noch weiter beschädigen wird. Man wird um eine ordentliche Änderung der Satzung kaum herumkommen, samt langwierigem Ratifizierungsprozess. Nach meinem Verständnis der Charter kann das U4C gar keine Maßnahmen ergreifen, weil gar kein U4C zustandegekommen ist. Tatsächlich handelt es sich um einen technischen Fehler der Charter, weil nicht unterschieden wurde zwischen der Beschlußfähigkeit des U4C und dem Zustandekommen des U4C selbst, vulgo der Konstituierung des Gremiums. Bei der Konstituierung des Bundestags wäre das Problem nicht entstanden, weil da automatisch Kandidaten nachrücken, die bislang nicht zum Zuge gekommen sind. Das schließt die U4C-Wahlordnung aus. Hier können nur Kandidaten nachrücken, die selbst gewählt wurden, und das ist hier nicht der Fall. Please translate if useful. thanks. Matthiasb (talk) 12:41, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Suggestion what to do next

I strongly object to not respect the outcome of this election. I see the setup of the election as fair and reasonable, including the limit of 60%, also there have been enough voters to make it a viable election. And the solution to it being elected too few is clear and stated, start a new election. And because of vote fatigue, I suggest waiting a year until March 2025. And to get the body operative, I would suggest asking the community to accept it could work with a quorum of six until nest election. Yger (talk) 13:18, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

While I fully agree with you concerning respecting the outcome of the election - if you ask the community to accept working with a lesser quorum then before, you'd have to run a vote as it requires changing the charter (or break the rules). Wouldn't it be easier then to call a special election for the vacant regional seats as the charter says? North America (USA and Canada), Latin America and Caribbean, Central and East Europe (CEE), Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are still vacant, even one seated person would be sufficient then. Denis Barthel (talk) 13:30, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

As I noted above, we are really backed into a corner here with the very rigid and inflexible charter - this should be avoided in favour of a more living and iterative document in the future. I think the best path forward here is a community RfC allowing the U4C to appoint 3 members to a one-year term, at their own discretion, to fill this immediate need. From a wiki-legal standpoint that would still respect the principle of consensus-based decision making and would take much less time than a special election to fill possibly more seats than the actual election filled. – Ajraddatz (talk) 13:36, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

This is not in the Charter. The U4C would need a quorum to decide that a RfC fits the definition of a special election. The RfC would have to also amend the charter, or the 1 year term you propose would have to proceed a full election. So, by your proposal as the Charter is written, the RfC would result in the vacancies being filled one year from now. The appointments would serve 1 year preceding an election of all members. So, your system leaves the U4C without a quorum for nearly 1 year. -- Sleyece (talk) 13:43, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

The U4C charter is a policy document, it should always be subject to revision or supplementation by community consensus. Section 4.3.2 even explicitly says that modification is possible with community consensus - it only lists an annual review, but there is nothing in the wording restricting it to just that. And regardless I think you could make an IAR argument here - the charter wasn't intended to prevent the committee from working, and given the circumstances another election does not seem to be the ideal solution. – Ajraddatz (talk) 13:50, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Respectfully, I have to say your suggestion would violate the spirit of the Charter. If the Charter could be amended by RFCs, nothing would stop any small group of people from bypassing the U4C annual review. They could just hold an RFC, intentionally tell as few others as possible about said RFC, and vote to adjust the Charter without engaging with most of the Wikimedia community. As Dennis said below, global RFCs usually don't have a lot of participators.

I favor Dennis's suggestion for the U4C to create an RFC that serves as a special election. That way, we wouldn't be touching the Charter. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 20:15, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

@Sleyece - As above: That is why the community discusses it here. And asking for the validity of a RfC is pretty much a standard question in their texts.

@Ajraddatz - having that said, I would prefer to have a question in the RfC that stays within the limits and rules of the charter. Global RfC's rarely have a strong participation and a low vote count would probably damage the institution of the U4C a lot. It already has a legacy problem with the UCoC that has never been voted for, so we shouldn't create a new one. Denis Barthel (talk) 13:52, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

The U4C would need a quorum to decide that a RfC fits the definition of a special election. Until the U4C is seated formally, U4CBC and Electcom would also be able to make the same decision. If you want to specifically go by rules as written, no flexibility allowed, both those bodies should have leeway to decide what happens here. So an RFC based appointment approach could very well be completely alright.

Also, what Ajraddatz said about community consensus. As long as those rules are followed, there can easily be an additional clause made to allow this. Ultimately, it depends on the elected U4C members and how they would prefer to handle this Soni (talk) 13:53, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

The charter explicitly says "When there is no quorum, the U4C will continue to work on matters where no vote is needed and call a special election if needed." (3.4) The U4C has the right to call for a special election, regardless of it's size. And as the "special election" is not defined specifically, the U4C is allowed to give it the appropriate form. Which should be discussed with the community. Q.E.D. Denis Barthel (talk) 13:57, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm fine with that too, I understand the impulse to follow the charter as closely as possible. Definitely no issues with your proposal. – Ajraddatz (talk) 14:04, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree, and I believe we all agree that the U4C could and should call a (special) election. But I am still all against the U4c with RfC decides on the composition of the. Only community in election can do that Yger (talk) 14:06, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying. Denis Barthel (talk) 14:42, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

The U4C must be formally seated even without a quorum because the charter says they can do their work, but they can't vote on anything. Also, I did briefly mention above that the proposed RfC could be used to amend the Charter to fix this. -- Sleyece (talk) 14:03, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

The u4c members could work on many things. They are all experienced and capable persons, so I assume they'll figure out ways.

• They need to build some basic infrastruture (mailing list, special wiki, pages on meta to make a case,....)
• Reports on UCOC violations
• Recommendations on changing the charter.
• Help implement the incident reporting tools (I think the enforcement guidelines mention them)
• Help with training material
• For cases it seems they cannot make decisions (like (un-)block a user), but they can hear cases, investigate, get a feeling for what is going on.

Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 14:19, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

 Like Yger (talk) 14:25, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

From The Signpost (trying to clean up an edit conflict now)

I am a reporter for The Signpost and am writing a brief story on this election. We'll publish late tomorrow or the next day (June 3 or 4). It would be a bummer to report "Since there is no quorum, U4C will not be able to function until (some distant time) when an election will be held to fill the vacant spots." But it looks like you are making good progress and expect to quickly fill the seats. Could 2-3 of the elected candidates write a sentence or 2 that I can quote saying what the expected solution is. I'll note that it is still a tentative solution. I'll probably only use one person's quote, picking the best written, clearest, or closest to consensus one. But I just want to confirm (what I see above), that you are very close to consensus. Any help appreciated. Smallbones (talk) 05:41, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think we have an agreed upon solution that we would expect to use to quickly fill the seats. Any proposed solution is likely to be faced with opposition or would require another poll earliest in September. The few people discussing solutions here do not represent a consensus that can be used to implement a change to the charter, so there doesn't appear to be any progress. 0xDeadbeef (talk) 09:04, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Agree. To do this in the most correct way, we need to hold another secure poll election. Even though I am skeptical that the community will fill the empty 9 seats. But additional remedies are also being discussed here, like asking the community to vote on rule changes. It is obvious that the current set of rules is partially dysfunctional. Ghilt (talk) 09:16, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Ok, I'm just the reporter - you folks actually make the news. Here is a draft of the relevant paragraphs (full draft at [1] );

"U4C election results in no quorum

"The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) announced the results of the first U4C elections on May 31, with only seven of the sixteen seats filled. Thirty other candidates did not collect the required 60% support from the voters.

"Eight members of the committee are required to form a quorum to vote or to make any decision, though the committee may still operate as a discussion forum. The only exception is that they may set the scope and call a special election to seat additional members. 0xDeadbeef, one of the newly elected members, states that a new election could be held "earliest in September" and that so far "there doesn't appear to be any progress" in finding a way to secure a quorum. Another newly elected member, Ghilt adds that changes to the rules are contemplated: 'It is obvious that the current set of rules is partially dysfunctional.' "

I'm sorry to say it, but these factual paragraphs makes the newly elected members look totally ineffectual. There is IMHO a way to have a snap election that will get at least one additional member within a month, that would not violate any rules. My readers will be left wondering why the heck you don't get on with it. Smallbones (talk) 14:28, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

@Smallbones what is your understanding of a snap election? Ghilt (talk) 14:34, 2 June 2024 (UTC) PS: we are waiting for an answer from EC on when another secure poll election can be held technically as soon as possible.

Results were announced by KTC, ElectCom member [2]

If you quote Deadbeef's "earliest in September" you should add some reasons: Too many other elections like board elections and Movement Charter Ratification. Elections are possible right now, but not reasonable.

Also, the u4c could do more then just serve as a discussion forum, see here. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 14:58, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

@Der-Wir-Ing: Thanks for the copy editing suggestions. Your suggestions on what the U4C could do if they don't have the ability to vote or make decisions (above) is very impressive - but ultimately a discussion forum can pretty much make the same suggestions unofficially, that the U4C could suggest in a slightly more official position. Do you have a better word than "discussion forum"? Smallbones (talk) 15:14, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

To be honest, the charter is somewhat vage. u4c can't make "decisions" but what exactly is a decision? The Charter mentions two sub-committees: Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Coordinating_Committee/Charter#3.5._Subcommittees:

The U4C Building Committee suggests that at least two subcommittees are created within the U4C at the time of formation. One subcommittee for the prevention, training and reports pertaining to the U4C work and the second subcommittee for the review and handling of cases.

I feel like "decisions" or at least decisions that require a quorum, refers only to cases, but not to training and reports. But that's my interpretation.

So maybe you just want to explain that no case desisions can be made, but that maybe some other work is possible. With ongoing discussion. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 15:27, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I don't mind being quoted, but the reason for an election being earliest in September is due to the amount of elections we have going on, with Movement Charter/Ratification/Voting ending in July, and Wikimedia Foundation elections/2024 ending towards the end of September. The time window in between is quite narrow and will likely introduce additional voter fatigue. I'm not suggesting that it would be impossible to get an election in August just before the board elections, and I'm not making an official U4C statement until this has been discussed by the U4C. 0xDeadbeef (talk) 03:39, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

@Smallbones I am interested in finding the best path forward for the U4C while respecting the charter and enforcement guidelines since each were approved by a fairly large number of community members. I don't know what that path will be, but I am honored to be in the company of my new colleagues and am excited to work together on charting that path. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:10, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

@Ghilt: My working definition of "snap election" in this case: a secure poll that could be planned, completed, and scrutinized within 1 month. Perhaps an example of how I think this could be done is need. But please understand that I am not suggesting this particular plan - the plan is up to the committee.

• Week 1 - U4C members decide on the plan and check with the election committee to see if it is technically feasible.
• Week 2 - the plan is announced, e.g
  • A special election will be held the following week for the 4 unfilled community-at-large seats. The only candidates allowed will be the 4 unelected candidates in this last election who received 50% or above Support. All other rules will stay the same. (My reading of the current rules allows this) Publicizing the election will be a major task of course.
• Week 3 - the election is held for 7 days.
• Week 4 - the votes are scrutinized and the results are announced.

This is the type of thing that any "special election" needs to accomplish. It's not ideal, there are several arbitrary choices, but having an effective elected body is more important than having a "perfect election". Smallbones (talk) 15:46, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Currently there's an ongoing election for zhwiki and there's another SecurePoll election afterwards, so anything that involves SecurePoll, as far as I know, will just need another month or two just to correctly set up and scrutinize, unless there's a compromise. 1233 （T / C） 16:26, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Going backwards your plan:

• One week for scruting and announcing: Took this time 3 weeks. Reasons was patially a back and forth between scrutineer, Foundation and ElectCom.
• Election for 7 days, why not.
• One week between announcing the plan and starting the election. But you have to inform the voters. That takes time to write the mass mails, write and prepare the banners etc. Not much time. You also have to ask those 4 candidates if they are willing to do that.
• One week for deciding on a plan, a back and forth between 2 commitees where one would need like 3 weeks. That's ambitious. Committees are just very bad at making fast decisions. They have a strong tendency to make slow and good decisions or no decisions.

Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 16:35, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

A slow decision in this case IMHO will be a bad decision. If the earliest election date is really September, then I'd guess the expected date is December or January, and the results announcement is perhaps in February. Does anybody find that acceptable? If Secure poll can only do one election at a time, then there is nothing you can do about that except be ready when a one week window opens. And you can't control the scrutineers, but you can let them know that this will be a short election with fewer candidates and fewer voters. Letting the previous voters (who have enabled their emails) know about this election shouldn't be that difficult. A couple of banners also shouldn't be difficult. All in all, I think you are trying to make this too difficult. Electing 1-4 people who have already received a majority of support really shouldn't be too difficult. (This is the last of my responses - this hasn't turned out to be in the usual reporting style). Smallbones (talk) 17:09, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

So many things should not be difficult but are. Anyways, we could start perparing an election in September with the results to expect in October. That's quite possible. But uncertain. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 17:34, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Every solution that is proposed is going to have another user immediately come in and say they unilaterally speak for the community to declare that the option won't work. It's going to happen in some capacity for every proposal. I think the community should have an options election. The community should vote among all options presented on this page as to what will be added to the charter to fix the predicament at hand here. -- Sleyece (talk) 18:29, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

And as I have already said, I am against starting with these four names. An election is an election and should be run in full Yger (talk) 17:11, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

• Different suggestion: Instead of voting on more members, vote to rescind the committee charter. It's pretty clear that there are big problems with it; that was obvious even as candidates were self-nominating. The charter mandates a Support/Neutral/Oppose voting system (i.e., ranked voting cannot be used) for candidates, which has been proving increasingly problematic for a long time. The requirement that all regions *must* be represented, without a positive method for ensuring that (a) suitable candidates are available and (b) there is a way to ensure that at least one candidate from each region succeeds, has proven pretty much fatal. I think the problem here is that a charter was written without the knowledge and experience of what the committee needs to function. I think there is a lot of aspirational thinking in that charter that is not based on reality, which is not the way to write a binding document. The problem is the charter, much more so than the candidates. As an aside, despite lots of advertising, this vote still only attracted 1300 of the ~70,000 eligible voters. That may raise the question of whether or not this committee is needed at all. Risker (talk) 02:42, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

  Strong Oppose: Going scorched earth on the charter at this point could be legally compromising for the foundation for a number of reasons. Firstly, who exactly would vote to throw out the baby with the bath water? It's not going to be a 7 member U4C. I think the mere suggestion that the charter is going to be scrapped on a arbitrary whim due to a minor inconvenience is proof positive that the U4C is necessary. I am against this suggestion as even a remotely viable option. -- Sleyece (talk) 04:02, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for your feedback Risker, I'm still processing it all, but some questions/thoughts I am considering related to points you raise:

  • The current system allowed for fewer than the maximum number of seats to be filled which promptly happened. Is this a good thing or bad thing on the whole? Is there a better alternative to Support/Neutral/Oppose which could still allow this to happen which is easy for voters in a large field?
  • For me, representation for representation's sake isn't important. Instead I want committee that will make good decisions with-in its scope and research shows that you need a variety of experiences and perspectives to make that happens. And you also need a group that will be seen as legitimate by others. The regional representation is one way to do that. But it's not the only way. So what is the best way to achieve this goal? Is the problem regionalism or is the problem an election?
  • Just how perfect does a charter for a committee like the U4C need to be in order for the committee to start working? It's not a coincidence that the current ewniki ARBPOL reflects a complete rewrite after several years of that committee working, for instance. Can a more iterative method, that is still seen as strong enough to safeguard against a committee that a number of people fear, be found?

  In terms of your point about the number of people who voted, I have expressed concern with that total elsewhere. But for the same reasons that I wrote about the enwiki elite I think any vote like this is going to have an electorate that is only a small subset of our active editors, but the silence of those same editors in votes to approve the enforcement guidelines and charter could just as easily be taken as assent as dissent. I also don't recall seeing any sort of minimum number of editors proposed in any of the Movement Charter drafts that you've helped produce with the MCDC (and if I'm wrong pelase correct me as I would be happy to consider something) so it's not like what's there is out of line with what other groups have produced. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:27, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Ghit, Barkeep and Der-Wir-Ing

• start the group
• let them define och create necessary infrastructure (it will take at least six months) as written by Der-Wir-Ing
• let the group disucuss and find out if a minor revison of the charter is necessary (like the wording of need of quorum)
• let them plan a new (special) election at end of year/early 2025

Yger (talk) 05:03, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that a committee that can't decide anything is helpful. If there is a new election, the new members could possibly decide to do the things in a different way. I like the idea of only having a new election for the vacant regional seats only in these regions, if this is technical possible. Ailura (talk) 09:31, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

In my understanding a committe without reaching a quorum isn't a committee at all.

However, de:Benutzer:Ghilt has marked his homewiki user page as inactive recently. It would be useful if he declares wether he means a temporary absence only due to holidays or another shortime absence or whatever this shall mean. Thanks. Matthiasb (talk) 12:22, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

The committee in it's current form may do any work that does not require a vote. -- Sleyece (talk) 12:38, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

There are multiple proposals on this page that would allow the committee to have the power to vote on issues immediately if put to a vote by the community. Each proposal has been immediately replied to by someone whining. -- Sleyece (talk) 14:55, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

As a candidate, albeit a failed one, I would have expected you to have read and understood the UCoC and of course to act in compliance with it. Perhaps you could explain how describing those who objected to your proposal as whining meets the expectations described under the section called "Mutual respect".

"Assume good faith, and engage in constructive edits; your contributions should improve the quality of the project or work. Provide and receive feedback kindly and in good faith. Criticism should be delivered in a sensitive and constructive manner." Doug Weller (talk) 16:15, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

I am delivering constructive criticism. Everything since the results were delivered June 1 has been obstructive. I would like some work to get done. Maybe I'm not being sensitive as the charter dictates, but no one is being sensitive to me either. I've been treated consistently with immense and overwhelming scrutiny throughout the campaign that would be beyond the pale if I weren't running for office. I did not fail as a candidate. I'm equally successful as a candidate as 30 of 37 who ran, and I defeated several candidates outright on the margins in some categories. Calling me a failure is exceedingly rude and factually untrue. -- Sleyece (talk) 18:46, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

I think the concern is that some of your responses are still demonstrating a lack of understanding (as an unsuccessful candidate you have indeed "failed" the election, though I agree that verbage is not ideal - and WMF Legal has no role here so I'm not sure what that comment is about). Having said your bit, I'd recommend sitting back and letting others discuss - that's generally a good wikiprinciple and one which I'm also following here. – Ajraddatz (talk) 20:09, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

My definition of failed is simply “not succeeded”. And if I read the results correctly, and apologies if I failed to, Sleyece received the most opposes of all the candidates although he did better in some other categories. Doug Weller (talk) 20:31, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support developing current process Risker's criticism is all commonsense and valid to ask but there are answers to their points.

I agree with all the failures that Risker names, including election systems giving results which are hard to interpret, low voter awareness and turnout, mismatch of community diversity expectations and the electable candidate pool, and the difficulty of top-down creation of a new community system which will bottom-up management. I am ready to dismiss all of these concerns, though, because criticism like this fails to include discussion of money.

We do not have financial transparency, but my best guess is that the WMF spends several million dollars annually on non-community responses to conduct problems which we could prevent through this Code of Conduct Committee. At the same time, the thousands of volunteers who developed the code of conduct, and who implement it, and who develop dozens of systems which integrate it have a budget of nearly $0. English Wikipedia's ArbCom has no money, Wikimedia Stewards have no budget, there is no investment in training for checkusers, admins, or anyone else who does moderation. Wikimedia LGBT+ deals with actual sexual cases and we have no access to counseling, expert guidance, or volunteer support. This committee work is complicated administration which could be facilitated in lots of ways with either grants or community staff support or help with publicity, journalism, outreach, or multilingual feedback recruitment, and that budget is not there. In general, the investment strategy we have is that the WMF can reactively deploy money to address challenges of their choosing, but community members cannot reasonably access similar funds to proactively build scalable solutions to implement democratically developed strategic plans. The path to success is easy to explain - WMF finds success in their programs because they pay staff to do them, and the community struggles because some people expect volunteer crowdsourcing to have similar achievements but without the hundred thousand dollars per development ticket.

Now is probably not the time to seek grants or paid staff support but I do think it is legitimate to dismiss naysayers who have paid-professional expectations when this program's design emphasizes that we are volunteers who want a process which is democratic, diverse, community-run, and developed with repeated changes. I really appreciate Risker's legitimate and needed criticism because 1) those really are the problems with this project and 2) those problems would be the most urgent to address in the context of a resourced project, but that is not the situation here. The governance model here is that paid staff of the Wikimedia Foundation presented the Code of Conduct and community volunteers who lack the resources to ensure success have to build the thing under pressure, and I am open to criticism in that context. Bluerasberry (talk) 14:59, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the intent is to offload WMF work onto the community - T&S will continue to handle the difficult and legally sensitive cases, both because they are best positioned to do so and also to minimize legal risk to the Foundation. There may be some small number of current T&S cases that could be offloaded to the U4C, but the vast majority of the T&S workload would remain with them. The U4C fits where current community conduct moderation is lacking - appeals of small wiki admin actions, systemic failures to enforce the UCOC, etc. You can see how well those cases are currently resolved at Requests for comment. All this to say, unlike with the Movement Charter I don't think money really comes into play here. This is more about empowering the community to deal with some cases that are sitting in limbo (and future cases like them). – Ajraddatz (talk) 19:15, 5 June 2024 (UTC)