I'm pretty sure it was at least the year before, though I could be wrong. I don't agree that arbcom is irrelevant to WP editors generally speaking. Arbcom has a significant effect on culture, which effects everyone, and additionally, many eligible voters who likely don't realize they are eligible are both significant contributors of content - direct or indirect - like a lot of GLAM and EDU folks, are likely to spend enough to time to evaluate and vote for the candidates that best support their values and interests.
As a minor example, Brian Carver (who meets the eligibility requirements, though he only has 300 edits under his own account, since he normally edits anonymously) has taught grad students using Wikipedia longer than I've edited Wikipedia, and is the reason why a huge number of cyberlaw articles exist at all, let alone are generally well-sourced and pretty comprehensive (the list of articles his userpage lists is significantly less than complete - not every student adds theirs.) I don't know if he votes or not (I've never asked him,) but I know he has an interest in the climate of ENWP as a whole, and certainly a significant investment in the education program (which at times, especially before the WEF, was likely headed to a nasty arb case.) I'm also pretty positive he'd spend the time necessary to be an informed voter - and he is far from the only such person. (He's prominent and public enough that I feel comfortable naming him without asking first, but I can think of plenty of other examples of similar situations.)
It is generally accepted to be best practice by pretty much any group that holds elections to inform eligible voters that they are eligible to vote,
Best, Kevin Gorman
On Thu, Oct 22, 2015 at 6:32 PM, Daniel and Elizabeth Case dancase@frontiernet.net wrote:
Daniel: your suggestion doesn't reflect the fact that 2014's election had roughly 60% the voters of the year before. We definitely didn't have anywhere near that much of a drop in editing metrics.
It wasn't a "suggestion". My point, more bluntly, was that there are an awful lot of Wikipedians, maybe not all or even many of them people who make edits on a daily basis, but do so regularly, for whom the ArbCom is irrelevant. And that perception would be independent of any editing metrics.
On another note, was 2014 the year we went to a secret ballot to elect arbitrators? Or had that been the year before?
Dan Case
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