RationalWiki:2019 board of trustees election/Results

2019 board of trustees election results!

Results prepared by NekoDysk.

tl;dr winners are;

(For the full list of current trustees see this page)

Array

 * 1) $wgElectionCandidates = array("Ariel314159", "Cosmikdebris", "DuceMoosolini", "FuzzyCatPotato", "Spud");

.blt file
Formatted to remove user IDs and add election data

5 3 1 4 5 3 2 1 0 1 5 4 0 1 5 2 4 3 1 0 1 2 4 3 5 0 1 1 0 1 4 5 3 0 1 3 5 2 4 0 1 4 3 5 2 1 0 1 4 5 3 2 0 1 1 3 4 5 0 1 3 2 5 1 0 1 2 1 3 4 5 0 1 4 5 3 2 1 0 1 4 2 3 5 1 0 1 4 5 3 0 1 5 4 3 2 0 1 4 5 2 3 1 0 1 3 5 2 4 0 1 4 5 0 1 1 3 0 1 1 3 0 1 4 5 2 0 1 3 1 5 4 2 0 1 4 5 2 3 0 1 1 5 3 2 4 0 1 4 3 5 2 1 0 0 "Ariel314159" "Cosmikdebris" "DuceMoosolini" "FuzzyCatPotato" "Spud" "2019 rationalwiki foundation board election"

Result
superuser@linux-fbix:~/openstv/openstv> python runElection.py MeekSTV "/home/superuser/Downloads/trustees2019.blt" OpenSTV version 1.7 (http://www.OpenSTV.org/)

Loading ballots from file trustees2019.blt. Ballot file contains 5 candidates and 26 ballots. No candidates have withdrawn. Ballot file contains 26 non-empty ballots.

Counting votes for 2019 rationalwiki foundation board election using Meek STV. 5 candidates running for 3 seats.

R|Ariel314159      |Cosmikdebris      |DuceMoosolini     |FuzzyCatPotato |--+--+--+-- |Spud              |Exhausted         |Surplus           |Threshold

=
================================================================= 1|         5.000000|          2.000000|          4.000000|         12.000000  |          3.000000|          0.000000|          5.499999|          6.500001  |---  | Count of first choices. Candidate FuzzyCatPotato has reached the threshold | and is elected.

=
================================================================= 2|         5.000000|          2.458333|          4.916666|          6.500004  |          7.124997|          0.000000|          0.624999|          6.500001  |---  | Count after transferring surplus votes. Keep factors of candidates who | have exceeded the threshold: FuzzyCatPotato, 0.541667. Candidate Spud has | reached the threshold and is elected.

=
================================================================= 3|         6.000000|                  |          5.833332|          7.041671  |          7.124997|          0.000000|          1.166666|          6.500001  |---  | Count after eliminating Cosmikdebris and transferring votes. All losing | candidates are eliminated.

=
================================================================= 4|         6.000000|                  |          6.394718|          6.631590  |          6.842106|          0.131586|          0.539488|          6.467104  |---  | Count after transferring surplus votes. Keep factors of candidates who | have exceeded the threshold: FuzzyCatPotato, 0.500001 and Spud, 0.912282.

=
================================================================= 5|         6.000000|                  |          6.684694|          6.540253  |          6.563345|          0.211708|          0.447070|          6.447074  |---  | Count after transferring surplus votes. Keep factors of candidates who | have exceeded the threshold: FuzzyCatPotato, 0.487600 and Spud, 0.862282. | Candidate DuceMoosolini has reached the threshold and is elected.

Winners are DuceMoosolini, FuzzyCatPotato, and Spud.

Winners
Winners are, , and.

Voters
E.Wig, Annanoon, Greenrd, Spud, ScepticWombat, David Gerard, RWRW, Nutty Roux, CogitoNotStirred, Ariel31459, GrammarCommie, Cosmikdebris, D, DuceMoosolini, Spriggina, RobSmith, Raysenn, Conscience, LeftyGreenMario, Avida Dollars, FuzzyCatPotato, Tinribmancer, Bongolian, Public School Girl, brxbrx, Summa Atheologica


 * People that voted: 26
 * Registered voters: 171
 * Voter turnout: 15.2%

Low turnout — ideas?
Wow, that turnout kinda sucked. Any idea about whether it was due to: Or some combination of all of the above? With such a low turnout, both numerically and proportionally, it could be relatively easy to swing an RW board election, making it quite vulnerable to block votes, troll candidates etc.; quite apart from more principled concerns about legitimacy.
 * 1) Auto registration of voters who didn’t care for the election?
 * 2) The confusion about the election dates (causing registered voters to miss the election)?
 * 3) General apathy?
 * 4) Other factors?

I’m not raising this issue because I consider either the process or the results to be illegitimate or undesirable, but to try to find out why the turnout was so low and maybe/hopefully get a higher one next time around and make these elections less vulnerable to potential shenanigans. ScepticWombat (talk) 10:46, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Most voters on that list are 8-10 years old, many've left RW. A better metric might be voters / active members in last month.
 * That said, the number is low. Maybe the delayed voting hurt it? 17:32, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Delayed voting, I totally forgot about it in the end. — Oxyaena Harass  18:08, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * So, at least reasons 1 and 2 seem to have had an actual impact. I had a hunch that some of those on the election roster were “auto registered” despite not actually being active (or even present at all) on RW. That lessen my concerns somewhat. I agree with Oxyaena that after the long delay, the actual opening of the voting booth should probably had been more clearly announced via a site notice, rather than simply the update in the “hey, what’s happening with the election” section in the saloon bar. I checked that section regularly after I first thought I had forgotten about and missed the election, but it’s hardly the most eye catching venue for announcing that the polls are open. ScepticWombat (talk) 18:40, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * As noted above the registered voters page isn't an accurate way of judging turnout since it contains people who no longer edit. That said voter turnout was low (last years Mod and RMF elections had 42 and 37 voters respectively). Why this happened I don't know. The 'polls are open' sitenotice definitely appeared on my screen. --RWRW (talk) 00:43, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * As a relative newcomer, I feel a bit embarrassed at being 4% of the vote. Would it be possible in future to email election notices to eligible users? Might that raise turnout? CogitoNotStirred (via telepathy) (talk) 01:18, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Quite apart from the technical aspect (or whether it would make a difference), emails about elections might conflict with EU GDPR legislation (which has very much tightened the need for prior, specific and explicit consent when it comes to such things) for those users that are EU citizens, so I’d be a bit wary about such an initiative. ScepticWombat (talk) 08:02, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * A similar suggestion - Wikipedia has a bot that sends a talk page message to eligible voters when they hold their annual elections. Maybe that's something that gets looked at here. --RWRW (talk) 12:43, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Given the feedback I think in the next election (the 2019 mod elections as it happens) we should take the liberty of informing all registered voters by talk page message/email, and making a prominent posting on the saloon bar when voting is open. I suspect this will end up having to be done manually although automation will be considered. 19:52, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Andrew Yang wants to know your location. — Oxyaena Harass  20:37, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

It's pretty clear what happened to me
The vote was announced but there was no link at the top of the screen to the election booth. Late in the saloon there was talk about "shouldn't we actually open the voting booth at some point...hahaha". I personally checked to see if the voting booth was open, in case the site announcement (link at the top of the page) wasn't working on my account. Voting booth wasn't open. Since then there was no change in any site announcements or talk about this in the saloon. First thing I've seen in days was the announcement with the election results, which is also the first site announcement (link at the top of the page) I've seen for quite a few days. I worked it out and my votes would have made no difference per the results but I have a feeling other users didn't realise the voting booth was actually open. Shabi DOO  17:57, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * There was talk about it in the “hey, weren’t we supposed to have an election?” section in the saloon bar, as that was where I found out when the voting booth was about to open. But I agree that it was a pretty low-key announcement and I only found it because I checked that particular section regularly after I first thought I had forgotten to vote (before I found out about the delay via the saloon bar). ScepticWombat (talk) 18:47, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * There was a sitenotice with a link to the voting booth up for a week. 18:54, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I guess I missed those lines about the vote in the saloon. The site notice didn't show up for me for some reason. I wonder if I was the only one. Shabi  DOO  23:53, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It didn't show up for me either, either that or I wasn't paying attention. — Oxyaena Harass  14:08, 29 August 2019

(UTC)
 * I honestly don't know what the big deal is, because most of the active users except Oxy voted as well as some sleepers who haven't been active in a long time. As others have said, there are several people registered who are long gone or aren't very active, if someone wanted to pull of some conspiracy as suggested, the few regular contributors who didn't participate wouldn't off set it. 172.58.11.93 (talk) 19:09, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Congrats
Best of luck to the new trustees. It was almost exciting to participate, even though the interest was low. Thanks to the users who voted for me. Congratulations to the winners, FuzzyCP, DuceM, and Spud. Ariel31459 (talk) 17:46, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Congratulations Comrades!!! 23:15, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

meh
I wasn't paying too much attention to vote. I have only a vague inkling of what the job entailed - legal issues and taxes? seems more like proper work that the election process did not seem to me too useful in establishing the suitability of a particular candidate. CVs and the like, not just on wiki behaviour. my judgement would also probs be lacking. No one seemed especially egregious so meh. AMassiveGay (talk) 19:57, 31 August 2019 (UTC)