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I've emailed ArbCom regarding the candidates with private alt-accounts listed on their disclosures (Maxim, BDD, TonyBallioni, and SMcCandlish) as they are the only ones that can validate that there is not something related to such alt accounts that would preclude the candidate running for ArbCom. I don't expect any trouble and we historically get a response from someone on the committee to that affect. I've asked for a reply here. I'm going to add the mechanics of this function to next year's RfC to see if there is room for improvement. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 19:23, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks for the ping. I emailed my declaration to ArbCom. I didn't get a response, but am not sure if I should have expected one. Standing by in case anything more is needed of me. --BDD (talk) 20:40, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
• Right-o.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:28, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
• The Arbitration Committee can confirm that Maxim, BDD, TonyBallioni, and SMcCandlish have privately disclosed former or alternative accounts to us. We would note that it is not clear whether SMcCandlish's alternate account is in fact a privacy account, since he has indicated that it has been disclosed on-wiki previously, and that he is willing to identify it to editors that ask (User:SMcCandlish/Arbitration_Committee_Elections_2020#Alternative_account), and there has been some overlap in editing with his main account. Otherwise, we are not aware of anything related to the alternative accounts that would preclude these editors from standing in the election. For ArbCom, – Joe (talk) 19:07, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

  Electoral Commission note: For SMcCandlish, the Arbitration Committee passed the Electoral Commission information about his private account and deferred to us to decide whether the account needs to be more clearly disclosed in order for SMcCandlish to remain an eligible candidate. We have reviewed the information they gave us, and we have decided that in the interest of privacy we will allow his candidacy to proceed as it currently is, without the account's public disclosure. Mz7 (talk) 20:06, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

  I appreciate the ElectCom's decision to take privacy (and what the user account policy actually says) seriously, even if the present ArbCom will not. I have posted a short statement on ArbCom's strange aspersion-casting above. It's intended for readers of this page and other voters in ACE2020 (it does not get into every issue I have raised with ArbCom about this, but this isn't the time or place for it).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:05, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

  (It's a bit odd to have your own discussion page about ACE in your userspace when there is a page specifically for discussing your candidacy built into the ACE process. ) Speaking only for myself, I can say I supported deferring to the Electoral commission to make the final decision because it is not appropriate for us to take any direct action which could influence the election (short of an emergency situation, which this clearly is not). However, we had to make some kind of public post about it, and given the unusual situation with your alt account we simply described the situation. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:17, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

  @Beeblebrox: Did you skim the instructions? :-) WP:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2020/Candidates: "Statements must: ... (ii) not exceed a limit of 400 words[b] (although candidates are free to link to a longer statement if they wish)". Cf. candidate Barkeep49's much more detailed ACE2020 side page (honestly better than mine!). What is odd is two Arbs turning this here into a circular "debate" (loathed at ArbCom-related pages), after saying in today's ArbCom e-mail said you [ArbCom, not you individually] did not want to debate this. Why not just do what anyone would normally expect? Substantively respond to my e-mail asking you [plural] to provide this evidence you think you have, and address my step-by-step refutation of your vague "opinion" and "suspicion" that my alt violated some nit-pick of user account policy. This is not much to ask at all. If I screwed up somewhere, like wasn't paying attention and !voted with both accounts in the same RfC, e-mail me the diffs, and I'll be the first to say I erred, right here.

  I do appreciate your consideration of the matter and deference to ElectCom, but that doesn't really resolve the central issue. And I know the suspicious opinion is not unanimous on ArbCom, since the e-mail said "majority" (which might be barely over 50%), and since a voter guide written by a sitting Arb directly endorses my candidacy. The only "some kind" of public post necessary was the same one made about the other candidates with disclosed-to-ArbCom accounts. Instead, ArbCom posted an aspersion (with no evidence or rationale you will disclose or even outline in e-mail so far), which clearly "could influence the election", which you say is the opposite of ArbCom's motivation for the statement. It's the same kind of cognitive dissonance as in ArbCom's evasive e-mails, "conveniently" sent with nearly no time to address the matter before ArbCom went live on this page with that unjustified shade-throwing post above. Writing, "it is not clear whether [my alt] is in fact a privacy account" (and rather more blatant accusations in e-mail) is not "simply describ[ing] the situation", it's defying facts to imagine a different situation and spin it negatively, while denying me any ability to see or address the rationale and its basis. This bogus implication that I was socking may well have killed my candidacy before voting even opened.

  Definitely not a fair-dealing result, even if ArbCom giving me any heads-up about this at all was a good-faith thing, as was deferring the final decision to ElectCom. I'm just trying to get answers and make my case (to arbom-en), not point fingers at parties. I'd been looking forward to working with the successful candidates and the sitting Arbs whose terms are not up. (And still am, even if just as a random editor.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:14, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

  @SMcCandlish: You have complained on that page that we have not provided evidence for the above summary statement, and have discussed this matter off-wiki. The reason for this should be obvious: you have told us that you don't want this account to be openly discussed. If you would like us to post our detailed reasoning on-wiki, I think we can do that, but can you confirm that you give us permission to publicly identify the name of the account and discuss the edits you've made with it? – Joe (talk) 08:57, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

  @Joe Roe: I did not object to having it be conducted in e-mail; I objected to it being a "non-answer answer". Obviously, I mean we should look at and discuss your evidence in the e-mail thread (not on-wiki), instead of just saying you think there is some, without indicating what it is, and saying the "opinion" of some of you was to feel skeptical whether my alt qualifies as a privacy account – when obviously it does qualify, or ElectCom wouldn't have said it does (after itself going over the purported evidence you're withholding from me). I've provided considerable line-by-line analysis of the applicable policy and my compliance with it (and not for the first time, just in more detail today), yet there is not even an attempt at rebuttal from ArbCom, so you appear to have no grounds to have posted unproven suspicions about me on-wiki.

  I've said this clearly many times, many ways already. It stretches credulity to the breaking point that somehow you just don't understand yet – much less that you think when someone is very against privacy-account disclosure that this can possibly be interpreted as desire for you to make such a disclosure. If I say I'm allergic to peanuts, that is not an invitation to stuff a PB&J sandwich down my throat. Also, the fact that the e-mail nebulously mentioned some kind of other messages from other functionaries is troubling, after the "cancel-culture enabling farm" at WMF led to the WP:FRAMBAN shitshow, from which this ArbCom seems to have learned less than I thought it had. See also Q1, Q3, Q5, & Q8 at the followup RfC of doom.

  I'm getting near that bright "WTF?" line. Do I have to go open a private-evidence RfArb or something, to get anywhere on this? What is going on? Why? This is like pulling teeth, from a brontosaurus. I don't think there's any malice in this, just bureaucracy eating its own tail. I strongly suspect this would all have been resolved in a few hours if ArbCom had simply been forthcoming in the e-mails instead of dodging and stonewalling. And it should have happened much sooner (at least a day or so, but it could have been resolved months ago).

  The damage is already done for me, this time. But nothing like this should happen again. This may be the former professional privacy activist in me speaking, but I do not believe for one second, given WMF's programmatic concerns about user privacy and safety, that the Foundation would go along with the idea of a project advertising the availability privacy accounts, waiting for people to use them for sensitive editing, then exposing those people (or denying them other participation – make your artificially binary choice, sucker!) over nothing but unproven allegations that hinge on dubious wikilawyering over unclear policy provisions and evidence denied any examination and rebuttal, versus there being iron-clad evidence of bad-faith or (maybe) grossly negligent activity. If even just the editorial community agreed with anything like that interpretation, the policy itself would be much clearer in general, and would not call them privacy accounts in particular or even imply anything like that (much less permit a privacy account to also be a security account).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:14, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

without going into details that would be inappropriate here, arb com found themselves in the equivalent of an edit conflict with the EC. Though the EC is necessarily required to work with short time limits, it is unusual for arb com to do anything quickly (3 people can decide much more rapidly than 15). I would not ascribe any resulting problems to other than the inevitable difficulties in a rushed decision. DGG ( talk ) 22:26, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, and I can certainly accept that explanation as to why the initial ArbCom statement above said what it did within this short timeline. But this does not address the refusal of ArbCom to explain their supposed evidence and the decision-making in e-mail (the real issue here), nor why they have not updated the statement above to remove the unreasonable aspersion.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:44, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Some of the questions have gotten quite bizarre and hardly relevant to the election. Is there a limit to this madness? Natureium (talk) 00:22, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

@Natureium: So, past RfCs have given the Electoral Commission the authority to decide whether a question is "inappropriate", but those discussions don't seem to define exactly what "inappropriate" means, leaving that up to the judgment of the commissioners—relevant threads include WP:ACERFC2019#Dealing with possibly inappropriate questions, WP:ACERFC2020#CandidateQs3a, and WP:ACERFC2020#CandidateQs4. Speaking personally, I'm inclined to be conservative about using this authority and give editors relatively wide latitude for asking questions. All questions are technically optional, and at their own risk candidates may choose to ignore questions they deem to be unworthy of an answer. I feel the ElectCom should only intervene in clear cases, such as when a question contains personal attacks or is so off-topic as to imply the asker is WP:NOTHERE. Mz7 (talk) 05:21, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

FWIW, I'm not finding any questions asked on my candidate Q&A page to be nutty (even one that personally attacked me before ElectCom refactored it). But, maybe some other candidates are getting weirder questions than I am.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:25, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Could ((Arbitration Committee candidate/2020)) or something similar be added to the questions page for each candidate? I know it's something minor, but it's kinda annoying not being able to access the discussion immediately from the questions.  Bait30  ^{Talk 2 me pls?} 05:35, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

That would be a good idea (with <noinclude>...</noinclude>), along with redirecting the talk page of each candidate's questions page to the main talk page for that candidate (especially since that is also where follow-up questions and other extraneous material will be refactored to, under the new rules).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:27, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

@Bait30 and SMcCandlish:  Done. I've implemented both of those suggestions. Mz7 (talk) 20:55, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

It's a bit of a hack-y solution if you look at the template syntax, but I've managed to update Template:Arbitration Committee candidate/preload/questions as well so that future elections will have ((Arbitration Committee candidate)) on the questions page from the start. Mz7 (talk) 04:06, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

A recent question from Grillofrances to Primefac seems to be requesting that Primefac out themself. I do not believe this to be an appropriate line of questioning. Tantusar (talk) 07:57, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't know whether it's appropriate or not. "Personal information includes legal name, date of birth, identification numbers, home or workplace address, job title and work organisation, telephone number, email address, other contact information, or photograph" - I haven't asked about the full legal name but only given name; I haven't asked about the full date of birth but only age (year of birth); I haven't asked about identification numbers; I haven't asked about any address or phone number or email or work organization or photo. In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2020/Questions I see: "Content explicitly prohibited from questions to candidate pages is: Statements of policy, philosophy, opinions or other general comments. Analysis of candidates, questions or answers; Endorsements or disendorsments of candidates. Reference to other candidates, except as necessary context for a question, answer or clarification request. Personal attacks or aspersions. Adverts for voter guides or similar pages." so I assume that asking about outing is allowed. Btw. IMO self-outing (and maybe even showing documents proving the personal information correctness to CheckUsers or to the Founder) should be a requirement to be a candidate to the ArbCom.Grillofrances (talk) 08:26, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Moreover, Primefac can decide which personal information he/she will disclose or instead of my examples, he/she can disclose any other information or not disclose anything at all. AFAIK, the ArbCom members are supposed to be real humans (not bots) and be distinct (it would be totally intolerable if any human had two votes in the ArbCom from two different accounts) so asking about self-outing decreases the probability of electing a bot or a sockpuppet to the ArbCom.Grillofrances (talk) 08:33, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't think the question is as problematic as the problems with the questions last year, and as always a candidate has the ability to answer a question, or not, as they see fit. Primefac (talk) 13:39, 29 November 2020 (UTC)