Welcome to my guide to the Arbitration Committee 2017 elections. I will be casting the following vote for Arbcom:

Candidate	Comments	Vote
Opabinia regalis	Running for re-election after finishing a term of exemplary service. No concerns.	Support
Callanecc	Running for re-election after finishing a term of perfectly satisfactory service. No Concerns.	Support
BU Rob13	An up and comer, who has gone from registering an account to holding advanced tools in just two years. This is not a bad thing in my mind, and just goes to show how good his judgement is. The fact that he's a bot operator is a plus, even though he's recused in some of those areas.	Support
SMcCandlish	This is probably my first truly controversial pick. Very often, I'll be reading a talk page discussion, find someone who is making a lot of sense, and look down to see his signature. This speaks to both his activity and his sensibility. He is not an admin, which is a minus, but it's not a huge deal.	Support
KrakatoaKatie	Good, solid levelheaded admin who was just entrusted with some additional buttons. No concerns.	Support
Worm That Turned	Most people will know WTT a little differently than I do. While a lot of people see a solid admin and former arbitrator, I see the Wikipedian who wrote my adopt-a-user course. While he was not able to run me through it personally, his fingers were on every aspect of my introduction to Wikipedia. I can say with confidence that if he had not written the adopt a user course, I wouldn't be writing this review today. His contributions in this area alone are enough to earn my support. He is returning abruptly from a relatively long period of inactivity, but that's the only concern. Former arbitrator.	Support
RickinBaltimore	Good, solid admin. No concerns.	Support
Alex Shih	Good solid admin. Some concerns with activity level/patterns, but he makes a lot of sense when he's here.	Support
Premeditated Chaos	Good solid admin. Slightly larger concerns with activity level/patterns.	Oppose
Mailer diablo	Insufficient recent contributions to establish a solid track record. Former Arbitrator (2009)	Oppose
The Rambling Man	There are very few things that disqualify someone from arbcom in my mind, but chronic involvement in the process from the other side is one of them. TRM's arbcom run-ins have largely revolved around civility. While I sympathize with him, and think his restriction was terribly worded, arbcom needs more than bare-minimum civility. Arbitrators in particular need immaculate civility because they are the court of last resort, dealing with uncivil editors who are at times trying to drag down the process into a mudfight Any arbitrator with tendencies to join in is a liability.	Oppose
Sir Joseph	Directly quoting Boing said Zebedee's review: "I'm seeing bludgeoning, personalising disputes, not dropping sticks, and flogging far too many horse carcasses. And there's too much of a readiness to play the anti-semitism card, which he's done even in answer to questions in this very election."	Oppose
SarekOfVulcan	Candidate has Withdrawn	Oppose
A Den Jentyl Ettien Avel Dysklyver	Candidate Disqualified - Indefinitely blocked	Oppose

The above ballot has been ranked in order from highest to lowest support - Opabinia regalis is my top choice, Alex Shih is my last candidate in, and Premeditated Chaos is my first candidate out. Nothing in here should be considered a judgement on any of these users beyond the scope of this election.

Strategic Voting

While I wish this wasn't a thing, unfortunately it is. To maximize the impact of your ballot overall, you should not cast a vote of "Neutral" for any candidate. Suck it up and make a decision. Secondly, the overall power of your ballot is maximized when you cast a number of supports equal to the number of open seats. This rule is less important than the preceding one, and deviating by one or two here is not a disaster. Just stay close to 8 supports, and you're fine.

Categorizing the candidates

The candidates break pretty cleanly in my mind into four major categories.

The shoo-ins

The following users will make great arbitrators, and everyone seems to know it:

1. Opabinia regalis
2. Callanecc
3. KrakatoaKatie
4. RickinBaltimore

The candidates who ought to be shoo-ins

These candidates will make great arbitrators, but not everyone has gotten the memo yet.

1. BU Rob13
2. SMcCandlish
3. Worm That Turned

The genuinely difficult decisions

These candidates are on the bubble. One or two of them are likely to get a seat, while one or two will not. These are the votes you need to take your time and do your homework on. I chose Alex Shih out of this group because his comments always seemed particularly insightful to me. If you value gender diversity highly, Premeditated Chaos is a fine choice. If you value institutional knowledge highly, take a chance on Mailer diablo.

1. Alex Shih
2. Premeditated Chaos
3. Mailer diablo

Just say no

These candidates have fundamental problems with their candidacy

1. The Rambling Man
2. Sir Joseph
3. SarekOfVulcan (withdrawn)
4. A Den Jentyl Ettien Avel Dysklyver (disqualified)

Candidate responses

I'd like to extend an invitation for any arbcom candidate to make a reply of up to 100 words here to anything I've said in this guide.

Reply from WTT

Thank you User:Tazerdadog, your comments regarding adoption and my influence there, mean an awful lot to me. I am extremely glad that I influenced an editor to stay and be productive, however indirectly. It's a shame adoption doesn't get to show off its success stories like this - I do think I need to go back and see what my adoptees have got up to - though it was so long ago, I doubt many are still about :/ One point on the rest of your comment though, I remained on Arbcom for a full term, you might be mixing me up with Hersfold, another great adopter. Worm^TT( talk) 08:01, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Fixed, thank you. Tazerdadog ( talk) 08:38, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Happy voting. Tazerdadog ( talk) 05:23, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

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