Improve election schedule with respect to the questionnaire

Question

The questionnaire is a great part of the election process, but during my first (first-hand) experience with an election, over on Code Golf, I've found that the timing of the questionnaire is a bit unfortunate. Others have noted that too in the election chat, so I'm quite surprised that this hasn't been brought up before (at least I can't find anything about it).

The issue is the questionnaire goes up at the same time as the nominations end. If you're lucky, you'll get primaries, "which aren't that important" (maybe...), so it's not so bad if people start voting before the questionnaire results are in. But still, it seems like people who answer the questionnaire quickly might have an advantage in the primaries, because many people will likely visit the election only once, and not check back once the results are in.

This is a lot worse when primaries are skipped. In that case the actual, final voting begins at the same time that the questionnaire is published, so many people will cast their really important votes before any answers are in. I feel like this sort of defeats the purpose of the questionnaire and could lead to the worst incarnation of the FGITW effect anywhere on SE.

Would it be possible to improve the election process in that regard, such that the candidates have a chance to write up their answers before any voting begins?

I see two obvious solutions:

• Stop the collection of questions for the questionnaire a few days into the nomination phase, such that the last few days of the nomination phase can already be used to answer the questionnaire. Not ideal, because it gives less time to collect the questions, but it would probably already be an improvement.
• My preferred solution: start collecting the questions a week before the election starts and put up the questionnaire post when the nomination phase starts. This lets people post the answers at the same time as their nomination, and it makes it much easier for voters to consider the candidates before doing any voting. I imagine the post something like "Hey guys, we'll be holding an election starting next week. You can now suggest questions for the questionnaire... [usual blurb]". This would have the additional advantage that people would know about the election in advance, which would make it less likely that someone misses the nomination phase because they happen to be on holiday that week.

Answer 1

We've functionally implemented this into our election workflow now. In conjunction with a smoother system internally for actually scheduling elections, the new election flow works as follows:

Week 1: Someone on the Community Growth team will schedule the election to begin the following week (if it has not yet already been scheduled), and will post the question collection phase. This will allow people to know there's an election upcoming in a much more announced fashion (and get particulars if needed), and people can prepare answers for the questions while pondering their candidacy.

Week 2: The election mechanically starts, triggering the nomination phase. At the same time, the election stats pages, the chat room, and the Q&A questionnaire will all go up. Because of the new timing, candidates are now encouraged to post their responses to the questionnaire at the time of their nomination, and likewise encouraged to link to them in their nominations.

Week 3: The election mechanically advances to the secondary phases as appropriate. Should not enough candidates (N+1 candidates for an election with N slots) have applied then the nomination phase is extended a week and the secondary phases will begin on the following week.

Answer 2

Option #2 seems like the best approach to me. It doesn't shorten the time for collecting questions (like #1 does), and it doesn't add to the length of an election. SE knows that there is going to be an election some days (at least) in advance of when they kick it off, so starting the question collection early shouldn't require any changes in how they do things other than when they make the post.

I stood in a recent, popular election (19 candidates), and I couldn't help noticing that I wasn't the only candidate who had that answer post ready within an hour or two of the list being finalized. I suspect that I wasn't the only one who was preparing answers in advance, based on the voting and a little guesswork. While you might argue that anticipating the need and being ready is a good trait for a moderator to have, I'd prefer that candidates be able to just answer the questions on meta at the same time they post their nominations on the election page, if they want to. Let's make it easier for candidates and voters.

Edit: SE has now implemented this for several recent elections. A post is made on meta a week before nominations open (example) to collect questions. A week later, the questionnaire is posted at the same time nominations open. The election then follows the usual schedule -- nominations are open for a week before any voting starts, so people can post their nominations and their questionnaire answers at the same time.

Answer 3

For an example of how serious this FGITW effect can be, look at the timing of votes in ELL's first election. Fully three quarters of the votes in the first 24 hours. (Other elections aren't so bad, of course, like SO's most recent, but Arqade's 2013 election had a similarly nasty profile, and so did Programmer's and Ask Different's and so on and so forth.) Most of the sites that have rapid voter response also lack a primary, making this a double whammy. Some of that is doubtless offset by tighter communities — more voters have a good idea who they're voting for to start with — but it would be difficult to say how much. Seemingly, this applies to most sites except SO: even SF's most recent election had 50% of its turnout within 24 hours, though at least they had a primary.

Answer 4

Note that elections are put into the system and publically visible before they actually start. This is typically not noticed by anybody because there is no link to the respective page anywhere and you would have to manually check it to notice, but it was the running ELU election was publicly announced.

So, probably the easiest change to make would be to announce all elections a week before (or similar) in the sidebar. As this can be realised with a featured meta post, so there is no need to change the system at all. This way, everybody can prepare questions for the questionnaire, which solves another FGITW problem, namely that early questionnaire suggestions have a higher chance of making it. Moreover, the questions in the questionnaire are predictable even better than they are now, so that candidates are more likely to have their answers ready, once the actual election starts.

Of course, it would be better to finalise the questionnaire a few days before the start of the election and give candidates the opportunity of answering it, which should pose no problem once the above is implemented. This way, you remove the advantage for those who can be online when the election starts and address the crucial point that, once the please cast your vote message is sent to all voters, they really have all the information they need to vote. Right now, when the message comes, I usually ignore it and return a few days later when all answers to the questionnaire are up – which is very annoying and defies the purpose of the message, which should come when you actually can do something.

Answer 5

Option #3: Put some time between stages of the election to allow candidates to complete the questionnaire.

Edit: It looks like Option 2 was implemented for the 2016 Stack Overflow mod election.