Hi! @kellnerd just noticed that two elections were started recently (by @sound.and.vision and @chiark) that went completely unnoticed until now, because nobody let us know about them 
This is a reminder that if an autoeditor proposes someone and starts an election process, they should post in the Autoeditors forum letting people know about it and explaining why they proposed the editor, so that people find out about it and can actually vote! (then I’d also have found out, and could have sent everyone emails).
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I cancelled mine because I hadn’t talked to who I was proposing before making the vote.
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Reminder #2: If you find out you’re not able to post here, we probably forgot to add you to the autoeditors group after your election and you should let me know. Added you now, @sound.and.vision, @darwinx0r and @ThePeelSession
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Gotcha! Good thing to do to make sure they actually want the title, yes.
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‘Reminder’ might be inaccurate for some of you who were never told about the process 
I updated the pinned post in this category (About the Autoeditor category) with some more details, and did some minor cleanup on the Auto-Editor Election wiki page.
I’m not sure if we have a process that makes sure a new auto-editor gets linked to the required pages, and so on? Looking through my own emails, at the time I was elected, I don’t see that I got any information (but maybe I did get a message somewhere else). Maybe we can make a checklist when we get a new AE @reosarevok - but not sure where or how to do it so it can’t be forgotten 
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No, there’s nothing automated right now nor any decent process - in fact, the process is so bad I’m still mailing people myself rather than the system doing it like in the old days 
So not sure what’s a good way to do this tbh.
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@reosarevok and I have beavered away on some changes to the auto-editor election process, that makes this kind of thing less likely to happen!
The main change you, @MB_Autoeditors, need to know about:
- You have new responsibilities (hurray!) when you start an auto-editor election.
Nothing too hard - you now need to email the community manager at two steps of the process (when you start the election, and when the election closes).
This has been added to the auto-editor election steps in the documentation:
https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Auto-Editor_Election
The community manager isn’t getting away unscathed either - their responsibilities have been explicitly added to the doc, as well as email templates for them to use (if they want).
Mistakes can always happen, but hopefully this helps. And most importantly: We’ll now know who to blame 
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As someone who has just been elected, a couple of bits of feedback to help improve the process.
What about putting the “Obligations of an Auto Editor” and “Auto Editor Election” links into the election start email? That way it will be certain to get to the person and they can read it at the start of the process. Though I found that both Chiark and Kellnerd pointed the pages out anyway.
And another suggestion. Don’t you think it would be a good idea to make the Secret Ballot an actual Secret Ballot? It kinda defeats the point when you can watch a running vote count. Makes it too easy to guess how people vote.
Surely that whole election page should stay private while an election is running? Blank out both names and totals during the week. There is no need for any part of that page to be visible during the week of the election. Only the proposer and seconders names should be known like in a normal election. Maybe show who took part after the election, but not during.
I am kinda surprised no one has mentioned this before. Someone who is a script expert could even write a script to monitor the page for changes.
But much more importantly - thanks everyone. 
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Yes, good idea!
Maybe only you could see your own running vote count.
I didn’t see yours.
I think I could see it for my election(s) but then I never saw it for the other people elections.
I think it is a bug undocumented feature in the system. The AE wiki describing the election say the AEs can’t see the scores while the election is running. Seems logical to me to extend the anonymous side of the election to all who can see the page. Otherwise the election is not anonymous.
Otherwise if you had logged out you could also have seen the scores too.
First, congrats @IvanDobsky!
Second: If scores can be seen when logged out / for non auto-editors while the election is running, then I think that’s a bug, and a pretty bad one, whoops I guess we never checked this because only auto-editors usually visit election pages… wonder if we really don’t have a test for that.
IIRC they’re supposed to be visible only for the proposer or something to that effect (so that they can cancel an election that is heavily contested if they so prefer, even if it would have passed by a few votes’ difference, which is a non-required but common courtesy). That said, I’ve always felt it’s not very secret when as a proposer you can just refresh and see “oh, these are the new 3 voters and there’s 2 yes and 1 no” or whatever. I think keeping the counts visible to the proposer as intended but hiding the list of voters until the election is over would make it a lot better without compromising the intention of the visibility.
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This is what I guessed. And why I brought it to your attention. A logout and you’ll see the details for testing.
Yeah - I’d agree with that one. I don’t think it would matter if anyone could see the running count, it is the ability to attach the names to the voters is the part I was finding funny to see. Hide the names and your ballot is secret again, but exposing the count allows a contentious one to be discussed.
And thank you.
Are you sure? I rechecked the code, and it seems there’s four people with the right to see the vote numbers as the election is happening: proposer, seconder #1, seconder #2 and candidate. That means you actually were supposed to be able to see the numbers while the election was running, for some reason (not sure why either, tbh), but they should not be shown to others / when logged out. Did you actually test that you could see them when logged out? (while it was running, I mean - after closing everyone can see those )
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During the election I didn’t try looking when logged out. I tend to be logged in on this browser most of the time. (MB is one of the few websites whose cookies I don’t clear)
After the election, if I go to a different browser now, logged out, I see the numbers and names exactly the same as I was seeing them during the election.
The Candidate being able to work out who voted for them makes me think of one of those dodgy regimes. I guess it is handy if I want to check if the bribes worked correctly. 
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