Forum:New Staff Voting Rules

In light of the recent campaigns for adminship, I was reviewing the Vote for Adminship voting and promotion rules, and, although they were enforced during those campaigns, I do think that one of them - specifically, the rule establishing the requirements for a user to be promoted - was a bit iffy. Specifically, this rule establishes that in order for a user nominated for any staff position to be promoted, they need a for/against ratio of votes (the amount of votes for divided by the amount of votes against that user) of 2.5 or higher. While I understand the logic that went into the implementation of this rule - whoever wrote it sought to prevent users from gaining significant power based on a simple majority - I think that the 2.5 ratio is a bit too much of a restriction, especially when it applies also to rollback, a position that is more of a title than anything else and is otherwise relatively powerless. As it currently stands, someone campaigning for any position needs more than twice as many votes as there are against them to win.

In addition, there's no established end date for a vote. As it was for every admin vote beforehand, votes generally had an end date of "whenever the staff feels like ending it". I feel like this is too loose - if an admin wished, they could prolong the vote indefinitely - and so, I think that there needs to be an established time limit for a vote to end after a user is nominated.

To solve these problems, I have developed a list of five rules that address voting and promotion eligibility requirements. These rules have all been read over and approved by fellow staff members.


 * 1) In a vote for rollback or the demotion of a rollback, the nominated user needs only a majority of votes for them to be promoted or demoted, respectively.
 * 2) In a vote for admin, the nominated user needs a for/against ratio of at least 1.5 to be promoted.
 * 3) In a vote for bureaucrat, the nominated user needs a for/against ratio of at least 2 to be promoted.
 * 4) A user can only vote if they have participated consistently in wiki affairs (edited constructively or participated in chat) for at least a month, and if that period of consistent participation occurred in the past two months.
 * 5) Campaigns for rollback and admin last for a week after the initial nomination.
 * 6) Campaigns for bureaucrat last for two weeks after the nomination.
 * 7) Nominations for demotion last for a week after the initial nomination.
 * 8) Votes for the demotion of an administrator or b'crat require a for/against ratio of at least 1.5 for the user to be demoted.

And so, I submit these rules to you, the community, to vote on whether you would like for them to be implemented or not. You can vote for each rule individually - if you like some rules, but not others, you can feel free to vote for the ones you like and against the ones you don't like. If you have any suggestions for rules that are not listed above, leave them in the comments section.

 Shadow master    (Contribs)   00:22, June 4, 2015 (UTC)

Rule #1
"In a vote for rollback or the demotion of a rollback, the nominated user needs only a majority of votes for them to be promoted or demoted, respectively."

As I said before, rollback is a relatively powerless position. The only official power that a rollback has is the power to revert vandalism, which is only slightly faster than what ordinary users can do. As a result, rollback exists more as a title of honor and respect than a position of power, and thus a vote for rollback is less about entrusting a user with power, and more about acknowledging the things they've done for the community. If anything, it's more of a stepping stone to adminship - notice that almost all of our current admins were once rollbacks, including myself.

Because of this, I think that the rollback position can afford some looser restrictions in terms of how many votes a user needs to be in order to receive the position. If this rule is passed, then a user nominated for rollback only needs more votes for them than those against them to be promoted - a simple majority.

Everything that I said above also applies to votes for demotion - I think there's no need to require any more than a majority vote for a user with a position of small power to be demoted.

Rule #2
"In a vote for admin, the nominated user needs a for/against ratio of at least 1.5 to be promoted."

Rollback might not be much, but admin's a huge step up. Admins have the power to delete pages and ban users from the wiki and chat, powers that can be easily abused, and thus are not to be entrusted to anyone who could possibly abuse them. Adminship is a position that requires maturity and responsibility, and as a safeguard to ensure that no user can campaign and be promoted to admin on a whim with just a simple majority of votes for them, I think that it would be wiser to implement a rule that, in order for a user to be promoted to admin, they need a for/against ratio of at least 1.5 to be promoted. This is a somewhat strict restriction, but it's definitely looser than the rule we have now, while still keeping in mind the points I just brought up.

Rule #3
"In a vote for bureaucrat, the nominated user needs a for/against ratio of at least 2 to be promoted."

Adminship is a position requiring great responsibility, but bureaucrat is even more so. Bureaucrats have the power to promote other users, and demote them as well - when a vote for adminship concludes, it's up to the b'crat to promote the winners (if any), and likewise, when a staff member is voted for demotion, it's the b'crat's job to demote that staff member. In addition, b'crats cannot be demoted as rollbacks and admins can - in order for a b'crat to be removed from their position, they either have to do it of their own volition, or a Wikia Staff member must do so (and Wikia Staff rarely intervenes in such matters). As well as everything mentioned above, b'crats have all of the same powers that administrators do. With all of this considered, a nomination to b'crat is not something to be handled lightly. It's a position deserving only of very trusted and responsible users. This has been the tradition for almost all of CBW's history - for the past 4 years, no more than two b'crats have served on the Custom BIONICLE Wiki staff at any one time.

This considered, I think that the tightest restrictions should be placed on the promotion eligibility for b'crat. If this rule is passed, then a user needs a for/against ratio of at least 2 to be promoted to b'crat - in other words, they need at least twice as many votes for them as votes against them. This is still looser than the current restrictions, but I think, for the reasons mentioned above, that such tight restrictions are necessary to prevent just any user from being promoted to a b'crat position just because members of the community like them or are friends of them. This ensures that a sizeable portion of the voting community, rather than just a majority, is in support of a user's promotion to b'crat before that user can be promoted.

Rule #4
"A user can only vote if they have participated consistently in wiki affairs (edited constructively or participated in chat) for at least a month, and if that period of consistent participation occurred in the past two months."

As it stands currently, any user of the Custom BIONICLE Wiki can vote in a vote for rollback, adminship, bureaucrat, or demotion. I think that this is a problem - just any user can come on the wiki and cast a vote, even if they have no wiki experience and have absolutely no idea who the candidates even are. This can alter the vote outcome so that it is no longer representative of the userbase - it means that someone just cast their vote without knowledge of who the candidates are, and without any knowledge of what the user they just voted for actually did in order to deserve promotion. This also means that a user could just ask a friend to vote for them, essentially tipping the vote unfairly towards the person who got their friend to vote for them, and making the vote more about "who has the most friends who are willing to vote for them" instead of "who does the community think is most deserving of this position". As I see it, votes for adminship are about who the community is willing to entrust with a title or position - users who just joined or have been inactive for months or even years must be assumed to be unaware of what's going on with the wiki, and thus shouldn't yet be considered an active part of the community.

This rule, if passed, would make it so that a user must have been active in the community for at least a month - be it through making constructive (not spam) edits on pages, or participating actively (not just sitting around) in chat. I think that it would be good to see more of the former than the latter, but I think that the chat is also an important component of what defines the community. This period of activity must also have occurred within the past two months - a user who has been consistently active a year ago, but not at all since, cannot just return and cast a vote. I think that this allows some leeway, so that users on vacation for the past month, but active every day prior to that, can still have the opportunity to vote, whilst still preventing users who were once active, but now can be assumed to be uninformed as to the current state of the community, from voting.

Rule #5
"Campaigns for rollback and admin, and nominations for demotion, last for a week after the initial nomination."

As I stated before, the only current deadline for a vote for a staff position is "whenever the staff feels like ending the vote". This would change it, and instead establish a fixed end date for a vote: 7 days after the user was nominated. I think that a week is a safe amount of time to allow users to cast their votes, while also not prolonging a vote to an unreasonable length of time. This also applies to any staff member who has been nominated for demotion - the vote for demotion will last for a week. You may notice that this leaves out bureaucrats, which I will explain under Rule #6.

Rule #6
"Campaigns for bureaucrat last for two weeks after the nomination."

I wasn't entirely sure about this one, but, as I explained under Rule #3, b'crat is a position entrusted only to very responsible and trusted users. It is also a position traditionally held by only two users at a time, and I see no problem with this tradition - b'crats cannot be demoted except of their own volition, of course. As such, I believe that it is necessary to give more time in cases where a user is running for the b'crat position. This allows users more time to consider their vote, and also gives the community as a whole more time to cast their votes - after all, in cases like these, I want the vote to be as representative of the community as possible, and so I want as many people to be able to vote as possible in the window of time that a user is campaigning for b'crat.

Rule #7
"Nominations for demotion last for a week after the initial nomination."

I felt that it was important to put this separately from Rule #5, since there's a possibility of disagreement here. While the demotion of a staff member is typically no small matter, I felt that there was also no need to prolong a vote for demotion beyond a week. After all, in the event that a staff member is abusing their power and a vote for their demotion needs to be held, it's important that such a vote is swift, while still getting a fair opinion from the users of the wiki.

Rule #8
"Votes for the demotion of an administrator or b'crat require a for/against ratio of at least 1.5 for the user to be demoted."

As is supported by everything I've said about the admin and b'crat positions so far, such staff positions are no small matter, and therefore, I think to remove someone once entrusted with that power should also require more than just a simple majority, to prevent a user from being demoted just because people don't like them. The reason I didn't make it so that b'crats required a for/against ratio of 2 for demotion is that I don't feel like such a ratio is necessary in that case - in the case of a b'crat, users will already be aware of what that b'crat has done with their power and thus can be assumed to be more informed in making the vote that they cast, meaning that requiring a sizeable portion of the community to vote for their demotion is unnecessary - users will know what the b'crat in question is capable of, and can make a better decision than before based on that knowledge.

Comments
Place your thoughts and opinions on the proposed rules, and feel free to propose your own rules, below.