UDWiki talk:Administration/Policy Discussion/Voting Eligibility (2)

Discussion

Right now, any user can vote for a bureaucrat, with no limits for edits or time in the community. What about if we limit the voting ability to users whose first edit where made atleast before the beginning of the election ? This would help sort sockpuppets and other assorted cronies. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{talk mod} 13:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Policy discussion would be needed to change it -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 13:36 25 November 2008 (BST)

I'm fine with the principal, but we would need a crack team of janitors to sort them out, and then a determine who can strike votes (presumably sysops?) But, yeah, Boxy is right. You would need to take this to a policy discussion. Linkthewindow  Talk  20:08, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I would support this.... I would prefer if the voting rights were pretty much the same as the requirements to stand; ie: 12 edits in the 30 days previous to elections start--Honestmistake 00:22, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

haggy that'd take about 3 seconds to push through, do it. but keep it simple. or you'll lose votes and get nothing done.--xoxo 13:25, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

HOLY FUCK! Didn't we already go through this shit? Didn't you get a misconduct case for striking votes? Wasn't Grim up your ass about this before your little "vacation"? Stop fucking trying to pretend this is a fucking "open wiki" when all you assholes are bending over backwards to keep your little cliques fucking alive.

Nice to see J3D is towing the party line like a good little nigger and trying to fit in with one of the few people that actually supported him. Also nice to know that you didn't seem to have an opinion on any of this (no votes on the previous incarnations) until Fagnut came out with something. It's a good thing your cronies are all established on the wiki already, J3D, otherwise you would have to rely totally on your tongue up Hagnut's ass. -- #99 ^DCC 00:13, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

yep that's pretty much it. it's a pretty lax restriction, don't really see how it excludes the community. Anyone who has made one edit before the election starts can vote. So what you're trying to say is that every user who has made an edit to the wiki is in hagnat (and by extension mine, and your) clique? how odd.--xoxo 00:20, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

take out the tinfoil hat, dcc. Unlike the previous policy, this one asks for a single edit to any other page before the election starts. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{talk mod} 01:12, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Meh, let the people vote. Even if you bar users from voting due to them not editing enough or whatever, it doesn't change the whole "popularity contest" thing. Nor does it really matter.-- dǝǝɥs oʇ ɯɐds: sʎɐʍ1ɐ! 00:15, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

actually, if such rules were to be enforced in other votings, such as policy vote, this could help twart many voting rigs that could occur. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{talk mod} 01:12, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I really don't think this will have much of an effect if it does pass. A policy of some sort to prevent meatpuppets is needed, but this isn't it. A requirement of 1 edit can be easily met by anyone who cares enough about a policy to make an account for the express purpose of voting on that policy, so that will have little or no effect on the problems this seeks to address (especially if edits to user pages are counted.) On the other hand, if the requirements are made too stringent, this will be unfair to new members, as was mentioned many times in the discussion that DCC linked to up above. --Pestolence^(talk) 03:25, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Edits must be made before the policy was CREATED, not put for vote. Therefore, if anyone has interest in the outcome of a policy, he must work with those who had registered and edited the wiki before the discussion of that policy begun --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{talk mod} 10:31, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

OK then... How big of a problem is meat/sockpuppeting in elections, anyway?--Pestolence^(talk) 17:43, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Unless it is a huge problem and results in elections' results being unfairly rigged, I'm going to have to agree with Suicidalangel above me. --Pestolence^(talk) 20:45, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

One thing that I don't think anyone's considered is the extra buerocracy that the appeal process would create. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Redlock (talk • contribs) at an unknown time.

History Purges

How would you ensure that people weren't denied a vote because they had edited the wiki before, but not after a history purge (which makes it look like they have no contributions in some cases) -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 01:53 27 November 2008 (BST)

if the user has content in its user page its already a simple edit and no further proof is needed. If he doesnt, its his job to search for a page where he made an edit (prolly his sig in a talk page) and ask for re-validation of his vote. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{talk mod} 02:04, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

There will need to be a process for appeals spelled out then. First on the talk page of the striker, and then perhaps the vote's talk page, then a "random" sysops, I guess -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 02:10 27 November 2008 (BST)

There, rule added. I restricted the ability to confirm the votes to sysops because otherwise a user could point to some page, another meat puppet could drop by and say its true, validate the vote and then simply nullify the whole policy. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{talk mod} 02:20, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

There could be a bit of drama still, especially if a respected, recently-returned user gets his vote stricken because his history was purged. Linkthewindow  Talk  10:40, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Such users HAVE user pages, therefore they WILL have atleast one edit marked under their name, independently of history purges. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{talk mod} 10:42, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

BULLSHIT! Just look at a [suburb history]sometime. There are edits where the user's name is red because they don't feel the fucking need to put up some bullshit "This is my gay ass character. I'm a 12th level Paladin" crap. Where the fuck is the need for this policy?-- #99 ^DCC 15:47, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Maybe fagnut should get off this policy kick he's been on since he got back and actually do some fucking work. Would that be too much to ask? Or did you just want to get the sysop title back so your lame ass policies seem more SRS BIZNESS! -- #99 ^DCC 16:04, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

As I said in the opening of the discussion I would prefer the need to be 12 edits in the previous 30 days. Even if left as just a single edit i do think that restricting it to the previous 30 days is a good idea as it shows active involvement in the wiki as opposed to someone who registered an account 12 months earlier and only checks in occassionally to look at the maps/danger reports. Thats not to say that such folk are not part of the community but i am suggesting that they will not know or care enough about the policy/candidate to vote unless outside influences guide them--Honestmistake 09:36, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind a higher requirement ether, but it's a fine line between a good anti-meatpuppet rule and and an anti-newbie rule. Linkthewindow  Talk  10:40, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with Honestmistake on the time limit, but the number of edits doesn't really matter. Requiring more edits is mostly just going to make it more difficult to verify whether they're eligible or not. --Midianian ^{Big Brother Diary Room: [510,27]} 10:53, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that thinkering with numbers of edits and time in the community can be worked out later, in other policies. This policy only aims to fight disposable meatpuppets, and to further help twart the other kinds it would need harsher limits, which would likely kill this policy --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{talk mod} 10:57, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

A time limit is nonsense. my first edit last week was to vote for boxy. I knew everybody running, knew the rules, helped write them over the years actually and I've been as actively involved in this wiki as anybody can be. And I shouldn't be allowed to vote? We got dozens of active users that lurk for months at a time or go on wiki-vacations. And how about the regular lurkers? nothing bring people into this community as the ability to vote on something. these sort of limitations damage a whole lot more then they fix. they create a closed off wiki hostile to new comers. We are a information source, those that use that information source without necessary editing a whole lot are our core user base. Removing those from such important topics is against everything the wiki should stand for.-- Vista  T  02:30, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

History Purges. How many have we had? 2 or 3? If its that relevant (Which i don't feel it is.) would it be easier to add a clause about how this policy is irrelevant up to 2 weeks after a purge? --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 11:18, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

History purges are actually relevant. The only AGAINST votes for my sysop bid were due to lack of edits but it was a history purge that made it seem like I didn't have enough. I'm really against any restrictions on voting rights. I don't see the need for this pointless red tape because some people fear "meat puppets". --– Nubis ^NWO 03:22, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

the purge made it look like you didn't have many edits, you'd have to be pretty nooby (aka not have a user page) for it to remove all your edits.--xoxo 03:29, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

But why require edits at all? Have there ever been real meat puppets trouble?-- Vista  T  03:51, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. --ZsL 18:18, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

The goons did didn't they? On that policy kevan stepped in and denied if i recall correctly...--xoxo 04:03, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

The goon policy was mainly about vote STRIKING. It wasn't about requirements. It specifically said Meatpuppetry (votes that are thought to have been done as a group bloc) should not constitute a valid reason for striking due to the difficulties of determining when this is actually occurring. The policy had 52 votes FOR and they weren't all goons. --– Nubis ^NWO 00:40, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

True, but the concerted effort of goons were making the difference between the passing and rejection of the vote. Now of course there were other votes for because it really did have some good points regarding vote striking. I agreed with most of it anyway. It was just the explicit endorsement of meat puppetry that caused problems. So currently the worst example that we have isn't actually all that bad, the policy did address some things that needed some addressing but overreached a bit and Kevan used his veto to stop it. In all our history the system worked well enough to prevent damage to the wiki even in the most extreme case we could hope to find.-- Vista  T  02:48, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Seems a bit irrelevant. Everyone knows the active wiki users, and I doubt that would change after a purge. Linkthewindow  Talk  19:47, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

If the requirement is one edit, the likelihood of a history purge causing trouble is about 0. --xoxo 03:27, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

The history purge issue has already been fixed (along with any other unforeseen problems) by the simple addition of an appeals process -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 04:05 29 November 2008 (BST)

Meatpubbitry

... has happened before and Kevans veto made it clear that he was against "all levels of meatpuppetry being totally acceptable on policy votes". The requirement of a single edit before the vote opens is the absolute minimum requirement we could ever set, and it's not going to rule anyone out, unless they have been totally uninvolved with the wiki and signed up specifically to vote. Wiki specific policy and administration rights (sysop/bureaucrat) votes have absolutely no effect upon the wider, non-wiki using, Urban Dead community (those who only play the game and don't wiki) -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 04:05 29 November 2008 (BST)

But it didn't cause any trouble then either. Meat puppetry shouldn't cause any troubles as long as sysops are not democratically chosen but promoted by bureaucrats and policies where meat puppetry happens get truck down. Voting used to be the biggest single activator we had. People used to sign up to vote because they were actually invested in this wiki but needed a prodding or reason to participate. This policy just introduces another hurdle for users for no real benefit-- Vista  T  04:34, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I figure that Kevan being forced to bring out the veto stick is an indication that wiki policy is failing. I work on the principle that the wiki should run without Kevan's input as much as possible -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 02:16 30 November 2008 (BST)

I think we got a difference in outlook there. I see no problem with Kevan stepping in once every year or so using his power of ownership, as that is wiki policy as well. And I think it is less disruptive doing it that way then placing hurdles for good faith users all the time for something that happens extremely infrequently and currently has no risks for the wiki at all.-- Vista  T  02:32, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd rather Kevan were an active part of the wiki. More than that I'd rather we trusted the community as we wish them to trust us. Meatpuppetry isn't a big enough issue that it needs a restriction on who can vote.--Karek^maps?! 04:06, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

What Boxy said. As long as this doesn't affect votes that may have a minor effect on the game (think suggestion votes,) then I can't really see a problem with instituting a very low requirement for voting. What Vista said was interesting though, and I can relate. I mostly signed up to vote on suggestions, as well as update danger reports. Linkthewindow  Talk  20:26, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

If you actually bothered to look at the page you linked you might have noticed that only 9 out of the 53 FOR votes are people that don't have user pages (but since the purge I can't tell if they had any edits). I would bet that a few of those (except the ones that Cheese got misconducted for striking) had edits to the Dead's page at least or the Danger Map or a suburb news section. Your requirement of one edit is pointless. It wouldn't have affected that vote. If your policy wouldn't have changed the situation that it is a pathetic reaction to why do you think it will stop future situations? --– Nubis ^NWO 00:56, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

No, it won't perfectly fix the problem... and quite frankly, the internet being what it is, I doubt any policy will. However this policy will make it clear that meat puppetry is not encouraged, and will stop quite a few. Apart from the red linked ones you counted above, there are ones like this and this who created their user pages on the day they voted (or just before) which would be picked up. And as to your "actually bothered to look at the page you linked" bullshit. I was there... at the time, watching it all happen. Where were the bloody hell were you? And contrary to popular belief, I'm not supporting a policy like this to "get The Dead" or the goons, or whatever. They simply made a clear example of what can be done by a sufficiently large group if they have the will to recruit members who have obviously no idea of how the wiki works to vote on reactionary policies without any regard for the long term good of the wiki -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 02:16 30 November 2008 (BST)

But you overlook the fact that the policy did try to address something that not just they thought wrong, namely to harsh vote striking which was a positive effort but overreached in their implicit endorsement of meatpuppetry. So what we have here as the worst case were is a policy that tried to do some good, but overreached and where the failsafe of Kevans ownership veto kicked in. Now this is a personal judgment of course, Bit if this is the worst, it's really not that big a deal to me.-- Vista  T  02:54, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

This Policy

Fails at addressing the intended problem, which seems to be meatpuppeting votes. Instead it focuses on putting a step of user involvement in making two distinct user classes, we've been over why that's bad in the past and I doubt it bears repeating.

The real question that should have been asked before this was even put forward is 'Is Meatpuppetry a significant enough issue to warrant both a policy and a limitation on user participation in votes', even as the guy who caused the first starting of this debate I assure you that I don't believe it is, that's why I did it in the manner I did back then. The next step from there is to find out if this is even the right approach for preventing gross abuse of meatpuppetry, such as when Kevan stepped in, as opposed to your standard run of the mill wiki voting blocks that arise from forum calls to votes; I put to you that it isn't, the right approach would be one of the two presented in the past, which would either be trust in the moderators to allow all stricken votes to be reviewed and revisited on an unlimited basis while a vote is going on so all possible or Simply to ignore policies detrimental to the wiki regardless of the state of the vote. The majority of the community, and the sysops for that matter, have chosen the second one to be preferable and Kevan himself has shown at least a willingness to step in in the most extreme cases.

What this leaves us with is a simple truth; Meatpuppetry is an already addressed issue, at least where it counts. Suggestions is irrelevant to wiki life and Kevan is a filter between that and what gets into the game. Promotions is important but is meant to be set up in a method where number of votes is irrelevant, that's where competent 'crats come in and put weight to the arguments presented not the number of people presenting them. That leaves Policies, except the people that enforce the policies also have the strange privilege of working based on their best judgement; That means they can refuse to follow set policies when it would be detrimental to the welfare of the wiki.--Karek^maps?! 04:02, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Tl;DR? This policy is detrimental to the integrity of the wiki and is based on irrational fear of people we don't yet know conspiring against us.--Karek^maps?! 04:02, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Let me get this straight. You are couting on kevan's intervention every time something gets meatpuppeted ? This is bullshit! I have great respect for the guy, but i dont count on him to solve things when shit hit the fan. Actually, i only bring matters to his attention when i know there is no other way to solve a situation, and i can count in one hand the times i had to mail him about administration problems... and that's in ~3 years of wiki. We should create policys that allow us to solve this wiki problems ourselves, not expect the intervention of someone who barely tracks all discussions going around. This policy does not create another class of users, since the class its addressing already exist: the class of users who use the wiki as a reference tool, rather contribute to it. And you are encouraging Ignore All Rules (or Fuck The Rules, as i call it)... i'm so proud of you :D --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{talk mod} 04:32, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Even without Kevan's intervention it's a small enough issue that it is already dealt with without a policy. This doesn't solve any problem, it just creates an unnecessary restriction on new users that will force them to spam the wiki with unneeded contributions to be able to do anything, and that's already hard enough on them considering most of them don't know anything about wiki's when they start.--Karek^maps?! 04:52, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

So, taking into account that most of them don't know anything about the wiki's when they start, should they trully have the right the vote ? They are probably going to vote wrong anyway -- jk ;)

you know the wiki is about the game, not about its administration. New users should be encouraged to contribute first to other pages, not to vote on the administrative processes that most of them are not going to ever need to know. A single edit to a page shouldnt be a problem for a user to be considered part of the community and to earn the right to vote.

Your POV is like allowing people who live outside the US but kept track of the US elections to have the right to vote for the next president... people should be part of the community before they receive the right to vote, and a urban dead player is not, automatically, part of the urban dead wiki community, even if he uses it for reference --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{talk mod} 05:07, 30 November 2008 (UTC)^{all hail obama!}

Actually no, the way I read it, it's more of being required to have run for office, before being allowed to vote. The fact that people haven't edited yet doesn't mean they now nothing about the wiki, are uninvolved or never going to need those administrative processes. In fact voting shows that they care about the wiki, know about the wiki and obviously by voting are participating with those administrative processes and thus in need of them. The single worst example of meat puppetry as shown by boxy, was for a policy that directly involved those users voting as "meat puppets" and had a constructive purpose, even if they over reached. The fact that they proposed that flawed rule was because they indeed cared in a certain way, and were part of the wiki in a certain, and definitely were in need of the administrative processes. And that was the worst example. so yes this is a policy that unfairly limits people ability to contribute to a process they do have a stake in, for a almost non existent problem which we already can contain using the tools we already have. It simply has no real upside against the very real downside of closing important parts of this wiki off unneeded for it's primary users and audience.-- Vista  T  05:24, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

How come you have to run for office, when their first contribution can be made anywhere in the wiki ? The user first edit can be an edit to his page, voting for a suggestion, posting a danger report, writing description on building pages, writing on their group page, or even commenting on administration processes, among several actions that can be made that are not a vote... restricting the user ability to vote on something unless he showed prior the slightest interest in the wiki is that much of a deal? --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{talk mod} 05:44, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I meant to take your metaphor and show that just counting editing as showing interest in the wiki is too limiting. That editing doesn't equal citizenship but that we should define that more broad. Most people who show in interest in the wiki, don't edit, yet they are involved and do have an interest in this wiki. And that voting in fact is the single biggest activator we used to have. limiting that, just because we're scared of what in practice is nothing more of a specter of a bogyman is extremely counterproductive in my mind.-- Vista  T  05:49, 30 November 2008 (UTC)