These pages are considered to be guidelines on BRWiki. They illustrate standards of conduct, which many editors agree with in principle. However, they are not policy. Feel free to update the pages as needed, but please use the voting process and put the vote on the article's discussion page to propose any major changes.

Policies » Policy/Voting




BRWiki:Policies

Policy status and phases






policy sign



This page is an official policy on BRWiki.

This policy has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow.
  • Feel free to propose any changes to this policy, but please make sure that changes you make follow the official process and reflect consensus on the discussion page before you put them into practice. Any changes need to be Adopted or Decreed to be enforced as policy.
  • See the Policies home page for an overview of BRWiki policies.
  • See Policies for a list of proposed and adopted policy articles.


Shortcut: WW:VOTE
Votes conducted according to this policy are considered enforceable. You are of course free to set up a vote whichever way you like, but you are much less likely to receive backing from other contributors and/or administrators if someone reverts changes you make as a result of the outcome.

[top]Voting


One way to resolve conflicts or at least reduce their disruption is to have people vote on contentious issues. This article describes a recommended process and is only a policy in that this process has been reviewed and agreed upon via the more stringent process of policy ratification and adoption and should be enforced by the admins.
Normally changes in a wiki just go through a create and edit cycle, but if a situation arises where people revert or change sections back and forth or make some pages redirect pages and some not, or split up pages while some people want all the stuff together, or questioning where content belongs.

[top]Types of Issues for Voting


[list][*] Naming articles and categories.
[*] How to organize info
[*] Moving pages (redirects, also)
[*] Splitting up pages
[*] Locking pages
[*] Too many reversions
[*] Rumor accuracy
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[top]Exceptions to this Voting policy


[list][*] Policy votes – Policy votes are more strict.
[*] Deletion votes – Votes to delete pages are simplified.
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[top]The Voting Process



The following process concerns the general voting on issues at [[BRWiki]] before agreeing on some action or otherwise:

[list][*] The issue being voted on and action to take are considered a proposal.
[*] If the Yes votes win (see constraints below), the proposal is considered accepted.
[*] If the No votes win (see constraints below), the proposal is considered declined.
[*] The issue being voted on should be clearly identified in the discussion page of the article, and a voting booth created. See "How to start a vote", below.
[*] People now have an opportunity to vote. The {{Vote/Talk}} template explains things for the most part.
[*] For the decision to be made, the count for the winning side must exceed the losing side by five (5), i.e. 5:0, 6:1, 10:5, etc, and then a waiting period, or vote closing time, must be observed before finally closing the vote and taking the proposed action.
[list][*]Vote closing time – 3 days (72 hours).
[*]Multiple-choice votes – The comparison is made to the closest competitor.
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[*] Yes wins: Once the vote is closed and the Yes votes have won, the proposer should feel free to take the proposed action as accepted with the trust of most BRWiki users and backing of the admins.
[*] No wins: Once the vote is closed and the No votes have won, the proposal is effectively declined.
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Template:help:voting

[top]Voting FAQ




'''How do we know what to vote on?


- See the Votes in progress (category) list.


'''What really shouldn't be voted on?


- Here are some cases:
[list][*] Administrative issues: The admins who run BRWiki put in certain changes (like using Google to do searches), putting ads on the sidebar, restrictions to posting (like exploits) that aren't really a matter of voting, since they have to do with technical limitations (wiki bugs), keeping the site up (aka paying for it), or external relationships (requests by Wizards).
[*] Factual accuracy: Although we can dispute what the truth is, you can't really vote on whether it is true. If someone posts something that appears factually accurate, but someone has a reliable or official source that shows that is is not, you can't really vote to keep something untrue in an article. This especially applies to canonical lore. If someone can show that some lore on the site disagrees with something in the core Birthright publications, then a vote shouldn't be required to fix it. But don't forget that the __rules__ on [[BRWiki]] are mainly for Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, but the original lore was written for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition. These are things to be discussed first in the BR forum.
[*] Terminology: This is sort of a gray area, but usually its best just to put the all the meanings of a commonly used term and indicate which meanings are widely accepted vs. narrowly understood. You can vote on narrowly vs. widely, but unless the meaning attributed to a term is vandalism, totally nonsensical ("frog means an arrow with a rocket on it that speaks many languages") or that only apparently one person has ever heard, its okay to be in the wiki.
[*] Policy violations: If a page violates policy, the matter really isn't up for vote. If however you do not agree with a policy, you are of course welcome to vote to change the policy!
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'''Why have a vote closed time?


- Think of it as a cooling off period and a time for the losing side to campaign for more votes. If the losing side can't drum up enough votes in the time period, it usually indicates they don't care enough or they can't get enough support. We tend to keep the time shorter than we would for policy issues, but the wait time is generally short just because you don't want to be sitting around waiting for no good reason.


'''What do I do if my side loses, but I still strongly disagree with the outcome?


- Propose another vote! We may at some point decide that the result of a vote should "stick" for some time period before allowing another vote, but for now if you want to thrash it out again, you can always do it.


What if the loser just undoes the change of the winning vote?


- Well, assuming you followed the proper voting process, you can revert the change back, appeal to an admin to revert the change, or even appeal to an admin to block the user for a time period. Hopefully there will be a policy for violating BRWiki policy that you can get enforced.


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