Board Thread:Wiki Discussion/@comment-5264386-20140810061848/@comment-3186827-20140812171541

The whole issue of reaching a consensus is all about the maturity of the community and how serious they are about the wiki. Example: I was previously part of a large wiki (Elder Scrolls, along with Balagog and Zelron) where consensus vote was used to choose the chat mods - and it turned out badly. It became a popularity contest because the community was not serious about it. What resulted was bad mods, backed by their friends - and the mess it caused is not worth going into.

Thankfully, this method was not used to select admins. Only active admins could nominate other users for admin. It might seem against the spirit of a wiki, but the reasoning was active admins would quickly notice the work a great editor in the Recent Changes. Because they are already familiar with the admin role, they could identify if this editor was suitable, and if they would be able to perform the duties - as they do. Again, i'm not saying what worked there will work here, or vice-versa. Or that was a perfect system. My main point is every wiki is different and you need to look hard at the community before you make these huge decisions. If you have troublemakers on a wiki - then drama and arguments will follow if you're not careful.

I am new to this community, so I don't really know the vibe. But if you guys believe the editors are mature enough to vote seriously - and not vote for frivolous reasons, then you can use voting on almost all issues or staff positions without worry.

@ Cosmic - Just casting a vote, give your reasoning and move on with your day can turn out very badly if this wiki ever finds itself with as many non-serious users as some of the larger wikis. For important roles, like mod and sysop, you really need to be able to voice your concern if you have one. But do it with respect. That is where an etiquette policy should be introduced. It can very easily turn into a popularity contest - and one day you might wake up with users who are completely unqualified for the roles that they were voted into.

One wiki i'm part of is called uesp.net. They have a very efficient system for consensus, where pretty much everything, including staff positions, are voted on a Community Portal page (much like this one). What makes the system work is the core group of perhaps 20-30, long time, serious users. There is very little risk that anything can become popularity contest, because there are enough editors there to keep each other in check.

Again, that system might not work here. There might not be enough editors to guarantee proper checks and balances. In that case, you guys might need to handle it differently.