Board Thread:Wiki Discussion/@comment-5264386-20140810061848/@comment-25173123-20140811113458

This is a very big decision you are embarking on. It is always good to give the community input but giving them power is another thing all together.

Consensus is always a good thing but when it comes right down to it those admin that have already been given responsibilities will need to make the final decision. I have seen this before with power plays and social manipulation to get access privileges, and it can lead to mass exudes of people with differing opinions being nearly forced out and or stifled to the point of no longer wanting to participate.

Basics obviously need to be set down. Hard to justify someone getting administrative duties if they aren't even a logged in user, or a voice on the matter if they aren't also an active member.

A chat moderator would obviously need to have some experience with chat here. And be an active person in chat. As moderating chat can't be done really while outside of it.

Any one needing to deal with the public can't be leaning too far to the right or left in discussions. Or this place becomes N4G. Can't have the people that are way to lenient. (me as an example maybe) And you can't have people that have dictator (it's my way because I said so) like tendencies.

People talk of nominating applicants and putting votes down with valid reasons why they would be a good fit in the position. This technically comes down to high school popularity contests.

Some have voiced the thought of allowing no dissent with a persons nominee? This would not allow those that have had bad experiences with nominees to voice their opinion. Not a good thing. Discussion should be as any other discussion... good and bad issues presented and heard.

But all of this is for not if we don't even know what the positions needing to be filled will consist of. I have yet to see a list of responsibilities for any admin or moderators. Check out Google's business practices as an example for something that might need to be set down before people nominate others for postilions of power and not fully understand what the duties will consist of.

I would never recommend an open nomination time period. You can't have too many Admin (Chiefs) or things will get muddled. Posting openings might be an option? Or have nomination elections on a quarterly basis? This could also allow time for voicing concerns with admin that have been neglecting or abusing power. (I have seen no such cases on my small time here so far.)

A possibility of having designated DaS and DaSII admin might be viable? As it would allow admin to focus on different areas. This is usually only needed when the difference between areas is great enough to justify a partitioning of admin responsibilities. This would not mean that there couldn't still be over all administrative duties. But needs to be a focused area of responsibilities. Though never total power over any one area. (this is still a user Wikia)

What people might not realize is that admin need to have the ability to be neutral in the face of out right discordance with an issue. The ability to sit back and focus on everyone's opinion on the matter.

Admin are often less vocal then the majority of users. (or in practice should be so.) This is directly related to keeping a neutral position. People see green or yellow signatures and think automatically that person will have the correct and right information. So how you voice your opinions is more important than the average user as it will be seen as the voice of the Wikia.

As for general discussion issues. Does not appear that is really what is being addressed here as it is done on the forums. (though the forums are fairly vacant and don't get much participation until someone happens across them. Rule of thumb, admin should be reading the discussion forums every day! If nothing else to hear what people are discussing.)

tl;dr - admin open voting = high school popularity contest. If done total voicing of nominations needs to happen, good and bad. And job descriptions and responsibilities need to be set down first.