VirusWiki - Virian Voting

Virian Voting

This document is fundamental and requires a vote to be accepted.

Franchise

All members of the congregation which is comprised of Virians who have elected to join Meridion (Refer "Reputation rating system") have a voice in the affairs of the Church of Virus, in that all members of the congregation are able to vote in any Virian Vote to which they have access.

Members of the Virian congregation may lose access to vote if they are silenced, but only for the period of silencing.

Call For Vote

All VirianLuminaries, i.e. those members of the congregation with a sufficiently high reputation as determined by Meridion, have the ability to establish votes.

DavidLucifer: Mermaid was confused by the terminology. What exactly does "establish" mean here? A flow chart of the different phases would be very helpful.

VectorHermit Before spending time on a graphic lets try to get it worked out in words. As I understand it, we agreed that:

A reputation of 6 or better (now Magister) on Meridion is required to edit the Wiki. As a vote must be proposed here on the Wiki first, that puts a bottom limit to who can propose votes.
The approval of four Council Members which includes the head of the Council (now ArchVectors and PrimeVector respectively) is required to establish (to create the vote entry on Meridion and open it for voting) a vote,
- although
The establishment of a vote is permitted without approval of four Council Members (now ArchVectors) if a page where there is a call for a vote is not edited or objected to for 3 days.
A reputation of 7 or better (now Luminary) is required to establish (to create the vote entry and open it for voting) the vote on Meridion.

VectorHermit This means that as previously determined, voting is a cooperative venture. It appears to me that as the situation currently stands, a Virian with a reputation below Luminary can propose a vote on the Wiki, but that the vote would have to be placed on Meridion by a VirianLuminary.

All proposed votes must first be posted on the Wiki

The exact wording of the proposed Vote must be provided as follows:

Category: What are the possible categories?
Title:
Question:
Selection: select either single or multiple
Option 1:
Option 2:
...
Option n:

In addition the proposal must also complete the following:

Class: select compulsory or informational
Closes: Description of when it is proposed the vote be closed if not at a 60% or greater of equity polled.
Adjudication: If not on a 60% support level for a two option vote, or "winner takes all" on a multi-choice vote.
Restricted: Indicate if voting is restricted to a certain group, e.g. VirianCouncil, Adepts
Visibility: Indicate if visibility is restricted to a certain group, e.g. Magisters, Adepts

Suggestions for category:

Policy:Wiki
Policy:Virian
Doctrine
Doctrine:Illumination
Doctrine:Best Of Virus
Conference (or Infection)
Poll

All proposals for a vote must be signified by adding VoteCalledFor to the page describing the vote.

Any VirianVector with a sufficiently high reputation as determined by Meridion (currently Magister or better) may edit the wording of the proposal for a vote until a wording agreeable to all is reached.

When changing the wording, all other Vector's names that may be present should be removed from the VoteCalledFor tag.

Acceptance is signified by suffixing the assenting ArchVector names to the proposal e.g. VoteCalledFor DavidLucifer

As soon as 4 ArchVectors signify assent, a vote may be posted to the Virian Voting Page.

Mermaid suggested that this level of qualification should only be necessary for votes on policy.

NB Terminology corrected above. We changed the meaning of Vector to council member and back to general member without updating this clause.

I must disagree. Strongly.

Who, in this scenario determines what is policy and what is not?

I guarantee that anyone with half a functioning braincell could work around such a clause to drive a truck through the intent of such a bypass, and then smile sweetly and say, "I followed the rules." And there wouldn't be a thing that anyone could do about it (although a Disciplinary Process might be used, this wouldn't fix any embarrassment). Because they would be right. People who establish rules with silly holes in them deserve it when the holes are used.

The process as described:

relies on the discretionary judgement of people (ArchVectors) with the interests of the entire CoV in mind, and this is far better than any rules we could draw up, no matter how complex.
is cooperative, collaborative, self-correcting and self-validating and hopefully will prevent the worst embarrassments we like to inflict upon ourselves from occurring in front of the general public.

Consider that if a proposed vote can't get the approval of 4 ArchVectors without modification, then there is probably something wrong with it and a "nomicon-like" session in the Wiki is called for to correct it.

Notice also, that if 4 ArchVectors could not establish a vote (overriding protest and delay), then a vote could be filibustered forever by somebody "Wiki Objecting" or even just editing it on a regular basis. In addition, an "emergency vote" could not be established, and we can't tell whether or not that may be needed.

So the two halves of this equation must be in place, and at the end of the day we rely on the ArchVectors to be acting in the best interests of the Church of Virus - or replace them.

Notice that the full address of the article being posted, including version number must be provided. e.g. http://virus.lucifer.com/wiki/WikiVote?version=10

If no changes to a page having a VoteCalledFor tag have been made within 3 days, a vote may be posted without further approval by removing the VoteCalledFor tag and changing it to a WorkInVoting tag.

A call for a Vote may be cancelled by replacing the VoteCalledFor tag by a WorkInProgress Tag.

The numbers and periods on this page may be altered as required by the Virian Council.

Voting Procedures

All members of the congregation are expected to vote on all issues put to the vote.

Some types of votes may require a minimum reputation in order to participate.

All votes have an abstain button. A vote for abstention is classed as a vote for the purposes of this rule.

Votes to accept or reject a wiki page becoming an official document must be carried out under the conditions established in terms of the WikiVote rules.