Wikibooks:General voting rules/Proposal/Version 4

Low impact decisions

Low-impact decisions involve proposals that express the community's preferences and feelings about issues that fall well below the level of policy, and do not affect the long term culture or structure of Wikibooks. For these sorts of decisions, a simply majority vote may be used for convenience and clarity. Low impact decisions are those which will not affect the long term culture or policies of Wikibooks.

Examples of low impact decisions where majority rules voting would be acceptable are:

1. Determining the following month's book of the month
2. Determining the following month's collaboration of the month
3. Determining the following quarter's Wikijunior book of the quarter
4. Resolving disputes where parties agree to use voting as a method of gauging opinion or taking decisions.

High impact decisions

High-impact decisions involve the adoption or repeal of policies and guidelines that have a long term effect on the culture and structure of Wikibooks. These decisions should always be made through the process of building a community consensus. Such decisions include:

1. Making a Wikibookian an administrator
2. Making a Wikibookian a bureaucrat
3. Giving a Wikibookian checkuser rights
4. Determining whether a page should be deleted
5. Creating or modifying Wikibooks policies

Voting

When voting is deemed acceptable, the vote should follow these guidelines:

• Each person gets only one vote; additional votes by sockpuppets or alternate accounts should not be counted
• Only votes cast by registered users with 20 or more edits should be counted
• Votes cast in bad faith should not be counted
• Each vote should be signed (using four tildes: ~~~~)
• The start and end period of the vote should be included with the description of the vote, and the period of the vote should be long enough to allow wide user participation
• The vote should be publicised in the Wikibooks:Staff lounge and on the Wikibooks:Bulletin board
• In the case of low-impact decisions, the option with the most valid votes is adopted.
• For high-impact decisions, votes and debates should be left open as long as progress towards reaching consensus is being made.

Community consensus

"Community consensus" is a state of existence arrived at by following a formal consensus decision making process. Ultimately the state of "community consensus" involves the vast majority of users agreeing on some decision.

Process

1. A proposal is made, and discussion about the proposal is invited.
2. The proposal is discussed, and initial concerns are raised.
3. The proposal may be modified to address these initial concerns and resubmitted for discussion.
4. A call for consensus regarding the proposal is made, possibly in the form of a straw poll.
5. If there are no objections, the proposal is accepted and affirmative "community consensus" has been reached on the proposal.
6. If there are still objections, the objections should be discussed and:
   • The proposal may be dropped. Affirmative "community consensus" for the proposal was not reached.
   • The proposal may be modified to address these objections and resubmitted for discussion.
   • A call for consensus regarding the proposal is made again, in spite of the objections. This action should not be taken lightly and should only occur after substantive good faith discussion of the proposal and objections has taken place. The community can:
     • Accept the proposal in spite of objections, and affirmative "community consensus" has been reached.
     • Not accept the proposal as "community consensus" has not been reached.

User responses

Users who do not agree with the community decison should accept the decision and, if they feel strongly, have one of the following options open to them:

• Propose alternative policies.
• Propose alterations to existing policies.
• Accept the community's decision.