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Policies
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HPW:VP

In the absence of unanimous consensus, proposed changes to individual articles, nominations for additional permissions, and suggested modifications to community-wide policy are determined by a vote, as mediated by one or more Administrators.

When an issue is settled by this method, attempts by any individual to counteract or violate these decisions without community consensus, as determined by a renewed discussion of the issue and a vote with participation equal to or greater than the original discussion, will be considered vandalism/disruptive editing under the blocking policy.

Votes related to article changes will be held on their respective Talk Pages. Votes related to site-wide policy changes will be held at Forum:The Wizengamot and votes related to granting wiki-related User Permissions will be held at Harry Potter Wiki:Requests for permissions. Votes related to Discussions issues will be held in Discussions, but linked to in either the Forum or Requests for Permissions as needed for tracking and archiving purposes.

User eligibility for Voting

  • A user's first contribution, either Wiki edit or Discussions post, must be at least 1 month prior to their vote being cast.
  • For Wiki-only-related topics, users must have at least 50 edits, counted across the Main article, File, Template, and Category namespaces, to be eligible to vote.
  • For Discussions-only-related topics, only autoconfirmed registered users with more than 20 Discussions posts may participate in voting.
  • For site-wide changes, including changes to general Policies and nominations for Administrators, users with either the minimum Wiki or Discussions contributions are eligible to vote.
  • Users returning from a block on their account are not immediately eligible to make new proposals or nominations or participate in any votes. They regain their ability to participate in these activities 1 month from the expiration of their block.
  • Votes cast by ineligible users will be stricken and not tallied by the Administrator mediating the vote.

Voting

  • Users can make a proposal and formally announce it to Administration via Harry Potter Wiki:Requests for administrator attention. Up to 7 days of discussion will then follow. An Administrator can open a vote at any point during these 7 days, or at the end of the 7 days can state their reasons for not opening a vote. Other Administrators can then take up the issue should they choose.
  • At the time of announcing a proposal to Administration or the opening of a vote, a user may request attention be drawn toward the proposal via Community lists, Announcements, and other related tools.
  • If no discussion happens during the 7 day discussion period with attempts made to draw attention to the proposal, then the proposal is considered closed, but can be resubmitted after 1 month.
  • The {{Vote}} template is used to officially open a vote, and will display which Administrator opened it, the opening date, the closing date, and the relevant voting subsections.
  • The Administrator who has begun a process may not partake in the voting directly.
  • A vote is to remain open for at least 7 days and expires at the same time as it opened after the full 7 days have passed, unless Extended or Closed Early in accordance with those provisions.
  • Users should vote by declaring whether they are For or Against the topic at hand (and by signing with four tildes (~~~~ for votes held in the Wiki). A comment can also be added if a user wishes.
  • The Administrator who opened a vote can extend its duration by 7 days should more time be needed to handle ongoing and unresolved discussions.
  • 7 votes need to be cast for a vote to be a valid measure of Community consensus. Any vote without at least 7 votes cast by its closing date will be closed with no changes taking place.
  • If a dispute concerning a proposal occurs after the vote is started and it cannot be solved, a vote can be shut down by the Administrator who opened it. The user has a 7 day period to petition for a new Administrator to open a new vote. The first Administrator cannot be involved in opening and closing the new vote. If another Administrator does not open a vote, the matter is considered closed and the petitioning user has to wait 1 month to resubmit their proposal. It would be encouraged that any concerns raised during the vote try and be improved upon during that period.
  • If a vote has +7 in support it may be closed early by an Administrator as long as at least 7 days have passed from the proposal's original announcement to Administration.
  • The Administrator who opened a vote must formally close, tally, and archive the vote.
  • Any proposal for which a vote is completed, but which does not pass, must wait 1 month from the closing of the vote before being resubmitted.
  • These rules can be modified for particular processes that have their own voting policy, such as Featured articles and Requests for permissions.

Tallying

  • Votes are tallied using a +/- system: voting For something adds one to the total, voting Against something subtracts one from the total.
  • A majority opinion is considered when there is a clear +3 votes for a particular opinion.
  • In situations where there are more than 2 options, a vote for an option is a positive one, and a vote for any other option is a negative one for all other options.
  • If there is no clear majority opinion the topic will be closed with no changes taking place.
    • If there are more than 2 options being voted on and no majority is reached, the option(s) with the lowest number of votes will be removed and voting will be reopened.

Example Topic (+2)

For (+3)

  1. -- User1 00:00, 1 January 1970 (UTC)
  2. -- User3 00:00, 3 January 1970 (UTC)
  3. Some comment. -- User4 00:00, 4 January 1970 (UTC)

Against (+1)

  1. Other comment. -- User2 00:00, 2 January 1970 (UTC)

Definitions

  • Administrator: A user in either the Harry Potter Wiki:Administrators or Harry Potter Wiki:Bureaucrats groups.
  • One Month: Defined by the date so 15 February is 1 month from 15 March, as 15 July is to 15 August, regardless of the number of days in any given month.
  • Proposal: Any formal suggestion for a change to an article, Policy, or User Rights.
  • Nomination: A proposal to grant a user additional rights.
  • Discussion: A conversation held by multiple users regarding the proposal which officially begins when a second user replies to the initial proposal.
  • Vote: A formal poll taken to determine community consensus as mediated by Administrators.

Current Voting Policy ratified and adopted 25 August 2020.

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