Full Moon o Sagashite Wiki:Voting policy

In the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, an official notification was issued for the demolition of a house, in such an inconvenient place that the owner was not intended to see that order. The legal obligation to notify him was fulfilled, but was done in a sneaky or lazy way. The sign on the door where that demolition order was kept read "Beware of the leopard".

The Full Moon o Sagashite Wiki will not engage in such activities. Wikis are a community effort and all members must be allowed to have a say in changes to procedures or policies. As such, the following conditions must be met before they can be implemented:


 * Publicly announced.
 * For policies, be open for review and change suggestions for at least one week prior to voting on the item.
 * At least a two week voting period.
 * Passage by the majorities listed below.

Voting
Standard support/oppose voting, rather than requiring a minimum number of voters or Consensus, should be used for deciding issues. It is not possible to guarantee that a certain number number of people will be available to participate in the voting process since this wiki has members from all around the world and each has their own matters to attend to.

All votes must be signed and dated, using the signature button above the editing window or by clicking on the link provided below the editing window after "Sign your username with today's date".

No person may alter or delete the votes of another person, vote on behalf of another person (except as noted below), nor vote using sock puppet accounts. Ballot stuffing is also not permitted. Any person caught engaging in any of these will have their votes invalidated and removed, with a note placed in the Summary line to that effect.

An administrator or a user with Rollback rights may place a vote for a new user or an anonymous user if a voting page has been protected, such as to prevent spam or vandalism. In these cases, an alternate method of registering a vote must be provided. The admin or Rollback rights user must note on the Summary line that they are acting as a proxy with a notation like "casting vote on behalf of user because page is protected, see Talk page for their original vote".

Who can vote
For votes involving general community business (issues and procedures), all people may vote, even if they have not registered for a wiki account.

For official wiki policies, only votes from registered members will be accepted.

Commenting
At the time the vote is established, it should be decided if comments are allowed or whether the time for commenting was expired. If comments are allowed, either set aside a separate section for the comments, direct them to the Talk page for that measure, or allow the comment to be included in a person's vote.

Passage of measures
An issue or procedure will be passed if 51% of the votes are in favor of it. In the case of a tie, an Administrator that has not yet voted may cast the deciding vote.

For policies, a two-thirds supporting vote is required since the policy will affect all members of the wiki. If less than six people have voted on a policy, it is recommended to extend the voting period to ensure that the members of the community truly support or oppose a policy, rather than just a select group of people.

If the measure passes, an Administrator should protect the page and the voting record so that it cannot be altered in the future by the general public.

Voting period extension
The voting period must be for no less than two weeks. If no votes have been cast, the voting period may be extended.

A voting period may not be extended to bring in last-minute voters voters that would sway the voting results in the opposite direction. For instance, if a measure would be defeated, new voters suddenly appear in the extended voting period that cast votes in favor of the measure. This will be considered ballot stuffing and is not permitted. (Even if a voting period has not been extended, last-minute votes should be checked for signs of sock puppetry or coming from similar IP addresses. Both indicate that ballot stuffing may be occurring.)

As stated above, the voting period for an official wiki policy can be extended if very few people (five or less) are voting on that policy. This will help ensure that self-interests are not being served by the policy.

If a vote has been extended twice for a policy and still has not reached the minimum number of voters, the vote can be closed and the votes tallied at that point. Likewise, if a vote has been extended once and two weeks pass after that extension ends with no new votes, the vote may be closed since this would equal the standard length of time for the second extension.

Administrators
The Administrators for this Wiki are:

Re-submitting an issue
If a measure fails to pass, it may be re-submitted after one month from the time the vote ended. The item may not be re-submitted verbatim. During the waiting period, the person who wishes to re-submit the item must review any comments previously made and address them to give their item a better chance at passage. When it is re-submitted, it must be done so under a new name and include a link to the previous version. A statement that previous comments have been addressed in the new version is recommended.

A measure may be submitted no more than three times in a given year. If it fails to pass three times, a one-year waiting period goes into effect, starting from when the third voting period ended.

If a measure has failed to pass six times, it should be considered dead and not submitted any further. Administrators may immediately delete any such measures if they are re-submitted beyond this point.

"Beware of the leopard" source
"Beware of the leopard" comes from the following passage in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:


 * "But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."


 * "Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."


 * "But the plans were on display ..."


 * "On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."


 * "That's the display department."


 * "With a flashlight."


 * "Ah, well the lights had probably gone."


 * "So had the stairs."


 * "But look, you found the notice didn't you?"


 * "Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."