Forum:Admin Coordination

Forums: Index > Dobbstalk > Admin Coordination

The parts quoted immediately below appeared on Miley Spears' message wall. A version of the first message was posted on The Overmind's wall. The Overmind suggested coordinating through the Forum, which I think is a good idea. So I copied the discussion here. Pope Hilde (talk) 19:32, October 22, 2015 (UTC)

I think having The Overmind back will help a great deal here. As The Overmind is the founder, I'm the adopter, and you're an admin of this site, we should probably think about how we're gong to coordinate things. (originally posted by Pope Hilde)

I think your existing system of having discussions on the "Dobbstalk" forum works well enough for coordinating things. We can just coordinate everything in that forum. Posting messages on each others' walls also works if you need to get a particular person's attention (since they get a notification about it) but it's a little time-consuming to post messages on everyone's walls. Plus you can't edit messages once they are on walls as freely as you can edit things in a Wikia forum.

And as for the other forum, "Help desk", I think that one is there by default and is for people who don't know how to use wikis. So that is for users who have questions to post them there and have them answered by someone. (originally posted by The Overmind)

I agree about using the forum as the default as we all can easily check that. In this particular case, to get things started I posted a message on both your and Miley's wall because of the message notification that comes up and because forums weren't used before Miley and I started editing here. I didn't want to give an impression that I wanted you or anyone else to do everything here "my way" because I certainly don't.

I was thinking there are some things that it's important to work out especially as you had your original vision for this site and mine is naturally somewhat different. Miley's I'm sure is different still, as are other editors' views.

There's also procedural things. For example, how are decisions made here? For right now, it's at Forum:Who Decides. That was made while you were inactive so was made without your input, and you might want to suggest changes to it. While Wikia policy encourages and almost requires decisions be made by the community, "community" is not really defined by Wikia.

Another example is changes made to SubGenius Wikia Clench:About. I gave editors a week to make comments and suggestions on possible changes to the rules before I changed anything. On the other hand, you make significant changes and additions on your own to the description and advice there. Neither way is necessarily right or wrong, and they each dealt with different aspects of the page. But is something we might want to decide how we handle. Pope Hilde (talk) 19:32, October 22, 2015 (UTC)

You two can do what you want. Miley Spears Junior Bobbie Girl (let's talk) 22:42, October 22, 2015 (UTC)

Sorry I was upset when I wrote that. Reverend Peas encouraged me about the things I screwed up and I feel a lot better. He's really sweet. :) Miley Spears Junior Bobbie Girl (let's talk) 03:13, October 23, 2015 (UTC)

Sorry if I changed things without getting a consensus first. I didn't think they would be controversial changes (for one thing, they were parts of the rules which neither of you had ever edited, and were very minor changes) Also I immediately notified both of you about the changes and told you you could change things back if you didn't like them. I agree we need a better way to coordinate things. I hope you are not upset about any of this anymore, Miley. I did not mean to upset you, and the opinions of all admins count equally, in accordance with what it says at Forum:Who Decides, which are the current rules for decision-making (although I didn't take any part in drafting them, I am perfectly willing to follow them). Anyway, if there is any disagreement about the changes I have made to the rules listed at SubGenius Wikia Clench:About, we can follow the same procedure Pope Hilde did the last time, of having 1 week to debate the changes. You are both free to suggest changes to the rules. For that matter, any contributor to this wiki can suggest changes and them have them debated. I would say that Pope Hilde's way of giving editors a week to make comments and suggestions on possible changes to the rules is probably better than just editing it like I did, at least in most cases, and it would have been better if I had done things that way too, and I am sorry if my actions upset Miley Spears in any way. All admins, and in fact all contributors to this wiki, should have their opinions taken into consideration when making decisions, in accordance with what it says at Forum:Who Decides (although I think perhaps the lists of people on that page are maybe not quite as inclusive as they could be of all our valued contributors of good faith edits). --The Overmind (talk) 01:43, November 2, 2015 (UTC)

I wasn't upset at you at all! I was just upset about people threatening and insulting me and especially filling up my email with violent porn. Porn is OK but not violent. :) Miley Spears Junior Bobbie Girl (let's talk) 01:56, November 2, 2015 (UTC)

The Overmind: "(although I think perhaps the lists of people on that page are maybe not quite as inclusive as they could be of all our valued contributors of good faith edits)." I think Hilde just put people who did 100+ edits. The rest of the people either haven't edited in a long time or are really new. I think it would be OK to list the good faith editors though. Miley Spears Junior Bobbie Girl (let's talk) 03:40, November 3, 2015 (UTC)

So do I. JoX the Bobtist (talk) 16:01, November 3, 2015 (UTC)

As there seems to be agreement with no objections, and the request for opinions on Forum:Who Decides was made on Oct. 22, 2015, well over a week ago, I'll post suggested names below to the tertiary list that I believe have significantly contributed to articles. If you disagree with these, post your opinion. Pope Hilde (talk) 23:09, November 5, 2015 (UTC)

I looked through everyone's edit history who's not on the Primary or Secondary list. Below are those who meet the following criteria:

Have posted on the site in the past year; have contributed to articles (either by writing or by adding image(s)/video(s) to articles); have posted 10+ edits on more than one day. I did not include those who contributed to discussions but not to articles (those would not count as "contributors of good faith edits" as they didn't make edits to articles of any kind), or who posted images none of which are used in an article.

Believe it or not (you can check the contributions of all editors here), that only leaves one:

User:JoX the Bobtist: named user, active for one month+, familiar with the website's focus, consistently worked to follow Wikia policy, created article(s), uploaded image(s)/video(s) to site, added image(s)/video(s) to article(s) http://subgenius.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Contributions/JoX_the_Bobtist

I was going to post a significant list for other decides to choose from. But as there's only one who meets what I consider the minimum qualifications, and as there's been no objection and has been supporting for adding names, I'll add these one to the tertiary list unless there's any objection in the next week. (Note that there is an editor who contributed images but none have been used in articles, and there is an editor who made contributions to articles on one day but hasn't been back). Pope Hilde (talk) 23:54, November 5, 2015 (UTC)

I know you checked but it's hard to believe there's only one. But if you and The Overmind both agree that's OK with me. :) Miley Spears Junior Bobbie Girl (let's talk) 02:23, November 6, 2015 (UTC)

There is only one. I'm the only living PreChurch Prophet of "Bob". All the rest are dead. Which is redundant. JoX the Bobtist (talk) 17:06, November 9, 2015 (UTC)

NO! Yes this was The Overmind's idea. But if I'm the only tertiary voter, the haters will blame Pope Hilde & Miley Spears for giving a vote to their "friend". Even though I may not be anybody's friend, that's what they will think if they pay attention at all. JoX the Bobtist (talk) 17:11, November 9, 2015 (UTC)

"If they pay attention at all" may be the key phrase. Since The Overmind returned, the "haters" have disappeared. I don't think it's a problem, but don't want to force anything on you. Pope Hilde (talk) 14:28, November 11, 2015 (UTC)

They could be back in five minutes. And I claim to be a Sockpuppeteer with multiple accounts so am not to be trusted. JoX the Bobtist (talk) 21:21, November 13, 2015 (UTC)

Voting

I prefer things done by consensus. But if it requires a vote, I propose the following based on what I've seen other Wikis do.

• Primary editors: 2 votes
• Secondary editors: 1 vote
• Tertiary editors: 1/2 vote

Please express your opinions in the next week. Pope Hilde (talk) 00:00, November 6, 2015 (UTC)

COMMENT. Wikipedia isn't really consistent on voting. We usually make decisions by consensus and "votes" are really straw polls. The ones in charge can decide in favor of the minority. Uncyclopedia gives named editors 1 vote and IPs 1/2 vote. I know when most of the editors have been vandals or just complainers maybe that won't work here. So I guess this is Ok. Miley Spears Junior Bobbie Girl (let's talk) 02:39, November 6, 2015 (UTC)

If you or anyone has a different suggestion feel free to post it. Pope Hilde (talk) 17:43, November 6, 2015 (UTC)

The section above here got a bit too indented so I'll have this back on the left, and down in the voting section, since it's relevant to this. Anyway, on Forum:Who Decides, it says that anybody who posts their name on that forum gets to be a tertiary voter (and that forum page was originally written by Pope Hilde although neither Miley Spears nor I have objected to that). This would mean basically anyone can be a tertiary voter. If we were to have a base criterion besides that I'd suggest having 20 productive edits (i.e. any sort of edit that isn't outright vandalism, even if it is just contributing to a discussion), or alternately a leaderboard score of at least 60. Those are a little arbitrary, but I picked them because they seem like reasonable cutoff points and everyone above those cutoff points has contributed at least some valuable stuff to the wiki.

Users who have at least 20 productive edits, besides the 3 bots User:Default, User:Wikia, and User:WikiaBot (who doesn't get a vote since it's a bot programmed by Wikia not a real person), currently include, alphabetically, User:Ivan Stang, User:JoX the Bobtist, User:Jzp-wikia, User:Miley Spears, User:PatrickCunningham, User:Pope Hilde, User:RevBabyBear, User:Shining Path of Least Resistance, User:The Overmind, and User:Zirroneous. Users with a leaderboard score of at least 60 (bots automatically excluded from the leaderboard): User:PoPe PeNGo, User:Reverend Bork, User:Shining Path of Least Resistance, User:JoX the Bobtist, User:PatrickCunningham, User:Ivan Stang, User:Pope Hilde, User:Jzp-wikia, User:Miley Spears, User:The Overmind.

So according to my calculations the voters should be as follows (according to current data): Primary editors: User:Jzp-wikia, User:Miley Spears, User:Pope Hilde, and User:The Overmind Secondary editors: User:Ivan Stang and User:PatrickCunningham Tertiary editors: User:JoX the Bobtist, User:PoPe PeNGo, User:RevBabyBear, User:Reverend Bork, User:Shining Path of Least Resistance, and User:Zirroneous, as well as anyone who posts on Forum:Who Decides asking to be considered a Tertiary editor

That's a total of 4 primary editors currently, 2 secondary editors currently, and 6 tertiary editors currently, although those numbers could change. At least this is my calculation. Anyway it already says on Forum:Who Decides that anyone who posts there can be considered a tertiary editor. But for people with at least 20 productive edits or a leaderboard score of at least 60, that shouldn't be necessary and we can just automatically add them to the list. I chose those numbers 20 and 60 because they are inclusive enough to add a reasonable number of people to the list but not so inclusive they'd include people who did almost nothing. Those numbers would obviously be subject to change.

If you look at my lists, the 4 primary editors have leaderboard scores of 670-1580, the 2 secondary editors have leaderboard scores of 210-440, and the tertiary editors have leaderboard scores of 80 or lower, making them clearly 3 different groups objectively. Also, the 4 primary editors have 905-1778 edits, the 2 secondary editors have 191-363 edits, and the tertiary editors all have 41 or fewer edits, making those also split into the same exact 3 groups objectively. So it is pretty clear who should count on the primary and secondary lists, objectively using numbers, given the wide mathematical gaps between primary and secondary and between secondary and tertiary in terms of both number of edits and leaderboard score. The only thing that can't be determined objectively is who to include as a tertiary editor, so basically I came up with semi-arbitary criteria of either 20 edits or 60 in the leaderboard to decide who should automatically be included, along with allowing anyone who wants to to post on the forum asking to be listed as a tertiary editor and they would get it too. As far as the voting system goes, I am fine with the ratio of 2 for primary editors, 1 for secondary editors, and 1/2 for tertiary editors. It is a good balance between a meritocracy that rewards people for their contributions (making people who contribute more feel like they are being valued) and a democracy where everyone's vote counts (making everyone feel like their vote counts and that they aren't being dominated by some cabal).

Oh, and as for if a vote is a tie, this means that whatever is being voted on is neither accepted nor rejected, so whatever the status quo was prior to the vote would remain in effect, of course. However, if a tie is the result of a vote on something, I think the best course of action after a tie would usually be to discuss things and maybe modify whatever is being voted on so it has a broad consensus of almost everyone supporting it.

Anyway, I am generally in agreement for how voting should work, in cases when things actually come to a vote, although as both of you said, usually things are done by consensus so voting only would arise when there is disagreement on something and people cannot agree on a compromise. In most cases nobody bothers to object to things or people can compromise and find an agreement without voting on it, so voting is only needed if those other things fail at achieving agreement. As far as my lists for who should be considered tertiary voters, I wonder what other people think. Only including one tertiary voter, as per the discussion higher up on this page, goes against what it says on Forum:Who Decides where it says anyone who posts there gets to be a tertiary voter. So we need to have some kind of consistent policy on who gets to be a tertiary voter. I think the criteria for it should be inclusive enough to include more than one person... mine include 6 tertiary voters. Of course the criteria can later be modified if that ever becomes necessary. I am not sure about whether allowing just anyone who posts on Forum:Who Decides to be a tertiary voter is the best idea, since it's possible we could be flooded with people who created new accounts and didn't contribute anything to this wiki. So there has to be a reasonable compromise between giving more editors a voice in what happens than just 1 tertiary voter, and allowing us to be flooded by new users, who could possibly all be sockpuppets of the same person, all voting en masse. I'd suggest we actually change what it says on Forum:Who Decides about who gets to be a tertiary voter, to ensure we have a system where all active contributors feel included, but also where we can't get flooded with votes from people who contributed nothing or almost nothing of value. --The Overmind (talk) 07:12, November 13, 2015 (UTC)

Clarification: When I started writing the above post I thought the current policy on Forum:Who Decides regarding letting anyone who asked to be a tertiary voter get to be one automatically just by posting a response on that forum page was a perfectly sensible idea. Only when I got to writing the last paragraph of it did I realize that this current policy of allowing anyone to be a tertiary voter creates a problem, namely, we could be flooded with dozens upon dozens of new users all signing up to vote in droves, who had never contributed anything previously, who could overturn the will of the majority of people who are actually active contributors to this wiki. I do also think that only having one person be a tertiary voter is liable to potentially get people upset about being excluded completely from the democratic process. So my proposal is to go with those 6 people currently who have at least 20 edits or a score of 60 in the leaderboard, and then if other people in the future also get 20 good faith edits or achieve 60 or higher in the leaderboard, they would automatically become tertiary voters too. Both the extreme of allowing anyone at all to be a tertiary voter (opening us up to getting taken over by people who have never contributed anything to this wiki and have zero edits prior to their post on the forum asking to be a tertiary voter), and the extreme of only having one tertiary voter (making others feel excluded since they don't even have a fraction of a vote, which is liable to cause drama), well both of those are problematic and liable to cause drama. Having a reasonable compromise between 1 tertiary voter and a potentially unlimited number of tertiary voters, like my formula that would currently result in 6 tertiary voters, is the best solution and would minimize the amount of drama and the potential for anything bad to happen to this wiki. And of course if my formula turns out to include too many or not enough people it could be revised to something else, although it is best if it is something that can be checked quickly. It is quite easy to quickly check everyone's leaderboard scores and edit counts and easy for any observer to independently verify these numbers, making them objective and not the type of thing to cause controversy. And this can minimize the amount of drama, encourage people to participate enough in the wiki to first become tertiary editors, then secondary, then primary, through a system of meritocracy, plus as a democratic system it allows everyone who has done a minimal amount of positive contributions to the wiki to participate in the voting process, without including people who haven't contributed anything of value. So while at first in the previous post I went along with the existing policy on Forum:Who Decides about tertiary editors, by the end of the post I realized that the existing policy has a huge vulnerability in it that opens this wiki up to being taken over by people who have never contributed anything, and, in the terminology of computer security, we need to patch that vulnerability before it is exploited. --The Overmind (talk) 08:56, November 13, 2015 (UTC)

I am largely in agreement with this post and your post immediately above it, especially as the one person who would be a tertiary editor under my original proposal objects to it.

But I do have one problem, and that is in regard to "productive edits." User:Zirroneous, for example, made 41 edits, most or all of which were vandalism. I also have a problem including people who contributed nothing to the Wiki except to make comments; someone can easily make 20+ comments without contributing anything. And frankly I'm not a big fan of badges as it's relatively easy to build up badge credit without making significant contributions--one user made a great number of very small edits in one day and greatly build up badges that way.

I would support your proposed changes with one alteration: tertiary need to have made 20 productive edits on articles (this would include images). Pope Hilde (talk) 18:00, November 13, 2015 (UTC)

That makes sense. So would the new list of tertiary editors get reduced from User:JoX the Bobtist, User:PoPe PeNGo, User:RevBabyBear, User:Reverend Bork, User:Shining Path of Least Resistance, and User:Zirroneous to just User:JoX the Bobtist and User:Shining Path of Least Resistance? I didn't actually look at the entire edit histories of everyone, I just quickly looked up the numbers for their edits and leaderboard positions. It's actually quite a chore to build up a really big leaderboard score that is several hundred, and the leaderboard encourages people to do actions that are productive towards the wiki. So having a leaderboard score of at least 200 is a good sign that someone is a productive contributor (currently only 6 users have a leaderboard score over 200, specifically the 4 primary and 2 secondary users). So I might suggest keeping the leaderboard as a way to become a tertiary contributor, just raising the number from 60 to 200. Anyway, User:RevBabyBear so far just edited forum pages, talk pages, etc. rather than articles but her edits have still been good faith edits, but if we require the edits to be on articles she wouldn't count. And User:Zirroneous wouldn't count since his edits were vandalism like you pointed out (I just looked at both their edit histories). Furthermore, User:PoPe PeNGo and User:Reverend Bork were the 2 who were just their for their leaderboard scores. So if the 20 productive edits have to be to articles I'm afraid that would bring us down to only 2 tertiary editors at the moment: User:JoX the Bobtist and User:Shining Path of Least Resistance. As far as User:Shining Path of Least Resistance goes, he made a number of productive edits to actual wiki pages, uploaded images, and so on, so he should definitely count as a tertiary editor... the fact that the edits weren't recent shouldn't matter for a tertiary editor. And of course User:JoX the Bobtist is discussed higher up in this page as a tertiary editor. Having only 2 tertiary editors is a little bit problematic to me but since all people need to do is 20 productive edits to articles, that isn't too much of a hurdle to cross so I am sure we can get more in the future. Also, sorry for not noticing that User:Zirroneous had just been doing vandalism, I was just looking at the edit counts, not the actual edit histories. I am fine with your suggestions, but it would be nice if people could use the leaderboard to become tertiary contributors, with a higher number such as 200, that's the only thing I'd change from your suggestions there. --The Overmind (talk) 18:36, November 13, 2015 (UTC)

One last important thing I just thought of: If the same person holds multiple accounts they should only be allowed one vote, although they should be able to do it from any account they hold which has status as a primary, secondary, or tertiary voter, and presumably if they have accounts with different levels of status they'd make the rational choice of voting from their highest status account, although it is up to them which if any account they vote from as long as they don't vote from more than 1. As far as how to prove if someone has multiple accounts, the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" seems like a good one to apply here. Note that Wikia policy DOES allow users to have multiple accounts, even including multiple accounts with admin or bureaucrat status, and there aren't any rules against having multiple accounts, or even rules against having multiple accounts that take part in discussions that are NOT votes. But as far as voting itself is concerned, that is the ONE situation I can think of where having multiple accounts does become a MAJOR issue and where people should only get to vote from one of their accounts if they have multiple ones, and have their other accounts besides the one that votes abstain from voting. There have been some allegations of people having multiple accounts or using sockpuppets in the past at this wiki (even involving admins) so I think obviously there needs to be a rule against people voting from multiple accounts on the same vote. Part of the reason Forum:Nobody's Nobody had to be created is because of this whole controversy, after all. Of course people should be able to vote from one account on one vote and another different account on some other later vote, as long as they only vote once in each vote, due to situations like if somebody forgets their password for their original Wikia account and then creates a new Wikia account so they can continue making positive contributions to wikis. As far as the penalty for breaking this rule would go (in cases where it is actually proven beyond a reasonable doubt), I propose having it be a 30-day ban on all their accounts accompanied by the loss of any privileges higher than those held by a named user (administrator, power user, bureaucrat, moderator, etc.), as well as having that user's right to participate in future votes at all suspended for 6 months, after which they can vote again from just one account if they behave themselves.

Then again, we could just ALLOW people with multiple accounts that hold primary, secondary, or tertiary status to vote from all of them, but I think that is not such a good idea policy-wise, as it would probably lead to more controversy and drama and potentially people trying to rig things by creating multiple accounts if we outright allowed it. The argument for allowing it would probably be that this would avoid multiple accounts ever becoming an issue (although I doubt that, I think it would just cause a backlash against that policy and probably lead to more controversy), or maybe that if someone has made plenty of valid contributions from multiple accounts it isn't anyone else's business whether those accounts happen to be the same person or not (a fair point but debatable and when it comes to voting I personally don't agree), or maybe there is some part of Wikia policy I don't know about that overrides this, or maybe there might also be some other argument to allow it that I can't think of right now (I certainly don't want to be making straw man arguments, I am trying to think of the best arguments for both sides of the issue). However I think a policy allowing multiple votes could cause more controversy rather than less. Alternately, we could have no policy at all in this regard, when it comes to the possibility of users with multiple accounts voting more than once, but that would mean the policy would be unclear whether or not it's allowed, and personally I think the policy ought to state whether or not such a thing is allowed, and, if it is not allowed, what the punishment should be. Of course I welcome feedback on this proposal too and I am sure we can find a consensus on it.

Of course, since Wikia protects users' privacy, and it is actively prohibited to "dox" fellow Wikia members and find out and post their private information, that would probably be the strongest argument for allowing people to have multiple votes if they have multiple accounts, but still, I don't find that persuasive, and I'm sure Wikia policy would most likely allow us to prevent people from voting multiple times in the same poll. Wikipedia policy makes it a bannable offense although obviously Wikipedia is not part of Wikia and their policies are different. But I think Wikipedia's policy of not allowing the same person to vote multiple times in a vote using different accounts is a good one and we should follow the same policy here if possible (although obviously other Wikipedia policies such as neutral point of view and requiring sources to be cited are not things we would do on a parody/fan wiki like this in a million years). If it does turn out that Wikia policy is the opposite of Wikipedia's on the question of multiple votes and multiple votes from the same person must be allowed (which we'd probably have to get confirmed by a staff member), it would be important to note that in the rules and see if we can get a Wikia staff member to give us something we can quote in the rules on that regard, just to show that we at this wiki wouldn't be the ones saying multiple votes have to be allowed, but it would be Wikia itself. However, I don't think that is the case, and I do think Wikia does allow us to only allow each person to vote once... this is probably one of the reasons why checkusers, Wikia users who can check the IP address of any other Wikia user, exist. In any case, if such a controversy does occur it would probably be best to refer it to Wikia staff since they can confirm whether or not 2 people are the same person, without publicly posting the person's real identity or violating any of their own policies. Nobody at this wiki is a checkuser after all, and checkuser is a status that can only be granted by Wikia staff, not even by bureaucrats on this wiki.

Anyway I mostly just posted this because there have already been these types of allegations raised with regard to several people on this wiki, and I am just trying to think of a policy to pro-actively deal with the situation to try and minimize any controversy or drama here in a way that goes along with the general consensus among active editors of this wiki and also goes along with Wikia's policies. Feel free to respond with policy ideas, questions, or comments of your own regarding how we should handle people who have multiple accounts when it comes to voting (whether or not it's allowed, what kind of process there should be to handle it and determine if there is sufficient proof, what the punishment should be for people who get caught and proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, etc.). This is the one remaining potentially explosively controversial aspect of the current voting policies, from my perspective, so it's best if we can think of a policy that can nip this kind of controversy in the bud.

Also, if any editor of this wiki has any confessions to make about having multiple accounts, please, don't worry about it, Wikia rules allow you to have multiple accounts, but it's best if anyone who is doing that fesses up as soon as possible over on Forum:Nobody's Nobody, since after all, Wikia rules allow you to have multiple accounts, you haven't done anything wrong, at least not yet, at least not until there are any votes held in which you vote multiple times, and only then would you be potentially violating the rules. And Wikia rules override the rules of this wiki, by the way, so really, if anyone is doing this, please just confess to it right now or as soon as possible, you won't be punished, it is allowed by Wikia rules, but we need to know about it so your vote won't be counted multiple times in any future votes. You aren't technically required to confess to this if you have multiple accounts, but it would be very helpful regardless, and it would actually PREVENT you from getting in any trouble, since if anyone here has multiple accounts, you haven't done anything wrong YET, but if we ever actually use this proposed voting system and you vote multiple times, you could end up in big trouble if you don't just admit what you're doing now (and anyone who admits it now won't be punished since they haven't violated any rules, and admitting it now proactively protects you from being found guilty of voting multiple times in the future). Personally I don't know for certain whether or not anyone has done this but certainly plenty of people have made plenty of allegations against plenty of other people so it's best if we all resolve to be honest and truthful with each other from now on (if we haven't been doing that already). My goal is for this wiki to have open, honest, transparent, democratic, meritocratic governance from now on (not that I'm saying we haven't had it in the past, just that we can always strive to do better). I don't mean we have to be open and transparent enough to post our real-life names, addresses, phone numbers, and such, or anything like that... in fact nobody should post their real-life identity here if they can help it, I strongly discourage that, because there are probably some people who look at this wiki who might... well never mind them, just exercise some common sense with regard to Internet privacy. Just that we ought to admit if we have multiple accounts and also tell the truth when it comes to other things and of course have all of our debates publicly in places like this forum where anyone can look at the edit history and see who posted what and when. Personally speaking, User:The Overmind is my only named account at Wikia although I have also done "anonymous" edits through my IP address at various Wikia wikis too, but the only relevant question is whether people have multiple named accounts, it is fine if you sometimes edit while logged in and sometimes edit without being logged in, although only logged-in users with Wikia accounts have the potential to get to vote. As always, feel free to respond with questions, comments, ideas or policy proposals of your own, complaints, and miscellaneous fnords. --The Overmind (talk) 17:47, November 13, 2015 (UTC)

This seems like a sensible policy. The problem, as you pointed out, is verification. We had some problem with an editor demanding repeatedly that people prove they're card-carrying members of the Church of the SubGenius which is against Wikia policy. To that editor having a SubGenius membership under two names would justify two identities including two votes. Demanding people identity their real-life information is also against Wikia policy. If the user is under the age of 18, I think it actually violates U.S. law. And the problem with identifying IPs is that more than one person can edit from the same Internet Provider address. My sother and I have both posted to several of the same sites. And many wiki editors edit from their college which has a shared IP. Pope Hilde (talk) 18:18, November 13, 2015 (UTC)

"Also, if any editor of this wiki has any confessions to make about having multiple accounts, please, don't worry about it...." Oh yes, Mein Friar The Overmind-General Public-Yetisyny-XXX-XXXXX, I confess Your Holiness to your Inquisition. I confess to being a Sockpuppeteer, your Eminence. There are only 23 regular Wikia editor. I am the rest. But I am not worried even if you bring out the comfy chair. For Jesus told me that was OK. He will save me from Hell when the X-ists come. JoX the Bobtist (talk) 21:13, November 13, 2015 (UTC)

Alright, I got it, neither of ya likes the idea of that last rule. Fine, forget I said anything about it. This conversation never happened. *uses memory wiper* Wait, who am I? Oops, I used this thing on the wrong person. --The Overmind (talk) 21:59, November 13, 2015 (UTC)

I did not mean to imply I am opposed to a one-person, one-vote rule even though that is not what I proposed. I just believe it would be difficult to enforce. In my personal case, there's the issues of Forum:Pope Hilde & Miley Spears: Sockpuppets? and Forum:Nobody's Nobody. While some people have substantial evidence of their identity, I have relatively little. I work as a journalist for a small newspaper in my Conspiracy life, a paper that would not appreciate my SubGenius/Discordian activities. I only use the nom de plume "Pope Hilde" for writings related to that.

As I've stated before, I much prefer making decisions by consensus, and only see voting as a last resort. Pope Hilde (talk) 14:00, November 14, 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps we could do something like block the editor from editing for a month on both accounts (except do allow them to post on their message wall; I believe users should always be allowed to respond), and if an administrator temporarily suspend that status, or at least put it up for review. Pope Hilde (talk) 14:51, November 15, 2015 (UTC)

Actually, you don't get it by me. I wasn't disagreeing with the proposed rule. I was just telling you about myself. I've been a sockpuppeteer since before the term "sockpuppet" was invented. And that was before the Internet was exposed to the public invented. I recognize you as His Holiness General Inquisitor Mein Friar The Overmind-General Public-Yetisyny-XXX-XXXXX who will be a leader of the X-ist invasion on X-Day. I don't want to miss my ride. "Bob" promised all of us original Church members we'd be the first 23 to board the Pleasure Saucers, but "Bob"'s word is about as reliable as an inflamed boil on your buttocks. It's here with you right now, it's a constant pain in the ass, but you never know when it's going to pop and leave you in an ugly mess. JoX the Bobtist (talk) 05:40, November 16, 2015 (UTC)