Thread:SavageOpress1138/@comment-25898954-20160212132505/@comment-3528596-20160212214352

Sakaros, would you be more comfortable with "Any confirmed Wikia users with mainspace edits"?

With that said, I'm going to ramble a little.

Here's my reasoning for not enforcing the voting policy. It just doesn't matter. You could argue that's an arbitrary standard, and you'd probably be right. But, to me at least, the Wiki Awards (while great and all that jazz) are not particularly important in terms of wiki functioning. You must be a recognized, long term contributor to have a say in something like a Request for Adminship. That's the kind of vote that has a lot of consequence for the wiki as a whole. While not as dramatic, I view votes for things like Archivists (and CoS back in the day) similarly.

So what makes WA different from FAs, GAs, FWs, etc.? Not much, I suppose. From a very high level, they're all made up awards given out on the internet by people united more or less only over their shared appreciation of the universe established by Star Wars and the possibilities for storytelling this presents. Since, again more or less, this storytelling unites us, we've decided to give awards to people who have shown an above average (well above average, realistically) attention to and passion regarding detail, creativity, storytelling, presentation, construction, and voice. We've established standards for FAs, GAs, and FWs. A categorized and tiered system of recognition, if you will. That's a long way of saying FAs/etc. are (slightly) more serious. A user presents their work asking for other to critique it, in the hopes of creating/showcasing their best work possible. Thus, I have a greater vested interest in keeping that voting club slightly more exclusive. Not very, but I don't think just anyone can waltz onto the site, edit a couple times, and vote on FWs.

Again, this is completely arbitrary. I get that. You might totally disagree.

As for the Wiki Awards, they're meant to be more fun. They aren't about critiquing or improving works, so much as they are about saying look at this cool, creative (maybe technically strong, maybe not) work I made. In essence, I think most FAs/FWs would win in a WA category, but every WA winner isn't necessarily qualified to be a FA/FW just by merit of winning the WAs. And that's okay.

So, I don't mind if people who've only edited a few times vote in the WA. They're basically saying "Yes, this is a cool character/etc. you created. Well done", rather than a more technical vote that it is a completely well rounded work.

That brings us to the actual WA voting. Traditionally, in my mind, stuff like this has worked like the theory of the three branched government (if you'll follow my extended metaphor). The voters are Congress. They nominate and vote on the articles. The hosts are Courts. They step in and say, "You can't do that", or "Yes, that's fine" if there's a controversy. Then the admin(s)/bureaucrat(s) are the executive(s). They can swoop in on the hosts or the voters to enforce wiki-wide policy if need be.

(Granted, that's not a perfect metaphor, but I hope you get the idea).

As you probably can see, that gets a little trickier when I'm a host and more or less the only active admin. That puts a lot of power in my hands to make judgment calls. Is it within my rights as host to say anyone with mainspace edits can vote? Maybe. If not, is it within my rights as admin or bureaucrat to make that call? Maybe. We've talked before about the dangers and differences between writing policy and interpreting policy. How much power do I have? Maybe I don't have the right to say the Voting policy doesn't apply after all. Maybe that has to be a community vote. But how many people really care that much about this? Maybe a lot, maybe no one.

As Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett said, "If you're asking me how a far a commanding officer is allowed to go, or dare go, or should be permitted to play God, I can't answer you."