Board Thread:Star Wars Fanon Announcements/@comment-3528596-20160203175050/@comment-104549-20160214014023

(twitch) Savage, you're trying to see how many holes you can carve in the Voting Policy before I have an episode, aren't you? Well, fine, you're one rant up on me, so here you go.

I object for two reasons. The first is based on the Voting Policy. The way I read Rule 6 ("A user cannot vote for or against themselves, or their articles, in nominations with the following exceptions: quote of the week, featured article, featured work and good article nominations[.]"), it was designed to be exclusive. By specifically naming things which are exempt from the rule against voting for one's own stuff, it's obviously implying that everything not explicitly mentioned is covered by the policy. Because the Wiki Awards aren't QotW, FA, FW, or GA, for me that's the end of the discussion.

"But Sakaros!" you protest. "We don't all share your pure and admirable commitment/slavish devotion to the literal text of the rules!" Okay, fine, let's talk policy. I can think of several reasons users shouldn't be able to vote for their own work:
 * 1) As Alexander points out, if everyone accepted this idea, then it would become pointless; every user would vote for his own articles and even things right back out.
 * 2) If some users refuse to vote for their own work because they think it's pretentious and/or missing the point of having the community vote, then the deck is stacked against them.
 * 3) On that second note, I've always thought of the Wiki Awards as a form of community acknowledgment that articles are well-written, interesting, or both. Users can already express that they think their works are worthy of acknowledgment by nominating them in the first place; I think that's sufficient contribution by users to their own acclaim.
 * 4) Relatedly, I think the ability to nominate one's own articles is sufficient impetus to get involved in the whole process. I also don't think that users who don't feel inspired to check out other categories when they can nominate their own works will suddenly be inspired to go on a voting spree in other categories if they can vote for their own work in addition to nominating it.  I suspect we'll see the same level of engagement (or disengagement) either way; disengaged users will either nominate their own work and not vote in other categories, or nominate and vote for their own work and not vote in other categories.