Another little thing here, this time its the current requirement to vote. As it stands, to participate in votes such as the Featured Article, one must have "acquired 20 edits within 1 month". This is very strange to me, as the messages that it gives are rather stupid. In essence, the current requirement means that previously highly regarded users are not allowed to vote because of a lack of edits. People with knowledge and wisdom always have that, it doesn't get lost. As this is the case, I fail to see why they must prove themselves every month that they are still the same person as before.

On the back of this, I propose that we change the voting requirement to X Edits flat. Thoughts? TheDocRichtofen (Talk) 16:16, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

I remember a similar case with a rule about not making 30 edits in a month or so meant loss of admin-ship, which I know you were certainly bothered by and had changed after a near unanimous (or maybe it was unanimous, can't remember...) decision. A change to this would be best, but what should the mainspace edit count be? 10? 20? 50? 100? More? PresidentEden78 16:55, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

There's a fine ite for where a reasonble requirement would be. It must do its job, but not also restrict others. It also must be proportionaly to the wikis size. TheDocRichtofen (Talk) 18:58, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we should remove the time limit. But, regardless of what number of edits we set it to, there's always a possibility someone could make a sockpuppet account and quickly rack up that many edits, and as I understand it that's the entire reason we have voting limitations in the first place. If we are going to have a set number of edits before being "able" to vote, it should be a) a cumulative thing instead of solely mainspace edits (ie, include edits from templates and filespace) and b) set very high, so that the puppeteer would not want to go through the trouble to have to make so many edits. I'd advocate for something in the range of 200 or higher cumulative "useful" edits. Йура 17:37, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

You are correct, but I believe that 200 is very high for being able to vote. It is important to block puppet users, but it must also be low enough to accomodate the user base. What this then means for a small/medium sized wiki is that the requirement is not top end. A large proportion of users here are occassional editors. Those users will take a very long time in getting 200 edits. In recent past, other bigger wikis have gone by nicely with only 50 edits mainspace. I would suggest anywhere between 50-100 edits combined to be the replacement for the current requirement. TheDocRichtofen (Talk) 18:58, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

For voting the induvidual user need atleast some edits and have contributed to this website by a certain number, i'm sure how big it need to be but atleast over 100 or 200+. Maxwell123 19:14, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

I would like to point out that as I have previously said, we must compensate the rule to the userbase. The majority of users here have not yet reached that count of edits yet. TheDocRichtofen (Talk) 20:03, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

Vote

Ok, so we have come to the conclusion that a change is needed and that the community supports a requirement which is plainly "X Edits" flat. Now, let's begin a vote! TheDocRichtofen (Talk) 14:49, April 16, 2012 (UTC)

50 Edits (Useful Edits)

• The idea of the requirement is to guard fromo sockpuppets, not to test the value of a user's opinion. On the basis of that, it must be set at something reachable if you put the effort in, but also high enough to exceed how much effort the average sock puts in to being convincing. I believe 50 helpful edits will achieve this goal, especially for a wiki this size with little in the way of sock threat. TheDocRichtofen (Talk) 17:50, April 16, 2012 (UTC)
• Support - Per Richtofen's comment below. PresidentEden78 17:43, April 17, 2012 (UTC)
• Support - In light of Richtofen's objections, I figure I may as well. Although, I do think we have a middle ground -- it's in the 1 - 2000 edit range. Йура 16:47, April 19, 2012 (UTC)

100 Edits (Useful Edits)

• Support - 100 or 150 edits, with a condition; evidently it would take a while to rack up a large number of edits, but I did deliberately state that we should include not just mainspace edits but all manner of "useful" edits, ie template edits, file uploads/edits, video uploads etc. Йура 15:03, April 16, 2012 (UTC)
• Support - I think 100 useful edits would be a good baseline. 50 can be attained fairly easily by a sockpuppet, but 100 has the third digit to deter them, lol. Yuri's condition also makes it a little easier to attain, as it essentially includes everything except user, user talk, and blog posts/comments. PresidentEden78 18:43, April 16, 2012 (UTC)
• Support - Looking at the voying requirements now, any user can get 20 edits within a good hour. A change to 100 or 150 will be enough in my opinion.--Slopijoe^Hangars 21:02, April 16, 2012 (UTC)

200 Edits

Comments

While I do respect the opinions of people voting for a high edit requirement such as 100 edits, I think this is a very bad decision. Firstly, its out of proportion. Very simply it is unlikely that any sockpuppets will ever get to an editcount like 50, which is why the a large proportion of big wikis have their requirement as that. Adding on to that, these are wikis with tens of thousand of edita every month, in comparison to this wiki which struggles for a few thousand.

Regarding Slopijoe's point "any user can get 20 edits within a good hour". Yes of course, users can also get 50, 100, 200 or higher in an hour too. However, a sockpuppet won't as they are caught pretty quickly or blocked but regarded as isolated incidents. There is also a tool called "checkuser", which is designed specifically for testing potential sockpuppet accounts. Some users here should have access to it.

Thirdly, think about who you are limiting here. This wiki has no middle ground with user edit counts. They either have very high count, in which no requirements affect them; or very small editcounts. For these users, it is critical we allow them access to have input in community decision to inspire them to stay on and continue contributing. If we aren't careful, and raise the requirements too high, users will become demotivated and we will see part of the community slip away. A good wiki can't be just sysops, TUs and bureaucrats; we need other users here to keep everything flowing. This is why I believe having a high requirement such as 100 may have a dmaging effect on the wiki, and should be avoided. TheDocRichtofen (Talk) 14:50, April 17, 2012 (UTC)

You make a very good point. I didn't know of checkuser, but that could be a easy way to remove sockpuppets. And marginalizing the community is something we certainly don't want to do. Our userbase that sticks around the most has mainly become anyone that is a TU, admin, or me and Bond. There's a few constructive edits here and there, but not as many as there could be. I guess my original intent of making at 100 was because of Yuri's condition that any non-userspace and non-blogspace edit could count towards the limit. If we keep that condition, have checkuser up, and make it at 50, I'm sold on the idea. PresidentEden78 17:41, April 17, 2012 (UTC)

Well Mr President Bureaucrat sir, I completely agree. That's what I meant with the 50. Now, I'll get onto checkuser. TheDocRichtofen (Talk) 20:55, April 17, 2012 (UTC)

I would like to make clear that checkuser gives the user the ability to see personal information such as the IP address, and so should only be given to few users how will use it properly and only for its primary function. Further on to this I would suggest that very few (like 1 or 2 at most) out of being a bureaucrat should ever see this tool. Also, as it is a serious tool, me as a sysop cannot change user permissions for checkuser. Special:UserRights and its over to the crats. If there are any problems, we may need staff. TheDocRichtofen (Talk) 21:10, April 17, 2012 (UTC)

I don't think bureaucrats can change it, either. Йура 16:39, April 19, 2012 (UTC)

Then I guess one of us is gonna have to talk to staff. Before someone does, I think it would be a good idea to everyone would would get the tool. TheDocRichtofen (Talk) 18:17, April 19, 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, it is up to Wikia staff. Tried to change it, but the whole right side is locked. I know we've had a few Wikia staff help out here, such as JoePlay, so we could easily get whoever should have checkuser the ability to do so. PresidentEden78 19:25, April 19, 2012 (UTC)

So would we agree that just the bureaucrats have access to checkuser? Also, would you like to message JoePlay then PE78? TheDocRichtofen (Talk) 15:13, April 20, 2012 (UTC)

Just asked Joe if he could enable those rights for me and Bond. I figured we were waiting on more responses, but we'll see what he can do. PresidentEden78 05:39, April 22, 2012 (UTC)

What would more responses do. You know everything you need to, plus waiting takes time; which slows down the whole process. DrRichtofen (Talk) 18:17, April 22, 2012 (UTC)

Checkuser is srs bzns. I just think that four or so people deciding on something that could be potentially destructive isn't the best idea. Having access to IP addresses and passwords and whatnot of the entire userbase of this wiki could lead to evildoing. Not saying that I ever would use it for evil (no reason to, I like this community too much), but who's to say we couldn't have a fiasco on our hands somewhere down the road. PresidentEden78 18:47, April 22, 2012 (UTC)

However, the suggestion of just crats doesn't really need that much consensus, as its common sense. It is serious business, and so only the most highly regarded users should have it. Anyway, users would never make it to bureaucrat if there were any suspicions that they may try to use their tools against the community. Along with this, there will always be a risk of misuse, no matter how many people you get to say "yes". DrRichtofen (Talk) 19:25, April 23, 2012 (UTC)

I guess, but according to Joe, the function is reserved to Wikia Staff and the VSTF. It's only usually given out in cases of excessive and extreme vandalism to some admins of wikis, and requests for it are otherwise denied outright. Guess that crosses out that plan. I'm still for the 100 edits limit though, regardless. Knowing we can contact a staff member to help us if a case arises is enough. Eliminating the middleman would be nice, but Wikia has its policies. PresidentEden78 01:20, April 24, 2012 (UTC)

Well this complicates things more. Sadly yes, Wikia will be Wikia. Note, the majority is on 50 edits flat (all name spaces). DrRichtofen (Talk) 15:02, April 24, 2012 (UTC)

Em, me and Eden both voted that way with "useful" namespaces, not all namespaces. Йура 15:03, April 24, 2012 (UTC)

Where exactly? I didn't see it on the voting section. DrRichtofen (Talk) 15:33, April 24, 2012 (UTC)

Yuri's condition that any non-userspace and non-blogspace edit could count towards the limit. If we keep that condition, have checkuser up, and make it at 50, I'm sold on the idea -- Eden said that in a prior comment, and I still advocate for it. Йура 17:27, April 24, 2012 (UTC)

Whoops, I did say 100... Meant to say 50. But yeah, still per Yuri's condition. If Wikia wants to have their policies, then so be it. I don't mind. It's simple enough to just message one of the staff to perform a check on any potential sockpuppets. PresidentEden78 20:15, April 24, 2012 (UTC)

Ok, is the 100 Edits option useful edits as well? DrRichtofen (Talk) 20:35, April 24, 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, they were both meant to be. I originally went with 100 as it seemed fair per Yuri's condition of being useful edit spaces, unknowing of checkuser. But since I've learned of checkuser, What it does, and who has it, I'm safe with going with 50 edits. When I said 100 a few posts above, I meant to say 50 though. Been a busy day for me moving back home for summer... PresidentEden78 20:55, April 24, 2012 (UTC)

Vote Closed - All voting requirements will be changed to 50 useful namespace edits. DrRichtofen (Talk) 20:08, April 29, 2012 (UTC)

Action

All Featured material, as well as RFA's need to have the requirement changed. Please get on it. DrRichtofen (Talk) 20:15, April 29, 2012 (UTC)

(just as an afternote - sorry, I'm late - and I appreciate you've decided a new policy, but the problem with the old one was a simple misunderstanding arising from my own terrible phrasing. It should have read something like 'over 20 edits and been active for over 1 month'. Anyway, just thought I'd clarify that) - Bondpedia (Contact) [ ] 20:21, July 25, 2012 (UTC)