Democracy has made a triumphal return to our wiki, as two new elections pass on the wiki. A tradition now spanning over a decade, the wiki’s democratic principles of selecting (and deselecting) admins is one of its strongest institutions, and for good reason. From admin elections to the Stirlings, it has successfully guided our wiki across generations of users.
The wiki’s concept of electing admins is not unique, it is practiced on numerous successful sites similar to the wiki, most notably Wikipedia and other such wikis. Are there sites on the internet who do not elect their leaders? Of course, but perhaps there is a reason why many of these sites remind us of the stereotype of the power tripping admin or the cesspool for discussions. Just look at the wiki’s main competitor, alternatehistory.com, notorious for its tyrannical, unelected admin that bans as he sees fit. For the longest time the Althistory Wiki has profited as an alternative to this system, the presence of elections being one of the most obvious examples.
As it stands elections are the voice of the wiki, and one of the best ways for users to make known their concern. They offer a chance for the common people to voice their approval or disapproval for the people representing them, and are an important check on power. In 2013 the infamous user Mscoree was nominated to become an admin, and was even supported by most of the wiki’s admins at the time. Without the checks and balances provided by an election he would have undoubtedly been promoted, and the wiki would have been harmed greatly by having one of the wiki’s most hated trolls as one of its leaders.
However, in modern times elections have fielded less participation from the community. It is likely that many on the wiki have less interest in the elections, assuming they are aware of them, and effectively abstain because they have no opinion for or against in the matter. But the fact remains, they had the option. And it’s certainly still more valuable to gauge the opinions of a good percentage of the community than it is to gauge zero opinions, especially when those who vote are often some of the most active.
But still that begs the question, why aren’t elections participated in more actively? In part because they have been deliberately sabotaged by the existing administration. Elections should be promoted extensively both in discord and on the wiki, yet for a time there was hardly any announcement when an election took place. On discord, elections are often not announced in the announcements channel with a ping to everyone. And on the wiki, no doubt Fandom’s poor redesign has also played a role, as the feature of alerting all logged-in members has seemingly disappeared. Nonetheless, the apathetic approach of the admins is not acceptable. That is what led to the Stirling Awards disappearing for a year, and other declines in the wiki’s activity.
Furthermore, there is the issue of elections being weakened with each passing update by the admins. The qualifications to vote have silently risen, from 100 edits, to 200, and now 500, as well as qualifications regarding time spent on the wiki and number of bytes written. It is no wonder that less people participate when less people are eligible through more and more restrictive voting requirements. If you look at the list of users on the wiki it may appear at a glance that most people don’t participate, but when you look at the number of people eligible to participate, it’s actually a large percentage of those eligible who do. When people are eligible to vote, not afraid of voting, and actually aware that a vote is taking place, they do so. Just look at the announcements channel in discord, where votes often garner some 50 total votes, far more than a typical wiki election.
The solution is simple: it is the responsibility of the admins to announce, promote, and run fair and simple elections that we can all participate in. And us users need to do our part and participate when we can. Elections remain an important part of our wiki, and it can only be hoped that in the future they only become more popular, as the admins and community work together to improve them.
This has been Mike the Reporter (talk) for The Althistory Times