Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-6218837-20150421071656

The thing that sets a wiki apart from a typical website is its community, and that can prove to be a great thing or a terrible thing. It's important to know how to work with the other members of a community. In this guide, I'll be highlighting basic principles and types of wiki community.

A highlight would be appreciated, as I believe the wiki could benefit from this in the future.

Section 1: Views of Staff Members
Staff members can be perceived various ways, none of which is automatically superior to the others. It is important to understand how your community perceives its staff members, because they are a core part of the community.

What are staff members?
Staff members are users possessing certain capabilities that allow them to perform certain, often trustworthy, tasks. These include banning users and deleting pages and posts. As such, staff members are almost always expected to be trustworthy. What exactly is required to make a staff member depends on the wiki and its community.

Are staff members better than other users?
Though they may have more experience/trust/abilities than the average user, staff members can be perceived as equal to or above users.

"Above" users
Staff members, especially in oligarchic, republican or patriarchal wikis, may be regarded as a rank or two above normal, un-righted users. This may be a product of their extra buttons, their trusted status or simply their label. This may change staff members' treatment of community members, whether for better or worse - for example, they may be unduly harsh to community members, while they may also seek to help out community members moreso than their own selves.

It is important to tell how you regard staff members, as it is crucially important in understanding why you think someone should be a staff member, as well as the reverse. Staff members may be chosen for their close ties to users, as an honor, or simply because they would help the wiki.

Equal to normal users
This is often seen in democratic communities. Here, staff members are regarded as equal to normal users: they aren't taken any more (or less) seriously, their votes count the same, and they are regarded as beings more-or-less on the same level that happen to have a few extra buttons.

Keep in mind that just saying this is present does not work, and often is different in different community members: A certain mindset is required.

Types of wiki "government"
Just like states and countries in the real world, wikis are often organized by a government system. This system makes itself known particularly in decisions affecting the community. It often influences users and morals in the community.

Friendly Democracy
Called "friendly" because of its goal of making everyone satisfied through whatever means, this form of democracy involves community debate on issues - just like its counterpart, tally democracy. The chief difference is that, in friendly democracy, users seek to resolve disagreements through debate until all users see the fair points and can agree, at least in part, with the decision made. If that fails, a compromise is usually created. Keep in mind that this works only if all community members are willing to sacrifice their opinion and consider other points and, is such, a terrible option in immature communities.

Tally Democracy
Tally democracy, though not any less "friendly" than any other type of community, is a type of democracy that involves counting up votes of community members to achieve a goal in a community vote. It may leave parties disgruntled, however, if they did not get their way - this is why friendly democracy can help in alleviating disagreements.

Republic
In a republic, several users (often proportional to community size) are chosen by the community to represent them. Much like in real-world elections, users will choose whoever they think represents the wiki's best interests. Those users will then make their decisions behind either closed or open doors, preferably showing the community logic and reasoning in presenting their point. These are usually flexible and can be rotated by the community's wishes.

Oligarchy
Oligarchies are the more staff-run versions of republics. In an oligarchy, users - just like in a republic - are chosen or place themselves in a "council" of sorts that decides its consensus on wiki issues and decisions. This usually takes place without community influence, behind closed doors, although a decision-making process is often revealed. Like with a republic, these may sacrifice community influence and the opinions of minorities for great efficiency in solving debates. Hopefully, the candidates (more so in a republic) are good at their job - representing the wiki's best interests.

Monarchy
In a monarchy, one or sometimes two users who are chosen by the community make all or most of the decisions (particularly the important ones). Though quick and efficient, more so than oligarchies or democracies, monarchies often sacrifice community influence. Note that the person[s] making the decisions may be spoken to and influenced during the process by community members, so it's not as closed as a dictatorship.

Dictatorship
I call it this because it has no other name: a dictatorship is where one user, and one user only (almost always a staff member) makes all of the decisions of the wiki. While not necessarily bad, especially if said user knows the wiki well and is considerate, it is often a dangerous way to run a wiki through its dependence on one user and relative lack of opinions.

Closure
Keep in mind that none of this is set in stone! This is a beginners' guide to learning wiki politics, and will be updated as you want it.

Thank you, 652Graystripe Talk page Contributions Edit count 07:16, April 21, 2015 (UTC) 