User:NotAracham/RaidarrArchive/Adoption process

Miraheze does not have an adoption process. However, I think it would be remiss to ignore the term as there are valid cases for people to adopt a wiki, especially if it was abandoned after formation and someone wants to do its premise justice. This is how it may go. I will refer people interested in 'adopting' a wiki to this guide.

This covers general situations and may not cover every instance. If you are at all unsure, please ask before attempting. Personally I'm willing to look into a wiki's conditions and tell you how eligible it is for adoption if you don't know how to go through the 'what can I adopt' section.

What is adoption?
When you say 'adoption', I think:
 * You want  and   rights on the wiki
 * You want to be creatively responsible for the wiki, as though you were its founder

What can I adopt?
These principles apply when a wiki is all of the below (one of each item's options):
 * Closed, marked inactive, or has no significant activity for a long time(just one-off edits, perhaps IP editors)
 * Does not have other active users present, or an otherwise well-established core of interested people
 * Does not have bureaucrats active on the wiki or on Miraheze (you can check them with Special:CentralAuth)
 * A public, non-personal wiki that doesn't have policies governing what to do when the founder is AWOL and no other bureaucrats are present

If all conditions are true, the first section below applies. If not, see the local election section, and depending on the issue see 'adoption is not possible'.

Adopting directly
This option is possible when all of the above are true and no other conditions are present that complicate the process.

When given rights, it is expected that you will run the wiki as requested and according to any statements you made in requesting permissions. When requesting permissions you should be clear why you want/need them, why a local election (see below) is not needed, and what you intend to do with the wiki.

You can issue a request on the Stewards' noticeboard under the Permissions header. A steward will then review. If all is in order, you will be given the rights of bureaucrat and administrator. This is where things get murky: there is technically only procedure (as decided here) for this being "temporary until a community exists". In the interest of fairness Stewards (such as myself) may allow this arrangement to stand indefinitely as long as the appointment is uncontroversial and works well. Be aware that this arrangement could be overturned if the community that forms decides to hold elections. The outcome of valid elections overrides this otherwise mostly permanent 'appointment by convention' that I describe.

So yes, you can directly 'adopt' a wiki, but the arrangement is technically non-permanent and if you want to secure a 'permanent' arrangement, you should hold a local election/ratification vote once a contributing community is formed after appointment. This would give you a permanent role, at least for as long as the community is in favor.

Local election
This process is required in cases where a contributing community exists on a wiki, but there is nobody local to assign rights upon request. Per above it can also be used to get stronger footing when a contributing community has formed. This is described in detail here.

Adoption is not possible
Private wikis can only be 'adopted' when the requestor is a substantial existing contributor who clearly has deep enough stakes in the project to run it and assume control. This is considered case by case. This does not apply to personal projects, public or private where the scope revolves around the founder, ie, a blog, personal setting worldbuilding and so on. Even a local election cannot override the rights of the founder in these cases. The only way to transfer control on a personal wiki is for the founder to recover their account (if it was lost and that was the issue) or for the founder to authorize control to someone else on-wiki.

If bureaucrats are available and can be reached, they should be contacted first. Only if they are unresponsive or uncooperative should this be brought up to a Steward, and at this point it would not be an adoption and instead resolving a dispute.

Helpful tools

 * Special:ActiveUsers: find anyone who has contributed recently; if there's more than a couple of edits, they should be in the loop.
 * Special:ListUsers/sysop and Special:ListUsers/bureaucrat: helps you find out who holds the big permissions. The second link is key since these users could give you permissions themselves, and that would be preferable to a Stewards involvement. "Stalk" a little to see if you can contact them (even if it means reaching out on a wiki they are more active), unless there is clear evidence that they've left Miraheze.
 * Special:CentralAuth: use this with people who hold powers or are otherwise strong contributors, but may not be active on the wiki. It can help you find where they are, if they are still around.