User:Raidarr/Local election

"This should not be considered legal advice." In other words, this page only offers advice on how to create a local election if you are unsure. You are not strictly bound to the suggestions nor should established users necessarily change what they know works, and this page is not a replacement of existing local policies. For those less aware of Meta convention however, this should give a usable idea of how to handle things smoothly so they can be fully adherent to what Stewards expect when assessing this subject.

Any errors, expansions or corrections can be made freely or discussed via the talk page here.

When to use this process
When adopting a wiki that has no election process and the management is not responsive. When adopting a wiki, you need to give opportunity for an established user or commenter to raise any facts or input for/against your holding advanced rights. This is likely to result in no comments when a wiki has closed dormant since it's proof that nobody was interested for a long time anyway, but it is still standard process even on a closed wiki.

A local election can also be done when wiki has entered full inactive status per the Dormancy Policy, when there is an existing community but no administrators or bureaucrats, or when there are sysops, but there is nobody with ManageWiki access (generally, bureaucrats). If this is the case, you should read on below as there are more contingencies to consider.

This process should not replace local election policies, be used to depose active management, or if the wiki management is simply slow. Where possible, existing bureaucrats should always be contacted first and given opportunity to step up, bring in fellow management or otherwise improve if their access is needed. If this cannot be done or something very strange is going on where a local election cannot be done (ie, reasonable concerns of their leadership but you are suppressed/unable to create an election), you should leave a message on the Stewards' noticeboard to have the issue looked into and appropriate steps will be taken.

To see if you can contact existing management to help (especially if the wiki is not already inactive or closed), you can try to find who the leadership are by checking the local wiki's Special:ListUsers/bureaucrat page, then seeing when their last activity was as well as checking names with Special:CentralAuth. If they've been inactive across Miraheze for a few months or are globally blocked, a local election would make sense. You can also find local admins by checking Special:ListUsers/sysop, though if nobody has ManageWiki access then a local election should be done, especially if there are only sysops but no bureaucrats.

It would help to be locally active or have a contribution history and be clearly interested in the subject matter, as an arbitrary election taking advantage of no community just to have a wiki would likely not be accepted. If you have other plans, you should be as transparent as possible what they are (ie merging with another wiki, overhauling content/scope and so on).

Special conditions
If you're a member on a private wiki you can use this process. If you're not a member though, you cannot become one. Wikis that are manually closed also cannot be reopened - if you're interested in one of those, contact a Steward or ideally the user who performed the closure for what steps you can take if any. If there is foul play involved, skip directly to contacting Stewards. Note that wikis requested for personal use and content such as a personal repository or one user's worldbuilding wiki, even if public will likely be impossible to adopt. If it is personal in this way you must be already closely associated enough to take control, and you should also make contact first if you are using this process where a sole manager has died.

If you're a bureaucrat of the wiki and it was closed, head to Special:ManageWiki/core and reopen it - if the rights are in order you can do so at any time.

How to use this process

 * 1) Create a page for your local election. This can be in the main namespace or in the wiki's "project" namespace and named as you like, such as "Local election for Yourusername".
 * 2) Introduce yourself, why you believe you should have rights and which rights you want (standard is sysop and bureaucrat). Details help, such as your interest in the subject or past contributions if any. Ideally it is clear where people can support, oppose and comment. You can model it after any legitimate system, such as processes that are used on Meta (ie, Requests for global rights, Requests for Comment, or simply Requests for permissions).
 * 3) Advertise as prominently as possible. Edit the front page if you can, or request a Steward to edit it in for you. If you can get it into the wiki's MediaWiki:Sitenotice page, that would be excellent. If there are interested parties (ie, active users), be sure they are aware of it as well with a direct mention or by their talk pages.
 * 4) Wait between 3-7 days (I suggest a full week) and present the election to a Steward, ideally via the Stewards' noticeboard.
 * 5) If all goes well you should be given the rights you requested within a few days after.