RationalWiki:Proposed Constitution, May 2011

Proposed Constituton of RationalWiki

Be it established that on this, the 11th day of May it the year 2011 Common Era, that a constitution for RationalWiki is proposed.

Community Standards

The community standards, as agreed upon by the Rationalwiki community, shall remain in effect.

User privileges

There shall be five sets of privileges available to users of RationalWiki.

1. Anonymous users: Individuals who have not created an account.
2. User: The position of user shall be made available to any individual who chooses to create an account on RationalWiki. A User has the ability to edit once every 30 seconds, and create user pages and talk pages.
3. Autoconfirmed: The position of autoconfirmed shall be made available to any individual who has made contributions and has been on the site for 24 hours. An autoconfirmed user shall be able to edit freely, with no time restrictions on their edit rate.
4. Sysop: The position of Sysop shall be made available to any user with a history of good-faith edits after three days from account creation. In addition to the above powers, a Sysop shall be given the ability to patrol recent changes, delete pages, block users, and protect pages.
5. Bureaucrat: The position of Bureaucrat shall be made available to any user who has been an active contributor for at least one year. In addition to the above, a Bureaucrat is given the ability to rename users and manage user rights.

Demotion to Sysop

1. Any Bureaucrat may demote any good-faith user after three days since account creation.
2. Failure of a Bureaucrat to wait three days will result in action at the discretion of the Loya Jirga.

Election to Bureaucrat

1. Nomination to Bureaucrat shall be instigated on the RationalWiki:Bureaucrat nominations page. It is the responsibility of the nominator to utilise the Intercom system to notify the public of a Bureaucrat nomination.
2. Users can vote "Aye" if in favor of further demotion, "Nay" if against further demotion, or "goat" if they wish to abstain.
3. Voting shall remain open for a period of 72 hours.
4. At the end of 72 hours, the voting shall close. If the user has achieved a simple majority, any Bureaucrat may demote the nominee to Bureaucrat. Should there be more nays than ayes, the user shall not be demoted, and shall not be nominated again for a period of 60 days.
5. Failure of a Bureaucrat to use the above procedures will result in action at the discretion of the Loya Jirga.

Elections to Loya Jirga

1. Members of the Board Of Trustees may not run for the Loya Jirga.
2. There shall be Ten positions on the Loya Jirga, 1 Head Speaker, 6 Upper members and 5 Lower members.
3. Elections to the Loya Jirga shall be held on June 1st and December 1st of every year.
4. Such elections may be delayed by 5 days if there exists a state of Headless Chicken Mode, as declared by the Board of Trustees, which the Loya Jirga is striving to resolve.
5. Beginning May 20th, 2011 existing Sysops or lower may announce on the Loya Jirga Election Page their intention to run for the June election.
6. Beginning November 20th, 2011 existing Sysops may announce on the Loya Jirga Election Page their intention to run for the December election.
7. Beginning Midnight, May 28th, 2011 existing Sysops and Bureaucrats may vote in the election for the June election. Voting shall conclude at Midnight on June 1st.
8. Beginning Midnight, November 27th, 2011 existing Sysops and Bureaucrats may vote in the election for the December election. Voting shall conclude at Midnight on December 1st.
9. Each sysop and Bureaucrat has three aye votes and three nay votes. A Sysop or Bureaucrat may use as many or as few of these votes as they would like, but may not vote more than once for any single candidate. There shall be no "abstain" votes.
10. The winners shall be determined by subtracting the nay votes from the Aye votes. The 7 individuals with the highest total shall become upper members, and the 5 runners up shall become lower members. The victors shall be added to the "Jirga" usergroup, to facilitate usage of the intercom.
11. In the event of a tie, it shall be broken by granting the disputed position to the individual with the fewest "Nay" votes. In the event a tie still remains, it shall be broken by a special vote by the Board of Trustees.

Election to High Goat of the Loya Jirga

1. The ability to vote for this position is limited to members of the Upper and Lower Jirga.
2. The vote of each member of the Upper Jirga shall count as 2 vote.
3. The vote of each member of the Lower Jirga shall count as 1 votes
4. Only a member of the Upper House can be voted on for Head Goat.
5. Each member can vote "aye", adding the value of their vote to the individual, or nay, lending no value.
6. The position of High Goat shall be awarded to the Upper House member with the highest vote of confidence.
7. The vote for High Goat shall commence at Midnight on May 2nd, and close at Midnight on May 4th.
8. The vote for High Goat shall commence at Midnight on December 2nd, and close at Midnight on December 4th.
9. In the event of a tie, the tie shall be broken by Special Vote of the Board of Trustees.

Elections to Board of Trustees

1. Nobody who is a member of the Loya Jirga may run for Board of Trustees, unless they retire from their position upon successful election.
2. There are 5 members of the Board of Trustees. One posistion shall be permanent, and shall be granted to Tmtoulouse.
3. Elections to the RationalWiki Board of Trustees shall be held once a year, concluding on September 1st.
4. Membership on the Board of Trustees requires all candidates to be at least 18, and have been a member of RationalWiki for at least a year.
5. Candidates can announce their intention to run for one of the four positions starting August 25th.
6. Voting for members of the Board of Trustees shall commence at Midnight an August 28th, and shall conclude at Midnight on September 1st.
7. Each sysop and Bureaucrat has three aye votes and three nay votes. A Sysop or Bureaucrat may use as many or as few of these votes as they would like, but may not vote more than once for any single candidate. There shall be no "abstian" votes.
8. The winners shall be determined by subtracting the nay votes from the Aye votes.
9. In the event of a tie, it shall be broken by granting the disputed position to the individual with the fewest "Nay" votes. In the event a tie still remains, it shall be broken by a special vote by the Higher Loya Jirga.

Authorities of a Sysop

See RationalWiki:Sysop guide

1. A Sysop can ban a user for up to three days for clear cases of vandalism.
2. A Sysop can lock a page in the event that two or more users have reverted edits at least three times in 24 hours.

Authorities of a Bureaucrat

See RationalWiki:Bureaucrat guide

1. A Bureaucrat can rename a user, but only with the request of said user.
2. A Bureaucrat can demote a sysop, but may not promote a Bureaucrat without action by the Loya Jirga.
3. A Bureaucrat can hide modifications to articles, but only when such articles reveal private details about individuals, or are clear examples of attempts at hate speech. Should a Bureaucrat hide a reversion, such an action shall be presented to the Jirga for review.

Authorities of the Loya Jirga

1. The Jirga shall have their own page for proceedings that none can edit except those in the Jirga group. Non-Jirga members can comment on the proceedings on the talk page.
2. The Members of the Loya Jirga shall vote for a High Goat. The High Goat shall be elected by the Jirga as above.
3. The Jirga is granted the authority to act in the following situations: Bureaucrat demotions or promotions which violate this constitution, utilisation by a Sysop or Bureaucrat of powers violating this constitution, edit wars, presentation of articles or comments with the intent to provoke, or other situations deemed "headless chicken mode" by the Board of Trustees.
4. It is the duty of the High Goat to call the Jirga together when charged to do so by the Board, and determine which user(s) to sanction. Should a user be sanctioned, it is the duty of the High Goat to notify such user.
5. The Jirga page, the Jirga Talk Page, and the page where the issue started are the only locations a conflict shall be discussed on-site for the duration of the conflict. Attempts to spread a conflict to another page or personal attacks against a sanctioned individual will result in sanction against the instigator by the Jirga.
6. In the event that an unrest involves an upper member, he or she shall be removed from the proceedings of the Jirga for the duration of the unrest. In sequential order by runner up, a member of the lower council shall fill the temporally vacated seat. In the event the head is involved, the Jirga member of highest acclaim shall serve as interim High Goat.
7. The Jirga shall vote on if an issue violates this constitution, and come to a conclusion as to which action shall be taken. The Jirga may choose to remove the Sanction and issue a warning if it determines there is no issue. The Jirga may promote a user if it determines there is a misuse of power or personal invection, or it may choose to ban the sanctioned individual for a period not to exceed 6 months times the amount of times the individual has been sanctioned.
8. The High Goat alone shall carry out the decision of the Jirga. Once all sanctioned members have been considered, the Headless Chicken Mode shall be declared over, and discussion of the event on-site and changes to the by-laws may be discussed. The decision of the Jirga may be discussed on the Jirga talk page.
9. In the event action has been taken against a member of the Jirga, the member(s) of the Lower Council who filled the open seat(s) shall become members of the Higher Council.
10. In the event action has been taken against the High Goat, the Jirga shall hold a special election to fill the position.

Authorities of the Board of Trustees

1. The Board shall decide when a state of conflict exists or the community standards have been violated, and charge the High Goat of the Loya Jirga with taking action.
2. The Board of Trustees shall be the only body that may hear appeals on the actions of the Jirga, and may determine by whichever means they determine salient whether the actions of the Jirga were warranted. The Board may not act on the severity of the punishment, but only on if the punishment was warranted.