Forums: War Room → A More Perfect Meritocracy

All hail meritocracy! (A meritocracy is "a system of government where an elite group of people progress to positions of leadership based on ability and talent".) When a meritocracy works correctly, when those who are best fit to preside wisely over the rest hold the reigns and are given the motivation to continue to hold them well, then all is well in the city and all is in order. The difficulty lies in establishing who is of merit, and who is not. Unfortunately, in reality the most we can based goverment upon is our perceptions of the officials's merits, as no person can fully know another's thoughts and thus know the motivations behind their actions. The democratic election of officials based on the majority's perception of merit has its clear advantages over any other way of governing by merit, as leaving the determination of who merits what to a minority group carries the strong risk of allowing the government to become out-of-line with basic moral common sense when it reflects their interests. For this reason, a merit-centered democracy is widely considered the best possible scheme of government, and I trust that the majority of this wiki's users will agree with me on this, as such is the system we currently operate under and which most of us seem to be loyal to.

However, as recent events on this wiki have shown, an unfortunate flaw of democratic meritocracies is that they systematically confuse true merit with the trappings of merit: a governor puts on a show of having the necessary merits in order to get the role he greedily lusts after, rather than having the merits and ultimately taking on the role simply because he sees himself as best fit to lead the people as they require. When the government is first instituted, its citzens tend to be more on their guard against this, aware of the flaws in the system and thus able to detect when someone is abusing it for their own self-aggradizement. As time goes on peacefully, however, the citzens gradually loose sight of this fact, attributing the success of their governing experiment to the environment created by the system itself rather than the fact that they were on guard against its flaws while using it. As the people using the system progressively confuse merit (embodied in individuals) and merit's trappings (embodied in the duties and rights of the offices those individuals potentially hold), the more the system will be abused, particularly against those outlying cases which the government had little reason to show concern to during the government's creation. As time goes on, the collective body of outliers will develop an understanding of merit in opposition to the official system, and will eventually attempt to overturn the existing democratic meritocracy in one way or another.

Removing the fanatics may work temporarily, as does verbally re-establishing the humble nature of the job in order to weed away those seeking self-aggradizement through the office ("an admin is but a glorified janitor" ), but eventually the malcontents will realize the short-sightedness of the perspective, which allowed the government to decay to the point it did in their case, and to continue seeking to overturn the government anyways. The only way to excise this problem is by creating a system of mediation between the groupthink-elected oligarchy and the outliers from the common mass, one which benefits the governers in the long run by raising the potential influence of the common mass by creating a system of check and balances between the two sides. Whether Omar067's claims of injustice were true or not (and I heavily doubt they were to the extent he did), it would be a moral shortcoming on our part to not plan ahead and attempt to solve the problem before it becomes irreperable, and so I heavily urge you to consider my case.

In order to form a more perfect wiki, and to preserve peace among all our users, I therefore suggest that we institute a cycling mediating body composed of rollbacks/regular users, with a one-month term for each user. Users will be prohibited from being candidates if they have violated clear policy in the last six months, if they've been a mediator within a month of the last election, or if they have consistently been off of the wiki for more than three months straight. There is to be an equivalent amount of mediators to the amount of bureacrats and admins, with admins/bureacrats having the ability to call for an intra-term election as they see fit to obey this potential policy. The mediators are to be elected to their positions up a majority vote in their favor, or from a 75% vote from rollback/"regular" users against 25% from admins/bureacrats. In the case of the first five elections (but only in the first five elections), any dissent from the principle of the non-cyclical nature of the adminstrative and bureacratic positions in any forum simultaenous to the vote (but not from the past) shall disqualify one from voting and of course from office- a measure needed to retain order as the wiki evolves from one system to the other. Administrators and burecrats shall retain their powers in instances of clear violation of wiki policy; in more problematic cases, they are to tell the presumed violator so, who has the option of calling in the mediating body. Upon due debate, the majority decision of the mediating body may veto the banning of the user, though this may be overturned by 75% vote on the part of the admins/bureacrats (which may itself only be overturned by unamity among the mediating body). The mediating body is to have no more duties than entailed herein, and are to be considered in violation of wiki policy if they overstep said bounds.

With the wiki's best interests at heat, all I ask is that you contemplate my argument for the necessity of this change with due circumspection, analyze my outline of the mediating body as objectively as possible, and then cast your vote with the wiki's future peace in mind. Thank you, Toph's Fanboy Read My Fanon! 00:38, August 8, 2012 (UTC)

I think I speak for most people on this wiki when I say...

In English, please? A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 00:47, August 8, 2012 (UTC)

I'm having a hard time understanding what you are trying to say. Can you please clarify the point you are making? ThebigOfan 01:15, August 8, 2012 (UTC)

The first paragraph is simply establishing what kind of government this wiki currently has, and the second & third are my argument against simply leaving it as it is if we want to avoid the Omar situation from happening again with a different person, based on the historical observation that all merit-based governments eventually self-justify themselves while abusing outliers and that eventually revolutionaries groups arise to spread discord until the prevailing system of government is overturned.

The fourth is an example of a system of checks-and-balances between people of admin level and above and those below admin level, which attempts to halt such discord in its tracks and prevent it from other developing again. It's actually the least important paragraph, and if you can think of a better system of checks-and-balances, I'm open to it as long as you accept the basic need for one. Toph's Fanboy Read My Fanon! 04:21, August 8, 2012 (UTC)

I find that this proposal lacks examples of a decent job the council would do – an example of a decision they might have to make; or what is suggested is that they are to think of rules and/or particular suggestions. If I am understanding correctly, however, I find this an unnecessary proposal, as what it does is that it renders a few users more powerful than the rest, and since there is no need for representation – there are not multiple distinct types of users that require specific and organized, fair government. Matey Y. (talk • A:TLoM)  01:46, August 8, 2012 (UTC)

This proposal is yet another to suggest more bureaucratic red tape and actually offers possibility for plenty of users who, rotating on one month shifts, take abuse of their power / do not full comprehend the role they would have/etc. This would invite further troubles and instigate a whole ton of drama should there ever be "disagreement" - either from among the community, the admins, or within this 'council' itself. You have your heart in the right place to try to aid the wiki, but this would only further destroy it.

And you overlook one simple thing. This situation came up to the public, this situation hit the forums, every user right now has and can already wholly dispute situations - and HAVE voiced themselves. The majority were in agreement with the actions performed. If it turns out through such debate - and believe me, we have had a ton of debate - that an action was unjust, it would be reversed. There is already accountability and it would be properly approached. The power right now rests with honest open debate and reasoning, capable by any user no matter their status. I loathe the day that becomes diminished by adding a group that speaks "for" people. Vulmen (talk • EoK) 04:30, August 8, 2012 (UTC)

I am very sorry, but I already lost interest after reading the first sentence. "All hail meritocracy! A meritocracy is "a system of government where an elite group of people progress to positions of leadership based on ability and talent." No, just no. How many times do we have to emphasize that this wiki is not lead by anyone? Yes, the admins and bureaucrats have more technical rights than others because it is simply needed that some users have more rights. That's it, no more to it. We have tried time and time again to say that it's not because one is an admin that they have more say in the wiki and "rule" it. Any proposed system that wants to insert anything that resembles a rulership can count on my opposition.

Then I scrolled down and saw something about a cycling system for rollbacks... Seriously? No, again, just no. That's totally not what it is all about and truly emphasizes that some users are more important than others based on their rights. Lady Lostris (talk • HotN) 10:16, August 8, 2012 (UTC)

I really cannot add to what has been said already about the disadvantages of such a system. This also came straight out of blue, before smacking me in the face, and tbh seemed a little too sarcastic compared to what you would normally say. If that is the case, you should be more careful when choosing the atmosphere to post as such on the forums, though really, it shouldn't be done at all. KettleMeetPot • wall 10:23, August 8, 2012 (UTC)

Wasn't this addressed before? Seriously, I'm getting tired of having a new (or not so much) proposal to add more bureaucracy to the system all the while perpetuating the idea of authority. Are we going to do this every other week now? Oppose. ― Thailog 10:49, August 8, 2012 (UTC)

First a cycling system for rollbacks would stink, period. People who are roll backs work hard for their right and I speak as a regular. They are rights not titles of office. Admins. and rollbacks are not hire than one or the other nor even above a regular user. All a rollback can do more than a regular user is click a button. All admins. can do more is that and move pages and delete unneeded pages. Some people, may think of them as offices do to how voting works, but they're just rights. The Kid 100% (wall • contribs) Talk to me