Organs of government
The organs of the proposed government will be as follows:
- President and executive agencies
- Community Council of Wikipedia
- Arbitration Committee
- Mediation Committee
- Electoral Commission
President and executive branch
Selection process
The President shall be selected through an at-large election in which the following conditions are met:
- The candidate who becomes the President shall have registered with the Electoral Commission and has been cleared according to the following criteria:
- The candidate is a autoconfirmed or confirmed, bona-fide editor of Wikipedia.
- The candidate has made at least 3,000 edits, of which at least 1,500 must be in the namespace for articles, including all non-automated edits.
- The candidate does not currently have a case pending against him/her before the Arbitration Committee or Mediation Committee
- The candidate has not been blocked within the past year and does not have a history of vandalism within the past year.
- No articles created by the candidate have been speedily deleted in the past six months.
- The candidate is not a sockpuppet or meatpuppet and the account is only held by one person.
- The candidate is not currently a member of the Arbitration Committee or Mediation Committee.
- The candidate to become President must win an at-large election with at least sixty percent (60%) of the vote
- The election must be deemed as "free and fair" by the Electoral Commission, determined through examination of the following criteria:
- Whether an impartial, easily accessible to all editors, and prompt notification of the election has been made.
- The extent to which canvassing, sockpuppety, and meatpuppetry have been used in the election, whether or not by candidates.
- Whether promises of positions or honors have been made by candidates or others based on the choices made during the election.
- Whether all persons participating in debates related to the choice of a President
- Consensus must be clear for a specific candidate in the debate process, and must be certified by the Electoral Commission and countersigned by three administrators who have not voted, debated, or otherwise declared a choice for the President during the election.
- The President shall serve for a term of one year, renewable only once.
- Upon election, the President-Elect takes the oath: "I solemnly swear (affirm) to abide by the Constitution of the Government of Wikipedia and by all policies and guidelines of Wikipedia, resolutions of the Council, and administrative regulations. I further swear (affirm) that I shall not interfere in everyday decision-making and individual events on Wikipedia, but shall use my post to guide and plan community initiatives. I swear (affirm) that whenever possible, I should, along with any executive offices, work through existing community processes rather than supersede or interfere in them. I swear (affirm) that I have met all qualifications which the Electoral Commission has stated that I have met. Finally, I swear to (affirm that I will) use the principle of subsidiarity in my actions, that all actions should be undertaken at the smallest level of organization which makes them effective and practical."
The President may be removed from office in the following ways:
- The President has been determined to have performed an unconstitutional action during his/her tenure by the Arbitration Committee, which has prescribed removal as an appropriate punishment for the action.
- The President has submitted a resignation to the Electoral Commission and the Community Council of Wikipedia, and an election has taken place to confirm a successor.
Powers
The executive branch will be headed by a President, with the power to pass administrative regulations and commission reports on various subjects. The executive branch, under the direction of the President, will be tasked with implementing the resolutions of the Council. The President may not pass policies or resolutions him/herself. No executive office or the individual who is the President may interfere in any way with a community process for implementing proposed changes to the workings of the encyclopedia, such as the Policy village pumps or Administrator's noticeboard, but may pass regulations diverting additional resources to such processes so long as they are not for the furtherance of any specific agenda of the executive branch.
The executive branch will also lead — but not directly implement — community initiatives which have been authorized by resolution but which are not related to policy. While the executive branch may create administrative regulations regarding how to conduct these initiatives and oversee their operation, it may not directly interfere in the work of individual editors and their discussions on individual talk pages, but shall rather only deal with the operation of the initiatives on the largest scales. Should a community initiative not desire participation by the Council of Wikipedia, the executive branch shall have no right to interfere and gain any place in the initiative. For the initiatives over which it does have administrative powers, the powers granted shall extend to no more than those required in order to set broad but clear milestones and paths to reach the ultimate goals of the community.
The President shall have no veto power over the resolutions of the Council. Officers of the executive branch are to be selected by community discussion in a similar fashion to Requests for Administratorship.
Administrative regulations
There will be restrictions on what administrative regulations can do in order to avoid interference with Wikipedia community processes. In order to create such restrictions, an administrative regulation is defined as a document created by the executive or legislative branches of the government which does at least one of the following:
- Specifically implement a given Wikipedia policy(ies), or otherwise have its provisions authorized by Wikipedia civility, enforcement, and editor conduct policy or guidelines, and specifically reference the policy(ies) under which the regulation derives its legitimacy.
- Perform actions implementing or as authorized by the rulings of the Arbitration Committee or Mediation Committee.
- Implement a specific resolution of the Community Council of Wikipedia or use powers granted to it by resolution.
provided that the administrative regulation does not:
- Interfere in any community-based process of enforcement or implementation of policies, but rather makes resources available for these processes or grants additional powers which shall be used through existing community-based processes.
- Perform actions without a basis in pre-existing resolutions of the Community Council of Wikipedia or the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia.
Reports
Reports are defined as documents commissioned by the executive or legislative branches of the government which may contain data and analysis but do not perform one of the following actions:
- Function in and of themselves as resolutions, administrative regulations, or policies of any sort.
- Serve as binding in any way upon the actions of present and future Councils or upon the editing of editors.
Selection process
The selection process for becoming a member of the Community Council of Wikipedia is identical to that of becoming the President, as are the qualifications and the term length, as well as the resignation conditions, with the following exceptions.
- The oath of office for legislators excludes the phrase ", along with any executive offices,".
- All references to (President) shall refer to (legislator) in the context of the legislative branch.
- There shall be a number of legislators to be defined by Council resolution, but no more than thirty-five; and each of these Councillors shall be elected through randomized constituencies organized at random by a bot and consisting of an approximately equal number of registered voters.
Powers
Like the executive branch, the Community Council of Wikipedia shall be permitted to commission reports and administrative regulations. However, the Council will have the additional power of passing resolutions - documents which call for action on a specific topic and start community initiatives to be led by the executive branch. If the Council feels that an executive agency is performing poorly, a resolution may disband this agency.
The Council will also have the goal of setting broad directions on community initiatives, while the President is to take a secondary role and focus on existing and recurring community processes and fora, such as the Administrator's Noticeboard, and will ensure through administrative regulations that these processes run efficiently, smoothly, and without interruption. Like the President and executive agencies, though, the Council is forbidden from working on the level of individual editors and incidents, but must rather see to it that the general direction of the community initiatives it begins — for example, a massive stub-expansion project — is being followed, and that on the level of broad steps in a given community initiative's processes, and over the entire scope of the project, editors are complying with the project rules.
The Council will also have a limited power to pass or modify policies or guidelines relating to enforcement and guidelines related to content, editing, and civility. This excludes the Manual of Style and any and all policies or guidelines upon which this Constitution is dependent. These policies shall last for up to sixty days after the day they are made effective, after which if they are not confirmed by subsequent community consensus, they are declared null and void and no longer hold any force over Wikipedia editors. No policy which was not confirmed by the Council may be renewed until an election has intervened. All policy renewals shall hold force for a period of thirty days, but policies may be renewed an unlimited number of times so long as an election has intervened between each renewal. The Council may only repeal policies or guidelines which it has created itself, but such deletion shall not become ineffective after thirty days and need not be renewed.
The Council may pass resolutions by a fifty-percent vote and policies or guidelines by a seventy-five percent vote of its members, with the presence of consensus being a further criterion for passing a policy or resolution. That the voting and consensus thresholds have been met must be countersigned by at least three uninvolved administrators, who will subsequently affix the Seal of the Council to the document, ensuring that the proper procedures have been followed to make the document effective. Modifications to or repeals of Council-created policies or guidelines, or of Council resolutions, shall have the same voting, consensus, countersignature, and sealing requirements as did the Council documents which they affect.
Resolutions
Resolutions are precisely defined as documents which do at least one of the following, and no more:
- Start programs and begin initiatives to improve the content of Wikipedia.
- Issue directives to ensure that content policies are being complied with.
- Issue requests for editors to participate in a given program.
- Implement non-policy-related proposals, whether or not listed on the Wikipedia Proposal Village Pump and the Idea Lab Village Pump, but at a maximum rate of two per month unilaterally; the rest must be approved by community consensus.
- Honor, commend, pardon, or award individual users or groups up to ten at a time, or create honorary orders, but which shall not give any permissions or positions on Wikipedia to any given user.
- Expand or elaborate upon resolutions performing the actions above.
How "binding" a resolution is depends upon what type of resolution it is. The implementation of non-policy-related proposals would naturally be binding, as would rules made in order to ensure compliance with Wikipedia content policies.
However, the inauguration of new initiatives on Wikipedia would not be binding, as these would be merely requests for editors and WikiProjects to participate in a broad initiative for the whole of Wikipedia. However, for all those participating in the initiative, the instructions of the resolution are binding.
However, as stated earlier, this does not apply to individual editor decisions and individual debates which would naturally arise from such an initiative. Resolutions will only set goals for large entities or subject matters, such as WikiProjects or steps in a process which move a task from WikiProject to WikiProject, rather than the individual events occurring during the initiative and occurring within a WikiProject's jurisdiction and when the individual issue is not necessarily of broad concern to more than a small group of parties.
Arbitration and Mediation Committees
The Arbitration Committee will function in accordance with the Arbitration Policy and Arbitration Committee Procedures. The Mediation Committee shall function in accordance with the Mediation Policy and Mediation Committee Procedures, as well as all other policies relevant to the functioning of these two bodies. No document may be passed by the Community Council of Wikipedia or the executive branch creating, making ineffective, or modifying policies related to the functioning of the Arbitration Committee or Mediation Committee, with the exception of policies which shall ensure that the proceedings of both committees are integrated into a unified policy code for all documents with the force of policy or precedent on Wikipedia.
The Arbitration Committee shall have jurisdiction to hear all cases, arising under this Charter and all relevant policies, guidelines, Council documents, or administrative regulations, regarding the work of members of the executive branch, the President, or the Community Council of Wikipedia acting in their official capacity. The Committee shall not have the jurisdiction to hear disputes arising in disputes over content or conduct arising outside of interactions specifically related to the business of a government branch, unless the Arbitration Policy permits it for reasons not relating to the fact that the accused party is a member of the government body.
Members of the Arbitration Committee or Mediation Committee shall hold office during good behavior, and may not be dismissed except in accordance with the respective policies and procedures of either committee.
Electoral Commission
The Electoral Commission of Wikipedia shall ensure that all elections are free and fair, and that unfair, illegal, or policy-breaking tactics are not used during elections, by candidates or by non-candidates. The Electoral Commission shall also create pages for voter registration, but may not set qualifications for voting unilaterally, nor may it certify voters on a case-by-case basis, but must register all users through an impartial bot program.
Selection process
There shall be seven members of the Electoral Commission, three administrators and four non-administrators. Prospective members of the Electoral Commission shall first go through a Request for Electoral Commissionership on a designated subpage of the Electoral Commission Wikipedia page, where each user shall put forward their case for being an member of the Electoral Commission and users shall debate whether or not the user is fit to be a member of the Electoral Commission.
In order to become a prospective member of the Electoral Commission and open a Request for Electoral Commissionership, a user must have at least 5,000 edits of a non-automated character and which do not create redirects, at least 2,000 of which must be in the article namespace. The user must also possess at least one year of experience on Wikipedia, and shall not have been blocked within that time (unless the block was later revoked as being erroneous). To formally open their candidacy for membership in the Electoral Commission, a user meeting the previously listed qualifications must have been nominated by three separate users who are registered to vote. A forum to seek nominations shall be opened on a designated subpage of the Electoral Commission pages.
Once a user meets these qualifications, they may open a Request for Electoral Commissionership, which shall last for five days, from December 26 to December 30. A bureaucrat shall determine if consensus has been achieved in favor or against the candidacy of the individual, whether all applicable policies and guidelines have been followed, and should the consensus be in favor, the bureaucrat shall promote the user to the next stage of electoral commissioner candidacy, the random selection process.
Each user involved in the random selection process shall have an integer number assigned to them, with 0 corresponding to the first user in alphabetical order, 2 to the second, and so on until all users are assigned their own integer. The random number generator at www.random.org shall then be used in order to create integers within the range of all numbers assigned to users involved in random selection. The users corresponding to the first seven random numbers generated shall be the new Commissioners, and shall take office on January 1 of the next year.
Powers
The Electoral Commission shall have the power:
- To establish a unified voter registration page and continually disseminate notices for editors to register to vote
- To ensure that all editors running for a specific office meet all requirements to do so
- To ensure that the selection of editors for all offices mentioned herein is free and fair
- To provide statistical information on the results of elections, but to ensure a secret ballot
Voter registration
In order to be eligible to register to vote, a user must not have been blocked or banned in the past six months for a period of over twenty-four hours unless the action was later revoked as being erroneous. The user must also be autoconfirmed in order to register, with bots forbidden to register to vote.
To be considered a member of the pool of registered voters, a user must have made at least one edit for the past thirty days as well as meet all of the above qualifications. However, a record shall still be kept of all users who register to vote who are not technically members of the pool of registered voters, and should any individual on that list return to Wikipedia, they may return to being a member of the pool of registered voters. It is on this basis that the turnout for an election shall be computed.
Assorted provisions
Amendment process
This Charter may be amended by a community referendum, with at least 60% of voters in favor of the amendment and at least 60% of all members of the registered voter pool casting their vote. All elections on amendments to the Charter shall, like any other, be policed by the Electoral Commission. However, no amendment process shall change any part of this or the subsequent articles, or abrogate this constitution, temporarily or permanently.
Principle of subsidiarity
All organs of government shall function under the principle of subsidiarity. In the case of individual editor disputes, community discussions, or individual administrative or editing decisions, which do not individually set precedent or involve a large group of parties, no organ of government may intervene except for the implementation of individual proposals mentioned on the Village Pump or elsewhere. In the case of multiple discussions or decisions of wider community interest, organs of government shall make every attempt to work through a community process or grant additional powers to those involved whenever possible. Where a community-based process is possible, but does not exist, the Council may create it and provide resources to coordinate the initiative and ensure that it runs smoothly. Only if it is justifiably impracticable to work through existing community practices may an organ of government use extraordinary powers to create its own initiatives or promulgate policies, guidelines, resolutions, or regulations which work outside of existing community processes.
The sole exceptions to these rules shall apply in the supervision of elections for all offices mentioned herein, or voter registration. In any case, only as much bureaucracy as is required to implement a document of a government body adhering to the principle of subsidiarity, including this Constitution, shall be permitted, with any excesses being in violation of this Constitution.
Judicial powers
Of all the bodies mentioned in this Constitution, only the Arbitration Committee and Mediation Committee shall have judicial powers, within the jurisdiction defined in their statutes and procedures. These documents may not be modified except as provided for within. Judicial bodes may be established only through the creation of an entirely new policy or set of policies, and all such bodies shall be inferior to the Arbitration Committee or Mediation Committee depending on to which committee their jurisdiction is most closely aligned. No policy establishing a judicial body shall be made in any way except through community consensus, or by an amendment to the Arbitration or Mediation Committee statutes as provided for therein.
