Voting is the end of a serious discussion, not its opening move. Wild HQ uses a vote when a foundational decision needs explicit consent, when a community-owned decision belongs to the people affected, or when a major disagreement cannot be resolved through ordinary work.

Votes are run through Wildbase Work voting. The proposal and final record must remain readable without relying on Discord history.

Calling a vote

Any current volunteer may request an internal vote. A community member may request a vote about a material change to their community through the relevant public issue or the contact route.

The team may explain that a request is routine, outside Wild HQ’s control, unsafe, unlawful, or unchanged from a decision whose evidence has not changed. It must not refuse a genuine community-governance question merely because the likely answer is inconvenient.

Before a poll opens, publish:

  • the exact binary proposal;
  • the practical effect of YES and NO;
  • the eligible electorate;
  • the participation threshold;
  • the opening and closing times;
  • any conflicts of interest;
  • the ballot-visibility setting;
  • the poll administrator; and
  • who is responsible for carrying the result.

Do not change those rules after seeing how people are voting.

Who gets a vote

For an internal vote, every current volunteer when the poll opens receives one equal ballot. For that poll, a current volunteer is someone who has accepted an ongoing Wild HQ responsibility and retains ordinary team access when the electorate is recorded. Participation is voluntary and abstention is valid. A maintainer, founder, coordinator, or large contributor does not receive extra weight.

You MUST ensure that the poll’s visibility setting is set to Packbase before the poll opens. It cannot be set to public.

For a community vote, the proposal must define the affected community: for example, every member of one named pack at a recorded time, or every account whose existing capability the proposal would remove. “The community” never silently means all Packbase accounts, the loudest discussion participants, or an administrator’s contacts. Eligibility must be objective, relevant to the product, and published before voting starts. Use facts that already exist when the proposal opens, such as product membership or account access; do not create or remove eligibility to change the electorate. Disagreement with the proposal or an unreviewed conduct allegation may not exclude anyone. Resolve challenges to the electorate before the poll opens.

Donation, subscription level, friendship, family relationship, title, and private access never buy a ballot or extra influence.

Experts may provide disclosed advice. Their advice is evidence, not a hidden voting stage or veto.

Each poll names an administrator on its proposal. The administrator records the eligible voters and poll settings before opening it, announces the dates, and publishes the tally. They may vote but receive no extra weight. They disclose any conflict, and another uninvolved volunteer verifies the settings and result when one is available.

Internal and community stages

A vote can have one or both stages:

  1. Internal: volunteers determine whether the proposal is demonstrably legal, safe, secure, and technically feasible for Wild HQ to carry.
  2. Community: the affected community accepts or rejects the feasible proposal when the decision belongs to it.

When both stages are needed, the internal stage happens first so an impossible or unsafe proposal can be corrected before asking the community. A failed internal stage must record the concrete constraint and return the proposal to discussion. It cannot be used as a taste test or a secret override of an unfavourable community result. Any legal, security, safety, or feasibility constraint must be explained before the community poll opens as far as it is safe to do so.

Passing, abstaining, and quorum

Every binding stage asks one proposal with YES, NO, and ABSTAIN responses. If discussion needs to compare several options, use a non-binding approval poll to narrow them. A tie for the leading option gets a runoff; the remaining proposal then receives its own binding binary vote.

A binding stage passes when at least 60% of its non-abstaining ballots are YES.

At least half of eligible voters must participate. Abstentions count toward participation but not toward the YES/NO calculation. This lets someone say “the group may decide without me” without turning that into either support or opposition.

Keep a vote open for at least seven calendar days so different time zones and volunteer schedules have a fair chance to participate. If quorum is not reached, extend the vote once for at least another seven days. If quorum is still not reached, the stage does not pass and the current position remains.

An intentionally omitted stage is allowed only when the opening record explains why that electorate does not own the decision. An announced required stage, empty poll, or low turnout never becomes automatic approval.

Ballot visibility and public results

The current Wildbase Work voting system uses named ballots: a voter’s Wildbase Work username and choice are visible with the poll. Treat a ballot as public. The poll notice must repeat that fact beside the voting link, and the administrator must verify the configured visibility before the poll opens.

Do not use a named public poll to decide a conduct report, a sanction against an individual, a health or safety disclosure, or another matter that depends on sensitive personal information. Wild HQ’s current voting system is not suitable, and Wild HQ currently has no private adjudication process for those matters.

Publish the question, eligibility rule, participation total, abstention total, aggregate result, outcome, and the reasoning needed to understand it. Do not copy or reuse individual voting records outside the poll merely because they are visible.

Collect no identity information beyond what is needed to establish one eligible person, one ballot.

Housekeeping Mode

Any current volunteer may request Housekeeping Mode by naming the foundational disagreement on a durable proposal and explaining why ordinary work cannot safely or honestly continue. It begins when a second current volunteer confirms that the trigger is met. A volunteer with site access publishes the notice and records the start time on the proposal.

When delay itself creates an immediate safety, security, privacy, or data-protection risk, a maintainer may activate Housekeeping Mode at once and seek the second confirmation after the protective action is underway. Activating the mode does not decide the underlying disagreement.

While it is active:

  • ordinary development and nonessential operational changes pause across Wild HQ;
  • the disagreement and vote become Wild HQ’s only shared organisational priority, while each person’s participation remains voluntary;
  • safety, security, privacy, data protection, and essential service-continuity work continue;
  • any exceptional change stays as small as possible and is recorded; and
  • the public site explains that Housekeeping Mode is active without exposing private detail.

Housekeeping Mode ends when the decision is recorded, or when a proposal is withdrawn and the disagreement is genuinely resolved. A failed vote or failed quorum leaves the existing position in place and ends the freeze once that result is recorded.

Nobody may use Housekeeping Mode to force attendance, silence dissent, or slip unrelated work through while everyone else is paused.

After the vote

Record the result, meaningful dissent, implementation owner, and next review point. Carry the winning option honestly, including when the people who argued for it were not the people with the most access.

There is no fixed cooldown that makes a decision untouchable. Material new evidence, changed conditions, or an unexpected consequence can reopen it. Repeating an unchanged proposal is not new evidence; link to the existing record and let volunteers get back to work.