June 2021 election scandal

## **Combatants**

HHW Administration
"The Progressives"

## **Commanders**

StrawberryMaster
 Farm River
 Cooper7579
 Roy25
 Hypercane (one-sided)
Remaining administration members
Some former staff members
Kiko Snowe
 CouncilOrg
 Hypercane (one-sided)
 Other users

## **Casualties**

None known
None known

The **June 2021 election scandal**, also unofficially named **Electiongate** was a scandal that occurred within the Hypothetical Hurricanes Wiki on June 19, 2021. This scandal resulted in the resignation of over two-thirds of the existing administration, the promotion of Kiko Snowe to administrator, and the promotion of existing APs to chat moderator to fill some vacant positions.

## Backstory

On March 1, 2021, after appearing to have failed their rollback trial, Kiko Snowe (Kiko) resigned. Before this, they shared their personal concern, also reportedly shared by other users (possibly their friends), that a few staff members engaged in "zero moderation", and it was suggested that they should participate in moderator training, led by an admin. The idea, however, was not discussed much after this meeting.

Over the months of March and April, they shared ideas of theirs own to the administration, some of which passed and others failed. On April 17, they once again brought this issue to bureaucrats Hypercane (Hype), and StrawberryMaster (SM) expressing their opinion that "a good amount of the staff doesn't do as much" and not ruling out the possibility of future demotions. The bureaucrats admitted they forgot to look into it more closely and agreed to initiate moderator training for a few specific admins.

On April 22, five days later, Kiko once again shared one of their ideas — a new punishment system — faced opposition from some moderators and users, and possibly led Kiko to believe their ideas were being obstructed. During that day, they once again brought the issue of moderator training, and bureaucrat SM agreed to create a document to help train moderators, which he did the following day.

On April 30, 2021, Hype asked for the resignation of co-wiki leader SM, and bureaucrats Cooper7579 (Cooper) and Farm River (Farm) to administrator, citing the need for a "major restructuring" and a need for "central leadership". This idea became established policy on September 12, 2016, when Hype asked then-bureaucrats SM, SnaggyFTW and Bobnekaro to resign, and lasted until 11 days until September 23, when he agreed that it was wrong to ask the bureaucrats to resign and temporarily revoked his administrator privileges. Until then, the idea was floated around by Hype several times and faced opposition from past bureaucrats, including the aforementioned bureaucrats and future bureaucrats including MasterGarf (Garfield) and Money Hurricane (MH). Cooper and Farm were notified first and complied; SM also complied, but debated the issue with Hype, arguing that the reasons for it were too vague, and being upset that he was not allowed to tell the other administration members of it beforehand.

For the next two months, Hypercane became the sole wiki leader and, receiving the advice of his longtime friend CouncilOrg (Org), began taking decisions by himself. While his decisions were agreed by most (if not all) administration members, SM and other former staff like Bob were disappointed ad expressed their concerns that they weren't being consulted or couldn't vote on the decisions. Some decisions administrators and/or administration members did not vote included Cosmo224 and Hurricane Layten's appeals, and the overturn of the GM incident. This division between Hype and some administration members caused him to privately reveal to Org and former moderator CycloneMC (Caleb) that SM was "controlling" and was afraid SM would overthrow him — a concern he expressed many times in the past with administrators like MH, who disagreed with him on some decisions.

## Election announcement

In the June 14th edition of Hypothetical Hurricanes Wiki News, then-administrator StrawberryMaster announced that there would be an election held during that month. This was planned beforehand by the HHW administration, who planned it to reveal it as a joke and likened it to the "rigged election" memes in 2017-18. In the announcement, he stated that the 5 candidates: GiedriusforCat5, Sandy156, Minecraft8369, Bobnekaro, and Kiko Snowe would compete for at least 52 of the 102 electoral votes in the HHW Electoral College. According to blog posts from both Kiko Snowe and Bobnekaro, Bobnekaro had come up with the idea to hold a fake election.

As a normal election would go, candidates began their campaigns in an attempt to sway the opinions of people in HHW . In a poll released by the administration, Kiko had begun to do increasingly well, and Kiko suggested that the election became real (a notion that Hypercane later agreed to). However, administrations felt the election was taken too seriously by users and, fearing the drama that occurred in the December 2016 bureaucrat election, opted to end it early. Four of the five candidates withdrew their candidacies; Kiko refused, instead saying they'd wait for Hype's input while attempting to convince others to make the election real. Hypercane later showed up and, after discussing it with CouncilOrg, promoted Kiko to administrator.

## Revelation of the fake election

This decision caused controversy inside the administration and, after SM revealed the election was fake, spurred drama in the community chat, which devolved into pandemonium. Users like CycloneMC argued that the administration was not being transparent and that Kiko's ideas were blocked by the administration. SM argued back, citing that none of Kiko's ideas were blocked (as in obstructed, barred from receiving a vote) by any admin and that Kiko was power-hungry and used the election to their advantage, so they could regain user rights, and calling the incident a "coup". He later apologized for this statement, saying that the event could not be called a coup because Hypercane had the authority to promote users without approval from remaining staff. The argument continued for a few hours, with most admins unable to settle it. Hype agreed to start a demotion thread for most staff members, supported by Org, Kiko, and other rightless users.

## Aftermath

The next day, staff members who lacked support from community members opted to resign from their positions — including StrawberryMaster, Farm River, Cooper7579, and Sandy156, ending the incident. Following the resignations of many staff members, gaps needed to be filled, resulting in numerous additions to the administration, with arguably the most notable (re)addition being former bureaucrat Sassmaster15.

Perceived corruption and inefficiency of the post-6/19 administration would later result in Hypercane posting a letter expecting a majority of the administration to resign, citing alleged corruption and what he believed to be a continued and negative influence of group chats in the HHW administration, namely the Anarchy group chat. However, the administration refused, and the argument that followed formed the main events of the December 2022 scandal.

## References

1. ↑ "StawberryMaster's Guide to Moderating" - StrawberryMaster
2. ↑ The 2021 administrator election is here! - HHW News - June 14, 2021
3. ↑  statements on recent events - Kiko Snowe
4. ↑ My statement on recent events. - Bobnekaro