There may not be a perfect system, but with a system such as this, you need these discussions to make sure that the system is functioning as close to perfect as humanly possible.
Oh, TED, I agree completely. I wasn't saying that it should not be discussed. Rather, it's not the case that we 'overlooked' the possibility that all rangers would have to be put on trial together. The staggered terms and pool rotations are supposed to prevent conspiracies of the sort that CG is accusing here.
It's correct that we did not make provision in the charter for rangers conspiring behind the scenes to sabotage their own selection process ... at the time the charter was written there were too many people in the pool for that to be a concern. If the pool is so small now that the same people are repeatedly being called upon, then a different mechanism should perhaps be considered to avoid the proverbial group-think.
But you can't hold a hearing now to pitch out all the rangers based on something they did yesterday because there's no provision for a process like this. You have to amend the charter, first. See below.
A member is requesting a hearing, but the normal process may or may not be inadequate because of the uniqueness--a hearing against the rangers in total
The process is not inadequate. What CG is proposing is forbidden. It is forbidden by virtue of the fact that a different process is mandated for what he wants to do.
If he wants the charter amended so that all rangers can be tried simultaneously for conspiracy to abuse their power, then he has to call for an amendment committee in the business room and
5 posters have to agree with him that an amendment is needed
for this purpose.
Do you see five posters demanding that there be a way to trash all the rangers at once? I don't. But I'm just reiterating now what Estel already said in the other thread.
That the charter needs amending, I agree with this from the rooftop. But:
A. not because extraordinary powers were used. There was no need to invoke extraordinary powers to begin with. Those are for situations that no one could foresee, where we've got to add something to the charter that wasn't covered before, or take something out that proved damaging. You want to tell me that the charter committee did not foresee bitchfests in the Symposium? That's what the Bike Racks are for ... and the hearings if it descends to real bullying.
The rangers definitely should have held a hearing before banning sf and CG for a week, but the board really needs to streamline the jury process first. The hearings were designed for a board with 300 active members, where we didn't want penalties to be levied "in secret," while 300 people hang out having fun oblivious to the one guy who's being hanged. I fully understand why the rangers would feel that a hearing was just an impossible route to go when, at this point, half the board would need to participate. But conceding that this was a breach of protocol on the part of the rangers, the penalty they imposed is exactly the one suggested in the charter.
Conspiracies? ... abuse of power? ... come on, guys. Get a grip. This is what I meant by putting the community above the self. Give it a rest.
B. Unless CG can assemble five posters who want to amend the charter so that all the rangers can be ditched simultaneously for conspiracy, give that a rest too.
The charter committee that's being formed, I think you should go ahead with it, because there certainly seem to be more than five people who think the charter is overblown for the current needs of the board. I had to look through it a couple times recently, and there's just all kinds of stuff in there that's totally irrelevant now. Voronwe is going to start a non-profit organization to buy the board? Um, hello? And practical changes have been made meanwhile ... like *E*'s status, and Judes ... I haven't followed all of that, but the charter should probably describe how those responsibilities are currently laid out, just for the benefit of new members. There's no mayor, all those committees are never going to happen, and so on.
Pick a date and do it, you know? And while you're at it, clarify some short-term powers for the rangers so that they don't have to embark on a month-long process to stop a fight in progress. Give them a hot pursuit provision or something.