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Jnyusa
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Posted: Fri 06 May , 2005 5:48 am
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Cerin: Speaking of the jury pool, could we have the jury pool include all members over a certain age and time on the board, and then when they were notified that they were being shuffled in, they would have the option to decline? This might give us a larger pool than having it based on pro-active volunteering.

Imp: I agree with this. Not only a larger pool, but will offer ALL an opportunity to engage in the process. The offer is made to the next person on the list ... and if it is declined nothing is lost.

I am opposed to making all eligible members automatically part of the jury pool for a couple reasons:

1. When the last committee voted that membership in the admin pool should be voluntary, they simultaneously voted that membership in the jury pool should also be voluntary. That was nearly unanimous and I don't think we should overturn it.

2. The member does not have to be pro-active to join the pool. The Mayor can notify them when they become eligible and they can state then whether they are interested. That's how it's done for the admin pool - makes sense to do it the same way for the jury pool.

3. We just decided that mediators would be members of the jury pool, which means there has to be a list in the Bike Racks, which means we have to know in advance who's in the pool. The majority of members are going to decline rather than accept - for sure! - so listing everyone in the hopes that someone will say yes is really a waste of time, and ...

4. Time is very important, in my opinion. Remember that in some cases, a member has had their posting rights suspended while waiting for a Hearing. It's unfair to them to build in unnecessary delays.

So I think we're going to have to solicit members when they become eligible, and then list in the Jury Room and the Bike Racks the names of those who are willing. Juries and mediators would then be selected from among them.

Imp: the same people may be overlooked over and over

This will not happen if juries are selected in the order in which members enter the pool. That will undoubtedly be related to their join date, which is a reasonably neutral factor.

Cerin: maybe shuffle in the next nine members of the jury pool

That's exactly the number I was thinking of! But I was thinking that the member could reject two of them (one-third) and the seventh juror is an alternate - they would attend the case but not vote in the decision unless a regular juror had to leave or be removed.

Cerin: but is it difficult to get all the admins' input on something? Would it be problematic for all the admins to confer, with the majority opinion determining if a hearing is warranted?

Well, a majority of admins = 3. We can just say 3 instead of 2, which seems easier to me than requiring a vote on it.

But I really prefer 2 because it only takes 2 admins to convene a hearing for the removal of another admin (Article 3) and it seems odd to me that more admins would be required to consider disruptive behavior in the RP forum (for example) than to remove another admin from office.

Generally, I'm a great believe in building on what others have already done. In the Charter especially it will help to avoid contradictions.

Jn

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*Alandriel*
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Posted: Fri 06 May , 2005 8:53 am
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I'm also opposed to automatically add posters to a jury pool (even if they're given the right to decline). Jny listed all the points much better than I ever could have :)

And I share Prim's 'philosophy' re unsolveable conflicts :)

To retitle 'Arbitrations' into Hearings on Violation of by-laws is good with me.

If it's the Mayor who oversees the proceedings then why does also an Admin have to keep an eye on it? IMO this is not totally necessary. If something transpires and Admin intervention is needed, the Mayor will inform an Admin. Only then do they have to read up and can then act. I don't see it as a given that an Admin automatically has to oversee, only when called in.
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the jurors may call an end to the arbitration, confer among themselves, and reach a decision as to a fair and appropriate course of action. Need here an announcement and call for final arguments
The jurors after a call for final arguements (24h timelimit within the proposed 10 days max I'd say) may call an end to the arbitrations..... etc. Would that work?

- Arbitration threads are deleted when the arbitration is concluded :) I'm for that too so long as elements remain as per next line (elements of the discussion or the decision may be preserved in the Archive with the names of the posters deleted ) Those that want always can safe stuff themselves ;)

As for Hearings on a Ban... I must re-familiarize myself before posting. Have a fuzzy head today.... hope I'll get some time over the weekend

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Fri 06 May , 2005 1:54 pm
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Alandriel,

this is not a point of disagreement about what should happen but a question of where the attention would actually fall during a hearing. The picture in my head is the opposite of what you described here:

If it's the Mayor who oversees the proceedings then why does also an Admin have to keep an eye on it? IMO this is not totally necessary. If something transpires and Admin intervention is needed, the Mayor will inform an Admin. Only then do they have to read up and can then act. I don't see it as a given that an Admin automatically has to oversee, only when called in.

It seemed more likely to me that it would be the admin who would check every day to see whether witnesses had been called or whether an alternate juror (if we have one) needed to be enabled, because the Mayor doesn't have an admin panel. The Mayor would only be contacted if the jury had a procedural question.

But maybe I'm wrong! - and the Mayor would be the one who has to keep a close eye on what's happening, and then PM an admin when permissions were needed ....

I guess it depends on how everyone sees their role and how many of these hearings we end up having, and how many administrators we have at a particular time.

I can change the wording so that it leaves people to find their own place in this process ... like 'admins will remain alert to the need for new permissions over the course of the hearing.' Would that be adequate?

Imp and Cerin: This business about the skills needed to perform the jobs ... none of these jobs require brains or skills in my opinion. They only require attentiveness. The Mayor has to really read the Charter and be prepared to answer questions, and know what's not in the Charter. He/she has to keep records dilligently so that people don't get skipped over for adminship or jury duty.

I'm thinking that its' easier to lay all procedural questions on the Mayor we've got, and when we get to the Article about the Mayor's office, empower that person to appoint a helper if the workload balloons, just as we allow admins to appoint temp admins. Make the specs the same - it has to be a former admin with no formal complaints outstanding.

There aren't going to be enough hearings, in my opinion, to justify a whole office just for doing that. But if we find the mayor is constantly needing help, we'll amend the Charter to include a Deputy mayor, same as we would amend the Charter to increase the # of admins if that were necessary.

Let's use what we've already got wherever possible so that this won't take forever.

Jn

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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Posted: Fri 06 May , 2005 1:57 pm
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I like "Hearings on Community Disruptions"

Otherwise, what Jn said. ;)


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Jnyusa
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Posted: Fri 06 May , 2005 2:15 pm
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Friends, I just sent out an email to committee members begging them to participate in this thread and others that are going up today.

There was an error in that email - for those of you just now dropping in. The Arbitration Outline we are working on right now is not in the third post of this thread, it is about one page back in one of my posts.

CLICK

Jn

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TORN
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Posted: Fri 06 May , 2005 2:38 pm
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This is not necessarily a full review on my part -- just noting something that struck me
Jenny-in-the-USA wrote:
• The full name and email address of all three jurors will be sent to all posters involved in the arbitration and placed in the first post of the thread so that jurors can be contacted by potential witnesses
Why do we need this identifying info? I feel that there is no reason to require B77 members to provide more identifying information more broadly than they currently are required to in order to qualify as a juror -- I think it should be just the jurors' name here on the Board -- any necessary private communications should be by PMing -- the only issue with that, I believe, would be if a witness is not a member of B77 (not impossible, but would be unusual circumstances -- I think sufficiently unusual that we shouldn't establish procedures for dealing with this in anticipation of such a possibility)

With one exception mentioned below, to the extent that any procedures call for e-mailing, I would propose instead using PM (with the understanding that the recipient would be allowed to provide a prefered alternate method of communication).

The exception would be where a potential result is a banning or other restriction of rights -- then I think it would be appropriate for an Admin to (in addition to PMing) send an e-mail to the e-mail address used to register with B77.


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Jnyusa
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Posted: Fri 06 May , 2005 2:55 pm
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TORN: Why do we need this identifying info?

You're right. We don't. That was when the members sent their statement directly to the three jury members. I'll change it now.

The exception would be where a potential result is a banning or other restriction of rights

Yes, I think that in all cases the official notifications to the *member* should be sent by email, because if they're avoiding the board out of anger, etc., they won't know about it.

Jn

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Nin
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Posted: Fri 06 May , 2005 3:08 pm
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I'm sorry if I have given the impression of not being here. I read faithfully, even if like in the last days my posting time is strongly restricted.

Just since we touched the dispute resolution, I feel like I have nothing to add.

I will make an outprint and read this evening.

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Cerin
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Posted: Fri 06 May , 2005 5:46 pm
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Jnyusa wrote:
2. The member does not have to be pro-active to join the pool. The Mayor can notify them when they become eligible and they can state then whether they are interested. That's how it's done for the admin pool - makes sense to do it the same way for the jury pool.
Yes, I'd forgotten about that, and I agree it would have the same effect (as opposed to relying on pro-active volunteering).

Quote:
That's exactly the number I was thinking of! But I was thinking that the member could reject two of them (one-third) and the seventh juror is an alternate - they would attend the case but not vote in the decision unless a regular juror had to leave or be removed.
Sounds good to me.

Quote:
But I really prefer 2 because it only takes 2 admins to convene a hearing for the removal of another admin (Article 3) and it seems odd to me that more admins would be required to consider disruptive behavior in the RP forum (for example) than to remove another admin from office.

Generally, I'm a great believe in building on what others have already done. In the Charter especially it will help to avoid contradictions.
Yes, I agree that's very important. The trouble is, I'm not retaining enough details of the already established procedures to weigh them against my current ideas. So thank you for pointing them out, and I agree that we should go with what is established whenever possible.

For some reason I was thinking in terms of 7 admins (does the number of admins depend on the size of the membership?), so that the majority number would be 4. Also, perhaps the reason I felt it should be more than 2 admins to decide on convening a hearing, is because the arena of violations is larger and less well defined, and so more subjective in nature?

Quote:
But maybe I'm wrong! - and the Mayor would be the one who has to keep a close eye on what's happening, and then PM an admin when permissions were needed ....
I'm not clear on what permissions an admin has that the Mayor doesn't, but perhaps the Mayor could simply be given the permissions of admin. I prefer the idea of the Mayor being the one to attend to the hearing, rather than an admin.

Quote:
There aren't going to be enough hearings, in my opinion, to justify a whole office just for doing that. But if we find the mayor is constantly needing help, we'll amend the Charter to include a Deputy mayor, same as we would amend the Charter to increase the # of admins if that were necessary.
This makes sense to me.

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Why do we need this identifying info?
Yay, TORN! Great catch! Let's strip this baby down! :D


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Jnyusa
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Posted: Fri 06 May , 2005 6:22 pm
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Cerin: does the number of admins depend on the size of the membership?

In a casual way. We are allowed up to seven admins as needed. Presumably our needs will vary with the size of the membership.

I guess I would prefer to leave the requirement for convening a hearing at two admins for now (to be consistent), and then amend the constitution later if we discover that we are huge, and need more admins, and are developing factions that make broader-based requirements more desirable.

In such a case we would probably want to amend Article 3 as well and make it more difficult to bring warnings and complaints and removal hearings against the admins themselves.

Jn

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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Fri 06 May , 2005 8:17 pm
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Cerin, the reasoning for not giving the mayor admin powers is that the mayor has a longer term of office—and admins were given short terms precisely to prevent someone with that much power over the board and its members from becoming "entrenched."

I could also see that if the mayor was a kind of "super admin," the most experienced with the admin panel, etc., his or her influence over the rotating admins would be considerable; the mayor would be the obvious person to go to for help or advice of all kinds. I don't mean to sound paranoid—I am sure our mayor will be quite trustworthy—but the point is to avoid the potential for bad situations later.

The mayor or whoever oversees a hearing could certainly be granted special additional powers within the Jury Room, such as those Jn has now. It might be possible to increase those powers to editing and deleting posts as well—I have an idea how that would work—but again, to confine that ability to the Jury Room and give no access to the admin panel.

However, with five to seven admins, I doubt it would ever take long for a mayor's requests to be carried out.

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Cerin
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Posted: Fri 06 May , 2005 8:43 pm
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Prim

Are permissions the same as powers? (you can tell I'm not up on this stuff)

I was suggesting that the Mayor permanently be given whatever access s/he needs to be able to oversee the hearings (as opposed to piecemeal), as I would prefer that to an admin overseeing them.


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Jnyusa
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Posted: Fri 06 May , 2005 9:05 pm
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Cerin,

I too would prefer that the mayor 'oversee' the hearings, in the sense of watching that procedure is followed. One permission the Mayor will undoubtedly have is permission to post in the jury room all the time, so he/she would be able to jump in and correct a procedural error by alerting the jury.

What the mayor probably will not have is an admin panel - so he/she won't be able to edit or delete other people's posts, lock threads, ban people or change their permissions, etc.

So if a witness needed posting rights enabled in the Jury room, an admin would have to do it - but any jury member could request it and I'm sure it would be done promptly. Where the mayor might have cause to intervene might be, for example, to remind the jury that they called a witness who never responded, and they need a disposition on that witness before they can close the case. The mayor would not need an admin panel to do things like that.

Jn

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Lord_Morningstar
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 12:34 am
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Faced with computer trouble and a lack of time, I’m afraid that I must withdraw from the committee. I’m sure that it will get on fine without me.


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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 1:40 am
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Thanks for letting me know, Lord M. And thanks for all your help so far.

Jn

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*Alandriel*
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 10:40 am
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Jny's reply to me wrote:
It seemed more likely to me that it would be the admin who would check every day to see whether witnesses had been called or whether an alternate juror (if we have one) needed to be enabled, because the Mayor doesn't have an admin panel. The Mayor would only be contacted if the jury had a procedural question.
But maybe I'm wrong! - and the Mayor would be the one who has to keep a close eye on what's happening, and then PM an admin when permissions were needed ....
Jny's reply to Cerin wrote:
I too would prefer that the mayor 'oversee' the hearings, in the sense of watching that procedure is followed. One permission the Mayor will undoubtedly have is permission to post in the jury room all the time, so he/she would be able to jump in and correct a procedural error by alerting the jury.
What the mayor probably will not have is an admin panel - so he/she won't be able to edit or delete other people's posts, lock threads, ban people or change their permissions, etc.
I guess you've changed your mind Jny or perhaps I'm not understanding right?

I definitely would prefer the Mayor to closely oversee any hearings (and I don't anticipate we'll have all that many) in order to make sure that all runs smoothly for he/she will be the most familiar with the constitution and it's details). I see the Mayors function in this rather as a 'silent' overseer, there to keep an eye on the Jury, answer any potential questions re procedures if asked but also as 'active interference' should an procedural error occur. The Mayor as well as any Jury members can contact an Admin if needed anytime.

OR – we could grant the Mayor access to the MOD panel :Q ;) specifically and ONLY in the Jury room – just giving a 'possible' here though I'm not in favour of that. Granting user permission however is solely possible from the Admin panel.

As you say, changing permissions to access the Jury room can be requested to an Admin by any jury member (or by the Mayor, who, I agree, should have access in that forum permanently during his/her office). Any further 'services' that require use of the Admin panel can simply be requested and I'm sure they'll be given priority by the Admins (perhaps something to be included specifically in the 'Admin Code of Conduct' – though we have something in there along the lines of 'treat PMs with priority.. etc.)

The Mayor, is, in a way, a bit like a super-Admin I agree Prim. Only with no buttons to push ~ or, if you agree, with MOD powers solely confined to that forum.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 4:45 pm
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Alandriel: I guess you've changed your mind Jny or perhaps I'm not understanding right?

I think we interpreting the word "overseer" differently.
We're in agreement about who should actually do what. :)

Jn

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sun 08 May , 2005 5:46 am
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This is a bit off-topic, but I'm sitting here assembling the issues we have to address next week and I came across this one agenda item that I don't think can be covered by us. So I thought I would just explain the issue and then we can put it behind us.

See agenda item #7 - Who will review extraordinary powers of admins?

We have in Article 3, ¶5 a subparagraph that says:

Extraordinary Powers of Admins
Recognizing that unforeseen events may occur which require a quick response, Board77 administrators are expected to use their best judgment in emergencies, and to take whatever action they believe necessary to protect the board. An emergency would be an event which threatened real and immediate harm, but which is not otherwise addressed by this charter. In such an event, the administrator(s) in question would be expected to explain the circumstances and consult with the board membership as soon as possible. Such measures are temporary by their nature and subject to review by [some body as yet to be determined.]


The 'body as yet to be determined' will certainly deliberate in the Outside Forum, and they will spring into action because of an Admin's exercise of this power - which is why they are on this agenda - but I realized this evening that they cannot by definition be a judicial body. They will have to be a legislative body of some sort, because these powers are exercised when the charter does not tell the admins what to do but they have to do something. Whoever reviews this has to have the power to initiate an amendment to the charter, or to decide that none is needed.

I haven't given any thought whatsoever to the issue of precedent as a basis for decision, charter amendments, etc. But we will have at some point to define what initiative reconvenes a committee for amending the charter, and whether there should be a permanent skeleton committee that can act in emergencies. This is not on the immediate agenda - in fact, right now charter amendments are the last article.

But anyway ... this is an f.y.i. and a note to myself that this is not really a judicial issue, even though it is something that will probably happen in the Jury Room.

Jn

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*Alandriel*
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Posted: Sun 08 May , 2005 10:48 am
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Quote:
In such an event, the administrator(s) in question would be expected to explain the circumstances and consult with the board membership as soon as possible. Such measures are temporary by their nature and subject to review by [some body as yet to be determined.]
The review IMO should be prompted by the membership at large, deliberated and then IF necessary, a pannel of volunteers should be formed (as we're now doing here) also including minimum 2 Admins.

In order not to get into the possible situation of wanting to ammend the constitution over some 'triviality' I'd like to get back to that 'magic number' of participants in a pannel that you once mentioned Jny. If I remember right, I think the number was 15. So, my suggestion would be, if 15 people (including 2 Admins) deem it necessary to try and ammend the constitution, then those should form a pannel and discuss it, hash out any proposed ammendments to the constitution which, upon completion, goes to a vote before the membership at large.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sun 08 May , 2005 2:34 pm
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Thanks, Alandriel.

Can you save that suggestion on your hard drive, too - or add it to your copy of the agenda, as I will add it to mine. It's going to be a *long* time before we get around to discussing the details of that.

Jn

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