board77

Jnyusa,

Thanks.

The RCC Easter rituals include a washing of the feet ceremony, during which the most senior of the clergy present must wash the feet of the others. This even applies to the Pope.

My brother worked on the Great Speckled Bird, that any of you who were late '60s radicals may remember. Their method of dealing with authority was to rotate all of the primary participants through each of the roles. So he was sometimes editor and sometimes copy boy.

Election to the new postion is best. It gives credibility to the position. Is Proctor less abrasive than Judge?

I agree with the admin/privacy immediate hearing reason.

My statement concerned maintaining the privacy of the deliberation after a private deliberation. Like voting on invitations have been handled. The deliberation on an invitation is discarded afterward. Anyone not involved in the pre-vote discussion never knows what was said. I assume the reason for this is to protect eveyone from hurt feelings after the procedure is done. As members of a community we all have a responsibility to accept decisions of the community or not be members. In discussing possibilities before a decision I am likely to argue all sides, so that no stone goes unturned. It is easy for this to get mischaracterized. So, I prefer private discussion that remains private. It's the final decision that is important and to which we must all accede.

OK - seriously, how shall we title this role so that it's function is clear?

Hearing Facilitator?


Will it be an elected office? (I'm thinking that it should)

What about setting it up like the mediators? People could volunteer (who wanted to take it upon themselves to be well-acquainted with the charter), and be shuffled in in order, for each hearing? Actually, I can see the potential problem of not having enough volunteers. It might become a defacto long-term position anyway, if there aren't many volunteers. (But then we were thinking there wouldn't be many hearings either ...)


Will it have it's own Article or can it be packaged with the Mayor ... e.g. a deputy mayor whose separate functions are specified?

Perhaps it should be packaged in Article 5, section 4 or 5?


Re jury deliberations, I also much prefer that they be private. I have no particular objection to the Admins seeing them, though, providing we amend the admin article to include this as confidential information whose revelation would justify removal from office (if it isn't already substantively covered - I'll have to read the article again)

This sounds like a reasonable compromise to me.

Quote:

IS and Voronwe - beyond general privacy, did you have reasons why you felt that deliberations must be kept secret from the admins as well as the general membership?

The same reason that in real life a jury's deliberations is kept secret even from the judge. So that the jury is free to deliberate in a manner completely free from any external pressure or influence. I realize that this concept goes directly counter to this board's emphasis on transparency, but this is one of the most sacred facets of the Anglo-American justice system.

This could be where my profession is leading me to put too much emphasis on something that is not important to others. I have said my piece. Now, other then voting on the issue when it comes up, I will say no more about it. I have no wish to improperly influence the committee.

If the person who is the subject of the hearing happened to be a good friend or romantic partner of one of the admins, that would certainly have an inhibitory effect on the jury.

Prim: Prim: If the person who is the subject of the hearing happened to be a good friend or romantic partner of one of the admins, that would certainly have an inhibitory effect on the jury.

Prim, this is the example that convinces me we should not do this. I was thinking we could make board deliberations optional, but then we would have to start adding clauses about how many jurors have to demand absolute privacy and how quickly the thread must be deleted, etc. and this is unnecessarily complicated.

Not just romantic relationships but even best buddy relationships ... if the admins have opportunity to observe long (possibly negative) conversations about someone they know well, the temptation to reveal snippets off the board would be too great, and we have a responsibility not to entrap our admins or put them in a situation where they are being harrassed for information.

The jury will just have to live with the inconvenience of email. And I really don't envision these hearings happening very often.

Packaging: if there is broad agreement that the 'watcher' office should be an elected one, then I can package it together with the Mayor under an article entitled "Elected Offices."

I was thinking here only of the efficiency of the charter, not any functional overlap between the offices. They don't even have to be elected at the same time.

I like the term Proctor because it's only one word.

Cerin: It might become a defacto long-term position anyway

I can't imagine otherwise. There will be, eventually, a 'Mayor's Handbook' and a 'watcher's handbook' but basically whoever does this job will be doing what I'm doing here, which is holding the whole charter in front of their eyes and watching for inconsistencies. They won't have to perform very often (we hope) but when they're on, they'll have to take it very seriously. We should use the learning curve to our advantage and keep it a long term position.

Jn

edit: OK, I changed the paragraph about the removal of the mayor to cover all elected officials.

And, IS, you had said that appeal should be heard by a panel that includes the person who 'watched over' the hearing, so I have changed the appeals paragraph accordingly. Please correct me if I misunderstood you about that.

last edit: Prim has posted in tech support to find out about logs. I think that's the last unknown/contentious thing about ¶5. Otherwise we 've got it pretty well smoothed out and I'll put up a Draft Ballot as soon as we hear back from tech support

Quote:

Maybe we can talk about the pros and cons of Mayor versus separate office one more time.

KIS – keep it simple. The less 'official' capacities we have, the easier everything becomes. As I mentioned before, I don't see hearings happening on a weekly basis, nor hopefully even on a monthly basis. I see them happening perhaps once or twice a year max (since the way I envisage things, almost 99% of all 'cases' will get resolved in bike-racks). So why have yet another position?
I'm all for allowing under special circumstance a temporary assistant e.g. if

- the Major is unavailable due to e.g. holidays or illness etc.
- two hearings should coincide
- due to the nature of the hearing additional help is deemed necessary (Mayor's decision in agreement with the Jury)

Sorry IDS but I don't see the Mayor in the capacities as you've stated them.
Any procedural questions raised by the jury should be referred to the Mayor/an appointed administrator/some new officer who will be responsible for the application of the Charter.
A Major simply upholds & enforces the constitution. He/she is NOT a judge, the judge (in a way) is the constitution. And if the constitution turns out to be unclear, then there will be ways to ammend it.

Quote:

-- the pros and cons of an invisible forum for deliberations. Pro- lots easier for the jury than emails, PMs, IMs. Con - the admins will be able to see it. Discuss.

We don't have to write the creation of the forum into the charter. All we really have to do is say something like, "deliberations can be done in private by email, PM or in the private deliberation forum." And then the admins can add this subforum to the Outside Forum when the article is ratified.

For me, it's not really a disadvantage that Admins can read in such a secret forum. Why should it be? We already trust them to be Admins Having a forum available is just an added way of communication if the jury chooses this way. I simply would like to have an additional option available of communication. PM's are cumbersome in a discussion that involves more than two people, being simple a point-to-point way of communication. Emails of course is a valid other option with cc's to all members involved – yet (having gone through the petition email nightmare myself) I still hold that having a private corner available on this MB is a much more suitable solution, again IF – the jurors want to use it. So the way Jny has proposed to word this is I agree 100%

Quote:

"If no maximum penalty is specified in the by-laws the jurors may use discretion based on the range of penalties contained in the by-laws for similar offenses."
One should be able to appeal an excessive penalty.

I agree

_______________
Resident witchâ„¢

Jn, as I PMed you, phpBB tech support has responded to our question about whether a log is kept of edits to posts: "At the moment, this feature is not supported."

So the original versions of edited posts no longer exist.

Alandriel,
We all have a fondness for the familiar. This is what I am familiar with:

There is a constitution that provides the framework for governance

There is a legislative body that can make law within the framework of the constitution.

There is an executive that carries out the law and enforces it.

There is a judiciary that decides if the laws made by the legislative body are within the framework of the Constitution. It also decides if the executive has carried out the laws as intended by the legislative body.

In this system it is the judicial that is the authority on what the law means. The executive carries it out, but does not get to decide what it means.

This arrangement provides some level of protection against abuse.

Board77 has already chosen to not follow this pattern. I have no problem with that. Essentially, the legislative body doesn't exist. The executive gets to decide, without formal oversight, how to execute the laws. I have a problem with that, but I can tolerate it. Allowing the executive to also decide what the constitution means goes to far, since it introduces inherent conflicts of interest.

In our discussion we are addressing 4 procedures. In one of the 4, the mayor is the defendant, so acting as a judge or juror is absolutely inappropriate. In one of the three remaining, the mayor may be acting as juror, so it is inappropriate to act as judge at the same time. In the other 2 situations there is no inherent conflict of interest, so I have no concern.

There are several ways to get around these problems, but most of them require playing musical chairs. The position of judge/proctor seems like the cleanest way around the problems.

I would be interested in hearing solutions to avoiding a conflict of interest by the person responsible for procedural issues, for the 2 situations for which there is an obvious conflict, if the mayor acts as the expert on procedure.

Prim, I got your PM. (And PM'd you back)

Let's deal with that one first. I'm thinking that we'll have to wait and amend the Charter for evidentiary rules and appeals when we move to the new board and have control over 'evidence.'

There's no reason why the Charter can't be amended when new issues become relevant/feasible.

Regarding Alandriel's comments on the other two items:

Alandriel, at first my thinking was the same as yours. It's a matter of convenience and a streamlined charter - not too many offices, flexibility for the jury.

But the example that Prim brought strikes me as one likely to happen, and likely to happen quickly. If there were a way to close off a forum completely so that even the admins could not view it, then it would be perfect. But as long as the admins can see it, I think we're putting the admin in an unpleasant position - subjecting them to possible harrassment and tempting them to do something that would get them removed from office.

With the Mayor ... though I don't see any immediate likelihood that a Mayor would be removed from office, we don't know yet what all of his/her functions are going to be. And I can easily imagine giving the Mayor a spokesperson role and then deciding to retract all or part of it ... and I'm not sure how we would curtail the powers of the mayor but I'm sure that the Mayor him/herself should not preside over the process, nor over his/her own removal. So we will need a second functionary, and I've changed my opinion to agree now with IS that it is actually more efficient to create that functionary now.

I don't think two elected offices is excessive ... it might even be a bit more fun, having an election once a year, or every six months ... and since the Proctor/HF role is not going to be a daily task, that person could be empowered to help the mayor in emergencies, and they could preside over one another's hearings if necessary.

Jn

Another edit: IS, I think I did misunderstand you the first time around. You were saying that if the Mayor sits on the Appeals Panel he/she should not be the procedure watcher.

That also makes more sense to me. So I edited the Appeals paragraph in error and will slip back now to change it.

Good.

Jn, this is wonderful. Thank you so much.

I hope you're being treated properly on Mother's Day. (I was rather hoping you'd have a new grandbaby as a present. . . .)

I will receive my second grandchild tomorrow. We had a nice picnic today, a few hours in the Springtime sun, and then my daughter and son-in-law dropped off GC#1 with his Dad and Stepmom and headed for the hospital.

The doctors will pull GC#2 out by his ears tomorrow morning.

I am waiting to hear from Alandriel on these two issues that are still unresolved - Mayor v. Proctor and On-board deliberations v. Email deliberations. She probably won't be back until tomorrow. If she still feels strongly about her position, I'll put those two issues to an interim vote rather than hiding them inside a text block because ...

If we can get this procedure nailed down, we can vote simultaneously on four or five paragraphs that build on the same procedure.

Cerin - you had suggested the title 'Hearing Facilitator'. Is Proctor OK with you, or do you really prefer a different word and want to put the name of the office to a vote? I notice that people have slipped into calling it a Proctor, probably because it's short and sweet, but if there is opposition to this term we can vote on it.

Jn

Proctor is fine with me. Also private deliberations.

Good luck to all in the GC#2 endeavor!!!!

Thank you!

(we need a squalling infant emoticon ... oh wait)


Close enough.

Ah! Oh good. It's time to open the vote. That's what I was hanging around waiting for.

Not a big deal, but I'm not wild about the term Proctor. It just gives me images of private prep schools and taking tests supervised by an eagle-eyed proctor. [Edit: Definition of Proctor: "A supervisor especially of an examination or dormitory in a school."]

I like "Bounder". It doesn't really quite fit this role, but then neither does proctor, really. Still if we are going to have a name that implies that the person is keeping people in place, I like Bounder.

But not a big deal; if no one else agrees, just go with Proctor.

I was checking out the new Bike Racks sticky, and wondered about this sentence:

Administrators have the right to delete the posts of non-designated members who enter the thread.

Previously it had said that thread participants could request that posts of non-designated members be deleted. Is that still the meaning we intend here, or are we now saying that admins are authorized to delete posts regardless of whether someone has requested it?

Could the Jury Foreman do the job, instead of a separate proctor/proctologist/whatever?

Cerin: Administrators have the right to delete ...

This final comment now appears at the end of a paragraph explaining that people should not enter the thread without permission from the participants, so I don't think it will be misunderstood that it is at the request of participants that admins would bother doing this.

In the old sticky I believe the sentence about post removal stood alone and needed more specificity for that reason.

Voronwe - perhaps Proctor is not an ideal term ... and much as I like Tolkien's language, the problem with "bounder" is that it has come into modern English with a pejorative meaning - a disreputable male. I'm afraid that word would really send the wrong message.

I'm repairing to my thesaurus for this one. Be back later.

Jn

As I recall Tolkien was aware of the "modern" connotation of Bounder, as in "a cad, a bounder, and a thief," but liked the joke.

Jnyusa,

Well, if you really want to relate it to Tolkien, I liked your inadvertent use of "The Watcher" earlier.