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Assembling Hearing Procedures in Full

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 2:56 am
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TORN: Good idea.

Actually, I've been compiling member rights as we've gone along because most of them flow directly from what admins can and cannot do.

Dividing them into 'What We Strive For' and 'Minimum We Will Enforce' had not occured to me, but I think it's quite do-able.

And thanks for the support for this approach! - but I will mention that it was only possible for me to do this because so much work had already been done by the members at large and by the prior committee on the admin article. I could not have created a full text out of thin air and come within spitting distance of an agreeable document.

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IdylleSeethes
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¶4 Hearings and the Selection of a Jury for Hearings

- "Community Disruption" is fine

- six members is fine

- I prefer the ability to reject 3 potential jurors

- That means we start with 10 potential jurors

- A single alternate is fine

- It seems pretty semantic, but "contesting" is what I'm used to calling this.

- Selection by order of entry is fine



¶5 Procedure for Hearings on a Violation of Community Disruption:

- "Violation of By-Laws/Community Disruption" is fine

- Convening in 3 days is fine

- I like the lower threshold (2) for the number of administrators that must agree with that a hearing is required.

- I agree with the wording on restrictions only being imposed by an admin who has observed a violation, or the jury who has heard the case.

- I like the 7 days from the first action to the hearing as a recommendation. Is extension beyond 7 days grounds for dropping the charge? It seems stated as grounds for appeal in 9.

- Procedural questions

The Mayor might be OK
I don't like the idea of the decision being in the hands of a single admin. I might agree to a consensus of the admins.
I prefer a person who is none of the above in the traditional role of a judge in the US court system. I also understand there is opposition to the idea of another authority figure.


- 24 hour notice of the end of a hearing is fine

- The wording of the penalty statement is fine

- The wording of the agreement on a decision creates the problem of what to do when the jury hangs at 3/3. You can't force it. You could have the mayor break a tie. You could say "conviction requires at least 4 votes" and consider anything else as judgment for the defendant. It is stated as grounds for appeal in 9.

- Restoration of posting rights within 24 hours after a finding for the defendant is fine

- Restoration of rights within 24 hours after the end of a penalty is fine

- 24 hours for a member to be in compliance with a decision is fine

- The deletion statement is fine



¶6 Procedure for Hearings on a Ban:

- 3 month probation is fine

- The deletion statement is fine



¶7 Procedure for Hearings to Remove an Administrator

- The limitation on the jury decision is fine



¶8 Procedure for Hearings to Remove the Mayor from Office

- The petition wording is fine

- Restricting the Mayor to the juror room is fine

What about the Caine Mutiny?



¶9 Appealing the Decision of a Jury

- Panel selection is fine except it must include the Mayor and not the procedure expert if the position is created. Too much like a judge/jury/executioner role. A good argument for a separate role.

- The appeal on delay seems to answer a current position of an automatic appeal for a hung jury. Is that what we want?

- We need an evidentiary appeal. Did I hear an echo?

Editted to fix mistakes in the first entries of 4 and 5

Last edited by IdylleSeethes on Sat 07 May , 2005 8:09 am, edited 2 times in total.

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IdylleSeethes
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 3:39 am
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Torn,

As much as I dread disagreeing with you, I have to agree with your idea about mortal and venial sins.

Will we really go to hell?
Where's the Holy water?

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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 5:59 am
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:Q

I agree with the principle, however. I'm trying to see all these procedures as worst-case scenarios, the blunderbuss over the fireplace, to be used as rarely as possible. Separating the ideal of member behavior from the minimum acceptable is a very good idea. We're working out a system that will handle dire cases well, I think. I would hate to see all this careful thought used to comically entangle us in petty disagreements because people including me do fail in perfect courtesy.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 6:13 am
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IS: "Violation of By-Laws/Community Disruption" is fine

This was an either/or choice. Do you have a preference?

"contesting" is what I'm used to calling this

You mean contesting the jurors rather than rejecting the jurors? Easily changed, and Voronwe will probably prefer it, too.

It seems stated as grounds for appeal in 9.

Grounds to appeal the length of the penalty, not the decision itself.

I don't like the idea of the decision being in the hands of a single admin. I might agree to a consensus of the admins.

Yes, I understand this, but the single admin has the power to suspend the posting rights, and that must be followed by a hearing because the admin does not have the power to decide how long posting rights will be suspended. So if we demand two or more admins to convene all hearings we will also have to go back and require two or more admins for suspending the posting rights.

This is actually the only case where an admin convenes a hearing on their lonesome, and the Charter lays out a very small number of defined situations in which an admin can suspend posting rights, so the admin is not really acting from discretion here.

You could say "conviction requires at least 4 votes" and consider anything else as judgment for the defendant.

I prefer this formulation to an appeal process for a hung jury.

What about the Caine Mutiny?

We just won't have one. :)

- We need an evidentiary appeal.

Yes, I agree that this is logical but what evidence exactly might be appealed? All we have here are written posts that are readily edited. We would need evidentiary rules as the basis for appeal and I can't think of anything that would not be ... well, silly, like people copying all of their own posts in case an admin copies a post to use as evidence and then edits it before submitting it ... or people running around the board trying to catch a witness in a lie.

Can anyone offer an example of an evidentiary rule that would be reasonable to follow and might form the basis for an appeal?

Jn

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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 6:31 am
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I can't think of anything that's indisputable evidence, all posts being editable by numerous people (and admin edits leave no automatic trace). I suppose, say, if something had to be done by a particular date, say to comply with a jury verdict, and then a member was banned for failing to comply, the member might be able to prove they'd complied in time based on the time stamp on a post—but that seems like an unlikely error to be made, and a trivial matter to correct—an occasion for "Oops! Sorry about that, you're unbanned," rather than another formal procedure.

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Jnyusa
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but that seems like an unlikely error to be made

I agree. I can't see us counting the minutes ... and if it went so far beyond the time limit that we noticed it, it wouldn't be an evidentiary issue.

Maybe Cerin or Idylle can give an example of what they have in mind. [hint, hint] Or if this rings bell with Voronwe or TORN they can chime in. :P

Jn

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laureanna
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 7:50 am
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I have no specific complaints about the text, other than to say that it is surprisingly long. Do you really think we will ever go through this process?

Also, I'm taking off for California tomorrow morning and will have limited access to computers until Thursday. I will try to participate when I can.

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IdylleSeethes
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Jnyusa,
Sorry, I thought I cut and pasted the tail end. It sounds more friendly.

To add to my evidence issue:

I have frequently had to provide evidence of tampering. 6 state workers were convicted today in Indianapolis today for stealing money, thinking they could erase the record, since all visible traces could be removed by the group of conspirators. All you have to show in court is the "invisible" evidence kept in the logs.

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*Alandriel*
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 12:15 pm
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4 Hearings and the Selection of a Jury for Hearings
Quote:
Board77 recognizes three kinds of hearings….

:) good with me
Quote:
A sufficient number will be selected at the beginning to allow each affected member to contest two/three jurors and still have seven jurors remaining. For cases involving a single individual, this would be nine/ten potential jurors. No juror may be a current administrator.
two (less haggling than over three ;) and nine
Quote:
Each member involved will then have the right to contest two/three of the proposed jurors. They are not required to contest any but they have the right to do so.
two
Quote:
Of the jurors that remain after the selection process, the first six (in order of entry) will hear the case, and one alternate will attend in the event that a regular juror must leave or be removed. No more than six jurors will make the final decision.
Please focus discussion on ‘six jurors,’ the presence of an alternate, rejection versus selection by the member, and selection in order of entry to pool
:) fine with me.

5 Procedure for Hearings on a Violation of By-Laws/Community Disruption
Community disruption I like better :)
Quote:
If the problem is brought to the attention of the administrators by another member, two/three administrators must agree
two agree with Jny's reasoning
Quote:
The posting rights of the member in question will not be restricted over the course of the hearing on the strength of another member’s report. Only an administrator observing a violation of by-laws directly, or a jury after hearing a case, may impose a penalty on a poster.
I agree :)
Quote:
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.
The Mayor He/she is the person with the most in depth knowledge of the constitution (a basic job requirement) and therefore is better suited for this than an Admin (whose positions are rotated more frequently and have 'other jobs' as a priority). If necessary, the Mayor could call for an assistant to be selected from amongst previous Admins but only for the duration of that hearing.
Quote:
Jury deliberations may be held in private, by PM or email. Jurors should strive to reach a decision within ten days. Agreement by four of the six jurors will be considered a decision.
May I suggest also the possibility of having a 'secret' forum for them only to do that? Access solely to the jurors involved and locked and DELETED after the deliberations are open? Four out of six is good with me :)
Quote:
If the recommendation to ban is overturned by a vote of the membership, the poster will be on three-month probation. If new bannable offenses are committed during that period, a new jury will be convened according to the same terms as above, but this time the decision of the jury will be final. Please focus discussion HERE. Probation period was not decided by members prior to committee
Definitely agree with a 3 month probation period during which there can be only 2 more violations (with new hearings) – on the 3rd offence during the probation period the poster will be banned or temp banned according to the outcome of the jury's verdict upon the last hearing (all within the probation period). The slate is wiped clean IF there after the probation has passed.


8 Procedure for Hearings to Remove the Mayor from Office
Quote:
All of this is new, and if you wish we can postpone the final discussion of this paragraph until we have written the Article about the Office of the Mayor. What is here is based directly on the rules for removing an admin, with the added provision of a petition by the members as suggested by some people
No objections what-so-ever with this so far. The exact job description of the Mayor is still in the process but what you have so far here is fully in line and I definitely agree on the added provision of a petition :)


9 Appealing the Decision of a Jury

For me, the blue text should read Mayor. E.g. The member will present their Appeal in writing to the Mayor and the Mayor will forward it to the three Administrators… etc.

Fabulous stuff Jny :bow:

And TORN:
you're suggestion as to
Quote:
The gist of what I'm proposing is that member rights operate at two levels -- a precatory level that says "these are the high standards that we as a community strive to achieve", and an enforceable level that says "these are the minimum standards by which you as a member of this community must abide."
is exactly :D what I have in mind too…. but I guess we'll get to that in more detail (based on what we already have in Admin powers) when we get to members rights & obligations.

There are always grey areas though, e.g. sig pics for one :roll: What to one is tasteful to another is outrageous. In such cases ideally the conflict ought to be resolved amongst the members in bike-racks, but – of course – it might end up in the jury room depending on how the involved parties manage to resolve it … or not. Thing is, we have the bike-racks as our first 'line-of-defence' and it is my hope that 99% of all 'cases' will be resolved there, amongst the membership. Only very clear offences e.g. spamming, overtly threatening behavior will bypass the bike-racks. We've got already quite a list of what constitutes a violation and I'm sue we'll somewhat expand on those. There is also the 'Code of conduct for members' ;)
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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 3:57 pm
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Once again I am going to lazily steal someone else's wonderful formatting. Sorry, Alandriel! :D I'm only listing points for which my comment is not simply "Sounds good to me."

4 Hearings and the Selection of a Jury for Hearings
Quote:
A sufficient number will be selected at the beginning to allow each affected member to contest two/three jurors and still have seven jurors remaining. For cases involving a single individual, this would be nine/ten potential jurors. No juror may be a current administrator.
Two and nine.
Quote:
Each member involved will then have the right to contest two/three of the proposed jurors. They are not required to contest any but they have the right to do so.
Two.
Quote:
Of the jurors that remain after the selection process, the first six (in order of entry) will hear the case, and one alternate will attend in the event that a regular juror must leave or be removed. No more than six jurors will make the final decision.
Please focus discussion on ‘six jurors,’ the presence of an alternate, rejection versus selection by the member, and selection in order of entry to pool
This is all good. I especially think the right to reject offered names is both fairer and more manageable than selecting names from the membership.

5 Procedure for Hearings on a Violation of By-Laws/Community Disruption
I also prefer "Community Disruption." It makes clear that the motivation for action is harm to the community, not the violation of a rule.
Quote:
If the problem is brought to the attention of the administrators by another member, two/three administrators must agree
Two—redundancy of procedures streamlines things, makes it easier to remember the rules, and makes sense for the reason Jn gave.
Quote:
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.
I agree with having it be the mayor, for the reasons Alandriel gave. My hope is that hearings will hardly ever happen, so it should not be a huge additional burden. If it proves to be, as Jn has said elsewhere, we can amend the Charter to add a deputy mayor to handle this.
Quote:
Jury deliberations may be held in private, by PM or email. Jurors should strive to reach a decision within ten days. Agreement by four of the six jurors will be considered a decision.
Having been on a jury, may I say I really like Alandriel's idea of an invisible forum for deliberations. Especially with six jurors, discussions by PM or email will be incredibly slow and awkward, and not everybody is brilliant with IM :roll: .

A drawback is that the forum and deliberations would be visible to admins—I don't think there's any way to conceal it from them.
Quote:
If the recommendation to ban is overturned by a vote of the membership, the poster will be on three-month probation. If new bannable offenses are committed during that period, a new jury will be convened according to the same terms as above, but this time the decision of the jury will be final. Please focus discussion HERE. Probation period was not decided by members prior to committee
I definitely agree. If the hearing on a ban really was wrong and an overreaction, the poster's subsequent behavior will support that. But if the poster commits new bannable offenses, the membership would be unlikely to vote in his or her favor again anyway.

9 Appealing the Decision of a Jury

I agree with using the mayor for this, and I second Alandriel's :bow: for Jn!


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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 4:06 pm
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This is truly incidental, but I want to call attention to the fact that the original agenda called for a ¶ entitled Jury Selection, and that topic has now been distributed to two different paragraphs - ¶4 above where the actual jurors are selected from potential jurors, and - Eligibility, where we are placing some additional restrictions on entry into the pool of potential jurors.

Advance warning that when both texts are settled on, I will retitle and renumber the paragraphs to reflect what is actually in them.

ON TOPIC:

Let me focus on the first paragraph, currently numbered ¶4. Eight people have visited this thread and made various comments. Suggested changes of wording have been incorporated. The eight people seem to be in agreement with the key elements of process: six jurors to decide, one alternate, potential jurors taken in order of entry, and right of member to contest (reject) two or three.

Members who expressed an opinion about the last item seem to be split between two and three - so I suggest that I put up a quickie ballot for this paragraph - let us approve or reject the process and the text of this paragraph and vote on whether members can contest two or three jurors.

This will be a separate thread, and I will add the link here momentarily, send out emails, update the voting schedule, etc.
LINK

As we resolve issues of the other paragraphs, I will do the same for them.

Jn

Last edited by Jnyusa on Sat 07 May , 2005 5:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Cerin
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 4:41 pm
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Jnyusa wrote:
The things that are less well-defined are "violation of member rights," There will be a list of member rights but the jury will still have to decide whether a violation actually occured and I can imagine this being a gray area in some cases.

Thing is, it's not the admins who make this decision. They only have to decide that the original charge is not frivolous; that some member has not complained just to get another member in trouble.
I'm fine with two admins convening a hearing.

TORN wrote:
The gist of what I'm proposing is that member rights operate at two levels -- a precatory level that says "these are the high standards that we as a community strive to achieve", and an enforceable level that says "these are the minimum standards by which you as a member of this community must abide."
What an interesting idea. I think this lends support to titling the hearings as Hearing on a Violation of By-Laws (or perhaps Hearing on a Violation of Enforceable By-Laws), rather than as Hearing on a Community Disruption, as a disruption seems like a milder term which naturally conjures up the notion, IMO, of the kind of minor occasions of disgruntledness that we don't want to encourage hearings on.

Jnyusa wrote:
Can anyone offer an example of an evidentiary rule that would be reasonable to follow and might form the basis for an appeal?

I was thinking in terms of new evidence turning up after the ruling.

IdylleSeethes wrote:
- I prefer the ability to reject 3 potential jurors
¶4 Hearings and the Selection of a Jury for Hearings
- That means we start with 10 potential jurors
I like this better, too (but could no doubt be talked out of it). :D

Quote:
¶5 Procedure for Hearings on a Violation of/ Community Disruption:
I prefer a person who is none of the above in the traditional role of a judge in the US court system. I also understand there is opposition to the idea of another authority figure.
I am still preferring this idea myself (keeping in mind the idea that the Mayor could fill the role at the outset, and we could amend the charter to create a separate office if the hearings prove more frequent than anticipated).

Quote:
You could say "conviction requires at least 4 votes" and consider anything else as judgment for the defendant.
That sounds sensible to me.


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IdylleSeethes
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 5:04 pm
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I wrote a lengthy post last night on evidence last night and it is gone. One might say there is no evidence of it.

This will be more brief.

The only thing that exists on message boards are the messages. These can be modified at any time by the originator or anyone with admin powers. In most cases, there is no visible clue that a change has been made unless the person making the modification chooses to leave a remark.

Computer systems are very good at creating illusions.

If I make a racial slur in a post and then remove it I have violated the board rules whether or not anyone sees it. If someone sees it, reports it, and it subsequently disappears, how can action be taken on a violation which occured but or which no evidence exists?

Admins have the ability to change any post to say anything. An admin can insert violations into anyone's post and the victim has no way of defending themselves.

This is a well known set of problems. There are various opinions in the business of whether or not it is good to maintain the illusion. We frequently trap users in inappropriate activities by allowing them to think that what is visible is the complete record. 6 State employees were convicted yesterday of stealing money by conspiring to use their various privileges to steal and remove the visible evidence of what they had done. I have had to provide evidence to prosecutors many times to show who did what and when.

I hope the modification of a post is just an illusion on Board77. Most databases provide transaction logging, journaling, or something that serves the purpose. Once a post exists, every state in which it has existed should be recorded in a log. This is the primary evidence of what was posted on the board. It includes the text, the ID of the person who filed it, and the timedate stamp.

There are some odd legal quirks concerning this type of evidence. In high security applications, robots are created to look for anomalies and report them. In state and local government, a prosecutor only wants to know about evidence related to the case they are already investigating. If, in the course of my research, I find evidence of unrelated wrongdoing by other people, they aren't interested. For us that would translate into a policy of ignoring violations not noticed in the normal use of the board.

So, tampering with posts is an evidentiary problem. Uncertainty can be avoided by requiring that everyone be provided the text of all states of a post in question before the hearing. If there is no logging, then no posts are reliable evidence.

There are also external evidence issues. We are fortunate that in the Wilko experiment there was no disput e of the evidence external to the board. We won't always be so lucky. There can be explicable perception differences but there can also be mendacity, as Big Daddy would call it.

Voronwe and Torn can discuss the external evidence rules with more authority than me.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 5:47 pm
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Cerin and Idylle - thank you for your examples.

:Q

1. To Cerin's comment - this seems the most likely scenario that we'd confront. It is quite easy to build in a Reason #4 - right to an appeal if new evidence comes to light before a penalty has expired. I'll do that, and if no one objects, I'll leave it in.

2. To your example, IS - well, I asked for it!

a. Someone will have to check with our server and see whether a log is kept. If it is, then we can of course require that the jury check the log if actual posts are presented as evidence. That one is easy, too. I'll add it as soon as we confirm its feasibility. It will go on as both a rule of evidence and a grounds for appeal.

b. Beyond that, I'm wondering it we could simply add a statement to the following effect: "There will also be an evidentiary grounds for appeal in cases affecting the boundary between the board and the larger world where strict rules of evidence may be devised" - and leave it at that, because the kind of tracking you are talking about is probably way excessive for cases where the final penalty is going to be something like suspension of posting rights for a week in one forum. :neutral:

But I can imagine that if we set up a member corporation, and begin dealing with the TOE issue and other legal liabilities or RL civil rights protections in the charter, we may come upon things where we want a very careful and thorough process to protect our own selves from liability.

But this issue is very complicated, and we are trying to rush to open the board with the basic anticipated framework ... and I see from the way the vote is going over there that most members do not think and do not want to think and don't care a twiddly-damn about these risks and perhaps they are right. Perhaps this will never become important.

Jn

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 6:30 pm
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OK - moving forward. The finer points of ¶4 are being resolved in the Draft Ballot thread. Let's proceed to the few last items in ¶5.

If Cerin is removing her objection to 2 admins for convening a hearings, there seems to be near consensus on all "blue points" but the following:

1. 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.

2. We must find out from our server whether logs are kept so that we know whether to include a rule of evidence.

3. Alandriel and Prim raised this issue (in the other thread, I think) that if jury deliberations are private, we should create an invisible forum for that to facilitate deliberations.


-- There seems to be a lot of support for the procedure check falling to the Mayor, but support for the idea of making this a separate office as well. No one seems to want the admins to do it, so I will remove that option unless I hear an objection.

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

--If some admin could post the question about logs on the PHP board, that would be nice.

-- 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.

About appeals: We have this sentence in ¶5 which should also be grounds for appeal. I just forgot about it before, so I'm going to add it now.

"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.

Jn

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IdylleSeethes
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Quote:
1. 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.
- I don't like the Mayor as the judge/defendant (mayor removal)

- I don't like the Mayor as the judge/juror/executioner (admin removal)

- I don't mind the Mayor as judge/executioner (community disruption, ban)

Since a different person in the judge role seems to be required for 2 of the 4 situations, it seems reasonable to have it be someone other than the mayor. My brother had a case in which the judge was a defendant and refused to recuse himself.

Quote:
2. We must find out from our server whether logs are kept so that we know whether to include a rule of evidence.
Without the logs, you only have an illusion or circumstantial evidence at best.

Quote:
3. Alandriel and Prim raised this issue (in the other thread, I think) that if jury deliberations are private, we should create an invisible forum for that to facilitate deliberations.
I don't mind private, so long as it remains private. Otherwise, I like it in the open.


Yes on the excess penalty appeal.

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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 9:06 pm
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My brother had a case in which the judge was a defendant and refused to recuse himself.
:Q :scratch :Q

The only imput that I have is that in my view it is critically important that jury deliberations be private. In the wilko matter we did it by email and that worked just fine. I don't think there needs to be a separate forum for that.

Beyond that, if I give more in depth feedback on this stuff, it will quickly get too in depth. I think I would prefer to let you guys hash out what you want and must make occasional shotgun comments like this one when I really feel strongly about something. Otherwise I fear that we wll bog down too much into minutia that would only be important to a lawyer like me. :roll:

I will however continue to monitor the discussion and comment occasionally. And of course I will vote.


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IdylleSeethes
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 9:27 pm
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Voronwe,

He also had a friend who was elected sheriff who was gunned down in the street by the prior sheriff's minions before he could take office. Its a tough venue.

and people wonder why I'm paranoid.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sat 07 May , 2005 9:30 pm
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IS - your reasons are good ones. And the mayor could not of course supervise a hearing on his/her own removal. :LMAO:

Well, then we do need a "Keeper of the Salmon of Correction and the Cod of Conduct." Though please, please let's not really call them that except at the Sacred Lutefisk Festival ....

mildly off topic (because the stress is getting to me) ... when we were in the throws of the TORC kerfuffle last December, Estel wrote that wonderful post about how societies deal with authority, and suggested one day a year where the roles would be reversed and the authority figures ritually humiliated. We did not expect to have authority figures per se on Board77, but it looks as if we are going to need a couple people who's capacity is official and whose influence is potentially broad ... so perhaps the Sacred Lutefisk Festival is really needed and we should have ways to ceremonially mock ourselves ... we might need an outlet for mocking the Charter if my toe in the current is telling true ;) ... just a thought ....

OK - seriously, how shall we title this role so that it's function is clear? Will it be an elected office? (I'm thinking that it should) 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?

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)

Edit in: Yes, this falls into the category of 'most serious' requiring an immediate hearing on removal:
• An Immediate Hearing is required if:
••An admin reveals private information obtained as a result of their office, such as profile information that members have made hidden or the contents of secret ballots cast by PM or email

We'd just have to add in 'jury deliberations' [End edit.]

I can serious advantages to on-board deliberations when there are six jurors and one alternate - it truly is easier than emails. And if the deliberations take place on the board it's also easier to see whether a juror has taken a powder.

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?

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