board77

Edited 6/20/05 to change 'administrator' to 'Ranger'

Last but not least, since it seems unlikely at this point that the Article 3 will fail ratification, we should approve the ADMINISTRATOR HANDBOOK.

I was updating this as the prior committee reached decisions. It is divided into two parts: "Administrator Code of Conduct," and "How to Do Everything."

We do not have to approve the Administrator Code of Conduct because the last committee already did that, and I believe there was no question that it would be part of the Handbook. However I would like your opinion as to:

1. which part should come first and which second
2. if anyone knows whether there is some way to post this as an html document to which members can link from the board. It is a bit long, even with all the reductions from the Charter.

AND, those who have already served as administrators, please let me know if any of these instructions are wrong!!!!!

AND there may also be "How-To's" that you want added. You'll have to right the text for this yourself, as I've never seen the admin panel, but I will add your text to the handbook.

AND, if some of you would be kind enough to confirm the correspondence between Handbook and Charter. I've done my best, but I am not mistake-free.

The title, and how the Administrator Code of Conduct are in this post below. I've not reposted the Code because you can read it in the Charter.
The second post contains, "How to Do Everything," which is what requires your review.

Thank you!
Jn

HANDBOOK for RANGERS (Administrators)
The Ranger Code of Conduct and How to Do Everything
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Ranger Code of Conduct (Charter Article 3, ¶6)

Be the Ranger you want everyone else to be.

Prioritize functioning as a Ranger. You can still post as a normal poster yet your priority should lie in keeping the board running smoothly, attending to requests, helping to work on any pending agendas and generally strive to make Board 77 a better place for all members.

Read the Handbook for Rangers, observe all the by-laws of the board, and enforce them uniformly. If you are unsure of your authority to take a particular action, use your best judgment and confer with another Ranger as soon as it is possible to do so. Act as a model poster in accordance with all the rules laid out for board 77.

Keep the other Rangers updated regularly in the dedicated thread in Forum Management.

If you are going to be absent from the board for more than 72 hours, notify the other Rangers by posting in the management forum and delegate any pending tasks.

Assign priority to answering business-related PM's and emails. If you cannot handle the request of a member yourself, let them know that you have given it to another Ranger.

Don’t ‘hide’ being online. Having volunteered as a Ranger you have agreed to be available and members need to know which Rangers are online.

When posting references to other threads, insert them as clickable links naming the full thread-title to make the posting experience an easy and pleasurable one for everyone.

If you have to edit someone else’s post, note this in the post with your name and the date.

Help the Rangers-in-training to the best of your abilities.

Treat all posters the same. When editing posts, answering requests, or enforcing by-laws, be courteous and do not try to intimidate posters with your office.

Please don't try to influence the behavior of our posters on other boards, either by discouraging them from posting or encouraging them to post certain things, or by telling them that what they do on other boards will have consequences for them on B77.

If you are going to be absent for two full weeks or more, you must notify the other Rangers in the management forum and arrange in advance for a temporary Ranger to take your place.

If you find you must be absent for more than four full weeks, we ask you to resign because a temporary Ranger cannot be appointed to replace you. This will not affect your future eligibility, although you will return to the bottom of the roster as if you had served your term.

If you are asked to set up and oversee an Arbitration or a Hearing on a Ban, do so promptly.

Try to face criticism from posters calmly and not take it personally.

If you receive a warning because of a violation of the Code of Conduct, please accept it with good grace. You will always be given a chance to explain your side of any issue. Warnings are not made public, and if they do not accumulate into a Formal Complaint, no record is kept of them.

There are certain things which might result in your removal from office, and by agreeing to the Code of Conduct you are agreeing to these terms as well:
• You will not deliberately or maliciously ban posters who are entitled to a hearing or suspend posting rights without due process, except in the course of exercising Extraordinary powers
• You will not reveal private information to which you have access because of your office, such as profile information that members have made hidden or the contents of secret ballots cast by PM or email
• You will not give another poster access to the Ranger panel
• You will not boast on the board about criminal activities or encourage other posters to engage in them, such as use of illicit substances, activities forbidden to minors, obtaining bootleg films or CDs or other violations of copyright law.

If you have been accused of any activity that would result in your removal from office, you have a right to a hearing.
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How to Do Everything [Charter Article 3: Rangers (Administrators)]
How to be a Ranger

How To Get Ready and How to Leave (Terms of Office, Eligibility, and Selection of Rangers are contained in Charter Article 3, ¶1, ¶2, and ¶3, respectively)

• Any registered member of b77 can practice being a Ranger on the experimental board at any time. Please register HERE with your b77 username, which you can activate yourself upon email verification. Before beginning, please read the important announcements and stickies on the experimental board.

• If you are at least 18 years old and have been a registered member of Board77 for six months, you may volunteer to become a Ranger. The Mayor will establish that you qualify under the provision of 'visible and contributory presence' and then your name will go into the Ranger pool volunteer list.

• The Mayor will record your date of entry and place your name on a roster so that other members can see you are entering the Ranger pool. Other members do have the right to object to your service but they must give good reason and you must be given a chance to resolve any problems that might contribute to these objections. When the problems are resolved, you will enter the training pool.

• While you are in the training pool you can practice on the experimental board as well as honing your routine powers on the real board in the company of a current full Ranger. Set up a convenient time with the full Ranger. They will enable your powers and stay online with you while you practice. They will disable your permissions when you are done.

• When you feel ready, and another full Ranger agrees that you are ready, tell the Mayor to move your name into the pool of full Rangers.

• Members take their turn at office in the order in which they enter the pool.

• You will be notified at least one month in advance of your turn at office. If you can’t do it then, let the Mayor know. If you know when you can do it, let the Mayor know that too. Every effort will be made to give you the term of office you wish, once it is your turn.

• A full term of office is 13 weeks. The Mayor will let you know exactly when your term begins and ends.

• You will not be asked to serve a term of office if you are currently involved in a Hearing. This will not affect your place in line for the next available term.

• You might be asked to delay your term of office because of the time zone you are in, or because we need a non-English speaking Ranger. It’s nothing personal, and you won’t be asked to delay more than once. Please try to accomodate us but let the Mayor know if this causes difficulties for you. It will not affect your place in line for the next available term.

• If you must resign early, please give one week notice to the Mayor and to your fellow Rangers by posting in Forum Management.

• You may remove your name from the pool of Rangers at any time by telling the Mayor.

• Once you have served as a full Ranger, you might be asked to serve as a temporary Ranger if our work load requires extra help. Temporary Ranger terms are 2 weeks long, may be renewed once, and will not affect your place in line for a full term of office.

• You may run for Mayor while you are serving as a Ranger but you will have to resign from your Ranger term if you win.

Your Routine Powers (Charter Article 3, ¶4)
Without asking anyone’s permission, you may:

• activate new members. Add them to the All_Members group and then send them the email welcoming them to the board. If the email bounces, remove them from the All_Members group and add them to the BikeRacks group. This confines them to the BikeRacks. Send a PM telling them that their email is invalid. Do not return the member to the All_Members group until you have a valid email. More details HERE

• activate characters for the RP Forum Verify that the registration is for is an RP character by checking the Character Registry. Members must report their characters here before registering. When the character is verified, click on the link in the email to activate the membership. Go to the “Usergroups” tab at the top of the Forum index page and “View information” for the usergroup “RP Characters.” At the bottom of the page is a box for adding a member. Type the RP character’s name and add them to the group. This sets their permissions automatically. They will only be able to post in “There and Back Again.” Finally, please add the RP character’s name, the member, and your name to the list HERE .

• enable posting rights in the Thinking of England Forum. Adult discussion is permitted in this forum. The poster must request that they be enabled and must attest in writing that they are at least eighteen years of age. Written statements of age are pasted into the “England” thread in Forum Management. More details HERE

• oversee a Hearing. You may add members, jurors and witnesses to the Jury Room group, and delete the posts of non-authoritized posters who enter the thread. You will also have to confirm the eligibility of potential jurors.The full instructions for Hearings are posted at the top of the Jury Room.

• move appropriate threads into new forums when a new forum is created. You may not open a new forum by yourself. A majority of the current Rangers must agree that a new forum is needed before it can be created.

• lock, split or move threads at the request of the thread originator. Training threads to practise this are available on the practise board.

• lock, split or move threads when necessary for the coherence of the discussion or of the forum. You MUST notify the thread originator by PM when doing this. Ideally they will agree before the action is taken, but if this is not a reasonable expectation you may undertake the action yourself.

• download new smileys, but you may not delete smileys or change the appearance of the forum without starting a thread in the proper forum where members can discuss and agree to the change. Currently, the proper forum for such discussion is The Business Room.

• delete double posts at the request of the poster

• Any time you edit the post of another poster while leaving the rest of the post intact, you are required to make a note of this in the post by inserting your name and date/time and short reason for the edit

• If a majority of the Rangers agree that additional help is needed, you may appoint a temporary Ranger for 2 weeks, and renew that appointment for an additional 2 weeks. The temp must have served as a full Ranger in the past, and must not have any formal complaints against them for their service as a Ranger.

Your Special and Emergency Powers (Charter Article 3, ¶5)
When exercising special powers, you are urged to read this Charter paragraph in full and confer with other Rangers until you are familiar with the by-laws.

• You may edit posts with objectionable content. Generally, we don’t want pictures or conversation that is pornographic, violent or disgusting or that violates real life privacy. This is often a matter of taste, so use your good judgment. The member is permitted to contest your decision.

• You may temporarily suspend the posting rights of a member who has
•• interfered with a hearing
••disrupted the RP forum (after two complaints are received)
••disrupted the TOE forum (after two complaints are received)
••persisted in posting an objectionable picture after you’ve removed it
When you suspend posting rights, you must promptly notify the member of the suspension by email and tell them that a hearing will be held. Allow 24 hours for the notification to be received, and then convene a hearing in the Jury Room by opening a thread and posting the reason for the hearing. Instructions are posted at the top of the Jury Room.

• You can immediately ban a member for:
••spamming the board with ads or porn
•• hacking the board
•• threatening violence or criminal acts against members
You do not have to convene a Hearing for these cases unless the member has been registered for seven days or longer.

• Regardless of their time on the board, you can immediately ban a member who refuses to abide by a jury decision in a Hearing.
You do not have to convene another Hearing in this case. The member must request that the ban be reversed, procedure described below.

• You can convene a Hearing whenever a violation of by-laws or bannable offense is brought to your attention. When a member reports this, you should confer with another Ranger and confirm that the report is not frivolous before convening a Hearing. First notify the member about whom the Hearing will be held. Allow 24 hours for the notification to be received, and then convene a hearing in the Jury Room by opening a thread and posting the reason for the hearing. If two Rangers had to agree to convene, both names should appear in the first post. Use the full names so that PMs can be sent with ease. [Do not suspend the posting rights of the member in question unless the offense in question has been directly observed by you or another Ranger and the offense calls for a suspension of posting rights.]

• You can convene a Hearing to reverse a ban if 30 days have elapsed since the ban was put in place, the ban does not have a specified duration, and the member requests the hearing in writing.

• You also have the right to take whatever action you believe necessary to protect the board in an emergency using your own good judgment. An emergency would be an event which threatened real and immediate harm, but which is not otherwise addressed by the charter. Confer as soon as possible with the other Rangers and convene a Charter Amendment committee to review the action for any necessary changes to the Charter.

• You are not required to participate in the Hearings that you convene and you will not be given Jury Duty while you are serving as an Ranger.

Policy Guidelines for Enforcing the By-Laws:

In the Archive Forum there is a thread of Useful Links (link) to prior discussions of policy on a variety of topics such as our definition of “objectionable content,” use of RL names, what constitutes pornography, etc. These discussions are relevant to the question of whether a member has violated the by-laws and whether a Hearing should be held. If Rangers are in doubt, you should check this thread for any prior discussion of the question at hand.

Hearing Appeals (Charter Article 5, ¶8)

• Members are entitled to appeal the decisions and penalties of a jury under certain circumstances. An appeals panel is made up of four former Rangers, selected in the order in which their most recent term concluded.

• All appeals must be heard, and the Appeals panel is assembled by a current Ranger. You are required to assemble a panel if an appeal is received. However, service on an Appeals panel after your term of office has ended is voluntary.

• Because all appeals must be heard, it is up to the panel to decide whether the appeal actually has merit, and whether to overturn the decision of the jury and/or reduce or remove the penalty imposed. If you serve on an Appeals panel, please read the paragraph on Appeals carefully, Article 5, ¶8, so that you know the circumstances under which an appeal has merit and when it is appropriate to reduce a penalty. Some of these conditions allow discretion on the part of the panel, so you may wish to refer to past cases in the Archive Forum to reach a decision that is fair and consistent.

Ranger Coordination with the Mayor
Rangers have to coordinate with the Mayor on sending out notifications to members and on other issues affecting Ranger life. The official thread for communication between the Rangers and the Mayor is the Ranger Communication Thread in Michel Delving.

Approximately once a week the Mayor will post list(s) in that thread of members who are to receive official notifications - either their Welcome to the board or their eligibility for the Jury Pool or Ranger Pool. Obtain the email addresses for the members on the list. Copy the appropriate letter(s) from the FORM LETTER thread in Michel Delving, and send them to the members from the Mayor’s email account. The password to that account is in the Sensitive Info Forum - Rangers. Both the Rangers and the Mayor will watch for return mail. If the email bounces, the member should be confined to the Bike Racks until a correct email address is obtained. If replies are received confirming volunteers for the Jury Pool or Ranger Pool, the Mayor will handle these. Emails that are sent out and responses that are received are saved in the appropriate folders in the mail account.

The Mayor maintains all records for the Ranger Pool, Jury Pool and Mediator Pool. If you spot an error on any of these lists, tell the Mayor by posting in the Ranger Communication Thread in Michel Delving. Do not edit the posts yourself.

There is sometimes confusion as to whether the Mayor is handling a particular issue or whether the Rangers are handling it. This happens because issues that affect Ranger life are discussed in both the Forum Management Forum and in Michel Delving. It is important for you to watch both forums on a regular basis to make sure that you receive all updated information, and if Ranger procedures are being discussed in Michel Delving take time to post an alert about the issue in Forum Management as well.

If Members Give You a Hard Time (Charter Article 3, ¶7)
Members are permitted to contest your decisions but they must be courteous and follow procedure, and you must be courteous to them as well. If the dispute is personal, try to resolve it directly with the other member in the Bike Racks. If the dispute concerns something you have done in your capacity as a Ranger, first try to reach an agreement directly with the member. If agreement cannot be reached, the member may request an independent review and you must allow this. Two other Rangers and one jury member will review your decision and either uphold it or overturn it.

How We Crack Down on Negligent Rangers (Charter Article 3, ¶8)
All Ranger duties are listed in the Ranger Code of Conduct. If you are remiss in your duties, one of three things can happen: warnings, formal complaints, or removal from office. These depend on the severity of the problem.

• Warnings: Grounds for a warning are listed in the Charter. Two other Rangers must agree that you deserve a warning, and they must give you a chance to explain yourself. No record of warnings is kept after your term of office ends.

• Three warnings will result in a formal complaint. Other Grounds for a formal complaint are also listed in the Charter. Two other Rangers must agree that you deserve a formal complaint, and they must give you a chance to explain yourself. Formal complaints that are not disputed by another Ranger do stay on record, kept by the Mayor, for nine months after your term of office ends. You cannot serve as a temporary Ranger or begin a new term as a full Ranger until the formal complaints expire. Disputed complaints expire when your term of office ends.

• You cannot be removed from office without a Hearing. Grounds for a hearing are listed in the Ranger Code of Conduct as well as the Charter. If you are removed from office, you will not be permitted to serve again as a temporary or full Ranger for one year after your removal.

Good Luck! And thanks for Serving as a Ranger on Board77.

Jnyusa, I think this is just wonderful! It is clear, easy to understand and completely non-threatening.

Quote:

We do not have to approve the Administrator Code of Conduct because the last committee already did that, and I believe there was no question that it would be part of the Handbook. However I would like your opinion as to:

1. which part should come first and which second

I would say How to Do Everything, followed by Code of Conduct.


I will plan on doing a comparison later to confirm the correspondence between Handbook and Charter.

Looks great to me!

Jn, the permissions procedures are a bit different now. Suggested rewording (in bold—I can't get the colors to work right ) follows:

• activate new members. Add them to the All_Members group and then send them the email welcoming them to the board. If the email bounces, remove them from the All_Members group and add them to the BikeRacks group. This confines them to the BikeRacks. Send a PM telling them that their email is invalid. Do not return the member to the All_Members group until you have a valid email.

• oversee a Hearing. You may add members, jurors and witnesses to the Jury Room group, and delete the posts of non-authoritized posters who enter the thread. The full instructions for Hearings are posted at the top of the Jury Room.

The England forum procedures are under member discussion right now, and I think a consensus will emerge before long. Posting rights are going to be enabled by adding the person to the Thinking of England group without removing them from All_Members. Everything else is in flux, including where the membership list will be maintained (we will probably want to keep it in the hidden Sensitive Admin Info forum).

Prim, thank you so much.

I'm just going to copy your text and paste it in, OK?

the Handbook can be updated, of course, as those procedures are resolved. It should be stored, I think, where some current admin can readily keep it up to date as well as being available in a place where members can access it.

Jn

Thanks, Jn. I don't know if this is of use, but I've also made a thread in Forum Management here that gives instructions for registering new members (just now edited to include the BikeRacks bit, which I had forgotten!).

Prim,

I added in the RP registry instructions from your link. In the charter it's subsumed under all member activations but should probably be separate in the handbook because the procedure is slightly different.

I've also added links to the relevant management forums and to the alternate character registry.

Would you check the text and make sure I've called things by the right name? Thanks!

Jn

Jn, it looks fine except one tiny wording issue:

• activate characters for the RP Forum . . . Finally, please add the RP character’s name, the member, and your name to the list below, in the correct alphabetical position. More details HERE.

"To the list below" should probably be "to the list HERE" with the link to the admin forum thread. Guruthostirn maintains the list in the RP forum.

That's it. Thank you so much!

Thanks, Prim. I'm making the edit right now.

Jn

One little question: Does a person have to wait to be tapped by the mayor, or can a person volunteer? The mayor may not be familiar with the denizens of all the different parts of the board.

I will be unable to properly read and absorb for a couple of days; apologies for being so useless lately.

I'm afraid to say this will take me sometime to look through closly but I will

I wanted however to answer your question Jny

Quote:

2. if anyone knows whether there is some way to post this as an html document to which members can link from the board. It is a bit long, even with all the reductions from the Charter.

We do have indeed access to a free webspace (apart of what we can do at b77 dot com which I really don't know much about). When I registered intitially a yahoo email addy for B77 we automatically get free yahoo geocities webspace and can upload there anything we want. Doing a basic html document there is no problem at all (but it won't be terribly flashy lol).

How to do it? It's rather simple actually.
Any document written in word can be saved in html format (whole webpage). That then can be uploaded to geocities. The Admins have access to the password and any relevant info on how to access the 'old' yahoo email address and by going to http://geocities.yahoo.com/ and logging in, they can then access the free allocated space and upload anything needed.

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Resident witchâ„¢

laureanna: Does a person have to wait to be tapped by the mayor?

It's the mayor's responsibility to keep record of join dates and notify every member when they become eligible for the admin pool. Same will hold for the jury pool.

How admins are chosen is in the summary of the Charter articles in the ratification thread.

Alandriel: Doing a basic html document there is no problem at all

That is really excellent. When we get enough of the charter ratified for opening (whatever happens in Voronwe's poll), we should set aside a place here where members can link to all relevant documents - something easy to find, appropriately titled, the link can be in the welcome emails, etc. Very kewl and efficient.

Jn

Really great! Thanks Jny and Prim for a wonderful document and links.

Quote:

1. which part should come first and which second

Well, I think the two should be on separate pages so to speak, meaning that once we have some outside space (geocities) perhaps it could be structured with a main access page, giving ALL the separate links to where those documents are stored. There simply could be a main heading:

Administrators

• - Code of Conduct
  - Handbook

The same for Juries, members etc.
I'd say (sequence wise) list the Code of Conduct first, for in there is what is expected. First and foremost – then followed by the How-To.


Done list & England list
May I suggest, since Prim has already reorganized quite a few threads that will become 'standarts', that this one also be restarted with the Admin ID and the first post be updated with running list. Admins should still be encouraged to post the actual PM message received to keep a record.

Re oversee a Hearing: I'm all for adding a separate paragraph when we're done

Quote:

Any time you edit the post of another poster while leaving the rest of the post intact, you are required to make a note of this in the post.

Jny please add….. 'by inserting your name and date/time and short reason for the edit

You people are awesome!
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Resident witchâ„¢

I could also produce an Adobe .pdf version of it...prints out very nice.

Alandriel - edit done

Ax - also a good idea. lots of people prefer pdf.

Jn

Alandriel wrote:

Done list & England list
May I suggest, since Prim has already reorganized quite a few threads that will become 'standarts', that this one also be restarted with the Admin ID and the first post be updated with running list. Admins should still be encouraged to post the actual PM message received to keep a record.

I was thinking about this, Alandriel. The "Done" list is going to be the "Activated Users" list now, in the first page in the new Admin thread. (That's why I decided to make the list alphabetical—so it would be quick to check. It will definitely be quicker than scrolling through a whole thread.) The "England" list should probably be maintained in the confidential admin forum. For one thing, we may well be tucking England as close to out of sight as possible. For another, that removes any potential confidentiality problems with pasting PMs into the thread when people request to join England.

Ax: if you can do pdf (Adobe acrobat for those that might not know)- then I'd say go for it. They're definitely much nicer to print and view than any basic html document. Can't do pdf's myself but if you can and/or someone else, I'd say that's the preferred format

Prim getting the England list over to Confidential is definitely a good call.
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Resident witchâ„¢

Thanks for affirming that, Alandriel. You so often think of things I overlook—that's why I'm always looking for your opinion!

I'm going to start a new thread with Administrator today, in the confidential forum, and paste in an (alphabetized) England list. We will also be generating a more reliably complete list ourselves as we go through and move the permissions from an individual to a group basis—I'll make sure to see that the list is updated and that all England requests are pasted into the thread.