Regarding the new proposed wording of the ballot, I think it is important to differentiate between the enforceable and non-enforceable rights. I think the original wording:
¶1: We enforce the following rights and responsibilities:
¶2: We strive to create a culture and atmosphere that will also ensure the following rights for all members of Board77:
accurately reflects all the work and thought that was put into the Dispute Resolution sections.
Listing all the rights together without differentiation implies that they are all enforceable; this would contribute, IMO, to the perception that the violation of any right listed there was grounds for official redress (which situation many people previously expressed an eagerness and even an urgency too avoid).
If it is a 'right,' then members have a right to it; but we are not guaranteeing all the rights; we are guaranteeing some, and doing what we can to ensure a culture that protects the others. It can only help to state this clearly at the outset, IMO, and it can only hurt not to make it clear. I emphatically disagree with the notion that including this differentiation would be confusing or redundant. Look at the difficulty we ourselves have had in keeping the distinction straight in our heads, even after hours of contemplation and discussion.
Voronwe_the_Faithful wrote: |
I think that the moving away from including a distinction in this article of what rights are enforceable and what are not would actually remove the need to resolve the questions that have been raised about which section certain rights/responsibilities would find themselves.
We are just postponing that decision, then, until an actual dispute arises. Much better to grapple with the questions here, IMO, and give a clear indication of which offenses are enforceable, and which are not.
As to the separation of rights from responsibilities, I agree with
Prim that it was more organic and informative to have them stated together. Reading the first draft causes me to think and consider while reading, because of the variations in expression and the coupling of concepts; reading the second leads to a more rapid and rote scanning because of its repetitive construct (as per
Alatar's comment). By the time I get down to Responsibilities, I'm already tuned out.
It would be interesting to see if
Din agrees with this comment of
Prim's:
It made the rights seem less like entitlements and the responsibilities less like burdens
IIRC, he expressed some alarm at the initial wording of the ballot. Will he see the new proposed structure as mitigating his concerns, or amplifying them?
Regarding
TH's comments re 'asshole' and 'German Nazi pig', which led to a consideration of the use of 'gypped':
I think if someone used 'gypped,' and was told in the thread or through PM that it was an ethnic slur, and refused to remove it, then according to the current (original) draft ballot, the offended poster could PM an admin and request a hearing.
I think if someone used 'asshole' (as in, "you're an asshole"), then an admin would have the right to delete the remark, and the offending poster might be asked to Bike Racks, but currently there is no grounds for official redress with a hearing for this kind of personal insult.
Is that the way others see it? Is that the way we want it? I think we need to decide and lay it out in Member Rights and in Penalties.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm concerned about 'personal attacks' (that is, impugning another poster's integrity, intelligence, etc., rather than addressing their argument), which I saw poison discussions and forums at TORC. Would it be desireable to have some redress against the poster who habitually engages in this kind of conduct?
I can imagine members correcting such a person repeatedly, but would it ever elevate to the level of a community disruption? If complaints were regularly made to admins about a certain poster's conduct, with regard to their persistent use of personal (as opposed to group-targeted) attacks that had a deleterious affect on the atmosphere of a forum, should this be addressable with a hearing and possible penalties? This is currently referred to in Penalties by 'abusive language, which I have proposed changing to 'personal attack', but would need to have something corresponding added to Member Rights enforceable (if we stay with the current construct).
How do others feel about this?