board77

APPROVED TEXT

The following clause will be added to: Article 5, ¶4: Hearings

If Rangers intend to convene a Hearing, they must do so within ten days of the time that the violation of by-laws comes to their attention. If a thread has been edited or deleted, the date signature of the Ranger will be taken as the date when the violation came to their attention and they will have until midnight GMT ten days later to convene a Hearing if they intend to do so. After that, the member may not be called to a Hearing and no penalty may be imposed.

The following clause will be added to: Article 5, ¶5: Hearings on a Ban

If an Immediate Ban is placed on a member, the member has 91 days in which to request in writing that the ban be reversed in order for a Hearing on the evidence to be held. After that the deleted thread(s) need not be held in storage, and if a Hearing to reverse the ban is requested at a later date, the jury may use whatever criteria it finds appropriate for deciding the duration of the ban.

The following clause will be added to: Article 5, ¶8: Appeals

If a decision or a penalty is to be appealed, the member must appeal within 91 days of the date the Hearing was closed, or before the penalty has expired, whichever comes first. After that time, an appeal will not be allowed.
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Original Post starts here:
This glitch surfaced in the discussion about Thread Deletion.

In Article 5, we state that Hearing threads can be deleted at the request of the member involved. (That's appropriate, imo.)

But Hearings can be appealed, and our paragraph on Appeals states that the Appeals panel must review the original Hearing thread. That would be impossible if the thread had been deleted.

Similarly, for offenses that merit an immediate ban, the troll has to wait 20 days before they can ask for a Hearing to reverse the ban. The Rangers can wait an additional 60 days before holding the Hearing.

Any thread (or post) that provoked a Hearing should be preserved as evidence for the hearing itself, and for any potential appeal.

These are all excellent candidates for Deleted Thread Storage, but what we need to decide is how long they would be held in Deleted Thread Storage before actually being deleted.

That decision is an effective decision about a statute of limitations on Hearings and a time limit for appeals. So it is not a lightweight decision.
Basically, we have to amend Article 5 throughout for these limitations.

Please discuss what time frames you think are appropriate:

1. If a Ranger deletes a post or a thread because it violates the by-laws, how long can they wait before deciding to convene a Hearing?

2. If commercial spam, troll spam, troll porn, etc. are deleted and the user i.d. receives an immediate ban, how far beyond the 90 limit should those threads be held? It is unlikely such users would ever request a hearing to reverse the ban, but if they did, the evidence would be gone once the thread was deleted and presumably the jury would have to lift the ban.

3. How long after the conclusion of a Hearing can a member wait before appealing the decision or the penalty? That, basically, is how long the hearing thread has to be kept.

Jn

I need some explaining.

Jnyusa wrote:

1. If a Ranger deletes a post or a thread because it violates the by-laws, how long can they wait before deciding to convene a Hearing?

If the post/thread is deleted how could a hearing really be held considering the evidence is gone?

Quote:

2. If commercial spam, troll spam, troll porn, etc. are deleted and the user i.d. receives an immediate ban, how far beyond the 90 limit should those threads be held? It is unlikely such users would ever request a hearing to reverse the ban, but if they did, the evidence would be gone once the thread was deleted and presumably the jury would have to lift the ban.

If there's already a 90-day-limit, why would we need to keep the threads any longer? It seems that if they can't bother for three months then that's just too bad for them.

Quote:

3. How long after the conclusion of a Hearing can a member wait before appealing the decision or the penalty? That, basically, is how long the hearing thread has to be kept.

6 months seems like a good amount to me. Though, did we have a time limit for when a member could appeal?

Sorry to be a pain. I'm just not quite getting this.

Eru: If the post/thread is deleted how could a hearing really be held considering the evidence is gone?

Yes, that exactly the problem. Once the thread is gone there can't be a hearing. So threads that are eligible for deletion have to be held in Deleted Thread Storage for awhile before being deleted, and during that time the Rangers decide whether a Hearing is justified. The question is - how long should they be given to make that decision.

The problem is from the member's point of view where appeals are concerned. They can ask that the original hearing thread be deleted, but it will have to be held in Deleted Thread Storage for a while in case the member decides to appeal. How long should they have to decide whether or not they want to appeal?

Six months

How likely is it that penalties will have a duration of six months? - bans, revoking of certain forum permissions, etc. The time given to a member to appeal should not exceed a typical 'sentence' because once the sentence has expired it can't be appealed anyway.

On the immediate bans, the 90-day limit also makes sense to me. If a person does not return in that amount of time, they're not likely to return at all.

Jn

What is a typical 'sentence'? Kinda hard to say. We don't have precedent here. However, from other places, I've seen the one month and three month restrictions. I don't think I've ever seen a 6 month 'ban'... if ever more than 3 months it was rather final.

However, having said that and harking back to my experience of questions popping up in retrospect without then having some way of recourse to the source material, I still would give it an additional 3 months (also to cover a possible switch-over of Ranger terms -> be informed/aware).

On immediate bans I'm with you with the 90days. Other threads however should remain in Deleted Storage for 6 month IMO.

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Resident witchâ„¢

OK - good points, Alandriel.

So we are looking at 3 months as the length of time a member has to place an appeal.

We could add language of the following sort to the first paragraph.

"Only decisions that result in a penalty being placed upon a member can be appealed, and only by that member. Appeals must be requested before any penalty expires or within three months of the close of the Hearing, whichever comes first."

I agree that an original Hearing thread might be kept a bit longer than that, just to cover any misunderstanding about dates ... but if a member has requested that a thread be deleted, and the time for appeals has run out, do we really want to keep the thread in storage for three months beyond that point? That does mean that four 'waves' of incoming Rangers will see it.

I'm thinking that for member-requested Hearing thread deletions we might say instead that a Hearing thread will remain in Deleted Thread Storage for two weeks beyond the time in which the member might appeal.

For threads that provoked an immediate ban, or for threads/posts that Rangers have moved to DTS because of their content, I agree that six months is more reasonable.

I would not like to give the Rangers six months, though, to decide whether a Hearing should be held. That decision should be made rather quickly, and be irreversible, imo -- like 10 days or two weeks. We don't want Rangers popping out of the woodwork and calling people to a hearing for something they did last month.

Jn

Jnyusa,

I like your current ideas. Untraceable edits, and truly deleted data violate the rules I must live by in RL, bit the consequences are not as significant here.

Thanks, Idylle.

And, relevant to the decision we must make, there are consequences here for doing the reverse.

Something comparable might be the sealing of juvenile files, or concealing from a jury past offenses of the accused. If it were not possible to do that, undesirable consequences might ensue. We are in a position here where we cannot seal or conceal anything permanently, so the least-worst option (imo) is deletion.

Jn

Quote:

We are in a position here where we cannot seal or conceal anything permanently, so the least-worst option (imo) is deletion.

You are of course 100% right!

And I'm ok with all your other suggestions too
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Resident witchâ„¢

So how long should Rangers be given to decide whether they are going to convene a Hearing?

Jn

Rangers should have two weeks at most to decide to call a hearing.

I think I agree with Faramond. In a case on this board there simply isn't going to be a lot of evidence to sift through. And it goes with our principles to have members out from under the "threat" of a hearing as swiftly as possible. The onus should be on the Rangers to act promptly, if action is needed.

I agree.

Two weeks max is entirely reasonable
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Resident witchâ„¢

People, let me start pulling this together. I've placed a Draft Ballot in the first post.

We need to decide statute of limitations before we can finish writing the article on Thread Deletions; and we need to see how Thread Deletions pans out to confirm that no changes are needed to Binding Votes.

Also, the other Amendments to Article 5 that depended on stuff in Article 4 have been posted already in the Business Forum for ratification. It would be nice if we could add these amendments to that ratification thread, and we can do that if we are able to conclude the vote on this issue by ~9:00 pm GMT on Tuesday, July 12.

The ratification discussion period must being by 11:59 pm GMT on Tuesday, and I need a window for editing in the new text if we can approve it by then.

It's now Sunday night in Europe .... that means I would like to get the vote started by around 5:00 pm GMT Monday (tomorrow) and run it no longer than 28 hours.

Do you think that is possible? Or does this issue still need more discussion?

Jn

I do have a question:

Quote:

If Rangers intend to convene a Hearing, they must do so within [one week/ten days/two weeks] of the time that the violation of by-laws comes to their attention.

As soon as a violation of the by-laws is perceived, the perpetrator may be confined to the bikeracks. So...this person could be cooling their heels there for up to two weeks while the rangers debate and then convene a hearing? That seems...mean. And this person remains confined to the bikeracks for the duration of the hearing at least. Is this what we intend?

No, we don't intend that.

Perpetrators are not always confined to the Bike Racks, and when they are, a Hearing must be held, preferably within three days.

From Article 3, ¶5:
When posting rights are suspended, a Hearing must be held and the Jury will decide the duration of the suspension.

From Article 5, ¶4:
If action has already been taken by a Ranger, such as restriction of posting rights, the Ranger notifies the member at that time that a hearing will be held, and the hearing should be convened within three days.

< >

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 a Ranger observing a violation of by-laws directly, or a Jury after hearing a case, may impose a penalty on a poster.

I don't think that the ballot text contradicts either of these articles. The Statute of Limitations is relevant when the Rangers have not yet done anything and are trying to decide what to do.

Jn

Vote.

Should the ballot not rather read (correction/ammendmend in green):

Quote:

Question 1: Amend Article 5, ¶4: Hearings
Agreement with the following additional text, subject to Question 2

“If Rangers intend to convene a Hearing, they must do so within [one week/ten days/two weeks] of the time that the violation of by-laws comes to their attention. If a thread has been edited or deleted, the date signature of the Ranger will be taken as the date when the violation came to their attention and they will have until midnight GMT [one week/ten days/two weeks] later to convene a Hearing if they intend to do so. After that, the member may not be called to a Hearing and no penalty may be imposed.”

PLEASE SELECT:
A. I agree with this text, subject to Question 2
B. I do not agree with this text

Other than (maybe) that mishaps, it looks good

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Resident witchâ„¢

I like it.

No problems here.