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Admin Powers and Bannings

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Jnyusa
Post subject: Admin Powers and Bannings
Posted: Mon 14 Feb , 2005 8:08 pm
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MAJOR EDIT for those reading this thread for the first time.

This is the former "Resolution of Disputes Among Members" thread. Decisions regarding disputes were edited into this first post as they were made and you can read them below. The section of our board reserved for dispute resolution is now called "Outside" and you can see it from the index. How to use each of the three Outside Forums is explained in a sticky at the top of each forum.
Discussion about the content of those stickies is now taking place HERE

This thread has moved on to a discussion of the powers of administrators and the nature of bannable offenses. The title has been changed accordingly. The new discussion begins on page 4 (if you have 10 posts to a page). Look for the red notice in a post by Jnyusa. The discussion starts approximately at the top of that page.

This edit is being done to help clean-up in the Business Forum.
Thank you.


*********** original post begins here

Friends, this is one of the more complicated issues that we have to resolve, so I will ask for your patience in reading through this. I decided to forge ahead with this particular issue because I think that the invite process will provoke less controversy if we know how we intend to deal with potential problems that might be raised by the influx of new and diverse members. I work on the principle that anything I know how to handle isn’t going to happen. ;)

The model I have presented below is not “done.” I am putting it up for discussion. It is based on similar models used for organizing communities in newly emerging democracies. I feel that the basic structure would suit us. But the fine points must be tailored to our needs and that requires your participation.

My assumption is that there would be some things for which an administrator could ban a member or cancel their registration without consulting with the members, e.g. spamming the board with porn links overnight ... things like this. We have yet to decide exactly what those things are. Other potential bannings might arise from an inability to resolve long-standing disputes, and my sense of previous discussion is that people don’t want such bannings to take place without some sort of fair and impartial hearing. Where bannings are concerned, the model outlined below only accounts for those bannings where a hearing would be appropriate, and we have not yet defined what those circumstances would be. But the structure can be decided independent of the kind of case that falls into each category. So I will beg you to proceed with this discussion, and at some point in the near future I will put up an additional thread where we can discuss exactly what constitutes “an offence” within our system.

This model takes into account (wherever possible) the features that members have expressed a desire for. I have put those rationales in blue. Whatever is in blue is not part of the model per se but shows what feature of our desired justice system that particular provision of the model serves.

Undecided terminology, or open-ended questions that do not affect the working of the model, are put in red.

As discussion proceeds, modifications and suggestions offered will be added in green.

Feb 18 edit: significant changes have been suggested and discusssed and these have now been incorporated into what you see below.

PROCESS FOR RESOLVING DISPUTES AMONG MEMBERS:

• Members who become involved in a dispute or any personal discussion that is taking a thread off-topic can 'take it outside' to the forum created for that purpose. In that forum they can start a thread for their off-topic discussion or dispute. They may request the assistance of a facilitator from the pool of members available for this. An admin will lock the thread on request when the discussion is finished.

• For more serious disputes where certain member(s) are uncooperative, refusing to 'take it outside,' and disrupting the board, any affected member or admin may ask the admins for a third-party intervention.

• Members of B77 may volunteer to serve as - ‘something like jury duty’ - and be called upon to help as facilitators or with the resolution of disputes when member-intervention is required. Their participation at any given time or in any given dispute will be voluntary. Alternative: all members meeting certain criteria of join date and post count would be eligible for 'jury duty' but could decline when asked to serve. Difference between a rota and a voluntary pool is that the member would have to opt out instead of opting in.[keep it voluntary no matter how the 'jury' is chosen]

• Two kinds of dispute resolution would be employed: Arbitration and Hearings on a Ban. The process for each is described below. (Hearings on a ban only take place when the offense is bannable, and we have not yet discussed what those offenses are.)

• When an administrator receives a request for assistance with a dispute, they should contact all parties to the dispute, tell them that assistance has been requested, and set up a thread for that purpose in the 'jury forum,' or 'outside,' however this forum gets named.

• The membership at large may view the proceedings. [non-secrecy of proceedings] An administrator will start the thread, facilitate the communication process that results in the selection of a jury, and will oversee the thread to ensure the process is not disrupted but will not otherwise intervene.

Arbitration:

• A panel of three 'jurors' will be chosen by the posters who are involved in the dispute. [this # was suggested several times; preferred that posters get to pick their own jury]

• If one of the parties to the dispute is a current Administrator, then none of the jurors may be current administrators.

• Once a panel of three 'jurors' has been selected, each poster involved in the dispute will present their position in a written email which all three jurors will read and then post simultaneously in a thread created for that purpose. [the rationale is to avoid a situation where one poster has unequal opportunity to respond to what the other poster(s) intially said]

• No one other than the posters and jurors may post in that thread unless requested by a juror to do so. Poachers will be deleted by the administrator overseeing the thread.[to avoid flamers and spammers in a process that should be taken seriously]

• The posters and jurors may discuss the situation among themselves after the initial positions have been posted. In some cases, the jurors may call upon formal witnesses to post in the thread, and the posters may ask the jurors to call witnesses on their behalf. [so that relevant info can be obtained]

• Members with constructive suggestions who have not been called upon to post should email the 'jurors'. [so that good ideas can be heard]

• The 'jurors' will confer with one another, and may do their final deliberations by email rather than in public. [desire to give some discretion over privacy to the ‘jury’] The discussion and conference will not last longer than ten days.

• When a decision is reached, the 'jurors' will email their decision to the parties involved in the dispute, and then post their decision in the thread twenty-four hours later. [members involved should not have to read it in the newspaper first] Each 'juror' may also express their own opinion in the matter, but the decision of the majority will hold. Posters will accept the decision of the 'jurors'.

• The thread will be locked, and may be deleted at the request of those involved.

Hearings on a Ban: [many details of process are same as above and the rationales are not repeated here]

• If a member has committed a bannable offense that entitles them to a Hearing, any current administrator may propose the ban and convene a jury for a Hearing.

• The jury will be composed of three members: one member selected by the poster to serve as his/her advocate, one member selected by the administrators, and one member voted on by the board at large from among those who volunteer. [voting on who the ‘jury’ would be was suggested several times. There may be a more efficient way to do this]

• No member of the jury may be a current administrator.[strong desire expressed that admins would not have the only say in a banning]

• The vote on the third member of the panel will be held for eight days inclusive] [suggestions for a better way?]

• The reason for the banning will be posted by an administrator in a thread for that purpose.

• The poster will then post his/her defense.

• The 'jury' will confer with one another, and may do this by email rather than in public. The conference will not last longer than ten days.

• No one other than the jury and the 'accused' poster may post in that thread. Poachers will be deleted by the administrator overseeing the thread.

• In some cases, the jury may call upon formal witnesses to post in the thread, and the poster may ask the 'jury' to call witnesses on his/her behalf.

• Members with opinions or constructive suggestions who have not been called upon to post may email them to the 'jury'.

• When a decision is reached, the jurors will email their decision to the poster, and then post their decision in the thread twenty-four hours later.'Each juror may also express their own opinion in the matter, but the decision of the majority will be considered the recommendation of the jury.

• If the recommendation of the jury is to ban the member, the members at large will then vote on whether or not to accept this recommendation. A vote will be held for ten days. [this is governance by objection. Those who feel strongly that a wrong decision has been made have a structured opportunity to express their opposition]

• If the vote of the membership at large is tied, the recommendation of the jury will hold.

• If a recommendation to ban is overturned by a vote of the membership, the poster will be on x-month probation. If new bannable offenses are committed during that period, a new jury with three different members will be convened according to the same terms as above, but this time the decision of the jury will be final.

• If the Hearing results in a recommendation not to ban the member, the thread will then be deleted. If the Hearing results in a recommedation to ban the member, and this recommendation is upheld by a vote of the membership, the thread will then be deleted. If the Hearing results in a recommendation to ban the member and this recommendation is overturned by a vote of the membership, the thread will be locked but will not be deleted until the probation period has expired. [deleting the thread creates a “clean slate.” Posters will not be put on lists, and their past offenses will not follow them around; New jury members may wish to have access to precedents, however, so we may want to keep some kind of archive]

Two solutions have been proposed to the archive problem: (1) that only the text would be saved with the posters' names removed; (2) the archive would only be accessible to people who are on the 'jury' at the time when they need it.

********

To summarize the concept, the model involves having a pool of members available for “jury duty” who may be called upon for one of two functions. The burden of judgment does not fall on the administrators. The procedure is open to the public, but participation takes place in a controlled fashion.

Jn

Last edited by Jnyusa on Fri 04 Mar , 2005 5:57 pm, edited 14 times in total.

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Sassafras
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 2:00 am
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First of all, thank you for tackling this task, Jn. It's pretty daunting and I think you have covered virtually every eventuality.

I think that as long as it is realized that the pool of members willing to offer their services will be small, probably no more than 20% of those currently registered, and that the same people will mediate again and again, we could start collecting potential names.

I'm not crazy about doing my civic duty, being basically a lazy soul and more than willing to leave the dirty work to someone else, but I consider this to be an important part of b77 membership.

I will mull over your post some more and see if I can come up with anything else.

ps: It is very difficult to type with a cat on a lap!
:)


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Rodia
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 2:02 am
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Jny, first of all :bow: and second I hope I'm not being an irrelevant pain in the neck with these couple of questions that popped into my head...I might have missed the explanation for these in your post, it was a difficult read for me, I admit. But at least my cogwheels are turning a little bit now. :P

(of course I'm not demanding you figure out an answer, just thought to add to the discussion)

What happens if there are no volunteers for the 'jury duty'?

Can a mediator resign mid-mediation, and what happens then?

Can one who has volunteered to be in the 'jury pool' refuse to perform the duty, even if they don't give a good reason? I think they should be allowed to...even if the reason for not wanting to help is just laziness, better not to have a jury member who isn't interested in helping.

How do we avoid people being 'stuck' in the jury pool? Let's say we have 10 volunteers at the very start. Over time, as we grow, people get lazier and become less involved in the mechanics, or simply get tired of contributing to the board so intensively. They just want to post and have fun. So no one volunteers anymore, and we have the same people stuck in the pool, or the pool emptying as they withdraw. I hope we won't have enough need for the 'jury' to make us weary of the process, but just in case...

What if the quarrelling parties don't want to solve the problem in public? I think the fair thing is to give people a choice...make them either go with the rules of the mediation/arbitration process, or make them take it off the boards and solve it on their own...I think that's fair for anyone to understand. (perhaps an idea for the future offenses thread- failing to respect such an agreement, i.e. refusing to submit to mediation, and yet not removing the argument from the board.)

As to the archives, I think it would be okay to keep them... just by saying someone has a clean slate we're not forgetting stuff that happened. So why not archive it. We could always edit out the names. "Poster x vs Poster y"

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 2:58 am
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Rodia -

I'll give you my opinion as to how your questions would play out in practice.

1. What if no one volunteers? Then all the problems will end up having to be solved by admins. And then people won't want to be admins either. And then we won't be able to be a member-moderated board anymore.

People have to be acculturated to participate at least part of the time - feel some responsibility toward the board.

2. There seemed to be strong consensus that serving on a particular 'jury' should be voluntary. I don't think reason need be given for refusing to serve in a particular case, but as a practical matter most of us probably would say why.

3. Same people stuck on the jury all the time: same story as #1. Either we grow a culture of commitment or we can't be this kind of board.

4. Public versus Private: any members who want to solve their disputes in private, off the board, may do so. There's no requirement that a dispute has to involve a public process. But if the board community is going to get involved in the resolution process in a formal way - if people request that - then there was a sense expressed by several posters that the proceedings should be public to avoid abuse.

I see the existence of a public formal process as providing an incentive to members to reach resolution on their own.

5. Archives: changing the names of the posters is a great idea, Rodia. At some point we're going to need some kind of 'recording secretary' function to keep track of our history, our mission and plan, 'constitution' etc. and perhaps they could store these kinds of archives as well.

I will add that I do not anticipate these processes being invoked very often.

Jn

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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 3:37 am
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Jn, you've laid things out very clearly and thoroughly. Thank you!

Your answers to Rodia's questions make excellent sense, but they also point up the need to get on with completing this process (as you have mentioned before!). The acculturation you talk about is essential before we open. It will be part of knowing who we are, so we can welcome new people and they can pick up the "board culture" from us.

So not only must we agree on and establish all this new structure--we must also, I think, live with it for a while before we take it public.


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Mighty_Squid
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I just have two words for you.

Mud Wresting!

I'm just sayin!

It could work!

Who's in?

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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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:bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow:

Jn, there are very few people who constantly impress me. :)

As for the question of privacy versus precedents, I see both sides of the coin. As you know, much of the law is built on precedents. However, I actually think that that reliance can be a negative influence. In the context of this community, I'm not sure how much precedential value one dispute will have with another. I would anticipate that each dispute would be factually distinct, and that it would be the totality of the circumstances of that particular dispute that would determine its resolution. We wouldn't be applying interpretation of any kind of statutory scheme (or TOS ;)), which is the main value of using precedents. Plus, there is definitely something to be said for wiping the slate clean, and not leaving any dirty laundry around that might lead to reopening open wounds. On the other hand, it is possible that similar enough situations would occur that a reminder of what took place previously and how it was resolved would be very helpful, particularly in maintaining consistency and fairness. Probably the ideal solution would be if the threads could be archived in such a way that they would only be available under certain circumstances and to certain people (e.g., the dispute resolution personnel and the parties to the dispute, or something like that).

The only other comment that I have is that, in my opinion, while arbitration panels of three (or more) arbitrators are often very effective, in my experience, mediations that are attempted to be conducted by more then one mediator are generally not very effective, unless the mediators are very familiar with each other and are trained to work together. Generally speaking, I think mediations with a single mediator with a broad mandate to work with the parties to find a mutually acceptable compromise is the most effective form of conflict resolution (I would say that a majority of the cases I handle are resolved at mediations or settlement conferences with a single mediator or judge). However, the dynamic in any conflict that might arise here obviously would be different then the types of disputes that I am involved with, so that observation may not be particularly relevant.

And Sassy, yes it is difficult to type with a cat in the lap.

And any dispute involving Squiddy OR Estel must be resolved with mud wrestling. I wonder if either of them remember that they enticed me to appear in 2003 White Council Award campaigning thread in a gold plated G-string?


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Impenitent
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 8:25 am
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Voronwe_the_Faithful wrote:
And any dispute involving Squiddy OR Estel must be resolved with mud wrestling. I wonder if either of them remember that they enticed me to appear in 2003 White Council Award campaigning thread in a gold plated G-string?
Maybe not - but it sounds eerily familiar to me. :D

I also believe that three mediators would not be as swift or effective as having just one - particularly as disputes would not be face to face but rather through the filter of either a thread or IM - which slows things down and has its own additional complications of having to interpret words in isolation from tonal nuance and facial expressions.

Perhaps three impartial people - two, to act as witnesses, one as nominated mediator? Witnesses could still have input, but not the responsibility of heading the reconciliation process.

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Mummpizz
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 9:15 am
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a. Jny rocks (I would have said "rules" but she doesn't do that but supports government by the people).

b. It should be a poster's duty to solve their problems with other posters themselves, via e-mail (maybe with a mediator in cc). Any "court case" without such an action should be marked with a malus on the accuser's side. This precaution should whittle down conflicts to 5% of the potential number.

c. I'm not sure with the voting of mediators - someone with great influence could rally his friends to get a friendly mediator - not good. I rather prefer the two "advocates" agree on a mediator they both find acceptable.

d. Maybe the two advocates could work out a solution on their own before calling upon a mediator. I rather have agreements and solutions not rolled out in public.

e. I don't want "capital punishment" - I don't think we'll have to ban anyone, but rather shut down communications with someone officially labelled "Troll" - if you don't feed them, they'll submit (Thanks to Teremia who pointed out the many meanings of this little button by which we post our opinions on b77)

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 3:00 pm
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Prim: some posters suggested that we have a dry run with ‘mock trolls’ or RP disputes to try out the system before opening the board. I thought that was a great idea - it would be fun, so people would participate, and it would help everyone to know ‘what to do’ in any situation, which is, if you think about it, exactly what acculturation is.

Squiddy: Better you than me, bikini girl!

Voronwe: Thank you. :)

On the other hand, it is possible that similar enough situations would occur that a reminder of what took place previously and how it was resolved would be very helpful, particularly in maintaining consistency and fairness.

Yes, I was thinking about it in those terms, in the context of having rotating admins, some of whom might be fairly new to the boards and might want examples to look at or template emails to use.

Regarding access to archives, I will add your suggestion and Rodia’s in green to the first post.

Regarding one mediator instead of three - that is my experience also, and in such a case perhaps “facilitator” and “facilitation” would be a better word for our purposes here. I will edit the one/three option into my first post, and the option on terminology.

Imp - one way to have one mediator but still maintain some impartiality would be to allow the members in the dispute to ask witnesses to post on their behalf. Although I do sort of see the object of mediation to be to encourage productive dialogue between the people who disagree with one another (emphasis on di = two). The more peope who get involved, the more likely it will turn into a flame war. But we should keep grinding out options for ourselves, looking for a way that feels right.

Mumpzz - thank you, too.

(b) and (d) The way this model works, the admin can say ‘take it to email’ if there is anyone who doesn’t want a public mediation. Perhaps we should give the admin the right to say this whether anyone refuses mediation or not - just to make sure people try to resolve on their own first, and don’t clog the public board with petty disputes. Let me add that option to the first post.

(c) mediators and arbitrators would definitely be chosen by the parties, not voted on by the board. The place where voting inserts is for a hearing on a ban, and I put it there because several posters suggested that the ‘jury’ should be voted on. That particular voting process feels cumbersome to me and it would be nice if we could agree on a different way to do it.

(e) regarding bans: how do we ‘shut down communication’? Could you elaborate?

General comment: the idea of keeping as much to private resolution as possible appeals to me. However, one scenario keeps popping into my mind, and it goes to what Rodia said about the unwillingness of people to serve on jury.

When people are angry and converse with one another by email and IM, the conversation often devolves. If we add a ‘facilitator’ to that process, I can easily imagine the facilitator flooded with angry emails of a “he said-she said” nature, unable to make heads or tails of it, getting frustrated, and being unable to suggest anything beyond “everyone shut up.”

When people have to present their case in public, they make an effort to appear reasonable. :) The main reason posters gave for wanting public proceedings was to check-and-balance the admins, but I see another advantage in that people behave better in public than they do in private.

We could give the posters the option of doing this in private with a facilitator, but then I think the facilitator should have to absolute right to say that a public thread has to be opened if they feel that no progress is being made.

Well, I’ll add all these option in green above so that we can see how the discussion is progressing.

Jn

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Axordil
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 3:29 pm
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Agree with mummpizz that all disputes between members be settled, if at all possible, by the principals. Really that's a separate category from disputes with the community, isn't it? Civil vs. criminal, so to speak?

But I also think there is a need for both public and private communication between parties. Public, to enforce some standards of evidence if nothing else, and private, to allow room for more delicate negotiation (that is, face-saving).

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 3:42 pm
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Ax, people involved in a dispute can always email one another in private - there's no way to stop that from happening, and in this case it's probably a good thing. Public mediation stops whenever the members says it's over, so they can engage in any face-saving that they want in private and terminate the thread without more explanation than - "we reached an agreement."

The main advantage to having a public mediation option, as I see it, is to function as an incentive to private resolution. When people know that the dispute will be resolved in public if it is not resolved in private, they will work harder to resolve it in private.

We haven't talked yet about causes for banning ... or causes for ending communication as Mumpzz prefers ... but I would think one cause might be abuse of the 'judicial system' ... using it repeatedly to put other posters on the spot, or to stir up the boards, etc. Deliberate intruculence, you know, might be cause for a hearing.

Jn

edit to add: sorry, let me answer your first question with a question. :) Are these separate categories - civil v. criminal? Is that the case with a member-moderated board? This was a dilemma for me. An argument with an admin is like an argument with a member; an argument with ten members, like a whole bunch of people bringing the same complaint against one person, how is that different from any other dispute except for the fact that it is more likely to end up being handled publicly?

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Mummpizz
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Posted: Tue 15 Feb , 2005 4:09 pm
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Maybe I'm just a bit blue-eyed about the banning thing. I have some utopian illusions of everybody just ignoring the Troll until he goes away - that would be a demonstration of staunch member discipline. It's much easier to tell the admins "Shoot that guy". And probably only operational in the borders of our closed, friendly board (nothing public).

The point of "Civil vs. Criminal" is, in fact, that thing which made TORC unbearable in the last days I have been there: the (soft) TOS were interpretated as (hard) laws. Where "laws" exist, judicial errors or biased decisions can occur. It is my fond little dream that we can live here without that option.

If we decide here that we have no "Criminal" cases but only private issues between posters (even if it is 86 vs. one) they can be cleared by mediation or even counselling. There are enough people here I suppose are willing to take over the roles of mentors/counsellors/whatstheirnames, like the adopters on TORC.

I hope we open this board in two steps: first with "Mentors" who bring in their friends (from other places), then "open" with appliants writing polite little letter to a welcoming committee (or an official welcomer). By this, we have assured that no-one enters "from outer space" like the aliens of "Mars Attacks", and we have nothing but our courage and schmaltzy 50ies songs to fence them off.

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Axordil
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Hmm. That would be a consequence of running the board along anarcho-syndacalist lines, which is where this seems to be heading. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. But it will require major buy-in for new people...and they need to know about it up front.

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MariaHobbit
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I have to admit, Jn (and please don't get offended) but I can't get through your two longish posts without my eyes glazing over and my comprehension level plummeting. I appreciate the work you've put into it, but I just don't have a head for such things. :(

How about something simpler? When my kids get in a fight, I send them outside the house until they are done fighting. If they start up again when they come in- out they go again.

Both kids, no matter who started it.

Simple, easy to understand.

How about something along those lines for private disputes? This seems to be getting needlessly complex.

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Mummpizz
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Posted: Wed 16 Feb , 2005 3:22 pm
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Yes, but we have to see through the complexity of situations to cherish simple solutions.

Anarcho-Syndicalism ... yes, that would be it. I speak of b77 as my "Anarres" (who has read Ursula LeGuin's "Dispossessed" here?), a place poor yet abundant, lawless yet safe and just.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Wed 16 Feb , 2005 5:22 pm
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Maria - I agree that that the model appears complex ...

It sounds simple to say, "Send them both outside," but it's not. Who decides that people need to be sent outside? The board isn't born with a 'Mom' so we have to appoint one. OK, that's the admin, and the admin is elected so we should trust them. So... we give them absolute power to make this decision? How bad does the fight have to get before the admin throws everyone out? What if the other members object? How long do the fighting members have to stay away? What if their fight is not resolved and they bring it back to the board again and again? The admins have absolute power to ban permanently? What if the admin is pals with one disputing member and doesn't apply the rule fairly? What's our recourse?

People were looking at the absolute power model on Torc and saying, "Whoa, this has too much potential for abuse." Members should be able to moderate themselves, there have to be checks on the admins, the community needs a culture of conflict resolution, and so forth. If we demand a system with self-determination built into it, the procedure needs to be defined in more detail because we have to define the limits of power and the responsibilities of each person in it.

The other thing about absolute power systems is that they plead for rebellion. Lots of people get off on challenging systems and the more inflexible a system appears to be, the juicier the challenge it presents. What I would like to create, ideally, is a system where every challenge is turned back on the challenger ... every member (or most) will eventually become an admin or a jury member ... so we really end up challenging our own selves to do things better.

This goes to what Mumpzz and Ax are saying, too, I think. Eventually, the culture of the board will teach people how to resolve conflicts successfully on their own. But people don't learn that overnight. One needs an interim system that encourages the kind of behavior that eventually leads to 'perfect' self-moderation. When the 'right' culture is the dominant culture, the system still exists but does not get much use.

What this model boils down to is two things:
(1) What should members do if a dispute is disrupting the board? a. Either solve it themselves off the board, or b. pick a facilitator and c. ask the facilitator to set up a separate thread for solving the dispute.

(2) What should admins do when they are asked to help clear up a dispute: a. Notify the parties b. set up the thread if this is wanted c. make sure the thread is not flamed. If the dispute can't be resolved by the members, admins or the members themselves can call for a panel to make a decision that the members must follow.

The details tell the admin what to do and what not to do so that the admin does not make the conflict worse by fumbling around, as happens so often on Torc. For example, it would be bad news, imo, if just anyone could enter a dispute thread because if the board is open and we have Oreos floating around they will disrupt every process. But suppose an uninvolved member has a really good suggestion for resolving the disute. You want them to be heard ... so, there's a mechanism for that.

If we can agree on details like this, the description of the system would not look in our 'constitution' the way it looks above. It would take the form of an FAQ .... e.g.

"What to do if you have a complaint about the behavior of another member."

'PM or email an admin and tell them about the problem. They will ask you to first talk about it directly to the other person by PM or email, but if you wish, they will create a thread in the 'jury room' for you to discuss the problem with the other member. You may also choose a facilitator to help you. If this does not lead to a satisfactory result, you may ask for an arbitration, where three uninvolved members will listen to each member's side of the dispute and make a decision that all must follow.

'B77 is a member-moderated board, and members are encouraged to discuss and resolve their problems directly with each other.'

Jn

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"All things considered, I'd rather be in Philadelphia."
Epigraph on the tombstone of W.C. Fields.


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Estel
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Posted: Wed 16 Feb , 2005 6:38 pm
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It does seem complex to me as well, but then, I haven't had much sleep in the past few days.

Basically, I think that there should be a forum open at all times where, if people get into a discussion or argument, they can take it there *before* it escalates past four or five posts.

For instance, the discussion Leoba and I had a while ago, or the discussion that came up with Nin, Ber, Eru and I. It would have been much nicer, in both cases, to be like "hey guys - lets take it "outside" (I still like that idea of a name for a forum).

I don't think any of us would have had a problem discussing it somewhere else, and it would've been nice for the rest of the forum to not have a discussion/argument like that shoved in their faces.

The other benefit to having a permanent "outside" forum would be, not only could the posters having the discussion decide to go there, but other posters who feel that a thread is being osgiliated could simply request that the discussion be taken "outside."

I prefer to keep my arguments on the boards where it is completely transparent and everyone can see that it has been resolved. I don't, however, like the idea that the only way I can take the discussion outside is if I have to ask someone and there is such a long process. In most cases, it can simply be resolved between the posters with no hard feelings, no harm done. At the same time as wanting to be transparent, I don't want to shove the discussion in the faces of those who would rather not see it.

Perhaps we could have a general "outside" forum where one of the subcategories (lets call the informal one the bikeracks ;) ) would be open to all posters all the time to resolve their disputes publically, but without intervention, and a second subcategory (the formal one - the jury room as you call it) that would be locked most of the time, to be used only when intervention becomes requested or necessary.


Quote:
And any dispute involving Squiddy OR Estel must be resolved with mud wrestling. I wonder if either of them remember that they enticed me to appear in 2003 White Council Award campaigning thread in a gold plated G-string?

mmmmmmm :drool: I remember that quite well :whistle: :LMAO:


You're not going to make us only wear a gold plated G-string as well though, are you? We at least get a top as well :P


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Axordil
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Posted: Wed 16 Feb , 2005 6:47 pm
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That's what the mud/jello/pudding is for. Smear it on thick.

I like the idea of a "Let's take it outside" board as an adjunct to whatever policy we come up with. I used to hate it when a perfectly good argument in Manwe would be sidetracked for pages by a perfectly bad personal sniping match.

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Destiny is a rhythm track on which we must improvise.

In some cases, firing the drummer helps.


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MariaHobbit
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Posted: Wed 16 Feb , 2005 7:42 pm
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You are right, of course, Jn. *sigh*

I'm often guilty of oversimplification.
You'd think I'd have learned by now.


Carry on with the jello-dispute resolution!

;)

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