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Joined: Thu 24 Feb , 2005 10:34 pm
Location: Fall River, MA
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Taken from Article 5: Dispute Resolution in the Outside Forum:
¶4: Procedure for Hearings
When the Jury has sufficient information to decide the case, they may call an end to the hearing. They will post in the thread that the hearing is coming to an end twenty-four hours before actually beginning their deliberation so that the member has time to agree or present any additional information.
The purpose of the Jury deliberation is to decide whether the member has in fact violated the by-laws or committed a bannable offense beyond any reasonable doubt, and if so, to impose a penalty not to exceed the penalty provided in the by-laws. 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.
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 that a by-law has been violated is required for imposition of a penalty. Four of the six Jurors must agree on the duration of the penalty, otherwise the lesser of all penalties considered by them will be imposed.
When the Jurors have reached a decision, they will email their decision to the member and then post their decision in the thread twenty-four hours later. Anything they have taken into consideration should be presented honestly when they state their decision.
Any Juror holding a minority position may express it in their post.
If the Jury has decided that the offense was not committed or that no additional penalties should be imposed, any suspended posting rights will be restored to the member within twenty-four hours.
If a penalty is imposed, a Ranger will change the necessary permissions within twenty-four hours. Time limits on penalties will be maintained by the Mayor and it is the responsibility of the Mayor to notify Rangers when the time limit on a penalty has expired.
If the decision of the Jury is to require something of the member, such as removal of a signature picture, the member will comply within twenty-four hours. Members who refuse to abide by a Jury decision may be considered for banning.
As soon as the Jury has posted their decision and that decision has been implemented, the thread will be locked. At the request of the member, it may be deleted.
Elements of the case may be summarized and preserved in the Archive with the name(s) of the involved member(s) and witnesses deleted.
A Jury may request that an independent member provide procedural oversight of their hearing to ensure that proper procedure is followed and to act as a resource for hearing participants, allowing the participants to concentrate on substantive issues. Members of the Jury Pool who have volunteered to familiarize themselves thoroughly with the Charter and to act in this oversight capacity are designated as Loremasters in the Jury Pool list. Service as a Loremaster in a particular hearing is voluntary.
A member may not serve as Loremaster to a Hearing if they are involved in the Hearing in any other capacity; and if a Hearing that employed a Loremaster is appealed, the Loremaster must be prepared to explain to the Appeals panel the rationale behind procedures that are in question.
If the Jury makes use of a Loremaster, the Loremaster's name and function will be listed in the first post of the thread alon
¶8: Appealing the Decision of a Jury
Only decisions that result in a penalty being placed upon a member can be appealed, and only by that member.
If a decision or a penalty is to be appealed, the member must appeal within three months 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.
All timely requests for an appeal must be heard, and decisions made by an Appeals panel are final.
The Appeals panel will consist of four former Rangers. Starting with the Ranger whose term ended most recently, and moving in reverse order through terms served, former Rangers will express their availability and willingness to serve until four of them are assembled.
A member will present their Appeal in writing to a current Ranger, who will convene the panel of former Rangers. Each member of the panel will review the original Hearing Thread to evaluate the merit of the Appeal. They may confer among themselves in private by PM or email. Agreement by three of the four members of the panel will constitute a decision. Their decision must state whether to uphold or overturn the decision of the Jury, and whether to void, reduce or uphold the penalty imposed by the Jury. Any factors which they took into consideration should be stated honestly in their decision.
The decision will be sent to the member by email, and posted in the original Hearing Thread twenty-four hours later. The names of the Appeal panel are posted with their decision.
Ideally, an Appeals process should not take longer than seven full days.
Jury decisions and penalties can be appealed under the following circumstances:
• A decision can be appealed if the Hearing procedure specified in the by-laws was not followed. If the Appeals panel decides that the member was disadvantaged in any way by a breach of procedure, such as failure of notification, failure to announce the close of the hearing, failure to pursue witnesses, etc., they may overturn the Jury decision and void all penalties. The hearing must then be held again for that offense. The posting rights of the member cannot be restricted over the course of the second hearing until a proper Jury decision has been reached.
• A decision can be appealed if the statement which opens the Hearing Thread, or the statement of the Jury’s decision exhibits any bias based on nationality, ethnicity, religion, native language, gender, age or collateral relationships that Rangers or Jury members might have with the member in question either in person or on other websites. A Jury decision can be overturned and all penalties voided in this case. If demonstrable bias exists, no second hearing will be held for the same offense.
• A decision can be appealed if new evidence comes to light before a penalty has expired.
• A decision can be appealed if there was insufficient evidence to support the finding that a violation occurred. The appeals panel can not overturn evidence. However, they can decide that the facts of the case do not justify a decision that the violation occurred.
• A penalty can be appealed if there were delays in executing the hearing, or if Jury deliberations took longer than seems reasonable for the type of offense in question. This might happen if the responsible Ranger was off-line at a critical time, or if witnesses did not appear promptly, or if Jurors did not deliberate promptly. If the member upon whom the penalty was imposed was restricted to the Jury Room for the duration of the hearing, they may appeal for “time served†to be deducted from the penalty.
• A penalty can be appealed if the Jury had discretion in determining the penalty, and the penalty they imposed is excessive by comparison with other penalties specified in the by-laws for similar offenses.
¶9: Offenses That Merit a Penalty
The following penalties are available to Juries:
• Disabling PM privileges;
• Temporary Suspension of posting rights in a specific forum;
• Permanent Suspension of posting rights in a specific forum;
• Temporary Confinement to the Bike Racks (a suspension of board-wide posting rights);
• Temporary Ban;
• Immediate or Indefinite Ban (per Article 3, poster must appeal for reversal no sooner than one month after the ban is executed, and Rangers may wait an additional two months before convening a hearing).
There are no permanent, irreversible bans on Board77. But when a hearing is held to petition the reversal of a ban, the Jury is permitted to uphold the ban and specify a duration.
General Guidelines for imposing penalties
The Jury generally has discretion to impose the penalty it considers appropriate as long as the maximum penalties specified below are not exceeded.
If this is a first offense and the Jury feels that the time already restricted to the Bike Racks or the Jury Room is sufficient, or if they feel confident that because of the circumstances in which the error took place it is very unlikely to be repeated, they are not obligated to impose a penalty.
If the offense is restricted to a single forum (e.g. There and Back Again or Thinking of England) the penalty may also be restricted to that forum (e.g. temporary or permanent suspension of posting rights).
The penalty ought to relate as closely as possible to the offense; for example, if abusive use of PM’s is the offense, then PM privileges may be disabled.
Penalties may be greater for second, third or multiple offenses than they are for first offenses.
If Juries are in doubt as to an appropriate penalty, they should review penalties imposed for similar problems in the past and try to be consistent.
Offenses for which the maximum penalty for a first offense is an immediate ban
• Spamming the board with ads;
• Spamming the board with pornography;
• Hacking the board;
• Refusing to abide by the Decision of the Jury in a Hearing [maximum penalty is mandated by Article 3];
• Threats of real life violence or other criminal acts against members
[maximum penalty is mandated by Article 3];
• Deliberately introducing a virus to members of the board.
• Falsely accusing a member of harmful RL actions in order to deny them access to the Thinking of England forum.
Offenses for which the maximum penalty for a first offense is temporary restriction to the Bike Racks
In the Jury Room, any interference with a Hearing. [At the termination of the Hearing in which the poster interfered, a Hearing for that poster is held to determine any penalty.]
Offenses for which the maximum penalty is a temporary ban if this is not the first offense and the problem appears to be persistent
• Persistent posting of objectionable content:
1. abusive language toward another poster;
2. attacks of a personal nature;
3. defamatory remarks targeting nationality, ethnicity, native language, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or age;
4. advertisement of products for personal gain.
• Persistent posting of offensive pictures:
1. pictures a reasonable person would find pornographic;
2. pictures a reasonable person would find gratuitously violent or distasteful, that is, designed to shock and/or dismay other posters.
• Deliberately posting personal, real life information about another member such that their privacy is compromised, or posting any personal information about a minor.
• Using the board to solicit the participation of members in illegal activities.
• Repeatedly exposing the members to viruses through negligence.
• In the Bike Racks, repeated interference with other members’ thread.
• Use of PM or Email to:
1. harass another member;
2. make defamatory remarks targeting nationality, ethnicity, native; language, religion, gender, sexual orientation or age.
Offenses for which the maximum penalty is permanent suspension of access to a particular forum
• In the There and Back Again forum, repeatedly posting in a manner that prevents another character(s) from participating or greatly circumscribes their activity
• In the Thinking of England Forum, posting in a manner that ridicules, demeans or threatens other posters
How To Use the Jury Room
Handbook for Jurors, Mediators, and Loremasters
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