board77

Voronwe_the_Faithful wrote:

Instead of forming a separate elected or appointed office, or delegating this task to the Mayor or the admins, I propose that we have a pool of volunteers who were would be willing to become sufficiently familiar with the charter to assist in this way. I could this working in one of two ways. Either, when there is a hearing one of these volunteer loremasters would be appointed to oversee the procedural aspects of the hearing (either by being chosen by the jurors, or on some kind of rotation system). Or the whole pool could be available to answer questions of the jury that came up. Does this idea have any attraction to anyone else?

I don't care for this idea. Again, we're making it necessary for more people at a single time to be involved, and it wouldn't offer the same guarantee, IMO, that a person will be on the job when needed.

I like the idea of officially soliciting volunteers for the position, so that there are back-ups of prepared people available. I just think we have to choose one at a time to function as the procedural expert for a length of time. The question is, how do we choose?

Cerin,

Thank you for clarifying our condition. That makes things much simpler.

I first suggested the role of a judge. There was objection to this from truehobbit and others, I believe. I backed off to a suggestion that there be someone designated as the expert on procedure.

Advising on procedure and presiding over the process are different things. I just have the sense the committee won't vote in favor of a judge. The reduced role of advisor to the participants seems more benign and I think more likely to be approved.

I'm actually in favor of the role of judge. I will settle for an advisor. I dislike anarchy.

Thank you for clarifying, Idylle! I hadn't recognized that distinction until now.

Cerin,

The Mayor is our Executive. I have no problem with the elected Mayor appointing the Loremaster, which may or may not have a synchronous term. We have a long tradition of this in the US. I think this derives from the English tradition of some appointments, even of the King, being considered permanent and difficult to remove from office. Becket (Henry II) and More (Henry VIII) are examples. They were removed by untimely death. We should probably forgo the last part of that tradition.

Editted for spelling

So then, the Mayor could appoint the Loremaster from a group of those who declare their willingness to serve? I like that idea! That would eliminate the dreaded election. woot!

I like that, too.

Would the Mayor also remove a Loremaster who was shirking or who was not doing a good job? If not, who would?

Cerin wrote:

TH

Trust me, the opposition to the Mayor overseeing hearings is not based on something or things we haven't been able to assess. I am dead set against the Mayor overseeing hearings, I will continue to be deadset against the Mayor overseeing hearings, so much so that I will have to vote against any Charter article that proposes the Mayor overseeing hearings.

Then, what IS it based on?
You keep saying you are deadly opposed to it, but I don't remember any reasons for that!

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If we have a majority that answer yes, then we need THESE PEOPLE ONLY to declare themselves in one of these groups:

No, because if the majority say yes, those who voted "no" should still have a say in what they prefer second best!

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1. I oppose the creation of a new office for this function; my opposition is so strong that I prefer there be no procedural oversight of hearings, than that an office be created for this function.

2. I oppose the Mayor overseeing hearings; my opposition is so strong that I prefer there be no procedural oversight of hearings, than that the Mayor oversee them.

3. I oppose the creation of a new office for this function, but the need for someone to oversee procedure outweighs in my mind the inadvisability of creating a new office.

4. I oppose having the Mayor oversee hearings, but the need for someone to oversee hearings outweighs in my mind the inadvisability of the Mayor overseeing them.

No, again!
I could support none of these options. I think we DO need someone to oversee it but I'm very strongly opposed to having a new office for it.
I think I'm as strongly for having the mayor do it as you are against it.
I've given my reasons for being for this repeatedly - why are you so strongly against it?
I'm not asking in order to get on your nerves, I'm actually hoping to hear something convincing!


As to the order of the votes IS mentioned: so much more reason not to revisit this question but the one about the mayor overseeing hearings!

We voted down the separate office first - so it's quite clear that that's what we want first and foremost.

If the second vote clashes with the first, isn't it logical to revisit the second one to ask what went wrong?

We asked about the mayor's role later, and it's possible people may just have forgotten what they voted in the previous ballot, or they had reasons to vote that way which we should revisit now that this vote clashed with the earlier vote!

IdylleSeethes wrote:

Advising on procedure and presiding over the process are different things. I just have the sense the committee won't vote in favor of a judge. The reduced role of advisor to the participants seems more benign and I think more likely to be approved.

I hope no one ever envisaged the role as more than an advisor on procedure! Anything more than advisor sure wasn't what I was discussing when talking about overseeing hearings.

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I'm actually in favor of the role of judge. I will settle for an advisor. I dislike anarchy.

One of the reasons we clash so often in our opinions, I'm sure.
And it seems one of the reasons the European and American views here are often so hard to reconcile.
(No offense, but from what I see, Americans tend to be more in favour of authority than Europeans.)

If we haven't constructed a document that is easy enough for all here to understand then we have been remiss.
Do you suppose there will ever be a hearing that goes unnoticed?
The peanut gallery will be out in droves watching over a hearing around here like a hawk watching over her eggs.
The members themselves could easily oversee any hearing. If anyone has any questions they can easily be answered and researched.
This is all much ado about nada as far as I am concerned.
No more official postitions are needed imo.

There are some discussions I have difficulty believing I'm actually a participant in. This is one of them.

I don't see what is so difficult to understand here. I'm paraphrasing what someone else said:

We voted down the Loremaster as originally proposed, some speculate, on the presumption that it would be a responsibility we would give to the Mayor. We didn't. Since it leaves a glaring hole, it has been suggested we revisit the issue of Loremaster, keeping in mind what we decided for Mayor, that we had not decided at the time of the Loremaster vote.

That leaves us with the 2 logical possibilites of agreeing that we don't need a procedural expert for reference or that we do. We've already decided its not the Mayor.

The problems with the Mayor having the responsibility are moot, since it was firmly and uncontestably decided. I and others mentioned them several times. However, they include serious conflicts of interests, including having the Mayor be the expert in procedure for their own removal from office, and being the expert on procedure for a case in which they are a juror, which was set up in one of the processes.

I don't know that I like the Mayor having control of the office once assigned, so if we do allow this, removal should only be allowed for cause, and not on a whim. "For cause" means for violation of apparent rules. Voronwe

True Hobbit--

That's because we have so little and you have so much.

Primula_Baggins wrote:

Would the Mayor also remove a Loremaster who was shirking or who was not doing a good job? If not, who would?

I say that since the Loremaster is serving the community, the community would be in charge of removing him/her (as with the other offices).

Note: caps are for emphasis, I don't mean to be shouting.

truehobbit wrote:

Cerin wrote:

If we have a majority that answer yes, then we need THESE PEOPLE ONLY to declare themselves in one of these groups:

No, because if the majority say yes, those who voted "no" should still have a say in what they prefer second best!

I frankly don't care what someone thinks about how something should be done, that they don't think should be done.

Naturally in the matter of board votes, everyone has a say. But I'm not talking about voting here. I'm talking about trying to clarify this issue amongst ourselves, for the purposes of understanding the rather complicated dynamic going on. The people who answer no to the first question should not be factored in to the second (for the purposes of this discussion).

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No, again!
I could support none of these options.

THAT'S OUR PROBLEM. You (collectively speaking) are trying to have it both ways. You need to take a stand. Are you willing to have a new office for this, or not? If not, no one does it. That's the choice I'm asking you to declare here, so we can figure out the strengths of feelings on the issue.

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I think we DO need someone to oversee it but I'm very strongly opposed to having a new office for it.

There's no other choice. The Mayor is not going to do it. That has been voted down with foreknowledge of there being no procedural position created. There is no reason to revisit that vote. There is no other already existing office to absorb this duty. That means if someone is going to do this, it is going to be someone not already designated specific duties. That means it is a new 'office'. Perhaps if we just avoid that terminology, the idea will not seem so objectionable?

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I think I'm as strongly for having the mayor do it as you are against it.

Evidently not. You aren't willing to say you would rather have no oversight if the Mayor doesn't do it.

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I've given my reasons for being for this repeatedly - why are you so strongly against it?

I think the Mayor already has more than enough to do. I think someone inclined to Mayoral duties would not necessarily be inclined to procedural oversight. I don't like so many functions invested in one figure. I don't like one person having such a pervasive presence and influence on the board. I think it would be a godawful mess.

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We voted down the separate office first - so it's quite clear that that's what we want first and foremost.

Absolutely wrong. The reason Loremaster failed IS BECAUSE PEOPLE WHO WANTED PROCEDURAL OVERSIGHT FIGURED THE MAYOR WOULD DO IT.

With the Mayoral vote for procedure, everyone already knew there would be no office of procedural expert AND THEY STILL VOTED DOWN THE MAYOR OVERSEEING PROCEDURE. People voted to have NO OVERSIGHT RATHER THAN HAVE THE MAYOR DO IT.

People voting against Loremaster were not voting to have no oversight rather than have the Loremaster. They were voting to have Mayoral oversight rather than have the Loremaster.

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If the second vote clashes with the first, isn't it logical to revisit the second one to ask what went wrong?

The second vote did not clash with the first.The first vote established that people didn't want a new office created. IT DID NOT DIRECTLY ADDRESS THE ISSUE OF PROCEDURAL OVERSIGHT. People rejected the idea of the Mayoral oversight of hearings, even though it meant not having any oversight at all. People have not had the opportunity to vote on rejecting Loremaster, EVEN IF IT MEANS HAVING NO OVERSIGHT AT ALL.

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We asked about the mayor's role later

No. There was immediate advocacy for the Mayor taking the procedural role, all during the discussion of Loremaster.

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it's possible people may just have forgotten what they voted in the previous ballot

I'll grant you that. A number of people expressed that they were not able to keep up with the discussion, and weren't up on the issues. Certainly people opposed to creating new offices are going to vote against creating a new office if they don't understand the need for the new office.

Prim wrote:

Then where are we going to get all those knowledgeable admins? You object because there are too few people who can do the job (I would dispute your list—there are quite a few more and one of them would not be me), but then you prefer a system that requires at least four times as many people who can handle the work.

Holby raised a good point in his last post. The document is there for anyone and everyone to ready. Why would a group of four people not be able to research and collaborate together to find out the answer to any procedural questions. What's to stop one of them from PMing Jnyusa with a question just to clarify something? I think this is very doable.

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If a Loremaster gives advice during a hearing that favors a friend, that will be noticed and objected to, because it will have to be done publicly.

What's stopping a Loremaster from giving advice through a PM?

Cerin wrote:

I am dead set against the Mayor overseeing hearings,

Can you tell us why? Also for all who don't want the admins overseeing the hearings can they explain why as well? I see ID wrote this which makes sense:

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they include serious conflicts of interests, including having the Mayor be the expert in procedure for their own removal from office, and being the expert on procedure for a case in which they are a juror, which was set up in one of the processes.

Anybody in a position could be caught up in this couldn't they? What happens when a Loremaster is abusing his/her position? Who would oversee that procedure?

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This is where I stand: I believe we need procedural oversight of hearings.

Holby has pointed out that these hearings will be out in the open for all members to see. This is a member moderated board. I'm guessing we don't have faith in the membership being able to see if something went wrong?

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The Loremaster would not make decisions, he would simply be a source of information for people, and make sure procedure is followed correctly.

I can't help but feel like advisors do have power.

edit: I see a few of my questions have been answered.

Thank you Axordil.

I have some recent firsthand experience with European methods of dealing with procedure.

This week is the 2nd anniversary of the acceptance of our offer on a property in Europe. We still have no closing date. Along the way, every opportunity has been taken to interfere by every petty bureaucrat, funtionary, and professional involved. I don't take it personnaly because we know others who have had similar problems. We've had a real estate broker who wanted the propertry for his mistress interfere before and after our offer, a notaire who needed greasing, a bureaucracy that can go on strike for months, allowing whole real estate agencies to collapse from a lack of not being able to close sales, legal authorities with no respect for other legal authorities, and bureaucrats with no concept of time or money. 2 years for something that would take 2 weeks in the US. Along the way, for the offenses that have occured, if they occurred here, several people would have lost their jobs along the way, if not something more severe.

I'm impressed.

As for the love of authority, some of us are celebrating the announcement of the identity of a hero of our age this week. He helped rescue us from the problems caused by the lack of fairness, transparency, and the willingness to ignore procedure of an American president. Don't mistake our interest in fairness for a love of anyone's authority.

This board exists in large part because of a lack of procedure, fairness, and transparency elsewhere. I think we need to be concerned about all three.

Eruname wrote:

Holby raised a good point in his last post. The document is there for anyone and everyone to ready. Why would a group of four people not be able to research and collaborate together to find out the answer to any procedural questions. What's to stop one of them from PMing Jnyusa with a question just to clarify something? I think this is very doable.

It's doable if the people involved know they don't know something.

What if they just do something wrong? I was on a jury here that did just that. We skipped a step. Since we didn't know we were doing it, we didn't ask for advice; we just went ahead and made the mistake.

Eruname wrote:

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If a Loremaster gives advice during a hearing that favors a friend, that will be noticed and objected to, because it will have to be done publicly.

What's stopping a Loremaster from giving advice through a PM?

We could easily specify that the advice has to be a matter of record—publicly given.

Eruname wrote:

Also for all who don't want the admins overseeing the hearings can they explain why as well?

Admins call hearings and may often have to testify in hearings. Admins can be the subject of hearings, too. All these roles conflict with the role of giving procedural oversight. If the Mayor should not do this because the Mayor may sometimes be involved in hearings, certainly admins should not—admins will almost always be involved in hearings.

Eruname wrote:

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This is where I stand: I believe we need procedural oversight of hearings.

Holby has pointed out that these hearings will be out in the open for all members to see. This is a member moderated board. I'm guessing we don't have faith in the membership being able to see if something went wrong?

The membership isn't responsible for that. If someone is banned because of a procedural mistake, who do they appeal to and how?

Eruname wrote:

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The Loremaster would not make decisions, he would simply be a source of information for people, and make sure procedure is followed correctly.

I can't help but feel like advisors do have power.

Secret advisors who are not accountable to the membership and whose advice does not have to be publicly given have more power still.

Very well said Prim.

Eruname wrote:

I'm guessing we don't have faith in the membership being able to see if something went wrong?

It isn't the membership's responsibility to watch a hearing to see that everything is done correctly. Would you be willing to commit to watching every hearing to see that procedure is followed correctly? Is that what we want being a member here to mean?

We've had one hearing so far. A procedural point was missed because the jurors were conscientiously focusing on the issues to be decided. We need someone to watch their backs so they CAN concentrate on the substantive issues before them.

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Why would a group of four people not be able to research and collaborate together to find out the answer to any procedural questions.

Are you saying you want collective procedural oversight of hearings to be added to the duties of admin? Do you think people are as likely to volunteer for admin if they know it means they must also be an expert on hearing procedure, and have to watch the progress of hearings as well as attend to their other duties?

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Why would a group of four people not be able to research and collaborate together to find out the answer to any procedural questions.

Would you want that added to your other duties as admin?

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What's to stop one of them from PMing Jnyusa with a question just to clarify something?

In other words, let's just let Jnyusa be the procedural expert. (I don't think that's fair to her, or reflective of the kind of attitude we want to foster.)

And what if the oversight person/committee misses something?
At some point we have to trust in someone's abilities.
Mistakes are probably going to happen, but I am quite sure they will surface and be corrected.
If we are going to the lengths of banning someone, I have to believe it will it will be for a legitimate reason. I just can't see how some kind of procedural screw-up is going to stop someone from being banned.
On the flip side if someone is inadverdantly banned, which I find highly unlikely, the banning can be reversed.
There is no way to ensure that mistakes won't happen. We already have a procedure in place, and anyone that has anything to do with hearings would be well advised to read the damn document first.

IdylleSeethes wrote:

There are some discussions I have difficulty believing I'm actually a participant in. This is one of them.

With all due respect, IS, but sometimes you make the impression of sitting on just such a high horse as the lady in your sig.

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The problems with the Mayor having the responsibility are moot, since it was firmly and uncontestably decided.

And I don't deny that.
I'm just saying that it was just as firmly and uncontestably decided that there will be no new office.

Cerin, please forgive my saying so, but I can't help feeling that you wouldn't be arguing so energetically against my view of the question, if you weren't so fervently for a new office (and against the mayor filling this role).

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You (collectively speaking) are trying to have it both ways. You need to take a stand

No, I'm trying (in vain) to understand the justification of this vote.
And I don't agree with the options you give, so why should I be forced to take a stand on one of them?

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That has been voted down with foreknowledge of there being no procedural position created

That's what I don't believe.
I think we had the result we had, because of course those who wanted a new office would vote "no" on this, and those who wanted someone else (admins?) or no one to do it, voted "no", too.
So, maybe the only people we should ask are those who voted "no" on the mayor doing the job AND "no" on the new office and ask them what it is they want.

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I think the Mayor already has more than enough to do. I think someone inclined to Mayoral duties would not necessarily be inclined to procedural oversight. I don't like so many functions invested in one figure. I don't like one person having such a pervasive presence and influence on the board. I think it would be a godawful mess.

I mentioned some of these reasons exactly in a previous post and you dismissed them!
I think it would not be too much for the mayor to do, I think keeping a record of eligibility and penalties etc is very close to checking on whether people remembered to do step B between step A and C in a hearing, I don't think overseeing hearings is an influential function at all.

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The reason Loremaster failed IS BECAUSE PEOPLE WHO WANTED PROCEDURAL OVERSIGHT FIGURED THE MAYOR WOULD DO IT.

No, it's because of that AND because they didn't want another office!
Besides, since when do the reasons for which a vote had this or that result have an influence on its validity?

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The second vote did not clash with the first.The first vote established that people didn't want a new office created. IT DID NOT DIRECTLY ADDRESS THE ISSUE OF PROCEDURAL OVERSIGHT

The second vote made the result of the first illogical, therefore it clashed with it. It just shows that people either voted incoherently or that they wanted a third option, which wasn't represented in either choice.
I'll have to look it up again, because I don't remember, but if in voting on the new office we did not say it would be for procedural oversight, what did we say it would be for?

Edit: I looked it up - of course it DIRECTLY ADDRESSED THE ISSUE OF PROCEDURAL OVERSIGHT!
From the ballot archive:

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We will create an office whose function is to oversee hearings and ensure that proper procedure is followed. This person will be a resource for juries and all other participants in a Hearing. It will be their resonsibility to be familiar with all aspects of the charter concerning the Outside Forum, Member Rights and Responsibilities, Powers of the Admins and any other issues affecting Hearings.

Ax wrote:

That's because we have so little and you have so much

I think it's more because, having so much, we are raised to defy it, while you, whether you have much or little I don't know, are raised in deference to it.

Cerin: In other words, let's just let Jnyusa be the procedural expert. (I don't think that's fair to her, or reflective of the kind of attitude we want to foster.

Exactly. That's why I voted for the office. So that it wouldn't be me by default.

TH and Eru, the reason the Admins cannot do it is very simple, but it is a matter of principle so you have to think in terms of principle to understand it.

The Admins convene the Hearings and they (plus the Mayor) also Hear the appeals that result from a Hearing being conducted improperly. You cannot set it up so that the Admin/Mayor decides whether his/her own self has done something wrong. If we do it this way, we might as well put asticker on every Admin's lapel that says, "I do what I damn well please and no one can stop me."

The entire point of the petition letter to TORC was to complain about precisely the situation you are now trying to create.

Jn