A vote to create an appeals process for ladle bans

[compguygene]

As we do not have a process to appeal a Ladle ban, and a request has been made to do so, I am recommending that vote on the following process to create the needed process. As such changes have been voted on in the past, each team that played in the last Ladle will have 1 vote. It is recommended that each team discuss the issue among themselves. The vote will run for a week, or until every team has reported back. At the latest the vote will be resolved on December 31, 2014 at 1800 GMT.

Here is the proposed addition to the Ladle Operations Page on the wiki.

How to appeal a Ladle Ban.

1. The Person Under the Ladle Ban, or a Ladle Enthusiast, would create a forum topic that would state the reason for the appeal. Typical reasons would include but not necessarily be limited to: a defect in the original PM trial, new evidence that would reverse the original decision, evidence of reform, or seeking to prove that the original punishment did not fit the crime.

2. A PM Trial will be made, following the process on the wiki to determine if the appeal has merit enough to be heard.

3. If the PM Trial determines that the appeal should be heard, a public debate of the case will follow, for a period of one week.

4. After the week of debate, another PM trial shall be made to determine the outcome of the appeal.

According to the results from last month's Ladle, the following teams played:
Rogue Tronners
Crazy Tronners
Wild West
eggs and ham
Phoenix
Cubed
Collision
I am sending a pm to the teamleaders of these teams, based on the authority file to alert them to this topic in hopes of a quick response.

Edit.

For the sake of transparancy. Here is a copy of the pm I sent:

Please check out this topic and take this issue to your teams and vote accordingly.

The idea here is to simply create a process to allow the voting on appeal of a ban.

The process is outlined in the topic about.

[Durf]

Just a thought:

what about new teams?
Like teams that WILL play in the next or upcoming ladles?

Perhaps if ladle is coming up pretty soon, then the past teams might not matter as much.
Say a team will not play next ladle, their vote on an appeal wouldn't mean the same to a team that knows they will play next ladle.
And a team that hasn't played the ladle before, but will play the next ladle should technically have a say (imo).

Just for those odd cases where the next ladle is closer to the appeal date than the previous ladle is.

End of thought.

[compguygene]

I understand your concern, but it doesn't really apply here. This is a only a vote to create an appeal process. Some people seem confused about that part. Of course, if discussion or the vote drags out, I may just have to re-do it after the next Ladle, since it is so soon. But. it appears that we have enough time to decide on the appeals process. The rest may have to wait.

[Soul]

This is a only a vote to create an appeal process. Some people seem confused about that part.

Shouldn't the vote have been made later than only two days after the discussion thread was made? I was going to say we should add the same thing Durf said along with a couple other things. IMO you're proposed appeal process is too ambiguous and lacking.

For example:

A PM Trial will be made, following the process on the wiki to determine if the appeal has merit enough to be heard.

Is this done through majority? I believe that to win the right to an appeal you should have to have more like 75% approval or something upwards of 50%.

[compguygene]

If you follow through the complete process of a pm trial, that requires a 2/3 vote for a decision to be rendered. I felt that more explicit language that is just a repetition of language that is there would just be repetitive and potentially confusing.
As to the speed at which I pushed voting on this. Nobody seemed to be commenting at all on the process, except in other threads to complain that little was being done. However, if you guys see some defects in what I have written, point them out! THe process doesn't need to be complicated as far as I can see. It is just an extension of the existing PM Trial stuff. If what I have written is that bad we can rewrite it and vote on it again.
Edit:
T1o further explain, some of the vagueness in the process is actually quite deliberate. It is deliberate that there are 3 stated reasons for an appeal, and the vague "not necessarily limited to" so it is possible for an appeal to be made in case we have banned somebody for some wrong reason that is not covered here.
The PM trial itself itself is not redefined because it is already well defined. The parameters on which the voters decide to hear an appeal are vague so that they can decide the merits on a case-by-case basis. If the voters think there is no merit in the case, they can stop the process here.
The rest is very simply defined to leave plenty of room for interpretation on the part of the community to deal with each situation individually.
The alternative would be to write about 1500-2000 words that might cover every possible situation and would just be kinda confusing and encourage more rules lawyering. I would much rather give broad powers to the voters in the PM trial to represent the interests of the community.

[Durf]

Yea I realized later that I posted in the wrong thread.
My post was intended to discuss how the appeal process (specifically the voting part) plays out.

I guess the topic titles confused me :s

To be perfectly honest, now I'm just confused by both threads...which is which? What is this?

[compguygene]

This thread, as votes are received, will be the thread that records the votes on this issue. The other thread was meant to be the discussion before the vote to create an appeals process.

[ppotter]

Just a thought:

what about new teams?
Like teams that WILL play in the next or upcoming ladles?

Perhaps if ladle is coming up pretty soon, then the past teams might not matter as much.
Say a team will not play next ladle, their vote on an appeal wouldn't mean the same to a team that knows they will play next ladle.
And a team that hasn't played the ladle before, but will play the next ladle should technically have a say (imo).

Just for those odd cases where the next ladle is closer to the appeal date than the previous ladle is.

End of thought.

Teams often wait until a few days before ladle to sign up. In addition, if people feel strongly about an upcoming vote they can manipulate the results by creating multiple teams, and until they don't show up for ladle there's no way to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate teams.

I agree with you in principle, but it's more practical to use the previous ladle signups.

[Durf]

@ppotter:
Good point.

Though, couldn't one simply check if the team has played in a past ladle? (i.e. legitimate)
(my reasoning is that out of all the teams that sign up, those who have previously played a ladle are more likely to show - fake teams or not)


@compguygene:
What kind of votes are you expecting to receive? I'm still kinda confused about what this thread is :s
(vote yes/no for ____?)


@anyone/everyone:
And for what compguygene is saying in his further explanation...aren't there rules in ladle?
No need to have thousands of conditions since it's simply a matter of "did they break the rules?".
The rules themselves should be broad enough to cover everything you want to cover while being specific enough such that no loopholes could be exploited.
If there was a clearly define structure for punishments, then original sentences would have little to no need for appeals at all. Follow the rules or don't.
Maybe I'm confused about what the problem is, but it seems simple to me :s

[ppotter]

If you are checking whether they have played in a past ladle, then you may as well just use a past ladle, and the most obvious choice is the last ladle. If you prevent 'new' teams from casting a vote, what's the point in using the teams signed up for next ladle? Coincidentally this would exclude KSI from casting a vote if we were to use the forthcoming ladle to identify voters.

The vote is whether to add the appeal process in the first post to ladle procedures.

As for your third point, the reason for the dispute on the punishments/appeals is that this is the first time either has been needed as far as I can remember. Previous rules for ladle have often been added reactively to somebody exploiting a loophole.

[Durf]

I think we're getting confused..
Meant to say this:
1) the appeal process voters are taken from the closest ladle date (ladle in 1 week = next ladle's teams, not previous ladle's)
2) that one could check if the teams for upcoming ladle are legitimate or not by their ladle history.
If a team in the upcoming ladle has no history at all, then obviously it would make sense that they wouldn't have a say since they have no experience. (even if they were legitimate)
In your post you mention KSI; that would be an example of a team that is playing next ladle, AND has previous ladle experience.
Not sure if I'm the only one that was confused by your post or not, but hopefully that clears things up.

Using only the teams from a previous ladle (even if the ladle was 3 weeks ago) might be misrepresenting the players that will be effected by the appeal (as the teams from previous ladle may or may not play in next); what I suggest is just an attempt to keep the voting to the relevant players.

Why not both? Use teams from previous ladles and the upcoming ladles.
For any offender, the teams from previous ladle would have experience in what the crime actually was (even if they might not play next ladle, their input is worthwhile) and the teams for the next ladle would be the teams that would have to deal with an unbanned offender (making their input just as valid).

As you said, rules have been reactive instead of proactive...That's probably the main reason why we need an appeal process in the first place.
If the rules and punishments were clearly laid out, then it's as simple as looking on a chart for how much time they get for the crime they committed. No appeal would be needed.


Anyway, it was a thought; trying to keep things fair for everyone that's involved and affected.
Shame that some teams wait until the last minute to signup, or this idea would be easier to do.

[compguygene]

@ppotter:



@compguygene:
What kind of votes are you expecting to receive? I'm still kinda confused about what this thread is :s
(vote yes/no for ____?)


@anyone/everyone:
And for what compguygene is saying in his further explanation...aren't there rules in ladle?
No need to have thousands of conditions since it's simply a matter of "did they break the rules?".
The rules themselves should be broad enough to cover everything you want to cover while being specific enough such that no loopholes could be exploited.
If there was a clearly define structure for punishments, then original sentences would have little to no need for appeals at all. Follow the rules or don't.
Maybe I'm confused about what the problem is, but it seems simple to me :s

vote yes/no to create the appeals process for a Ladle ban.
The process described in the first post of this thread.

As to the larger question of why bother doing this at all? Simple. Right now our community is somewhat divided on the issue of Liz's ban. As of now, if a ban is done wrongly or unfairly, there is no process to appeal it. All this is about is to create a process to redress a mistake if one has been made. Nothing is being said in this vote regarding Liz's ban in particular. This is only to create a process by which Liz, or anyone can appeal a ban.

At this time orion has voted against this measure. Ogo has voted for it. This measure may not pass. All I am really saying is that we need to make a clear decision on it. Only if we pass this measure can a ban be appealed. If this measure does not pass, then we will not create a process to allow an appeal of a Ladle ban.

[Durf]

OH I see....

Okay. I vote no.
No appeal would be needed if the rules were clearly laid out.
So I think the rules in itself may need a rewrite so that they can ensure that every offender is punished fairly / without mistakes or bias.
Basically written in such a way that a robot could issue the punishments, and no one would be able to argue since the robot wouldn't have punished without reason (not really a robot, a person; but the role woudn't be needed as much anymore)

If writing the rules in such a way is out of the question, then I would have to change my vote to yes...but for now, no.

Thanks for clearing that up.

[compguygene]

Interesting post, Durf. I do need to ask a pretty simple question: Whose team does your vote represent? The vote is 1 vote per team.

[ppotter]

I think we're getting confused..
Meant to say this:
1) the appeal process voters are taken from the closest ladle date (ladle in 1 week = next ladle's teams, not previous ladle's)
2) that one could check if the teams for upcoming ladle are legitimate or not by their ladle history.
If a team in the upcoming ladle has no history at all, then obviously it would make sense that they wouldn't have a say since they have no experience. (even if they were legitimate)
In your post you mention KSI; that would be an example of a team that is playing next ladle, AND has previous ladle experience.
Not sure if I'm the only one that was confused by your post or not, but hopefully that clears things up.

Using only the teams from a previous ladle (even if the ladle was 3 weeks ago) might be misrepresenting the players that will be effected by the appeal (as the teams from previous ladle may or may not play in next); what I suggest is just an attempt to keep the voting to the relevant players.

Oh my bad, didn't realise KSI had played a ladle before. It's overcomplicating things, what if some unknown team that last played 50 ladles ago signed up, are you expecting people to trawl back 50 ladles to check?

Month to month the teams barely change, if the teams change it's usually the same players rearranging themselves 9/10 times.