This is a discussion for this thread, and the contents within.
The intention behind this thread is to clarify any questions people have with the contents of the statement. Please have the other thread open as well while reading or posting to this one. Thank you.
This is just not correct: Disciplinary team has the power to deliver appropriate disciplinary action as per the outline provided by the Charter and/or Disciplinary policy. It does not have the ability to arbitrarily determine whether or not to deliver action.
This really feels like an incredibly similar thing to me. Sure, Disc can't ban people for being annoying, but saying as such in a statement about the events of November 2020 is irrelevant at best and actively detrimental to the point at worst. Disc can't ban people for being a pain, but they can hop on a plaigirism call and, when that falls through, find another excuse to back up a decision they have already made. I can hardly blame people for not being filled with confidence at the idea that disc have to ban you for *something* after seeing that, and I really don't feel this first half of the statement says much at all at best and the fact there feels to be a need to clarify it really just makes me feel weird at worst.
Going ahead with the censure is cool though. It's still a little fucked that y'all get to agree to go on censure when nobody else on staff has a choice, but the fact that it's happening at all is a win.
I think there's some misunderstandings here, though I think I see where you're coming from.
First to touch on the middling part - The second thread I made, regarding the 'leak' on staff discord, e.g. another person coming in and me and a lot of other staff having not known about it, was intended as a discussion to see if people saw it as egregious and frustrating as I did. I soon dropped it as it came to that most staff didn't feel the same. It really wasn't attached to the previous discussion, though I fully acknowledge how it looks like that. This actually goes arm in arm with the first half of the statement I made today, about the misspoken line.
Now, the fact that the first half of todays statement doesn't say much isn't really untrue. At arm's length, it's an apology for a slip of a line being written during a time of perceived duress, which was intended to cover bases and ended up being totally unnecessary. But the implications of the line were an egregious slip on my part, and a misrepresentation of how Disciplinary team's systems actually work. It's implications contributed to helping set the same perception I touched on immediately above, and that you've related. Damage is done, and it needed to be addressed to here.
The censure thing… well, the point is also that we (Mann and I) can't agree on a censure. Like, that's not our choice, that's the decision of Administrators and/or Disciplinary Team, likely both in this case. We were preemptive with the idea of it, as we intended it to be a signal of actual penance and showing we know we fucked up. But in the spirit of keeping people accountable, you can't just punish yourself. There needs to be a public recognition of things done wrong.
I'm glad we agree it's good that it's moving forward now though.
It really wasn't attached to the previous discussion
It absolutely was, though. Your words, directly from Cerastes [2]:
"The following event, however, is the core issue from where this conversation should have been focused on from the beginning."
[…] will acknowledge here that this breach should have been included much more prominently in the opening thread.
I soon dropped it as it came to that most staff didn't feel the same.
The thread continued for the full 72 hours demanded by the Charter - what do you mean when you say you dropped it?
At arm's length, it's an apology for a slip of a line being written during a time of perceived duress […]
It's not really an apology if you never say sorry or like, "I apologize". Apology implies a degree of voiced regret -this is just an acknowledgement of missteps. This is an apology, as is the one you later voiced to members of Disc who were uninvolved. The post this thread is about, though, is not. All it would need is "I apologize" to turn it into one.
The censure thing… well, the point is also that we (Mann and I) can't agree on a censure. Like, that's not our choice, that's the decision of Administrators and/or Disciplinary Team, likely both in this case.
You misunderstand. It's pretty implicit that nobody is going to start censure proceedings against the de facto head admin and de jure Disciplinary Captain unless he acknowledges that he's okay with it. Which you did, with Mann (and Magnus, though he resigned before anything could actually happen), which is very good! Shows a willingness to face the music — but this extension is typically not granted to censures candidates. Also, it's been 9-10 months since January. The situation has progressed - now people want an explanation for why this censure never moved forward for the better part of a year despite you and Mann both agreeing to it (something that should not have had to happen). They deserve one.
It's pretty implicit that nobody is going to start censure proceedings against the de facto head admin and de jure Disciplinary Captain unless he acknowledges that he's okay with it.
Mann isn't the de facto Head Admin, at least not seen that way by Disc or Admins, who make this decision jointly.
Additionally, no one suggested that there were any grounds for censure against Mann except himself…. that I'm aware of. (Please feel free to correct me.)
now people want an explanation for why this censure never moved forward for the better part of a year despite you and Mann both agreeing to it (something that should not have had to happen). They deserve one.
Was this not done yet? I will post a brief version below for visibility.
Mann isn't the de facto Head Admin, at least not seen that way by Disc or Admins, who make this decision jointly.
Maybe. He's still by a massive margin the most senior active administrator (promoted in 2010 against the next-oldest two 2017 admins) and if someone tells me that doesn't come with a certain degree of respect and deference I straight-up don't believe them. He may not have any more or less institutional power than other admins but primus inter pares.
Additionally, no one suggested that there were any grounds for censure against Mann except himself…. that I'm aware of.
I can't say whether this is true, but I don't understand how it's relevant either way. Mann did suggest there were grounds for censure — it represents an understand that he, if no one else, thinks he did something worthy of censure. What does matter is how unreasonably long the charges were delayed without a clear explanation and justification to staff — something you acknowledge but is worth repeating.
Was this not done yet? I will post a brief version below for visibility.
An informal explanation was tendered once or twice to staff — not to the userbase in general — that the drought of admins made it inadvisable to censure. Then the admin team doubled and any requests to revisit it, by me and others, were met with silence in staffchat until last week. I also find the idea that we should delay punishment until it is convenient because we're dependent on people's technical staff powers (the inherently admin-only ability to enact emergency bans/revokes) bizarre because it rests on the assumption that we couldn't have done fine with 3-4 (depending on whether Mann was censured) active admins to handle the odd revokes and such for a month. If the argument is that we legitimately couldn't have — we hadn't had more than 6 active admins total from December 2020 until the most recent round of promos. Running with a skeleton crew is not a good enough justification for delaying punishment when you could have added more to the fold at any time. I'm not saying we should've promoted Joe Schmoe just so there were more hands on deck but there were options.
Maybe. He's still by a massive margin the most senior active administrator (promoted in 2010 against the next-oldest two 2017 admins) and if someone tells me that doesn't come with a certain degree of respect and deference I straight-up don't believe them.
Correct, but calling him Head Admin and giving that as evidence for why Disc/Admins will defer to him is not correct. The specific reason Mann was chosen to have Site Owner back when he was NOT the most senior admin is because since the time he joined administration, he has endeavored to not enable any corruption to the best of his ability, and he has endeavored to be as open to critique as humanly posible.
You may not believe this, and that is your right, but I am speaking from working with Mann for many years and observing this particular incident and extensively discussing it with him. And that's worthwhile hearsay evidence to at least some people.
Mann did suggest there were grounds for censure — it represents an understand that he, if no one else, thinks he did something worthy of censure.
This is correct and was an error from rushing on my part. You are good at catching these in my messages, which I genuinely appreciate. I think I addressed this better in other posts, notably to Lucio. I apologize for this error, and thank you for catching it.
Then the admin team doubled and any requests to revisit it, by me and others, were met with silence in staffchat until last week.
If it's not too much trouble, may I ask you to provide me these requests? Text + chatroom name would be sufficient. I'll copy this to staff chat also.
I also find the idea that we should delay punishment until it is convenient because we're dependent on people's technical staff powers (the inherently admin-only ability to enact emergency bans/revokes) bizarre because it rests on the assumption that we couldn't have done fine with 3-4 (depending on whether Mann was censured) active admins to handle the odd revokes and such for a month. If the argument is that we legitimately couldn't have — we hadn't had more than 6 active admins total from December 2020 until the most recent round of promos. Running with a skeleton crew is not a good enough justification for delaying punishment when you could have added more to the fold at any time. I'm not saying we should've promoted Joe Schmoe just so there were more hands on deck but there were options.
I am quoting this simply to say that while I do not feel as harshly as you do, I hear you and largely agree with your point.
EDIT: The emergency ban issue would also be solvable by consensus of OS+ staff declaring that these particular censures can allow for emergency bans only.
However, I get why no one thought of this. I'm suggesting it now at least for future reference.
Correct, but calling him Head Admin and giving that as evidence for why Disc/Admins will defer to him is not correct.
To me, saying someone is the head admin and saying someone is the de facto head admin are different things. One is an objective statement of rank, and one is a subjective claim of someone's seniority affecting their position in an informal, unquantifiable way. Which I think Mann's does. Not necessarily badly, but it does. I've said this a lot to you, but I think it's one of those things we're not gonna change each other's minds on lol
he has endeavored to not enable any corruption […] You may not believe this […]
If you mean Mann's character — I don't just believe it, I can attest to it. He's a stand-up guy, and I think you'd actually be hard-pressed to find someone around here who disagrees. Generally the worst that people can say about him is that they don't really know him, and there are far worse problems someone can have than that.
All that said, Mann's strong moral fibre is irrelevant to my point — which isn't so much about Mann as it is about the other admins. About how I think the social dynamic works in any situation where you have to suggest punishment for the guy who technically owns the community, captains one of the most important teams, and has been an admin since before you caught your first whiff of SCP. It's not as simple as it is when you're suggesting it to a direct peer, or as close as you can get to one all the way up there.
If it's not too much trouble, may I ask you to provide me these requests? Text + chatroom name would be sufficient.
I said it many times in SCPD's meta, both when senior staff had engaged there and when senior staff had decided not to anymore. I know I specifically pinged Dex with it and asked someone to port over the concern. I know I've also brought it up in staffcord at least once, as have other JS — I specifically remember during the DISC-J incident someone asked Dex during the conversation why he hadn't taken it. I don't remember an answer being given but I could just have missed it.
The emergency ban issue would also be solvable by consensus of OS+ staff declaring that these particular censures can allow for emergency bans only.
What I was going to say: I would be resistant to this on the basis that a month of censure is already a slap-on-the-wrist punishment and doing that with the added caveat that they retain their technical permissions further waters down the symbolism of an already-symbolic (but still important!) punishment.
What I just learned: we apparently don't remove people's permissions when they're censured.
I think this is dumb. I don't know if this is the censure we should pick to begin this but I think removing perms for the duration of the censure is a good policy to keep, going forward, for the reason above.
All this is kind of moot anyway because I'm not even sure I think Mann should be censured. I am much more steadfast in my opinion Dex should be and Magnus should have been, but I'm not so sure about Mann. Without actual logs, I am left to the positions at play - Magnus was at the center of the incident, Dex was the captain of the team and began the second Disc thread, but Mann's involvement was limited to any posts he made in the threads, same as anyone else. Greatest sin being that he shouldn't have let it happen — which, if we're going there, is something that extends to all members of Disc. Conclusion being that Mann's actions were the same as anyone else on Disc or staff but he would be punished harsher because of his seniority despite not being Cap or VC of Disc. Ugly precedent to set, but then it's a complicated situation.
I think all of Disc needs to take a public L for that incident, but only Dex (and Magnus, if he was still around and in this hypothetical presuming he hadn't been punished harsher) really needs to take a censure.
Delayed response…
I agree with everything you're saying re: Mann, but we've gotten off point. You said:
It's pretty implicit that nobody is going to start censure proceedings against the de facto head admin and de jure Disciplinary Captain unless he acknowledges that he's okay with it.
I want to make it as clear as I possibly can that this is false for Administrators at least.
Mann is regularly held acountable by admins with zero fear, because he makes it clear with his approach to other admins that he welcomes criticism and is eternally open to change.
I know who admins are afraid of calling out and why (and you may know some of the names & reasons yourself), but Mann isn't one of them.
I said it many times in SCPD's meta, both when senior staff had engaged there and when senior staff had decided not to anymore. I know I specifically pinged Dex with it and asked someone to port over the concern.
I should clarify, in case it's not obvious, that saying something SCPD's meta isn't a report to admins or a report to staff. We were discussing staff chat.
Have been investigating this anyway.
What I just learned: we apparently don't remove people's permissions when they're censured.
Censured staff "may still participate in policy discussions in which their knowledge or experiences are relevant."
Censured staff may use only the permissions necessary to participate in the policy discussions where their knowledge or experiences are relevant.
If there are no such policy discussions (a very real possibility, currently), their permissions to access these discussion spaces are removed.
That said, this was a pre-Discord policy, so we'll have to figure this out real quick. (The only recent censure was essentially for disrupting policy discussions, so this didn't apply.)
Typically, censured staff also keep their Wikidot permissions. This was my own proposal, because Wikidot is an absolute disaster, and even when we created censure in 2016, it could take hours to demote and later re-promote a person.
I don't see this as an issue, because using any power granted by rank while censured is inherently an abuse of power unless it's an absolute emergency confirmed by staff.
This is the same power granted to Reserve Staff and Inactive Staff who somehow still have site permissions.
(I think my prior post edit was me being confused and forgetting that censured people who have permissions intact can still use them in emergencies declared by other staff members.)
If this is violated by an admin, other admins have grounds to immediately strip the admin of their rank and optionally ban them from the site. If admins do not, demotion and VoNC are also options.
So, I strongly disagree that we need to be worried about "watering down" censure. I strongly advise that censure is kept as-is with respect to Wikidot permissions.
I don't have much interest in this focus on making sure punishment hurts the punished sufficiently.
TBH, it truly seems that people think censure is so dreadful that staff will do anything to avoid it while simultaneously being just a weaksauce slap on the wrist, with one or the other being emphasized depending on where we're at in an argument.
Whether Mann should be censured: Unlike with Dex, admins are still determining grounds with Mann. It's a thorny, complex issue. I personally share your uncertainty, but I would be shocked at this point if Mann doesn't at least get a Disc Vote up.
This response really doesn't sit well with me.
It really wasn't attached to the previous discussion, though I fully acknowledge how it looks like that.
Many times, both in your original post and in the discussion forthcoming, are Great Seal Incident and SSSC Incident (cerastes 1 and 2 respectively because using numbers always confuses me lol) used as an example as a pattern of behavior to paint them as an untrustworthy or otherwise a negative value member of staff. While the second incident happening so soon may have been coincidental, the inflammatory tone in the SSSC incident thread, using the great seal incident as a launchpad for character judgements. I highly doubt a thread about a respected Moderator's older brother joining staffchat with a bug, refusing to leave, and then leaving after 12 hours would have had a disc thread a percent as aggressive of an opening as this - there was an agenda, likely subconscious but an agenda nonetheless at play in the opening of Cerastes 2. Even if the exact cause may not have been fabricated, these threads were clearly connected in content and expectations, and a brief read through the first pages of the SSSC incident's thread (linked above) shows that's clearly the case.
At arm's length, it's an apology for a slip of a line being written during a time of perceived duress, which was intended to cover bases and ended up being totally unnecessary.
This was not an apology. There was no apology in the thread here. A clarification of what you meant and didn't convey? Sure, but there still has not been a public apology *to the community* for Disc's or any other party's part in the November 2020 incident. And that's what it needs to be. This isn't about any one individual or one (read: two) incidents, this has become a community issue and a systemic issue. An earlier statement promised a public apology at some point connected to the censure, and apologized to the members of disc who have had to deal with the aggression as a result of the November 2020 incidents, but we're still yet to see Disc or anybody else publicly buckle down and say 'hey, we fucked up. Sorry 'bout that', and as such trying to frame anything that's come out as an apology rather than an attempted justification of Disc's actions feels hollow, especially when we haven't even got a public surface level 'sorry' yet, especially when you're out here admitting (rightly so) that damage *has* been done.
The censure thing… well, the point is also that we (Mann and I) can't agree on a censure. Like, that's not our choice, that's the decision of Administrators and/or Disciplinary Team, likely both in this case.
This reads to me that rules to allow your censures don't exist. Cool. Mann has the power to delete the site and you're the captain of the most powerful team on said not-yet-deleted site. There's a time for building new rules and precedent and whatever, but this isn't it. You fucked up, you're clearly willing to take this censure as much as I disagree with the idea that you *can* take censures like that so just like… do. Rather than build a temporary system where you've gotta wait a week for admins and Disc and everyone else who wants in to make a call, just do it and build a permanent system later. Sure, it's not been done before, but neither's any of this. The obvious answer is to take the path of least resistance instead of adding weeks of bureaucracy and newly invented rules to a process that's already 11 month's overdue. I know it's well-intentioned, but this could easily be read like stalling.
EDIT: Oh Rounder also replied to this one. Oops.
I think I already covered most of this, but:
Rather than build a temporary system where you've gotta wait a week for admins and Disc and everyone else who wants in to make a call, just do it and build a permanent system later. Sure, it's not been done before, but neither's any of this.
We have a system, detailed below. And, much of this has been done before. I should know: I was a subject.
Will respond to the rest in a new post.
Echoing what Limeyy said. The difference is utterly nominal because there are no actual mechanisms for wider stuff to ensure accountability on Disc. We saw a baseless plagiarism accusation morph into a security breach (that revealed other staff had kept the secret far longer than Cerastes had) and then into a "pattern of behavior". Despite this two-step shuffle, no one involved in the incident was ever punished, and remains unpunished, because there is no mechanism for wider staff to call out this nonsense - and there will never be one until Disciplinary loses the cladding of sensitivity and secrecy which it never originally had and evolved somewhere along the line.
It is profoundly fucked up that Disc and Admins will be the ones voting on whether to censure an administrator who is the captain of Disc. But I'd like to clarify whether the last bit, about the censure, means that censure proceedings will begin by then or that discussion of whether or not you want to begin censure proceedings will begin by then. One indicates the problem is being taken seriously and steps are being made to amend it (though admittedly a year late) and one signifies that people are yet to even agree on whether this is a step that should be taken - though I would hope that isn't in argument anymore.
I'll touch on the latter half, as the first part is an upcoming discussion (this or next week). Please have patience.
As per the Charter, I believe the discussion will be the second - that is, "the initial discussion will be whether admins and Disc believe it appropriate to enact censure on the admin who is the captain of Disc". If I may be honest, I'm not happy about that. But I think I have faith that they'll do the right thing.
Elaborating due to wishing to help this discussion along.
The difference is utterly nominal because there are no actual mechanisms for wider stuff to ensure accountability on Disc.
This was partially a mistake and partially an accident, and is being actively worked on. Co-signing Dex's statement here.
We saw a baseless plagiarism accusation morph into a security breach (that revealed other staff had kept the secret far longer than Cerastes had) and then into a "pattern of behavior". Despite this two-step shuffle, no one involved in the incident was ever punished, and remains unpunished, because there is no mechanism for wider staff to call out this nonsense
There is indeed a mechanism, but it has been largely used to proclaim or imply — as you do here — that the reason for punishment is active malice.
However, I've been informed — by you — that many calls to address this have been ignored. I assume some of these could have included evidence besides instistence that everyone agree that this was clear evidence of malice.
Therefore, I'm withholding judgment on this until I see calls (whether because I find them or someone hands them to me).
For the rest of the paragraph, see Dex's post.
It is profoundly fucked up that Disc and Admins will be the ones voting on whether to censure an administrator who is the captain of Disc.
Yes, I agree, and to be honest, I cannot help but wonder if this was somehow intentional, but I promise, it wasn't the intention of any current staff.
That said, we will do our best to earn back some of the faith of the community here with our actions in this situation. And, we will address this serious flaw in Charter policy.
But I'd like to clarify whether the last bit, about the censure, means that censure proceedings will begin by then or that discussion of whether or not you want to begin censure proceedings will begin by then.
Discussion of whether or not Admins (or admins+Disc) want to begin censure proceedings (followed by Disc if it hasn't been done already) has already begun, and has been ongoing for a while.
Admin consensus is in favor of beginning censure proceedings, and doing so as fast as humanly possible.
Non-Admin Disc members have not yet been consulted, but will be, again as fast as Aismallard (Acting Disc Captain in this situation) can write this all up. I doubt that will change the result, but if so… well, I can't speak for anyone else but me, but I will try to ensure accountability standards are held here to the very best of my ability.
I don't know if a deadline has been set for announcing this result because I'm confused about that. Apologies. Presently the timeline is "as fast as humanly possible."
To be totally clear: the "real" reason is not that admins are unsure about suggesting censure. We are sure. It's not even the Charter, though I do care about that Charter very much and wish us to follow it here.
The "real" reason is that Asimallard (with myself helping) has not yet been able to finish a statement, even with help of other admins. (The statement has been fully rewritten twice so far, and I mean from scratch and it's extremely long in draft form.)
It is paramount that admins try to avoid messing this up even further. We're not taking our time, but we can't just throw up an O5 thread besides … well, this one. I personally don't think Dex should've even "rushed" his statement to the extent he did, because he mis-phrased some things, all of which have been thoroughly raked over in this thread. :)
Please also note that discussion of censure proceedings is supposed to be informed by this discussion thread. And it will be, even if it's just the same few people posting on it, which right now is the case. But I hope more people will weigh in, too. Right now, we really do have an obligation to wait to ensure staff feel comfortable chiming in, at least until we can physically compose more of our statements.
(BTW I had to rush this statement, ironically, so please call out + forgive any errors)
Rounderhouse generously pointed out that Wikidot ate my response here. It's accessible via my Wikidot profile only. I appreciate this very much, lolsob.
Copying some of it here.
The difference is utterly nominal because there are no actual mechanisms for wider stuff to ensure accountability on Disc.
We're working on this actively. Some of this is now public — as in, Disc access is being rolled out to general staff. Also, all votes and decisions are being moved to O5.
because there is no mechanism for wider staff to call out this nonsense
There have been several mechanisms this whole time: posts in open staff chat on Discord, discussion on O5, and reports privately to admins. 1 and 3 led me here.
It's also relevant that they were mostly (not entirely! or we wouldn't be here!) to push claims of active malice that had no evidence, as well as a whole lot of policy misunderstandings. That is true in this thread also.
Obviously I don't really hold this against anyone, since… well, this thing stemmed from Disc having policy misunderstandings and inappropriately assuming malice.
But, yeah. You've told me before why you didn't use the second two mechanisms, and you made fair points. But that's not the same as no mechanism.
and there will never be one until Disciplinary loses the cladding of sensitivity and secrecy which it never originally had and evolved somewhere along the line.
Agreed. WIP.
It is profoundly fucked up that Disc and Admins will be the ones voting on whether to censure an administrator who is the captain of Disc.
I don't like this either. At minimum, we should have the ability to open this up. This is possible to achieve and I am recommending we do so.
But I'd like to clarify whether the last bit, about the censure, means that censure proceedings will begin by then or that discussion of whether or not you want to begin censure proceedings will begin by then.
Admins have already decided we want to begin censure proceedings, and ASAP. This time is being used to draft documents, collect all charges, make sure there are no new errors, etc. (And also opening up Disc because we felt that to be just as urgent. And addressing related policy fuckery.)
Disc has not yet officially been consulted, but will be. This is subject to Aismallard's availability as acting Disc Captain for this issue. I can confirm I'm helping her so that things move faster and she's working as fast as she can.
The amount of writing work necessary to do this right is extremely high, but we've made a lot of rapid headway. We are working on this daily, significantly.
Quoting directly from my previous post now…
It is paramount that admins try to avoid messing this up even further. We're not taking our time, but we can't just throw up an O5 thread besides … well, this one. I personally don't think Dex should've even "rushed" his statement to the extent he did, because he mis-phrased some things, all of which have been thoroughly raked over in this thread. :)
Please also note that discussion of censure proceedings is supposed to be informed by this discussion thread. And it will be, even if it's just the same few people posting on it, which right now is the case. But I hope more people will weigh in, too. Right now, we really do have an obligation to wait to ensure staff feel comfortable chiming in, at least until we can physically compose more of our statements.
Thank you again for letting me know that Wikidot ate my post!
EDIT: WELL… now I think both posts have appeared…
The way this is phrased suggests that Disciplinary team would have the sole power to determine a disciplinary outcome.
It doesn't quite suggest it as much as it flat out states that disc have "the final say" in big bold letters. Semantics, I know, but this line felt like it was misrepresenting the statement.
My intent was to communicate to a subgroup of readers that Disc team wasn’t being influenced by other actors
I legitimately fail to see how second disc thread's phrasing conveys this sentiment. All it says is that Disc will have the final executive decision, and that OS+ may add their opinions. There is nothing there about influence.
An important point is that staff members do not have the ability to call for or enact censure on themselves, but this is a matter which (per the Charter) should be decided by Administrators and/or the Disciplinary Team.
You are both an admin and the captain of disciplinary. As said by some in the onsite thread, this doesn't seem like you're legitimately trying to adhere to the spirit of the Charter, and moreso trying to avoid consequence by pointing at what the Charter technically states. Additionally, the charter says nothing regarding the self-application of censures.
I have more to comment on what was said elsewhere in this thread, but Rounder and Limeyy already said all I have to say and more. I'll only comment on one more aspect which was said exclusively in this thread:
At arm's length, it's an apology for a slip of a line being written during a time of perceived duress, which was intended to cover bases and ended up being totally unnecessary.
This is not an apology. This statement does not contain an admittance of fault, a promise to do better, and at the most basic level it does not include the word "sorry." This is just a statement that explains your thought processes and decisionmaking during the event; none of this can be amounted to an apology.
Was skimming through this thread and happened to notice:
Additionally, the charter says nothing regarding the self-application of censures.
Censure is a form of temporary demotion that can be enacted only as a consequence of either a Disciplinary Vote thread created per Charter standards, or a Vote of No Confidence thread.
Sure, an admin could self-censure, but it would be the exact same as temporarily stepping down. Also, it wouldn't actually count as disciplinary action, and upon the admin's return, they could still be subject, fairly, to yet another Disciplinary Vote thread.
Please note that Dexanote's statement about lacking this power was prompted by myself in my role as Reserve Admin, advising on policy interpretation. And as one of the staff who co-created this policy, I can confirm this was the intent.
Staff, as always, retain the power to change this. However, I urge y'all not to: people should not have the power to enact disciplinary action on themselves. That leads to all kinds of ethical issues.
Also, it wouldn't actually count as disciplinary action, and upon the admin's return, they could still be subject, fairly, to yet another Disciplinary Vote thread.
I’ll clarify what I meant: The “demotions” section of the charter states that in the event that a staff member acts unbecomingly of their position, a staffer may discuss it with a peer of the member, and if both agree they may bring it forward to Disciplinary. Once Disciplinary discusses the case, it is “the duty of the head of disciplinary (in the case of non-administrators) or an administrator on the disciplinary team (in the case of administrators) to bring these charges to light on O5.” In this case, Mann and Dex (being two users who are peers) could have brought forward their own case to Disciplinary, which could have then been forwarded to 05 by either Dex himself (being both an admin and head of disc) or any of the other admins there.
I did not mean that they should have executive-summaried a censure on themselves, I meant that they could have easily begun this process whenever they wanted. Hope that clears that up.
Sure, an admin could self-censure, but it would be the exact same as temporarily stepping down.
In that case, wouldn’t Mann and Dex “deciding” to take a Censure apply aswell? Even if someone else enacts it by this point, it seems to be very much their decision, especially considering how it’s been delayed for nearly 11 months.
In this case, Mann and Dex (being two users who are peers) could have brought forward their own case to Disciplinary
This is correct, yes, and they indeed did so in a valid manner. See my post below for a not-so-brief explanation on why "bring these charges to light on O5" was delayed.
But, your specific quote was:
Additionally, the charter says nothing regarding the self-application of censures.
The Charter only allows Mann & Dex to propose their own censure to others, not apply it to themselves.
I meant that they could have easily begun this process whenever they wanted.
Yes, certainly, and they did so.
However, Disc team wasn't forced to consider it, and admins didn't force ourselves or Disc to consider it in a timely fashion (see my post below).
Their alternative would've been to executive-summary a censure on themselves, which technically they do indeed have the power to do. Mann did not do so because of his own time limitation. Dex is explained elsewhere, in my post and in his own, I think.
In that case, wouldn’t Mann and Dex “deciding” to take a Censure apply aswell? Even if someone else enacts it by this point, it seems to be very much their decision, especially considering how it’s been delayed for nearly 11 months.
You can't decide to take a Censure, nor the time length, so none of what would've counted. Peers must vote on whether they should be censured, with the option of saying they actually deserve no punishment or various forms of demotion instead. "Deciding to take a censure" removes these options from their peers.
For more, see my other posts. I can try to answer more questions also (though please forgive me if it's not in a timely fashion).
However, Disc team wasn't forced to consider it, and admins didn't force ourselves or Disc to consider it in a timely fashion (see my post below).
That'd be a failing on both of their parts, I believe.
I have more to say here, but I'll read your other megapost and respond to that.
That'd be a failing on both of their parts, I believe.
Yes, I agree — if I didn't say so below, I meant to.
I am included in this failure, for ignoring it (up until I didn't).
Disciplinary team has the power to deliver appropriate disciplinary action as per the outline provided by the Charter and/or Disciplinary policy. It does not have the ability to arbitrarily determine whether or not to deliver action.
there are many different ways to interpret one piece of policy. we had a lot of disc members presumably using disciplinary policy to unsuccessfully attempt to justify cerastes' demotion - you can use vague and not particularly well-defined policies to justify anything if you want to. so no, there isn't a significant difference between these two things.
An important point is that staff members do not have the ability to call for or enact censure on themselves
even if we look past the fact that this is partially untrue (nothing in the charter or anywhere i can find says that people can't suggest their own censure to the rest of disc. yes, disc would have to make the final decision but you (or anyone, really) could have suggested it to the team at any point), it doesn't even come close to justifying an eleven month delay. maybe a week or two while people decided how was best to handle this, not almost a whole year.
really the lesson here is (as i previously said in staffchat) that disc shouldn't be handling the censure and discipline of staff members. they dropped the ball with cerastes and spent the last eleven months failing to pick it up when they delayed this censure this much. fold all staff discipline into the existing vote of no confidence proposal - we already have a mechanism which doesn't rely on specific individuals there. censures are good at sending a message but they don't address the structural issues which are causing the problems.
Alright, going to go ahead and try to answer some policy questions that I didn't elsewhere. I can't easily speak to all of this, so apologies for skipping some things.
there are many different ways to interpret one piece of policy.
Not when it goes against the plain meaning of the words, as well as the intent of the charter itself (though intent is not needed here.)
In this case, the Charter is clear, albeit annoying to read:
we had a lot of disc members presumably using disciplinary policy to unsuccessfully attempt to justify cerastes' demotion
"Conduct unbecoming of staff" IS broad enough to count here, and that's what Disc did.
I should say that I could not disagree more with the grounds for which Cerastes was up for demotion. Disc's job was to see that it was blown out of proportion, to quote the charter — and Disc didn't.
I should say, though, that I think the assumption of malicious intent on Disc's part seems uncalled for! Did Disc members say, in so many words, that Disc was trying to justify Cerastes' demotion? Because if not, then this is fairly uncool.
fold all staff discipline into the existing vote of no confidence proposal - we already have a mechanism which doesn't rely on specific individuals there.
VoNC was clearly designed as a last resort and would be extremely bad policy if it were used for all staff discipline. I strongly recommend against this.
However, I agree that Disc & Admins should no longer have the ability to determine to delay censure/demotion, as staff has changed enough that this is harmful now. I feel like at this point it's very hard for us to determine grounds for delay, whereas it used to be 1000% easier. I think now we should be requesting it from the community instead.
Admins have the power to remove this ability from Disc immediately with no vote needed, and I'm going to recommend that this is done within the next couple weeks. (Disc had this power at its inception via the Charter, but admins may remove it at any time, because it is not explicitly listed within the Charter.)
(I also think admins may also have the power to just… make ourselves a rule that we MUST to ask staff for permission to do this, but I'd need more time to check. Either way, I'm going to recommend that admins just DO this from now on, period.)
(Also, a staff vote may also require admins to ask permission to delay a censure/demotion decision or vote that has been requested of them, with a modification to the Charter accordingly.)
Not when it goes against the plain meaning of the words, as well as the intent of the charter itself (though intent is not needed here.)
this is entirely correct, but in the line i was responding to dex wasn't talking about the censure process - it was a clarification of a line used in the initial disc threads, before censure for anyone other than cerastes was even on the table. i'm aware censures have an established process that needs to be followed - the process still doesn't take eleven months.
"Conduct unbecoming of staff" IS broad enough to count here, and that's what Disc did.
exactly! this is vague to the point where there is functionally no difference between following the charter and arbitrarily deciding on punishments, which is why i objected to the statement that they're different things.
I should say, though, that I think the assumption of malicious intent on Disc's part seems uncalled for! Did Disc members say, in so many words, that Disc was trying to justify Cerastes' demotion? Because if not, then this is fairly uncool.
i wouldn't say i was assuming malicious intent - extremely poor judgement on disc's part but poor judgement made entirely in good faith. evidence that i consider (and also considered at the time) extremely weak/shaky was used by people who thought it was stronger to call for disciplinary action - this was an extremely bad call imo but still not a malicious one
VoNC was clearly designed as a last resort and would be extremely bad policy if it were used for all staff discipline. I strongly recommend against this.
this is a reasonable point, im definitely open to hearing other ways that discipline within staff could work without belonging to a specific team
I think now we should be requesting it from the community instead.
this would be very cool. if delays are really necessary it shouldn't be difficult to convince the community that the action should wait a few months.
Admins have the power to remove this ability from Disc immediately with no vote needed
you know how i feel about admins being able to just. do stuff :p
more seriously, i'd be happier with this if staff were notified in advance and could object to this change before it's made if they want to, in which case it would go to the standard discussion and vote. i definitely wouldn't be objecting to the change, but the option should remain available to those who want to. i see you suggesting this in the next paragraph, so i can say i definitely agree there
exactly! this is vague to the point where there is functionally no difference between following the charter and arbitrarily deciding on punishments, which is why i objected to the statement that they're different things.
Huh? I'm not sure I understand. How is there no difference? Please refer to the fact that Gee was censured by a vote of all staff, unless my brain fell out. This is non-optional, means Disc can't decide to arbitrarily demote or censure. (Annoyingly, they can decide NOT to offer staff a chance to punish someone, and we need to change that. But, once it's on O5, no one can stop it.)
Through this vote, staff have to agree that the conduct is actually unbecoming. Because for staff conduct, Disc can't say "this is Bad Actually even though most staff think it's Fine."
- extremely poor judgement on disc's part but poor judgement made entirely in good faith.
Understood — thank you for clarifying. I agree with this assessment, though no one else has to.
you know how i feel about admins being able to just. do stuff :p
This power is only supposed to be used to cut through red tape reflecting staff consensus and/or improvement in taff operation that does not enable or consistute a misuse/abuse of power.
If this power is used for something else, something has gone wrong, and accountability must be had. (I think this may have occured recently followed by an apology but I'm foggy on this.)
Why admins? Admins have the unique if iffy qualification of "we trust this person won't fuck up the site, even if we're wrong." And admins have the wikidot-induced power to back it up.
Admins can't "just do" anything else. They also need to take staff feedback into account even for what they CAN "just do." Accordingly, see below…
more seriously, i'd be happier with this if staff were notified in advance and could object to this change before it's made if they want to, in which case it would go to the standard discussion and vote. i definitely wouldn't be objecting to the change, but the option should remain available to those who want to.
It's still available even if admins do this, because staff can go ahead and just revert that process if a quorum agrees. That said, your preference is noted. Right now I'm going to err on the side of asking admins to agree to not ever do this again and say so on O5. (If this doesn't happen or be taken off the table within 2-4 weeks, please remind me.)
This is non-optional, means Disc can't decide to arbitrarily demote or censure
i'll concede that yes, disc can't arbitrarily demote/censure people alone. they can, however, put up a thread calling for demotion or censure for these extremely vaguely defined reasons, at which point you have to have large numbers of staff Going Against Disc (somewhat intimidating and was largely unheard of during my admittedly quite short time on staff before the great seal situation) to avoid the staff member being punished.
my point would have been phrased better if i'd focused more on them having ultimate authority on whether or not a case is even judged - i've made a disc report about other staff members and i know of four of five others that have been made with zero 05 thread or even semi-public acknowledgement of the report. the team can use these poorly defined and vague guidelines ("conduct unbecoming of a staff member") to entirely arbitrarily decide what gets judged by staff as a whole or not. and since so much is thrown out (from the perspective of an outside observer), there's a feeling that things which aren't 'thrown out' are particularly serious
you also acknowledge this is an issue (which is good) - do you have any solutions which don't involve every single report about a staff member going to 05 instantly? because that's the only fix i can think of, but it's not a particularly good one imo
If this power is used for something else, something has gone wrong, and accountability must be had. (I think this may have occured recently followed by an apology but I'm foggy on this.)
assuming we're talking about the recent-ish misuse of fiat here, you're correct(ish). i'm not going to go super in-depth (as strong as my feelings on the admin fiat are, this isn't a thread for discussion of it), but i wouldn't say that there was accountability (i have issues with relying on loud staff members who are fine with calling out admins being around in staffchat at the exact correct time to call out admins for misuse of fiat) or a particularly defined apology (have just reread the logs to check this. i can't see anything myself, but may be missing something). that being said, you're right that the fiat was withdrawn
Right now I'm going to err on the side of asking admins to agree to not ever do this again and say so on O5.
if this happens, make it a discussion thread, so there's an obvious place to staff to object and a mainsite mirror for the community to object
somewhat intimidating and was largely unheard of during my admittedly quite short time on staff before the great seal situation
Yes, this is true. But it's not the world we're living in now, and ideally never will be living in again. And this example also doesn't support your original point — in fact, it contradicts it, because apparently people weren't too intimidated to go against everyone and side with Cerastes, and Disc was pressured really easily into going along (as they should be).
my point would have been phrased better if i'd focused more on them having ultimate authority on whether or not a case is even judged - i've made a disc report about other staff members and i know of four of five others that have been made with zero 05 thread or even semi-public acknowledgement of the report. the team can use these poorly defined and vague guidelines ("conduct unbecoming of a staff member") to entirely arbitrarily decide what gets judged by staff as a whole or not.
I agree with all of this. I'm willing to investigate these reports if you send me a PM (not on Wikidot).
you also acknowledge this is an issue (which is good) - do you have any solutions which don't involve every single report about a staff member going to 05 instantly? because that's the only fix i can think of, but it's not a particularly good one imo
Yes — I'm considering solutions that involve an official review process that Disc can't skip. An obligation to tell the complainer about the decision on their complaint, at minimum. No "memory holing", intentional or not.
Also, IMO even if it can't be on O5, it CAN be in staff chat. This is similar to what I'm developing to solve the "admin fiats don't get reviewed" issue.
(And yes that's a discussion for another thread. And it will happen, and soon.)
if this happens, make it a discussion thread, so there's an obvious place to staff to object and a mainsite mirror for the community to object
Sounds good. I've had to put a pin in this because I'm needing to put so much work into speeding up this censure, lol. Please feel free to remind later, as I said.
I see a lot of misconceptions in this thread! Here we go.
Please note I literally haven't had time to do more than skim these threads. I'm trying to help this process along because I know it's important. Please call out my errors. This goes triple for admins reading this.
Here is something very important to understand about the Disciplinary Team, which is a point that has been somewhat lost to time. And then I'll explain why it doesn't matter.
The Disciplinary Team cannot ever grant itself power.
This is actually true for all teams, but it's most extreme for Disciplinary. To understand this, let's look at how Staff Teams gain power: http://05command.wikidot.com/staff-structure
Capabilities and permissions will be added or removed if:
- The team requests a new permission or ability,
- The team is determined to have abused a permission, or
- A situation arises that requires attention, and administration determines that this team is best suited for dealing with the situation.
Who can do this? When Troy and I wrote that page, "everybody knew" that it was the following:
1. The administrators who already possess the power to be granted or removed. This is a use of administrative power.
2. The will of all site staff, as laid out in the Charter. This is a use of staff power.
There are no other options.
With that in mind…
Here are a couple of the powers granted to Disciplinary, since its inception.
1. Due to a recurring lack of administrators, administrators as a group long ago informally granted members of the Disciplinary Team the power to vote to ban even when sufficient administrators are present.
* Accountability: This was requested by staff consensus in IRC staff chat. To my recollection, the decision at the time was perceived as "the only possible right move" by every staff member at the time.
2. Disc was also given the power to hide information key to resolving a ban vote. Information must be made available to OS+ upon request, and must be kept private amongst OS+ staff unless determined by Disc or Admins. Admins & Disc must still take staff feedback into account for bans.
* Accountability: This was requested by staff consensus in IRC staff chat. To my recollection, this decision was at best mildly controversial because it meant removing information from O5.
Alright. So all that's done. Now… here's why all of the above doesn't matter, regarding censure.
To the very best of my knowledge, and to the best of Dex's and Mann's knowledge (the people who would know best), as well as other admins I consulted with:
Summary: Disc can't censure anybody on its own under any circumstance unless it's an admin, and even then, they have to allow all other non-Reserve admins to vote on it too (and must follow the Charter procedure to do so).
It was the intent of administration to post this, but I think it may have gotten lost. Due to staff request, I'm going to explain. Ordinarily I would not have the power to do this, but it is understood that admins need to be accountable to the community, and therefore I hope my fellow admins will forgive me for this. I will try to rectify any errors that may occur.
Admins granted three extensions to Disc (& themselves) to make a censure decision.
1: Formal extension granted due to the Harmony situation. Staff generally seem to agree this was merited.
2: Formal extension granted until more admins can be promoted & trained. I beleive this was also announced.
3: Informal extension granted because admins were overloaded, and Disc Team felt they had lost the confidence of staff members to do anything except censure Dex and maybe Mann. At that point, Dex (as far as I understand) felt like he'd be running away and shirking his responsibilities if he didn't try to fix this rather severe issue as Disc Captain. (Dex may clarify this point.)
(And Mann was asked by admins to hold off on grounds of "it's unclear we can ethically even put you up for censure even though we probably will if anyone can bring a clear charge.)
If Disc delays censuring, that meant admins had to either pick up the process ourselves, or wait. Admins elected to wait (informally granting Extension 3 here), and begin to investigate the situation due to intense confusion around it. Full disclosure: I helped with this process.
I'm foggier on whether Extension 3 was made clear to staff. Admins will need to clarify how/if they approached telling staff in general.
The sheer amount of time we took was very specifically because of the amount of confusion and limited time, with only admins to drive the investigation. (I've addressed admin overload being a huge problem, and it contributed here. I am preparing proposed solutions.)
Admins received or read many reports on Dex, but most of them were purely personal attacks, false statements about occurences, claims of malice with no evidence, or false statements about how policy and/or Disc work.
Additionally, initial investigation results pointed towards "Dex did not do anything that would be unacceptable from any other staff member." Many people were led to believe that Cerastes engaged in plagiarism. Many people also were extremely concerned about the "brother" incident, even though it was hard to assess.
Admins were provided no evidence of Disc intentionally trying to get rid of Cerastes, including in this thread (unless I missed it by skimming, in which case I apologize!).
Additionally, the amount of abusive behavior directed at Dex had gotten fairly shocking. This raised a red flag: "We're missing something, and we need to wait to figure out what that is."
Another theme was holding Dex responsible for the censure delays. Dex bears equal responsibility for the third extension only (not 1 or 2), which might be grounds enough for censure itself.
This is grounds for a Disc thread with a charge of power abuse, even unintentional. However, admins knew the reasoning, though we didn't tell staff (and maybe should have! I think that was a fuck-up), and… well.. if admins weren't ready to "bring charges" because the situation was so strange, would it be Right to order Disc do it?
(This is why I feel in the future, as I said, admins should ask staff for permission for extensions, or some other mechanism be created.)
Then the investigation, after months, finally bore fruit. Admins discovered the following:
This all established grounds for admins to know without a doubt that this situation was more serious than we had ever identified or been informed.
On personal note, here: "Unfair charges of plagiarism" may sound just as bad as "claiming Disc has the power to unilaterally censure or demote." But the fact is, we cannot avoid unfair charges of plagiarism. We absolutely cannot. I learned this the hard way. Writers seem to have their brains absolutely fucking fall out here. If you disagree, you are either too inexperienced in these communities or selling something. (I will only fault you for the latter.)
I still think that alone could be grounds for censure, and definitely community damage! However, admins have still received zero evidence of a hit job on Cerastes, just demanding that a specific interpretation of Disc's actions be made.
…But, "claiming Disc has the power to unilaterally censure or demote"… well, the reason Disc DOESN'T have that power is because Troy and I and other staff at the time denied this power to Disc repeatedly, and then enshrined it in the Charter.
Most visibly, we did this Eskobar was Disc Captain and requested inquisitorial power using those words, because at the time Disc was popular and people wanted to use Disc as a club to get rid of people they were mad at. (Sound familiar? It should.)
We specifically feared that it would essentially make Disc "an Inquistion" and make people have to live in fear of Disc. Which appears to be exactly what has happened! In combination with other things, as well, but as I said, this by itself would be enough.
With this knowledge, admins ended the extension effective immediately and created an internal timeline to address this.
We now consider it an emergency situation and it has been our top priority since the Akimoto situation was addressed, and was second priority before then. I can vouch that every day since then, admins have spent many hours working on all parts of this situation.
I wish to apologize again that this hadn't been explained, and to clarify that it would have been explained ASAP in the next few days if I hadn't done so. More information is also forthcoming ASAP.
EDIT: To be clear, I think it was a mistake for admins to take as long as we did without specifically asking permission from staff. Notably, extension 3 at least should've been granted permission by staff, and was a mistake in handling by admins, including myself. And extensions 1 and 2 probably would've been approved, so, um… I feel admins should just ask in the future, period. So many issues could have been solved this way, meaning it's the responsibility of admins to do better here.
Alright, let's hit this one by one.
The Disciplinary Team cannot ever grant itself power.
This is technically correct. As you laid out, Disc does not have the ability to grant itself more power as it wishes, since this would set a dangerous precedent and create a team with unrestricted power. In practice, however, Dex did attempt to give (albeit for one vote) Disc team a power he nor the team previously had, going against these rules. This thread was supposedly passed by the rest of the Disciplinary Team, which would include multiple admins, and would include the two people who you yourself stated "would know best."
"But that goes against the charter, and someone could have pointed that out." The charter is notoriously outdated by this point, with multiple sections that staff as a whole are choosing to just ignore since they're either impractical or nonsensical. (For example - the charter states policy votes will be up for 24 hours, with 48 hours at the extreme. Votes typically go on for a week nowadays.) When the entire team, along with several admins, all agree on a call that goes against the charter, the rest of staff can only assume this is the new rule.
Even if they technically couldn't, they did, and none of staff would have a proper leg to stand on if they tried to speak against it.
(This point is brought up a few more times in the comment, so I won't repeat it every time it pops up. Consider this my response to all further mentions of the above.)
Dex (as far as I understand) felt like he'd be running away and shirking his responsibilities if he didn't try to fix this rather severe issue as Disc Captain.
I really hope Dex clarifies here, because… Dex, "doing what you promised to do half a year ago" is not running away from responsibility. It would, infact, make staff and the community trust Disc more since they show signs of self-accountability. Prolonging this censure this far is one of the key elements why trust in the disciplinary team is eroded worse than a blacksmith's shop in Atlantis.
I'm foggier on whether Extension 3 was made clear to staff.
Personally, I am not aware of being told of this. It is possible that it was said in adcap or such other channels, but that is a whole different beast onto its own.
Admins were provided no evidence of Disc intentionally trying to get rid of Cerastes, including in this thread (unless I missed it by skimming, in which case I apologize!).
…Hoo, how do I even approach this one. I'll try to write this in the least accusatory tone that I can, despite the fact that my main argument is accusatory in nature.
Due to the mishandling of the Great Seal case, the accusatory tone much of Disc took towards Cerastes, and seemingly unrelated two events which were glued together (the brother and "plagiarism" cases), folk were at an utter loss on how to explain what just occurred. Many things didn't add up - why did Disc make a follow-up thread on a separate issue if the first issue was generally agreed upon to be non-malicious? Why was a topic which was kept secret for so long suddenly unveiled now? Why are most of the admins and disc so vehement in the thread when the majority of non-disc staff seem to be entirely in Cerastes's defense? So many elements that, while individually could be viewed as incompetence or a mishap, began to pile on.
While maybe not necessarily towards Cerastes themselves, the Disc thread seemed hellbent on delivering a "guilty" verdict either out of embarrassment on how the first thread went, or just a need to prove themselves right. At the very least, that's how it was viewed. It was either that, or disc suddenly became shockingly incompetent. None of these two claims can be stated without seeming accusatory, so you can see how those discussions went.
This raised a red flag: "We're missing something, and we need to wait to figure out what that is."
Considering how much this was discussed, both in and out of staff, this claim feels like a Missing Missing Reason. To explain, a Missing Missing Reason is when someone claims they were never given a reason for X occurrence, often claiming that X came out of the blue to them. However, later on, said individual may actually admit they were given reasons but never really elaborate on them. They'll claim the reasons were "nonsensical," "lies," "abusive," "harassment," and other adjectives which aim to demean and de-legitimize the original claim without never actually addressing it.
In reality - the individual in question cannot or will not actually respond to the reasons they were given. This type of speech aims to not-so-subtly imply that the complainer is irrational and should be ignored, while focusing on how the individual in question took the responses.
Your claims that most of the reasons Admins were given were "purely personal attacks, false statements about occurrences, claims of malice with no evidence, or false statements […]" does not help this reading.
if admins weren't ready to "bring charges" because the situation was so strange, would it be Right to order Disc do it?
Bluntly? Yes. Disc's job is to enact disciplinary measures on both users and staff, and this was a failing on their part to not attempt to address how to deal with this situation. On the other hand, I can't blame most of Disc's members - the accused was their boss, and his coworkers were all defending his choice, who was going to bring that conversation up?
This all established grounds for admins to know without a doubt that this situation was more serious than we had ever identified or been informed.
If none of the admins were ever aware of how people took these disciplinary threads, I truly wonder how many of them actively participate in the larger community.
You may notice my statements are getting more blunt and aggressive. I'm legitimately trying to be polite here, as much as many don't believe as such, but some of these later statements are… I don't know how to say it. They're so… easy to figure out, I suppose, that I'm at a genuine loss as to how to approach them. I either have to assume that none of the admins/disc have been a part of the larger community in the past 11 months (for the claim they were never aware of these issues), which is bad, or that they're feigning ignorance to act like it was someone else's responsibility to tell them, which I think might actually be worse. I honestly don't know what to say, so it just comes off as exasperating and confusion. I'll try to tone it down when possible, but it's honestly incredibly difficult.
But the fact is, we cannot avoid unfair charges of plagiarism. We absolutely cannot.
That's fair, honestly. The first thread was a mishap, but it was not what granted it the legendary status that it currently holds. If the first thread got an extension to discuss the first accusation, and then likely was shut down as most of staff agreed it was an unfair charge, the thread would have sparked some discussion regarding disc but mostly just fair claims of "this should have been looked into more." Where it all went wrong was the IRC thread.
I can vouch that every day since then, admins have spent many hours working on all parts of this situation.
I hope so, but I do want you to understand that this claim has been thrown around so repeatedly regarding situations which ended up quietly dying or taking more time than necessary, that I'm finding it honestly hard to believe. Hope you all prove me wrong.
First off, I appreciate your extensive response.
In practice, however, Dex did attempt to give (albeit for one vote) Disc team a power he nor the team previously had, going against these rules.
Correct.
This thread was supposedly passed by the rest of the Disciplinary Team, which would include multiple admins, and would include the two people who you yourself stated "would know best."
Correct. For the record, Mann cited this is as part of why he feels he should be censured. I would like to see other admins acknowledge the (severe) error publicly as well.
The charter is notoriously outdated by this point, with multiple sections that staff as a whole are choosing to just ignore since they're either impractical or nonsensical.
Ignoring the charter also involves ignoring the aspects of the charter that protect against abuse. This was a severe mistake.
If you believe Disc & admins were right to ignore this aspect of the charter, then you're free to say so.
When the entire team, along with several admins, all agree on a call that goes against the charter, the rest of staff can only assume this is the new rule.
Sure, I get why this has happened. When the call is "policy votes need to be longer than 48 hours," this is clearly not an abuse of power, and it's the job of admins to validate things like this.
However, when the call is "grant Disc special powers by accident", then validating this is a misuse or abuse of power. In this case, it appears to be clearly unintentional, which is the only reason I'm not angrier. (I've also checked to make sure it was unintentional, to be clear, as I have admin chat access that staff in general do not.)
That means it's the job of admins to clarify that misuse of power occured. In making this post, I am carrying out this aspect of my job.
I hope this clarifies.
Even if they technically couldn't, they did, and none of staff would have a proper leg to stand on if they tried to speak against it.
Well, now they do. This is part of admins' attempt to rectify this error, channeled through me.
I checked & double-checked all policy positions with administration WELL before posting. Only the choice of timing is my own.
RE: Cerastes — you've told me how it came off, yes. But no one has identified precisely why it came up that way.
Considering how much this was discussed, both in and out of staff, this claim feels like a Missing Missing Reason. To explain, a Missing Missing Reason is when someone claims they were never given a reason for X occurrence, often claiming that X came out of the blue to them. However, later on, said individual may actually admit they were given reasons but never really elaborate on them. They'll claim the reasons were "nonsensical," "lies," "abusive," "harassment," and other adjectives which aim to demean and de-legitimize the original claim without never actually addressing it.
It's true that I can only truly speak for what I've seen, and I very explicitly have ignored certain parts of staff discussion (though *not* reports made to admins, AHT, or myself personally).
In my case, I do claim certain things came out of the blue for me. I cannot prove this. However, I hope that my efforts are at least a demonstration of good faith.
This discussion thread is your chance to make your evidence clear, here on O5, where if I (or anyone) choose to dismiss it, anyone can see what we're doing.
Currently the evidence is "things didn't add up" and "vehemency" and "revealing previously unknown information." I hope you can understand how this, by itself, doesn't make a strong case.
I will elaborate more in another post, and try to address specific claims, but I want to give staff a chance to, well, bring those claims. Please also note I need to read other posts in this thread. Other admins may respond as they can. Or anyone who chooses to.
In reality - the individual in question cannot or will not actually respond to the reasons they were given. This type of speech aims to not-so-subtly imply that the complainer is irrational and should be ignored, while focusing on how the individual in question took the responses.
I hope it's clear to everyone, including you, that I am not doing this. If you feel otherwise, please let me know. I hope I've established that I'm open to hearing such complaints.
Your claims that the only reasons Disc/Admins were given were "purely personal attacks, false statements about occurrences, claims of malice with no evidence, or false statements […]" does not help this reading.
1. You have omitted my "most of" clarification. If I omitted that, I would be lying. Therefore, your quotation of me does make me a liar, obviously unintentionally, but it's still distressing.
2. I did not and do not make this claim for Disc, but ONLY complaints sent to admins, myself personally, or AHT, plus a few others I sought out myself. You added this to my claim, which also unintentionally makes me a liar. Again, very distressing.
I have recently exercised my right to be granted access to Disc's full records, but please understand that I haven't had time to read them and … I don't know when I'll be able to, and I can only promise it's at least on my list. Other admins will need to speak for this.
Ignoring the "accidentally made Moose a liar" aspect, which I believe to be unintentional — you have strongly implied that I have spoken in bad faith, which I believe to be intentional. Can you please clarify?
Currently, your evidence for my bad faith is "Considering how much this was discussed, both in and out of staff". However, this thread exists to make this case, so I request that this evidence be provided.
Bluntly? Yes. Disc's job is to enact disciplinary measures on both users and staff, and this was a failing on their part to not attempt to address how to deal with this situation. On the other hand, I can't blame most of Disc's members - the accused was their boss, and his coworkers were all defending his choice, who was going to bring that conversation up?
I think this is a strong and fair argument, unfortunately for everyone involved, including me, now.
If none of the admins were ever aware of how people took these disciplinary threads, I truly wonder how many of them actively participate in the larger community.
I do object to this. You must be aware that, as demonstrated by this thread, most of this anger has been publicly led by only a few people, including yourself, and a somewhat higher number of people localized to a specific SCPD channel, which is a significant community pillar but… well, not participating in SCPD doesn't mean the same as what you just said it means. So did I misunderstand?
Please note this is not an attempt to diminish these very real issues which I've seen these "few people" bring up.
In fact, the charges I have brought to the attention of admins are more serious and require much more change than anything I've ever seen suggested. I hope this demonstates to the community and to you that I don't wish to diminish or dismiss ANYTHING.
Where it all went wrong was the IRC thread.
May I request that you clarify this point?
I hope so, but I do want you to understand that this claim has been thrown around so repeatedly regarding situations which ended up quietly dying or taking more time than necessary, that I'm finding it honestly hard to believe. Hope you all prove me wrong.
I hear you and I acknowledge this. You are right, and that is why I saw it as my job as Reserve Admin to step in. It's also why I've chosen to post much of this information earlier than all admins explicitly approved (though for the record, I have received only approval from administration so far). I intend to continue this approach as much as I can.
It is my strong belief (backed by personal discussion) that other administrators are doing the same, and are posting slower than me largely because they don't wish to shut down conversation.
EDIT: I have also posted responses on the main site containing more information & answers, notably here: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-14230086/discussion-discussion-joint-statement-re:miscommunication-an#post-5112132
Since our responses are all extremely long now, I'll start collapsing them, so people don't have to scroll past multiple textboxes whenever they open the thread.
If you believe Disc & admins were right to ignore this aspect of the charter, then you're free to say so.
I wasn't trying to comment on whether this choice was good or bad, merely how the situation came to be. Personally I don't think they should have, but I don't think that opinion will surprise anyone.
I hope it's clear to everyone, including you, that I am not doing this.
Clearly not; you wrote up a massive post here explaining your every reasoning. My concern was moreso that it came off as if the admin team was pulling this trick.
You have omitted my "most of" clarification.
Yes, yes I did. That was a legitimate accident, adding "only" there changed the original meaning of the quoting. I'll edit my original response in a second.
I did not and do not make this claim for Disc, but ONLY complaints sent to admins, myself personally, or AHT, plus a few others I sought out myself.
Ditto on the last response - I legit was confused for a second which one of the two received the complaints. Will change the comment appropriately, but I feel that even with these two edits much of the point still stands.
you have strongly implied that I have spoken in bad faith, which I believe to be intentional. Can you please clarify?
Not you, specifically, but rather the admins who were both active in the discussions and claimed to have no idea how the disciplinary thread was taken by the wider community. I was taking your comments which mentioned "admins"/"we" as generalizations. If those were meant merely as your interpretations of what happened, then I take back my case here. (I said that it's either that or that the admins didn't really participate in any of the post-discussions about the Great Seal - which you didn't, so that solves that mystery.)
well, not participating in SCPD doesn't mean the same as what you just said it means. So did I misunderstand?
SCPD was not the only location where such discussion was going down. SCPD was the most vocal, due to it being a fast-paced, well known chat server with numerous members of the community, but this went down in twitter and multiple other servers aswell (and I assume some other locations I'm not even aware of at the moment).
May I request that you clarify this point?
Many of the issues which made the disciplinary thread to be as infamous as it is now were either worsened or were formed in the second thread, regarding the IRC breach. Accusations of hypocrisy (with how Cerastes was accused of hiding something for less than two days, when the admins (iirc) did so for over a month), blindly following the leader (with the split between opinions held by the initial Disc posts to the posts made by the rest of staff), having something out for Cerastes (with how the two topics seemed weirdly unrelated, with the only connection being 'cerastes did something wrong'), etc.
I'm not claiming all of these points are valid or invalid, I'm merely stating this is where they formed.
I intend to continue this approach as much as I can.
I do believe you, and I want to believe all the admins aswell. The recent disciplinary update does give me a bit more faith, I will say.
Preface: Again, I appreciate the engagement.
My concern was moreso that it came off as if the admin team was pulling this trick.
How? You quoted my post and said that my post came off that way lol. Wouldn't that be… me pulling this trick?
Appreciated re: post edits & clarifications.
but rather the admins who were both active in the discussions and claimed to have no idea how the disciplinary thread was taken by the wider community.
I felt they gave a very good explanation of this: the same group of people is the source of almost all this feedback.
You know this to be the case, because you know who has made almost every single post in this thread besides me, and brought almost every accusation.
I've also seen it verified by SCPD mods to admins — one personally to me — that the vast majority of the rhetoric is localized to specific friend group in SCPD. This group's opinions are still 100% valid, and now admins understand that the problem does not lie with one vocal group.
However, no one who's part of this friend group has openly acknowledged or debunked this apparent fact, including you, here, now. Claims are only made that you do in fact reasonably represent all the community, but no evidence is given… besides referencing SCPD as synonymous with all the community (and saying your opinion is held by essentially ALL of SCPD, which has been contradicted to admins (and personally to me!) by quite a few SCPD users).
Others may silently agree, but admins cannot be mind-readers. (This is also why I've asked other staff to collect evidence that Disc/Admins were shown evidence that was ignored.)
Either way, well… I hope everyone reading this thread can see how this might cause some good-faith confusion.
Especially looking at this thread. All the confusion, accusations, etc. And this is WITH admins specifically calling out unacceptable behavior openly.
So, you claim admins to have spoken in bad faith, not good faith. With this new context, can you please elaborate and give evidence?
Also, I did participate briefly in the post-discussion of the Nov 2020 incident. IIRC I said that Magnus and Dexanote should be considered potentially subject to censure, at almost the same time that Magnus quit, and then I discussed the aftermath, including recommending that Dex & Mann could not and should not self-censure. After this, I believe I was absent from these discussions for some time up until a few months ago (ish? post-Harmony).
but this went down in twitter and multiple other servers aswell (and I assume some other locations I'm not even aware of at the moment).
Twitter has been a source of real-world harassment for people, and outright abuse towards staff, sometimes severe. That said, admins were well aware of the discussion on Twitter, and that's where some of my statement of "most of them were purely personal attacks, false statements about occurences, claims of malice with no evidence, or false statements about how policy and/or Disc work" came from.
Please also note that staff could have easily missed some discussion on Twitter. Perhaps staff gravitated towards the abusive shit. IDK! Can you point me to any discussion that doesn't fall under the categories I mentioned above? (I acknowledge I could've VERY easily missed some — I don't really participate excessively in SCP twitterspheres.)
Also, Twitter is literally known for having algorithmic "bubbles" and encouraging a "parrot the leader" mentality.
With this in mind, do you think admins must be held accountable for not seeing the discussions you reference?
As for Discord servers, I don't know which ones you might mean. This could be a failing on my part. However, I lurk a lot of SCP discussion online and I don't know if I agree with the implication that I must be in specific servers to carry out my job as admin, nor would I apply this to anyone else.
Many of the issues which made the disciplinary thread to be as infamous as it is now were either worsened or were formed in the second thread, regarding the IRC breach.
I'm not aware of an IRC breach? I thought this was a Discord breach.
with how Cerastes was accused of hiding something for less than two days, when the admins (iirc) did so for over a month
I saw these accusations, but I have to say, I saw zero merit in them, then and now. Open to hearing otherwise.
blindly following the leader (with the split between opinions held by the initial Disc posts to the posts made by the rest of staff)
Huh. This implies a lack of staff agency to change minds, doesn't it?
having something out for Cerastes (with how the two topics seemed weirdly unrelated, with the only connection being 'cerastes did something wrong')
Is this not standard procedure for disciplinary issues in general? I understand that "demonstration of bad faith" is pretty much based on "look at several things this person did wrong. together, they show a pattern of Bad Shit."
(The issue, obviously, is that both instances were grossly blown out of proportion, were not Bad Shit, and were undeserving of any punishment, and Disc should have seen that. But I'm asking about your impression of this specific point.)
I'm not claiming all of these points are valid or invalid, I'm merely stating this is where they formed.
Well, this thread is very much for claiming that these points are valid or invalid. May I ask that you do so?
I'll preface aswell that I'm enjoying that you're also taking the time to properly respond. Just want to make sure that my lack of prefacing doesn't make it seem like I'm disliking it or anything.
You quoted my post and said that my post came off that way lol. Wouldn't that be… me pulling this trick?
I was referring to the generalized statements, which I assumed to also be speaking for the rest of the admins. As I said in the other response, "if those were meant merely as your interpretations of what happened, then I take back my case here."
You know this to be the case, because you know who has made almost every single post in this thread besides me, and brought almost every accusation.
That's fair. On the other hand, this group of people is also notoriously the most vocal about issues in staff as a whole, so it does make sense that they'd be the ones to most often bring points of contention up.
and saying your opinion is held by essentially ALL of SCPD
I didn't mean to say that, and apologies if it came off that way.
With this new context, can you please elaborate and give evidence?
Certainly. I will concede on how most of these comments were brought forward by the same group of people, and typically came from the exact same source. I will also concede that having only a specific group of people speak up while others who also share said opinion refuse to comment on the matter may end up making said group seem like the only people who take issue with these actions.
Despite that, I feel that dismissing comments made by said group as just "they're the guys who complain all day" is not good faith engagement, since you're preemptively stating you do not want to hear what the other party wants to say. Additionally, even assuming that none of the admins/disc checked SCPD, (which would be false as we had multiple of both teams engage in the chat,) almost all comments brought up there were eventually brought forward to staffchat at some point or another, either due to unrelated discussion or through the channel we created exclusively to discuss SCPD's town hall channel.
Perhaps staff gravitated towards the abusive shit. IDK!
Entirely fair; most of it did end up abusive. I just brought up twitter as an example of another social media platform I knew which discussed the topic extensively.
I'm not aware of an IRC breach? I thought this was a Discord breach.
It was a discord breach? I was sure until now it was an IRC breach. Then again I did read the original thread under the impression that SSSC was an IRC thing, so that may just be due to that.
I saw zero merit in them, then and now.
So: The initial post on [2] states that "Cerastes’ brother was able to access SSSC" and additionally that he "did not volunteer this information on his own, but explained what happened only after being pressed by other users. He knew very early on[.]" It's explicitly stated that "the failure of Cerastes [was] to report that a non-staff person was let into a staff-only chat for several hours." Having other people's private conversations be exposed to strangers "without their knowledge or consent" was an issue.
However, a few things come up aswell. Firstly, that "this event was not made public at the time," since were the issue a breach of trust… wouldn't refusing to alert the rest of staff to a breach also constitute a breach of trust? As stated by CaptKirby: "If this trust is something that is so important that losing it is grounds for demotion, then it feels like we are using a double standard. Upthread, it is cited that staff are meant to be held to a higher standard, and by virtue of that, should our moderators, admins, etc be held to a higher standard than our operational and junior staff?"
Kirby said everything I think about this situation much better than I could, so I recommend just looking through that.
This implies a lack of staff agency to change minds, doesn't it?
Not quite. My point was that while they all had the agency to change their mind (and many of them indeed did), the issue came to be with the total trust that whatever the initial post said was unbiased and fully factual, especially with a case that was as large as that. Many of them just assumed Dex had it all under control, which is understandable of course, but when part of your job is to make sure that no one else dropped the ball you can't quite afford to go "eh, I'm sure someone else made sure of it."
I wasn't saying they were mindless sheep or anything of the sort, I meant that they had a little too much confidence to assume that the initial post was peachy clean.
(I'm assuming this was the situation mostly due to how divided the opinions of disc and non-disc at the start of each thread, which I can only attribute to that sort of "i'm sure it's fine" attitude.)
Is this not standard procedure for disciplinary issues in general?
Not exactly. Most disciplinary threads list stuff that was either considered an issue beforehand, or stuff that's already been made public. For example - let's say user X acts like a dick for the bazillionth time. Their thread would discuss stuff written in their non-disc/disc threads, and other instances which were at the time considered "dick moves." In this case, the issue brought up was both never made public, apparently not even to some disc members ("I [..] was not aware of the event until partway through initial conversation, nor were several other Disciplinary Team members aware"), and even so the instance was considered at the time to not be an issue worth bringing up ("A majority of those present saw it as ‘dealt with’ […]").
Bringing up something that wasn't a problem and seemed to not even be worth bringing up was the point of contention.
You're correct that showing a pattern of Bad Shit is required to demonstrate bad faith, but if the issue wasn't considered Bad enough, why suddenly switch it? Or, better yet, why make a whole thread for it? As with last time, I am beat to the punch by a few months, so I point to UE, Weizhong, and Stormbreath's comments on the issue.
May I ask that you do so?
Sure thing. I do agree with the counts of hypocrisy (towards those who were aware of the breach and didn't bring it to anyone else's attention) and following the leader (with any disc members who assumed the summary was enough). On the count of "having it out for Cerastes…" I dunno, Hanlon's Razor and all. I feel like there may have been some malicious actors involved, but seems that most people just honestly thought they were doing the right call.
Despite that, I feel that dismissing comments made by said group as just "they're the guys who complain all day" is not good faith engagement, since you're preemptively stating you do not want to hear what the other party wants to say.
Sure, but I didn't see that happening, and you weren't talking about this.
Additionally, even assuming that none of the admins/disc checked SCPD, (which would be false as we had multiple of both teams engage in the chat,) almost all comments brought up there were eventually brought forward to staffchat at some point or another, either due to unrelated discussion or through the channel we created exclusively to discuss SCPD's town hall channel.
Agreed, but you weren't talking about this.
Again, all I'm saying here is that admins had a valid, solid reason to (however incorrectly) assume that that specific group didn't represent the wider community or staff — and weren't lying to you about this, or speaking to you in bad faith. Wrong doesn't mean lying.
Firstly, that "this event was not made public at the time," since were the issue a breach of trust… wouldn't refusing to alert the rest of staff to a breach also constitute a breach of trust?
No, not remotely. At the time, it was quite unclear how bad the breach was, or if it could be duplicated, etc. That's just staff being smart about what they bring to the public. I don't agree with this argument — there is no double standard, merely different circumstances.
And then ultimately it wasn't brought up to (ironically) protect Cerastes (I'll explain this in another post, but you can see the advance screening preview in staff chat).
(Also, FYI I think it was also totally unreasonable to expect Cerastes to immediately let people know. At the time, more people disagreed with me.)
All that said, thank you for explaining.
RE: staff agency to change minds — I'm a bit confused on this, but I think I may have misunderstood you and I'm okay letting this one drop.
You're correct that showing a pattern of Bad Shit is required to demonstrate bad faith, but if the issue wasn't considered Bad enough, why suddenly switch it?
I think I've now explained this in staff chat, and the same explanation will be coming to O5 too once I can fact-check it at least a little bit more.
Or, better yet, why make a whole thread for it?
Can you explain why this is a point of confusion? People keep mentioning it, but in a way that feels like… some kind of political talking point? It never comes with an explanation, lol. What's weird about creating a new thread once the first one has spun out of control? It's just a method of trying to "reset" discussion.
As with last time, I am beat to the punch by a few months, so I point to UE, Weizhong, and Stormbreath's comments on the issue.
I'm a bit confused, because while all these posts are very good ones, they do not touch on any of the questions I have and don't support the points you've been bringing up.
As far as I can tell, unless I've gotten lost, this is about the charge that Dexanote approached the Cerastes situation with malice. Your posts have implied this, or at least that staff reasonably believed this. However, the posts you linked don't demonstrate this at all.
Can you clarify why you linked me those posts?
Also, ty for clarifying your POV. The accusation of "following the leader (with any disc members who assumed the summary was enough)" does seem compelling to me, now that I understand what you mean.
Disclaimer: These are my thoughts and position on Disc and the three major incidents that led to the issues raised in the Joint Statement.
At this point, it has become more than evident that Disc was never going to be able to censure Dex nor Mann, whether this comes as a result of internal politics or a failure to perform their due diligence is irrelevant. Regardless of this previous point, censuring both or either of them at this time is not going to resolve any issues held by the community at large.
The primary issue with Disc is their sweeping, broad powers and authority, which lacking accountability, transparency, or oversight by the wider staff body and the general community allows it to function as an extrajudicial wing of Staff, operating beyond the accountability expected of Staff members and their teams. It has been shown that Disc, on two occasions, has abused its own authority; failing to perform due diligence and stifling disciplinary actions upon its own members.
My position on the Cerastes' Incident is rather simple. It should simply never have been allowed to happen. Disc displayed a continuous failure to adequately consider the charges placed before them. This partially emerged from the lack of a second opinion, with the issue of plagiarism being addressed by users unversed in the rigours of plagiarism, and ignoring the most important factor of the Wiki; it is collaborative - users are well within their own right to write around existing concepts and objects.
On the topic of Magnus' failure to receive an adequate punishment, Moose raises the following point in the main site mirror regarding Magnus' reaction to learning that he would receive a censure:
Magnus resigned, demoting himself permanently, which is a much harsher punishment than censure.
Frankly, I disagree, this was not a harsher punishment. He voluntarily chose to resign his authority, freeing himself from the burden of punishment. Staff were left unable to account for his actions because he had already stepped away and excused himself of the issue. This, by any stretch of the definition, would be considered a direct abuse of authority.
In effect, Magnus' resignation runs into the precise issues that Moose raises further in their comment on the main site mirror, namely:
Dex & Mann self-censuring would actually dodge the ability for Disc/Admins to demote them, and would also remove other abilities that staff have (which are under discussion and I or another admin will update ASAP).
This is precisely what Magnus actively did by resigning. This is an abuse of position. Now, should Magnus be dragged back before Disc to be held accountable for this? No, he should not. The issue has since passed and I honestly think that Magnus believed his actions were correct and that therefore the case of plagiarism was accurate in his eyes. However, the consequences of the event continue to be raised to this day, which is why I suggest the alternative approach of reform.
This is just not correct: Disciplinary team has the power to deliver appropriate disciplinary action as per the outline provided by the Charter and/or Disciplinary policy. It does not have the ability to arbitrarily determine whether or not to deliver action.
The argument being made here by users is that Disc has the power and authority to read above and beyond the Charter and/or Disciplinary policy due to its inherent vagueness, thus allowing them to arbitrarily determine whether or not to deliver action. Beyond this, due to the lack of accountability and oversight, it is unknown when, how, or why Disc chooses to respond to an Incident. This was exacerbated by Disc’s continuous delaying of Dex's, Mann's, and at the time, Magnus' censures, something they are perpetuating to this day by choosing to deliberate further on the punishment.
Overall, both the Disciplinary Team and Administration have evidenced that their own internal structures are no longer fit for purpose. Unlike the recent reforms and changes made to AHT, Disciplinary has been a failure. Either reform must occur internally amongst yourselves, which can then be brought before the rest of Staff to be voted upon as with all proposals, or there should be external reform, primarily the creation of a body through which wider transparency, accountability, and oversight over Disciplinary and the Administration can be achieved. Until we solve the divide between Administration/Disciplinary and the rest of Staff, these questions will continue to be raised concerning the conduct and operation of Disciplinary.
Okay, response time (acknowledging we discused a few things beforehand because I was a little confused — I appreciate this! and, believe it or not, that made this message far shorter).
At this point, it has become more than evident that Disc was never going to be able to censure Dex nor Mann, whether this comes as a result of internal politics or a failure to perform their due diligence is irrelevant.
Admins make up a whole lot of Disc. Admins created this thread, with heavy Disc involvement. "Never" is demonstrably not the case!
If you believe I'm wrong, please bring evidence to the table for "never". You say it's evident, despite everything I said before you posted in this thread — evident implies evidence.
Regarding Disc itself, as you likely now know, this is being addressed. Accountability and transparency structures have already been announced publicly, and more will follow.
with the issue of plagiarism being addressed by users unversed in the rigours of plagiarism
That's almost everyone on wiki staff, and at the time it was worse.
Frankly, I disagree, this was not a harsher punishment. He voluntarily chose to resign his authority, freeing himself from the burden of punishment.
I meant that demotion represents a harsher punishment than censure.
I wrote this in response to someone saying self-censure would be considered fine by everyone. This is, as we've discussed, vastly incorrect.
Actually, you and I here agree: We both think self-censure is an abuse of power, because it grants the ability to determine one's own censure length and remove the option for other forms of discipline.
We disagree only in that I think resignation is not and definitionally cannot be an abuse of power.
I will explain, using Magnus as an example, per discussion:
There are only a few possible punishments without breaking a Site Rule that can be enacted by Admins & Disc without using a VoNC. In ascending order of seriousness:
- Censure, which always ends with full restoration of privileges: even under extreme circumstances, Magnus would now be an Admin (unless he got removed for another reason). This is the least serious.
- Demotion: Magnus would lose rank, being demoted to Mod or OS. (I'm unsure anyone ever suggested this.)
- Removal from Staff, which is what Magnus did to himself. If Staff removed him, it would be easier for him to come back. But he removed himself, which caused a lot of chaos. So… well, you do the math.
It literally is impossible, then or now, for Magnus to receive a punishment that could outdo what he did himself…
…Unless you think he should've been banned. Which… well, why would we do that? He didn't violate site rules, and it's circular to say "Magnus should be banned for avoiding censure/demotion/removal… by enacting the harshest forms of these on himself."
And I don't think you want this to have the consequence of a ban anyway. If that's true, what would you suggest?
Also, more below.
Staff were left unable to account for his actions because he had already stepped away and excused himself of the issue. This, by any stretch of the definition, would be considered a direct abuse of authority.
When you say "by any stretch of the definition" for an opinion that you know you are in the minority for, can you please give evidence and a more detailed argument?
I don't personally like Magnus' decision to resign, but: Magnus enacted upon himself (at minimum) the worst punishment that Staff can enact without a Site Rules violation, which is Removal from Staff. How can this be an abuse of authority?
Why does it matter that it wasn't a punishment officially enacted by Staff?
Additionally, how can it be an abuse of authority if literally any staff member can do this and they always have been able to?
How can it be an abuse of authority to have personal boundaries and need to leave an online writing community?
What exactly would you recommend we do to staff who resign without "permission" in such cases?
Do you think they should be forced to stay in a staff position?
How do you propose enforcing this?
Finally, can you give any other evidence or further explanation why resignation is a direct abuse of authority?
The argument being made here by users is that Disc has the power and authority to read above and beyond the Charter and/or Disciplinary policy due to its inherent vagueness, thus allowing them to arbitrarily determine whether or not to deliver action.
How is this the argument being made here? Did you misread, or have I?
something they are perpetuating to this day by choosing to deliberate further on the punishment.
1. Admins are currently handling this process stage, not Disc.
2. Disc & Admins are required to allow time for a discussion thread by the Charter, as well as to prepare statements and post threads. Do you think we have allowed too much time for this discussion thread? If so, can you elaborate?
3. Do you think admins are delaying statements and delaying posting of threads, currently — including by taking extensive time to respond to you? If so, can you elaborate?
Either reform must occur internally amongst yourselves, which can then be brought before the rest of Staff to be voted upon as with all proposals
1. All proposals are not required to be voted on by all staff. Have I misunderstood? If not, can you provide evidence?
2. I know you dislike red tape. Why do you consider this an exception?
3. Since you posted this, Aismallard and Dexanote began the process of enacting transparency and accountability measures for Disc. Do you think this was a mistake, and should have been voted on by all staff? If so, why?
(Going to stop here due to time limitation, but others can respond.)
I'm not gonna respond to most of the stuff, because it's Cyv's argument to make and defend.
It literally is impossible, then or now, for Magnus to receive a punishment that could outdo what he did himself…
I don't personally like Magnus' decision to resign, but: Magnus enacted upon himself (at minimum) the worst punishment that Staff can enact without a Site Rules violation, which is Removal from Staff.
Why does it matter that it wasn't a punishment officially enacted by Staff?
But regarding everything related to Magnus' resignation being a maximal punishment: all of your statements rest on the idea that Resignation == Removal. I don't think that's true. Sure, it results in the same end state (user is no longer on staff) but the connotation and context is inarguably different, so different that I'd say resignation is not always a punishment, if ever.
Resignation — for the purposes of the argument we'll look to controversial resignation rather than "I don't really have time anymore bye" which I doubt anyone has a problem with — can come from two places. One is a generous assumption - user knows what they did was wrong, user wants to own up to it, make things right in their capacity, steps down. Okay, sure, whatever. Other one is less generous — user realizes they fucked up, but the resignation is motivated more by a desire to avoid institutional punishment for that fuck-up. Pretty bad. We can't read minds, but we have complex reasoning capacity to discern which situation is which, I think. Personally, I've stated my reasons for believing Magnus was the latter in the mainsite mirror thread. Anyway - respectively, they have Good and Bad social connotations.
Removal from staff, on the other hand (again, under controversy - not counting someone getting boosted for inactivity), sends an extremely clear and obvious signal: staff disapprove of the actions taken by this user in an official capacity, and has deemed them Unfit For The Job. No ambiguity for this one.
Based on that, you can imagine why I - and I would venture a guess that most people agreeing that Dex should be censured - view Magnus' resignation from staff as not a punishment at all but the lack of a punishment. "The infliction or imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offense" — rather than a penalty, it served to rob staff-in-general of the ability to vote on a just penalty.
The idea that it wasn't a punishment officially enacted by staff set the idea that if someone did abuse their power — not by resignation, but by a plagiarism accusation done without due diligence, without evidence, and with an exceedingly suspiciously-timed follow-up thread — they could resign and have to face no substantial consequences for such an action. It failed to send the initial signal that staff at large agreed the behaviour to be unacceptable. I do not know whether admins+disc would've voted to censure, but not even allowing them the option as, while I do not think an abuse of power, deeply antithetical to the idea of staff accountability. The silence for several months after what was broadly considered to be a total fiasco served to let that idea sink in. And then a statement saying that censure was considered but couldn't be enacted on any of the individuals served to hammer it in over another several months of silence.
All this to say that I agree a self-censure would be out of line. But I'm not going to sit here and pretend that a resignation is equivalent to an official removal even if they result in the same end state — the context of the situation is something that must always be taken into account.
To be clear, Magnus resigning was not a self-punishment. I got sloppy later in my post.
it served to rob staff-in-general of the ability to vote on a just penalty.
You can't rob staff of an ability they never have. And could grant themselves still, but haven't.
they could resign and have to face no substantial consequences for such an action.
Magnus was still subject to a site ban if determined necessary. However, not a single person assessed (at least at the time) that Magnus' actions were worthy of banning.
It failed to send the initial signal that staff at large agreed the behaviour to be unacceptable.
Indeed, but that's because no such mechanism exists for ex-staff. Are you planning to propose one?
I do not know whether admins+disc would've voted to censure, but not even allowing them the option as, while I do not think an abuse of power, deeply antithetical to the idea of staff accountability.
No clue on Disc (though I'm going to find out if I can). Admins would have voted to censure. At the time, Magnus' censure was a certainty, Dex's was a likelihood, and Mann's was uncertain.
I agree with you that it's deeply antithetical to the idea of staff accountability, but there were strong mitigating circumstances in Magnus' personal life which I believe you're well aware of, and more importantly, almost all my argument was "it's not an abuse of power to resign, ever".
The silence for several months after what was broadly considered to be a total fiasco served to let that idea sink in.
I'm not familiar with this total silence. Can you elaborate? It may be relevant to this discussion.
All this to say that I agree a self-censure would be out of line. But I'm not going to sit here and pretend that a resignation is equivalent to an official removal even if they result in the same end state — the context of the situation is something that must always be taken into account.
I'm not asking for that, so it sounds like we're in agreement.
You can't rob staff of an ability they never have.
Are staff not the ones who would've been voting on a potential censure vote against Magnus had he not resigned? Who, then?
Magnus was still subject to a site ban if determined necessary.
Sure, no site rules were broken (debatable, but for the sake of argument…). But that's not what I mean — 'such an action' referring explicitly to when people 'abuse their [staff] power'. So as it stands, you can do something that is an abuse of staff power but breaks no site rules, & resign before facing consequences. Is this a good state of affairs?
Are you planning to propose one?
I don't need to. Disc releasing a statement about the incident that condemned the action would've been more than enough.
I'm not familiar with this total silence.
The incident occurred in November of 2020; Dex's statement on it was in June of 2021, and the Censure statement was like 2 weeks ago. Those are multiple month gaps in which nothing was communicated to the userbase or staff-at-large on the matter.
More questions, answered in a separate post. (Please note I forgot to post this before responding to two people above. Refer here for context.)
Yes, it's hard to deal with, but that's mostly because it's just badly written and badly edited and doesn't correctly link to policy.
Mostly the actual policy is either solid, or already sidestepped with universal staff consensus (such as the absurdly short deadlines). Admins have the power to do this if and only if they are met with essentially universal agreement (again, as with the absurdly short deadlines).
But admins cannot do this for ANY other reason!
Have they? Yes. As far as I know, without malice, but it must change, and it must change now. We are working on rectifying this now.
We are also working on improving the writing and bringing together staff suggestions for change.
Most importantly, the Charter has built-in accountability processes and requirements to do certain things that are there for a reason. Which have not always been followed. Many of the things staff have recently been complaining about can be fixed by following the parts of the Charter that no one had any permission to ignore! Including admins.
"Just doing what staff pressure you to do, and fuck the Charter" is how we got here in the first place.
@Limeyy: (& others)
The obvious answer is to take the path of least resistance instead of adding weeks of bureaucracy and newly invented rules to a process that's already 11 month's overdue.
If admins need to take more than a few days, then I have recommended (along with Dex) that we ask all of staff for permission to sidestep the full charter process and speed things up with specific steps that will be laid out then.
Due to the circumstances, I strongly recommend that admins do not use their power to sidestep the charter process in any other way. That may help with social pressure from (so far!) a few specific staff members, but it risks making serious mistake even worse.
In the interest of speeding up this discussion: I can confirm that Dex intended to apologize again here and believes he owes another apology. I am writing this part of this post (and only this part) because Dex is unavailable presently for personal reasons.
Admins prepared multiple statements; this one, in my opinion, was a bit rushed (though not unduly so). Pretty sure Dex messed up here, thinking he included the apology part when he didn't yet. So while this is embarrassing, I would encourage everyone not to read this as malice.
Also, further apologies & explanations are forthcoming.
Alright, because my brain is small and I am terrible at addressing multiple points at once, forgive me if I missed some critical context or information.
(In the interest of transparency, I have not fully read the Alchemy Department series, but have read Cerastes's 001 in full in its final form on the wiki.)
Here is the four context points at the time that I, a then mostly uninvolved observer, was aware of:
1. Magnus had not published any Great Seal 001 for his canon.
2. Magnus had no public or known draft of his supposed 001 proposal about the Great Seal.
3. No plans for an Alchemy Great Seal 001 was ever made public to my knowledge.
4. Ceraste's 001, when on the wiki, did not contain any direct, involved reference to the Alchemy Department, and the aforementioned Great Seal was not about Alchemy, it is about the Adytum canon.
So I do not know how (assuming Dexanote had discussed it with Disc team beforehand) no one realized plagiarism would've been flat-out impossible as we judge it currently. By creating an entire thread to address it, which was then extended to cover an unrelated issue, it would've been crossing several continuous blind spots at best, and a gross misstep in Disciplinary process by the entire Team at worst.
I care deeply about the policy and implications for the future, and I see the discussion here as productive and elucidating out the issues that have been plaguing us for the past year or so. It wasn't my intent to cede or step away from this discussion, but to a large extent I believe what happened here extends far deeper than just an issue with how disc handled this and comes down to the writing, organization, and presentation of our policies. As Lucio said upthread, and as Moose agreed with, the charter is outdated, poorly written, and poorly organized. Supplementary documentation, policy, guidelines, and precedent are not even linked on the charter page, but are placed on their own "policy guide hub" that is entirely separted and consists explicitly of nothing but a bunch of links.
This is the most nonsensical, inefficient, and unsettling handling of policy organization I've had the misfortune of being exposed to. It's no wonder this issue happened because along with the lack of a proper system to track major projects/policy initiatives/investigations and administrator level tasks and/or the often hamstrung nature of our administration, our core governing document is so poorly written it leads to major misinterpretations, hour long debates, and both staffers and administrators wholesale throwing out or ignoring entire sections of it. This is not good policy, this is not sustainable, and this is not even remotely a good thing for a major governing document to have happen.
This is why when I return from dealing with familial issues, I will be taking a sledgehammer to our policy hubs, condensing policy, and improving our presentation and accessibility so that we avoid further issues like this in the future. The Charter rewrite is in Meat's hands, but I have no qualms of undertaking and executing a complete rework of how and where we present our policy guidelines.
I wasn't part of disc at the time, but I have since apologized for my role in the November 2020 incident. I feel like and have felt like I was responsible for some of the pressure, I have personally apologized to Cerastes several times for my role.
