Hey, first off apologies for this being so last minute. I thought about this real hard, then forgot about it completely and was only reminded of it a few hours ago, oops. Not intended to “sandbag” or what have you. (if I'm even using this term right)
Okay, so I hesitated greatly before writing this post, hence it coming in the final hours of the final day of the review.
I'm certain it's not going to change the minds of anyone, so why bother?
But as an admin I ultimately have a responsibility to voice my disagreement with the consensus here so here I am.
Something I think is important to note publicly and for the record for contextual purposes, which AHT and admins are already aware of is that I disagreed (and still do) with the majority consensus re: the removal of DrBleep.
I'll avoid talking about the specifics of the case (evidence involved, parties involved and the like), the specifics of AHT cases are sensitive and for good reason. However, I will be speaking on the decision making process that led to DrBleep's removal from staff and this fiat, as this fiat is directly tied into the case to the point where I can't really vocalize my issues with the fiat without broaching that context.
Another important bit of context is that I am in a sense responsible for this fiat, or at least the idea behind it (at least I believe I am).
I'm going to put the detailed contextual information that I think is relevant in the collapsible, since it's less relevant for those admins familiar with the case (vast majority of present admins) unless y'all want to see me yap about my perspective of events.
To start with I'm going to give a broad overview of how the case was discussed/decided upon.
Note: I was until recently a member of AHT, and was a member during the proceedings.
To begin with, the recipient of the AHT report that led to this case started a discord group chat, and added all active members of AHT aside from the accused. Standard procedure when an AHT report is received regarding a member of AHT.
The evidence was ported to the thread, and the case was discussed. During the discussion various actions were proposed and discussed, with the majority of active members deciding on removal from staff.
After this majority decision was determined, a DIscord group dm was made for admins (a necessity since in the staff discord all admins can see private threads). Admins who were also members of AHT relayed the existence of the case and the determination made by AHT.
At this point things felt to me a bit all over the place since we had to relay messages between the group threads and it was, I think, unclear what role AHT intended/imagined admins to hold in the decisionmaking process.
I'm a bit fuzzy on the order of events after this and I don't have the group chats to refer to (my own fault, I chose to leave them after I figured the case was concluded) so my apologies if my timeline is a bit off.
But I think this is around the time AHT received permission to share the evidence with admins, and did so, while at more or less the same time we began discussing in earnest *how* the removal would take place. Which is where this fiat comes in, which I'll discuss in more detail in a moment.
After this the details were worked out, we ended up creating a temporary Discord server to combine the discussion, the details were worked out and the action was implemented.
Those closing details are less important. The rest of this I recount to clarify that ultimately the decision for this fiat was made after the initial decision to remove DrBleep from staff.
To go into a bit more detail: After the decision to remove DrBleep by AHT, and the porting of the recommendation to admins is when (to my recollection) the discussion began regarding if AHT had the abilityto just remove admins. Obviously AHT has the ability to ban users, any user really, for violating the harassment policy, but this wasn't quite that as it was decided that the only actual punitive action taking place would be a warn, and that that would have been the only action had DrBleep been non-staff.
Regarding the fiat
Initially it was articulated by Mann that he did not believe AHT had the ability to remove admins, nor that they should have this ability, citing concerns regarding AHT having too much power and/or being perceived as having too much power. (I would be remiss not to mention that at least one member did later articulate the belief that AHT in fact already held this ability)
As such during the case we (admins and AHT, but I think mostly admins) began looking at regular Demotions procedures and how that would work in this instance. I think it's fair to say I was initially the main mover on the discussion regarding the charter/Demotions. A major issue we had with normal Demotions proceedings was that given the case originated in AHT we couldn't really publicly give the details of the case, which would make an open discussion on O5 impossible. Another was that a normal Demotion procedure of an admin would involve votes from both admins and the Disciplinary Team. We couldn't very well have Disciplinary vote while uninformed of the case specifics, and we felt it would be improper to seek permission from the reporter to let yet another group of people know the details of the case.
The solution to both of these as initially discussed was to write up a fiat wherein for the duration of the case AHT would replace Disc in the regular demotions procedure, and discussions regarding the case would be held privately while votes would be public.
Another bump was that per the charter DrBleep would have a chance to speak in their defense in the O5 demotions thread, but would not be able to effectively do so without revealing details about the case. There was some discussion of having a private thread within staffcord where DrBleep, admins and AHT would be able to hear and discuss DrBleep's defense.
In the end it is evident from the specifics of the actual fiat and the lack of a Demotions thread that we did not end up doing things in this manner.
If I understood correctly a large part of the reasoning there was to save DrBleep the embarrassment/stress of the public nature of the thread and of essentially being ganged up on by AHT and admins in a private thread.
An early suggestion to mitigate this was to simply give DrBleep the option of resigning from staff to save themselves the ordeal, but ultimately we went with this instead.
And to a point I do think it would have been futile for DrBleep to make a defense, I don't imagine anyone would have changed their minds. Though I'd be remiss not to point out that DrBleep has stated they'd have preferred the aforementioned method to the method we ended up going with, which I feel is at least somewhat relevant given the (at least partially) compassionate reasoning for not going through with that method.
But I do think they should have been allowed a defense, if they were inclined to make one. The fact one was not allowed for feels to me against the spirit of the charter's rules regarding Demotion.
One could argue in most, if not every, case using demotions as a tool to remove folks from staff that hashing things out quietly and not allowing for a defense by the accused would be sparing them unnecessary distress. I honestly wouldn't be able to fault that logic because in reality if things get so far as requiring a Demotion thread for someone, the consequences have been decided by the people forming the demotions thread before it has been posted, which are Disc and admins. Many times in the past I've seen the accused choose to leave staff after the Demotions thread was posted, rather than wait for the action to be publically decided upon, for this or similar reasons. There are of course occasions where recommendations have not translated to action being taken, but I think it's fair to say those are in the minority.
And to me that minority is reason enough to keep doing the public threads (there is of course also the public accountability and transparency stuff but that's besides the point I'm making). There's always a chance for someone to change their mind, no matter how small. That's worth the potential discomfort caused, I think. Even if people think it'd be nigh impossible to make a cogent defense, we should still let the accused make one.
So, firstly:
- I dissent this fiat on the grounds that the process enabled by this fiat should have allowed for a defense to be made by the accused, in a manner similar to that laid out in the charter for Demotions.
Secondly:
Something I broach above in this post is that ultimately the discussion and decision-making was not just by AHT, it was AHT and admins that made this call. As such the phrasing in the fiat “allow AHT to remove an individual from staff, without banning them” is not representative of reality in this instance. This would be more acceptable to me if this fiat were intended to be a basis for future cases of this sort, however as the description ends with “allows the Anti Harassment Team to do so in this instance.” the fiat is understood by me as an attempt to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive, of this case. Due to its failing in that department I also believe this fiat is not a solid foundation for future cases in this vein or clarifying policies regarding AHT powers. As such
- I dissent this fiat’s wording on the grounds that it is not an accurate description of actions taken or powers exercised.
Thirdly:
I have several objections to this fiat due to the ill-considered knock-on effects of granting this power to AHT. For AHT, Disc, the Discord Team cases don’t truly end after action is taken, because an appeal can (almost) always be made. In this case it is precisely the appeals process that concerns me.
If AHT or Disc enacts action against a user than it is my belief that they should always have the ability to reverse the action. Seems only logical to me.
So, if AHT has the ability to remove an admin, do they have the power to reinstate an admin upon a successful appeal? Should they?
When a staff member is removed, as opposed to them choosing to retire, they are automatically considered to be in bad standing, and require an admin review to be readded to staff.
As such I’d say that AHT does not have the sole ability to reverse the action this fiat allows. This fits with my opinion that the decision regarding the case was not made by AHT alone, despite what this fiat asserts, but by AHT and admins in tandem. Yet it is also my understanding that AHT are the ones to receive and discuss appeals relating to this case. It seems to me there’s some contradictions there.
as such:
- I dissent this fiat on the ground that the power granted does not create a sane policy regarding appeals of this case.
Suggestions:
Ultimately I will not suggest that this fiat gets reversed in such a way as to automatically re-add DrBleep to staff. That would be preposterous. While this fiat defines and allows the method by which DrBleep was removed, it could have just as well been another way, DrBleep would have been removed all the same, because there was a desire to do so by admins and AHT, due to the evidence provided for the AHT case. There’d be no point in reversing that aspect of this fiat.
However, the fiat as currently written is insufficient in terms of explaining what actions were taken, explaining why this procedure was decided upon and ill-considered on the subject of appeals. This is understandable as this fiat was written in relatively short order, however we no longer have time pressure for writing up a fiat and discussing policy regarding this case, and so I wholeheartedly believe we should endeavor to consider this a temporary draft of sorts and build off of it for a better fiat.
As such my suggested actions:
- Grant the power to remove an admin in this instance to AHT and admins as a combined body rather than solely AHT, so as to be better in line with the charter.
- To the extent possible, while respecting the necessary aspects of the AHT blackbox, create a write-up suitable for the public of the decision-making process regarding the removal and methodology of removal of DrBleep. (essentially what I put under my contextual collapsible but mutually agreed upon, more accurate and better organized) Something that could serve as a guide for future incidents of this nature.
- Require appeals in this particular case to be determined by the combined body of AHT and admins, or solely admins, to better be in line with the accepted practice of “admin review” of former staff members in bad standing.
