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@keithprosser
How would you address the concern that this would turn every ban into a drawn-out drama circus?Anyone who complains about a ban (or about a non-ban) gets banned.
Don't understand how this addresses my question.
DART Jury Trial System Signups: DART v. RationalMadman
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@Logical-Master
If you accept just any volunteer for juror I think you'd be leaning closer toward mob rule. How would you ensure that responsible people are selected for the jury?
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@Castin
We don't need to speculate about what would and wouldn't happen with a structured trial, Castin. Not when we can simply conduct an experiment and make conclusions afterwards. I happen to disagree that the trial of some no-name user nobody cares about would "stir up" drama, but there's only one objective way to find out. At which point if the idea ends up being a disaster, we can all agree it forum-trials suck and move on!I can think of several members whose bans didn't stir up much drama. But had they been put on trial, their bans absolutely would have stirred up drama. It's a question of degree. While bans already can cause drama, it's drama about a decision that's already been made and is final. There's a whole other world of drama when the outcome is still up in the air, as in a trial.
If you accept just any volunteer for juror I think you'd be leaning closer toward mob rule. How would you ensure that responsible people are selected for the jury
As I said in my OP, the prosecution and defense will ultimately have to agree on who is/isn't part of the jury. The first thing I would do after getting enough volunteers is to have the prosecutor and defense attorney engage in the real world process known as Voir Dire. They would ultimately determine who was in the jury by process of elimination. Should this process get implemented on an official level, we can go even further with jury selection techniques. Comparing jury trials is mob rule is akin to comparing moderators to dictators IMO. It's an absolute extreme of what can happen without the proper precautions taken on the front end.
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@Castin
You could have a mod review all the jurors' votes and just remove any they don't like.If you accept just any volunteer for juror I think you'd be leaning closer toward mob rule. How would you ensure that responsible people are selected for the jury?
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@DrChristineFord
If you accept just any volunteer for juror I think you'd be leaning closer toward mob rule. How would you ensure that responsible people are selected for the jury?You could have a mod review all the jurors' votes and just remove any they don't like.
Oh my God can you imagine the shitstorms.
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@Logical-Master
Okay. I hope you get enough people.
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@Castin
Also how to address the problems that the court systems are a drawn out drama. We should just let elected officials inprison who they want according to their views of the law
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@Logical-Master
We don't need to speculate about what would and wouldn't happen with a structured trial, Castin. Not when we can simply conduct an experiment and make conclusions afterwards. I happen to disagree that the trial of some no-name user nobody cares about would "stir up" drama, but there's only one objective way to find out. At which point if the idea ends up being a disaster, we can all agree it forum-trials suck and move on!
I appreciate that, but as trials are a non-starter, we can only discuss them hypothetically. So I'm talking about them with you in the only way that's really possible, as I see it. The only alternative is to not hear you out at all.
As I said in my OP, the prosecution and defense will ultimately have to agree on who is/isn't part of the jury. The first thing I would do after getting enough volunteers is to have the prosecutor and defense attorney engage in the real world process known as Voir Dire. They would ultimately determine who was in the jury by process of elimination. Should this process get implemented on an official level, we can go even further with jury selection techniques. Comparing jury trials is mob rule is akin to comparing moderators to dictators IMO. It's an absolute extreme of what can happen without the proper precautions taken on the front end.
I'm willing to entertain that may be a fair point.
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@Castin
Arguments invalidated by your awful judgment in new profile pic.Recommend this thread now be a trial of Resurge's profile pic.
*sigh*
Why are people so uncultured nowadays?
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@ResurgetExFavilla
Bring back laughing woman with gun. That pic was, like, my spirit animal.
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@Castin
Once I was a Master Shitposter in the service of Lord Wylted, chief architect of the great final DDO Empire, and the greatest troll of his time. I could not match the genius of Lord Wylted, but what he could envision, I and the Plastics could build. All of that is gone forever. I still retain my cunning, but my hands and eyes fail me, and my memories have long faded. My only consolation is each day to mock the mods who destroyed my race, and condemned me to this bleak existence.
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@Castin
I don't like RM, but I would listen to his case
There is much to be said for the merits of trials. Trials are public displays of the "process" of "due process" being applied to the merits of a particular case, in a public forum that is both transparent and based on objective standards.
There are two glaring problems: substantive, and procedural. They are of equal importance. Without hard and fast terms as to each, you're not holding a trial. Rather, you're holding a kangaroo court.
Substance. The substantive problems begin with our shared uncertainty -- assuming we're all humble enough to know what we don't know -- as to what "rule" was actually violated. The Terms of Use, or whatever they're called here, aren't really "a proscription of law" so much as a "set of generalities" that make almost no reference to specifically forbidden conduct. This matters because we abhor ex post facto rules/laws/etc., which is to say, we do not write the rules that apply to a particular case after the fact. There are some countries in the world that do that, but no country in the West does. Given who we are, it would be inconsistent with any notion of fairness to come up with a standard after any member has already done something seemingly objectionable, and then put them on trial for violating the standard we only came up with after the fact. Given that now (and, by implication, after the fact of the occurrence) we would have no choice *but* to do that, a trial for anything that's already happened would be out of the question.
Procedure. The procedural problems begin with what I would hope would be an almost universal recognition that there is no established procedure for what constitutes a fair trial in the context of, say, a site like DDO or DA. In the US, for example, we have an adversarial system where a prosecutor has the sole burden of proof, the defense has no burden, and a judge "calls balls and strikes" as the procession unfolds. A jury of an appropriate number of people typically decide such matters. There is a formalized structure for who can talk (attorneys and witnesses), who can't talk (the public), what can be said (rules of evidence ensure that unfairly prejudicial material can't be used to corrupt the process), who can decide (a neutral jury free of bises, and personal or other conflicts of interest) and the like. In a criminal context, a trial follows a lengthy investigation that, too, is governed by all kinds of rules and procedures.
Here, or anywhere on the internet, I don't know how we could ever have anything approximating a "fair" procedure for "an accused" (that is, even if we weren't writing ex post facto rules). To keep it simple, let's start with trying to set up something like an adversarial scheme of prosecutor and defense. Who is in a fair position to prosecute? Who is in a fair position to defend? Almost no one, because any prosecutor is likely to have a personal relationship with the accused. This is less a concern with the defense, but the point remains. Now, what about the jury? Who will be neutral *enough* that any decision they rendered wouldn't at the very least appear to be blighted by personal biases? Given the small userbase and the fact that most everyone is at least familiar with most everyone else, there doesn't seem to be enough people to support such a process with any legitimacy.
There's something else to chew on, too, which is the "rules of evidence". Now, laying aside the fact that we don't have any rules of evidence, let's just begin from the basic premise that there are some evidentiary items that are not fair to introduce. One example of such items would be those which are inflammatory, whether relevant or irrelevant. Here, where you have a user that has a noted history of conflict which goes well beyond the specific 'charge' on which he would be tried, would it be fair to present a "jury" with something approaching a 'parade of horribles' as to the character of the accused? No, it would not, because we don't punish people for their character in fair legal systems; we only punish them for specific violations of law. Even assuming we had such a set of rules in place to prevent that kind of abuse, most jurors would be independently aware of those facts that shouldn't have been admitted into evidence anyway. What's to stop them from making a decision on that basis?
This brings us to a final procedural element, which would regard sentencing. The "and should be banned" language I have a real problem with, because I have no idea what it means. Banned from the site, forever? Banned for 24 hours? Banned for 5 minutes? Banned only as to this account but may create another? Totally vague, and ambiguous. But, even that notwithstanding, what juries primarily do (there are exceptions, like in death penalty cases, which raise their own issues beyond the scope of my point here) is "find facts" and announce a verdict. Juries generally don't sentence offenders, unless we're deciding whether the state should murder someone. Community decided sanctions lend themselves to all kinds of problems, especially given that we've got no way to keep unfairly prejudicial material out of the process.
This is only like... the most basic set of concerns, discussed on an incredibly superficial level. Given this, though, it's certainly enough for any reasonable person to reach the conclusion that, if these concerns are applied to the specific case of whatever RM did to deserve this most recent ban, there is no way to even begin to set about trying him fairly. Does this mean that mods are a better alternative? No... of course not, but that's of peripheral concern to me.
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@Castin
@coal
@Castin
I appreciate that, but as trials are a non-starter, we can only discuss them hypothetically. So I'm talking about them with you in the only way that's really possible, as I see it. The only alternative is to not hear you out at all.
I'm more interested in seeing how they work than speculating. Admittedly, I don't know one way or another what ramifications a structured trial would work nor does anybody. If you don't want to hear me out at all, that's your prerogative, but you'll forgive me if I think the words "trials are a non-starter" is a pretty solid indicator of you not wanting to hear me out at all. Now if you are interested in hearing me out and just have some legit concerns about the effects a mere experiment would have, that's different and I'm happy to address them!
@Coal
Does this mean that mods are a better alternative? No... of course not, but that's of peripheral concern to me.
How is it peripheral though? Every point you've raised about the flaws in attempting to conduct a fair trial on a website, we could equally apply to relying on moderators to govern said site in the first place. Governing where substance and procedure is . . . . damn near nonexistent. And that's okay I guess since it's just a random message board, but the point is that we're not using real world metrics to operate no matter how you look at it. Every single procedural safeguard you've mentioned is the result of hundreds of years of jurisprudence and a necessary restraint on our government's ability to deny its citizens their life and liberty. Whereas here, we're merely talking some dude's ability to kick another off a message board he doesn't even have the right to use in the first place. As such, I think we can safely disregard the real-world differences in this process and focus on the idea alone which is to permit users to have the opportunity to have their cases heard by their peers.
Not that the idea alone is without its flaws. Although I never expect a message-board trial system to even begin approach the procedural safeguards we have in real-life (safeguards which, in the criminal system at least, are statistically meaningless for those don't have money---but I digress), I think an experiment at least offers the opportunity to flesh and address some of these flaws. If we ever got past the experiment stage, we could probably work on crafting a streamlined DART rules of evidence/ procedure!
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@Logical-Master
> we're merely talking some dude's ability to kick another off a message board he doesn't even have the right to use in the first place.
You don't really want a trial. You want to vote someone off the island. I'm glad we've made that distinction.
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@coal
You got me. I wasn't satisfied with the mods hogging all the fun of kicking RM off the island, so I want to go through the lengthy process of doing it myself. Brilliant .
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@Logical-Master
>You got me. I wasn't satisfied with the mods hogging all the fun of kicking RM off the island, so I want to go through the lengthy process of doing it myself. Brilliant .
So either there is a process, or there isn't.
If there's going to be a process, it has to have legitimacy.
To have legitimacy, the process can't be arbitrary.
The process must be arbitrary, if you're making it up as you go along or coming up with rules after the fact.
Yet, here, you're coming up with rules after the fact and making up the process as you go along.
So, the process is necessarily arbitrary, whatever it is.
In that the process is arbitrary, it can't have legitimacy.
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@Logical-Master
You misunderstand. By "trials are a non-starter", I mean they are against the rules and an experiment will not be allowed. Seeing how they work is not an option. The only option is discussion of hypotheticals.I appreciate that, but as trials are a non-starter, we can only discuss them hypothetically. So I'm talking about them with you in the only way that's really possible, as I see it. The only alternative is to not hear you out at all.I'm more interested in seeing how they work than speculating. Admittedly, I don't know one way or another what ramifications a structured trial would work nor does anybody. If you don't want to hear me out at all, that's your prerogative, but you'll forgive me if I think the words "trials are a non-starter" is a pretty solid indicator of you not wanting to hear me out at all. Now if you are interested in hearing me out and just have some legit concerns about the effects a mere experiment would have, that's different and I'm happy to address them!
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@ResurgetExFavilla
Oh ho, trying to win back my favor with a Morrowind reference, eh? Well joke's on you, this only won you back 9.9 of the 10 points you lost with me. I bet you're so embarrassed now.Once I was a Master Shitposter in the service of Lord Wylted, chief architect of the great final DDO Empire, and the greatest troll of his time. I could not match the genius of Lord Wylted, but what he could envision, I and the Plastics could build. All of that is gone forever. I still retain my cunning, but my hands and eyes fail me, and my memories have long faded. My only consolation is each day to mock the mods who destroyed my race, and condemned me to this bleak existence.
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@Vader
Groovy. Stay cool Dudz.I don't like RM, but I would listen to his case
Was this in response to anything I said in particular?
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@coal
The process must be arbitrary, if you're making it up as you go along or coming up with rules after the fact.
Well yeah, it's an experiment. A proposed experiment which would have no binding/effect on any decision here whatsoever. An experiment is premised on seeing what works what doesn't. If the whole thing didn't turn out to be a walking disaster and was something people were interested in seeing implemented, that would then be the time to discuss and fine-tune a specific set of rules.
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@Logical-Master
Gee, how about "if someone is being a jerk they get banned. End of."
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@Castin
You misunderstand. By "trials are a non-starter", I mean they are against the rules and an experiment will not be allowed. Seeing how they work is not an option. The only option is discussion of hypotheticals.
Per my exchange with bsh1 earlier, the issue appeared to be more about mod discretion and perception of what offense was more serious when I alluded to multiple drama-garden threads open/unmodded ATM. But I digress.
In regards to your earlier point, I'd say that if a thread celebrating RM's ban produced an acceptable level of drama, I don't see the harm with a neutral trial thread. Up-in-air distinction doesn't appear to matter since RM's post-ban has generated continuous drama. Come to think of it, I don't even see the harm with drama . . . outside of the need for it to be housed in a separate sub-forum (sandbox/soapbox forum with a more relaxed ruleset). Right now, these RM threads are just cluttering this section imo.
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@Logical-Master
If the mods deleted those threads there would be new outcries of mod oppression, I expect. But yeah I share your opinion of them.
If a trial thread was merely "a neutral thread", with neutrality being its only quality, I expect the mods wouldn't be so dead set against it. And drama's not inherently bad, no -- it depends on the quality, quantity, and degree of that drama.
I'm not trying to rain on your parade or anything. If the mods were okay with it, I would be willing to watch your experiment, though my position going into it would be that I do not believe in trials.
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@Logical-Master
What if the subject of the trial started the trial thread? Then it couldn't be interpreted as a call out thread. Obviously, it wouldn't work as a general rule, but just for the experiment.
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@Wylted
Stupid with no life is not any way to live.
The mods violate the COC. The mods allow multiple accounts. The mods are moding by emotion. The members are responding in kind. It's the most mature debate site on the internet. Good job.
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@Logical-Master
Actually, I think the trial is a really good idea. For reasons of experimentation and argument, as you've explained.
There are two dangers that I can see:
1. Threatening the authority of the mods.
2. Exposing/bullying the subject of the trial.
For example, in real life, trials can be really traumatic for people, I believe. So, that's why a volunteer would be good for the experiment. I'm curious to see how it plays out. You say you're thinking about safeguards to strengthen the trial system and I think we all want to see how they work.
About the mods. Your arguments are good so far, and theirs are weak to non-existent. I think that, on a debate site, they should argue their positions rather than just get stubborn. As such, we have no reason to respect their position, and I think it's okay to try and work around them.
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@DrChristineFord
Sorry sock puppet. Your input is unimportant. Now log on as mod and say it.
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@Polytheist-Witch
Yes, I wish my account had a different name now. But I'm not a mod! Perish the thought.