In an Ideal world, there would of course be no need for an appeals system. STs would never make rules calls that were inaccurate, unduly harsh, or biased. People wouldn’t cheat, mistakes wouldn’t be made, and when they were, everyone would agree how they should be rectified. Perhaps on occasion, an appeal would be needed due to a legitimate difference in opinion between a player and an ST, but it would be handled quickly, everyone would be respectful, and the Chronicle would move on.
Save the Cam is of the opinion that this is not an ideal world.
In the Real World, the appeals system is needed. And at the moment, it’s aggravating as hell.
Firstly, appeals take forever, often leaving a character’s fate in Limbo for weeks or months on end. Even worse, appeals can take so long to be reviewed that are actually denied on the basis that too much time has passed. Often it is asserted that it would ruin the Continuity of the Chronicle if characters were resurrected or important scenes were retconned. Sure, STs will try to do something to compensate the wronged player, but in the end they were cheated out of their appeal because the ST didn’t get to the appeal in time.
In addition, appeals are rarely investigated thoroughly even if they are dealt with in a timely fashion. Very rarely are all parties involved contacted, leading to the appeal being judged by the persuasiveness of the applicant’s argument (and/or his ability to Bullshit the ST). Upper-level STs have no incentive to dig through the messy situation surrounding an appeal, so they take what information they’ve been given and do the best job they can without opening the nasty can of worms that lies at the heart of every aggrieved player’s complaint. In the end, it’s rare for the ST who made the decision being appealed to even have a chance to defend the decision.
But the appeals system isn’t broken because STs aren’t working hard enough. It’s because the appeals system is over-run with appeals that should never have been made in the first place.
In our litigious modern era, filing an appeal is synonymous with filing a lawsuit against an offending party. Some people pursue lawsuits to stand up for their rights or to seek vindication for real wrongs gone unpunished by the law… And some people sue McDonald’s for making them fat. In the end, no matter how much we might like to hope otherwise, there are people in this organization that use the appeals system as a socially-acceptable way to throw a temper-tantrum. They file them when anything they don’t like happens to them, legitimate or not.
Why do these people choke the appeals process with these frivolous, pointless, selfish appeals?
You know the answer: Because It Costs Them Nothing.
The reason that the US Government isn’t totally and completely overrun with “McDonald’s makes me Fat” lawsuits is that filing a lawsuit costs money. You need a lawyer and the costs, for most people, that cost probably outweigh the benefits. There are tons of people who still file useless lawsuits, but the barrier to entry is high enough to keep the system from being deluged.
In the Cam, however, there are ZERO costs for filing an appeal. Yes, you may have to spend a few minutes writing down what happened, but you don’t have to hire a lawyer, drive to the courthouse, or even fill out any paperwork. All that’s needed is for you to type out your complaint into an email that you send to the appropriate ST. From there, the entire burden of work falls to the already overworked ST staff.
So before we worry about getting STs to report back promptly with fair decisions, we need to reduce the number of “bad” appeals going through the system. If we ease the burden by imposing a cost, it’s possible that the STs might be able to handle all of the appeals more smoothly.
Obviously, we don’t want to cap the number of appeals one player can file or make appeals cost extra money. While both of those solutions would reduce the number of appeals they are too easily abused and/or would cause lots of hurt feelings. What is needed is a system that rewards good appeals and punishes bad ones in a subtle but real way.
Thus, we suggest implementing a second element to the traditional Appeal overturned/upheld ruling: Sanctions.
Every time an appeal is filed, the ST who views the appeal would decide if that appeal deserved sanctions. Rather than just rule on the decision in question, the ST overseeing the appeal would decide if the appeal demonstrated bad behavior on the part of the ST or player. This ends up with 4 possible outcomes:
- Appeal Accepted, No Sanctions = “This appeal has demonstrated that the ST made a legitimate mistake that impacted your character significantly. We are overturning this ruling, but the ST in question did his best and we trust their judgement in the future.”
- Appeal Accepted, Sanctions = “This appeal has demonstrated that the ST made grievous mistakes that disrupted the game. Not only are we overturning the decision, we are recommending the ST in question for a strip of prestige/loss of positions/etc.”
- Appeal Denied, No Sanctions = “Thanks for filing this appeal. We understand that there were some legitimate rules decisions, but they were all within the STs purview. We are upholding his/her decision.”
- Appeal Denied, Sanctions = “This appeal has no basis. The ST in question made his decision based on clearly written guidelines of the Camarilla. In addition, you have been argumentative with the ST staff and provided vague answers to pointed questions. We are upholding the STs decision and recommending you for a strip of prestige.”
Of course, any of these outcomes COULD happen at any time in our current system. STs are well within their rights to discipline players who are disruptive. However, by making the sanctions element a required decision for each ST, we empower them to enforce a cost on bad appeal simply because they are bad appeals!
Talk to your ST staff today. Tell them you want them to punish players who abuse the system and make our STs jobs hard. Tell them you want our STs to focus on plot and approvals and setting, not on answering the complaints of players who won’t let go…
This is pretty straightforward, I like it. However, I’d also like to suggest the following:
If the player appeals to Regional, they must withdraw from Camarilla Games for 30 days.
If the player then appeals to the Arbitration Board, they must withdraw from Camarilla Games for 30 more days.
What do you think?
No, I don’t actually think that is right. I think if you want to have the player withdraw from the venue they are appealing a decision is might be alright, but for the most part I think that is not especially as long as everyone can be civil during the process. Now if the player is distributive and during that time period to the game then the Coordinator needs to make sure that player is not back at those games they are interfering with.
I think unless an ST is cheating, they shouldn’t be sanctioned. Frankly, I think the vast majority of appeals, even when the ST is wrong, should result in the ST being supported. No ST should have to consult books in the heat of a scene, and no player should be allowed contradicting STs. In my entire time in the Cam, I’ve been screwed over hardcore by a few bad ST calls. However, I don’t care. It’s a game. I can make a new character, I can jump back in.
The way the appeals process stands, it is a clear statement that rules mean more than story.
I’m of a like mind. To my thinking, it’s not neccessarily important that an ST’s call is *accurate* when compared to a rulebook, what is important is if an ST is both fair and consistent in his rulings. If an ST is neither *that* is when an appeal should be issued.
David L.
Profile and David,
I understand your point but bad calls need to be cute down, if the story is important then the rules to tell the story are need. Now I am not saying that bad call should be punished but I have seen more bad call for certain ST then others. That is why the appeals process exist, it to make sure that the players are not punished for trying to tell a story and the ST makes a bad call. There needs to be accountability on all fronts of this topic. Backing a bad call is not a way to keep the moral up in the Camarilla that re-enforce that players are not need, but they are and if enough bad calls are made then what happens local the venue could be shut down because players stop coming to the game. Please understand we need balance responsibility on both player and STs, and the appeals process is what holds all to the certain standards.
David T.
I like the idea. Remember St’s are people too. There are St’s out there who show favoritism, cheat for their home players/friends..or what have you. And there are many more st’s that don’t do the above.
However I know of at least one PC that was killed by a fradulent rules call by an ST. And that is one too many, imho.
Further, I like the idea of sanctioning players who make frivoulous appeals.
I do like what I have been told the Canadians are doing with “good death xp” A flat 3 xp for each month the dead character was in the cron
Damon
Beleive it or not, I proposed this idea to my area/region last year. And it was shot down as “Too Harsh, no one should fear losing prestige when filing an appeal and the ST should not worry about prestige loss when ST’ing a scene”.
Bottom line, I HATE D/A’s. I think they solve no one situation. But they prevent a ton of situations…
I am for this idea, but I don’t think the Sanction should be decided by anyone except the Arb Board to keep it as impartial as possible.
I also thought a double blind (ticketing) system would help cut down on Appeals Bias. Filing an appeal as a ticket in a DB system. The player and the ST involved agree on the question at hand word for word (maybe with the help of mediation).
Lance
Yes, this can be circumvented by the player or the ST emailing the Appeals Judge direct. But I hope that kind of ‘good old boys club’ mentality is less so now than it was when I started 10 years ago.
I have been involved in appeals, both as an officer and as an appealing member. Both sides were awful. Why?
1. The club assumes that officers are doing their job well. Why does that make sense? Officers are just as likely to make mistakes as anyone else, and those mistakes are much more visible since they are making a lot more decisions of substance than the average member. Why are they presumed to be infallible? Why is the appealing member wrong until proven right?
2. Timeliness. This has already been touched on in your discussion, but it is a sufficiently important aspect that I believe it deserves a hard and fast rule in order to make the officers handling appeals respect it. If one month since the appeal was filed has passed without a decision being reached, the appeal is upheld in the member’s favor. Anything less and members are victimized due simply to the passage of time.
(I know the response to this: officers are busy too. Having been one for a long time, I know this. I also know that discouraging frivolous appeals will cut down on the total number, to the point where dealing with appeals will be far less time-consuming.)
3. Respect. This is the crux of the issue. A player files an appeal because he feels something was done wrong, and wants it fixed. Yet he is treated with suspicion, he is considered wrong until he proves the officer wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt, and he is forced to wait – often for absurdly long times – with neither action on his appeal nor even bare communication about its status. This is, simply, unacceptable. We require weekly communication from STs running proxies (check the Addendum) – the same should be true of Appeals.
4. Topicality. Finally, appeals of Storyteller decisions MUST be heard by storytellers. The current system fails utterly in that regard, asking non-storytellers to make judgments on issues that are clearly issues that fall under the storyteller side of the house. This is unfair both to them, and to the appealing member. Would the club refer an appeal of an MC denial to a Storyteller? Of course not. This is a ridiculous system that has done a great deal both to disserve members and to cause endless frustration for storytellers when non-STs make a ruling on an appeal that is out of line with standard ST practice.
Yes, I have examples of each of the above. No, I’m not going to share them. I want to focus on positive changes that can be made, and I believe that the above are excellent places to start.
PS,
1. The standard for reversal under our current system is that the decision must be “clearly wrong”. And while this is harsh and sometimes unfortunate, it is the only standard that will work. Any other standard become purely discretionary which only exacerbates some of the most critical problems with Appeals, namely the sheer number of them and the good ol’ boys network. We know that officers are fallible, the appeals system is a recognition of that. This the same standard that applies to the judicial decisions on appeal. Judgments rendered by a judge or jury must be clearly erroneous to be overturned. Any lesser standard invites chaos.
2. This point is never going to happen and its silly to even ask. Automatic appeal grants because of timeliness is silly and dangerous. This is especially true in the fairly lax requirements for notification. All it requires for this is go bad is an intentionally or not mis-labelled email. No, this is simply a terrible idea. While I agree that timeliness is an issue, and has been, in part it comes from the sheer amount of crap that has do be done every time there is an appeal.
3. Yes, every officer should update those making appeals every so often. Weekly isn’t a bad idea.
4. Absolutely, appeals for the ST side should be handled by Storytellers or their appointed representatives. The Arb board looks brilliant on the surface, but i’ve seen a few too many reversals on things that shouldn’t have been reversed.
As to the original idea, Sanctions is absolutely a good idea. Filing frivilous lawsuits in the real world carries a risk of sanctions, this should too.
I’m more ambivalent on the time out thing. Maybe, I can agree, i don’t see it being a universal help.
Harley?
With respect… no.
“Why is the appealing member wrong until proven right?”
Because presumption of innocence is the cornerstone of the western legal system.
Hey Chris?
Why not? When a member request a Formal Hearing, they have to remove themselves from all activities that would bring them into contact with the other party.
I may have overstated things with a simple “one month”. But why shouldn’t the person appealing a decision make the same sacrifice as the aggrieved party that requested the Formal Hearing?
So… if a player gets jobbed on a call, they should give up the ability to play his other characters, while he appeals?
I don’t think that’s something the general membership would support.
Harley – We don’t think people should have to stop playing to file an appeal. Many appeals are very worthwhile, and if our goal is to drive membership and build the club, telling people to stop playing is a good way for them to never come back.
Eric – Well summarized. The Appeals process should only overturn rulings that were “clearly wrong.” We like that part of the system. Well stated. You might make this step’s note AGAIN.
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I challenge this assertion. Take a step back for a moment – why would something you yourself describe as “harsh” and “unfortunate” ever be the best that we could do?
Rather than using a “clearly wrong” standard, I would put it forward that a standard of “reasonable doubt” actually encourages officers to do their level best, rather than simply assuming that unless the members can PROVE that they were clearly wrong, any appeal will be fruitless. This also more closely matches the definition of “a reasonable person” found elsewhere in the MH.
Much of the frustration of the appeals process stems from the assumption that the club simply doesn’t care that its officers might have screwed up. This is the perception that must be overcome, and it can only be overcome through a change in policy that demonstrably alters the fundamental assumptions about officer conduct and the respect due to all members of the club.
Ultimately, this is a question of customer service. The member is the customer. The officer is the representative of the club who provides that service. We must, MUST keep that clearly and firmly in the forefront of our minds when addressing the interaction of those two groups, or any changes we make are doomed to exacerbate the present dissatisfactions with the club that have fueled this entire blog.
Reasonable doubt fails as a standard because of the very foundation on which it is based. We are all well aware of the latitude built into the system for storyteller discretion, sometimes to the point where its hard to tell how some base mechanics work. There is always reasonable doubt and it can always be argued. Further, without the absolute ability to retrieve data the way an electronic MMO can, doubt can always be created. And if you think that rules lawyering is a problem at all, then understand that a reasonable doubt standard will pretty much turn the entire game over to them as the most adept at arguing rules. I say this as someone who’s natural propensity is to rules lawyer anyway. If reasonable doubt is all I have to show, then I can drown any storyteller in a plethora of appeals after each and every game when I think they did something wrong. And the simple truth is that most people in the club don’t meet the reasonable person standard.
This reasonable person standard is actually a legal term, not just a club creation. Its sort of a slang term for a “reasonably prudent person in the same or similar circumstances.” Such a person is an imaginary individual who knows everything the average community individual knows under the circumstances. Now, how many players do we all know that can’t even make their own character sheets work? These are no reasonable people. How many storytellers do we know that don’t know every page of even the basic book? These also fail as reasonable people who are storytellers. However, does that mean that ever little mistake should be guaranteed an appeal with a reasonable doubt chance of being overturned? No, because like a trial, many mistakes will be made that will not in any way affect the outcome of the game. If reasonable doubt is the standard, then these mistakes must be looked at and overturned. But with the clearly wrong standard, these rather human mistakes can be ignored.
The reason is said that it is sometimes unfortunate and harsh is that sometimes characters are lost to honest mistakes, or imperfect calls. And its crappy that it happens. Here the clearly wrong standard is harsh, but the alternative of a lesser standard will produce far more disruptive results.
Further, reasonable doubt doesn’t encourage level best storytelling, it encourages “safe” storytelling. Yes, every storyteller should be able to understand the rules and follow them within their venues. But, reasonably doubt only allows for “by the book” storytelling. Which means no mystery. Anything not explicitly spelled out in cannon material has reasonable doubt in it.
As for customer service. The only person in the club right now who is an actual representative of the White Wolf charged with customer service to the club is the CD. We elect our storytellers, they don’t represent White Wolf, they represent us. If you don’t like your current ST, elect a new one next time. We didn’t all buy a toaster oven that malfunctions and we are unqualified to fix. We are all qualified to fix this club and its chronicle when something goes wrong. We are each responsible for providing our own customer service to a degree.
As it stands currently, most storytellers stand on shifting sands as it is. They bottle up some of their creative talents and story because they are afraid of facing appeals. I’ve seen a storyteller stop a perfectly legitimate PC kill because he was afraid of facing an appeal. Reasonable doubt will make this worse, not better.
Chris, MT –
Okay, what about not playing in the venue in which the call was made, that they are appealing. (I agree that I overstated initially. But it got the ball rolling.)
There are a lot of frivolous appeals – Because It Costs Them Nothing.
If they had to make a sacrifice like this, just like when they request a Formal Hearing against another member (filing a grievance). It would show that they are serious. It is a *cost*. What you are proposing isn’t a cost. It’s a fine.
When a player files a formal hearing request against another player, they can’t go to any events that player may be at. To me this demonstrates that they are *serious* about the issue they are bringing up. I think the same should stand for appeals.
Harley -
“If they had to make a sacrifice like this, just like when they request a Formal Hearing against another member (filing a grievance). It would show that they are serious. It is a *cost*. What you are proposing isn’t a cost. It’s a fine.”
Fair enough. We are imposing a fine.
But remember that not all appeals are for calls resulting in someone’s death. Sometimes they involve smaller issues and we shouldn’t punish players who are making good faith appeals.
Perhaps something along the same lines? Here’s a crazy idea: No XP until the appeal is resolved?
Yeah, for that venue, or that character… Excellent Idea! I like it!
What does everyone else think about that?
To sum, the proposal is:
Any player who enters an appeal cannot earn XP on that character until the appeal is completed.
No, not unless you are welling to back date the Xp for the character if the appeal is granted, or even if it not. Remember you don’t want to punish those that needed the appeal.
I agree with PS.
Another reason why it isn’t prudent to allow removal of play will have to do with Suspensions.
You would have to wait 30 days before your suspension may go and come into play, which in effect, is an additional 30 day suspension.
Quite frankly, the “clearly wrong” thing is bullshit to me, especially when it’s a case of “I didn’t investigate your side of the story except to tell you that you were investigated, so I’m fucking you up the ass with this.”
Especially when officers, including the Club Director, claim that you are told exactly where you were wrong, when you never were told exactly what you done.
Quite frankly before a disciplinary action is taken, an officer should get the disciplinary action approved, showing where they investigated and why, including how much information they talked with the person in particular. Yes it will make the process longer, but it will make the process right.
“Yeah I only told the player that he lied but I didn’t tell him what about, and tried to make him defend himself…”
“Umm… what if he’s telling the truth and he honestly doesn’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, continue the investigation biatch.”
David,
I can understand backlogging the denied XP in the case of the appeal being granted, but why do you think it should be done even if the appeal is denied?
J. Derrick Kapchinsky
US2005075735
For the record, I -dislike- the “clearly wrong” standard.
I’ve used the appeal system myself. I still think we can do better.
I have liked your other ideas, but I think this one is terrible.
All this does is heap more bad news on top of bad for the player that just lost a character to an illegitimate rules call. Now, not only did you lose your character when you shouldn’t have, but you might possibly face sanctions if you decide to make your case about it. This just encourages them to shut up about it, even if they’re in the right.
Further, STs should never be subject to penalties for their decisions unless they were facilitating cheating. We want creative, spontaneous STs, not conservative rules hardliners who are afraid to actually do anything for fear of facing a disciplinary action.
Buser – What is wrong with the clearly wrong standard?
Ben – Why would the player receive sanctions from a legitimate appeal? If he really did lose his character to a bad rules call, then it should be overturned.
As for STs, I would imagine that facilitating cheating would be the number one reason they would receive sanctions. Why would we sanction someone when their call was within the rules?
I think your arguments presuppose that the system will be abused…
I am completely in agreement with Sanctions if it is found that you launched a frivolous appeal. In fact, according to the Membership Handbook;
[i]The reviewing officer may spend up to a month reviewing the appeal and collecting information. The appeals decision should be based on whether the decision was made properly and not whether the reviewing officer would have made the same decision. A reviewing officer may uphold, modify, overturn, or [b]amplify the decision.[/b] Unless the original decision was made improperly, the reviewing officer will likely uphold the original decision.[/i]
Therefore, I would uphold a player whom lost their character, and launched an appeal simply to aggrieve those responsible, or the ST whom ran the scene, without having any proof of a faulty rules call or cheating, should not be allowed to play a character in that Venue for a period of not less than 30 days.
MT – Clearly Wrong
Currently all an officer has is to let the person know he’s being investigated about a charge, and be as vague as he wants to be about the charge “a breach of the CoC” and expect you to go off and explain where you might have breached the CoC. Telling the officer “I do not know of any breach of the CoC, could you explain further” could be considered “lying” because someone else told him about the CoC breach, which he tells you about it only after you get hit with a DA.
Clearly Wrong is more of the DA’s that aren’t Mechanics based, which is basically word against the officers.
J.Derrick- sometimes an appeal of a rule can lead to an FAQ or clarification of how the rule was supposed to be used. Even if the verdict of an appeal is to uphold the ST call at that time, but leads to those action it was a worth while appeal and the player should not be punished for it by having XP denied. IF we are going to suspend the gain of xp during an appeal for the ST there should be a hold on his prestige to make it fair to all parties.
Simon- While I agree that frivolous appeals needs to be cut down, I also think there should be some temperament to those that say the player should be held out of the game for any time frame. One of two things has to happen to keep this fair and not Officer’s word to Member’s word(knowing that some member have higher standing then some officers). Either we allow both parts to continue to play during the appeal process or we remove the ST and Player from the appeals process, and make the AVST run the game will the investigation is under way.
No Deal- Here the problem it the underlying problem of the Cam and the appeals process, one side is treated innocent to prove guilty and the other side is not. So it has come down to word vs word between the player and ST. I think at this point if there is an appeal that both sides need to given the full charges against the other and the ability to write letter to the hearing officers, with witness on both sides. The hearing officer if close enough should try to make a trip and discuss if there is a way to work this out without going to a full process, if not then the Hearing officer needs a list of everyone at the event and contact information and discuss what happened at the event. This was it being looked into. I have heard on Appeals going all the way to National and no one contacting or explain why the ruling was made the way it was to the player. He was told over again over again it had already been explain to him, but it had not and No took responsibility for their actions in this appeals process. We must fix that if we are too have a truly fair and balance game for all of us to play.
David T
No Deal,
You may be telling a personal horror story here. And its terrible if this has actually happened to you. But the Disciplinary action is supposed to be specific not vague. But the appeals process and the DA process are separate. Personally, I think there are some serious abuses going on with personal investigations, and there is a measure of reform that needs to take place here. But we are dealing with the appeals process only. Trumped up DAs are crappy but they aren’t the explicit subject here. Perhaps the appeals process for DAs and ST calls should be different.
looks like the arb board’s been dispanded.
i don’t know if it’s time for a moff tarken quote or a jules verne one.
also, post more.
Contrary to popular image, the arb board is not the great protector of the people when it comes to storytelling. The simple truth is that they are unsuited for reviewing Storyteller actions. And while experience in both chains is a requirement for an arb board posting, they are invariably coordinators, if not in job description, then in temperament. Further, they are a fundamentally coordinator side entity placed in charge of ST duties. The selection process is run through the USNC’s office and an ANC exists within that office as a “handler” for the Board. His or her duties include doing further investigating and regulating the Board’s timeline and pace.
I’ve heard more than a few incidents where the Arb board has really mucked things up for storytellers above and below. And i cannot tell for certain if this is done as flaw of the individual members of the board or of the way the board functions. I do think that a body similar to the arb board would serve a valuable function for disciplinary actions, but when appealing story, they have very simply failed.
Sadly, there is nothing saying you can’t be vauge in your investigations.
I’ve also seen alot of ‘to make the game more like the cannon material’ or ‘more like white wolf intended’ when wirting fiarly large changes that directly contradict the corebook, let alone the sourcebooks.
I just feel like big changes are coming, i hope they’re good.
pharniel,
A Moff Tarken quote? Jules Verne? Please tell us more! Also, with our Domain’s DST election wrapping up today, Save the Cam will be back soon!
1. No shame in pausing or stopping a killbox to check on a rule or mechanic. If the someone isn’t sure how a mechanic works, then the entire killbox needs to STOP until the relevant source material can be consulted. Which brings me to…
2. No appeals at all for a player who didn’t bring copies of the writeups for relevant mechanics (and approval codes) with them for the ST’s reference. Its not that hard to photocopy the relevant pages and paperclip them to the back of your character sheet, or carry everything in a notebook- or printing the relevant pages from a PDF if you get your books that way.
3. Sanction only players who have a history of making a frivolous appeal. If its somebody’s first appeal, give them a warning and an explanation of why the appeal was frivolous. After all, even veteran players can make mistakes if they’re thrust into an unfamiliar situation.
4. Resurrection of dead PCs- why would the time elapsed between the scene and the appeal’s being reviewed be an issue? Saying the character went to ground and hid out is a perfectly valid explanation for why everybody thought he was dead. The only case where I wouldn’t do this is if the player made a main character immediately to replace it, thus filling the character’s “slot” in the venue. If you liked that character so much, why not make a secondary to play and leave the slot open?
No Deal
The following are cut and pasted directly from the handbook under the sections concerned with disciplinary actions
“When opening an investigation, the investigating officer should notify the member being investigated and their his coordinator (and storyteller, if this is a storytelling issue), clearly defining the scope of the investigation. Investigations should be focused on specific issues or incidents and should never turn in to fishing expeditions just to find something the member did incorrectly.”
“Basic Rights
Members being investigated or subject to disciplinary action have several rights that should only be set aside in cases of imminent danger to other members. These rights include the following:
* To know the name of the accuser(s). No disciplinary action may be based on anonymous statements.
* To present a defense on your own behalf.
* To have a written explanation of the cause of the disciplinary action given either before or when it takes effect.
* To have a definite start-end dates and time limit for the duration of the disciplinary action.
* To have time to appeal the disciplinary action to the next-higher officer, if the cause does not include violence or threats.
* To be treated with respect and dignity.
* To return from a disciplinary action to full standing in the Camarilla.”
According to the wording of the handbook, “a CoC violation is too vague. They have to tell you which particular portions of the code you violated. If they fail to tell you this, they they have failed to perform their duties as officers and they have also violated your rights as a member, namely preventing you from mounting a defense.
I’m not saying that abuses don’t happen, I know they do, I’ve seen them. What I’m saying is that there are provisions against it. With the dissolution of the Arb board and the Council taking a hard look at how appeals are handled, now would be a good time to show them how the “clearly wrong” standard can fail when it comes to disciplinary actions and how perhaps reasonable doubt should play a part. It would also be a good time to bring up that violation of rights by an investigation is clearly wrong, that not telling you precisely what you are accused of is clearly wrong.
The appeals system is broken and it needs to be fixed. Different appeals need to be handled differently. One size fits all simply does not work.
Thinking about sanctions, we can always take a page from our federal courts. Translated to the Cam, that means you’d risk sanctions if you do either of the following:
* You make an appeal or give information for an inappropriate purpose, such as delay and harrassment
* Your appeal is not based on an existing rule or a non-frivolous argument for the modification, extension or reversal of an existing rule or a non-frivolous argument for the adoption of a new rule.
Bascially, any time you waste people’s time for no good reason, you should be sanctioned.
Yes but at the same time they can tell you which portions you supposedly broke, without actually telling you what you did.
That’s where the appeal’s process is broken.
I was wondering when step 6 will come out. I am really interested to see the next thing that you feel the Camarilla could work on.
David T.
When’s step 6?
I can’t help but notice that it’s been more than one-and-a-half times as long since step 5 as that was since step 1.
Don’t give up on it.