APPROVED TEXT
The following clause will be added to: Article 5, ¶4: Hearings
If Rangers intend to convene a Hearing, they must do so within ten days of the time that the violation of by-laws comes to their attention. If a thread has been edited or deleted, the date signature of the Ranger will be taken as the date when the violation came to their attention and they will have until midnight GMT ten days later to convene a Hearing if they intend to do so. After that, the member may not be called to a Hearing and no penalty may be imposed.
The following clause will be added to: Article 5, ¶5: Hearings on a Ban
If an Immediate Ban is placed on a member, the member has 91 days in which to request in writing that the ban be reversed in order for a Hearing on the evidence to be held. After that the deleted thread(s) need not be held in storage, and if a Hearing to reverse the ban is requested at a later date, the jury may use whatever criteria it finds appropriate for deciding the duration of the ban.
The following clause will be added to: Article 5, ¶8: Appeals
If a decision or a penalty is to be appealed, the member must appeal within 91 days of the date the Hearing was closed, or before the penalty has expired, whichever comes first. After that time, an appeal will not be allowed.
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Original Post starts here:
This glitch surfaced in the discussion about Thread Deletion.
In Article 5, we state that Hearing threads can be deleted at the request of the member involved. (That's appropriate, imo.)
But Hearings can be appealed, and our paragraph on Appeals states that the Appeals panel must review the original Hearing thread. That would be impossible if the thread had been deleted.
Similarly, for offenses that merit an immediate ban, the troll has to wait 20 days before they can ask for a Hearing to reverse the ban. The Rangers can wait an additional 60 days before holding the Hearing.
Any thread (or post) that provoked a Hearing should be preserved as evidence for the hearing itself, and for any potential appeal.
These are all excellent candidates for Deleted Thread Storage, but what we need to decide is how long they would be held in Deleted Thread Storage before actually being deleted.
That decision is an effective decision about a statute of limitations on Hearings and a time limit for appeals. So it is not a lightweight decision.
Basically, we have to amend Article 5 throughout for these limitations.
Please discuss what time frames you think are appropriate:
1. If a Ranger deletes a post or a thread because it violates the by-laws, how long can they wait before deciding to convene a Hearing?
2. If commercial spam, troll spam, troll porn, etc. are deleted and the user i.d. receives an immediate ban, how far beyond the 90 limit should those threads be held? It is unlikely such users would ever request a hearing to reverse the ban, but if they did, the evidence would be gone once the thread was deleted and presumably the jury would have to lift the ban.
3. How long after the conclusion of a Hearing can a member wait before appealing the decision or the penalty? That, basically, is how long the hearing thread has to be kept.
Jn