Public Investigation - People vs. Shaitan

[Shaitan]

Danke, there is no Code of Standards definition for Spot Votes. It is all handled in the Code of Laws in the Council Votes section. Your previous statement (and all of the others quoted in the second post of this thread) could only have applied to this.

"Others did it too" is not my defense. "Everybody did it too" is my statement to support that the law is incorrect as recorded and not what we actually intended, approved and have been using for two demogames. This was an accident of editing and the populous at large agrees with me.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

Taking off my Chief Justice hat, let me add my personal opinions, which include a couple of questions.

To the charges:

Charge #1 - Dismissed As Chief Justice, I concurred with the Judge Advocate's opinion that we didn't have legal ground to charge the President.

However, I am greatly concerned with the President's own quote in defense (post 2, this thread) here:

My hope was that having the chats at 0’dark thirty in the morning would force people to discuss the issues on the Forums.

This quote also confirms the thought that chats were held at this inconveinent times as a measure DESIGNED to limit chat participation, and that is clearly a violation of the spirit of all of our laws designed to enhance participation. I would prefer to see that practice stop and never be considered again.

The entire context of that quote though is a good defense of the President's tactics intended to increase game participation in the forums, and I concur with the need for that. Thus I agreed with dismissal of charge #1.


Charge #2 - I agree that the CoL indicates the need for quorum on Spot Council Votes. I also know that we have a long history of ignoring the need for that law, and I agree that we need to fix it.

I would vote not-guilty on this one, simply because I cannot personally ignore the history here of not following this law. The DP has a significant amount to worry about, and if we are going to convict him of something, we need to ensure that it is a clear violation.

Which brings me to...

Charge #3 - I personally feel that Shaitan may be guilty of this charge. I ask for responses to these concerns and questions from the PD and Shaitan.

First, while I sympathize with the fact that you were handed this problem in effect because it had not been previously explored, I also note that the low participation you mention as a defense is not quite so clear cut as you portray.

The thread was opened in the middle of the server time out errors that plaqued us. It was impossible to post during that week for many people. Those who did post, were running at about a 60/40 split of Army / Rush the GL. I think you were saved from immediate PI on that topic due to the extreme fortune we encountered when Monty stupidly continued to build and complete the GL even as our Swords were mopping up his cities.

Yes, you inherited a problem, and yes there was marginal participation in the discussion board (for valid reasons in my opinion). However, you had a reasonably attainable solution in hand. That being stop the chat and return to the forums (those same forums that you hold up as your objective to increase participation in).

I feel that in the context of other issues we have stopped the chat for, this one stands out as singularly biggest chat runaway DP action in the history of our demo games. I do welcome your responses to this matter, but at this point, I would vote guilty on charge 3.

Charge 4 - I feel the President did not violate this law, and I would vote YES for dismissal should the Judge Advocate agree.

 

[Shaitan]

@Bill - I've already explained my legal defense on #3 so there's not much more I can offer there. Forum outages and low participation are specifically noted as reasons for a Leader to make decisions on their own. I don't know how much more cut and dried this could be.

Given that my actions were legal and proper I was in no means required to stop the chat to put the issue back to the forums where it had previously languished. Although that assured me that I was acting legally, my determination to press on was primarily due to the many short chats that had preceded my taking office. It was (and is) a strong belief of mine that the lack of in-game progress was a large reason behind the growing dissatisfaction in the game and low participation in the Forums. The leader was obtained in the first turn of the chat and I believe that another cut-short chat would be detrimental to the demogame as a whole.

I would also like to note that there were 5 people at the chat and not a single person thought it necessary to stop the chat at that point. Two of these were Leaders, one was a Department Leader who specifically agreed with my decision.

 

[Danke]

Originally posted by Shaitan
Danke, there is no Code of Standards definition for Spot Votes. It is all handled in the Code of Laws in the Council Votes section. Your previous statement (and all of the others quoted in the second post of this thread) could only have applied to this.

"Others did it too" is not my defense. "Everybody did it too" is my statement to support that the law is incorrect as recorded and not what we actually intended, approved and have been using for two demogames. This was an accident of editing and the populous at large agrees with me.

I was referring to the CoS section that allows the DP to use a 'cabinet vote (Spot Council Vote)' in lieu of a Citizen spot vote.

My only point here, and honestly, others may disagree, is that my judicial opinion (in my quote) was that Shaitan's actions did *not* fall under the quorum restriction of a Council Vote (because I believe that a Council Vote occurs in the forums, and a Spot Council Vote is an entirely different animal, and occurs in chat).

That being said, Shaitan *believed* that they *did* fall under the quorum restriction, yet instead of trying to remedy a poorly defined piece of law, he used precedent to justify his actions. I am not impressed with a defense that says "Yes, I did knowingly violate a law because I think that it was meant to be written differently."

If I were asked whether the quorum applied, my judicial opinion would be no.

If I were asked that, if they did apply, did Shaitan break that law, then my answer is yes. And Shaitan believed the law applied, and we had no judicial review to say it did not.

 

[Danke]

Originally posted by Bill_in_PDX
Charge 4 - I feel the President did not violate this law, and I would vote YES for dismissal should the Judge Advocate agree.

I agree with the Chief Justice. Assuming no more compelling evidence is presented, then at the 48 hour mark I would assume this is dropped. Sooner, if Veela agrees to drop the charge.

Danke
Judge Advocate

 

[Shaitan]

Originally posted by Danke
That being said, Shaitan *believed* that they *did* fall under the quorum restriction, yet instead of trying to remedy a poorly defined piece of law, he used precedent to justify his actions. I am not impressed with a defense that says "Yes, I did knowingly violate a law because I think that it was meant to be written differently."

NO! NO! NO!

That is exactly what I am NOT saying. I did not believe there was a quorum restriction on spot votes. Neither did anybody else because there was never one nor was there ever supposed to be one!

Until Veera pointed out the mistake in the books everybody was working on the assumption that the books were correct and did not show a quorum requirement for spot votes. Fresh eyes caught the error in the books.

 

[disorganizer]

i second shaitan. i request a judical review of the appropriate law discussions of demogame1.
the chat spot votes were directly referred to somewhere there and we agreed on NOT using quorum there, as we would NEVER have reached it.

 

[Brian Mor]

Well, I do think the Pres should schedule the chats at rotating times to be fair to players in all time zones. making it 4am ET always eleiminates most players ability to participate in the U.S. 4am ET is 3am CT, 2am MT and 1am PT.

food for thought

 

[Danke]

Originally posted by Shaitan

NO! NO! NO!

That is exactly what I am NOT saying. I did not believe there was a quorum restriction on spot votes. Neither did anybody else because there was never one nor was there ever supposed to be one!

I love it when your eyes bulge out like that.


Okay, Attention Everyone:

I know it's my job to put on the best prosecution I can, blah, blah. etc. However, in this case, even I didn't think he was in the wrong. No one seems to think so, and everyone seems to agree that this is just a case of 'fix the typo'. So let's do just that.

Rather than have me continue to mount increasingly specious arguments, I vote we call it a day on this charge. The CJ has already voiced his personal opinions, and no one seems inclined to pursue it, least of all me. I'm tired of acrobatic acts of jurisprudence, and instead, make a plea for common sense, rare as that seems to be lately.

Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?

Danke
Judge Advocate

 

[Stuck_as_a_Mac]

Right now, Im just interested in closing loopholes and perhaps filing charge #3

 

[Veera Anlai]

I'll be just fine as long as it is admitted that while his actions may have been legally right, they certainly were not ethically correct.

And getting a few dozen loopholes and 'typos' fixed would help.

 

[disorganizer]

I would suppose as settlement to this PI, we force shaitan to make a proposal on how to close those loopholes and help with closing them?

 

[Strider]

I'll be suitly happy if Shaitan starts letting the will of the people be found... That was the only reason why I was pushing for a trial. Not to kick him out to office, but to keep him from repeating the process. Fixing the loopholes I hope will clear this problem up.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

Chief Justice Opinion

I would agree with dismissing Charge #2 as well.

By my count then, Charge #3 is on the table, and i would like to hear others opinions on that specific count.

Bill
Chief Justice

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

Note to Public Defender

We need your confirmation posted here that you agree with dismissal of Charges #1, 2, and 4.

 

[Veera Anlai]

As a side note, the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution has been successfully used to prosecute criminals in the U.S. judicial system ;-)

Check this website if you don't believe me...
http://www.conlaw.org/cites2.htm

 

[Strider]

Originally posted by Veera Anlai
As a side note, the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution has been successfully used to prosecute criminals in the U.S. judicial system ;-)

Check this website if you don't believe me...
http://www.conlaw.org/cites2.htm

I'll have to agree with Veera on this.... It is in the constitution. Thus it is a rule.

 

[gonzo_for_civ]

I'll say 3 is baseless. Mainly for shaitan's reasons above. And as long as the preamble to the constitution is so open to different interpretations I don't think a valid case could be formed against shaitan using it.

Let's close loopholes and try to improve, rather then destroy.

 

[naervod]

I believe counts 1,2, and 4 should be dismissed.
Also, I don't even think charge 3 should be filed because Shaitan didn't intend for the forum errors to happen when he was posting the discussion. I believe that if the forum had been fine, then Shaitan still would've posted the discussion.

 

[Shaitan]

The discussion was indeed posted, on my first day in office.