[Citizen Referral] Ishan [FURTHER ACTION]

[Diamat]

I have received this PM from a citizen:

I am referring Ishan for manipulating and invalidating the voting process for the Abolish CdeC amendment. Ishan abused his moderation powers to encourage a select group of citizens to swing the vote in his favor as well as disparage those who voted against the amendment. Ishan's acts are unbecoming of citizens, particularly his disdain for his fellow citizens and lack of respect for the ToS. The following links provide screenshots taken from Shambhala, where Ishan used his influence to garner additional votes.

Curator's Note: Warning, images may contain bad language.
http://postimg.org/image/ezzt2uhib/
http://postimg.org/image/3md9rn6zn/
http://postimg.org/image/gt2pr62oz/

[Aikanár]

Oh Speerbruder

I'm looking forward to his defence.

Also, if the vote was rigged, isn't the vote unconstitutional as a result of the rigging? What about that? I mean, what to do? We cannot singlehandedly void it by ourselves. Shouldn't we inform the curia and have a vote of the curia about whether or not it accepts a rigged vote? Or should we just have a revote? Or should we do nothing? Or should we just inform the Curia and see what our fellow citizens would make of that?

I mean, honestly, seeing this we cannot keep this private. Of course we can keep the referral private if Ishan so chooses, but the fact that the vote was rigged we cannot keep private, don't you think?

What are the non-voting members thinking of this? Omni, Squid, Stealth, pann? What do you suggest?

[Diamat]

Defense Requested.

[Aikanár]

Hm, without referring to the moral dimension (which is immense according to my opinion) of what he did, these are the parts of the TWCC he directly acted against:

General staff (staff members outside the Hexagon Council) are given certain rights and duties on TWC beyond normal members. They currently fall into three categories: Moderation, Content, and Technical. Only Citizens may become moderators. General Staff have no rights in the Curia beyond other members of the site.

Any Citizen may table a bill for discussion by posting a thread in the Prothalamos. This citizen will remain the sole proposer for this thread. Bills can take two forms:

•Amendments - A proposal to alter the text of the Constitution. Amendments can alter or remove existing text and add entirely new text.
•Decisions - A proposal for the creation of an official Decision of the Curia on any topic relevant to the functioning of TWC. Such a Decision is not binding, but the Curator should ensure (to the best of his ability) that the Hexagon Council promptly either implements the Decision, or gives an official reason for not having implemented all or part of it.

Each version of the bill requires at least three citizens to post in the bill's Prothalamos thread, indicating their support. The final draft of the bill must be debated for at least three days in the Prothalamos before the proposer can request the bill be moved to vote. When a bill is moved to vote, the debate thread is left open, and the Curator shall post the newest draft of the bill, and a link to the debate, as a new poll in the Curia Votes forum. All bills shall be voted on for one week. Subsequent posts in this thread are limited to notification of having voted. Messages lobbying to vote for or against, including via signatures and avatars are prohibited; however, posts lobbying to vote for or against are allowed in the original debate thread and in the Curial Commentary Thread. All bills shall pass on the basis of a two-thirds majority of non abstaining votes in favour. If any bill fails a vote, no re-vote on a substantially similar bill will be permitted within twenty-eight days.

Where a Decision requires the Curia to choose between multiple options, two polls shall be run concurrently. The first poll shall be as a normal decision, the second poll shall outline the various options to choose from if the decision passes. Whichever option receives the plurality of votes shall be implemented, but only if the Decision also passes in the usual manner. Both polls shall run for one week.

Citizens may not view the results of Curia Votes (unless necessary for the execution of any other duty to the site) until the vote procedure is concluded. To ensure that results of a concluded vote are easily visible, the poll options on all Curia legislation shall be exactly 'Yes', 'No', and 'Abstain'.

I've bolded the relevant sections for reading convenience.

[Leonidas The Lion]

We definitely need Hex input here.

[Squid]

There are two pieces here, one what punishment is warranted and what to do about the bill.

1. Of the three sections only the second one was actually violated and then only maybe.
   
   1. He had no rights beyond given to citizens in the Curia, at least that he had control over
   2. While he broke this rule, clearly, there one fact to keep in mind it was done off-site and as a general rule we don't care what's done off-site. In this case I think that should be overlooked, but it should be kept in mind
   3. That section is particularly poorly written due to technical limitations of vb, every moderator that votes in a poll or views a thread in which there is a poll they've voted on sees the results, regardless of whether they want to or not
   
   
2. The bill
   
   • This I think is actually the more difficult bit to deal with. Given the scope of the changes many of them cannot be undone without more work that I or likely any other member of hex is willing to go through
   • Numerous additional changes have been proposed and passed based on that bill, how would those bills be dealt with
   • A number of members have gained citizenship under the new system, how are they dealt with
   • If we were just after the bill had passed I'd say redo it, but we're more than 2 months past that point now, and I know people will say it's self-serving since I proposed the bill, but it should be left as is
   
   

I will also point that from the screens it its clear that there were multiple people involved in this, others who are also citizens, and should be looked at for citizen referrals. I also think it highly suspect that the screens are as tight as they are and figure it is to protect those others who are involved.

[Diamat]

1. The bill
   
   • This I think is actually the more difficult bit to deal with. Given the scope of the changes many of them cannot be undone without more work that I or likely any other member of hex is willing to go through
   • Numerous additional changes have been proposed and passed based on that bill, how would those bills be dealt with
   • A number of members have gained citizenship under the new system, how are they dealt with
   • If we were just after the bill had passed I'd say redo it, but we're more than 2 months past that point now, and I know people will say it's self-serving since I proposed the bill, but it should be left as is
   
   

I agree that it would be quite tedious to unwind everything, especially for Hex and myself. None of this is ideal. What if we add an addendum to a revote, according to which all new citizens will stay citizens no matter what and only those bills would become void which had something to do with the CdeC cleanup?

I honestly don't know how to best approach this. Fact is, during the legislative process, an unconstitutional act was committed. How we deal with that fact is a whole different matter. The constitution itself says nothing about what to do. A revote could restore the confidence and integrity of the Curia. A revote could also be a huge mess. It's especially because this bill is such a major bill that any path we take will be seen as extreme.

[Hader]

I'll point out that the 3rd image shows the votes at 41-20-3, and the vote ended as 58-26-4. And also that Ishan stated he did asked people to come vote as they preferred, and not necessarily for what he wanted.

I'll say personally that I think it would be a waste of time and effort to do anything going back and nulling the CdeC removal vote, we've already moved past it and the world didn't explode, I think we can manage just fine.

[Diamat]

And also that Ishan stated he did asked people to come vote as they preferred, and not necessarily for what he wanted.

Not in the 1st picture.

Ishan: "Those of you are citizens should vote yes"
Ishan: "Look at those idiots voting no"
Ishan: "We need to pass this"

[Aikanár]

I suggest we should split the discussion about the bill and what to do to another thread. There's really a lot to think about and discuss about that. Especially concerning the possible implications.

[Aikanár]

There are two pieces here, one what punishment is warranted and what to do about the bill.

1. Of the three sections only the second one was actually violated and then only maybe.
   
   1. He had no rights beyond given to citizens in the Curia, at least that he had control over
   2. While he broke this rule, clearly, there one fact to keep in mind it was done off-site and as a general rule we don't care what's done off-site. In this case I think that should be overlooked, but it should be kept in mind
   3. That section is particularly poorly written due to technical limitations of vb, every moderator that votes in a poll or views a thread in which there is a poll they've voted on sees the results, regardless of whether they want to or not
   
   
2. The bill
   
   • This I think is actually the more difficult bit to deal with. Given the scope of the changes many of them cannot be undone without more work that I or likely any other member of hex is willing to go through
   • Numerous additional changes have been proposed and passed based on that bill, how would those bills be dealt with
   • A number of members have gained citizenship under the new system, how are they dealt with
   • If we were just after the bill had passed I'd say redo it, but we're more than 2 months past that point now, and I know people will say it's self-serving since I proposed the bill, but it should be left as is
   
   

I will also point that from the screens it its clear that there were multiple people involved in this, others who are also citizens, and should be looked at for citizen referrals. I also think it highly suspect that the screens are as tight as they are and figure it is to protect those others who are involved.

While I agree with your assessment with regards to the bill and with regards to the nature of the screenshots, I guess I've to comment on the sctions of the Const that I've bolded in order to explain my reasoning for how the accused has broken that.

- "General Staff have no rights in the Curia beyond other members of the site."
I thought he would've been only a Moderator while he took the screens, but I checked the date and he was also Genius' CA at that point in time, so yes, this is practically void. If he would've not been a CA but Moderator only, he would've only been able to check the results because of his moderation access rights, which should not exist in the Curia according to the document. However, I fully understand that out of technical feasabilities, excluding the Curia from global moderation access rights wouldn't be feasible or possible or both.
Hence I agree with you.

- "Messages lobbying to vote for or against, including via signatures and avatars are prohibited"
I agree with you with regards to the above.

- "Citizens may not view the results of Curia Votes (unless necessary for the execution of any other duty to the site) until the vote procedure is concluded."
Yes, he could not circumvent seeing the results. But that was not was I was actually referring to, but he made other Citizens see the results, who otherwise would have never had the opportunity to see the results of that ongoging vote.

[Squid]

He didn't make anybody see the results anymore than he had a choice about seeing results by clicking on the thread, he didn't force them to view the thread after all.

At least one other citizen in those screen shots was specifically asking to see the results, yet I don't see that citizen up for referral . . .

[Aikanár]

Alright, that's one way to look at it. On the other hand, if he wouldn't have had it posted, the opportunity would've never existed in the first place.


With regards to the asking citizen, "Members of the Citizen's Triumvirate must neither post nor vote in their own disciplinary cases." could be interpreted as being accused or being the accuser in both cases it would be their own disciplinary case. Hence I'd prefer somebody without voting powers to initiate said referral.

[Leonidas The Lion]

Go on Squid, pull the trigger.

[Diamat]

Ishan sent me the following PM (not a defense):

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to let me know.

At your service
Diamat

Yes i do have a concern. I think you need to recuse yourself from this, since as a judge i can't trust your neutrality here. So i request you to go find me a new judge by consulting with hex and let it anonymous. If you can't do that, then i request this be postponed until someone else takes your place as curator who is not one of the people voting no in those screenshots.

And please don't use that ridiculous font again, it's hard to read.

[Leonidas The Lion]

So I assume he wants me to recuse myself also since I voted No on the amendment?

[Diamat]

Quite frankly, I find it ridiculous. What we are judging here isn't if we were for or against the abolishing of CdeC; rather, we are judging his conduct as a citizen of Total War Center. That is all I care about.

[Aikanár]

His request has no foundation in the TWCC, if this is his only defence, I'm disappointed.

[Diamat]

Ishan's Defense:

[Squid]

So I assume he wants me to recuse myself also since I voted No on the amendment?

Actually I read that as he's asking Diamat to recuse himself since he's replying to Diamat's PM.