[DISMISSED 08/12/08] [Civitate] Astaroth (Patron: Ludwig Van Beethoven)

[Justinian]

Patron:Ludwig Van Beethoven
Candidate:Astaroth

Patron's Paragraph
After my first successful attempt in patronizing a member, I have been on the lookout for a second client, and Astaroth caught my eye, after some searching. My initial impressions were formed by his quality of posting, which exceeds that of the average member by far. Other than that, after some searching, I also noticed his well written and helpful strategy guides for the TW games, his AAR's and the historical article about the battle of Crecy convinced me that he was the right person to patronise. He has also recently been appointed a librarian, and has made considerable efforts into putting worthy articles, AAR's and threads in the Scriptorium. The only negative I can think of is a warning he had received, and was discussed in this Tribunal Case. I'd like to point out that Astaroth had realized his mistakes, the whole case was sprung off misunderstandings and a technical misconception. He has shown an interest and commitment to the site during his stay here, and is very active, on about 8 posts a day. In short, I believe this member would make a worthy citizen.

Candidate's Paragraph
A citizen is someone who has contributed to this amazing site. Someone, who has helped others and has done his part in improving this place. A citizen has to uphold the principles of this site, has to play by the rules and shall be a symbol for what TWC represents. He should be a guide, you could even say a role model for others, no matter if he has contributed as a modder, debater, content writer or in any different way. Citizens should always be ready to give other members the aid they need, they should be kind and polite. Beyond that, they have the right and duty to take part in governing this website by voting on Curial bills.
In conclusion, a member who reaches this rank certainly has special privileges such as being able to post in the CVRIA, however obviously lots of additional duties and obligations come along with them.

I have done what I could to support this site, to improve it and help the community. First of all, as a Content Writer I have written several strategy guides for the Scriptorium. Those guides are supposed to help people with playing different RTW and BI factions. So far, I have written about The Brutii, The Seleucids, Carthage, The Alemanni and The Saxons. I love helping out the Total War fans like that and will surely continue with writing these guides.

In addition, I have recently become a Librarian. A Librarian helps collecting articles from all over TWC and stores them in the Scriptorium. So far, I have already submitted and posted quite a few articles, such as this Broken Crescent AAR, this AAR about the Turksthis amazing but incredibly long one which had to be divided into 5 parts. Moreover, I've added some historical articles and updated several wiki entries about the Scriptorium and its members along with doing my best to keep everything up to date.

Furthermore, I have contributed as a debater in the D&D forums. I've opened several topics and wrote small essays there about all kinds of issues. Examples would be these topics about Nudity, minority rights , children rights in the EMM, a review for the book Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel in the arts subforum or an article about The Battle of Crécy which I wrote for the VV some time ago. In the political subforums I have discussed peacefully about all kinds of different issues and did my best to argue politely and in a fair way. As examples I could use those posts about the Happy Hour ban and China.

Therefore, I think I have done my best to contribute in all kinds of different forums, ranging from helping out in the TW section to debating in the D&D. I would love to become a citizen in order to be able to participate in the CVRIA and to get even more opportunities to support this great site further.

[GrnEyedDvl]

Boy do I remember that one.

Per the new clause in the Constitution, he cannot be Patronized:

To qualify for Citizen, a member must have at least fifty posts, been a registered member for two months, and have no warnings. If a member has been warned, the member must have gone six consecutive months without a further warning.

To be eligible, he has to go 6 months from the time he received his 2 point warning. He received this one on August 31, 2008.

[Pontifex Maximus]

That is correct.

he received on from LoZz, but that was reversed, and he received a two pointer on August 31. It has since expired, but that doesn't matter per the new clause.

[Justinian]

I already knew about that and gave him the okay -- both Garb and EvM have said the same thing.

To be eligible, he has to go 6 months from the time he received his 2 point warning. He received this one on August 31, 2008.

Yes, and Amendment XXI was enacted on November 10th. No Constitutional Amendment is retroactive -- it should only count for those who were warned on or after November 10th.

I definitely should have posted this in the first post, it slipped my mind.

[GrnEyedDvl]

The term "retroactive" is being used VERY loosely here. If someone wanted that amendment to be read the way you are reading it, they should have mentioned it in the debate. As the bills author, I can absolutely state what the intent was.

There are most definitely other bills that are "retroactive", such as when the 3 months service for various awards were added. They didnt start counting that 3 months from the date the bill passed. If retroactive as used to assign new punishments then I would agree with you, such as a new ToS clause that would earn someone an infraction for something they posted before the clause. On a procedural issue its a different story.

Various others that are "retroactive":
Tribunes cannot be moderators
At the time HL was a Magistrate, he wasnt grandfathered in.

Curator reform:
This one basically prevented Ferrets from becoming Curator until the next term. Same spirit as the one we are currently talking about.

CdeC Service Medal:
If we applied the same rules to this, not one person would be eligible until 6 months after it passed. The gold medal would be 18 months. I seriously doubt this is the intent. The same thing applies to the Divus award. That was created WELL after Archer was running things, but he was still eligible. Using your logic, only members who served after the creation of the medal should be eligible. We cant have anything retroactive.


Others such as moving the Wiki all had "retroactive" effects on who was running that body at the time.

At NO time did anyone mention anything of the sort here. In fact you might say this particular person is one of the reasons I wrote it, because several people who were on the CdeC at the time had basically promised Oceanus something.

Furthermore with this particular person, I can and will post PMs and other material that I have if I need to. Including some rather distasteful material from members (current and former) of this body. Included in this will be the PMs calling me an ass hole for putting the bill forward.

[Justinian]

Of course some bills apply retroactively, like those amendments. Yet most of them state that they are retroactive, I believe the interpretation is more that if an amendment makes a change to a current system and it does not state that it applies retroactively, it doesn't. Medals are different from punishments -- you shouldn't punish someone for something they did before a system was in place, but you should reward them for performing a positive thing when no recognition existed for that. Or, as I said in the CdeC medal, "These medals shall be awarded to all those who qualify, past and present."

It isn't really fair, and no matter how unsuited he may be to the role of Citizen, I think he should pass or fail on his own merit and not on something he did before the bill was proposed, much less passed. I agree with the bill, but not it applying retroactively, because that's something we've never done -- punishing people based on criteria we changed. You can't compare retroactive medals and retroactive punishment.

Here's his PM to me:

Hello.

Since you are the new Curator, I guess it would be appropriate to ask you about this!

Recently, the CVRIA has passed a change in the Constitution. A user who wants to apply for citizenship now musn't have received any warnings in the last 6 months (previously: 3 months).

However, several well-respected and high-ranked members of these forums here told me that no changes on the forums, no rule changes nor constitution changes should be retroactive:


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This is a part of a PM I sent to Garb a few weeks ago and his response (I hope it is OK to show it to you but it wasn't anything of big importance so it should be):

(...)

I also have a different question: is the constitution change for citizenship (6 months without a warning) retroactive? I mean, would it not be fair if it applied to warnings which one recieved after the change only?

Thoughts?

No act in the constitution should be retroactive.

A few weeks prior to this event, a new rule was added about not giving users with 3 points access to social groups. While the rule itself is no no importance here, EvM talked about retroactive rules there (bolded the important part):

In general I'm opposed to retroactive punishments. This is one of those rare situations where technical restraints outweigh ideological considerations in importance. Fortunately, the number of members this retroactively applies to should be minimal; only those members who have earned 3 or more infraction points in the last 3 months will be impacted, and only a fraction of those members will have their permissions restricted for the full 3 months (assuming, of course, that they don't earn any further infractions).

I quoted this to make it clear that retroactive 'punishment' or retroactively affecting certain users generally is not allowed and was only done in the specific case of that rule change because of technical difficulties.


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EvM and Garb agree that no rule - nor constitution changes should be retroactive. Therefore, I was under the impression that this recent '6 months without warnings' - change should not be retroactive, either. I personally think that it should only apply to users who got their last warning after that rule change. From what I can tell, that would be only fair and just.

What do you think about this? Technically, it would easily be possible: every moderator can check when a user got his warning and if that was after the somethingth of November, when the change was introduced, that change will apply to him.
Logically, it would make sense as I explained above.

I'm mainly asking this as my warning expired recently and I had got it before the rule change (around 3 months ago). I also have a patron wanting to patronize me, however I am not sure whether I can apply for citizenship. According to the old rules which *should* apply to me, I could. However, according to the new ones I couldn't.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance

So I PMed him back saying I agreed with that. That was my interpretation, but I should have posted here first asking about that, shouldn't I have?

What do we do about this?

[GrnEyedDvl]

Its simple. I forward my PMs to the CoM and he gets a new infraction lol

Actually I wouldnt do that, but I can promise that some people would. His tone in the Tribunal on this issue should be enough to disqualify him from Citizenship. If that isnt enough for the rest of you, then I have no doubt the PMs I received on this issue will be. Every single one of his comments in the Tribunal were about manipulating the patronization process, as shown by this PM:

Why is that? This means a lot to me because of that stupid 6 month rule which was recently added. Furtheremore, I consider my request only fair and logical (according to the ToS).

Because if you thought you had a case, you should have filed it when you received the note. btw you know I authored that 6 month rule right?? lol

The best advice I can give you is to file it and see what everyone else on the Tribunal thinks. I will recuse.

I will not post his reply specifically because I do NOT want anyone to receive a note for a conversation with a Tribune. In fact I edited quite a bit out of this one.


The simple fact is he tried to manipulate a Tribune (me) via PM, lied about which case he was talking about (said we had never ruled on it when we had) and then went on a rampage when I disagreed with him. Later when he posted publicly in the Tribunal I found out he was talking about a note we had already ruled on. His initial PM on the matter made it sound like a note that we had not seen before. His note and my reply, unedited:

Hello.

As you have lots of experience with those matters, I have a question for you. I had a note for off-topic posting and got a warning for the same offense afterwards. The note was reversed and thus is worth nothing. Do you think an appeal based on that, aimed at having the off-topic warning turned into an off-topic note would make sense?

After all, the ToS says that a first offense, which my rulebreaking is no, will be punished by a note and not an infraction.
Also, do you consider a picture of the harlequin syndrome as "obscene content" or "off-topic"?

I'm looking forward to your response.

Cheers.

I cant answer either of those questions. I havent seen the posts, and even if I had I cant offer a ruling before the appeal is actually filed. It just wouldnt be right. If you think you have a case, then my best advice is to file the appeal.

As you can see, his initial PM says for the same "offense" which I took to mean the same post. This is 2 out of probably 50 or so PMs he sent before he filed his appeal.

Garb and I are going to have to have a serious conversation about this though, and the example about Curator/CdeC members still applies. That rule was passed and then several people were denied the ability to run.

[Justinian]

I'm not sure what the process on this is, then. Do we those in favor of dismissing his Civitate app post, and those who aren't in favor post? Do we do a poll? It seems clear cut he should be denied, I just don't see how.

[GrnEyedDvl]

The best thing would have been for him to be outright rejected under the Constitution, but as that has not happened I am not sure where to go either.

Options:
Process the request as normal, pass or fail.

CdeC rejects the request, this would put us at odds with Hex on the interpretation of the Constitution. To do this we would have to vote on whether the clause applies to infractions received before the amendment. This would apply to every application, not just this one.

Other options?

[Justinian]

It seems like the best option to me to process this case and then clarify somewhere public that in further cases the bill will apply retroactively?

[GrnEyedDvl]

Probably, but since it is not specified in the bill we should at least get other CdeC members thoughts on it first. I certainly intended it to be that way, but since it isnt written that way we should probably make that decision as a body.

I guess if the CdeC votes that it doesnt apply to notes received before whatever the date is then that is the way it is.

[Justinian]

Agreed.

[GrnEyedDvl]

Might as well start a new thread on the issue then.

[removeduser_426582376423734]

If he is eligible, this is a yes.

If he is not eligible, this is a yes.

[GrnEyedDvl]

If he is eligible, this is a yes.

If he is not eligible, this is a yes.

I guess I dont understand what you mean. You vote that he earns the rank no matter what?

[removeduser_426582376423734]

You are correct, sah.

[gigagaia]

Oh god, Shyam, you know that this is the same person who harassed every administrator and tribunal judge incessantly to get a warning overturned which as upheld by the tribunal months ago?

How is this citizen material?

[GrnEyedDvl]

He probably doesnt know that.

[Justinian]

I didn't before, for example.