[Citizen Referral] Ishan [FURTHER ACTION]

[Diamat]

Ishan's Defense:

[Aikanár]

That was sent to Ishan yesterday.

After deliberating your request with the Triumvirate, it has been unanimously denied.

We will be awaiting your formal defense.

Since that renders everything else you've said moot I won't respond to the rest.

How did that happen? Where have Leo or me said that we would agree to a unilateral statement such as this?

[Diamat]

How did that happen? Where have Leo or me said that we would agree to a unilateral statement such as this?

I asked each judge what they thought of Ishan's request to have the judges replaced. Each of you responded in the negative, hence unanimously. I'm confused what the issue is here.

[Aikanár]

According to the constitution, any material provided by the accused has to be taken into account. Therefore and since I want to know from Ishan, why he did what he did and because I want to understnad why. I've shot him the following PM titled "Not a defense request":

Hi Ishan,

let me explain first why I write this pm to you. I want to learn why you did what you did with the vote. I want to understand you. I feel it is necessary for me to understand your motivation for doing this, before I can go on with this case.

When I look at the three screenshots, I recongnise that you said:

"Those of you who are citizens should vote yes since passing this proposal is very necessary for me personally. Lot of good citizens are quite emotional about this and might leave if it failsand it would be disastrous."

I know that Omni tied his citizenship to it. And I know that whatever you did before that, you always acted for the benefit of TWC, at leastthat's how I know you.

Ishan, would you please explain to me the reasons behind doing that, in order that I can understand it and can use it in the referral. Regardless whether or not I might agree with you. Regardless whether or not how your reasoning may influence my judgement. I need your reasoning to understand you. And to judge your behaviour. I need to know your motives.

Regards,
Aikanár

PS: Speerbruder

[Aikanár]

I said that there would not be any constitutional ground for his request. I've not addressed anything else.

Leo asked a question.

We did not however altogether agree on a joint statement. Don't get me wrong Diamat, I don't want blow this out of proportion. I would just prefer if somebody of us makes an official statement for all three of us, as you did, that we discuss this first and agree about that beforehand.

Don't get me wrong, it is the decision of a member of he Triumvirate whether or not one recuses. Everybody can suggest things, such as, but it's the specific member's decision.

[Diamat]

Well, nobody here gave any hint that they in any way agreed with Ishan's request. I had to respond to him. I apologize if the word "unanimously" strikes anyone as incorrect, but since no one objected to continuing with this referral as is, I felt the term appropriate. Sure, if any of you wish to excuse yourselves from this case and follow Ishan's request, be my guest. If not, then my evaluation was indeed correct.

[Aikanár]

Diamat, I'm not attacking you. I just would appreciate it, if we talk such things through beforehand, we're all equal here, Leo, you and me and HEX (without votes ), hence I'd appreciate it, if we would work as a team, equal and that implies to me that official conversation is to be made public to all of us.

We're just starting to work in this new institution, we all have to figure out how to run it.

[Diamat]

I'm just so used to doing all the communication between the defendants (there are so many of them right now!) and the Triumvirate that I thought I was the appropriate person to speak on behalf of the Triumvirate. I see now that I may have overstepped it a bit. But if any of you agree with Ishan's request, please do let me know. I'll gladly apologize to him if that's the case.

[Aikanár]

Yes, you are our spokesman and exactly the right person to send and receive such pms. In general I trust you. It's only that in order to prevent such misunderstandings that joint statements are better discussed beforehand, agreed upon and then posted or pmed by the spokesman.

With regards to Ishan's request. I stand by what I've said, I see no constitutional backup for his request. Are there other reasons that could back his request up? A moral backup maybe? I don't know of that. That is something you have to answer to yourself and if you feel that you are not compromised then by all means you should not recuse from the case.

However you decide, it is you're decision.

That being said, I would have worded it something like "We have discussed your request. I have deliberated what was said and have arrived at the decision not to recuse myself from the case because of the following reasons:
- reason A
- reason B
- &c."

Well, that's what I suggest.

[Diamat]

Agreed. We should probably start working on a Triumvirate Guide, so that future judges won't make the same mistakes.

[Aikanár]

Here's my Convo with Ishan:

Hi Ishan,

let me explain first why I write this pm to you. I want to learn why you did what you did with the vote. I want to understand you. I feel it is necessary for me to understand your motivation for doing this, before I can go on with this case.

When I look at the three screenshots, I recongnise that you said:

"Those of you who are citizens should vote yes since passing this proposal is very necessary for me personally. Lot of good citizens are quite emotional about this and might leave if it failsand it would be disastrous."

I know that Omni tied his citizenship to it. And I know that whatever you did before that, you always acted for the benefit of TWC, at leastthat's how I know you.

Ishan, would you please explain to me the reasons behind doing that, in order that I can understand it and can use it in the referral. Regardless whether or not I might agree with you. Regardless whether or not how your reasoning may influence my judgement. I need your reasoning to understand you. And to judge your behaviour. I need to know your motives.

Regards,
Aikanár

PS: Speerbruder

It's a political game bro and i have always despised these games. You should vote to remove my badge to please mishkin and all the haters in line with him.

*sighs*
I'm tired Ishan.

Not of you!

I take that you did what you did for the benefit of TWC and because of the repect and affection you have for people like Omni and others who you did not want to see quit their citizenship? Is this right?

Don't stress yourself over it bro. it & forget it, whatever the outcome is it doesn't affects me personally in anyway & i'm not going to see you or Leo in any different light after that.

In the end friendship is all that matters here and this little charade against me isn't going to damage that.

Aye! Even though we seldom chat and have different opinions and approaches on several things, friendship is all that matters!
And I know that you're not a vindictive person and I know that you don't back down!

I'd love to and forget it! ButI'm concenred with 2 things.
1, to understand you, which I think I have, otherwise you would've told me I've not.
2, to make sure you receive a fair and constitutional treatment.

Until now, I have only posted that I have written you a pm and quoted my initial pm. If you don't want me to quote anything from here or whatever you want, please let me know. I'm not going to betray confidence if you don'T want me to use any of this.

Alright Aik i have decided to give the tirum my serious explaination and defense with complete facts from my side.

I need to know how much time i have left.

Here you go:

First of all i would like to start by acknowledging some facts, where i believe i'm clearly guilty of the accusations raised against me, concerning my conduct & behaviour as a TWC citizen and Curator's Assistant.

I fully acknowledge & take full responsibility of the following 3 facts:

1. That I broke TWCC by revealing the voting results in midst when the poll was going on, when in fact those results should've been only visible to citizens who had already voted in that proposal.
2. That I again broke the TWCC by going off-site and then lobbied to secure more citizen votes in favour of the stance i thought was right for this community. I also sent a few PMs on TWC to some members where I notified them of the on-going poll but I never lobbied for their votes on those occasions. My only intention here was to notify them of this important change that was going to happen in TWC's citizenship process, where all citizens have been a part of it at some point in their TWC history.
3. I acknowledge that I abused my local moderator privileges as a curator's assistant and hence broke GoTR's trust since he was the one that appointed me and trusted me with such curial matters. I'm sorry bro.

So yes, i clearly broke the trust of citizenry and manipulated the poll and it wouldn't have been passed had i not done the things i did here.

In addition to all this i would like to point out that having contempt against TWC members is not against ToS or TWCC and the ToS only applies on TWC. I have always been blunt and straightforward with my feelings against any member on TWC anyways. Furthermore, it was not my attempt to name and shame the citizens who have voted no here because their names would've been visible anyways once the poll was concluded. If the poll was to remain anoymous then i would've never showed the poll results like i did, moreover i wouldn't have been able to see their names even if i wanted to. I hope the tirumvirate realizes this thing.


With that aside, now i would like to explain myself, provide an explanation of my actions, some events i witnessed and then my motivation behind this step.

I was an active member of the curia for many years & this proposal was no different to me than any other proposal that i have voted upon in the past without breaking any rule or TWCC both on-site or off-site.

I was just going to vote like usual and perform my curial duties with complete honesty but that soon changed when someone, whom i greatly respect, opened a thread about this proposal in private. It was meant to seek the attention of some active citizens. In this thread soon some people got emotional about it when one citizen said that he will quit his citizenship if this proposal failed. And there was a lot of debate in favour of this proposal by some citizens, including me. Where i tried to convince Leonidas to vote in favour of it. I really enjoyed that conversation where we both had different stances and yet were talking about it in a friendly manner since Leo and I have always been good friends. It was not the usual crap you deal with in curial debates.

Anyways, seeing the emotional atmosphere where on one occasion i think it was mentioned that this might fail as how the poll was going, i then voulenteered to do the things i did, in order to make sure this proposal passed. No one opposed my offered suggestion and in fact i was given a go ahead by another citizen iirc. I then proceeded to lobby votes off-site and made sure it passed and even went back and informed those citizens in that private TWC thread with clear voting results and highlighted members i had requested to vote in favour of it.

For the record, I would like to mention that every citizen I went to genuinely believed in demolishing CdeC and there was no charisma or coercion from my end. I just knew the people who have similar mindset like me. All the citizens in that thread & on shamb, including me, did it with the intention that we were doing the right thing for TWC and that CdeC performance is hurting this site by failing decent contributors and it needs to go down no matter what.

In fact, the screenshots shown here even gives a hint of my motivation and thought process going on at that moment. Where i said things like:

->"Lot of good citizens are quite emotional about this and might leave if it fails and it would be disastrous."
->"We need to pass this because CdeC is and these guys fail very good contributors"
->"I wouldn't have asked for support for a poll like this but i'm extremely annoyed by this elitism and arrogance"
As a side note:
->"the ones I asked to vote in whatever manner they preferred." <---The PMs i sent on TWC. As a proof of it, Triumvirate can ask Y2day who got my PM and voted no since these PMs where only meant as on-going poll notifications.

And as far as the off-site insult is considered where I insulted 17 citizens, i like to apologize to all of them and would like to say that my tone here was more casual while i was trying to convey my main message to my friends. Some of these individuals voting no i respect, value their TWC contributions and consider my friends, like lestat\Joe\Robin and some of them i clearly don't, like Jeb, Lord William, Diamat etc. I don't like them as individuals due to the beliefs they hold & that's why others got scooped in this unfair generalization in the heat of the moment where i was clearly very pissed, emotional & more vocal due to no constraints of ToS.

And even if i dislike someone's stance i would like to point out that i have never insulted them on TWC and have always interacted with them in a respectful and professional manner.

So, in the end i would like to again acknowledge the things i did and take full responsibility for my actions. I personally would like to request the triumvirate not to waste time with this and simply give me the maxiumum punishment there is, which is removal of my artifex rank. I tainted the badge with my actions, i broke the trust of GoTR, i disappointed my patron, the entire citizenry and membership in general. So now i just want to pack my things and leave the curia as I want to start from scratch & make amends and only hope that this community will eventually forgive me when i once again prove myself in their hearts, hopefully, in distant future.

Regards
Ishan

[Diamat]

Like Ishan, I don't care a bit about whatever his personal attitude toward other members might be. I'm not interested at all in whatever he might have said about other members offsite. All that matters here is the vote manipulation and the abuse of power. That is all I will base my evaluation on.

So yes, i clearly broke the trust of citizenry and manipulated the poll and it wouldn't have been passed had i not done the things i did here.

I respect his admission of guilt. However, it also once again brings up the legality of the Abolish CdeC Bill, which we will probably have to discuss with the entire Curia at one point.

[Aikanár]

I suggest that we deal with this referral first and the implications to the bill until after the referrals is completed. In case Ishan may decide to make it public, there will be already a lot to read for all citizens and a discussion most probably will spring from it in which the implications on the bill will surely receive ample attention.

[Diamat]

Poll Added.

[Aikanár]

By all means, further Action.

[Leonidas The Lion]

Further Action with a heavy heart.

[pannonian]

Before you decide what to do with him, I'd like to point out a few things. My perspective probably changed when I became speaker in 2008 and got Hex access, and saw just how much work needed to be done to get the site working well again, and I was no longer just working for moderation, or the Curia, or any one area, but had to take everything into account to get a reasonably workable result.

Point A: Ishan isn't likely to be allowed back into any of the staff branches any time soon.
Point B: Ishan is a workaholic, to put it mildly.
Point C: Moderation are fretting about the small recruitment pool they have, given the requirement that all candidates should be citizens. NB. This is technically breaking SND, but this view isn't attached to any names, and can be seen as Hex letting the curial officers know about policy discussion.
Point D: Most of the administration are unimpressed by the (in)effectiveness of how the Curia implements its projects, resulting in Hex being loathe to let the general citizenry do any substantial work outside staff control. This isn't breaking SND, as it's pretty much public.

Given the above, if I were you, I wouldn't be too permanent with any action, and deprive yourself of what could be quite an asset. Given points A and B, you'd probably have a decent chance of getting him to work on curial projects, such as last year's members awards. If you can make use of him, then point D is moot (or at least less relevant). And in point C, there is an opening which, I'll just let you know, staff are undecided on how to go about things.

[Diamat]

Further action.

In regard to what pann said, I can certainly sympathize with that view. Ishan has been a valuable asset to the community over the years, and I am sure he will continue to be, regardless of his conduct as a citizen.

However, and this is a big however, that's not what the issue is here. Justice should be blind. I am only concerned with the case at hand, and will treat it as if any other citizen would have done it. Thus, when I think about this case, I literally try to erase the word "Ishan" out of my head and replace it with the word "citizen." Whatever my personal feelings may be, they must not get in the way of my decision.

[pannonian]

Further action.

In regard to what pann said, I can certainly sympathize with that view. Ishan has been a valuable asset to the community over the years, and I am sure he will continue to be, regardless of his conduct as a citizen.

However, and this is a big however, that's not what the issue is here. Justice should be blind. I am only concerned with the case at hand, and will treat it as if any other citizen would have done it. Thus, when I think about this case, I literally try to erase the word "Ishan" out of my head and replace it with the word "citizen." Whatever my personal feelings may be, they must not get in the way of my decision.

And here is a point that I'd like you to think about. And by you, I mean the plural, as in everyone who will be reading this question. What is "behaviour unbecoming of a citizen"? What is "behaviour becoming of a citizen?" When imb patronised me, I had scarcely done anything befitting of a citizen. I had certainly not done anything unbecoming either, for I had made fewer than 100 posts when he approached me. Why did he want to patronise me? Because he thought he saw something in me that indicated I might do something for the site and community in the future. And that was how I read it. I serve the site. partly for the sake of the site and the community, but also to justify imb's high opinion of me. The mark of that isn't any of my staff badges, or any of my medals. As I said to GED, I don't care about any of those (he then upgraded them anyway). The only badge I care about is the civitate badge that imb gave me. The sweat and the care I've given for the site is my reading of what constitutes behaviour becoming of a citizen.

On that note, and as I hinted above in point C, have a think about what citizenship should be. Moderation are seriously fretting about the unnecessarily small recruitment pool they have, due to the citizenship requirements (staff demands are already extremely severe). One direction out of this is to drop the citizenship requirements altogether. Another is to widen the citizenry. Since this is a case where misbehaviour intersects with a prolonged history of contribution to the site, why not take the opportunity to think about what citizenship should entail? Moderation sees it mainly as the recruitment pool for moderation staff. Understandably so if you look at their formal relationship. I see it as described in the previous paragraph.

Does this mean I would absolve Ishan from all his actions? Of course not. I recognise that what he's done cannot result in no action. He cannot be trusted in staff, so I dropped him from mod staff (others have dropped him from their respective branches). Others do not trust him, so he won't be reconsidered for staff for the foreseeable future. Those were practical measures. When considering curial action against Ishan, nothing can not be done. Something has to be done. What should be done? My advice would be to look to the future, particularly point C concerning moderation, and take advantage of the situation you have. Shout at Ishan for a bit, suspend him for a bit, do whatever it takes to show that what Ishan has been doing is wrong. Then move on. Use him for what he's good for. The Curia has an asset in its hands that specialises in getting things done. It's bad luck for staff that he is now unavailable to staff, but it needn't be bad luck for the Curia. Would any decision concerning Ishan mean inconsistency relating to other cases? This is why I'm asking you to think about the question of "behaviour becoming of a citizen". I'd like you to think about widening the citizen pool anyway, as per point C above. And if you're going to do that, you might as well combine that with this, and indeed with all the other current cases.

Is this indecently pragmatic, unbefitting of the ideal of "justice being blind"? I'll put it down to my history in Hex, which ironically enough began when I was elected speaker by the Curia. On gaining Hex access as speaker, I saw the extent of the work that I had to do, if I were to fulfil my reading of what imb demanded of me. I had my duties as speaker, as well as my promise to phase out the position (promised in previous elections, but never enacted) without any disorder or absence in duties. In addition to that, I also had existing duties as a moderator, and within a fortnight I was the only senior moderator remaining, and had perforce to train up a cadre of decisionmakers (at least several months work) as well as make decisions in the mean time. There was also an empty tribune position to fill - I didn't know the procedure for that, but fill it one way or another I must, so that the community would not lose out (and in this, I was consciously making a decision directly counter to the moderation branch that I was simultaneously running). Oh, and seeing who was present in Hex, and deciding what could be done and what had to be dropped for the immediate moment to keep the site running for now. Those several months made me constantly step back and look at site interests as a whole. Quite often, I would read a situation as what needs to be done, and what I want the end result to be, and take the hit whilst moving towards the final goal. The decisions I've made aren't always right of course, but I usually ask the right sort of questions, and GED often cites me as an example of someone who doesn't always do the right thing in detail, nor even from a wider angle, but who keeps things moving in the right general direction while wiser heads sort out the details (and Garb and GED have taken the hit for my mistakes whilst appreciating my drive in pushing things forward, concretely in one case when I buggered up the server and GED had to physically sort it out, half an hour's drive away).

[Squid]

However, it also once again brings up the legality of the Abolish CdeC Bill, which we will probably have to discuss with the entire Curia at one point.

Irrelevant to the proceedings here. Do you have an ulterior motive for continuing to bring up an issue in this referral which is not germane to the proceedings? If this was any other bill would you keep repeating that it needs to be dealt with in the thread? I rather doubt it.

However, and this is a big however, that's not what the issue is here. Justice should be blind. I am only concerned with the case at hand, and will treat it as if any other citizen would have done it. Thus, when I think about this case, I literally try to erase the word "Ishan" out of my head and replace it with the word "citizen." Whatever my personal feelings may be, they must not get in the way of my decision.

Justice is supposed to be blind, but I'm starting to doubt whether you are blind in your application of it, as per my comments and your quote above. As I told a member of the triumvirate when asked, until you show you aren't objective I will believe you are, you are starting to show your lack of objectivity.