The Hondonian Constitution

[archangel]

I drew this up in about 20 minutes, so it's still a little rough.

 

 

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We the members of the Hondo’s Bar, in order to form a more perfect Message Board, establish justice, insure Fairness, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for Hondo’s Bar.

 

 

 

Article I: The Moderators

 

Section 1. All day to day powers herein granted shall be vested in Moderators, which shall consist of Adjunct, or Deputies, Moderators and Forum Moderators.

 

Section 2. All Forum Moderators are appointed by the Administrator and will function as Administrators in their respective Forum.

 

Section 3. The Adjunct, or Deputy, Moderators shall be composed of two Senior Members chosen directly by the Administrator to act in His name in matters concerning General Board-wide disputes and problems.

 

Section 4. The Moderators will have the Power to Fix all double posts and errant posts;

 

To Merge or Move posts to appropriate locals;

 

To make rules for the government of their respective Forums.

 

Section 5. The privilege and the right to post shall not be suspended, unless when in case of Legalities which may result in the shutting down of the Board itself.

 

No censorship of any kind is permitted, unless such a post would result in illegal or illicit activity capable of jeopardizing the safety and well being of the Administrator, the members of the Board or the functioning of the Board itself.

 

Section 6. While holding the position of Adjunct Moderator, any position of Moderator in a forum is strictly ceremonial.

 

Article II: The Administrator

 

Section 1. The executive power shall be vested in an Administrator. He shall hold his office for as long as he is physically able to, or until such a power is usurped or willingly passed on to another.

 

Section 2. The Administrator will be the final Arbiter of any conflict originating on the Board.

 

The Administrator will have the Power to appoint new Moderators and change them as He sees fit.

 

Section 3. The Administrator shall have the sole power to Ban a member.

 

Section 4. The Administrator can be over-ruled on any call by a simple majority vote in any issue so long as a minimum of 60% of active members participate in the vote; 60% will be determined prior to any vote being called. This includes, but is not limited to, banning of members.

 

 

 

Article III: The Forums

 

Section 1. Each Moderator is the acting Administrator in each forum and will govern with a consensus of other Moderators in each respective forum.

 

Section 2. The Members of each Forum shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of Members in the several Forums.

 

Article IV: The Amendment Process

 

Any Moderator or the Administrator can propose amendments to this Constitution which shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution when ratified three fourths of the Members of the Board.

 

Article V. Ratification

 

The acceptance of 75% of the Active Members of the Board shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution.

 

Amendments

 

 

 

Amendment I

 

Moderators and the Administrator shall make no rule establishing an official religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech; or the right of the members to peaceably petition the Administration for a redress of grievances.

 

Amendment II

 

The right of the Members to be secure in their persons and identity, against unreasonable IP Checks, shall not be violated, and no IP Checks shall be held, but upon probable cause, supported by a public statement, and specifically describing the offense warranting of said Check.

[crimsonfire]

Dear lord, we're an online forum not a workers union.

Unless this is semi-humorous in nature?

[FireDownBelow]

No doubt. A constitution might be interesting, but do we really need to write it in legalese?

[archangel]

I think in legalese, damn it. that's why I put it up so we can make it easier to understand. make changes where you see fit

[SpunkyMonkey]

If you were going to write it in legalese, at least write it in funny legalese.

[The NZA]

the timing's not ideal here cause of soreness and all, but this is something very much worthy of a reply.

 

i should preface this by saying: while i appreciate the effort and what joel's going for here, im entirely against it as a concept. i hope i show why by the end of this post.

 

Section 2. All Forum Moderators are appointed by the Administrator and will function as Administrators in their respective Forum.

 

that's tricky: mods cant do half of what i can, and some mods have more abilities than others. hell, sig runs town square and im still not sure why he cant pin things.

 

Section 3. The Adjunct, or Deputy, Moderators shall be composed of two Senior Members chosen directly by the Administrator to act in His name in matters concerning General Board-wide disputes and problems.

 

but we've got 3 right now.

 

Section 4. The Moderators will have the Power to Fix all double posts and errant posts;

 

also tricky; that'd require deleting posts, which not every mod has the ability to do currently.

 

To make rules for the government of their respective Forums.

 

...except those that fly in the face of the overall board's unspoken policies, im guessing you meant that though.

 

Section 5. The privilege and the right to post shall not be suspended, unless when in case of Legalities which may result in the shutting down of the Board itself.

 

wait, no suspensions? hard or soft? ive soft-suspended people before by limiting their posting to the crap shack for a short time while they cooled down or stop being dicks.

 

No censorship of any kind is permitted, unless such a post would result in illegal or illicit activity capable of jeopardizing the safety and well being of the Administrator, the members of the Board or the functioning of the Board itself.

 

here, we run into the problem of defining censorship. you and i may feel crap-shacking things that are garbage/unrelated is not censoring, but there's a lotta hondonians who disagree.

 

Section 1. The executive power shall be vested in an Administrator. He shall hold his office for as long as he is physically able to, or until such a power is usurped or willingly passed on to another.

 

i appreciate the "coup clause".

 

Section 3. The Administrator shall have the sole power to Ban a member.

 

boy, the less said about banning, the better. so far, ive banned like a hundred spammers and only one member who at the time requested to be deleted.

 

Section 4. The Administrator can be over-ruled on any call by a simple majority vote in any issue so long as a minimum of 60% of active members participate in the vote; 60% will be determined prior to any vote being called. This includes, but is not limited to, banning of members.

 

thiiiiiiis sounds bad.

60% of the active members on any given day to override a decision sounds...like its open to infinite possibilities, and not many of them are good.

i can see the problem of consolidating too much power, but on a sorta free-market thing here (since that's the analogy), when i become inefficient as an admin, enough people will let me know, and if i ignore them, ill lose the community. that's how i gauge my leadership; i openly invite dissent and try to resolve issues as best i can for everybody, but 60% of the crowd one day could, for instance, determine signature policy for everyone else - or force us into some back-and-forth council thing when truth is, someone like stillB is able to resolve the issue without any of this.

 

 

Section 1. Each Moderator is the acting Administrator in each forum and will govern with a consensus of other Moderators in each respective forum.

 

ok, but what about inactive mods? how active does a member have to be - specifically, within their function - to be considered active and given a vote?

this is making things far more complex.

 

Article V. Ratification

 

The acceptance of 75% of the Active Members of the Board shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution.

 

this still leaves policy up to the whims of those who're around at a given time.

 

Amendment II

 

The right of the Members to be secure in their persons and identity, against unreasonable IP Checks, shall not be violated, and no IP Checks shall be held, but upon probable cause, supported by a public statement, and specifically describing the offense warranting of said Check.

 

not to take some of jax's heat here, but i violate this all the time.

new members get their IPs checked regularly by me if not verified by someone else or if their answers to the forced questions come off bot-like at all. i dont use this to determine identities as much as i need a region (domestic will do; its just certain int'l ones that are hubs for spammers).

 

what im getting at is that there's a lot of exceptions to everything and i dont go out of my way to explain much of that to everybody cause i think its mostly boring and the parts that arent are often someone else's business.

 

the reason i dont think a US gov't analogy works is cause im not elected, i dont have term limits, etc. i make this place public but it does come to me, for policy. and ive come to realize my stance is a lot more libertarian here: the best i can do is not be an overlord with stringent rules that either force me to be a hypocrite when i inevitably handle things case-by-case or worse yet, force me to push people away when they fuck up. The more rules i make, the more it becomes my board and less everyone else's, i feel. The general sense of freedom and lack of censorship attracts some crazy and deranged shit sometimes, but its also whats attracted - and more importantly, kept - the crowd we have.

 

you see mods as senators basically, yeah? the more i (feds) step in, the less breathing room there is. take your recent point about trolls in politics - if idve interjected, it wouldve been some absolute rule that wouldve caused a great deal of controversy from the pro-troll people, and there's quite a few. instead, i sat back and the triumvirate of mods there - all of whom i trust in their judgment here - resolved the issue yourselves quietly. wasnt this better?

 

as a gesture, i think such a constitution could be fun. as final word on policy, my years here have brought way more gray area than idve wanted or expected, and make me wary of the notion. i hope you see why.

[gunsmithx]

The thing joel wants, I think, is that he feels the grey areas allows for people to be treated unfairly(not saying you do) because you response to every situtation will be different and could be very easily influenced by your personal feelings for someone. By having laws(and to be fair even in our goverment judges have a fairly wide discreistion) you remove the grey areas and allow for people to be treated equally without cause to say favoirtism(ie a firend of your checks an Ip and nothing happens to him vs bob(whom you don't like) checking the ip and you boot him)

 

that said I'm not sure hondos really needs this, we are what we are, maybe a couple of rules wouldn't be out of place but this might be a touch over the top(btw Drifter if you read this please comment as I know you've done this stuff before and are in favor of these things)

[Silent Bob]

Nick doesn't like me?

[Jumbie]

This is Nick's board, ever since Yahve signed it over to him.

 

I'm happy that he runs it in a way I like. I'm happy that he lets me influence how it's run.

 

When it stops being run the way I like, I'll leave.

 

Codifying rules about how things should be run in another man's house sounds rude to me.

 

We don't need written rules that tie his hands in any way and we surely don't need rules that allow for overriding his decisions.

[FireDownBelow]

Amen

[amynicole]

my sentiments exactly

[archangel]

as a gesture, i think such a constitution could be fun. as final word on policy, my years here have brought way more gray area than idve wanted or expected, and make me wary of the notion. i hope you see why.

which is the crux of what I was going for. This was supposed to an exercise in self governing, with everyone participating. I envisioned this more like a Constitutional Monarchy than a full Republic (which would have been an interesting idea, each forum it's own little 'state' as it where, but that's neither here nor there)

 

I wrote that basic outline as a bouncing board from which to start. I didn't envision this as perfect or complete because I don't have all the answers here, which is why I wanted people to add alterations and the like.

 

I have a more collective view of this place than I have about anything else in life, so I wanted to build on that.

 

but if no one else wants to, and everybody just wants the Status Quot, that's fine, too. I just don't want this exercise to die specifically because it's associated with me.

[FireDownBelow]

Well, personally, I am not against it because it's tied to you, Arch. That's silly. Personally, I'm against because of the reasons Jumbie pointed out. Nick's the admin and that means he can pretty much do as he pleases. I don't see a need to change the status quo. I'm happy with it.

 

While I admit the idea of a constitution is fun, I don't think we should make it 'law'. I think we should do it just to do it and see what we come up with. An exercise into the what if realm. And I really have to agree with you on the forum thing. RThat would be interesting.

[the division of joy]

Why fix what already works

[Dag]

I think we need to deregulate Hondo's and let the free market work.

[The NZA]

I have a more collective view of this place than I have about anything else in life, so I wanted to build on that.

 

but if no one else wants to, and everybody just wants the Status Quot, that's fine, too. I just don't want this exercise to die specifically because it's associated with me.

 

that's a fair concern, giving the timing right at this moment and all too.

 

i know you love legalese, but woudlnt a plain-speak form likely get more people's interest? you just know skeeter and his ilk went "TL:DR" after the first line.

[Iambaytor]

The Knoll's rules is just a long version of "don't be a cock-end or we'll beat you with childrens' toys." Do something like that. (Except don't copy us or we'll report you and get the forum shut down.)

[the division of joy]

that's a fair concern, giving the timing right at this moment and all too.

 

i know you love legalese, but woudlnt a plain-speak form likely get more people's interest? you just know skeeter and his ilk went "TL:DR" after the first line.

I read it for once!!! Even though i wanted to claw my eyes out a few lines in.

[archangel]

i know you love legalese, but woudlnt a plain-speak form likely get more people's interest?

again, I'm a law junkie, damnit! I tried my best! You even caught the coup clause

[alive she cried]

I gotta side with the jumbie crowd. If it's not broke....