[Suggestion] EMC Bill of Rights

The first amendment was a joke, the rest are serious issues I have.

I don't think so, Shel. This was not an attempt to mock SSRC, but rather to give his own opinion with a bit of SkyDragon flavour to spice the seriousness up.

As such my comment: "it looked to me as...."

I guess I stand corrected on that point. And with that I'm pulling out of this one for the evening to enjoy more orange juice

anyone else play on emc just for fun?

What is this "fun" you speak of?

I'm not included in this 'we'. I could care less if we have a bill of rights. If I don't like something I talk to staff about it.

Everyone on emc plays it just for fun, it's just that some people's fun is different than others. This thread is a pretty good example. Some people get on emc for the simplicity while others like to be a more involved to try and shape emc to something they (and hopefully others) will enjoy even more

Now for my opinion on the op, im kinda meh. At first I looked at the thread and didn't agree at all. I thought it would likely just be a re-write of the rules, just mirrored so instead of saying what you can't do, it states what you can. Well I did a little thinking, and after Sky's post, thought if it actually stated rights it could be a great thing. It would be awesome to make the transition from a community to something more, a true Empire. Though, like I originally stated, it's all about how it is handled: whether the bill of rights actually consists of rights or consists or rules

*edited because stonesky deleted his post*

Look at the real world, with it's politics and "rights." Look at it. Look at what a mess it is. You have people split into groups, hating each other, fighting wars, all over these so called "rights." Do you want emc to become a place like that? If you introduce a whole "bill of rights," you're going to see so many flame wars, with people wanting more "rights" and people arguing with them and it's going to become a whole battleground. That's just my opinion, in my view yall people on emc can do whatever the hell you want, I'll be alright, but is that really what you want?

Wait, why did post(s) get deleted? Did the posters delete them themselves?

poster deleted themselves

TheDarkModRises is lying! Quickly, before this gets deleted you must spread word of a revolt against staff!

Kidding, I sometimes post things I immediately regret posting. ESSLEMWERN seemed to have seen it before I deleted it.

As a lover of stone slabs myself I must say deleting your posts would make me cry tears of shame

At this point I have throughly enjoyed the discussion of this post with the community. As to Krysyy's Advice I will work privately off the forum with a mock up of people who are also interested. I really thank everyone for the contributions they have made and the suggestions. When I do finish the complete proposal I will submit it publicly on the forum or privately to the staff themselves, pending staff advise on the matter. You are welcome to continue this discussion and make further suggestions while I continue to work closley with staff on this issue. I would like to GREATLY thank those who have helped support us and have allowed this to become a substantial discussion. Please keep this discussion civil. I do not condone rudeness or breaking rules on either side. Please refrain from harboring resnetment towards each other. We all have an opinion. let us all respect it. I will also thank the staff for allowing this discussion to take place, once again my faith in them has been upheld instead of withdrawn. I'm throughly gaining confidence in this administration and I am so pleased to have dedicated 4+ years to this amazing server. Thank you all again.

Now this is the Rough Draft currently being debated with myself, others, and the staff.
The document below is merely proposed at the time and are subject to revision upon partisan deliberation and agreement on both sides. The interest in this bill of rights is not to cause punishment to any staff, It’s through a cumulative discussion about specific micro-aggression and micro-disputes that have been undocumented for a while because at the time they didn’t seem that big of an issue.

I understand that EMC does not “have” to do anything. These are only mere suggestions that I believe will help alleviate micro-aggression and micro-disputes within the community and will prevent big fights from breaking out in the future. So I’m sorry that this has no specific issue that triggered it that can be directly resolved. It’s simple a cumulative accumulation of issues that I feel should be prevented. I strongly believe that you care just as much as I do about this issue and I apologize if I came off in the wrong manner. I was wrong in that. However, please don’t hold that against this proposal. I believe it to be way more important than our relations.

There are also Grievances listed that assist in the understanding as to why specific amendments are proposed. The Grievance will not be listed in the final copy of the Bill of Rights.

Note: Any reference to staff or moderators is not meant to be an attack on anyone in particular. Even though there have been staff that have caused the matters in question to be proposed, those who have done their job fairly, with great conviction, and have held themselves to high standards should not feel attacked. If you don’t feel like it applies to you, then it probably does not.

The Empire Minecraft Bill of Rights V 1.1

The Members of the Empire Minecraft community hereby propose these considerations to the Empire Minecraft Administration for approval and or adoption. We ask that the proposals be considered by staff as well as Aikar himself as he is owner and therefore the only one with authority to cement these changes and revisions. The proposals have been created in such to further clarify and establish protections not labeled in the Terms of service. We understand that the EMC Administration is under no obligation to cater to these proposals and or clarifications of our rights. However we believe it is in the Empire Minecraft’s best interest to ensure community satisfaction and a more inviting environment for new players that the following proposals be considered.

Amendment I.
A player shall not be censored if their beliefs are not in-line with that of the administration. However, this does not protect those who express their beliefs in a manner that currently violates the Terms of Service. *Under the current terms of service there are no reasonable limitations on banning anyone which fosters a very insecure and unfair environment that can be easily exploited.

Amendment II.
A member of the community shall be allowed to express constructive criticism of the direction of the Server openly. This includes the ability of individuals to suggest ideas to the server's growth contrary to those held by the EMC administration. If a member is offended by just the mere proposal of an idea. The forum should not be deleted, only the post of the person who had nothing constructive or positive to say. A member is entitled to feel as if they are being heard not negated and belittled. A member is entitled to his suggestion without staff associating it with other people’s comments.

Amendment III.
A member is currently allowed to petition a ban and or mute, however we like to extend a right of peaceful protest to that of individuals related to the one banned, who feel that a ban would’ve been unfair, the right to protest. This includes that staff upon request, will have to divulge the reasoning behind a ban. This right does not protect the individual from nagging and insulting staff if the reasoning is not what the player desired and is subject to the terms of service. The right to protest whether it be in the forums of a petition or in chat cannot break to current rules or terms of service. As a member you have the right to Petition for change however you are not assured that if you get majority support that there will be changes made. However, it would be in the best interests of the server to do so.

Amendment IV.
The EMC community should be allowed to form an oversight committee of elected members. The number of members should be no more than the current staff, and no less than 5. These members would have to be approved by staff after winning the election, as it is only by the will of Aikar that he allows this Committee the right to oversee staff. No direct power shall be given to this committee, however it should not ever be censored by even the highest of staff except Aikar. If the committee investigates a staff that has accumulated a select amount of complaints that violate these Rights, then a formal complaint will be issued by this committee to Aikar himself. At which point Aikar will make the final decision on a staff’s ability to conduct their job accordingly. The members of this committee shall not be biased in anyway, if found to be biased and can be proven and shown to the EMC community, then Aikar himself has the right and the obvious authority to remove that member. In addition, A member of this committee should be no less than 700 days old. If Amendment is adopted then additional election procedures can be adopted. It will be considered a special class, like build team, but not staff.

Amendment V.
All EMC members including Staff acknowledge that Aikar is the owner. He has the final say in all decisions and can overrule all proceedings and rights of any individual. However, if Aikar overrides a specific proceeding and or right of an individual's. Other should be allowed to openly criticize the decisions as long as they do so in a respectful manner. It is important to the success of this server that everyone feels like they have rights and should not be scared to be banned at any given point for no reason which is currently states it can under the current Terms of Service “We also reserve the right to terminate any account entirely without reason.”

Amendment VI.
EMC members have the right to address their concerns respectfully on public on the forums and in chat when necessary. The addresement has to abide by all current EMC rules and Terms of Service.

Amendment VII.
A member is entitled to the specific notification of what specific section of the rules and of the Terms of service were violated that led to their ban.

Amendment VIII.
A member is entitled to a fair and uniformed sentencing guideline and that they receive the same sentencing for breaking a rule that someone else received. They are also entitled to an unbiased appeal. The appeal should be the job of the committee mentioned in Amendment IV. This is to not bog down staff that are busy moderating. In addition, appealing to the staff member that banned you leads to an inherent bias of that mod not wanting to be wrong, decreasing the chances of your ban being appealed.

Amendment IX.
Additional amendments made to this bill should be submitted in a separate forum where the public can debate and discuss the issue publicly. After a new revised version of the proposal is drafted it should be submitted to a new forum with a vote. After a week the poll should be closed and it most have ⅔ more yes votes then no. Meaning it has to have 66.6% or more of the votes casted to pass to administrative approval. This will go directly to Krysyy and Aikar to be finally approved and added to this bill.

Amendment X.
Any right not restricted by this bill of rights or by the terms of service and rules, shall be given to the player respectfully.

Amendment XI.
A Member should not be banned for any reason without breaking the terms of Service and rules without the explicit approval of Aikar himself. Aikar is the only one who has the power to ban without reason because of his legal right given to him through his ownership of the parent company of EMC, Starlis LLC.

(This section is not with the Bill of rights. It merely explains why some of the amendments were proposed and also included additional suggestions with solutions. I do not believe it is right for me to point out problems if I do not help to resolve them.)

List of Grievances

Grievance I.
The reason for a ban listed as “causing drama” should be removed and clarified as a more specific reason. “Causing drama” is seen as to being too general and can be used in abusive power decisions that would call into question the staffs ability to be fair. This is also established in the rules of EMC, “Intentionally doing anything that is likely to cause public upset, arguments, riots, or any other negative action, for any reason, is not allowed. Anyone participating in public drama via threads, pictures, videos or any of EMC’s features, including, but not limited to the Forums, statuses and in-game Chat, will face consequences, as determined by Staff.” There is a need for this specific rule to be clarified further with explicit examples and parameters. This is due to the lack of publicly known consequences for such occurrences.

Redress I.
Clarification can be made by using more specific reasons to the situation, such as the following “Aggressive and intention to incite unrest, disobedience, or hate upon an individual or group.” This is a reasonable restriction on the first Amendment proposed and would be a helpful and fair addition to the Terms of service.

Redress I.I
The Rules section should clarify Explicit examples of what is deemed “intentionally causing public upset, arguments, riots, or any other negative action,” It is also suggested that Staff set a “Public” uniform minimum sentencing guideline for staff to use on members that break the rules. This is to insure the lack of biasness, contradiction, and unjust mistakes that come from lack of uniformity. “Public” in quotations is in reference that it is merely a suggestion and should not take away from the idea of this redress. The Sentencing guideline should be public to insure everyone has the right to due process.

Grievance II.
The section of the Terms of Service that read “We also reserve the right to terminate any account entirely without reason, should we determine the user causes too much trouble while utilizing our services.” should be revised with some basic restriction. No one is debating the authority that Aikar hold over EMC as the owner it is merely a privilege to play on EMC. However, we are not the only Server on EMC and therefore it is important to foster trust and cooperation in a secure and safe community environment. The sections in question above is troubling in that is has no restrictions. It is therefore creating an environment in which nothing is safe on EMC. This is not the atmosphere I believe EMC is trying to create and will not foster the growth in the server that EMC would need.

Redress II.
This is up that of Aikar himself to change. He has no obligation to do so and is not my place to demand it. However, some possible revisions could include what EMC means by “causing too much trouble while utilizing our services.” Under that current provision. A member could be banned because a Moderator does not feel like solving a problem and instead resorts to a demand of the player to “drop it,” leading to resentment and discourse among the staff and community member. This leads to players either leaving EMC or not cooperating with staff later on. If the person then continues to address the situation, they will be banned and or muted for “causing too much trouble” or “causing drama” as stated in Grievance I.

Grievance III.
Oversight of certain staff becomes hard at the highest level. This is due to certain staff members being designated as the person who keeps other staff members accountable. The inherent problem is that no one hold the accountant accountable. I believe it is in my fair assumption from hearing from other members that a separate entity that itself would be accountable to the community, staff, and Aikar be in charge of oversight of all staff.

Redress III.
With the given problem of accountability expressed in Grievance III. Amendment V. was proposed. An independent committee of elected and approved members should be in charge of overseeing staff members.

Grievance IV.
Policy such as stated in the rules as “Resolve any conflicts quickly and with compassion for others. If a moderator has to step in to resolve a conflict, all parties involved may find themselves having a time-out from the Empire Minecraft server network.” Personally I have seen this policy in action and I can attest to it’s extremely damaging effect. Moderators are entrusted to figure out the truth behind a matter, they are essentially the police of EMC. However, the policy above leads to the “drop it” comment. This has a very negative effect on the community.

1. 
   A Member of the community if punished without an attempt by staff to resolve the issue leads to the played punished feeling abused. This leads to players quitting EMC for feeling like the server is unjust and unfair.
2. 
   Bystanders who tried to help in the situation begin to perceive that helping players resolve problems is pointless when they see the staff following such a policy. Bystanders will also begin to adopt the attitude that staff can’t be trusted to resolve problems, causing a rift in staff.
3. 
   Discussions in town chat that were otherwise peaceful getting shut down due one person being rude and critical of the discussion, leads to those having the discussions in the first place to feel censored. This makes them feel like the mods have been unjust which is not beneficial to the community’s cohesiveness.
   1. 
      An addendum to this specific example can be that a lot of times town chat on EMC is silent. One of the personal reasons I’ve experience is that when only one person in town is against the discussion it gets shut down. One of the reason however the main report is not applicable, which is to take the conversation to group or private chat is,
      1. 
         It makes Town chat look dead to any new visitors.
      2. 
         Many people begin these discussion to get other’s opinions on the matter and therefore don’t care to continue them if it gets secluded.
      3. 
         People are too annoyed by the staff’s actions to care to continue to discuss anything not related to minecraft in any way.

Redress IV.
Empire Minecraft should remove the section in the rules “Resolve any conflicts quickly and with compassion for others. If a moderator has to step in to resolve a conflict, all parties involved may find themselves having a time-out from the Empire Minecraft server network.” Instead of having this part in the rules, Moderators should take reasonable time trying to solve each situation and reach a fair conclusion. In addition, the ultimatum “Drop it” should only ever be used in the most extreme situations, and even then it’s better to tell people instead “You both have broken the rules and should both be reprimand, however instead I suggest you both take this as a warning and to not continue to pursue damages or a report. The next person to break the rules from this point, whoever it may be, will suffer the respective consequence.” This is a more fair ultimatum in that it does not end the conversation, does not chose one side when both are guilty, but solves the problem. In addition, bystanders view the decision as well executed and fairly applied.

If any of these have already been resolved, then I will remove them from the list of grievences, as I might be working off some outdated information. I have not followed closely every move of the staff and any recent changes, except the making of the rules page nicer. However, The basic bill of Rights amendments I still stand true by.

In addition, If the completed document enforces a current policy in place, it's adoption will allow staff a tangible document to reference in future discussion and or situations.

question, feel free to blow it up if you want but, why break something and twist it into pure evil over keeping it how its peaceful? i just dont see how adding something that pretty much pits people against each other is useful or helpful, not to mention that final part in "Redress IV" you are saying that you see Staff as imortal gods who can do anything and everything all at once, they are normal players who have decided to take it upon themselves to help better the community for our sakes, im sorry if i appear to be reading this end very wrong but in my experience 1. especially on smp9, chat is usually dead till i tell everyone to stop yelling (doesnt always work) and 2. i have no idea how your getting "A Member of the community if punished without an attempt by staff to resolve the issue leads to the played punished feeling abused. This leads to players quitting EMC for feeling like the server is unjust and unfair." i have seen one player get temp banned time and time again because he kept breaking the rules and still came back, in a way this seems like what another player wanted done except he didnt hide his disdain for some of the staff at all. I'm done rambling bout that last bit, but, i live in the US, i personal disagree with this entire thing, EMC has rules for a reason, if you want to see it a certain way, think of the rules like the bill of rights, they are their for your safety and protection, we dont need this evil thing called the bill of rights when as long as you follow the rules you wont have anything to worry bout.