Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Council members can be judges

7 (77.8%)

Council members can't be judges

2 (22.2%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Voting closed: January 28, 2017, 02:47:17 AM

[Hades]

I will try to be brief and concise here. I am presenting facts for the sake of clarity. The goal of this topic is to generate discussion. It is not intended as a criticism to any council members.


As you can see here, http://forum.shinobilegends.com/index.php/topic,8692.0.html, a decision was previously made in a 6:9 vote that council members can not judge biju matches.


At some point, this rule was forgotten and/or the new cohort was not made aware of it. Trev has judged many fights, and Shadow was the judge for at least one; a fight between Athos and Trev. I had forgotten about the rule myself, and seeing Trev and Shadow as judges never made me suspicions, I just ended up assuming council members were allowed to judge.


Athos had Shadow removed as the judge for his fight with Trev. Athos and Trev asked me to judge. I initially accepted. Before I had made any decisions, the thought occurred to me that it might be against the rules after all. I checked, and found the somewhat forgotten vote. Athos and Trev have now moved on to find a different judge so that I do not break any rules.


I messaged the council. Some confirmed that, to the best of anyone's knowledge, the decision that was voted on has not been changed. Others pointed out that council members have been serving as judges anyway, some stating that they personally do not mind.


I had voted that council members could serve as judges. Therein, I recognize that I am biased. However, I think if two people agree on a judge because they think that person is fair, then that's their agreement.


Acknowledging my own perspective, but also taking into consideration the variety of responses I received from other council members, I just wanted to bring this to light, and begin a discussion about whether we (as a community) think that council members should be prevented from judging or if the vote should be changed because people might prefer council members be able to judge.

[Dart Terumī]

I don't mind rescinding the original vote in order to allow council members the opportunity to judge.

[Eric]

A revote may be in order if the rule is going to be disregarded anyways, though as you say it is probably an issue of forgetfulness more than anything. Not sure how I feel on this particular issue at the moment though, since conflicts of interest involving council members judging matches might not be as serious as the CoI incurred from being a participant.

[Hazama]

Can someone give me an example of a conflict of interest that could occur with a council member being a judge? I really don't see it.

Currently I changed up my judges to follow the rules because I don't want my opponents at the end of our fights deciding all of a sudden that our judge doesn't count. Other than that though I don't really see it being a big problem to let council members be judges and change the rule to reflect that.

[Trev]

Yeah, I apologize to the community and specifically Genesis, Athos, Shadow, Kamui, Jay, and Dart. Due to my negligence, I have caused a delay in the respective fights and I am very sorry.

However, it is my opinion that anyone can be used as a judge. I thought my decisions were unbiased, so I don't really see a reason why a council member couldn't be a judge. And it's not like I actively sought to be the judge, I was asked as everyone felt comfortable with me, so I accepted.

So that's my two cents, and I'm not saying just so I can remain, judge, I've already stepped down to be in compliance with the rules, and won't be getting back in even if this thread approves so.

[Genesis]

At the time, it was a good idea. But disagree with reasoning Kirk gave out a year ago.

But each of the challengers agree on the Judge they want. It's not that hard to understand everyone interprets the rules or what not differently. The challengers who agree on that Judge also agree with the interpretations and views that Judge has or shares. So it shouldn't be a total shock when that judge makes a choice that reflect their views.

Plus it makes it hard to look for Judges. You have a good group of competent people on this council, it sorta knocks out the pool of existing judges. 

Also jinch's are serving on the council too, so that throws the bias argument for a loop also. Though I believe the member of the council that are jinchs should be limited to less than the majority.

[Camel]

A revote may be in order if the rule is going to be disregarded anyways, though as you say it is probably an issue of forgetfulness more than anything. Not sure how I feel on this particular issue at the moment though, since conflicts of interest involving council members judging matches might not be as serious as the CoI incurred from being a participant.

From the different perspectives that were given, a re-vote may be in order on the agenda.

I certainly have no problems with council members being judges as long as they comply with rules and guidelines that comes along with that role; this means no bias towards either party.

The rule that Hades brought up was from a previous council and at the time it was a good idea, but presently it makes it hard to pick someone from a pool of competent judges.

[Eric]

The only frustrating part about this is that we have Council members breaking or disregarding the rules alongside non-Council members. Add in the ability to judge biju matches and suddenly many of the powers that the 1st Cohort lacked are included hardly a month after the end of the previous cohorts' tenure.

If council members can and not must issue warnings for rule violations (in other words, at whim basically), judge biju matches, and by sheer number influence any vote decision on rules, I can't help but wonder what a bunch of like-minded individuals might do with the power to basically run everything biju.

I mean, said individuals can even vote for each other during election season!

I am not saying that the current cohort is like that, because it's not. But if the original intent of the Council was to enforce the rules when violations occur, then I think this progresses us further away from that semi-limited role.

Is that a good thing? Well, I am not sure. The activity thread issue has finally gotten worked out, and this judge thing is leaning in the direction of a revote on the rule, but the notion that competent, trustworthy judges that are not Council members are just that hard to come by makes me want to evaluate our judge picking process. Because other than a void list and a few other points, all of these OOC fights are just zone fights.

It takes some knowledge and expertise to judge them, yes, but so much so that the most reasonable judges are reduced to a list smaller than 5?

I just can't grasp that statistic, honestly. There has to be a factor that I am not considering for this to make sense to me.

[Hazama]

Well considering the first three or so people off the top of Genesis' head to replace Trev as judge were all council members I'd say it's a noticeable issue.

[Ѕhadow]

A few of the old rules may need to be looked over again. This is the 2nd cohort and already you can see the difference in opinions. If a re-vote were taken I'd doubt the previous rule that council members couldn't judge would stand.

I just can't grasp that statistic, honestly. There has to be a factor that I am not considering for this to make sense to me.

Statistically. Our peak number of players is, what, around 30? Now minus 20 people who don't care about bijuu and then you're left with 10 people. The council consists of 7 of those people. Trev is one of those seven and is currently the favorite judge of the people.

That's SL player statistics for you.

The council was chosen for their 'expertise' on bijuu matters. It shouldn't be hard to comprehend that in the same manner they were picked as a council member that they'd be the choice for judging.

[Eric]

Statistically. Our peak number of players is, what, around 30? Now minus 20 people who don't care about bijuu and then you're left with 10 people. The council consists of 7 of those people. Trev is one of those seven and is currently the favorite judge of the people.

That's SL player statistics for you...

Really? Is that really how gone it is, those numbers? I had no idea; that would most certainly count as a factor I had not taken into consideration.

Where did you get that number 30 from?

[Camel]

If a re-vote were taken I'd doubt the previous rule that council members couldn't judge would stand.

That is for another topic to discuss amongst the council members soon enough, in the meantime I added a seven-day poll to this thread for public use.  (Council can vote and/or discuss it in a another thread.)

[Eric]

If a re-vote were taken I'd doubt the previous rule that council members couldn't judge would stand.

That is for another topic to discuss amongst the council members soon enough, in the meantime I added a seven-day poll to this thread for public use.  (Council can vote and/or discuss it in a another thread.)

What do you mean for Council Members to vote on and discuss? While Shadow has clearly established for me that that is the majority of people who care about the biju in one hat, this is a vote to amend a rule, and so only requires further discussion here and then a vote thread to be made. No need for separate discussion threads regarding rule amendments.

[Camel]

If a re-vote were taken I'd doubt the previous rule that council members couldn't judge would stand.

That is for another topic to discuss amongst the council members soon enough, in the meantime I added a seven-day poll to this thread for public use.  (Council can vote and/or discuss it in a another thread.)

What do you mean for Council Members to vote on and discuss? While Shadow has clearly established for me that that is the majority of people who care about the biju in one hat, this is a vote to amend a rule, and so only requires further discussion here and then a vote thread to be made. No need for separate discussion threads regarding rule amendments.

I figured that it was something for the council to discuss and vote on there agenda, but I guess not. I already created a poll on this thread, but knowing how unreliable polls on here are nowadays. We might as well create a vote thread, once the discussion is done here.

[Chinote]

I figured that it was something for the council to discuss and vote on there agenda

You had me until this. Elected officials should not be able to decide the extent of their power. That should be for their constituents.

That's not to say you shouldn't get a say, but you can't have the only say.