Court of Appeals

[AnonDuck]

I just had a nice chat with a law student, and he had some very good suggestions concerning the way TMW is governed. I think that an open-source game partially developed by a community of contributors should be partially governed by it's own users, call me silly.

This is just a draft idea and I'm hoping that others will help flesh it out in to a workable and implementable plan.

Why not have an elected court of appeals? It would provide some accountability for GM actions, give the players a voice in how TMW is ran without interfering with development, and free the developers from the angsty dispute-settling role they sometimes find themselves in.

If a player feels wronged by a GM action, they should have the right to appeal. This should be a well-documented and simple procedure.

The court would consist of three judges, elected by popular vote(*). Which judge the case goes to could be determined by the first character of a player's name. If that judge is not available or abstains, another will take the case. All cases should be handled swiftly, ideally within 24 hours. Judges should look at issues on a case-by-case basis and use case history, game rules at the time of the complaint, and past decisions (as documented on the forum) to make their decisions. This should be a public process, with all types of player input allowed in the forum thread and no deleted posts.

If a case is appealed more than once, and is considered interesting(help me out here? How to prevent frivolous bogging of the court?) all three judges should pass a final ruling on the case. Since there are three judges there will always be a sure outcome. This second form of appeal can also be done by the GM involved in the case.

Rulings should be carried out by the GM or development team as swiftly as possible. As always, the development team will have final say in anything, should they choose to step in. This shouldn't be necessary though.

So.. anyone want to simplify my ramblings into a simple, easy to understand, sane set of proposed procedure?

What sort of term do you suppose the judges should have?

(*) Yes I know there are technical issues with in-game voting.. We have some very smart people around though and I do believe these issues could be worked out. Off the top of my head for instance only allow level50+ chars older than 1mo to vote, and only one vote per IP address. Not 100% fair but perhaps "good enough"?

[Jumpy]

would be fun to see how power role play will grow fast in tmw

would be a great test
we already have now the contest of the Queen
why not this

idea is good

regards

[Katze]

I like it.

[DarkWater]

That is a great idea.

Let us really look at this.

Case one. You elect a person that is really popular. They become judges. Then they make decisions that are unpopular, but right for the game. What happens? Judges start making popular, but not wise, decisions. This could work in real life, with a very large population. But with a population of a few hundred and 99% not really caring, it would not work.

Case two. The judge is then bribed by either the a person or gm to vote in some ways. Corription take the system down. This happens in the real world, do you think that somehow it would to occur in the mana world.

Case three. The votes are rigged. Someone decides to create a thousand accounts. Lets say that it is votingforme1-1000. Each account has 3 characters. So that person would receive 3000 votes for him, by his own hand. Then use a proxy to change the ip. Now the 50+ is really good, but lets face it. You can get to lvl 50 in about 2 hours.

Case four. I created the most popular_man_in_the_world character. I then give everyone full armour and all the money they want. Use my lvl 99s to get what ever. I just buy the vote.

Case five. The gms get a "bad" judge. The harass him until he leaves. Bot check every time he stops moving for 2 mins and SUD (Spawn until death). You know, some of the stuff they do now. The judge would have to "get with it" or get out.

Case six. The kill them judge. The judge just does not like you. I am gay. The judge hates gays. I am screwed. Nothing about me being innocent, just who i am.

Case seven. The judges start making law. They start to enforce not what the community needs but what they want.

Case eight. The judges keep in a circle of friends. They help each other stay in power.

Case nine. One person, two judges. If the person is popular with one character, why not the other?

Case ten. They hate the gms. they hate law and order, they hate everything

That is only the beginning of how misguided that is.

I could go on.

If you want to have a court of appeals. Then you should have a court to begin with.

The gms should be required to record the desktop. They should have to submit the evidence to a jury and judge. They should have to convict the person of the crime and the jury should set the penalty. If convicted by jury then your appeals judges can make a ruling.

But just to have them would create a system in which we have with the gms. They are corrupt now. Three more judges will just become corrupt.

Look at obama. Swore up and down that it would not be politics as usual. Got to Washington and guess what. Politics as usual. It was not the man, it is the system.

[verdo]

This could turn out to be like the real world with the politics.

[Cecil Burrow]

I have to disagree. What is the need for this? The only sorts of actions the GMs take is the banning of bots, and it's doubtful there's much room for appeal there. Other than that, what sorts of complaints are people going to make? So-and-so was drop stealing, so and so charged me too much for gamboge herbs? There's no need for an official court system for trivialities like this.

Bottom line: the creation of new levels of authority or power should only occur if a very compelling case can be made that such things are needed. Otherwise, only bad things can come of it.

[Jumpy]

but where are we going with that ?

that's the only question i ask to myself

is this because we are in a game in phasis of developement and testing that there is so much ambition in game ?

ok...

i 'm back to play, i mean go in the lands, kill some mobs

the system actually is simple

simple things work best
and last...

Regards

[Booth]

I don't believe we need to get this in depth in a game that hasn't even reached a breaking point of being popular. Just give the game time, it'll eventually have this topic pop back up, good idea though.

[Cecil Burrow]

I think some people here are a little humor impaired.

[Dyna]

Gonna point one thing out...we dont need more people if the ones we have now were doing their job and not harassing people

Dy

[Black Don]

More red tape just makes things less likely to get done. This game is constantly changing and the current political system, being discussed here, was developed to resist and slow down change. The idea was that if a bad man was in power they could not corrupt thing to fast but it also keeps the good people from getting out fixes to the system to fast as well. In a game that is free and everyone can create as many accounts as they want, any vote will be corrupted cause of ballet box stuffing with multiple accounts.

[InspectorShameless]

I believe you need some Master Concealer Imperium Chaotic Heresy Eraser position on the top of this pyramid :

• • • • • !!! ME !!!

~ Like in WARHAMMER 40K ... or MASLOW's Pyramid ...

[Balthazaar]

Gonna point one thing out...we dont need more people if the ones we have now were doing their job and not harassing people

Dy

+1

[Getafix]

A "Court of Appeal" populated by a limited number of players elected by their pairs ?
Seems a wise idea (ie. to put down serious fires inside the community) : you can count me upon this one.

You'll always be a newb.