Food for thought: Code of Conduct

[Luke Hill]

Hey guys,
It has been a while since we talked, so I thought I'd get the ball rolling on further discussion. This is my alpha draft of a code of conduct. It is based loosely on the Cam's original, though only very loosely. I got rid of the tiered responsibilities part, and just pared it down to four large rules with smaller constituent parts which are, I think, the only things the club should concern itself with.
It doesn't mention arbitration, because honestly I'm not sold on the idea that the club should have any sort of formal arbitration mechanism. Parties that don't want it will never benefit from it, while parties that do want it will seek it out regardless of whether the club has a formal mechanism for it. If you feel differently, cool, but that's not the point I started from.

Code of Conduct:

Note: Only in force at events or in venues created or maintained specifically for the club. Outside of those areas, your behavior is your responsibility.

Play Honestly and Play Fairly
a.       Use the rules, in their current form, as written and as intended
b.      Keep abreast of club-specific rules and use them where appropriate
c.       Only portray those traits you are approved to play, and have purchased legitimately
d.      Never portray a character at a game without the prior approval of the storyteller of that game
e.      Never use meta-game knowledge for your benefit

Appropriate punishment: Removal of xp or traits, desanctioning of the character in question

Create and Maintain a Positive Play Environment
a.       Be honest, kind, fair and forgiving to other players
b.      Try to resolve your differences with other players immediately
c.       Try to help others have fun their way; do not assume they play the same way you do
d.      Involve others in the action whenever possible
e.      Respect the boundaries of other players; when they ask you to stop, stop

Appropriate punishment: Begin by trying to resolve the situation without punishment or formal action, but by informing the member of the problem behavior and asking them to change it so as not to be problematic. If that fails, varying degrees of removal from club activities may follow.

Model Ethical Behavior, especially as an officer
a.       Punish and praise with fairness and consistency
b.      Do not allow personal grievances or relationships to affect your decisions
c.       Know and follow the rules at all times
d.      Be especially careful of knowledge gained as an officer, guarding that it does not benefit you as a player

Appropriate punishment: Loss of MC and/or removal from the officer position in question

 Follow the law
a.       Respect the laws of city, county, state and country
Be especially mindful of laws governing alcohol, noise ordinances, public gatherings, and other ordinances that may apply to gatherings that get loud or go on late into the night
b.      Report illegal behavior to the proper authorities

Appropriate punishment: Any of the above. For especially egregious offenses, revocation of membership and removal from the club may be an option.

[Luke Hill]

Gah! I sent it early, so I forgot to sign it. My apologies there. :P

Sincerely,
Luke

GWB2004031302

[Jessi Sauter]

Appropriate punishments might be more for the DA section than in the
CoC itself, but I like it.

Might want to add something about sobriety policy or prop weapons, if
those things should go here. I think there used to be a clause about
copyright infringement as well, essentially basing a PC off a well
known licensed character in pop culture or the like.

Jessi

On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 2:27 PM, Luke Hill <luke.b...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Luke Hill]

Those are fair. Copyright and Sobriety can probably fit under "Follow the Law" because it is a matter of law, ultimately, not just club conduct, and public drunkenness is a crime in most municipalities. Simply saying that most games take place in a public location, and are considered public unless explicitly noted otherwise, will probably make that clear. I mentioned appropriate punishments here because it seems like there should be *some* tie. I'm totally not sure that's the best way, but I thought it merited a mention even if it gets rearranged. Prop weapons can probably be mentioned under positive play environment, since the reason it matters is that it tweaks some people's nerves and doesn't accord with the play environment of a social LARP.

Luke

[Games Without Borders NC]

> It has been a while since we talked, so I thought I'd get the ball rolling
> on further discussion. This is my alpha draft of a code of conduct. It is
> based loosely on the Cam's original, though only very loosely. I got rid of
> the tiered responsibilities part, and just pared it down to four large rules
> with smaller constituent parts which are, I think, the only things the club
> should concern itself with.

What do others think?

Cheers,
Liam

--
Liam T. Draper - UK2001061047 - NC Games Without Borders
IRC: Liam-OOC / Email: gir.coo...@gmail.com /
http://gameswithoutbordersltd.wordpress.com
"Whether you like it or whether you don't, it's the best thing going
today." - Ric Flair

[Amanda Spikol]

I'm very much in favor of this revised Code of Conduct because it
sounds like rules made by adults for adults and I'm seeing (hopefully)
very little wiggle room for it to be used as a weapon.

Amanda S.
GWB2007029463

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 4:13 PM, Games Without Borders NC
<gir.coo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What do others think?
>

[klmcmahan1969]

I like what I am seeing here. Particularly, the admonishment to deal with issues personally and immediately before "kicking it upstairs" I saw this as a particularly needed item. Glad I am not the only one that feels that way.

Kelley McMahan

GWB2007060149

ANC CoS Trier.

[Games Without Borders NC]

> I like what I am seeing here. Particularly, the admonishment to deal with
> issues personally and immediately before "kicking it upstairs" I saw this as
> a particularly needed item. Glad I am not the only one that feels that way.
>
> Kelley McMahan
> GWB2007060149
> ANC CoS Trier.

Think N and D got confused here. ;-)

[christopher buser]

For those who haven't hivedived the archives, I've a mail about the rest of GIR's old Handbook and a seperate one about the old Code of Conduct in there from about a month ago, so I won't repeat any of it here, but it'll serve as a "This is where I'm coming from" perspective.

I'd like to see something about how "the spirit of the Code versus the letter of the Code" can be used by the Coordinator to trump technicalities.

Technicalities suck. People who use technicalities to escape the justified consequences of their actions suck. This isn't carte blanche for an Officer to issue a disciplinary action against a member simply because he doesn't like his style, or thinks "he needed killin", but there needs to be a sort of "As an excuse, that's shenanigans. You know it. I know it. And this is my decision" empowerment.

Hypothetical example: Player A cheats. The ST missed it. Player B loses their PC over it. Player A is then dumb enough to brag about getting away with it, insulting the ST as too stupid to catch him and Player B as too naive to understand what was going on. But it wasn't done at a game, or on one of our lists or channels. Rather, it's done at Afters, or in a publicly accessible internet posting. Should Player A escape consequences because his admission occurred outside the "Only in force..." clause? No.

I'd also like to see something in there about not being able to use the Code as a weapon. We don't need someone in a channel shutting down conversation by saying "That offends me, so the other 30 people in this IRC room need to shut up about it" when the subject isn't offensive, the someone's just being a twit. Yes, we should respect the triggers of other people, but other people also need to weigh their personal triggers against everyone else who is participating in clubstuff, and if someone tries to use the Code as a bully stick, the Officer should be able to call shenanigans.

On a personal note, I'd also prefer that we make an effort to refer to this as the Code, especially in our Handbook. Entitle it once as the Code of Conduct, but refer to it in the rest of the handbook as simply the Code. It's half conduct / behavior (this is what you do / don't do) and half philosophy (and this is why you do / don't do these things), and I'd like to encourage a little less of "These are the rules and anything not written herein is fair game" and a little more "These are the rules. Consider why these are the rules, and if your actions would be appropriate" in the playerbase. Besides, the more we get people used to it as the Code, the faster we get that abominable "CoC" abbreviation out of our lexicon, and keep it that way.

--

christopher buser

gwb199306025

[Kelley McMahan]

Huzzah! So much better phrased than I am capable of at this point.
This is what I have been hoping to see.

Kelley

[Luke Hill]

Chris,

Should Player A escape consequences because his admission occurred outside the "Only in force..." clause? No.

The behavior that merits the punishment - that is, the cheating - happened at game, so the rule applies. It doesn't matter if he talked about it at game, at afters, or on Venus; he cheated at game, so broke the rules at game. Is the way I see it.

Though I'd hope it wouldn't be necessary, that does remind me that a rule of evidence might be useful. Guy brought it up a while ago, and I don't think we ever talked it through completely.

Luke

--

[Kelley McMahan]

Where's the damnable like button for this one?

Kelley

[Games Without Borders NC]

> I'd like to see something about how "the spirit of the Code versus the
> letter of the Code" can be used by the Coordinator to trump technicalities.

What are we calling technicalities here?

I see this potentially as a slippery slope to "I can punish you
regardless of the circumstances because you've not complied with the
Code"

[christopher buser]

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 4:39 PM, Games Without Borders NC <gir.coo...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'd like to see something about how "the spirit of the Code versus the
> letter of the Code" can be used by the Coordinator to trump technicalities.

What are we calling technicalities here?

The example about cheating, for one. While I like Luke's interpretation of that example, if that's going to be the general one, some wording to elaborate on "Only in force" is warranted.

 

I see this potentially as a slippery slope to "I can punish you
regardless of the circumstances because you've not complied with the
Code"

We've seen the pendulum swing  that direction, with the "I can do whatever I want, and since it's not strictly forbidden, it's not clearly wrong and thus will stand on appeal" attitude. That's too far, and my previous email about those two words still applies. I would think that anyone who tries the "I can punish you because I want to" would find themselves appealed and then hit by their superior for pulling those shenanigans, but this might need some better phrasing.

What I'm looking for is the ability for an Officer to call "Bullshit" in a situation where an neutral party, aware of all the circumstances, would do the same. "Don't try to parse the Handbook to get away with X." "No one said you had to go our of your way to be nice to that person, but you didn't have to be malicious. You went out of your way to be, with malice aforethought. Thus..." or simply "That excuse is clownshoes". Something along those general lines. 

--
Buser

[Luke Hill]

Buser,

How about language that the lettered behaviors are examples only, that the rule is do/not to do the things at the top of each section, and that officers are empowered to enforce the larger statutes if someone does something that breaks the larger rule, and is equivalent to but doesn't match up with the given examples? That ties things down to large values, but still ties it to definable *things*.

Luke

--

[christopher buser]

Works!

--
Buser

[Games Without Borders NC]

> The example about cheating, for one. While I like Luke's interpretation of
> that example, if that's going to be the general one, some wording to
> elaborate on "Only in force" is warranted.

The issue I would have with "spirit over letter" is that such a
principle in that specific example would license officers to invade
beyond the game space in order to punish a member. We can potentially
say that an admission of wrongdoing is potentially actionable wherever
it happens. That, however, only addresses the specific example and not
the general principle.

> We've seen the pendulum swing that direction, with the "I can do whatever I
> want, and since it's not strictly forbidden, it's not clearly wrong and thus
> will stand on appeal" attitude. That's too far, and my previous email about
> those two words still applies. I would think that anyone who tries the "I
> can punish you because I want to" would find themselves appealed and then
> hit by their superior for pulling those shenanigans, but this might need
> some better phrasing.

My intention is to make a list of specific things/infractions/offences
that, if proven, result in punishment rather than having a vague
sentiment that can be applied as liberally or conservatively as
whomever is the officer decides.

My intention is also to remove and change the "clearly wrong"
standard. I don't know what to yet.

[Jessi Sauter]

Maybe it's just me, but isn't the Code more about the spirit of how
things ought to be, and the DA section more about the letter of how
things will be when the spirit fails?

If we like that separation, that could be a good way to decide what
parts need to be addressed in what sections.

Jessi

-
Jessi Sauter
GWB2002023219

[Luke Hill]

Jessi,

Maybe it's just me, but isn't the Code more about the spirit of how things ought to be, and the DA section more about the letter of how things will be when the spirit fails?

Good point. I don't know how separating them will affect how they are enforced, but that could help.

Luke

[Games Without Borders NC]

> Maybe it's just me, but isn't the Code more about the spirit of how
> things ought to be, and the DA section more about the letter of how
> things will be when the spirit fails?

That seems sensible.

[Games Without Borders NC]

> Good point. I don't know how separating them will affect how they are
> enforced, but that could help.

The Code would have "This is what we would like you to do / how we
would like you to behave"

The DA section would have "These are specific infractions that may or
may not relate to the Code that you can be punished for if you do not
behave according to the Code"

[Jessi Sauter]

> Good point. I don't know how separating them will affect how they are
> enforced, but that could help.

Depends really on how you set up the disciplinary system. You can
write the Code to reflect what you want to happen ("Be excellent to
each other!").

And then give the Coordinators as much either teeth or flexibility
(and I think we're going to need some of both) on how to enforce it in
the DA system as you feel comfortable with.

Jessi

--
Jessi Sauter
GWB2002023219