Revamping the Warranting Rules

[Tarkon Viera]

The problem with that is you would have to police the clans pardons . To many have alts and buddies that pardon them. And then suffer no discipline.

[Taziar]

The rules are fine, rule abiding and enforcement just need to be followed for them to work.
Taziar

I must apologize for my misuse of the word abiding, I meant to say: if the rules are followed and enforced as written then they should work well and as intended.

I don't like the warranting rules but for the opposite reason stated above. I think they should be removed and clans should have their own warranting policy. I find the current rules too ooc.

I believe clans should dictate the RP of their lands. If a clan or an individual is unfair or corrupt, then this should be allowed. Just like real life. However, just like real life, there are consequences, and clans with bad reputations may suffer. It would be nice to see this kind of stuff playing out naturally in out RP ecosystem.

Only exception is OOC behaviour, which should be dealt with in the harshest manner.

While I really like the idea I have to agree with Tarkon in the fact I believe it would create a larger amount of work to police and without a uniform code much more difficult to evaluate and enforce across the board.

Taziar

[Paj]

That is an interesting and open way to go Neveyan.

The pardoning system is more apt to be corrupt than the warranting system. With warrants clan members would ask why someone is warranted, and the line of investigation would start in clan forums. Normally once someone is warranted they should post why that person is warranted.

Some lists such as darkfriends have been lost over time on forums. As have perma-warrants.

Appeals and pardon requests could still take place with other clan members/group PM.

The only thing Watchers would be needed for is those more defined OOC events of warrant harassment, setting general timeline guide for appeals/pardons, and abuse of warrant/pardon QP farming.

Policing of said warrants and pardons should always be on the players except as stated above. Warranting and deciding on pardons shouldn't ever have been a large amount of work. Perception is reality. If they look like they committed a crime, they probably did. If they can finagle their way out of it with slick words and a cool backstory, all the better for them. I've always made up snazzy backstories to my crimes and made off with great pardons due it.

Any warrant abuse or lack of pardon otherwise would be attributed to corruption and just having to deal with the hard life in the world of Robert Jordan.

[Katherine]

I'm generally okay with the warranting rules, as I think that MOST cases of warranting and pardoning are handled by reasonable and mature players. Even in some edge cases where I thought the warranting clan member was a little zealous, an explanation later provided perspective that put things in better context. It would be a shame if the process was changed based on exceptional circumstances rather than basic flaws in the process.

In the outlier cases that I have been involved with, the ones that irked me the most were the ones where people use their friends to avoid a tough pardon task or to just have a pardon dropped entirely when the same offense would be much tougher for someone who was a stranger, a new person to the MUD, or just not well-known, or even worst for someone who is well known but not well liked.

Rather than just stating the problem, perhaps a solution is to have pardoning guidelines for specific types of offenses. This would provide consistency across warranting members of the same clan (the standards do not have to be the same for every clan). The pardon task issuer might want to take a creative hand with the task, but it would generally be the same kind of task for the offense. The equivalence in real life judicial systems are sentencing guidelines, which exist for the same reason as stated above.

One thing that Ashlee did not post because it is not written anywhere for her to reference is the grievance processes. Every warrant can be appealed (not sure about banishment, but why not). It has been sometime since I was active in the Blue Ajah, but that appeal process was I believe meant to start with the clan heads unless the warrant had an ooc element (game rule infraction) then it would go to the clan Watcher. While the appeal was being adjudicated, the warrant was basically suspended, which, in my opinion, provided incentive for the warranting clan to resolve the appeal as soon as possible if they really believed that it was justified.

So just my two cents. This is an interesting topic and worth revisiting periodically, so I appreciate Ashlee kicking off the conversation.

[Naerin]

For the past god knows how long, the warranting system has been the same and has worked well for 99% of the cases that come up. No need to change the system, let the Imms deal with OOC stuff, and Pial's probably not the best guide for judging the system, since he ... inspires such powerful emotions in those around him.

[pial]

I just hope that the imms keep track of the OOC nonsense that goes on in regards to the warranting system. For example player A gets on their alt A and tries to warrant player B in that clan, then player A uses alt B to try to warrant that player in another clan. Player A then gets on their Alt C on another race and goes after Player B's Alt B. This type of stuff happens and I just hope the imms keep track of it!

I think character separation issues are a huge problem, probably more so than the actual warranting rules. I still think banishments are a wild wild west system as well.

[Wallace Del'Sol]

The thiefbane have one person of the council that handles pardons. It is only them that handles pardons . We look at each offense as a case by case. The repeat offenders go on a strike system. More strikes the harder the task. Til it gets to a point where a person is constantly getting warranted and asking for pardons. This is where you get the warrant for the longest duration. Because it is typically a person that does not care about the consequences of their actions. Typically the only time someone complains is when they are a constant problem and we are tired of trying to be patient.

[Ashlee]

I can only speak as to the Lancers and the Compies, both of which I have served on Council. In the Compies (though this was before Sarryn effectively took over and started leading it), warrants were few and far between. Mostly DoS and some weird war we had with some sw clan (RE maybe?!). As far as Lancers go, most warrants are voted on by the clan if they are even at all controversial and Councilors remove warrants that were issued hastily. There is also some fierce debate over the right pardon quest, length of banishment, and often we are citing to rules and such.

I like the thought of possibly targeting the pardon system, through guidelines or whatever. There is some logic to the issue of removing the warrant being the place where corruption is most likely to be found (on both ends, i.e. being too easy or too unattainable). A sort of Model Guidelines for Pardoning akin to real life model codes could be useful.

Pial, while I disagree with you a lot, I think you have a point regarding corruption. I would be interested in hearing if you had any recommendations beyond banishments being wild west and that Imms need to police character separation more. I think if we have thoughts/recommendations that avoid overly burdening Imms, they will be received better!

[pial]

Voting on warrants before they get placed would be nice. Removing mob auto attack from clan mobs would be nice, just have them assist the clan member etc. Punish OOC nonsense severely would be nice. I think banishments don't even make sense other than if it's for a day or something to give people space to make a decision. Other wise they just seem to be a loophole around warranting rules.

[Astolfo]