Bylaws Revision, Section 6: Disciplinary Policy
Open Votes
Section 6: Disciplinary Policy
A. Council
1. Council shall preside over any disciplinary case that involves more than one chronicle and/or an elected Coordinator, should any involved bring it to Council through a proposal.
2. Disciplinary Procedure
a. Issuing a OWBN Disciplinary Action
1. To initiate a OWBN Disciplinary Action a proposal must be submitted to Council proposing an action against a member, where a member is defined as an individual who participates in OWBN. The proposal should
specify the sought duration of the action. If no duration is given the duration will be six (6) months.
2. If a Disciplinary action is to be taken against a currently serving elected Coordinator, then the proposal must include the Removal action.
3. The member to be issued with an OWBN Disciplinary Action must be sent notification within twenty-four (24) hours of the beginning of the discussion period of the proposal. The member is permitted to state a case
in their defense. This defense must be given within seven (7) days of the beginning of the discussion period of the proposal. This period may be extended up to twenty-one (21) days by the Head Coordinator to a total of twenty-eight (28) days from the beginning of the discussion period. Any
further extension requires a council vote. The voting period shall not begin until the discussion period has passed. If no response has been received from the member within the allotted time, then the member shall have
forfeited the right to a response.
4. Head Coordinator (HC) and Assistant Head Coordinators (AHCs) may seek further information as they see fit for the case. Should it be necessary, the HC and AHCs may appoint a team of members to act as their
Sub-coordinators for the length of the proposal process to investigate the situation.
5. This results of the investigation and supporting evidence must be made available to the Council for assessment before the voting period begins.
6. The Disciplinary Action must be ratified by a majority vote of the Council. Ties in all Disciplinary Actions are broken by the Head Coordinator.
7. If the member's behavior is a violation of OWBN rules and values as decided by the Head Coordinator (HC), the Head Coordinator may order an immediate ban of that member from OWBN, whether or not that member has already been disciplined by a chronicle for that behavior. Following this ban, the Head Coordinator must initiate a disciplinary proposal to council proposing the ban action within fourteen (14) days. If this vote fails or the proposal is not made, the ban is reversed and all effects of the ban are removed from the member.
b. Reporting
1. The elected Historian/Archivist will compile and maintain a record of all members given OWbN Disciplinary actions. This list will be available to any ST, Council Member, or Coordinator within OWbN. They may ask the Historian/Archivist for the list of players, or
may inquire after a particular member in that regard.
2. Following the reinstating of full member status, all positions denied through Probation or Temporary Ban Actions [see section 3. Disciplinary Actions] are again available to the member. Also, record of the action will be removed from the record of Disciplinary Actions.
3. The permanent banning of a member from a Chronicle under Article One or by the chronicle's disciplinary procedures must be announced on the owbn-st and owbn-council mailing lists.
4. The result of an OWBN Disciplinary Action Vote must be announced on the owbn-st and owbn-council mailing lists.
5. If the result of an OWBN Disciplinary Action is the banning or striking of a member OWBN wide, it must be announced on the owbn and owbn-ooc lists.
6. At any time during the duration and within seven (7) days after the end of the Probation or Temporary Ban disciplinary actions, the Council Member of the chronicle with which the member is interacting may
file a report on the member's conduct and a recommendation to grant another disciplinary action equal to the one ratified by council. If a probation follows a ban, the additional option of granting another ban of the same
duration as the original is available to be recommended. If there are no objections to this recommendation within one (1) week, the recommendation will be executed as though it were a successful vote. If an objection is made, the recommendation may either be withdrawn or resubmitted as a
proposal. If neither a withdrawal nor proposal happens within seven (7) days of the objection, then it will be treated as though no recommendation had been made. Should no recommendation be made, the member will be reinstated
to full membership status. The duration of this action will be the duration of the original proposal.
3. Disciplinary Actions
a. OWBN Condemnation
1. This action is to allow Council to condemn an action that does not deserve other punishment. A Condemnation action will stay on the Historian/Archivist's records unless it is successfully appealed.
b. OWBN Censure
1. A censure may be called with or without any combination of other disciplinary actions.
2. Consequences of OWBN Censure
i. No member holding any OWBN Censure shall be permitted to hold any unelected position within OWBN at the organizational level.
ii. Should any member receive three OWBN Censures, that player will be treated as though having received an OWBN Strike.
c. OWBN Strike
1. A strike may be called with or without any combination of other disciplinary actions.
2. Consequences of OWBN Strikes
i. No member holding any OWBN Strikes shall be permitted to hold any position within OWBN at the organizational level. Organizational Level positions are: Coordinators, Sub-Coordinators, Council Members, and Portraying NPCs for Coordinators or Sub-Coordinators
ii. Should any member receive three OWBN Strikes, that player will no longer be eligible to play in any OWBN Chronicle, nor hold any position within OWBN.
d. OWbN Probation
1. Upon ratification of the action and notification of the member, the member receiving a Probation Action is restricted to interacting
with a single chronicle. The member is not permitted access to the national e-mail lists of OWBN for the duration of the probation, neither may they serve OWBN in any organizational level position during this time.
e. OWBN Temporary Ban
1. A ban action may be combined in the disciplinary proposal with a probation of the same duration to begin after the ban ends. During that probation the member may serve in no position, at either the chronicle or OWBN level.
2. Upon ratification of the ban and notification of the member the member will not be allowed to interact with OWBN in any capacity for the duration of the action.
f. OWBN Indefinite Ban
1. This Disciplinary Action grants three (3) OWBN Strikes in one (1) action and will be recorded as the member having received three (3) OWBN strikes which will be treated as separate actions for reversal.
g. Removal from Office
1. This action may be combined with any other action or combination of actions.
2. This action may only be taken against a Coordinator mentioned in Administrative Bylaws Section 3 or a Sub-Coordinator of one of those positions.
3. The proposal containing this action against an elected Coordinator must pass with a two-thirds majority without the support of the Head Coordinator. With the support of the Head Coordinator only a simple majority is required.
4. Upon ratification of the removal the member will no longer serve OWBN in the position previously held. This action may not be reversed.
4. Appeal or Reversal process.
a. Reversal of OWBN Disciplinary Actions
1. Any member who has received an OWBN disciplinary action may apply for a reversal of the action through a proposal seeking reversal of the action from a Council Member, AHC or the HC after one half (1/2) the
assigned duration or six (6) months in the case of a strike. Only one action may be reversed per proposal.
2. Only one such proposal on behalf of a member will be considered per three hundred sixty five (365) days beginning at the ratification of the first action given to the member.
3. If the reversal would reduce the number of strikes held by the member to two (2), the proposal must be made by the Head Coordinator and the member will receive a Probation Disciplinary Action with a duration of six (6) months if the vote succeeds.
4. Any strikes reversed in this way shall be noted as reversed in the Historian/Archivist's record.
b. Appeal of OWBN Disciplinary Actions
1. Should new evidence about a disciplinary action become available, a Council Member, an Assistant Head Coordinator or the Head Coordinator may introduce a proposal to appeal the original vote.
2. If the appeal is ratified, the appealed action is nullified and will be treated as though that action's vote failed.
B. Chronicles
1.Chronicle discipline is the province of the Chronicle Staff, however disciplinary actions passed by Council must be enforced by the Chronicle Staff.
2. Every chronicle must have a written disciplinary policy. These policies must be made available either on the chronicles' website or at the check-in desk.
3. Visitors to a chronicle are subject to the disciplinary procedures of the chronicle that they visit, just as their characters are subject to the actions of the game under Article 3 of the OWBN Charter.