Committee Discord Meeting 12/8/19

Monday 12th August – Meeting Start

Motions to be voted upon:

• Having the current Discord warning system be applicable to members of the Discord in retrospect.
• Allowing political statements, NSFW and the like be used as Discord nicknames.
• Having permabans last for an academic year ban with no warnings given for any consecutive misbehaviour.
• Allowing political statements, NSFW and the like be used as Discord profile pictures.
• Allowing political statements, NSFW and the like be used as Discord usernames.
• Voting on banning Member A. This would require two pieces of evidence from separate incidents.
• Issuing Member B for their most recent post in #meme-central relating to suicide.

*The Lancaster University Gaming and Esports Discord server will be referred to as “the Server” for the duration of this meeting’s minutes.
*The phrase “not safe for work” will be abbreviated to NSFW for the duration of this meeting’s minutes.
*The phrase “safe for work” will be abbreviated to SFW for the duration of this meeting’s minutes.

Discussion of Motions

11:42 – Brent suggested that everyone firstly give their opinion on each of the motions and then discuss counters and such.

12:02 – Brent‘s thoughts on the motions were as follows:

• Against retrospective punishment as due to it being “bad practice” and there also currently no way to ensure that the rules were followed at the time of a potential incident.
• Against NSFW political nicknames, instead suggesting that they should be used to hide an inappropriate username.
• Suggested that we revisit the rules to decide what classifies as a perma-ban, agreeing that a perma-ban may sometimes be the correct course of action.
• Against NSFW profile pictures, believing that they should be SFW as they are publically viewable.
  • Doesn’t have an issue with political pictures, believing that we should only take action if a picture is blatantly NSFW or if we, the Committee, get a complaint about the picture.
• Doesn’t have an issue with NSFW Discord usernames unless they are extremely offensive, however, believes that Discord would most likely pick up on an overly NSFW username before the account could affect the Server.
• No comment on the motion of banning Member A but stated that we would need to gather evidence to go through with motion.

13:29 – Mo‘s thoughts on the motions were as follows:

• Agrees that the retrospective Discord bans could work but would require a lot of time and effort to go through every member to see if they committed any offence.
  • Suggested only going through the past year for offences but believes that even that would be unfair.
  • Suggested moving everyone that would have committed an offence to their final warning as an alternative to banning them outright.
• Stated that having an NSFW username would be acceptable as long as the displayed nickname is SFW.
  • Also agreed that a better definition of “content” in the Discord Rules would be ideal.
• Suggested that the third motion (having permabans last for an academic year ban with no warnings given for any consecutive misbehaviour) could be a viable alternative to banning members due to motion one (having the current Discord warning system be applicable to members of the Discord in retrospect).

13:46 – Josh stated that retrospective bans are would be unfair as he would be in violation of the “No politics” rule.

13:58 – Katie‘s thoughts on the motions were as follows:

• Retrospective bans: Believes that the current system of making rules as issues arise is the ideal way to handle the Server as it wouldn’t be possible for us to anticipate every potential violation.
• Politics: Stated that it would be best to avoid all possible mention of politics in the Server as the #politics channel was removed for a reason.
• NSFW Names: Stated that NSFW can be a difficult issue as sometimes it depends on how the individual views a subject.
  • Simplified NSFW to be defined as sexist, racist or homophobic or anything that an individual wouldn’t want to be linked to them.
  • Stated that the nickname feature should be used to keep the visible name SFW and that their tag outside of the Discord is not our concern as we have no right over people outside of the LUGES Discord.
• Consecutive Bans: Believes that anyone that’s been banned should be offered an appeal every year and that the Committee should be able to evaluate if they should remain banned based on the severity of their offence.
• Stated that profile pictures should be treated the same way as nicknames; if they don’t adhere to a SFW picture then they should not remain in the Server.

17:56 – James‘ thoughts on the motions were as follows:

• Stated that banning an individual based on something that they had done in the past would be unfair as the rule(s) did not exist at the time so their behaviour would have been fully allowed, that is, in that it wasn’t explicitly disallowed.
  • Agrees that just because something might not have been explicitly against the rules at the time, certain behaviour at the time would still have to be punished.
  • Fully supported the idea of moving any ‘past offenders’ onto their final warning and explaining the reasons why to ensure that they are aware of the severity of their behaviour and/or actions.
• Stated that politics didn’t work previously on the Server and doesn’t believe that it has a place on the Server due to its ability to start arguments and the fact that this is a gaming society, making discussions about politics against the Server’s ideals.
  • Believes that, if their username contains or is a political statement or is NSFW, we should ask people to change their nickname to something more suitable, effectively hiding their username.
• Stated that profile pictures are public so should be SFW.
  • Believes that if a profile picture is NSFW then it would be against Discord’s terms of service meaning that Discord would deal with this issue.
    • Failing this, stated that if the Committee receives any complaints about a person’s profile picture(s), we should decide on the appropriate action to take at the time if the complaint is justified.
• Unsure of perma-bans, instead suggesting an academic year ban, allowing the opportunity for appeal each year to indicate the severity of the cause of banning would be a better idea.
  • Elaborating further, if the cause of banning is decided to be severe then the ban remains, otherwise, the ban is lifted.
• Indifferent about banning Member A due to a lack of knowledge of their actions.

17:59 – Kieran‘s thoughts on the motions were as follows:

• Retrospective bans: Against this motion, believing that there is no reason to enforce any type of punishment against rules that did not exist at the time.
• Allowing political statements and stuff: Indifferent about this motion as long as the political statements are not actively hateful.
• Permabans lasting a year: In favour of this motion, believing that future Committee members can review bans if need be.
• NSFW profile pics: Against this motion to avoid any form of controversy and/or hate speech.
• NSFW names: Believes that this would be more excusable that NSFW profile picture but is against this motion for the sake of consistency with his stance on NSFW profile pics.
• Banning Member A: Against this motion and believes that if the Committee were to go about banning Member A, it would have to be discussed in a face-to-face meeting and a General Meeting.

19:06 – Jack‘s thoughts on the motions were as follows:

• Having the current Discord warning system be applicable to members of the Discord in retrospect: Against the motion of retrospective bans, deeming it unfair
• Allowing political statements, NSFW and the like be used as Discord nicknames: Believes that any breaches of Discord’s terms of service should be met with action and would not personally be against any statements that do not breach the terms of service.
  • Also believes that allowing political statements can bring about unnecessary arguments so would be against this motion as a result.
• Having permabans last for an academic year ban with no warnings given for any consecutive misbehaviour: Against the motion.
• Allowing political statements, NSFW and the like be used as Discord profile pictures: Believes that if the profile picture breaches Discord’s terms of service then we should deal with the issue accordingly.
  • Otherwise, believes that we do not have the right to tell people what they should use as their profile picture, especially as they may be in other Discord servers.
• Allowing political statements, NSFW and the like be used as Discord usernames: Beliefs on this motion are identical to beliefs on the fourth motion (allowing political statements, NSFW and the like be used as Discord profile pictures)
• Voting on banning Member A. This would require two pieces of evidence from separate incidents: Believes that such a decision would have to be done at an Annual General Meeting or General Meeting.
• Issuing Member B for their most recent post in #meme-central relating to suicide: For the motion, believing that all sensitive content such as the post in question should be dealt with to avoid upsetting anyone.

20:23 – Mo asked when the votes would be counted and gave updated opinions on the other motions:

• For the motion of banning Member A. Evidence would be:
  • Recent comments that they made in feedback.
  • The previous incident in the old politics channel (would need to check the archive for more in-depth information).
    • Believes that this conversation also leaked into #general-chat which was and still is against the Discord rules.
• For the motion of warning Member B. Believes their post could come across as NSFW as it does contain jokes about race, politics, suicide and gun violence.

and gave an updated opinion on the first motion (having the current Discord warning system be applicable to members of the Discord in retrospect), now being against the motion.

20:24 – Brent suggested extracting the vote options for each motion unless they were able to be voted upon using a yes/no/abstain system.

20:25 – Mo suggested that all the motions were able to be voted upon using a yes/no/abstain system.

20:26 – Brent asked Mo to post the motions in the #actions channel to allow the Committee to vote on them.

20:38 – Mo posted the motions in the #actions channel to allow voting to begin.

20:38 – Brent brought up the point of whether or not Member B‘s warning would classify as a second-level warning if Josh had messaged Member B previously regarding their behaviour previously but did not use the bot.

20:41 – Mo stated that the warning that Member B was issued originally should have been done through the “official channel” (the bot) for logging purposes.

20:42 – Jack asked what evidence we have of the warning if it wasn’t logged properly the first time.

20:42 – Brent stated that it doesn’t count as a warning if not done properly and answered Jack‘s question by stating that the evidence would be the audit of Josh deleting Member B‘s message and Josh‘s DMs.

20:43 – Mo agreed that as it wasn’t done officially, Josh‘s warning doesn’t count.

20:43 – Mo pointed out that Josh‘s warning would count if motion one (having the current Discord warning system be applicable to members of the Discord in retrospect) goes through.

Results of voting

• Having the current Discord warning system be applicable to members of the Discord in retrospect
  • Yes: 0
  • No: 11
  • Abstain: 0

Motion rejected

• Allowing political statements, NSFW and the like be used as Discord nicknames
  • Yes: 0
  • No: 6
  • Abstain: 5

Motion rejected

• Having permabans last for an academic year ban with no warnings given for any consecutive misbehaviour
  • Yes: 7
  • No: 3
  • Abstain: 1

Motion carried

• Allowing political statements, NSFW and the like be used as Discord profile pictures
  • Yes: 3
  • No: 7
  • Abstain: 1

Motion rejected

• Allowing political statements, NSFW and the like be used as Discord usernames
  • Yes: 4
  • No: 0
  • Abstain: 7

Motion rejected

• Voting on banning Member A. This would require two pieces of evidence from separate incidents
  • Yes: 6
  • No: 2
  • Abstain: 3

Motion carried

• Issuing Member B for their most recent post in #meme-central relating to suicide
  • Yes: 10
  • No: 0
  • Abstain: 1

Motion carried

00:00 – Meeting End