Juniper BlogA Bill to Change the "No Mixing Staff and Politics" Rule
Staff are unable to reign in an unruly owner. Congress may have the power to do something.
A BILL TO
AMEND SERVER RULES TO MAKE "NO MIXING STAFF AND POLITICS" GO BOTH WAYS AND ALLOW JUSTIFIED CRITICISM OF STAFF POLICY BREACHES
The people of the Commonwealth of Redmont, through their elected Representatives in the Congress and the force of law ordained to that Congress by the people through the constitution, do hereby enact the following provisions into law:
PART I — PRELIMINARIES
1 - Short Title and Enactment
(1) This Act may be cited as the ‘No Mixing Politics and Staff Act’
(2) This Act shall be enacted immediately upon its signage.
(3) This Act has been authored by juniperfig.
(4) This Act has been co-sponsored by [Co-Sponsor Name].
(5) This Act amends the following:
https://wiki.democracycraft.net/Rules
2 - Reasons and Intent
(1) Players cannot mix staff and politics. This rule should be applied to staff as well, who are instead held to internal staff policy when they use their staff position for personal/political gain.
(2) The rule as it stands does not allow for rightful criticism of abuse of staff power for political or personal gain.
(3) Breaches of staff policy are not being properly handled within the Staff Team.
(4) The Staff Disciplinary System does not function when applied to server owners.
PART II — PROPOSED SERVER RULE AMENDMENTS
1 - The "No mixing staff and politics" rule shall be amended as follows:
OLD TEXT: "Our Staff members are players who, in their own time, volunteer to help. Politicizing staff actions, for the sake of roleplay or otherwise, is strictly prohibited. There must be an undeniable separation between staffing and state and this is heavily policed."
NEW TEXT: "Our Staff members are players who, in their own time, volunteer to help. Politicizing staff actions consistent with staff policy, for the sake of roleplay or otherwise, is not allowed. Using staff permissions for personal or political gain is not allowed. There must be an undeniable separation between staffing and state.
2 - The following text shall be added as a subsection of the "No mixing staff and politics" rule:
"Criticizing Staff who are breaching staff policy for political or personal gain is acceptable under the following circumstances:
(a) You have opened a staff ticket to formally report a breach of staff policy;
(b) That ticket was closed without resolution of the breach of staff policy;
(c) You are able to provide specific example(s) of the breach of staff policy;
(d) You do not speculate regarding other rumoured or theoretical breaches of staff policy;
(e) The breach of staff policy occurred within the last 30 calendar days."
Hello! I recently ran in the HoR Special Election (congrats Anton, well deserved win!!!). If I had won, I would have introduced this bill. I was rightfully trounced by the power of the WPR, so I will be putting this bill here in hopes that someone will be brave enough to get it passed. I am aware the formatting is messed up. I don't know how to write bills. Thank heavens I lost!
To preface this wall of text: I do not have any evidence for the accusations I am making here. You can choose whether to believe me or not. To End: I have always been a huge fan of yours and that has not changed. Thank you for everything you do for the server.
I sent a message the other day that broke the "no mixing staff and politics" rule by criticizing End's actions as both a politician and a server owner. End deleted the message and verbally warned me in seconds. He knows very well that I am knowledgeable and experienced when it comes to moderating DC, and still breached COI policy to delete the message. I was very alarmed by the speed and lack of shame shown by End for an obvious breach of the standards staff are meant to hold themselves to, especially to someone he knows would notice that it was wrong. He is clearly confident that no real repercussions will arise from his actions. That is not healthy for the server or for the staff team, many of whom often feel obligated to publicly support (or at least turn a blind eye to) End's actions.
I was told, just like everyone else who has ever been in one of these kerfuffles with End, that I should open a staff report ticket to air my complaints. This is a pointless charade. For one, only senior staff are able to see staff report tickets, and they are both aware of this issue and unable to do anything about it. Additionally, End himself (at least when I was staff) had a habit of popping in on these tickets to defend his actions and argue about them with the reporter, and I had no interest in re-litigating this issue for the 500th time with him. I chose to write this bill and make this post instead.
The spirit of the "no mixing staff and politics" rule in question is fantastic. I am very familiar with how much time and energy goes into staffing DemocracyCraft, and the vast majority of Staff are careful about ensuring they don't gain undue influence from their positions. They should not be subject to harassment for actions they take as staff. However, it is clear to me that this rule needs to be changed. It is unrealistic to completely ban discussion of the intersection between Staff and politics, especially when server owners are active and important figures in the political scene, and one of the owners is breaking Staff Policy with no consequences. It is possible to avoid abusing Staff powers as an owner: we have a stellar example of not mixing Staff and politics from Technofied, who is careful to indicate when he is and is not acting in a Staff capacity and does not moderate issues he is personally involved with, except in extreme circumstances. xEndeavour regularly abuses Staff powers for political or personal gain and breaks the Staff Conflict of Interest policy.
You may be aware instances of staff abuse from End, but you are likely unaware of how these instances of abuse are dealt with in-house. This issue has been re-litigated within the Staff team many times, from moderators to senior staff, with no real progress from xEndeavour on reducing his conflicts of interest or abuses of power. The staff team are toothless here. There have been no real punishments for End, as he is an owner, and can revert any punishments applied to him. The only thing left for me to try is to speak out publicly about what I have seen as a staff member and hope public pressure and the power of Congress is able to do something to change this.
There are many staff members pushing back at this issue from within, but the secretive culture of staffing in DC ("Do not share staff-only information outside the staff team." is nearly as strictly enforced as the staff/politics rule) means disgruntled staff have no way to force a change. Please do not send hate towards the staff team--they are really trying to create a good environment, this is just a very difficult situation to be in. I am hoping focused external pressure can change the server for the better. Don't make things harder on them than they already are.
I spent a year supporting End publicly and trying to get him to change his actions privately, as he prefers. There are countless examples of perms abuse, breaches of COI policy, misuse of #server-announcements, release of "confidential" information, and other incidents that I have seen discussed. I am not elaborating on them here as I do not have evidence for them and they are from before January (when I left). This is not a one-time spat I am blowing out of proportion. He has been doing this blatantly and consistently since I joined the server. I think it's time for it to stop. I love the staff team to bits and I love the server to bits, and I hate to see this behaviour go unaddressed.
TL;DR: The "don't mix staff and politics" rule is being used to cover up and silence rightful criticism of End's breaches of staff policy for personal and political gain. Staff are unable to do anything about it. I hope speaking out about it will be enough to make a change.
