Dispute Resolution

First, do you even think disputes will ever occur in Neualtenburg?

While I hope there will be no disputes, human nature being what it is, I think there might be a few.

Here are my top six:

a) those in charge are not fulfilling their duties properly (absenteeism, egomania, bad decisions, etc)
b) common resources belonging to the project will be poorly used / abused
c) those elected were not so elected fairly (election procedure not done correctly, ballet stuffing, etc)
d) alt abuse
e) dispute over what we can and can't do in neaultenburg
f) slandering, character asassination, and griefing by unhappy members of the population
over disputes that are resolved poorly

I think f) is a result of a-e, and if there is a good resolution process that is transparent and clear then f) will be less likely to occur.

What other sort of disputes do you think might occur?

blaze, you summed it up pretty well I was thinking on other possible causes for dispute, but all of them fall into your 6 cases (they're combinations thereof).

Hmm, excellent starting base for the law system!

Your list is quite comprehensive! Thank you for posting the poll.

I also would like to add general harassment as something that we should look into and deal with even handedly. While not on par with griefing, sustained harassment of an individual consisting of name calling, ethnocentric (sexist, racist, nationalist, etc.) language, or ultimatums in world and in forums should be addressed by the group.

For example in our forums I have seen a few posts with expletives directed at groups of individuals, sexist remarks in posts, and ultimatums. I'd like to have a formalized way of moderating this kind of behavior, teaching alternatives, and punishing those who persist.

~Ulrika~

I wanted to repost this from a General Forum thread.
~Ulrika~

I posted this thread because I actually have participated (not ran for, I'm really not that type, I like to program in a suprisingly large number of MUD and MMORPG player organisations.

And I have seen every single one fail.

And every group failed at the end with one of the above disputes occuring. I'm not saying they were the root cause, but there was never (and I have to admit, not once) a process to handle the disputes.

So I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that this will happen to Neaultenburg.

I hate to sound so negative, but I've just seen it happen time and time again.

How are we prepared? If say, Paul Anka is in charge of Neaultenburg and suddenly starts banning people because he doesn't like the fact that they're complaining about him constantly in the forums - what do we do?

Do we simply go into recall? What if someone uses their ALT (or friends) to get Paul Anka booted because and we barely reach quorum?

What if he actually had good reasons for banning these people? How does the truth come out?

What if someone is griefed by someone with several ALTs and he gets banned as a result, even though he didn't do anything? Do we act on majority rule?

We talk about a grand jury .. and I agree, but how about a temporary ban until the jury can resume? (Kinda like you can't make bail)

What happens if we don't try to resume a jury just because we don't want to bother with the hassle of someone who is clearly guilty?

If you want, I can come up with a 1000 scenarios that will happen and will result in anger and frustration and the government falling apart.

It's all rosy now, because no one is disagreeing. But when the disagreements start - what do we do?

How these scenarios are handled will be responsible whether or not Neaultenburg is a success as a government.

Note: I think Neaultenburg will work as a build, because people like to build. But, and don't take this personally, that really has nothing to do with government.

The build will work because people will post "hey I need this" and someone will do it. Or someone will just build cool stuff and everyone will recognize that it is good.

The true test of all this will occur when we start to disagree and dispute.

I've heard that a lot and take it quite seriously. I'm also worried about players giving departure ultimatums, such as "if this law passes, I'm leaving the group". To address such issues, we've tried to build multiple branches into the government with checks and balances and we're looking at ways of investing or holding players in the city so they can't leave without a notice of some kind. However, it still needs a lot of work.

Let's use this thread to define a dispute-handling process. I think the best way to do it is by presenting and working through likely scenarios as you've done below.


I'd say that would be violations of the bill of rights, specifically freedom of speech. The philosophic branch would handle the complaint by charging the member and calling a hearing. If found guilty, the player would be required to leave office. Because the complaint is handled by the Philosophic branch, we don't have to worry about alts in the Representative branch blocking the decision through political means.

If you're unfamiliar with the different branches, there should be an overview up shortly.

Bans can be challenged and overturned in the Philosophic branch after a hearing. If they're being used as a method of excluding someone's participation in the city unfairly they can file a complaint against the person banning.

That will be one of the critical jobs of the Philosophic branch, to hear all disputes. Not hearing them because it's a hassle will not happen!

I really like this line of questioning. It's very valuable. After the summary of the constitution is up in a couple of days, let's revisit this and give the dispute system a real workout.

~Ulrika~

Well, to try to lift Blaze's pessimism a little, I just would like to add that I have had a better, more positive experience than him So, fortunately, things are never so "black & white".

First, I must agree I haven't been participating in MUDs/MMORPGs "governments". However, I have both participated on other MMOG's governments (there are really so many types, and not only "real-time" MMOGs...), other types of communities with an emphasis on "creating collaborative projects" (yes, most involving some degree of "programming", as well as several organisations, associations and companies, with their own "charters" or "Internal rulings". Most systems were vaguely democratic and certainly had some degree of banning people.

Curiously enough - and I must admit that I have only figured it out after I saw the organisation of the Neualtenburger Projekt! - most systems that "worked" had a degree of non-democratic system implemented as well, on the lines of a meritocracy. This means that the "control" or "check" group was mostly meritocratic, while the groundwork for getting things done was democratic. After some consideration, it seems to me in retrospective that it was this dualism that made these projects work.

Certainly some of my experiences also were negative, and certainly some "emotional blackmailing" like "I'm going to leave if this doesn't work according to my wishes" was ever present at all those groups and virtual communities. However, the biggest factor in people leaving the group/community was not a dispute problem resulting in a ban/exclusion/suspension - but almost always people not having time for the project any more, losing interest, or even finantial considerations.

What I mean is that the "disputes" were not at the kernel of the problem. Sure, very valuable members were lost that way. In some of those projects, I still find it sad that people simply decided to leave them, start to try their own, but due to their own confliticing nature, never were successfull in restarting new projects from scratch according to their personal wishes. There are very, very few cases I can remember when someone was "ruled out" from a group/community, abandoned it, and started a new one (several certainly tried). In almost all cases the problem is mostly with that particular person's attitude to collaborative work - and not necessarily with the group itself.

But we'll see I'm ever again the optimist