The Alphaville Herald

James Miller’s Dispute Resolution Proposal

by Alphaville Herald on 06/01/05 at 6:26 pm

We’ve been thinking a bit about dispute resolution here, and I think the following proposal by James Miller deserves closer consideration. Basic idea is that it gives users the option to take their case before a jury of peer avatars (or alternatively going to the Lindens). As it stands I personally think there is too much role for the Lindens, but it is a very good start. There is also some discussion of the proposal on the SL forums.

Proposal for Second Life Resident Dispute Resolution System
by James Miller

ARTICLE I
SECTION I
The power to resolve Disputes between Residents in Second Life shall be shared between Residents and Employees of Linden Lab. The choice between these two options is to be made by the parties in each individual case.

SECTION II
CLAUSE I
By default, all dispute cases (aside from those mentioned in Article I, Section II, Clause IV) will go to a jury. If either party in the case requests to have their case heard instead by Linden Lab, Linden Lab will hear the case and decide the outcome of the dispute.

CLAUSE II
When an Abuse Report is sent by a Resident of Second Life, the Accuser and the Accused may both choose between two forms of Dispute Resolution.

CLAUSE III
The Choices made available to the Accuser and the Accused are either using the current Dispute Resolution method, by which the Lindens (Employees of Linden Lab) decide how to handle the dispute, or by having a jury of Second Life Residents decide how to handle the dispute.

CLAUSE IV
Only members with “basic” or “premium” accounts (or their equivalents at the time of this reading) will have a choice between the two methods of Dispute Resolution. If either party in a dispute is using a “trial” account, the dispute will automatically be reviewed by a Linden, not by a jury.

CLAUSE V
In order for a dispute/abuse report to be decided by a jury, both parties must agree to allow Linden Lab to release information to the jury. By not choosing to have Linden hear their case, they are automatically agreeing. This information would include (but is not limited to) the original abuse report, any relevant chat/IM logs, any relevant screen shots, etc.

CLAUSE VI
When given the option of having Linden or having a jury decide the case, both parties must be made aware of Article I, Section II, Clause V.

SECTION III
The jury will consist of 7 Second Life Residents who fit the listed Requirements.
CLAUSE I
In order to serve on a jury, you must have been in Second Life for at least one month (30 days), have an active subscription for the next month (next 30 days), have logged in at least 5 times in the last month, have not requested to be excluded from random jury selection, and have a clean “record” with Linden Lab for the past 30 days.

CLAUSE II
No alternative account (alt) of a jury member or either party in the dispute may serve on the jury.

CLAUSE III
All members of the jury must agree to give at least 2 hours of their time to hear all evidence in a dispute and make fair and unbiased decisions regarding guilt & punishment.

CLAUSE IV
A Resident is not eligible to serve on a jury if he or she has served on another jury in the past month (30 days).

CLAUSE V
Each jury member will be compensated for their time with L$250 per hour. This will be paid at the end of the proceedings.

CLAUSE VI
By agreeing to be a member of the jury, each jury member also agrees to allow Linden Lab to provide his or her past disciplinary records, on request, to either party involved in that juror’s case.

SECTION IV
A jury will meet on a hidden, off-world island, owned and maintained by Linden Lab. The island will be equipped with a number of simple Jury Meeting Rooms, suitable for a jury of 7 to meet, as well as interview parties in disputes.
CLAUSE I
Each island should be equipped with at least four Jury Meeting Rooms, which can be used simultaneously.

CLAUSE II
No Jury Meeting Room shall be within 20 meters of another, in order to give jury members and avatars being interviewed by the jury the ability to speak freely, without being heard by an outside party.

CLAUSE III
No one shall be allowed inside a 20 meter radius of the Jury Meeting Room while discussions are in session, in order to ensure that no outside parties can hear anything being said inside the Meeting Room.

CLAUSE IV
No scripted object, including (but not limited to) chat recording/retransmitting devices shall be allowed anywhere on the island. This does not include Linden owned objects, as detailed in Section XIII. Anyone on the island must not wear any scripted attachments at any time. This does not include Linden employees. In addition, the entire island must be set to No Build/No Script at all times. The island must be owned by the Linden which owns the objects as detailed in Section XIII.

CLAUSE V
Upon arriving at the Jury Meeting Room, a leader will be picked for the jury. The only tasks the leader has are to keep the discussions and interviews on track, to propose any non-binding or binding votes to the other jury members, and to submit the final decision for distribution to the parties involved. The jury leader will be picked randomly from the 7 jury members.

SECTION V
When both parties are using Second Life at the same time, a jury of 7 will be randomly selected from the pool of eligible Residents. Both parties in the case will be notified via an automated dialog window that a jury is now reviewing their case, and teleported to the same island as the jury. They will be kept in a separate waiting room, incase the jury requests to speak to either of them.

SECTION VI
While the jury’s discussions are taking place, the jury must follow a set of rules.
CLAUSE I
Upon entering the Jury Meeting Room and taking their seats around the center table, the jury will receive a Notecard, prepared by a Linden, complete with a copy of the original Abuse Report, a copy of any relevant chat logs and IM logs between the two parties, and relevant screen shots.

CLAUSE II
If a member of the jury leaves the Jury Meeting Room, or is disconnected from Second Life before the interviews of the parties involved take place, that jury member will be replaced with a new, randomly chosen Resident. If the juror leaves or is disconnected after the interviews start, the entire proceeding is voided and must be restarted at a later date with an entirely new jury.

CLAUSE III
The jury may request any additional materials from Linden Lab, however, Linden Lab is not obligated to provide all requested materials.

CLAUSE IV
The jury must interview each party involved in the dispute for at least five minutes. If the jury has no questions for the party, the jury must hear the person’s argument. The jury may spend up to 30 minutes speaking to each party. Each party must be interviewed individually.

CLAUSE V
If a party does not show up for their interview, or if a party walks out of the Jury Meeting Room, or if a party disconnects from Second Life during or before their interview, they will no longer be allowed to speak to the jury. They can, however, use this as grounds for an appeal.

CLAUSE VI
After completing their interviews, the jury should discuss the case for at most one hour (60 minutes). During this discussion, they may take non-binding votes to see how they feel as a group.

CLAUSE VII
This entire process should take between 2 to 3 hours. Any case which was decided in less than one hour (60 minutes) is grounds for an appeal.

SECTION VII
After the jury’s discussion has ended, the jury needs to take a series of binding votes.

CLAUSE I
All voting will take place via public chat. Members of the jury will, one at a time, indicate if they are voting “yes” or “no” to the topic they are voting on.

CLAUSE II
In order for a vote to pass, at least 4 of the members must vote “yes”.

CLAUSE III
The first vote will be on the issue of guilt. The leader will first propose a vote on the issue of guilt of the accused party, and then, if that vote does not pass, a vote on the issue of guilt of the accusing party will be held. If neither vote passes, the case is automatically given to Linden Lab.

CLAUSE IV
The next vote is on punishment. Based on previous discussions, the jury leader will propose punishments for each party. Votes will take place until punishments can be agreed on for each party. The first punishment vote for each party must be for “No Punishment”. If a punishment cannot be decided on for a party, that party’s punishment will be put as “No Punishment”.

SECTION VIII
The jury may give a punishment to either party, but, is not required to do so.

CLAUSE I
Only three types of punishments may be given out by a jury.

CLAUSE II
Punishment type one: A fine in Linden Dollars (L$). This fine may not exceed L$9,000.

CLAUSE III
Punishment type two: Suspension/banishment from Second Life. A suspension may range from 1 hour to 1 month. Any suspension longer than 2 weeks (14 days) & banishment causes the case to be automatically appealed by the party that received that punishment.

CLAUSE IV
Punishment type three: An order forcing one party to return to the other party and/or delete from inventory a specific object, script, image, texture, animation, landmark, notecard, etc.

CLAUSE V
A punishment may consist of any combination of Article I, Section VII, Clauses II, III and IV.

SECTION IX
After a jury makes its final decision, the losing party of the case may file an appeal.

CLAUSE I
Only the losing party in a case may file an appeal.

CLAUSE II
In order for an appeal to be accepted, the losing party must have grounds.

CLAUSE III
In order to find any possible evidence of bias by one or more jury members of the original jury, either party may request the disciplinary records of any of the 7 original jury members. These records should only include those accusations that the person was convicted of.

CLAUSE IV
The newly selected jury will, at the start of their meeting, review all materials related to the case, as well as interview both parties in the case. At that point, the jury will determine if the losing party has grounds for an appeal by taking a vote.

CLAUSE V
If the majority of the jury of 7 agrees that the losing party did in fact have grounds for an appeal, the process described in Section V will be followed by this new jury.

CLAUSE VI
If the majority of the jury of 7 does not believe that the losing party had grounds for an appeal, the case will be thrown out by the jury and automatically given to Linden Lab for review.

CLAUSE VII
In the event of a mandatory appeal, such as in a case where one of the parties received the punishment of a suspension of more than 2 weeks (14 days) or banishment from Second Life, the interviews and votes as described in Article I, Section VIII, Clause III will not take place. Instead, Section I, Article VIII, Clause IV will automatically be followed.

SECTION X
The losing party of an appeal may make an appeal to the Lindens. In this case, the dispute will go to the Lindens, and their decision is final.

SECTION XI
Linden Lab may, at any time, add amendments to this document.

CLAUSE I
The amendments that Linden Lab adds may not remove or contradict anything in this original document.

CLAUSE II
An amendment may be used to remove a previous amendment.

SECTION XII
The job of interpreting and carrying out this document is the job of Linden Lab. This document gives Linden Lab the responsibility of doing what it deems necessary and proper to execute this document as fairly as possible.

SECTION XIII
All transcripts from cases, as well as all data viewed by the jury, shall be available upon e-mail request, after a case has been decided. Linden Lab is responsible for setting up the e-mail address to accept requests, and is responsible for giving the data requested in a timely fashion.
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