Hello @LauNaMu Thanks for your reply! I will share some ideas on these very interesting topics.
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I think having a public registry of cases makes a lot of sense
this is a template we could get inspired by for the future. The confidentiality managed in the council has to be backed by accountability and transparency for the community. For the same reason, in our proposal for season 6 we are suggesting having a group of supportNERDs that would connect the council with those who are actively monitoring the platforms. They would be capable of raising information about cases and providing accountability for the work of the council, its processes, and its members. We proposed a mid and end-of-season report from these supportNERDs about the council. -
The design of the intake process right now makes cases only visible to the council when they are big and hard to manage, meaning when someone sees a severe violation of the code of conduct that they think would merit a sanction (reduced to temp or permanent ban from platforms). The idea behind opening up the forms is to be able to detect cases and feedback from the community when they are small and with more management margin, so that we can be faster and more effective on our support to the involved parties -and the collective- dealing with the situation before it becomes a public standoff (like we’ve seen). Conflict is something that evolves over time, and “A Stitch in time saves nine”. The tearing of the social fabric does not happen only in huge rips, it can also start with small breaches of trust. I think being able to see these issues with time helps prevent uncontrolled situations and allows the council to do better in their intention of dealing with cases. On the proposal for season 6, I’m suggesting delivering mid and end-of-season summaries about conflicting patterns identified by the council.
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Several good practices can be continuously implemented over time. The seasonal evolution of Optimism makes a lot of room for fast improvements over each cycle. Let’s not forget this council has been a recent experiment, and that from the initial practice, we have learned a lot.
The idea behind the possibility of having a third-party mediation provider is that the Alternative Dispute Resolution steps require a lot of dedicated time per case (private meetings, screening of the situation, negotiation back and forth), and being able to pivot cases to a trusted third party for that specific type of work can avoid compromising the availability of the council members from other reports.
I think this experiment is super cool, and there is a lot to improve, but it makes sense to continue being prepared to manage coordination risks and to separate Optimism’s collective goodwill from the inevitable conflicts that may arise in such a huge and complex socio-economic system.
Note for delegates: If you think continuing to develop conflict management practices through the code of conduct council is worth it, please express your approval in this post for the budget of season 6 to reach token voting instances. 