User:Peter Schmitt/Penalties

Time penalties
1. As a disciplinary measure, offenses against the rules of the Citizendium shall be punished/answered with time penalties, i.e., by temporary exclusion from the wiki or the forum or both.

2. Warnings shall be issued, and time penalties shall be imposed by, &mdash; and at the descretion of &mdash; the Constabulary.
 * (a) Time penalties of two weeks or less cannot be appealed.
 * (b) Time penalties of more than two weeks may be appealed.
 * (c) Time penalties of more than a month have to be confirmed by the Management Council.
 * (d) Repeated time penalties may be appealed if the total length of penalties

accumulated during the last three months exceeds one month.

3. Warnings and time penalties shall be announced where the offense happened and be recorded (together with a permanent link documenting the offense) on a page dedicated to this purpose.

4. Permanent bans shall be reserved for extreme cases and only be used against users who maliciously damage the Citizendium, or who are clearly unable or unwilling to contribute in a useful way.

Since these rules do not change the Charter (but see below!) they could be approved by the MC or accepted in a referendum by a simple majority.

Item (2a) may be seen as a (minor) infringement of the Charter
 * (Art. 38.4)

Any act of the Constables may be appealed to the Management Council. and therefore rules as stated above may need a two-thirds majority. It is, however, essential that small routine penalties are excepted from appeals in order to avoid bureaucracy and the risk to be drowned in appeals.

If a change of the Charter is required then the following referendum for an amendment of the Charter (requiring a qualified majority) is proposed:

Article 38 (4) is replaced by the following text: 4. Any act of the Constables &mdash; unless explicitly excepted by the Management Council &mdash; may be appealed to the Management Council.

4. Any act of the Constables may be appealed to the Management Council, but some temporary penalties may be excepted from this right.