Complaints Resolution Committee Submission to the Board of Directors (as modified and approved at the meeting of 18 June 1996) Background ---------- In September 1995, the Board of Directors created the Complaints Resolution Committee and charged it with receiving complaints from and about users. As part of its mandate the CRC investigates these complaints and determines whether they are founded or not. If a complaint is founded, the CRC attempts to resolve the matter by advising NCF members of the nature of the complaint against them, referring the members to the User Agreement and Acceptable Use Policy and by suggesting a course of action to bring members back into conformity with these documents (e.g. removing an offending post from a newsgroup, providing an apology for inappropriate IRC or email behaviour and providing an undertaking to respect the User Agreement and Acceptable Use Policy in future). In some cases this response is not appropriate or sufficient. There are several members who have continued to engage in unacceptable behaviour after it has been brought to the their attention that the behaviour is unacceptable. In these cases, a second or third warning tends not to bring about a positive change in activity any more than did the original warning. In other circumstances, the nature of the "offence" is such that a simple warning is not a sufficiently severe reaction on the part of the CRC. Where a warning is not an appropriate response, the CRC is left with only one tool: suspension. As members of the Board are aware, this is a tool that is used sparingly and only in the most severe circumstances. This is as it should be because suspension is the ultimate sanction that NCF can impose: it should never become the sanction of choice. The difficulty the CRC finds itself in is that there are often situations where a warning is insufficient but suspension is too much. This is frustrating for members of the Committee and for the complainants because it appears that "nothing is being done". In consultation with NCF staff, it would appear that it *is* technically possible to limit a user's access to one or more discrete NCF services (e.g. email, news), although a certain amount of staff and/or volunteer time would have to be devoted to writing the necessary programs to permit this. Proposal -------- The CRC is seeking Board agreement to implement a selective suspension policy along the following lines: 1 The CRC be authorized to suspend members' accounts and/or limit a members' per day access for a period of time to be determined by the nature of the members' behaviour and that the Executive Director be asked to assign staff and/or volunteer resources to develop the necessary software immediately. 2 Suspensions would only be imposed after members had been advised of the nature of the complaint against them and had been given the opportunity to respond to the complaint. 3 Suspensions would only be imposed where the nature of the offence and/or the frequency of the offence is such that the normal warning is an insufficient response under all the circumstances or the members in question have failed to modify their behaviour to conform to NCF policies. 4 Subsequent suspensions for longer periods of time could be imposed if a first suspension fails to convince members to adhere to the User Agreement and/or Acceptable Use Policy and that the CRC adopt the notion of "progressive discipline" if additional sanctions are imposed. 5 A member who is subject to such a suspension will be able to appeal the suspension to the Board. 6 The CRC is to provide an immediate notification of suspensions to the Board and a quarterly summary report. 7 The CRC is to post an announcement in ncf.sub.complaints each time such a suspension is imposed. Without identifying the person against whom the suspension was imposed, the CRC is to post sufficient information to permit members to know the nature of the complaint and the sanction imposed. -- Complaints Resolution Committee/Comite de resolution des plaintes