Bryan:
I think that this is a great idea. It serves both SI's business control requirements and the community opinion goal. As I see the proposal, no one would even be eligible for reinstatement unless they first passed through SI's initial review. In this phase, SI could (and presumably would) evaluate the business factors. Only if someone made it through the initial screening, would community involvement become relevant.
I like the idea of having seven member "judges" evaluate the community feedback and vote. The limited voting keeps it from being a pure popularity contest and with the judges identities unknown, anyone rendering an opinion would have to be concerned with expressing an opinion designed to persuade and influence -- rather than just talking trash, which would likely do little to persuade.
One safeguard that would need to be (or at least should be) built into the system would concern "judges" not evaluating a situation in which they were involved. Presumably, SI could take care of most of this in the specific selection of judges for that vote since SI would already be aware of the folks involved. Even beyond that though, the judges would need to have the ability and the duty to step aside in any situation in which they have a preconceived opinion of either the situation or the person: perhaps even a requirement (or an additional requirement) of having had no exchange of posts with the person in the last six months and an agreement to express no opinion on it (before they vote, at least) either in the voting thread or through PMs.
Finally, it might be worth considering having the judges submit a short explanation of their evaluation of the situation, which SI would post. How much of this got posted would be up to SI and none of it would be attributed to any specific judge. While this would eliminate some of the secrecy of the vote count, it would serve to give people an idea of the kinds of things that were important considerations, could serve a future deterrent purpose, and could help focus future discussion. Even if not posted by SI, it could serve as an evaluation factor by SI; not so much in the way of the vote (since SI will have already decided that it could live with reinstatement if voted that way), but in the integrity and meaningfulness of the judges and their review.
FWIW, I like the concept and the particulars: the key to its success will be in the confidence level of members in the impartiality of the judges and their selection.
Troy |
