Secretary-General - 33rd, 35th Cabinets Director of World Assembly Affairs - 29th Cabinet Ambassador to Social Liberal Union - 28th, 29th, 32nd, 33rd, 34th Cabinets Ambassador to Europeia - 32nd Cabinet Cabinet Aide to MoDA - 33rd, 34th Cabinets
Hey there. Sloth here. I just wanted to list my reasons below for why this act, while an okay idea in theory, should be voted AGAINST. As can be read above(Sections 1.,2.), Censures are proposable by Congress. Why is this important? Well, Censures are one of the only mild punishments we can institute as Congress. This means that should this act past, Congress, the people of the DSA, loses the power to issue formal statements against the actions of residents and MoCs. We're then left with two options. A. We have to simply leave it in the hands of a select few individuals to choose who to warn or punish. B. We need to choose between kicking MoCs from Congress or from the DSA altogether, should Congress decide a guilty party is not being punished.
Between these two options, obviously we should choose A. However, this itself has its own issues. In any organization, if a select few people bear all disciplinary authority, corruption is going to happen. I'm not saying we're going to have coverups or someone will consciously drop a punishment, but even subconsciously, we just let our friends off easier. However, if MoCs could formally state their disapproval, we would have an easy way to give slap-on-the-wrist punishments to problematic elements ourselves. All this act accomplishes is centralizing power in the hands of the Cabinet and Mod team. And those are truly great people, many of whom I consider friends. But there's simply no reason to take away this right. One argument in favour of this act is simply "We don't use it.". We've had the privilege not to have to use it often. But just because a right isn't often used does not mean it should be taken. In conclusion, please help keep power in the DSA in the hands of Congress and vote no on the Censure Deletion Act.
We all believe that to deal with bad behaviour and keep our region a fun place to be in for everyone we need measures which are effective, swift and fair. Personally I think that deleting censures is a good way to get even closer to an effective, swift and fair approach to moderation.
Our moderation system on the Discord Server already is very effective. When somebody breaks the rules there is a 3-strike system as decided by our moderators, from the second strike the mod team is required to be fully transparent to the congress as for their reasons and allows people to appeal their strikes. Should the congress be of the opinion that the moderators or the admin have broken the rules they may vote on giving a moderator a strike.
Outside of matter considering the discord server the disciplinary measures at our disposal are decided by the charter. If deemed necesarry the court and high judge may decide whether to impeach or expulse any member of congress and resident, this gives the congress direct democratic measures to make sure our community stays healthy, court cases also have many procedures to ensure they are fair and should an moc be of the opinion the high judge has acted wrongly they can issue a case against the high judge or if their behaviour is serious enough an article of impeachment by congress.
These already existing measures all are atleast either swift and effective or fair, which I do not feel that censuring is. Censuring is not effective because it is either experienced as just a slap on the wrist, which a warning or a serious discussion effect of while being much more swift, or public shaming which we as a region should avoid in my opinion, it is also not necesarrily democratic as the High Judge and Ministry of Justice can decide to censure without the congress if they so wish. Due to a censure taking 7 days to vote on it is also not swift, meaning that in case of a troll or a bad faith actor it won't have any effect, in general it is also better to be able to deal with a situation as it arises.
Secretary-General - 1st Council President & WAD - 33rd, 34th and 35th Cabinet Minister of Foreign Affairs - 32nd Cabinet Minister of Domestic Affairs - 30th and 31st Cabinet Minister of Immigration and Regional Promotion (Defunct) - 28th Cabinet
Secretary-General - 33rd, 35th Cabinets Director of World Assembly Affairs - 29th Cabinet Ambassador to Social Liberal Union - 28th, 29th, 32nd, 33rd, 34th Cabinets Ambassador to Europeia - 32nd Cabinet Cabinet Aide to MoDA - 33rd, 34th Cabinets