/qa/ - Questions and Answers

With the revelations in these past couple days, it's become quite clear that the current /mlpol/ policy page is out of date and misleading, even intentionally so.
The most misleading statements is in the FAQ:
>What staff has administrative access to the server, and why?
>Atlas: super sexy owner of mlpol.net former /pol/lack, access because yes
This statement is untrue and misleading. Atlas is not the owner of /mlpol/ and has not been for some time now. This really should have been announced prior to the happening, but that's a separate discussion.

It is not acceptable to leave misleading information about the boards page, because it makes adequate transparency and community input impossible, so it really needs to be fixed as soon as reasonably possible. However, changing it is a very serious issue that warrants community discussion on the matter, so let's talk about what the policy board says, what anyone thinks it should say, and how it should be stated.

For starters, the topic above also relates to the staff rules, particularly rules #2:
>2. Staff will maintain a level of transparency with the community
This rule seemed clear enough when it was written, but now it seems as though it lacks specificity and is open to very liberal interpretation. The definition of transparency is easy enough to understand, but the wording "a level of transparency" is evidently vaguer than it seemed. According to recent revelations, informing the community about a change in ownership was not considered to be within that level of transparency, and leaving blatantly untrue statements on the policy page was deemed to be acceptable under said policy.

So the questions are is:
>What exactly is the staff's standard of transparency in regards to what the board deserves to know?
>What kinds of information are considered to be open to the community?
>How is the standard of transparency maintained and enforced, and what is the decision making process for revealing something or leaving it secret?
>What members of staff are responsible/accountable for making sure that the operations and issues concerning /mlpol/'s structure and community are disclosed to the public?
>On what basis is the community able to confidently trust that the staff is being honest and transparent with them, and how are users able to confirm this other than taking the policy page at face value?
>Does the /mlpol/ staff consider it necessary to inform the community about big changes in staffing, policy, ownership of the board or operations before they occur, or only after the matter?
>In the event that it occurs, do the staff have any policies concerning "sensitive" information deemed too risky to expose? (perhaps things such as personal information and doxxable data)

In addition, rule #2 outlines committments to the community made by the staff, but reveal very, very little about how the staff make decisions amongst themselves, how the staff is managed, and most importantly, how the staff policies are enforced. The Staff policy does mention some things thing in regards to rules are enforced and says in four places that staff found to break the rules face "punitive measures" up to immediate dismissal. Now, several of those lines are as-written described as zero-tolerance policies, but that is also questionable, because although rule #1 #3 and #4 serious and clear enough to call for those measures, rule #2 is, apparently, vague enough to be open to interpretation and has even be observably broken and disregarded either through premeditated intent or negligence before. Earlier discussions brought up the issue that zero tolerance policies might put persons on the defensive and potentially harm transparency. There are surely degrees of accountability between doing nothing and outright expulsion, but those degrees are not defined anywhere.

So, questions arise from that:
>How exactly does the /mlpol/ staff discipline itself?
>Are there degrees by which staff consider and account for alleged misconduct?
>Who is/are the final arbiter(s) for considering if/when actions by the staff violate the letter or spirit of the rules?
>How can the users of the board confidently trust that staff are accountable for inappropriate behavior?
>How do the staff con

The complications with rule #2 also proppose issues with rule #3:
>3. Staff will take all community suggestions into account
>As this is a community site and not a top-down dictatorship like some other sites user input is very important
Rule #3 is in essence contingent on the proper application of rule #2, because transparency is necessary for healthy site user input, and site user input is indeed very, very, very important because it distinguishes /mlpol/ from other chans where talking this stuff on /qa/ for weeks on end doesn't actually produce any long-term results. The community cannot voice it's opinions on matters if they are not punctually made aware of them, let alone if the policy page misleads them.
So, questions arise from that:
>Aside from merely using the board, how are the staff able to ensure that their decisions represent the will of the community?
>How, and through what mediums, does the staff make sure that community considerations are taken into account and fascilitate user input?
>On what matters is community consideration deemed to be necessary in decision making?
>How often does the staff seek out direct user input on matters of any kind?