[IBL] idea for a new protest process

[Sean Sweda]

I'm seeing people suggest things that sound good at first thought, but when  
examined through the lens of years of experience on the rule enforcement  
side of things appear problematic to me.

1) Forcing people who are not interested to participate in the process is  
not a good idea.  We have plenty of examples where arguments that spilled  
over into the public have had negative consequences, namely un-interested  
parties questioning remaining in the League.  Furthermore, requiring a  
significant number of protesting teams to initiate a protest can achieve  
the same goal as a league-wide vote (consensus) while remaining opt-in,  
since every protesting team is obviously a vote to overturn.

2) I see words/phrases like "collusion", "protecting new owners", and "best  
interests of the league" and get concerned because fundamentally these are  
all subjective terms that mean different things to different people.  You  
can construct a new set of rules that use these terms and everyone could  
vote for it thinking their standards will apply, but the shit will still  
hit the fan once other people's interpretations of these phrases get  
applied.  Fundamentally you have to make peace with the fact that at the  
end of this process a subjective ruling about fairness is going to be made,  
regardless of what words you use to try to limit the scope.

3) There needs to be collective agreement as to which is more important,  
consistent outcomes or distributed decision-making power.  To this point  
we've operated under the assumption that it is healthier for the League if  
we constantly rotate membership on the Review Board.  This inevitably leads  
to inconsistent outcomes.  Legislating how the Review Board is allowed to  
operate will not solve that problem, ultimately it comes down to a  
different set of people making a decision based on subjective criteria (see  
#2) every time.  Asking the Review Board to follow precedent isn't going to  
solve anything given that 1) protests happen very infrequently, 2) the  
circumstances are rarely similar, and 3) a large chunk of people disagree  
with the earlier decisions anyway.

Sean