Ann Arbor Poetry Slam

ADDITIONAL NOTES

a) Definitions of Warning, Probation and Suspension.

Probation means “You did x, which is in breach of the COH. We won’t level any punishment on you at this time (though we may conceive of one we could be leveling on you for the record), but if you break the COH again in the determined amount of time, we put the punishment into play.” Don’t do anything bad again and you’re still able to participate across the board.

Suspension means “You did x, which is in breach of the COH. We think what you did was bad enough to warrant not having you play with us for a while. This means any activity for which you might need to sign a PSI form (COH or membership) to participate in, which includes MCing and competing, but not necessarily volunteering (unless it’s for PSI directly. Someone under punishment with PSI may very well still volunteer under the auspices of the host city, and in fact, someone did this year).

Warning is just what it sounds like, and is mostly for our records.
“You did x, which is in breach of the COH. We think what you did was bad, but not bad enough to punish you at this time (say it was truly inadvertent or something). Please refrain from any further breaches of the COH. You have been warned.” It is mostly a slap on the wrist, but a trackable one. If this person does something every year that merits a warning, their track record for accumulating warnings should be weighed accordingly in the future. It is essentially what is says, though it has had probation weight in this discussion at times.

b) Of the 7 voting members of the EC, only 6 voted for any items requiring a vote during the course of this investigation. Phil West recused himself from the process (though not the discussion) due to his proximity to the events in question.

c) All punishments for the stated offenses are official punishments for these offenses for future reference. Do these things at a PSI event, this is the in-stone punishment. The EC reserves the right to discuss and weigh mitigating circumstances in individual cases.

d) A word on microphone usage:
No one but tournament staff should be using microphones during any given event outside of the delivery of poems. The EC debated this a great deal as well, and determined this issue, while not appropriately actionable in this case, certainly bore more consideration by tournament staff for future events, and possibly a rule to boot.

In line with this, the EC will also be investigating the effect of unintended but potentially inflammatory “victory lap” poems on stage by teams. Claims of home cooking were “confirmed” in the minds of some poets when the ABQ team took advantage of this additional stage time without permission.