For much of what happened after that, I agree with most of what Jessica said here : Jessica "Bureaucracy 3: Oh, so now you want to be part of the SOLUTION?" Aug 31, 2004 7:14:02 am PDT,

A post from the peanut gallery:

Reading it all now, I agree that Jessica pretty much nailed it.

Now let's move on before we have to vote on something.

Now let's move on before we have to vote on something.

Is that a proposal?

There were six whole posts and seven minutes between the Sean and ita posts, and I think that's a lot of time. But that's just my opinion, and I can accept that we don't agree on it.

I think it's a lot of time, too--too much. When I was thinking about this last night, I wondered how much of it has to do with both ita and Sean generally being good posters.

It's not like either is a troll, or a problem child, or a even a person who is a little too guac-attracted. What we saw was something we've never really had here, before. That's not meant to excuse our non-reaction. Some of us should have said it was out of line, right away. But I am wondering if it explains it a little. I still feel badly that nobody spoke up for ita, until bon bon called us on it.

Billytea attempted to do the same to me when he insisted I could not win mano-a-mano in a squash court against a python; luckily there was a silliness filibuster.

It is my guiding principle: thou shalt not diss the echidna mole rat cassowary painted dog Komodo dragon octopus antechinus python.

(h) all of the above

I reached the same conclusions that Polgara did.

Allyson, I didn't see any conclusions in Polgara's post, just a question, so I may be missing or not understanding something. What conclusions did you (both) come to?

Lee, this:

Is one behavior worse than the other, or is it just some people need the help of the community while others are assumed to be able to defend themselves? Or perhaps it's not about the victims? Is it that some people can get away with stuff that others can't?

This is all about my personal perceptions, maybe, but I think some people feel free to lay the smackdown on people like me (and pigpile), and coddle others "so and so is just having a bad day" and lament the pigpile.

As a matter of perception, I didn't see that Allyson, though I am sorry it seemed that way to you, or to Polgara.

Breaking it down into parts, I think that there was a delay in saying something to Sean initially, for a number of reasons, which seemed valid but maybe weren't. When bon bon spoke up, and then ita did as well, that changed.

In terms of commenting to you, yes, people did, it is true, but I think in terms of the number of posts, more people said something to Sean. I can definitely see how it seemed like it was more intensive than the what was said to Sean, but I think there are several contributing factors to that. First, you brought it up in this thread, not Natter, and there was no other posting going on; the posts were all about what you had said. There was also the timing-- as someone who frequently can't post for hours, I understand coming in late, and am glad you said something you didn't get a chance to say earlier. The fact remains though, that time had passed, and people had tried to move on.

Also, and this is my issue with your post, which may or may not be others' issue, while I get that everything you said was a reaction to an earlier attack, there were parts of your post that, to me, did seem designed to goad and or hurt Sean rather than address the issue of his posts to ita. Given that time had passed, and that you were in a different thread, my reaction to those sections was stronger than they would have been in Natter, closer to the time of the original posts. That may not have been fair to you, but it was there.

I just want to be clear that I brought it up here, and not Natter, out of politeness to Natterinos who had moved on. My personal feelings on this is that if today, someone says, "Allyson, what you said to Zoe last year has been eating at me all this time and I need to tell you about it" they could do it here (or email) in my mind. Please, let's talk about it. If it's affecting your enjoyment on the board, or has completely fucked with how you feel about the community at large in how it was dealt with, bring it here.

The way the community dealtt with this situation is disturbing to me. People went Salad Shooter while the pink elephant in the corner took a big dump on the floor.

To my mind, if bon hadn't spoken? No one would have defended ita. They would have left her to think that the community doesn't feel rage when she's blindsided with hateful bullshit. Well, I would have spoken, after my work meeting. There was a quiet silence. "How will ita deal with this? I'm waiting for ita's response to tell me what to do" I felt immediate rage, and truth be told, had an extraordinarily threatening response formulating that was designed to make Sean wamt to leave the board. If such a thing as social capital exists, I went to the bank and took out a social capital equity loan and was prepared to spend three times what I'm worth in pure poison.

I took some breaths, went to my meeting (I was away cooling/working for almost three hours). Rage still there. Understand that other people got their opinions out and moved along. I hadn't.

But still. No one had to be shamed to speak for Sean.