"The community standards are what the community says they are." That's not so much a circular argument as it is an axiom. You have to start somewhere, and we don't really have God's will or Natural Law to build on.

"We don't like this behavior. Nobody's defending you. Therefore it is, not necessarily bad, but not appropriate for this place."

Nope. The registration e-mail and the "is the newest" go out at the same time.

I think the "long time" is superfluous. Honestly, if Kiba was offended by what he had to say, f'rinstance, she would have every right to speak up and say so. If she was alone in her opinion, then it simply wouldn't be "a number".

When as many people chime as did, it's a community response, plain and simple.

There's a side of me that says "It's our board. We built it. We paid for it. We make the rules. If you think they're arbitrary - tough." There may come a time when, through normal turnover, the Stompy Feet and other posters can no longer make that claim. But until that time comes, I do not have any worries about "popular kids" or arguments about circular logic.

t /embracing my inner fascist

We don't like this behavior. Nobody's defending you.

Fair enough. I didn't mean that we did have Popular Kids whose opinion counted more, necessarily, I just mean that, along with the Hitler thing and the "she said something rude and you weren't mean to her!" thing, the next whinge is likely to be "you're a cabal, you're conspiring against me" and even "lots of people would support me but you're bullies and they don't want to speak out".

The thing I think we have to be wary of is the "cool kids" factor.

Frankly, I think that's going to happen no matter what. 9 times out of 10, when you smack someone down for being inappropriate, you get hit with the "clique" thing. Even when it was a very polite rebuke after they did something "helpful" like try to hack your board to find security holes.

lots of people would support me but you're bullies and they don't want to speak out

Hey, I'm with Jon. "The people who are supporting *me* are the people who signed checks. You want to support the rights of the differently mannered? Go build your own damned board."

The people who are supporting *me* are the people who signed checks.

Umm, I don't think the Buffistas that sent money have more rights than the ones that didn't. That's not all that building the board is about.

The argument that "we're the community, and it's offensive, and we know what's offensive to the community because the community is us" is a rather circular one.

Tha's really the point. We didn't take action because it was offensive (in any free-floating sense of the word), but because it was offensive to the community. Whereupon your statement becomes definitional rather than circular.

But, as you point out, the target audience of the etiquette guide (ie newbies) aren't all going to read 'offensive' as 'offensive to the community' without it being explicitly stated (and those most likely to fall foul of it are the ones least likely to read it as such). As happened here.

I brought up that "we paid for it and coded it" argument a long long time ago and someone said it wasn't sensible to express it in that way, but I can't remember who or why.

Signed, I Both Paid And Coded

Oh yeah, if I'm going to do the Devil's Advocate thing, what about when the Popular Kids or the Stompy Feet disagree?

Earlier on Plasmo proposed that if 3 Stompies thought you were an asshole, you got the warning, but what if three did and three thought you were hilarious?

No, I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. When the statement is "You're conspiring against me", the answer is "The people who have been here a long time form the community whose standards are being enforced. One of the ways they formed this community was to build this board." I don't mean (and shouldn't have said) that people who sent money had more rights than people who didn't; I mean that the people who, one way and another, built the community own it.

You can join any time you like. But if you act like a jerk, the reason we have a right to call you on it is that this is our town, we built it, and we like it the way we built it.