But I want to say that watching the machinery of exclusion move into action upset me, personally, more than anything he said.

After a dog's life spent online, watching a swift *community* response warmed the cockles of my heart. I'm much more distressed over the fact that the inevitable happened sooner rather than later than I am over the actions that were taken as a result.

See: Allyson's post, especially

It's all about intention, and sometimes it takes two days of posting to get to that intention. It took a couple of weeks for everyone to be sure of the intention of Mieske's posts, which was to use Buffistas to make himself feel superior by telling the smart kids that they were stupid.

I feel no sadness in dealing with bullies in the appropriate manner, because I'd like to keep the sand out of my eyes and other people's hands off my lunch money. It's not exclusion when someone doesn't want to be part of the group, they just want to stand around bitch slapping while the group turns the other cheek time and time again. Obviously, YMMV, but I really, really am uncomfortable with the notion that anyone here feels (if they do) guilty about protecting themselves and the community they value.

I'm not happy that we had to suspend him.

I don't think anyone is. Which is, perhaps, why we're still talking about it.

I went back and read all of the guy's posts. On occasion, he had some good points, and played well with others. On occasion. But he enjoyed the flame-baiting waaaay too much, and it wasn't going to stop, even when politely asked both front-and back-channel.

Truth to tell, his posts remind me a lot of the AICN Talkback threads, and perhaps that was part of the problem here. Behavior that's completely acceptable on other boards isn't here. Over at AICN, none of this would have raised an eyebrow.

Behavior that's completely acceptable on other boards isn't here. Over at AICN, none of this would have raised an eyebrow.

Yup. It's that way on a lot of other boards at WX, too. Which is why I don't hang out in any of those boards, even if the subject matter was interesting to me.

I've never been on the side of the shunners before, only the shunned.

That's an astute post, Connie. I think what you're feeling is a sense of bullying, maybe.

Buffistas as a group tend to feel a deep sense of sympathy and empathy towards the bullied, a lot having been victimized by bullies at some point in their lives.

A shunning is a latent bullying tactic. Kids and adults who didn't "actively" bully in terms of malicious teasing or physical violence would still "shun" the bullied, which is sort of self protection, in a way (to not associate oneself with the bullied in order to avoid being bullied as well).

The result is a feeling of helplessness and lonliness for the bullied.

I saw Mieske as a bully. I saw the namecalling within his posts towards everyone else as a cyber punch in the jaw.

Here, we have a large group of the bullied, who are sensitive to bullying, maybe hyper-sensitive to it, having lived through it, or else been affected by it in some life changing sort of way.

There's a sort of inner switch that gets turned on when we see something resembling bullying.

Maybe it's a fine line.

Mieske is either the guy who cornered the small kid in the locker room and terrorized him, or was the small kid getting terrorized. Either way, he ain't healthy, hasn't learned to Play Well With Others, and tolerating him isn't too far off from being the people who turned a blind eye when the small kid in the locker room was terrorized.

Have to speak up and say, "this is unacceptable, you're hurting folks, and I'm not going to allow you to do that."

That's true, Victor. I think the very clear respect and extra care for each other which is the heart of this place will inspire two responses in people--either, "How dare you tell ME what to say? I post online so I can say whatever I like and you can't stop me." or "Wow, a place where there are smart folk who behave like people I would actually want to meet. I love this place." That is part of being what a Buffista is.

Allyson is me, only, you know, more articulate.

All told, I think it's OK we're taking a bit to examine what happened here, because it's not something I want to do capriciously.

True, Victor.

The last thing I ever want to see is this place turn into TWoP.

TWOP

Oh dear lord. I have been having much the same feelings as connie, but so many people were just avoiding the thread, which is surely death for the whole board.

TwoP has a policy (or maybe just a habit, I'm not sure) of banning opposing viewpoints, which has never been an issue for us. Our community guidelines forbid rudeness, not dissent.