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.

I don't think we will turn into TWoP, we are too self conscious about making someone feel uncomfortable or about banning someone.

However, when one user is making other users so uncomfortable that they avoid a thread and it impedes their enjoyment of the board, then we do have to take some kind of action.

We weren't tyrannts. We explained, over and over, as politely as possible, to Mieskie what the proper etiquette is for this board. The Buffistas are very liberal in what we allow, it doesn't take much to be polite. He chose to insult others, he chose to be rude, he chose not to be nice. All actions have consequences, including his.

There is something, though, that I'm not sure how to say, so, just gonna say it.

Some folks here ARE oversensitive to a fault. Intense discussion that makes me feel invigorated, may make others avoid a thread or make a quip that grates the fuck out of my nerves in order to spank or shut a discussion down. I've seen it.

Because people are, well, people, what I see as intense can be seen as tension by others. Things I think are funny rants can be seen as mean-spirited attacks by others.

If a group of ten people see a discussion as cruel arguments, and a group of ten people see a discussion as spirited debate, where do we find the balance?

Well, right here in Bureaucracy. I heard perhaps two voices defending Mieskie. If there'd been even a plurality, I doubt we would have taken action.

Yes, we do all have sensitivity thresholds, but I think so far we've dealt. Then again, I may be one of the oversensitive ones.