I think the bottom line is personal attacks. Opinions, strong feelings, porn--the tolerance for these will vary from poster to poster, but not attacking each other for these varied opinions is one of the baselines which makes this community special.

Word, scrappy. Spirited debate is one thing, and Allyson's right, there were some voices raised during some of the arguments about rape in the Buffy threads. That said, most of the posters still made an effort to disengage their investment in the topic from anger at the people they were arguing with.

There are posters here whom I don't always agree with, because sometimes they say things I find personally offensive. However I don't generally get the sense they mean to offend me personally, and if called upon it they would apologize.

m. was a problem not because he said offensive things, but because he intended to offend. There are online forums where such behavior is not only appropriate, but expected: the Phoenix Board is not one of them.

On a personal level, I fail to see why anyone would want to post here, if they thought we were stupid and hypersensitive. What's the attraction? Sigh.

Cindy: thanks for the Nilly. Laid out like that, it's clear m. was given many opportunities to modify his behavior, and that he consistently offended the spirit of the board. I'm perfectly content with the stomping.

And yes, please do leave his final post in place. We're not in the habit of censoring and I'd rather we not start if avoidable.

Leave the last post. We shouldn't be afraid of controversy, we should only be proud of our reaction to it.

there were some voices raised during some of the arguments about rape in the Buffy threads. That said, most of the posters still made an effort to disengage their investment in the topic from anger at the people they were arguing with.

Yes, and more importantly, people apologized when they realized or had it pointed out to them that they had offended someone.

I just completely agree with Allyson, again. Which is handy, because she's said it all so well already!

I'll just add that on the mailing list I co-mod for a bunch of Usenet oldtimers, one of our posters went batshit unexpectedly. As another of the co-mods put it, "We're just hoping that another rock falls on his head and snaps him out of it." Political arguments turned into personal attacks, and even posts on neutral subjects returned again and again to his sense of aggrievedness.

He was eventually asked to take a leave from the list, but if you ask me, it was about a month and a half after he should have been asked. (In fact, one of the other co-mods said after the first outbreak "oh, it's over now, nothing more to worry about." When I saw said co-mod shortly after the guy got suspended, I did the Dance of Smug Rightness and sang a little song.) After he left, you could practically hear the exhale of relief on the lists, and people who hadn't posted in weeks started posting again. Birds sang. The sun shone. And it all could have happened right after the first or second time he started calling other posters "fucking idiots" rather than the fourth or fifth time if the other co-mods hadn't been overly willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I'm tired and I doubt I'm expressing myself as coherently as I could, but the point I'm trying to make is this -- being too nice to disruptive posters is just as damaging as being too mean to them. I think the tack that has been taken with mieskie is the right one, and I don't feel even the slightest qualm about it.

I suppose I should have posted this here rather than the FF thread. I'm glad mieskie was banned. I'm sorry it couldn't have worked out better, but I am one of the people who left the thread because of him. My time to be online is not something I wish to spend being insulted repeately.

I think it was handled well, and I am very glad he was banned.

First off, I'd like to note that I am grooving to Afghan Whigs as I type this.

Cincinnati band, BTW. Go Whigs!

Only one note: I think that the Stompy Feet are the ones who have to deal with trolls, or the cluelessly rude. As was noted above, there is not time enough and world enough for a consensus to develop among the Buffisita community - especially if two or three Mieskies show up at the same time. If someone violates the rules, is warned , violates them again and refuses to apologize - I think the Stompy Feet should stomp.

If they do wrong, I think the community will let them know, and the person can be unsuspended. You could have a formal process. For example if 10% registered Buffistas rounded down to the nearest whole Buffista (i.e. 60 Buffistas at time I press send on this post) protest, then it goes to a formal vote of the community. Or you could leave it informal. If a poster is suspended and there is a lot of outcry you take a vote or seek a consensus. At moment only one person has expressed what I take as actual opposition to the suspension; and I could be reading her wrong; it might just be a high discomfort level, rather than actual disagreement.

Incidentally, I don't have a problem with some people having more influence than others. Some people contribute more to the community than others. My only role on this board has been to make posts that I think some find interesting. There are others who have put in tons of time, pr contributed money. People will respect their opinions more than mine - and I don't see anything wrong with that. They have more at stake than I do, stand to lose more if they are wrong.

Don't get me wrong. I love this board; if it were destroyed it would be devastating to me. But ita put a year of hard work into specing, designing and coding it. As did others; as did people who put in time in other ways; as did those who contributed money. If something happens to the board, they lose everything I do plus the time or money they put into it. So, on board matters ita's opinion and others in the core group should be respected more than mine.

That sounds like a WAY heavyweight process to me. I'm much happier with what just happened.

There are posters here whom I don't always agree with, because sometimes they say things I find personally offensive. However I don't generally get the sense they mean to offend me personally, and if called upon it they would apologize.

If I'm at all honest with myself, I have to admit that unfortunately I'm one of the oversensitive ones, mostly because on any topic close to my heart, I have an extremely short fuse. We're talking a few millimeters. I get so overwhelmed by my own emotions that I can't even think straight, and therefore can't make rational counterarguments. Then I'm equally angry with myself and whoever I'm disagreeing with, because, dammit, I still believe with perfect faith and confidence that I'm right, but am temporarily incapable of mounting a rational defense of my POV. Drives me crazy. I'm trying to develop a longer fuse, but have accepted that I'll never be truly coolheaded about anything that really matters to me--and that that can be a virtue as much as a curse.

All of which is to say that there have been times I've been much, much angrier at people whom I value and respect as members of this community than I ever was at mieskie. mieskie didn't come near my personal short fuses, so all my anger at him was head anger. But I completely support banning mieskie, and would never, ever have argued for banning any of the aforesaid Buffistas who have set off my fury fuses. I mean, in a way they're like my mother or my very conservative oldest brother--no matter how vehement our disagreement on a certain set of issues, they're still part of my tribe.

I'm being all rambly and stream-of-conscious here, but I guess what I'm trying to say is the difference between tail-pulling by a clever troll and impassioned disagreement among people who genuinely care about whatever they're fighting over is usually obvious, at least on an intuitive level.

And, t sap I love you guys! t /sap

I mistakenly posted this in the wrong thread, so edited and moved here.

Victor, my fear is what happens when it's not an isolated case, but having SEVERAL Mieskes at the same time.

That killed the Bronze. The inundation of several Mieskes at once, all agreeing with each other, creating a subcommunity of asswipes. The "major" community broke down into three factions, Those Who Would Argue for Days Trying to Push Them Out, Those Who Ignored the Heathens Hoping That They Would Go Away, and Those Who Took the Ferrel Users Into the Fold to Try and Change Their Behavior with Kindness.

We had no Stompy Foot, of course, but I saw those same three factions, here.

Saw this happen here.