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.

I think the Stompy Foot makes all the difference, though. Not being able to enforce community standards makes it easier for them to be attacked and dissolved.

Somehow I doubt the Buffistas would let a technical genius have keys to the kingdom, if s/he were an ass. This is my way of saying that the stompy feet have my confidence and gratitude, regardless of how and why they got their stomp on.

... So, what if we needed a new stompy (because, *eventually*, this will happen), and a hypothetical someone offered to be it, but they were someone I for one held great private misgivings against? I can't imagine this actually happening as things stand *now*, but it doesn't seem like it could never happen. Would there be some sort of space-- I mean not a literal thread, but emotional space, or something) for me to be able to state "I'm just fine with Poster X as a regular Buffista, but I'm not sure I trust their judgement enough to have the power of a stompy?" (I'd imagine Poster X would then be feeling kind of upset with me....)

Actually, since he's already violated the terms of his suspension, I'm all for permanently banning him. What do you think?

I'm behind that, DX.

And I wouldn't delete his posts, because I am of that sort of mind.

With you on the stomach butterflies. When people first started showing up and saying they didn't feel like Buffistas, I felt all creepy. I'm supposed to be in the out-group. Being part of the exclusive in-group was a horrible sensation.

Well, I think it's fair to be able to say "I just joined last week, I know I'm not a real Buffista yet, but with time I hope to worm my way into your community as an established-type person!" The "yet" part being key. Being a Buffista doesn't just mean you post here-- it means (pretty much) you're part of a network of people who are fiercely intelligent, considerate, and friendly and intimate with one another. I know that I, too, didn't feel like a "real" Buffista for a while. The problem would come in if the new person felt they could *never* become a real Buffista.

And, of course, a person who feels themselves to be not a "real" Buffista yet is still certainly invited to this thread to discuss matters of policy. If the rules affect you-- and they affect everybody, "real" Buffista or newbie-- you ought to be able to share your point of view, if you find your point of view underrepresented in the opinions currently being thrown up here. I mean, thrown out. I mean, thrown over? I need to find another preposition.

The biggest problem I had with Mieske is that he wouldn't say, for example:

Allyson, you said ten minutes ago that all newbies should compose their posts in notepad and spellcheck them because misspellings make people look like morons and drag the community down, and your last two posts were riddled with bad grammar. When you make demands that other people conform to a standard that you, yourself refuse to live up to, you come across as hypocritical.

He would simply say:

You're all hypocrites, look it up.

The former example would likely cause me to get defensive, but force me to acknowledge the truth of the post, bitter medicine as it is.

The latter just shuts me down with condescending name calling.

The former is sort of a crude example of how Buffistas behave. It doesn't dance around the point, that demanding others live up to a standard to which I am unwilling to live up to is hypocritical, but it's constructed in such a way as to both make the point and to not incite a flame war riot.

That be the Buffista way, as i see it. Think before typing, if you feel maligned then speak up about it, if no maliciousness was intended, then apologize for the misunderstanding and clarify until understanding or a somewhat amicable impasse can be reached.

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'm quoting all this again, Allyson, because it's really perfect. Might motherfucking boots of Wrod.

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?

I'm not sure that we *do* find the balance that easily. I think we repair to this very thread for another six-hundred-post argument about it, in which the hypothetical offending party, if they are convinced they are right, really ought to go something like "I'm so very sorry I caused you any anguish. But I hadn't intended to offend or hurt anyone in any way; and honestly I've stared at my posts trying to figure out exactly where I went wrong; would you please maybe articulate exactly what you found problematic in my posts?" Etc.

And honestly I can't see mieskie doing anything like that. But we did that for him, by having our own six-hundred-post argument about whether he was bad or not, and whether he should be given another chance or not, and blah blah blah fuckcakes. I'm happy with the way this ended up; and I'm happy with the process we took for it, and I think that feeling is general.

Or, what Suela said.

(And I feel, personally, that it is better to be over-cautious than go in the other direction-- Michele's group's hesitancy, rather than TWoP's over-the-top-ism.)

I'm happy the guy got banned.

I know what Connie meant about being on the side of the shunned, not the shunners, but it's a good thing for the board that it happened.

The fact that we discussed it at such length and the fact that we're still discussing it now -- and there are records of the discussion, which he could come by and read, if he wanted to: Cindy did a great job in listing all his annoying posts: I got a wry little laugh out of "See also 3535, 3547, 3554, 3564, 3572, 3578, 3594, 3618, 3621, 3625, 3628 and 3636", Cindy -- is our saving grace, I think. More than one newbie has come to this thread and expressed something like amazement that we went into it in such detail. I think they've been in environments where there were Mods, and the Mods word was law, and judgement was passed summarily. I think in a lot of communities it would happen in reverse. A Mod would say "you're being an asshole, you're banned" and it would take major protest and discussion from people in favour of the banned person to get it reversed.

m. was a problem not because he said offensive things, but because he intended to offend.

That's the key, I agree. He enjoyed it, or he said he did. He never apologised, or even half-apologised; you know that apology you make when you think you're right and everyone else is being over-sensitive "I'm sorry if my opinions upset you"? Not even that.

Honestly, I think his behavour was not only annoying, but, I think, a little obsessive and self-destructive and depressive. I think the banning was the sad little climax of the unpleasantness he worked up for himself, and the post after he got banned was the post-coital cigarette, and he'll stay away now.

While there may be no external 'big brother' perhaps we have collectively become one ourselves. I find this whole incident mildly disturbing. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Not going to rant or run on about it, just had to vent a little. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

(Moving from Firefly) Mike, though, that's sort of the definintion of community. There exist, in any community, understood rules of behaviour, and when those rules of behaviour are deviated from with malice aforethought, it is the responsibility of the community to handle that violation. Because it is a violation, of hospitality, of trust, of welcoming, of the community.

It isn't saying "this subject is verboten". This is not about content, it's about intent and presentation, and it's about respect.

And, once again, I want to say that despite that fact that "We know what bad behaviour is, and we know who 'we' are" might seem unfair to outsiders, it's a better policy than trying to exhaustively write down the rules. That way lies madness because someone will say, quite rightly, that "such-and-such a poster just used the word 'cocksucking' and you didn't ban them!" and it'll descend into the minutiae of rules, and into "you didn't ban them because they're one of the Popular Kids" namecalling.

A community is formed by people with stuff in common who interact together over time.

It might not be possible to codify what the rules and boundaries of the community are, to tell which members have more authority than others, it might not even be practically feasible to poll the community, but despite the apparently undemocratic nature of our "constitution", we make a lot of effort to treat people fairly and see both sides of the issue, give guidance and second chances.

What's the proof? This thread, and the posts in Firefly 2, and all the stuff that's built up around the issue.

John, for some reason, your post brought out my Damned Allergies.

Oh, one tiny point.

I remember thinking that I'd be a good candidate to do the warnings, banning, etc, because I didn't post in the Firefly thread.

It doesn't really matter, but I think it might be worth considering if it ever, god forbid, happens again.

If someone who has taken no part in the discussion can come along and say "I've been called here by the community, who tell me you're being a pain. I've read the posts and I agree. You are now warned" that might create a better impression.