I was using 'big brother' in the modern colloquial sense rather than the strict literary sense.

What is the modern colloquial sense of 'big brother'? How does what happened to m. match that sense? I'm really curious about this, since I just don't see it.

I am still somewhat disturbed by this episode including what I feel are repeated mischaracterizations of Mieskie's posts and intent...

The bottom line for me is that regardless of what his intent was (and for the record I think his intent was to rile people up and cause trouble), it was coming across as negative, insulting and hostile. If I'm mistaken and his intentions were good, then there should have come a point where he realized that he wasn't getting across what he was trying to convey, in the proper way. With as many people winding up offended that did, he should have taken a step back and realized that what he was intending and what he was achieving were two oppsite things. But he didn't do this. Didn't even come close. Instead, he mocked and insulted, and in my eyes, basically dared us to do something about it.

Rob, As I indicated in the wordy post above, I was unaware of the extensive discussion on the topic here. In the Firefly thread there was a post from DXM that M had been suspended, Steph blessing the decision, then Scrappy posted a reference to M's farewell 'big brother' reference and Jon posted a request to not talk about it any more. That was the only discussion of which I was aware at the time. At that point I was afraid we might be seeing a quickly suppressed, no discussion suspension. Hence my attempt to cause some deeper thought on the matter by referencing a cultural icon for suppression. I apologise for my ignorance, but if there was any indication of the discussion going on here other than PMM's reference to it after my post I missed it entirely.

I hope you understand why that sort of discussion takes place here rather than in the substantive threads, Mike. As it was, I felt that a lot of insubstantive discussion took place in the Firefly thread in response to M's posting, and people who read the threads solely for show-specific discussion would have wandered off in disgust or discomfort.

We realized early on that we needed a Bureaucracy thread in order to keep the administrative stuff out of the way but still publicly accessible to anyone interested. Consider this the "Community Access" channel of buffistas.org. *grin*

repeated mischaracterizations of Mieskie's posts

How am I mischaracterizing "Piss you off again later"?

The objection, made consistently and by people other than me*, was not to the content of Mieskie's posts, but to the manner of them.

This has, historically, been a place where we could disagree agreeably. Where people could say "I appreciate your position, but I'm not going to agree to it." We don't object to argument, far from it. We do object to deliberate confrontation for the sake of pushing buttons.

* By which I mean, I'm not the only one who objected. I certainly did object.

While Mieskie was abraisive at times, I feel that many (not all) who responed to him were equally abraisive and insensitive.

I didn't see this, Mike. While m. did post some thought-provoking pieces, when it came to discussion, he seemed incapable of handling anything other than total agreement without descending into name-calling. I think, considering how he introduced himself to the board, that most folks were remarkably restrained in how they interacted with him. YMMV.

I'm sorry you're disturbed by how this was handled. As you've probably read here, you're not the only one left with bad feelings from this episode. But IMO the bad feelings stem from m. himself.

Good point about not knowing about this discussion, Mike. I do think that moving the post-mortem from the Firefly thread to here is a good idea, but it may also be a good idea to post a link to this thread for people who didn't see (or know about) the discussion over here.

Good point about not knowing about this discussion, Mike.

Yeah, in retrospect, I probably should have referenced the Bureaucracy thread when I posted the notice in the Firefly thread.

Suela, I agree wholeheartedly that having a seperate place for these discussions is absolutely necessary. I just didn't know that this discussion was going on here. :) Betsy, I meant (or mean!) no personal attacks whatsoever in any of my posts and apologise if any come off that way. I agree that the statement taken on it's own id quite inflammatory. However, the way I read it in the context of the ongoing discussion was M expressing frustration (using an 'unusual' sense of humour combined with poor socialization skills) over a discussion where everything he said seemed to be pissing people off. Yes, apologies would have defused the situation mightily, and no, he didn't give them. I do however still feel that many of the responses and reactions to his posts only served to feed the flires of dissent rather than calming the situation.

Betsy, I meant (or mean!) no personal attacks whatsoever in any of my posts and apologise if any come off that way

No, no, far from it. I responded personally to a general criticism, and that wasn't wise.