I vote no on the music thread and encourage people to visit Hayden's music thread.

ita - Wasn't m was warned twice - once in the Firefly thread, and then once via email?

I think we should go with the "this name is too close to a user name that has been suspended/banned, please chose another" route.

I agree. I realize action has already been taken, but I wanted to voice support for it.

connie - your viewpoint reminds us to continue to be careful and fair. It also really provided the inspiration for a graceful solution. I'm glad you voiced it, even though I am less willing to give him another shot. Seriously, if I was innocent newbie number 600, who didn't know what had gone down with m, and was choosing a similar name, I'd want to be told, because I wouldn't want to start out wrong, with anyone mistaking me for m.

Of course that may mean he will get creative and try something entirely different. And we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.

If he registers as SweetnessAndLight and then is the most Buffista-y of all Buffistas in the world, I don't care if the man behind the SweetnessAndLight curtain is the same poster as the man behind the m curtain. If SweetnessAndLight has learned to show the consideration for the community that he failed to show as m, then the purpose of the suspension has been served. (Of course the argument could be made that if he's learned consideration, he'll accept the suspension gracefully, but that's beside the point.) He might get a happy out of fooling us, but that's okay, as long as he doesn't harsh our collective mellow. If SweetnessAndLight posts in the same manner as m (I'm a big believer in 'The truth will out'), then eventually, his true colors will show, and same steps will be taken. His lack of consideration for the community was the problem. He wasn't some sort of arbitrary target.

I think M. was genuinely confused as to what the difference was between things he'd said and things that other people had said (by which I don't just mean myself), and this troubles me.

I'm feeling like the jaded one in the company of fair and kind people. I didn't get the vibe that he was genuinely confused. Well, to clarify, I agree with Fay, in that I don't think he thought his initial comment would be found objectionable. There is where we part company, because I think his behavior, once he heard the objections to the comment, was beyond the pale. He was tossing blame at Fay, wolfram, drinking vodka, and unnamed 'long time posters' and then tried to equate the offensive statement with the innocuous "Dawn is a hottie" type of posts. If I had seen sincere remorse, I would cut him some more slack. What (to me) happened is that people did try to explain the difference (before the warning came) and he argued with their explanations, and did not allow them to clear up his confusion. His offensive post was number 2383. In 2384, Betsy explained she found it objectionable because MT is an adolescent. That's pretty clear right there. In 2389, Consuela also explained his tone was hard to read. Fay chimed in later, as did Plei. Posters are going to offend sometimes. It's how they act afterwards that counts.

(For the context of the whole Dawn's-physique issue, see Firefly posts 2383 through 2425.)

That said, what happens if someone gets suspended, but genuinely wants to reform their ways and rejoin the community?

They wait the 2 months and come back with a new attitude. Unless they are at the banned status, right?

I didn't vote on the music thread because I would not be a contributor but a lurker there.

On the similar names thing, can we request certain names be blocked (Hecubus or say Laura Holt)?

can we request certain names be blocked (Hecubus or say Laura Holt)?

I think our current system works fine. Whenever someone new registers, an email is sent to the admins with the user name. If any admins think the name will cause confusion, they can deactivate it and send an email to the new user asking them to change it to something else.

I think that's preferable (and a lot easier!) than trying to come up with a pre-defined list of similar names.

Cool. You admins rock.

I agree with Jon. It would be a waste of time to try to anticipate all of the possible variations of known Buffista names or nicknames.

I think that's preferable (and a lot easier!) than trying to come up with a pre-defined list of similar names.

Which is also pretty much like what we eventually desiced about writing an 'exact' etiquette - it's a lot smoother to sort things as they come along, once a basic system is decided upon, than to map out all the possible intrusive behaviors.

I've been catching up on all this, and just wanted to say how very proud I am of Buffistas, whether "old," "core," "new," "sometime," "spirit baby" or whatever.

I agree wholeheartedly with the way this situation was handled, feel, like connie and others, stomach-clenching regret that it was necessary, and that it was, indeed necessary for the quality of the community. I'm sorry I wasn't here for the decision-making, but I want my opinion on record, even after the fact.

I'm overcome with gratitude and affection for you all.

The music thing reminds me sooooo much of the old Usenet days, and in particular of the argument about the net.music (or was it rec.music by then?) split. "I want to talk about everything in one place!" "No, it's too high volume!"

Our Buffista experience is that if you build threads, they will come. I fought fiercely against creating Natter. Then I shrugged and created it. It's now our highest-volume thread. Elisabeth/Lyra Jane was right. (And the Natter continues on the other threads, which is what I was afraid of losing.)

If there's a large enough core of Buffistas who want to talk music, I don't see the harm in facilitating that -- as long as we realize that creating a music thread will automatically create more music postings than we had before, and will add a new focus to the group.

I wish I felt more regret over the idea of suspending someone, but I just don't. People who come here and end up pissing on this community inspire no regret in me at their removal.

And I don't have much of a problem with the concept of suspension/removal in general. In "real life", if I went to a restaurant and begin to dump food on other diners' heads while shouting obscenities at the top of my lungs, I'll be asked to leave because I'm violating the behavioral standards of the place. I might be a very nice person whose antipsychotics aren't working that day (and I mean that without flippancy), or maybe I'm having a really crappy life in general, but those reasons for my behavior don't change the fact that I'm violating the standards of a particular place and should be removed from it until I'm capable of adhering to its standards.

Similarly, I don't think there's any problem with upholding our standards and removing those that can't play by our rules.