This is my informal tally, based on all posts about this today:

Yes -- 18 (Jim E-T, Betsy Hanes Perry, DavidS, Beverly, FayJay, justkim, Askye, Amchau, Katefate, Steph L., Lyra Jane, Nilly, Michele T., Sue, Laura, DXMachina, Sophia Brooks, Billytea) [EDIT: Meara and Knut make 20.]

No -- 4 (msbelle, ita, Kat, Burrell)

But I admit I was subjective about what was a vote -- e.g., I didn't count Jess as a no because she hasn't said that specifically, though she seems to lean that way.

Allow the person to e-mail the stompies, and if the stompies think he or she has a point, they can open the discussion here.

This seems fair, and more importantly lets us control the discussion rather than handing the reins to somebody deemed worthy of a warning in the first place.

Raising another issue here: in practical terms, how would we go about preventing a person from joining in a discussion about whether to suspend/ban them? Where would the discussion be conducted? Or are we talking about appealing a decision now?

Good point about dS vs SV, meara, although now that dS is now coming out on DVD, that'll make it a 'new' series for some people.

Secret message for RL:

The taping is proceeding apace, although the brightness on the tape fades in and out for some reason

I like Misha's idea of being able to put the brakes on it. The problem with giving free rein to these discussions is that they are huge energy sucks - and you're also letting potential troublemakers dictate the terms. This isn't a free-for-all forum at all. I think we only need to be fair - not submit our bandwidth to folks who are in trouble.

The person suspended can make an appeal to the admin via email, which could be posted at the admin's discretion.

If somebody was only warned, then they'd be free to come over here anyway.

The dS thread is combined for talking about the show and talking about the fic. Smallville, on the other hand, has two threads: Clex, which is for discussion of the show (re. which, Michele, by the way, I haven't seen the dropoff in posting there about people being hostile to your point of view, so much as just not caring very much about the show at all), and PPO, which is about the fic. Both of these were much steadier in rate of postage back on WX, I think, because the Smallville fandom in general seems (I believe) to have dropped off in productivity; now, they could stand to be combined into one thread, or even rolled into a PPO-Clex-dS sandwich, if we were worried about having too many threads.

The person suspended can make an appeal to the admin via email, which could be posted at the admin's discretion.

If somebody was only warned, then they'd be free to come over here anyway.

I think this is the only procedure we really need. If a person has been warned and invited to discuss the matter, then a suspension would only go to show that he or she is not amenable to changing his or her behavior.

I'm generally with ita on the thread balkanization - when Smallville (the show) first started I followed some of the discussion, but with the advent of the new thread it dropped completely off my radar. And I have, very occasionally, seen discussions start up in Natter that someone then suggested be taken to a more specific thread, and it bugged me.

But - I'm one hundred percent with Hec that enough Buffistas have asked for a music thread that I think we absolutely should have one. If it ends up being sporadic and low-traffic, so be it. But there's not that much specific music discussion in Natter as it is so I don't think the environment over there will be noticably affected.

I'm less sanguine about a specific movie thread - that's the kind of thing I'd like to see stay in Natter. The TTT thread is not a good precedent to use here, I don't think - it was clear from the start that the subject was likely to overwhelm Natter at least for the first week or two so the new thread was created. The proposed movie thread is addressing a very different issue, IMO.

Secret message for RL:

Oh! Yes, I'd forgotten. Dude. I love you.

Raising another issue here: in practical terms, how would we go about preventing a person from joining in a discussion about whether to suspend/ban them?

I think this question is also about just posting a link in the thread they're in saying "We're talking about you in Bureaucracy. Come on over and have your say."

every thread ever created will develop it's own tone and community and if they all become natter (when shows end, when there aren't new eps, when they just do - and they all do) then we just have a bunch of different but smaller natters which I guess is cool, but :-(.

I'm gonna go pout in the corner cause I like the big group places.

HI KNUT!!!!! (an excellent example of people I NEVER SEE ANYMORE!!)

I like Misha's idea of being able to put the brakes on it. The problem with giving free rein to these discussions is that they are huge energy sucks - and you're also letting potential troublemakers dictate the terms. This isn't a free-for-all forum at all. I think we only need to be fair - not submit our bandwidth to folks who are in trouble.

(Sigh) I've been fighting the urge, but I can't any longer. I'm going to suggest that if there is some sort of officialish debate over a person's suspension or whatever, we don't really yet have a thread to accommodate it. I don't view it as bureaucratic in nature, and in any case it would just clog this thread (as noted).

If such an occasion arose in the future, I feel it would be worthwhile having a single thread solely for that purpose. (I would envisage it being closed to any posts when there's no such matter under official consideration.) I don't know if it's possible to control log-ins to this degree, but could we permit a suspended poster to be able to log into this one thread, but not the others?