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?

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."

Good idea. I think, though, that the exact wording should be "we're talking about this in Bureaucracy, etc." to make it a little clearer that we're criticizing the behavior and not the person. In some cases, poor behavior is due solely to cluelessness/bad day/cramps, and not to any defect in personality.

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.

I really, really dislike this idea, because it changes the Stompies from posters with administrative capabilities to a governing body. Not that I don't trust them, but that's not supposed to be how this place works.

Bureaucracy is one of the few threads that is always visible to anyone, subscribed or not, because of its place in the sidebar. It's completely open to every member of this community. Anyone can see the number of new posts shoot up and decide they want to know what's going on and put in their two cents.

I'm a neutral vote on the extra threads question. Personally, I'm against thread proliferation for the reasons ita outlined, but I also know that eventually, we will create them, so why fight it?

So far, counting only votes that were cast 'as votes', we have 9 for yes, 2 for no and 3 4 abstinating (sp?).

Lyra Jane's numbers show an even bigger majority for the 'yes' camp.

[Edited to include Jess' vote]

Well, I wasn't advocating that exactly, just saying it was a point. I'm sort of slightly ambivilant; although fucked if I can remember how to spell it. And I definetely wouldn't go with that exact phrasing.

Earlier, I commented on how no one linked to this thread in Firefly before....

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."

This is a distinction that bothers me. "You can mount your own defence if you realise you're under review and can find where the discussion is going on." If we're talking about action as serious as suspension, then I don't think the quality (indeed, the presence) of a defence should be decided by the non-offence related factors.

Edit: I don't know if anyone is proposing such a position, so this isn't directed at anyone. In particular, it's not directed at the messenger.