No one forces a debate, though. The people who spoke up were the people who cared about the issue. I thought long and hard about wading in, but in the end I knew I wouldn't be happy until I at least had my say. If we have e.p., I'm afraid I would still be allowed my say but it wouldn't have any effect on our virtual world--and then we're in a world where the Supreme Court appoints the president.

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Okay, but he was told that. Is your issue that he wasn't told that soon enough, or that there was discussion before he was told that, or that there wasn't enough muscle.

• Was he told that in an admin email, or just in a message in the thread? To me, at least, a message in the thread carries less weight than a clearly spelled out email.

• He never knew about the discussions in Bureaucracy until he was suspended (IIRC). If he had been invited in, he

might (and that's a big "might", but it exists) have realized the seriousness of his behavior and changed his ways before the suspension.

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IIRC, he was emailed the same message that was posted to the thread. (Which, again, memory fuzzy, but I think it basically said "This is an official Stompy warning, a second offense will result in your suspension.")

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I think we need to figure out what the problem is exactly, before we try to create a solution.

Speaking solely for myself, I like the idea of moderators (in a system like Fred's) because it means someone is responsible and it won't be a community-wide, feelings-crushing debacle every time someoe needs disciplinary action. I love that we run things mostly by conseusus and that the Stompies are just posters with benefits -- but I'm not sure that will work indefinitely, and I'm not sure it's fair to anyone.

On the other hand, I'm not sure the need is so dire that we need extra moderators. After all, there are only about 100 of us, and we share a lot of values. We're growing now, but that may stop after Buffy's off the air.

But then again, do we want to have this conversation when we DO need immediate action?

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Maybe I'm just smarting from the reaction to the decisions the Stompies didn't even make, but I don't see why I'd be happier with a decision I disagree with made by 5 people than reached by vote or consensus (false or otherwise).

I think that once people understood the sequence of events, they stopped criticizing our non-decision. Part of the criticism was that "stompies aren't supposed to make these decisions." Things might be different if it were a body specifically chartered to make them.

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He never knew about the discussions in Bureaucracy until he was suspended (IIRC). If he had been invited in, he might (and that's a big "might", but it exists) have realized the seriousness of his behavior and changed his ways before the suspension.

Valid point, but an executive decision doesn't fix that. It also doesn't fix whether or not he's notified by e-mail.

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Laura, thank you for counting and posting the results of the vote. (Even though I lost on all but one question, wah, I'm going to fling myself off a balcony now - oh wait, no I'm not.)

"Punish?" Um. Yeah. That makes me feel queasy, and I was... reasonably okay with the then-MBTV system, though sometimes irritated by it, for some time. (True story: I first started lurking with intent here shortly after 9/11 because I was so repelled by the way one of the moderators was handling the resulting discussion.) What I was always annoyed by about it was that it was so very top-down that while the Buffy boards over there felt like a community to me for, oh, a couple of years, it was never our place, and occasionally one got reminded of that. I wouldn't want to see this become a place that felt like it belonged to the moderators.

At the same time, I've been on moderated mailing lists that worked fine and didn't feel like that. Probably because the moderator had been a list-member first. So, I dunno.

Can't we just, you know, scroll? Get MARCIE up and running? At least give the whole voting thing a shot before instituting moderation? I actually don't mind the concept of moderation - I trust y'all. I don't think it's something to be done out of fear or aggression, though. People are so scared that something's going to be destroyed, but if you just stay out of Bureaucracy, honestly, what's changed? Conversations are humming along everywhere else that I read, without distress or people tearing at each other as far as I can tell.

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My problem was this: Meiskie was posting things and saying things that made people uncomfortable, uncomfortable enough to leave the thread. They didn't respond to him, instead of feeling like they could participate in their community the way they wanted to they left parts of it.

Maybe they should have spoken up more, maybe more voices saying "stop that" would have stopped it. But almost someone said "don't do that" or "Stop that" or "we find this offensive" meiskie turned it into a personal attack against the person making the complaint.

So everyone kept saying "Stop that", "don't do that" and then it got brought here in Bureaucracy. And then there was outrage because we were talking about him behind his back.

What I wish that as soon as he started making personal attacks someone had stepped in and said "This is your first warning, you have X number of warnings and then you'll be suspended."

And then, have stuck with that. "You've been warned, we gave you chances and you didn't change, so now you are being suspended because that's how our rules work."

I'm frustrated because---well--how can we possibly come up with ANY kind of solution that will make everyone happy? That will satisfy everyone? I'm not tryint to be difficult and I don't want people to be so upset that they want to leave the Buffistas or be physically ill.

But, is there really a push to try and find a solution that where everyone will be satisfied because I don't see that ever happening, there are just too many people with different opinions.

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Let me modify the proposal. Let the stompies have the power you suggest. But never automatically put anything to a vote. And never automatically exclude anything from a vote.

Instead let it come to a vote only if someone other than the person stomped thinks it should, and they receive 4 seconds. In other words the stompies can stomp without asking anyone, (but requiring minimum numbers of stompies for certain things as suggested). But if five people (other than the person stomped) think they acted unjustly it can be brought to a vote.

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Misha, Fred, no disrespect, but that's a hideous idea. If there's one thing we've proved here, it's that the people who are likely to be Stompies fall into 2 categories - those who would shudder and run from the responsibility, and would probably do the job well, and those wo would relish a chance to Sort Things Out, and should under no circumstances be given any power at all(which isn't to say those people aren't well-intentioned, BTW). What you end up with is a self-selecting pool of stompies, people who (with the best will in the world) are authoritarians. I'd rather have an ongoing agonised debate forever in Bureaucracy than that.

Or, to put it more concisely, What ita Said. Especially the bit about knickers. Mmmm.....knickers....

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