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.

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.

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.

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....

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

I know, I was just pointing out some different things that I thought could be handled better next time.

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

We need Zaphod Beeblebrox.

It goes along nicely with our MVT of 42, doesn't it?

I have one more question and I swear I am NOT trying to be difficult...

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the situation and talking at cross purposes but putting aside anything that's happened in the past.

We have someone, anyone---new person that joins, or someone who already belongs--who does something that violates our etiquette or rules, and they are asked to change and they don't? Then what do we call it when action is taken against them? To me, when you have to take action against someone because they have violated the rules of the community that's punishing someone.

I don't get why punish in that sense is a bad thing.

I don't get why punish in that sense is a bad thing.

It just gives me the creeps as a word, actually. I don't have a problem with the concept. The word feels... oh, I don't know. Authoritarian. Which it is, of course, it's just that it makes me feel uncomfortable, and I wanted to mention that.

Get MARCIE up and running?

YES. Please. I wouldn't have given a shit about m/s/A (who I found grating in all his incarnations) if I could have just filtered him.

To avoid fighting over semantics, why not refer to it as "stomping".

And again a simple proposal - we keep old rule first offense warning, second suspend, third banning.

It can only be done by a certain number of stompies - don't know what that number should be - an absolute majority? A majority of those online at time of the offense, but with some minimum?

No vote or discussion other than by stompies is required.

But decision can be overriden in two ways:

1) by an absolute majority of stompies, if decision is made by less than that.

2) By a vote fo buffistas - but only if certain number of people want a vote and discusison on a stomping. Five is what we voted on (1+4 seconds). I would say that no one should second such an appeal unless they actually believe a decision was unjust.