This is sort of a broad question for me: at what point do we stop tolerating rudeness?

And that's the problem, honestly, because it's pretty difficult to pick a number.

Personally, I feel like the line was crossed a long time ago when she expressed the "gay/bi sex is ICKY!" opinion in Angel.

Connie, there is no filter. If there were, probably we wouldn't be having this talk.

I think she meant over at PeoplesForum.

Connie, it's not the quotation marks (or misspellings, because heaven knows I can't spell things). It's the repeated snotty tone whenever anyone asks her to clarify things and her refusal to give explanations or clarifications. I think that she's doing it deliberately, which is rude.

I agree that Zoe's snotty when challenged, and only semi-coherent much of the rest of the time. But I don't like the idea of warning her officially because I think it sets a bad precedent -- she's not, as far as I can tell, specifically outside board rules.

Also, I doubt she'd pay any more attention to a post with the "official" labels than she has to the 879 times an individual poster has called her on this. I think it's more a MARCIE question, frankly.

EDIT:

Also, this:

If she annoys you, ignore her. But I think more than one person on this board has hit harder than she's given. Personally, I can't stand her ramblings. Hell, half the time I can't understand them. But people need to stop baiting her into fights that they KNOW will happen, because really, she's usually NOT the one starting the fights.

There was a filter at People's Forum, and glancing through a couple of LJs of friends, it was clear it was being used and why. When we came back over here, I noticed a few people bemoaning not having the filter.

Yes, all backchannel, but illustrative of the feeling. Zoe has never struck me as anything but harmlessly clueless. She doesn't bother me at all, and if she gets a bit obscure I shrug and move on. I have never understood the depths of dislike she inspires. Yes, I read all the boards.

I don't think asking about punctuation is any more out of line than asking posters not to use "2 c001 4 sp3111ng" conventions for posting, which I have also seen people do.

I see Victor's pattern, except that I don't think step 2 is usually people cutting Zoe down quite rudely; I think it is usually people cutting her down with at least surface politeness. Sometimes this seems to me to be real politeness, and sometimes ... not.

[Edited because a sentence didn't make sense there. Sorry.]

I see Victor's pattern, except that I think people don't think step 2 is usually people cutting Zoe down quite rudely; I think it is usually people cutting her down with at least surface politeness. Sometimes this seems to me to be real politeness, and sometimes ... not.

I think it started as genuine politeness, but where we are running into problems is that, as many times as one may state DNFTEC, well, sometimes, even the sanest and most rational people fail to abide by that rule of thumb. So people are getting less and less polite about it, which is usually a sign that you are dealing with something that's An Issue.

This is sort of a broad question for me: at what point do we stop tolerating rudeness?

Yeah, and I don't know. I mean, when a person is called on stuff that really isn't that big a deal, but they continue to do it? I don't know.

You know what? If she annoys you, ignore her. But I think more than one person on this board has hit harder than she's given.

I totally agree with this. Frankly, I don't understand why Zoe is even still here, because a number of people have been really rude to her since day one. But, she apparently wants to stay. I have seen posts from her that seemed Warning-worthy, but never til later, I just don't necessarily think this latest thing is.

I think it is usually people cutting her down with at least surface politeness. Sometimes this seems to me to be real politeness, and sometimes ... not.

To put it bluntly, the word that occurred to me was not "politeness" but "set-up".

Yes, I'm annoyed. But this didn't have to become something officially recognized, it could have stayed backchannel. Now that it's open for comment, though, I'm gonna comment.

And for a while, I think Step 2 was civil. It was after repeated attempts to engage in any sort of conversation, and being met with incomprehensibility or outright rudeness, that people got frustrated and snappy.

I wish Zoe would come over here, and participate, since she's clearly reading the boards right now. But we can't make her do that, can we?

Connie, it's not the non-sequiturs that tends to get in my hair; it's the intentional rudeness. There was an exchange that got me to the point of all caps in Unamerican a few weeks ago, whereby she dismissed Betsy's knowledge of British history out of hand (i.e. inserted herself into an ongoing conversation), and then, when offered citations, called Betsy "granny" and got snotty.

Obviously, I didn't bring it to Bureaucracy and/or stompy feet, because I could tell I was losing my temper and because I wasn't sure that we all were ready to handle Stompy Foot Warning Mark II. But it keeps coming up, you know? If it didn't keep coming up, we wouldn't have found ourselves talking openly/publically about it.