(waves at Zoe)

I have to agree with Micole .

I think she's deliberately stirring up trouble, and an official stompy warning is long overdue

See, I don't know whether she is doing it on purpose. She might be, but I don't feel that I can say with certainty that she is. I think it's possible that she doesn't quite understand how her posting style differs from Jo(e) Buffista's posting style, and that in the past she FELT she was being attacked when she originally wasn't (eg when someone politely disagreed with something she'd said, or asked for clarification - behaviour that is normal between posters here and doesn't have to have an overtone of personal attack, but which could be read as agressive nit-picking by someone not used to this environment) and that, feeling attacked, she responded by lashing out verbally. Which she felt was responding in kind, whereas the other party then felt that they had been attacked out of the blue.

We're now at a point (and have been for some time) where she only has to make one half-assed remark and many people find their patience has vanished. (I had a flatmate once who had this effect on me. Nice girl, but she drove me completely insane. She only had to walk into a room and I wanted to hit her with a frying pan on general principles.) I think there's a degree of poking-her-with-a-stick that goes on now. I sympathise with it (and am guilty of it myself, actually, because the InnerBitch is strong in this one, young Padawan) but I know it isn't fair. (e.g. the UnAmericans thread cited above, with the rudeness - I love Jim, and I totally agreed with him, and indeed laughed my socks off, but he did pretty much provoke the cited rudeness when he responded to her earlier post (which was not very bright, but also not, I think, intentionally rude) with the gloriously pithy "In a pig's arse." I mean, man, he totally spoke for me. But it was rude, and nobody called him on it. Whereas Zoe's subsequent rudeness [since presumably she will have been surprised/hurt to find herself verbally slapped] was pounced on at once. If I were Zoe, I'd be pretty cheesed off by this.)

I mean, yes, it's perfectly possible that we're being played and the person typing isn't who they present themselves to be, but that kind of game hurts my head, and it gets all existential and you get all suspicious and so forth - so generally speaking I prefer to take people on face value. (Subtext is fabulous for fiction, but in online dialogue I just have to deal with the text and give people the benefit of the doubt. It seems fairer.) So, assuming that Zoe is quite genuine, I think the reason she winds people up is because her posts are often incoherent. Sometimes because the sentence structure is baffling, sometimes because she seems unable to gauge the tone of the conversation she's joining, and sometimes because she doesn't seem to be thinking very clearly. But she doesn't realise this is the case, and she doesn't see a big difference between her posts and those of other people. She's feeling picked on. Other people are feeling frustrated to the point of violence.

There's a consistent failure to connect, both intellectually and emotionally.

FWIW, at least half the time I can't make out what she's saying. This, teamed with a tendancy to make unsupported statements with which I disagree, (and to dismiss other people's attempts to engage with her argument out of hand, in a very schoolchild-ish manner which makes me suppose that she's actually pretty young) brings out the worst in me. But I feel bad for her. I would be hurt if I read this about me, and on the whole I don't think she's being malicious.

But I think we can adapt to different people's styles; some posters do have more abrasive styles of posting. Miracleman, bless his cotton socks of doom, can be quite aggressive, but because he feels like family you just take it in the right spirit. Rio's FUCKOS could be very jarring for a newbie, but cracks up most longterm members of the community. Some people are maybe able to adapt equally to Zoe's style. If that's the case, then I don't feel like it's a case for stompage. Or at least - if any kind of warning were required, that it should just be in the spirit of trying to work things out, since there's clearly a lot of tension, rather than in a telling-off kind of way.

For my part, I do now see the need for MARCIE, because it would be a non-agressive way of dealing with a situation where one is (perhaps unfairly) annoyed beyond the ability to be polite. As and when we get it I'll be delighted.

I'm very frustrated that the work on MARCIE keeps getting shelved, or seeming like it's getting shelved.

Guh. The only coding that's been moved ahead in line is the effort to pare down the posts table. Unfortunately, we can't ask hostrocket's MySQL implementation to Doblerize.

I don't want to seem defensive, but it's been a technologically challenged week, and what we have is a bunch of time-short coders, an unformed testing scenario, and an incompletely specced feature.

Sure, stuff will get done, but it will get done on a schedule that meets the resources.

For the moment, if this is a board-breaking issue, I'd love someone with either a) CVS expertise b) the time to become a CVS expert or c) a CVS alternative to come forward.

We can't responsibly go forward without controls -- having MARCIE be in the works would otherwise forestall or complicate other development or fixes.

I don't want to seem defensive, but it's been a technologically challenged week, and what we have is a bunch of time-short coders, an unformed testing scenario, and an incompletely specced feature.

ita, I don't think anyone would blame you or feeling defensive. I think we're all very acutely aware of how much we owe you and the tech folk. Marcie is a good idea, and as and when it's feasible, that'll be nice. But y'all are busy people.

I'm not sure what the solution to the Zoe issue is, but I can say that, if the *proposed* solution is that 25% of the posters (or more) should just dump her into MARCIE, we have a problematic poster on our hands.

I think the whole board might be better served if warnings were not seen as THE END OF THE WORLD so that they could be meted out when deemed appropriate without a 2000 post debate on the fate of the Buffistas.

Are you saying that now's a bad time with all the up and down stuff here? Sorry, I'm a litttle tech illiterate. I don't think anyone will be upset if you have to say it just can't be done right now. A MARCIE filter with a broken board is a little like a tivo without a tv.

if the *proposed* solution is that 25% of the posters (or more) should just dump her into MARCIE, we have a problematic poster on our hands.

I agree with this 100%.

What I see is a poster who has no respect for this community, and no desire to be a part of it. I haven't seen a single attempt on her part to avoid insulting people over and over again. When people have politely asked her to tone down her rudeness (admittedly, a rarer event recently than it was when she was newer to the boards), she either ignores them or responds with more rudeness. The only time I've seen any kind of apology was after Allyson's completely inappropriate post about her mental health. If that's the kind of hammer it takes to drive the point home, there's a problem.

We have one rule of etiquette here -- Be Nice To People. And she's not doing it.

I can't believe how much time you guys take talking about this kind of stuff.

My post about the head injury was designed to make her leave, yo. I wanted her to cry, feel stupid, and leave. Forever. And then, I would have been a great big meanie, but really, the Angel thread would be a better place.

Here's the thing (as I see it), Fay. Sure, some posters who have been here longer may seem to get away with more - hell, they probably do get away with more - but they've earned that. They earned it by having a body of posts behind them - by being funny and sympathetic and kind - by contributing time and money and expertise - by helping to build this board and this community. If a random person walked up to you at a party and called you a FUCKO, would you be offended? Or think them socially maladjusted? I would. If, however, a person I've 'known' for ages came up and did the same it's okay, because it's Rio. The same way that, say, ita and Kat can playfully insult each other and it's okay, but if I tried to insult Kat in the same way it would be terribly rude. Because I have not built up that kind of relationship with Kat. And if I did do it, and people reacted negatively, I have no one to blame but myself. And if I want to get along with people here I'd have to modify my behaviour.

As for Zoe... I agree that if mental illness or medication is to be an excuse or a reason for her posting then she needs to be the one to bring it up. But, thing is, we have lots of people on this board who are medicated and who are ill, and they still manage to post in a polite fashion.

And I never thought that Allyson was actually asking about Zoe's mental health, it was quite clear to me that she was deliberately striking out because Zoe's posts were offensive and hurtful.

if the *proposed* solution is that 25% of the posters (or more) should just dump her into MARCIE, we have a problematic poster on our hands.

Agreed. A high percentage of Marciers is a sign that the poster needs to rethink what he/she is posting that is so Marcieable.

Actually, I was thinking about this on the way home. The standard Doblerize phrase in such situations is "Do not feed the energy creature", but I got to wondering. If Zoe is a low-level "energy creature" -- i.e. a troll -- then we shouldn't tolerate her at all. If she's not -- I tend to think she's probably not -- then DNFTEC doesn't apply, and everyone has both right and duty not to ignore her, not to let it go in hopes of everything blowing over. Because, clearly, that way lies tension and sudden blow-ups and isn't working. If someone is a part of the [self-selecting] community, part of the responsibility of belonging is, you know, belonging. Caring how the other members feel. Trying not to hurt their feelings, and trying to maintain that sense of community. That's a responsibility for the person who gives offense -- to apologize honestly -- and for the person who is offended -- to accept the apology and be willing to move on.

Zoe, if you're reading, this is an invitation to you to describe your sense of whether and how you feel part of the community. Do the above 30 posts make you think? Make you angry and defensive? Here's the place to talk it out, in truly wordy Buffista fashion. And I think the whole conversation would be more profitable and less speculative if the person being debated were willing to represent herself in this matter.

I think the whole board might be better served if warnings were not seen as THE END OF THE WORLD

You know, I think that's true, after some thought. Because, if warning is what we originally said it is, i.e. a headcheck to someone who had crossed the line, then it's a conciliatory gesture, a formal communal way to say "Please come back over the line and join us in our monkey goofy love." As opposed to it being necessarily a prelude to suspension. It has been heretofore, but it's only been tried out on one person, and that was, I think you'll agree, sort of an extreme case.

Lately, I've been ignoring the Bureauracy thread because, truth be told, I don't have strong feelings on how things should be run. If others do, great. And, I figured if I ever did get strong feelings about something, I could pop over and say my peace. So, here I am.

I don't know what Zoe's deal is in her posts. I don't know if she's deliberately provoking people or if she has special circumstances that affects her communication skills. I do think her interactions on this board have caused people to have a rather short fuse with her, and I agree with those who have said that some posts to her lately have been provocative (and not in the fun way).

Personally, I've used my internal Marcie with her for a while. Whenever I see her name, I skip the post.

I'm not sure why we're looking for some kind of consensus or majority voice on having a Stompy speak with her (backchannel) about the concerns of the community. No one is asking for her to be banned, just spoken with. Of course, she could read all the concerns here, too, but I don't think that's the way to do it. Something a bit more personal and private would be good.