t runs up behind Steph wearing "What Steph Said" sandwich board

Really, I have to go, so I honestly look forward to peoples thoughts when I get back.

But the more I think about it, the more it burns me up that we're hurting our community by being over-accomodating to TWO people who haven't shown a single sign of wanting to meet us halfway. Or a quarter of the way. Or at all.

Maybe we should be more accomodating of the hundreds of posters (and hundreds more lurkers) who DO follow community standards.

I am an occasional poster, and, as such, I don't often feel engaged enough in the community to call someone on what I feel is inappropriate behavior. This also affords me a higher level of tolerance and the ability to self-filter/ignore topics and/or posters fairly well.

That being said, Zoe has pinged my radar more than once. I think askye made a really good point when she said

Not to mention the fact that if (excluding the day after a new show) I see a huge jump in posts in Buffy/Angel thread my first thought is to wonder what Zoe has said now to piss people off and dread reading the thread. Even if she said nothing at all that's still my first thought.

Yesterday afternoon, I left work at 5:00est. The Angel thread hadn't been extraordinarily busy during the last couple of hours, but Kat had made her request. When I checked back into the board an hour or so later, there were 84 new posts. I thought things were exploding again. (They were, but only with Lindsey-lust.)

This is not the first time I have had this reaction. I read the show threads and have seen Zoe cause friction there on several occasions. I am surprised that it took this long for anyone to officially complain, but I chalked it up to being gun-shy.

In the general sense, I disagree with the reason that if we warn a troll because we give them what they want. If we aren't going to enforce standards on obvious trolls, there is no point to having standards. This may or may not apply to Zoe.

She has corrected her behavior before, though it took time and a more official warning. I am thinking specifically of her repeated instances of responding to "Beep Me" posts in "Beep Me". I may be misremembering the specific details, but I recall a poster complaining about the natter, and a Stompy posted a general reminder in "Press" and may have issued a specific reminder to Zoe in a show thread while she was posting. Whatever the exact chain of events, Zoe did respond and correct her behavior.

I think that an official notice is warranted, acceptable, and may well produce the desired effect. If it doesn't, the issue will have to be readdressed. I'm sorry this has become divisive, but really, it's been divisive for a while. It just took Kat to address the issue, and I'm sorry she felt attacked and excused herself.

I spent a lot of time trying to create a post that summed up my feelings on this, and then checked to see if anything else came in while I was doing so, only to find that Steph had already said almost everything I was going to.

Just to add on though:

Let's just send her a warning already. Yes it bothers me that I feel we need to take that step, but what this is doing to the community bothers me more.

Victor is right, people here have been rude to her, but I truly believe that's because nothing else has worked. People have ignored her. People have tried to figure out her posts and put a better spin on them. People have asked her to explain herself. People have asked her to stop being rude. People have asked her to change or go away.

She won't. It's time to force the issue.

At the risk of making myself a wanking, Orwellian nitpicker...

Yes, that's a joke. Possibly not a very good one, but I'm really amused by the mental image.

Zoe's posts often give me an uncomfortableness. Maybe this makes me a reactionary git. For the record, again, I'm not calling for her head on a plate. I don't get along with every Buffista equally, and I've managed to get by all right so far.

Hell, at this point, I'm not personally calling for any community action. I just wanted to state my discomfort because I felt like there was a pile-on in here against people who have been upset and baffled by Zoe's behavior.

So, whatever. I'll continue to use my personal MARCIE and follow Kat out of Bureaucracy.

I felt like there was a pile-on in here against people who have been upset and baffled by Zoe's behavior.

Which, again, makes me wonder why we're going out of our way for someone who doesn't follow community standards, at the expense of the hundreds of people who DO.

I felt like there was a pile-on in here against people who have been upset and baffled by Zoe's behavior.

Which, again, makes me wonder why we're going out of our way for someone who doesn't follow community standards, at the expense of the hundreds of people who DO.

fwiw, Zoe's the only person who has driven me to back channel and she does my head in. My comments should be taken within the context of that. I envy everyone with an InnerDoblerizer, because I very much don't have one most of the time.

I'm not trying to hurt anyone here, and I'm sorry if it looks like I'm prioritising the rights of one person over the rights of lots of people. That isn't my intention. I have no problem with Zoe being officially made aware that there's an issue, but banning seems inappropriate to me at this juncture - because I don't think she's doing this on purpose.

We're not even close to banning, and I'm not sure why people keep bringing it up.

We aren't discussing banning.

We're discussing giving her an Official Notice that many community members find her posts disruptive, and those community members have tried to point it out in-thread, but those instance have been ignored.

That's all. Just sending her an official notice.

IF she ignores that, it COULD lead to banning. Because that's the way the agreed-upon system works.

But banning is NEVER the first step with a non-spammer.

And I think a pile-on from the cool kids (ie-- vetrans) is wrong even if someone has it coming.

Oh god, the Cool Kids! Is this the Buffista equivalent of invoking Nazis on USENET? Because in both cases it short-circuits the argument and diverts everyone's attention. And you know what? As one of the complainants, I'm offended by the implication that I'm "ganging up" on someone or being cliquish. I'm just saying publically what I've been thinking privately for a long time. I didn't need to consult other people to know I was really annoyed. As of now, please let us never use this phrase in accusatory manner ever again. EVER.

Okay? Elena's already taken care of "Orwellian" as a not-useful word, and I think "pile-on" may be next on my useless-word-shitlist.

I especially like Cindy #9351 and 9354 as exellent summations of "Where are we at? What are our options?" Because I started this discussion wondering How Much Is Too Much, i.e. do cumulative, unmitigated offenses ever add up to something actionable? I'm thinking yes, still, and overnight discussion has convinced me that we could use "notice" or "intervention" instead of "warning" to get across the cluestick.

I think that ignoring disruptive behavior is a bad idea, as that behavior then becomes entrenched. It also tends to get worse over time. We've also seen that it tends to bring out the worst in ourselves.

This all is definitely true, and why I'm glad we're discussing it, in Bureaucracy. At the very least, we can all clear the air. Having got it off our chests -- and moreso than I'm 100% comfortable with, especially the parts where many are attributing to Zoe some mental incapacity I have never seen her directly claim -- I think we're ready to move on into the thinking clearly part of bureaucracy. How do people feel about Cindy's "fill the gap" idea, linked above, in theory? That is, if it had to be applied to you, Missy and/or Young Mister Buffista, how would you feel about it? Do you think that the list of If/Then statements Cindy worked out will actually happen under application? Can you see flaws?

Basically, let's try to move forward. In 15 hours, we've already gotten circular and repetitive, and I'd like to change that.