Again, the phrase isn't to calm. It's to register dissent and move on.

What about the proposition that it will inflame?

Alright, the dog has grown opposable thumbs and hooked on her own leash. The sun is out, I have to leave for the theater in 45 minutes, and the thumbs look weird. I gotta go.

::MWAH::

Yes Fay, my paragraph is very wordy! I'm better at editing other's words than my own.

Oh, it was a nice paragraph! I liked it. I just think that in this instance it's pitched all wrong, because communication is the crux of the problem. Big words and complex sentences wouldn't help, imho.

I have never seen Nutty's ass, so I have no opinion on it. But what she pulled out of it? Seems fair, reasonable, all those things.

Trudy--I have also been made uncomfortable by the bellicose tone some posters have taken towards Zoe. I have to admit the "brain-damage" comment by Allyson affected me like a blow and I had to leave the thread to recover. But Allyson aplogized when called on it. I spent almost an hour composing a message to Zoe about why her posts might make people become angered and how she might change her style a bit to avoid that--since I saw this coming a couple of weeks ago. She never responded. I am not sure the comfort of the rest of us is of interest to her--although I hope I am misjudging her.

I think we can ask Buffistas to make a conscious choice try to react to rudeness with calm--rather than institutionalize that into a catch-phrase--and that might work better.

Being given a chance (should I care to take it) to explain myself would antagonise me less.

I don't much like the all use one phrase idea. I would find it offensive and I'd probably leave and never come back.

I'm going back to using me as an example because I don't want to apply this to this one particular person since I don't think that it necessarily applies to this situation.

I've said this before, but, I think it bears repeating. I came into bureacracy when I was being discussed. The discussion, while somewhat hurtful, was intelligent and thoughtful. People were suggesting possibilities re: my non-existence as a physical entity.

If I hadn't had all of those posts explaining why they thought the things they did (IIRC: came in soon after the troll; agreed often with the troll; left at the same time as the troll; came from the same state as the troll) I would never have understood the problem. When I did understand the problem, I explained myself. I explained why I wanted to be here, what I like about this place and these people. I learned why the troll was a troll and what I did that encouraged people to think I could also be a troll or a non-entity. I think we came to a mutual understanding. I learned better what makes this board great, others learned that I'm somewhat incoherent and naive but also kind-hearted and real.

I believe, if there is a poster who is offensive, either because they don't realize the line they've crossed, or think that this board is like any other, a link to bureacracy with a request to come and discuss board proper behaviour, in whatever form the request is worded, is the best solution.

If I hadn't found the discussion, I might never have known why people posted at me out of the corners of their eyes, so to speak. It would have, I believe, either taken longer for people to accept me, or I would have left because I wasn't accepted and never knew why.

I think every poster who doesn't obey the rules of polite conduct often enough to be a concern should be offered the chance to modify their behaviour, first, in thread (and I do believe a lot of people have been very kindly toward the current PIQ (poster in question) and have asked her to explain, even recently, when she's made many more people hit the top of their trollish meter. Then, when it's warranted, and I don't know where that line is, but I believe sooner than in this situation, a politely worded request to come discuss would be in order, (and I like Nutty's suggestion) then on to the more formal steps.

FWIW, I don't think it will work in this instance because, like the past troll, I think this poster will ignore all this and hope it goes away until it's too late and we've all been tied in knots. I still, however, think it's the right procedure to follow, because everyone deserves a chance to defend him or herself and learn how to modify the behaviour that offends.

For more insight into where Zoe's coming from, it might be helpful to check out her website. She cites it in her User Information, so I think it's fair enough to mention it? Because that's how I found it - I was looking for her email address to email her about this stuff.

(If this is an inappropriate suggestion/reference to make here, tell me and I'll delete. I wasn't quite sure. I mean, it's clearly not private information, since anyone can find it in her user info and she put it there to be found - but otoh perhaps it's better to keep this discussion more general and less specific.)

And really, if someone won't respond to a bunch of individual "please chill"s I do think an official warning is the next step.

You know, Gar, I tend to agree with you; but I think that Intervention as a middle step is a compromise I can live with. As Amyth said upthread in the 9630s, and Cindy mentioned in her at-first proposal in 9635, it at least establishes clearly "Please be responsible. These are your Buffista responsibilities (civility, etc.). You know what's right now and have no excuses."

I mean, not in so police-y a way as that, but once an Intervention has gone down, then there's no question of "What's the FAQ? Wait, I'm not allowed to...?" Everybody is given a second opportunity (after the initial registration) to get on the same page, and stay there. If they don't stay, then we can go the Warning route.

Agreed with Burrell: diagnosis in absentia borders on the rude itself, and helps the discussion not at all.

I don't think it will work in this instance

You're right. It hasn't. She's been e-mailed, and given inthread links. So it has to be something else.

My 2 wooden nickels to add to the chorus from the Mostly Quiet People corner:

I'm a low-volume poster, high-volume reader. In the beginning, it was fairly easy to ignore Zoe's posts and self-MARCIE. Now, I'm finding it hard to Doblerize due to the following reasons (which may or may not involve my own Issues, all opinions strictly my own, YDramaMV):

• The volume of posts from Zoe: The amount of posts I need to skip make it hard to follow some threads because I have to do a lot of self-MARCIEing.

• The reactions from other posters: I have seen both gently polite and (IMO) inexcusably rude responses. Because people I want to read are talking about the posts, the look-at-the-train-wreck instinct kicks in and I end up going back just to understand *their* posts. I feel as if I have to skip half the thread to avoid dealing with this issue at this point and it's making it hard to enjoy my time in some threads.

• I find most of her comments to be incoherent, thoughtless or generally ignorant and when I do read her posts I end up staring at the screen trying to understand what was supposed to be communicated and frustrated that I can't. Totally my problem, but not helping.

This is becoming a (personal) vicious cycle because I am now hypesensitive to anything Zoe posts and predisposed to view it in an unfavorable manner. With the lack of inflection/body language, any innocent comment can be perceived in a negative light.

If there were MARCIE, I would put Zoe in it, but I would still be missing large parts of the discussions and feel I was missing out. This really bugs me. Again, this is totally my problem, but I think other people may feel similarly.

I don't feel like this is a situation comparable to cool kids picking on the different kid. I feel more like sand was dropped in the conversational gears instead of grease, or that Martha Stewart joined Punk Planet and tried to insert conversations about raising your own hens in the mosh pit.

This is not a value judgement - I don't think of anyone as a better or worse person for not having the same sets of values, communication strategies, or interests. It does mean that I personally may not want to spend my free time with them.

In a perfect world, we would all be able to accomodate everyone's induvidual quirks. In the real world, someone may drive me batshit for no good reason. Frankly, I have no idea whether to attribute Zoe's controversial posts to cluelessness, malice, or some amalgm of the two and don't care as long as some way to alleviate the problem appears.

Zoe seems to drive many people on the board batshit, possibly because we are heavy on the logical and analytic side of things. We are also heavily predisposed to embrace people who are 'different', for lack of a better term, since (IMO) a lot of us vary significantly from the mainstream in one way or another.

I think the divisiveness over what to do stems from wanting an inclusive community and being afraid to exclude someone for reasons of feeling they are incompatible (not evil, not stupid, just not fitting in). It's probably impossible to create hard-and-fast guidelines that account for this many people's individual feelings and a (IMO) general dislike of establishing positons of power/hierarchical structures that place some posters opinions above others makes "Who decides" a question no one really wants to answer.

At this point, enough people are upset that *some* kind of action should probably be taken, if only for Zoe's well-being, since I agree that discussion someone present in third person seems mean, although she has been given (IMO) adequate notice that it's happening and encouraged to participate.

I wish I had more helpful procedural things to suggest - my personal experience with artist's groups is that ultimately the Buck Stops with Someone and if the Universe is kind, everyone can agree on who the Someone (or Very Small Group) is. I know that this isn't the kind of action the Buffistas prefer, and am more than willing to try any idea for arbitration that's more democratically aligned.

Hope this all makes some sort of sense and helps in some way and that spending time trying to word carefully hasn't caused my spelling or grammar to fly out the window. I have to get moving to provide Amoral Support at a friend's music gig which became solo as of last night, will catch up when I get home. Thanks for taking the time to read.