The person could be e-mailed and given a chance to respond just as easily as he or she could be given a chance to respond here, and I think that might well be less disruptive to everyone else and less stressful to face for the person in question.

But given this particular case, with people speaking against action and in Zoe's defense, while others were pointing the finger at other posters for the manner in which they've called Zoe on stuff, our stompies were (and I'm not picking on them, I understand why) unsure whether to handle or how to handle.

Nothing that happened here gives me the opinion that a stompy would have contacted Zoe based on an email request.

Plus the stompies will be forced to make decisions backchannel, which they have already stated they don't want to do, and based on less information about how the board as a whole feels.

Well, and again this is all asspull, but they wouldn't be making a decision. It would be a case of X-many posters have officially expressed their discomfort, therefore automatically this is brought to the attention of B MP. Not in an aggressive way. One would certainly hope that people would speak to B MP themselves before running to a stompy (as has been the case so far), and maybe say (as Kat did, quite correctly) that they were going to make an official complaint.

there will be no way for someone to defend herself--or to come to the defense of another--until a decision has already been made.

Of course there will. I'm not remotely advocating a "four complaints and you're banned" kind of policy. I'm suggesting that making the first move towards warning be simpler, rather than hundreds of posters trying to decide whether or not a stompy should alert somebody that there was a problem. B MP will totally be able to email the stompy back and say "Shit, really? I didn't realise!" Or "No, this isn't fair. X did such-and-such first, which is why I said blah blah blah". I'm talking about proactively opening a dialogue, in an attempt to nip problems in the bud - not shooting somebody.

I could see that point Monique, in another circumstance. But in this one, Zoe was invited here immediately. It grew to 300 posts, in part, because she didn't respond.

This is why, though I think she stated it much more harshly than I ever would have, I think Allyson's right that Zoe doesn't care about our community standards or how we feel. It makes me feel like we're worrying about her feelings too much.

I think Kat's actions were completely right. She said in the thread where people got bothered that people were bothered and that she was coming over here.

It gave everyone, bothered and botherer, a chance to discuss it in the open.

Just to throw in my 2 cents about why she isn't posting in here--If I were Zoe, I would be pretty intimidated in this forum. (Even after the first few posts about the situation) And now, especially after 300 posts or so about how annoying and possibly mentally deficient I am, I really wouldn't want to post anything. Obviously, talking about it in the open is better, but it might be hard to post when you know that the majority of the posters wish there was a marcie program in order to specifically ignore you.

(But then again, if I knew everybody wanted to ignore me, I wouldn't continue to post in the other forums either. The whole situation is a little baffling.)

Cindy, I understand that there is the possibility that if she had followed Kat over here, they could have hashed it out, came to an understanding, group hug, everything's peachy in fifteen posts.

But what did end up happening was within 30 posts made within a half hours' time, people said they were tired of her snotty replies and someone had theorized that maybe she was "special." I hate to rehash things after the warning has already been sent out, but theorizing that either she wasn't ready to deal with it at that time, she was on the phone or in the bathroom, coming into it later would have still been intimidating, IMO, and is no less a public flogging than posting in Press that they've received a slap on the hand.

I'm not trying to judge the opinions people shared regarding this poster, or the outcome. But I think the process, as it stands, exacerbates a lot of issues and tends to make things worse, to be bluntly honest. I think if you've got people stomping out of the thread and/or off the board due to discussions regarding how to handle problem posters, that's a bad thing.

I'm suggesting that making the first move towards warning be simpler, rather than hundreds of posters trying to decide whether or not a stompy should alert somebody that there was a problem.

In my opinion there were first moves being made before it got here. scrappy (?) someone sent an e-mail about the tone of posts, people posted in thread objections. Those to me are first steps.

FWIW, Zoe's web page seems to say she's left the Buffistas and is on another forum. So it may be she decided leaving quietly was a better option than defending herself here.

Personally, I don't like the idea of the entire warning process being done in secret. I think posters should be able to privately request another poster be warned -- but I think once a warning is being issued, it should at least be mentioned in here, so the warned poster can apologize, explain, etc.

OTOH, TT kept the whole warning/banning process private, which may have saved their admins some grey hairs.

I don't like the notion of backchannel at all. I prefer to discuss issues which concern the community in this thread. Whether it is proposing a new Monkey thread or discussions concerning violations of community standards.

See, I'm thinking of this as being a tactful-taking-person-to-one-side thing, rather than an ominous-behind-the-scenes thing. An initial step, or two steps, or three steps, to opening a dialogue and trying to sort things out before it gets to this kind of courtroom situation - and one which would actually take some of the onus off the stompies, 'cause it could simply be what happened to any poster who had given offence, to alert them to the fact that there really was a problem.

I'm not especially invested in this, incidentally - very much making it up as I go along, but I share Maysa's sense that this kind of public discussion of one's failings could be very intimidating for someone who wasn't actually a malicious troll.

Zoe's web page seems to say she's left the Buffistas and is on another forum.

Nah, she's been posting quite a bit in UnAmericans and other threads all the while this discussion's been going on (giving me a taste of what people are saying about the Angel thread). I'm pretty sure she's reading this.

Five e-mails would be enough for the stompies to backchannel among themselves, and consider whether the problem was primarily with poster or the people offended.

What you are describing here is a moderated board, which is not what we have here. This kind of massive structural change to the Buffistas would need to be put to the vote, and would likely be fought tooth and nail. If you think Kafka is ugly now, just wait....