Paul, before you bring up that hornet's nest, you should understand that Allyson's reaction was mild compared to the blinding fury that happened to settle on some of us queers when shit about gay sex being icky came up with us Standing Right There.

What Allyson managed to do was defuse some of us before we went completely, totally, and insanely postal.

Consider it the lesser of evils, because you don't even want to know some of the responses to that post that went through my head.

Standing Right There

Any idea where/when that post was? Cuz I'd be interested in having a frame of reference. I'll look it up, just point me in the right direction.

Although quite possibly I should keep my big mouth shut.

It was early on in Angel 2 I think. I would say Threadsuck Angel 2 and search under Zoe's name but that could be tedious.

First 1000 posts, you think?

It was in Angel while the show was on hiatus. Maybe mid-Feb.?

I'd REALLY rather not drag this one out again. Allyson's post bothered me a lot more than Zoe's, as cruelty bothers me more than stupidity -- but I was reading a few hours later and without the perspective of being gay/bi, so maybe I can't really understand this one.

The particular conversation starts around connie neil "Angel 2: No Time for Losers" Feb 19, 2003 1:20:20 pm EST, but you might want to go back a little further for the grammar/spelling debate that already had people edgy, starting around Zoe Finch "Angel 2: No Time for Losers" Feb 19, 2003 8:30:21 am EST.

edit: and then continues at Allyson "Angel 2: No Time for Losers" Feb 19, 2003 7:26:54 pm EST.

(And, sorry if this is dragging up old stuff again, but I figure it's better to have actual posts to refer to than just summaries of 1000-post discussions.)

Let's also keep in mind that Allyson apologised (to offended other Buffistas, though self-admittedly not to Zoe) for that post.

Okay, I reread, and a)I was remembering Allyson's comments as worse than they were and b)I was around during that conversation, so I'm mistaken about reading it later.

This is why I should not comment on things that happened more than five minutes ago without finding the original posts.

Allyson was called on the post and apologized for it. Nobody here is saying Allyson was right to do it (even if some readers understood and agreed with her reason for doing it), and it clearly didn't resolve the situation anyway.

There's no reason to bring it up again, Paul.

Jesus! What is the angst about having moderators? We have rules. We have people empowered to enforce those rules. Guess what? That's moderation.

It's all very well and good to say that every person in the group is as empowered as every other person in the group in the decision-making process. But, (a) that's already clearly untrue, as certain people have been trusted with technical responsibilities and, yes, moderation roles, and (b) you can all be empowered and not sit around and nitpick through every decision, if you're channeling concerns/complaints/questions to the people you have already empowered to act on your behalf.

We have already recognized that a consensus approach to major community-development questions does not work with the growth of the board. Why are we struggling to keep a consensus method on the far trickier set of interpersonal/community relations questions for which, I might add, we already have rules??