removed because I was drafting something people weren't talking about - sorry for the confusion

IMO, we don't need consensus around warnings. If we agree that making other people feel bad is wrong, not everyone has to feel bad before there's a problem. If you know what I'm saying. If ten people are offended, and ten people are not, I still think there should be a warning. And it's been said before, but warnings are not the end of the world.

Cindy, you did say to play with it:

Bureacracy

We need more of u in here.

No, seriously. This is really, truly not a voting matter.

We have a system that says misbehavers get a warning letter from the stompies. If we wanted to change the system so that we would no longer have a warning, that would require a vote.

What we're talking about here is, as a matter of stompy convenience, having something written out in advance. It's an administrative matter, not a policy. If we're going to have a whole discussion and vote, this place will truly have turned into the student council meeting from hell.

This is really, truly not a voting matter.

Indeed. For the reasons outlined by Jesse:

If we agree that making other people feel bad is wrong, not everyone has to feel bad before there's a problem. If you know what I'm saying. If ten people are offended, and ten people are not, I still think there should be a warning.

It's not a consensus, or a vote. It's "people feel bad, let's try and stop that."

This is a matter for the Stompies to work out, and so not for voting on.

Please.

If this community insists on hashing out every bullshit bureaucratic detail in an open 800-person forum, it will be the death of it.

Cindy, that letter is fantastic and clever and all of that, but I wonder if our goals would be better-served with something shorter and more straightforward, along the lines of,

Dear Buffistina Monkeypants,

Your posts X (through Y) in thread Z have come to our attention as being outside our etiquette. Specifically, several posters read them as (personal attacks/disparaging of a specific group/rude beyond the telling of it/other).

We enjoy your contributions to the community, and we understand that everyone makes mistakes. This is not an official warning -- but please try to think before you post in the future, or we will issue one.

If you want to read our etiquette, the short version is LINK. (This matter was also discussed in bureaucracy starting LINK).

Thank you for your attention,

Stompy McStompypants

IMO, we don't need consensus around warnings. If we agree that making other people feel bad is wrong, not everyone has to feel bad before there's a problem.

Agreed.

Nice Cindy. I think it needs to be chopped some, but I am not alert girl at the moment.

eta: I do like the humor element. Very Buffista-y

I don't understand why we're backing away from our nice three-step process. An "unofficial" warning from a Stompy makes no sense to me. We worked out a procedure: Warning, Suspension, Banning. Period. Clearly, we're all willing to give people a chance and all of that -- whenever there's a problem poster, people point out the issue to them and try to engage them in dialog. This happens fairly regularly. When that doesn't work, the next step should be a Warning.

Also, if

• whitefonting spoilers
• fixing broken posts
• issuing warnings
• at a last resort, banning posters

The Stompies are moderators. It's a light-touch moderation, but it's moderation. Period. The discussion is not over whether or not to have moderation, it's about what kind of moderation we want. Knee-jerk anti-moderation sentiment not only misunderstands the actual dynamic of the community, but makes it harder to have that important conversation.