So if she violates CS, then do what's necessary. But don't punish her just because she's annoying as hell and makes one want to fork his/her eyes out.

A thought: why does this have to be about punishment? As much as I love Buffistas, it will not injure anyone in a monetary or physical way to lose it. Emotion damage perhaps, but certainly not life-threatening.

Part of what makes a community is an intersection of ideas on what the community means/does/includes. A community made up of mice doesn't have to like or include a cat. This seems to me, issues of like/dislike aside, to be a case of someone who doesn't belong to the community through a failure to understand/embrace/share enough in common with the majority of posters to make a valid contribution.

I don't want to punish her, I want her to become a valid member of the community that doesn't upset a significant number of posters or for her to go someplace more appropriate. I don't care about motive or extenuating circumstances - so far in the manymany posts I've been through, there has been very little support form the angle of 'but I like her posts' - most of her support has been from the 'she hasn't broken any major rules IMO' or 'she's easy for me to ignore, let's all ignore her'.

I've seen a lot of otherwise tolerant people whose words I enjoy be very upset by her behavior. Frankly, they matter more to me than being absolutely inclusive of posters who don't contribute to the community. If that makes me an elitist schmuck, so be it, but I don't think admitting that "one of these posters is not like the others" and asking them to change or leave is any more than a practical measure. If anything, I think it's elitist to assume any individual would crumble to dust and die without access to our posts.

I realize this opens the whole can of worms about who decides when subjective standards has been broken, when does this become a popularity contest, etc. My sense is that enough people are upset, and enough different people are upset, to indicate incompatibility with the community at large.

I like the idea of 'if N, where N is agreed upon, posters complain about a poster', a warning should be given by stompies with a standard wording. I think most of the in-thread 'play nice' posts cover the gap, making the poster aware of people's problems and allowing them to discuss or apologize as need be. I agree that fast action is less painful and like the idea of sending formal requests for warnings backchannel, although I understand people's issues with this.

So. Theory.

When A User Needs A Warning.

A. User-complainant has already tried to resolve the complaint on-thread, with no success.
B. User-complainant posts in-thread that it's time to meet in Bureaucracy.
C. User-complainant posts in Bureaucracy outlining complaint and linky citations, and requests a Warning.
D. [Foo] number of other users second the need for a Warning.
E. Stompy sets forth a Warning over email and in Bureaucracy, see Boilerplate Language #1.
F. Everybody takes a nap!

Considering how averse we all are to actually dealing with our problems, I think there's no such thing as a slippery slope! Gar mentioned over the weekend that the [Foo] number should be high, as a restraint against wild and willynilly Warning, but I think a number like 10 suffices.

Does that not do the trick?

I agree, Jesse. I guess I'd rather talk about it in the purely hypothetical, but it's probably not possible to keep it purely hypothetical.

I'll shut up, because damned if I know.

Some posters are just big fucking bullies, and you don't want to publically complain about them.

I am SO against anonymous complaints. If someone's that big of a bully that they'll smack you around for complaining, they'll be banned all the quicker, won't they?

And why wouldn't 10 other people's personal offensiveness gauges be just as valid?

Jess you're misunderstanding me. All I'm saying is that we need more than just a 10-people-complained-official-warning-time criteria. There are other considerations.

And askye, I'm not discounting the gay or christianity postings. I'm saying that she should be warned/punished when she violates CS (like she may have done with those postings) but not when she just annoys people with the rest of her postings.

Jesse and Jess explain what I meant. I think the system questions should be resolved before another situation arises.

I don't care if anything else happens to any particular poster at this time.

Wolfram:

My own personal offensiveness gauge which keeps me from saying offensive things, for one.

Well, in light of every single registered person getting a vote or getting one post to express their argument I think we will need a simplified system.

I don't think anyone here is gonna beat you down on the schoolyard.

No, but there are people (Edit: In other fora, not here AFAIK) who will insult you whenever you enter a conversation, send you nasty emails, and generally make it no fun for you to be part of a community. I wouldn't say "yes, X deserves a warning" if X was like this, because frankly, life is nicer if you're low on X's radar.

An email option also is better for lurkers or posters who aren't bureau regulars.

Nutty's outline looks perfect to me.

This bothers me. If the community isn't discussing the matter, how does a Stompy get a consenus that there is an issue? Why should they have to decide if the email raises a valid issue or is just someone trying to stick it to a poster they don't like?

this is another reason I wasn't sure how to bring up my problems with Zoe.

I think complaints should be made publicly so that it's out in the open and people can see.

Mostly I don't think anyone who posts is going to freakass stalker on anyone for saying they have a problem.

All I'm saying is that we need more than just a 10-people-complained-official-warning-time criteria. There are other considerations.

I don't understand what the other consideration is. Surely someone's being offensive if they're offending people, right?