I feel like I should demur being thanked in the same breath as DX and Karl. While that particular occasion may have pinged me in the moment, obviously my instincts were nowhere near as good as theirs because it didn't become a sticking point for me long-term and I sailed along pretty oblivious to members of the community being hurt and made uncomfortable. I'm mainly just glad I didn't respond with "Good one, bro!" and a high five like I'd dreaded when first rereading the thread.

Long-ass meara ahead:

I've never had any problems with him myself, at all, but it's deeply upsetting to know that other long-time Buffistas have come to feel so uncomfortable around him that they have chosen to exclude themselves from the community.

I hate this. So much. It's one thing to naturally drift away, but to be driven away in this manner sucks.

I'm sorry, too, that we didn't have your back when it happened.

THIS. Which makes being driven away doubly hurtful. I'm sorry too.

There are some on the board whom I know well IRL, and count as some of my best friends. And the remainder of the board, I think of as my interstate/international tribe. I know, that if I need vibes, I have a bank that I can call on to help me through a tough time. How many stories have we heard of a Buffista driving to a train station or airport to help a friend or family member of a board member, basically a perfect stranger, and come to the rescue? How much couch surfing has been done via the board? Who needs air bnb? This board represents what is good about this world and humanity. As such, despite being more lurker than poster, I value the board and the members.

Cosigned. This board is responsible for so many good things in my life, and it bothers me to know that it wasn't a good space for some.

About the situation on Twitter, most of the details are not being discussed publicly. For every angry, hurt vaguebook post you can see, please believe there is a MOUNTAIN of backchannel behind it where women are sharing their stories in safer spaces than the open Twitterverse.

It's important to reiterate this. Individual proof becomes less important when there's a multitude of women saying the same damned thing.

Do we, as a community, want to continue to support someone's "learning process" when we know first-hand it's been a decade-plus and have heard second-hand that if anything, he's gotten more sophisticated in his bad behavior. I say no.

Hell no. He didn't learn when we "gently" corrected him, and he hasn't learned now. His lousy upbringing doesn't give him a free pass to do exactly what his parents did to him.

The other reason I support banning him is that to do less, now that we know how his actions have hurt people in our community, seems like a slap in the face to those he has hurt, pissed off, or driven away. And I would much rather support them than keep enabling him.

Very much so. I totally understand if those that were hurt and driven away only came back to tell us to fuck off for being so blind, but I would rather them see definitive action to eliminate any continuation of the bad behavior.

I love how we have come together again and again to support each other, to share our triumphs and milestones, and to mourn.

We are a family. We might not like everyone all of the time, but we'll have each other's backs.

But being genuinely sorry doesn't mean shit in this kind of situation; demonstrating, over and over and over again, that you are no longer a toxic person is the only thing that really matters.

This is really important. We're all good with words, but the ACTIONS have to take center stage. I'm glad you are doing well, Strix. I'm wishing you the best for continued movement forward.

Ultimately he embraced the arrogance and manipulation of his parents and as an adult employs them.

Trudy FTW. He was handed solutions on a silver platter, but instead he chose to continue the cycle. P-C, if you ever have the courage to read this, I sincerely hope you will take the suggestion to get therapy to heart. This is not how you win favor and gain friends.

his active presence in Bitches ruined it for me. He's certainly not the only reason I'm not around as much, but it certainly didn't help.

This makes me incredibly sad. Keeping up with many of you on FB only isn't the same.

I do believe we could not have had this conversation many years ago when some of these things occurred, the board has mellowed A LOT and we (continued...)

( continues...) have had the benefit of witnessing so many other social network ups and downs.

I completely agree. msbelle, as usual, is really smart. This could have ended very differently then.

I've been mostly away due to a totally separate set of hurt feelings and I have to say, coming back to this thoughtful discussion has been kind of healing for me. It seems dumb to say 'I wish it was under different circumstances because...of course. Still, it is so good to see the community working.

I'm glad you've come back, bonny. It's important for everyone to feel like they can chime in, even if they haven't been around or taken the unpopular side (which I have not yet seen in this case).

Also, Karl and DX? It's good to see you around too. I wish I could have seen what you saw.

I thought for a long time that Sunil was manipulative in the social- and professional-climbing sense, but the reason I never spoke up about his behavior was because I was convinced I was just being a bitch to assume that he would use people that way.

Me too. I didn't see it in the SFF community, because I'm barely on the fringes, but the cozying up to Rob Thomas, et. al. always rubbed me the wrong way. More recently the non-stop updates of his "Hamilton"-centric NYC trip felt like a calculated measure to get LMM to notice him. But I thought I was being petty, and he was just overly enthusiastic.

Which makes me all the angrier I didn't say anything. Then again, I was busy trying to navigate my own path in this world.

I really think we need to cut ourselves just a bit of slack. It's hard when we don't have access to the entirety of the bad behavior. Now that we do, we're doing something about it. What we're doing now? Is the only answer.

I support voting to suspend our procedure. While an immediate ban would accomplish the same goal, this sets a precedent for how seriously we take who we are as a community.

I'm curious to know how many people MARCIEd him. It seems like a lot.

It's important for everyone to feel like they can chime in, even if they haven't been around or taken the unpopular side

Completely agreed. (And thanks, Maria)

This was the thread that did it for me. My post number 164 in that thread was my last contribution to the Board until my mother died in June of 2012. So while I can't say that Sunil has kept me away from b.org directly, he did have something to do with it.

A number of my Buffista friendships didn't really survive that thread. My conduct in majority-woman spaces also changed; I hope for the better. I'm a lot quieter and less effusive now.

I tried, folks. Those of you wondering why you didn't speak up sooner -- what happened to me is at least part of why. I found it was easier on my heart to walk away from a community I loved than to insist that I knew a creep-in-the-making when I saw one in the face of my friends' disagreement.

I hope this is helpful, both in illustrating the dynamic at work and for the folks who were hurt. And for anyone who was wondering why I left, I hope it explains something.

I was one of the women in the SPN thread in 2008. In fact, I'm the woman who spoke up and said I didn't need defending and found the joke funny. I had no recollection of the incident eight years later until I read Karl's post here this morning before I walked out the door. I found my part as nausea inducing as others have described. I'm sorry that I didn't support you Karl. I'm sorry that my lack of awareness and encouragement in that post allowed an abuser to grow and flourish. I'm sorry, Karl, if you left because I undermined how you were trying to help. I'm sorry to Matt also who was involved in the conversation.

I'm really proud of the people who tried to speak up then, and the people who are speaking up now.

Me too. I didn't see it in the SFF community, because I'm barely on the fringes, but the cozying up to Rob Thomas, et. al. always rubbed me the wrong way. More recently the non-stop updates of his "Hamilton"-centric NYC trip felt like a calculated measure to get LMM to notice him. But I thought I was being petty, and he was just overly enthusiastic.

My sister was really into Veronica Mars, and I mentioned to her, way back when, when Sunil got a shout-out on the show (his name included in a list that the camera focused on.) She remembered that, and noticed him sometimes commenting on my Facebook, and then, when the Hamilton thing happened, my sister and I were both visiting our parents, and I showed her some of the pictures. Her response was, "How does he get all these famous people to talk to him? Does he just keep bothering them on Twitter until they respond?" To which I could only reply, "Yeah, pretty much."

Posting from a device while on vacation so this will be shorter than it could be....and judging from where I picked up on this thread I've been inactive for years so I don't want to take up too much bandwidth...but the FB group notification got me back here to catch up because this board has always been to me first and foremost the ultimate safe space on the internet and it's deeply unsettling that there is even an issue, given how many years it has spanned and how much life coaching he has received from many people here.

I experienced no specific appalling incident like Jessica had to go through...but....enough uncomfortable interactions that I avoided threads and eventually the board entirely. I didn't want to be mean by refusing a FB friend request or later unfriending but I unfollowed and filtered my own posts to not be seen.

I sit on bench ban. It's not a comfortable bench but it is long and I tried to bring some cushions for y'all with less padding.

non-stop updates of his "Hamilton"-centric NYC trip

I see what you did there :)

Jess, it was my shot, and I didn't throw it away. (I'll stop now. Promise.)

He's protected his Twitter account. If you're not following him, you can't see squat. Super convenient, because the last three tweets I saw were bad apologies for the bad behavior. IMO, it's continued gaslighting. He attempted to apologize, and people were pointed to that, and now it's all gone unless you follow him. I don't, so there's that.