a post in Press for those of us around here along with explaining the consensed decision to any newbies who happen to pull one out might not be the best option.

That works for me.

There is no Big Stompy Foot.

Clovis, Ferret Liberation Whatever, Remote Controlled Zombie Robots.

Ok. I guess I wasnt' counting those - have we heard from any of them in a year or more?

It's not important, I'm just trying to figure out why this issue exploded all of a sudden. I think if Universe hadn't said anything about being a newbie (which I think was just a riff on the whole "long-time listener, first-time caller thing) we maybe would've saved ourself some stress. OTOH, it never really occurred to me that SPs as we've seen them would be anything more than an annoyance to people who don't care for them, so it's just as well.

Oh good, a social capital discussion.

To me "social capital" is just a way of saying "how people function around each other." or "a feeling people get towards each other based on their relative social skills and relationship." It's part of everything I do - acting one way with a group of close friends and knowing that it would be inappropriate to act that same way at work or on the subway.

And it boggles my mind that people are actually worried about a theoretical poster's fear to speak up. If a person is afraid to post because of how they will be received (and not because they are just a shy or socially fearful person- which is just how some people are), rest assured that someone in this community will stand up to defend you. You can be a liar, insane, widely inappropriate (in my opinion) and someone will get in your corner and try to rally the troops to your defence.

____

In ref to the proposal - my concern is that if we are adding anything more than clairfication to the info about "how to register" (FAQ & How-to) or choosing to add in the text from the Law-Speak document on the registration info (FYI, this text was devceloped before voting was proposed and adopted):

Choose your user name at your own risk. Excessive cheekiness will be kept in check. Betsy: "I think an appropriate policy would be "If you claim to be somebody famous, we'll ask you to prove it." Betsy: "Parodying other people's names (whether real or adopted) is tacky. We ask that you don't do it." ita: "Stompy Feet reserve the rights to pooh pooh any name, but we'll explain why [in private email, and ask you to choose another name]." This policy also covers potentially offensive names, like "fuckface", and names too similar to real famous people, current users, and former users.

THEN, we really should vote. Nothing policy-wise has been added to the FAQ or etiquette with out a vote. The grandfather clause vote covered some things (like the above) which are agreed upon rules of the commuinity, but to be fair, many of them are not covered in the FAQ or Etiquette and so no one new would really know about them.

I think it exploded because the straw broke the camel's back for one person, and when it came out, the other annoyed people thought "Okay, if we're weighing in...."

I brought it over from Bitches to B'cacy not because I care enough to do something about it, but because it had come up before (and the poster wondered about consensus) but was quickly diverted into another, much more heated discussion and never resolved/consensed/voted on/whatever.

I think I'm with msbelle on the voting. Maybe the vote could be a straight yes/no on adding language like this (only prettier) to the etiquette/rules/whatever:

Please choose your user name with care. Offensive names and the names of celebrities are to be avoided, unless you are the celebrity. In general, it's one login to a customer; if you register another one, please provide a way to link the two in your profile or tagline. Stompies have the right to reject any name, or to make you to prove it if you claim to be someone famous.

I'm with Cindy on the hesitancy to codify this.

...and this is why we vote, people. If where we're at now is some people want to add a suggestion to the Site Etiquette and some don't, we need to find out how many people think each thing.

We could vote about whether we need the vote.

One proposal at a time! When we're done with this, we can vote on whether we should have voted on it.