It's part of the existing structure, though. Second warning is actually a suspension. Your proposal defines the process.

GOOD POINT. less blah blah. woohoo.

for an example: Schmoker went to bureacracy and said that someone was just going over the top because he'd said, hyperbolically, that there were only 6 firefly viewers.

A stompy (victor, IIRC?) went and looked, said it had been settled in-thread, nothing else happened. I don't think most posters are going to dash off to bureacracy without a real attempt to settle things, and most likely more than once, but if they do, I think it will quickly become a non-event.

I edited this post to fix the mistake Jon found and take in what ita said.

This may not belong here, but bureaucracy has turned kind of fun, so here it is.

We are recognizing that Dropping The Subject is sometimes an acceptable response, right?

I know we don't want our written rules too detailed, in order to protect ourselves from those who would rules-lawyer as a form of trolling. But Dropping The Subject is pretty time-honored, right? Obviously, not in all cases, and not in cases where the offender is achieving some sort of record for cummulative annoyances.

But say two people get hot in a thread, aren't resolving it, and one complains in Bureaucracy. If the offender says, "I'm cranky, I'll walk away," that is acceptable in some cases (not so much in the calling ita and her mom bad names ones), isn't it?

I'm not really comfortable with that. What's cranky-making about saying, "I'm sorry I offended you?"

edited to add: maybe that depends on the person offended?

I'm fine with that. If the behavior stops, then good. An apology is nice, but I don't think we should have to require it.

I'm not really comfortable with that. What's cranky-making about saying, "I'm sorry I offended you?"

Nothing, I suppose. But I believe in the Schmoker case (was it Rob that was offended by Schmoker's hyperbole), there was no actual, "I'm sorry." I think what happened is that it got dropped.

edited to add: maybe that depends on the person offended?

How?

If the person offended is okay with it: Yeah, you're cranky, I'm cranky, let's just drop it. Then it drops.

And Schmoker stated categorically that he absolutely refused to apologize if he didn't think he'd done anything wrong, not even, "I'm sorry I offended you." I think that's against the buffista code but I also think that was overlooked because no one wanted to open a can of worms with him. I know I felt pretty wrung out just reading some of his posts.

Okay, Deena, I'm confused. Schmoker brought the complaint to bureau, specifically complaining that Rob (or whomever) was baiting him over his hyperbole. Rob walked away, and that's what Victor said was resolved. What does that have to do with Schmoker apologizing (in that very limited instance).

In other words, when Schmoker annoyed Rob in the thread, Rob got nasty. Schmoker was then the complainant. We didn't go after Rob because he dropped it all, even though he didn't (as far as I remember) apologize.

cereal...

by "didn't go after" up there, I mean, we did not warn.