But those lurkers used to be active community members, and if we can trust them enough to ban Sunil, maybe we can get them back.

That would be my hope.

I see a pattern of behavior. Four instances on the board where he stalked a woman, was chastised, apologized, and didn't stop. And I've seen two posts on Twitter where he apologized eloquently and promised to change, and didn't stop. All over a decade or more. That's more than enough evidence for me that there must be much more that I haven't seen, and he's got no intention of stopping.

This isn't a court of law, and doesn't have to be. It's a community and a lot of us don't want him in it anymore. Like erika said, he might learn better, but he doesn't have to do it in our space.

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.

Exactly! Also, even if he is sincerely remorseful and eventually succeeds in his attempts to do better doesn't mean he doesn't have to suffer the consequences of his actions. The consequence being he is no longer welcome in this space.

but perhaps some of us should also provide support in other fora, so that his narrative isn't the only one out there.

I've been thinking about this a lot, especially wrt Twitter, where I have spoken to him more than on any other forum, but I don't know how to go about it. Any advice would be appreciated by me.

Also, even if he is sincerely remorseful and eventually succeeds in his attempts to do better doesn't mean he doesn't have to suffer the consequences of his actions. The consequence being he is no longer welcome in this space.

This is where I am at. I do hope he knows he has an issue and fixes it, but the consequence is losing this wonderful place. Many of us have made mistakes that had permanent consequences. Life lessons often suck.

Also, even if he is sincerely remorseful and eventually succeeds in his attempts to do better doesn't mean he doesn't have to suffer the consequences of his actions. The consequence being he is no longer welcome in this space.

Yeah, this is where I'm at, too. 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.

I'm going to speak to how he's being perceived professionally since that's been the bulk of my interactions with him.

Professionally, he's already beginning to suffer consequences—he had a successful female author who was mentoring him during his novel-writing process who has disavowed him and distanced herself from him publicly. And the writing community, as evidenced just by Twitter is talking. They were talking this summer at various events where it started to become clear that he had a reputation and that it wasn't a good one.

I have no fear of him professionally because I've never been of any use to him professionally, so I simply have never mattered—besides, when you've had someone try to sue you for use of your own name, you get to a certain point of having zero anything left to give.

What I can say with certainty is that I saw shades of the behavior so many describe--not enough to make me intervene but when put in context of repeated reports, it becomes more evident. Thing is, I don't think it's always conscious-- he becomes aware of it after the fact, which is problematic in and of itself, since it seems to speak to a deeper rooted issue that needs to be addressed.

Admittedly, I haven't been as active on the board in recent years, so obviously, take what I say with a grain of salt, but much in the same way I don't want him working through his issues within the writing community I don't think this is the place he needs to be for support.

Thanks for the information, Barb.

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.

I understand that, but it is difficult to take action on backchannel you are not a part of. I wasn't looking for proof, I just needed to know (some of) what he was being accused of. Jess's story was enough for me. I would support a ban.

Also, even if he is sincerely remorseful and eventually succeeds in his attempts to do better doesn't mean he doesn't have to suffer the consequences of his actions. The consequence being he is no longer welcome in this space.

Yeah, this is where I'm at, too. 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.

For these reasons, I too support the ban.

What Barb said (thank you, Barb!) is true to my experience of him in regard to his writing career, i.e. I was under the impression that a lot of the contacts he made (and close friendships he claimed) were efforts to get himself published and well-reviewed. I'm really disgusted that it was apparently something a lot uglier.