Wow, me here again? I hereby propose for your consideration "B3: like crack, but more addictive".

For what it's worth, as one of the first people who brought up Allyson's Incident again (though not the first nor the only one, bitterchick), I am terribly sorry about all the high blood pressure and new Bureaucracy threads that I have caused. And yes, I feel genuinely bad about it. As I said last night, I should probably have spoken up at the moment or shut up forever, like in the weddings. My inability to Let It Go could be read as: a) as symptom of my inability to Let It Go in general, or b) a symptom of how much the Incident really squicked me and pushed my buttons, depending on your call.

Which isn't to say that I feel I am in the wrong, so I'll explain myself. I have to note, BTW, that no, I'm not formally asking Allyson to be warned, first because I should have spoken up in the moment, and also because I feel that such a warning could be even more divisive to the community right now.

This said:

1) askye, Steph: the reason why people don't call "pile-on" to what the Zoe apologists do is probably because, honestly, they are too few to be a pile-on. I remember only 3 people who spoke up against an Official Warning during the weekened, and one more (smonster) yesterday, while more than 15-20 people have spoken up in favour of disciplinary action.

Which leads me to my main point.... and what the hell, since I've already pissed off at least one person, I'll just go make friends now on the other side too. As much as I love FayJay, Trudy and Gandalfe (who are the 3 people mentioned above), I fail to see why their objections have had so much weight, when put against the clear statements of 15+ people that, yes, they are offended by this poster and they feel that something should be done. I think that this is where (collective) we have dropped the ball here, and hopefully the procedure that msbelle is working on will help on that. I think Jess said that this is one of the cases where one shouldn't take into account the people who are against sanctions; if a big enough number of people is offended, they are offended, period.

So, askye, bitterchick, Steph: not only I agree with you here, but I'm also putting myself on the line and explicitly naming the people who have IMO slowed the process down the most. Happy now? :-)

2) As for Allyson's Incident, I think that it's a completely separate issue, and I object to the idea that calling her on her behaviour equals "siding with the troll" or giving the troll more respect than Allyson. The reason I feel this way is perhaps because I tend to have a more detached view about how to deal with obnoxious people: just filter them out. There are rules and procedures for a reason, and if a poster makes herself a problem? Warn, suspend, ban, problem solved... but *don't make it personal*. A disciplinary actions should be that, not an excuse to indulge in abuse. Insulting a troll while s/he is being escorted out of the building seems to me like a waste of time, at best.

Also, there's the issue of how far is too far. People here have justified Allyson's actions saying "why should we care about the feelings of someone who doesn't care about ours?" So what's next then? Making prank phone calls? Egging the troll's house? Sending her a dead fish on the mail? Depending on how pissed off your are, one could use this argument to justify all of the above.

3) Regarding last night's discussion, I have to agree with Nutty here and say that I viewed Allyson's language as overly inflammatory. Allyson: you are probably right in that people were reacting too much to your personal opinions and trying implicitly to change them, but it's not only that. Your tone and choice of words also added fuel to the fire. If you had posted the lenghty, elaborate version of your view that you posted earlier instead of just taking the chance to kick Zoe one more time, people probably would have reacted too, but perhaps things would have gotten less ugly and you'd be more in the right.

So is it just a matter of using gentler words to say the same? Well, this is Buffistas, right? Choice of words does matter. Being articulate and coherent does matter, or so I've been taught during the time I've been here.

(Incidentally, you are of course entitled to your feelings, but to put last night's example, you just can't write a book called "How I killed 1 million iraqui babies for the good of mankind" and not expect people to be startled by it. Upon further discussion, people might see your point of view and eventually agree to disagree, which I'm doing right now about your opinion of Zoe, but of course people are going to react strongly at first! Don't be surprise by that, and don't act as if that was something unheard of, and don't mind my possibly patronizing tone here; if it sounds like that, it's completely unintentional).

4) Lastly, I understand that some posters have more history here than others, and I understand that we cut more slack to people that we know better when it comes to, say, use of ASSCAPS, stronger-worded language than usual, having a bad day, etc. I cannot accept *at all* that being an oldtimer or contributing a lot to the community entitles one to be verbally abusive towards another poster (anticipating your objection: and if that other poster was being a pain in the ass? See 1) and 2)), or excuses that kind of behaviour. If that is what you people are saying, then honestly, I'll be even more squicked than I was to being with.

Well, I see that the discussion has moved on to more entertaining matters while I was writing, but I think that the above needs clarifying, for my own sake if nothing else.

(Edited to add line breaks).

I hereby propose for your consideration "B3: like crack, but more addictive".

I was going to suggest "Like Orwell, only scarier", but I'm relieved to see the Buffistas are discussing PORN, so things seem to be heading back to normal.

Clean-up from last night:

But the issues I have with Allyson and Zoe aren't equal, and I suspect that's true for most people. There's no pattern of offensiveness with Allyson, and there is with Zoe. To put it another way, I wish Allyson hadn't posted some of the things she did today, especially the subhuman comment. I wish Zoe didn't post here, period.

This is where I am, too. I may think Allyson may get her bitch on once a month or so -- but I think her contributions the other 29 days outweigh that, and I think warnings should be for patterns, not for single instances.

I don't have any more negative crap attached to it than I do to, say, dumbfuck, dipshit, asswipe, or fartknocker.

For me, the term takes me back to various primary source material I read for one class or another re: white views of African slaves, English views of the Irish around the time of the Famine, etc.

I'm with Susan on the "subhuman" issue. I don't read it as another way to say "X is a troll" -- I read it as saying "X is lower than us, an animal, worthy only of contempt." Which really offends the part of me that sends money to Amnesty International. But since Allyson (and Plei)evidently view it as synonymous to "X is a troll":

When I say subhuman, I think of those things that lived in the sewers in C.H.U.D. I'm not kidding.

I can understand a bit better. It's not gonna be the definition in my personal dictionary, but I can understand.

And I also like the word cunt.

"Cunt" is savagely offensive in the UK and is, yes, generally used towards men (as is "twat"). Which seems different to US usage. It's about the most offensive word you can call someone, short of "Tory".

Which is not to say I haven't used the word 5 times in a business context today, of course.

So relieved to see that we've moved on to the etymology of curse wrods.

(Oh my god, I really just typed that. I've been corrupted! Get it off get it off!)

cunt and twat both offend me. I'm pretty desensitized to the rest, but those two still push a button for me. Subhuman didn't push a button for me because I saw it as hyperbole, a shorthand way to say "consistent demon behaviour".

Such language people! I was never exposed to curses growing up. When I transferred to public HS I was clueless what the words on the walls meant. No doubt this is the reason the language has never been incorporated into my vocabulary. It doesn’t bother me at all when other people use such language, although often I am amused when dear friends apologize to me when they curse. It isn’t a part of my speech, but it is just fine that it colors other’s speech.

What does bother me is tone. It is very upsetting to my peaceful nature when I see my beloved Buffistas fighting. This is why I favor so strongly a rapid procedural method to deal with posters who violate community standards. I desperately want to find a way to deal with the rare problems quickly, and before emotions get out of control.

There is a concept in tort law concerning the proximate causation of injury. It is the initial breach that caused the injury. The causation does not need to be direct, the person’s act could simply begin a continuous sequence of events that ended in the injury, a so-called "proximate cause". I believe that the actions of meiskie started the sequence of events that wounded so many of us, and I believe that the actions of Zoe started this recent sequence of events that have resulted in hurt feelings and sharp tongues. I don’t blame the members of the community that were reacting to the initial offenders. They didn’t start it.

And Porn because I miss the porn counts.

Because, to me, I'm saying the same thing, but in a more polite manner. I will of course spend the extra time to flesh out the words to make them more palatable, if it saves you pain, Nutty.

Allyson, yes, thank you, that's exactly what I was looking for. It was specifically the use of "subhuman", and not of the lack of regret for other offenses in the past, that bothered me. (I see I'm not the only one who couldn't parse "troll" out of it, but only the bad historical connotations.) My general thesis is that it's just bad form for one to come into the middle of a discussion about enforcing the politeness rules and then express one's opinion on the matter by breaking them.

I've got a fairly sensitive rude-o-meter. The curse words of last night really bothered me. Although, oddly, I find the academic talk about curse words of late night/this morning fairly entertaining.

(For the record, my boss uses a filter on his emails. He also works on sexuality textbooks. It's incredibly irritating that all of his emails come to me with the subject "Warning: possible offensive content". Poor soul doesn't know how to turn the filter off.)

(Let me not regale you with the ongoing struggle of Sex Pictures: Why We Can't Have Actual Photos Of Intercourse Positions. Because we argue over that every 3-4 months like it's Bureaucracy or something.)

I believe that the actions of meiskie started the sequence of events that wounded so many of us, and I believe that the actions of Zoe started this recent sequence of events that have resulted in hurt feelings and sharp tongues. I don’t blame the members of the community that were reacting to the initial offenders. They didn’t start it.

Yes, to the above. So much so, that I can delete my pain-stakingly detailed post that's been minimized and waiting to be posted since about 7:30 am, Eastern, because I knew it was going to take the fun out of this thread, just when we'd found it again.

Bless you, Laura.