I loathe and despise the idea that there are "active" or "core" buffistas who have extra rights.

The idea that core buffistas do, or should have extra rights?

I think what's mostly on the table is that core Buffistas exist, and that's the way it is. There are suggestions that levels of core be defined, the right of voting/decision making be restricted to those.

But the tenses in some people's posts worries me ... there is no platinum card core at the moment, unless I missed something.

Yup, good stuff Anne.

And also Cindy with the clarifying of All Buffistas Are Foamy.

I have never taken All Buffistas Are Foamy to mean All Buffistas Are Physically Attractive or All Buffistas Are Created Equal. To me it's just an expression that communicates how much I love this place and the people in it.

I can still see why people would disagree with the sentiment, but I think of it as just an expression, not a mandate.

Also agreeing with ita, here.

There are core Buffistas, plain and simple.

That, and a buck and a half will get you a cup of coffee, if you take my meaning. It doesn't garner them any extra priveleges, save for perhaps more attention paid to their posts.

I like what Anne said. I t heart Anne.

I don't like the 'social core' words, although I understand them and maybe even agree with them at some level, because I have a gut reaction to the phrase "social core" which is basically "oh, yeah. The thing I will never be a part of".

I am happy with the way Buffistas is working at the moment. The people here are foamy, funny, and fun. I like spending time with them.

Goodness, JZ's band of Wandering Buffistas settled down in Anne's Little Board on the Prairie.

I like Anne's metaphor a lot.

Yes, there is privilege, yes, it's been earned. Pointing out this fact is just a bit gauche.

I don't think it's gauche to say there are some people who have earned respect. What I do think is gauche -- extremely so – is to bring it up in a way that makes it clear you think you're a Special Buffista with Sparkles. Playing "my respect is bigger than yours" is the equivalent of screeching "Do you know how I am?" at a nightclub doorman when you once had a bit part on a second-rate sitcom, while the real stars calmly wait their turn in line.

All Buffistas Are Foamy, for me, is not an elevation of conversation. But quite the opposite. It's social lubricant, that much is true. But it has the exact opposite effect of elevating.

I agree with this, too. Saying it as a blanket dismissal of discussion of social status ends conversation. I think what's more useful is to say that all Buffistas are people, imbued with certain basic human rights, etc; if that's the meaning of "foamy" (and I think it mostly is), cool.

So it doesn't bother me that lurkers vote. If it was clear to the vote counters that nefarious lurkers were tipping an election, then I'd care. But I see no reason to think that's happening.

To me, social status on this board is largely expressed through trust, respect, and inclusion. As an example, I know that when someone who's been in Spike's Bitches since the thread started on TT posts that she's had a bad day in the thread, she's going to get more sympathy than I will. But she's also posted more sympathetic messages to other people having bad days than I have. It's the whole "you get what you give" phenomenon, and expecting it not to happen would be absurd.

I think it's probably for the best that none of that is made more explicit or more powerful than it has to be, in part because that allows people who want to claim power within the community to do so through action rather than through, say, electioneering.

Yes. You can't just decide you're a Special Buffista with Sparkles and insist on the privileges thereof; you earn that status by being an organizer, a doer, a thinker – or just a funny and compassionate voice that rises above the others.

I don't think we have identical senses of who the Sparkly Buffistas are; I think we all have individual quirks, and someone who's been here forever from the POV of one poster may seem like a complete newbie to me. But I do think that if we all made a list of the people who we think are More Equal than Others, there would be a number of names that would crop up on almost every list – again, because of what they did, not because of any insistence.

And I don't think there is or should be a platinum card.

I don't like the 'social core' words, although I understand them and maybe even agree with them at some level, because I have a gut reaction to the phrase "social core" which is basically "oh, yeah. The thing I will never be a part of".

This sentiment I understand too, Am.

In fact, while I would submit that there are core Buffistas, I think every last one of us would give a different list of who that core was, so it's still pretty amorphous and unquantified.

Also? Not all of us would necessarily prefer talking to that core over some other collection of Buffistas. While there may seem to be a gravitational center, some of us may prefer to look at the pretty satellites spinning around the edges.

Mostly I do think we are physically attractive(I'm a fake. One day you'll unmask me and find the creepy caretaker at the Meyers place.And I'd have gotten away with it too, except for those meddling Bitches.) But that doesn't mean I want to jump everyone.

We've got a frontier metaphor and a space metaphor working here and that can only mean one thing--B.Org IS Firefly.

We've got a frontier metaphor and a space metaphor working here and that can only mean one thing--B.Org IS Firefly.

Can I be Vera?