Imagine the debate about defining "rails" and being on and off them. And then we get into doctor's notes.

Hee!

I'm just tossing it out there-- spirit of the season and all that.

Good for Zoe's mental health.

I cannot express how strongly I think that, since she didn't ask to be reinstated, we just leave it alone. Please.

she was a enthusiastic part of the community when she in good shape

She never was in good shape, IIRC. I mean, while she posted here.

And maybe we could come up with some sort of probationary reactivation of an account policy for this sort of situation...

Absolutely not, at least not now. I'm sorry Zoe was having problems and I'm glad she's feeling better, and I think we should send her a message saying as much. But reinstating one banned poster would make it much harder to keep up the policy that bannings are permanent.

I'm glad she's doing better. I was thinking about her when we were planning to be at PF.

I think Beverly has the right idea.

But reinstating one banned poster would make it much harder to keep up the policy that bannings are permanent.

Yep.

A few of us have never been comfortable with permanant exclusion. Someone who was ill and now has their situation under control is a good example of why.

Oh, lordie. I'm really reluctant to get back into this right now. It's the holidays and all.

Can it be moot until someone who is banned for an extended period of time brings it up? Please?

I'm with 'Suela. Personally, right nowI'm too tired and frazzled to deal with this, even hypothetically. Especially since no one has actually asked to be reinstated.

Someone who was ill and now has their situation under control is a good example of why.

My problem with that is that there is no way to prove someone had been ill, short of demanding doctor's notes. Which seems just a tad extreme. And it seems almost insulting to the posters on this board who have remained civil through cancer, divorce, miscarriage and severe depression to say someone else who deals with those things by lashing out at the board should get a free pass if they promise to play nice.

To me, whether bannings should be permanent is a different question than whether we should invite Zoe back. I guess my vote would go yes on allowing any and all banned posters back after a year, no on making case-by-case exceptions.

Can it be moot until someone who is banned for an extended period of time brings it up? Please?

Thirded. Let's cross that bridge when we come to it.

Whoever wants to contact Zoe to wish her well should contact the Stompies to get her address -- I think especially with the time lapse, there's no need for a board response.

I don't think she's asking to come back -- it's a nice note, in fact. So I'm with the very large group saying that, in the circumstance where we might have banned someone and that someone comes back with an explanation and asks to be reinstated, we consider it then.

(I would, for myself, still vote no at that time -- I just went through an equivalent situation on a list I co-moderate (misbehaving person gets bounced, comes back and says, 'whoa, I was altered, sorry,' is reinstated, and then gets crazy all over again), and I'll freely admit it biases me.)

But I would also note that despite our exponential growth, we have with a few notable exceptions lived in peace and harmony (knock wood) and it would seem to me that the likelihood of the situation Trudy's proposing to address actually occurring here is quite small.