t not here at all, honestly

Nutty, I think I'd better apologise for having undoubtedly offended you umpteen times in the past, because I do swear like a trooper. FWIW "And then Fay flipped the fuck out" actually made me laugh out loud, which is a good thing. Because, yes, I really did flip out. I went from calm to foamingly murderous within the space of a few seconds. Irrationally, it seems. Go me with the failure to understand.

t /not here at all, honestly.

As an unrepentant kumbayaer myself I think it's better to discuss a banning pretty thoroughly before it's done-- particularly in ambiguous situations.

It's a bitch but it's, imho, ultimately worth doing.

Once again, I'm in the corner with Allyson and Plei. I think the desire to bend over backwards for the people who are causing trouble is really a slap in the face of the 400 other active posters [note: number pulled out of my ass, but I know it's more than 100] who DO make an effort to play by the rules.

I'm much more of the feeling that you warn them quickly and in no uncertain terms, and if they choose not to heed that, toss their asses.

Because -- and this is going to sound like "I told you so," except I *didn't,* back during the mieskie thing -- the two people who caused trouble and angst and caused US to eat up bandwidth by discussing it to death and beyond? Tossed. (Okay, I *know* mieskie chose to leave, but he would have been suspended, which is a temporary toss.)

We've seen TWICE now that discussing the trolls to death only causes HUGE friction between the people who DO play nice, and has NO effect on the trolls.

And that's why I am very anti-kumbayah.

Yes. This. I hate that we treat warnings like they're the end of the world. If someone is making 10 people nuts or causing people to no longer post in a certain thread, then there is a problem and it needs to be mentioned. It doesn't mean that they're going to get banned. Just that the effects of their bad behavior are going to be pointed out to them. I'd much rather see us warn sooner and save the truly heated debate for the considerably more serious step of suspension.

Bears repeating.

I guess I don't know where I am. I hate the Kumbayah song, I hate the endless discussions (but like ita I can't seem to stop posting) and I hate the idea that my desire to have someone warned might be a result of me being Clearly Insane and Without Humor.

I'm in the middle, I think.

Philosophically, we will find ourselves on a range from tolerant of bullshit to intolerant of bullshit. In person, I have a pretty high tolerance when it comes from a child, and a pretty low tolerance when it comes from an adult. I don't know that we will ever philosophically agree on what is the right level of crap to wade through.

But... I think in practice we do know what we as a group are willing to tolerate. In the most recent instance, I think people were, barring a few people on both ends of the spectrum, in the same place over what to do. I also believe that most of us have a high personal level of tolerance for other people's stupidity, but we hate how it impacts us as a group. For the most part, I didn't like Z's shenaningans, but what upset me was how tumultuous it was for our community. Not for my personal feelings.

I'm beginning get the impression that holding and defending a minority opinion is a *bad* thing to do around here. You know, all it does is slow things down...

I don't think there is anything wrong with voicing a minority opinion, Trudy. It's just that more people will disagree with you, kinda by definition. I think we have all been the minority voice at one point or another. I know I have and I know I found it frustrating. But it's not a personal criticism in any way, certainly it's not a rejection of you.

I'm not taking it personally. I'm concerned about what "we need to cut out the discussions" means.

I'm concerned about what "we need to cut out the discussions" means.

Only speaking for myself (I feel the need to over-clarify everything all of a sudden) - What I would take that to mean is people stating the same point over and over. All the circular arguments we get into. It's actually one of the reasons I am happy that we have voting now.

Well, that's going to happen in a discussion (unless it's debate team and you're being scored and little time-cards are being held up), particularly when not everybody is here at the same time.

Well, the thing is, somewhere upthread we seem to have agreed that upsetting 10 Buffistas to the point of seconding is worthy of taking action. It's not short-cutting discussion, and I don't think discussion is forbidden, but it does free us from having to come to (that dreaded word again) consensus by discussion.

I don't think anyone who participated or read the Z-related discussion here last weekend particularly enjoyed it, and I think after a while it became more noise, less signal, which, frankly, wasn't all that conducive to an actual decision. No decision was made, in fact, until Z upped the ante in the thread sufficient to tweak just about everyone, and then things happened quickly.

I think the process as defined is designed to get us from one point to another with less handwringing, because everyone knows what happens next and what the stakes are. I don't think it's designed to make it easy to warn/suspend/ban someone, but it will make it less arduous, and it will set up a process that is less damaging to the relationships within the community.

Or am I talking out my arse again?

We're not cutting out the discussions, we're just not going to be repeating in Bureaucracy what's already been said in-thread.

IMO, if ten people think that a warning is justified, there's no reason we all need to talk about our feelings for three days before doing something about it.