This is an admirable approach to what is a very difficult area to moderate, with regard to human behaviour.

Recent escalation of episodes of cyberbullying and associated suicides have highlighted just how incredibly powerful anonymous attacks over the internet can be. 

There is much work going on to understand this over reaction of people to [someone] saying something [mean] about them over the internet, and the most likely source of that reaction is that the [mean] thing is seen by so many people.

Once upon a time, someone said something [mean] to you in the playground, you could either ignore it and tell the 5 or 10 people who saw it the truth, or you could pummell the person who said it into the ground, so that the 5-10 people who saw it would not dream of repeating it, and the person who said it would defintely never do that again.  Now someone says something mean about you, you cant do ANYTHING about it, you cant ignore it, because it is spreading like wildfire, and you cant shut the speaker up, because they are hiding somewhere - physically and legally. 

That powerlessness drives humans crazy...literally.

We are evolving to deal with life on the internet, we are growing up and getting more used to and less outraged by things that go on.  In the meantime, some patience with and understanding that it is natural for people to escalate the bad behaviour would go a long way [note, I do not use words like 'condone' or 'tolerate'].

Take that understanding, and make positive, helpful statements like the one I am replying to, about why we need to not react - and to moderate our own actions..rather than have a place that is smothered, or burdensome to its admin.

And above all, do not allow people to sit on your site, abusing and ignoring the policy you have just outlined for well over 10 years without doing something about it.  All the time they do that, the new intake will escalate, troll, spread and feed on that.

"Now someone says something mean about you, you cant do ANYTHING about it,
you cant ignore it,
because it is spreading like wildfire,
and you cant shut the speaker up,
because they are hiding somewhere - physically and legally." 

This is true...
 
but Patti you are saying that everyone has to abide by the same rules.
 
I have never seen that happen. 

There are people who are permitted to say whatever they wish about anyone else, and are never banned,
and
NOW
you are saying that we should just let them to continue to defame whomever they choose to.

The defamed should not ESCALATE things by DEFENDING themselves

which only allows the defamers to continue to create the impressions they choose

because the defamers are NOT STOPPED

But the defenders are.

Anywhere else in the country one is allowed to defend oneself.  It is a right, but not here.  Only defamers are allowed to continue.

i think this is not about whether people can respond, which they can, it is more about how they respond;

one type of response may merely correct an untruth, another may correct, but also inflame a situation...

and often it is best to let something disappear into the ether unchallenged........

---

See, that's the thing.  I don't believe there *are* aggressors and victims.  Every time I've checked, and I mean EVERY SINGLE TIME, I've found aggressors and aggressors.  Everyone claims that they're the innocent victim, but I've never seen a case where that was true.

Show me one person, ONE, who has been the subject of hostilities and has never thrown any.

The only possible cases I can think of are Odesys users, and that's only because they can't participate in shouts.  The abuse that's heaped on them is usually "(user) is a dropper", and it's generally a fact-based statement.

I declared a five-minute moratorium on picking on each other.  It took a whole 31 seconds for you to hurl an insult about someone, and do so in a way which indicated that you'd read my five-minute moratorium message.  Hurling an insult is not defending yourself-- it's attacking someone.  It was also doing something that I'd very clearly just asked you (and everyone else) not to do.  

As I told you privately, you can have your shouts back when you take responsibility for your actions.  You don't seem interested in doing that-- you keep hiding behind the empty excuse that you were defending yourself.

And you don't think calling someone a liar (which is what you did by calling his statements lies) is an insult?  You could have said the same thing without insinuating that he was a liar with something like, "sure, right after inim had his say."

I told you then I responded so fast I could not stop it.
Have you never done that?
Of course not you are perfect as are your as Purrsian so aptly put it 'apples'.
Why do you think i shouted #### right after that???

Perhaps the fact that you responded with an insult so quickly that you couldn't stop it is a reason to give you pause?  If insulting people is so ingrained that you couldn't stop it, then perhaps you are far more entrenched in the hostilities than you think?

As for consistency, everyone has a level playing field coming in. Once you've broken rules and caused problems then the standards do change.  I am far less lenient with repeat offenders.  I suspect that the people who whine about me being inconsistent are the ones who are caused me trouble repeatedly over the years.

I dont have much of a gripe, I've been bully and bullied. I just have one simple question; why the special treatment for inim ? Does he have disemvowelling privileges or have you created a bot that does it or are you just always around to powder his bottom ?

I think youll find that he spreads as much discord as anyone on FIBS, especially when he gets on one of his anti-Israel rants.

Bob