Nice people get fairly short shrift out here on teh Intarweb. Loads of folks think it's cool to be vicious, and that being pleasant is dull.

Decent people have rotten days in which they act badly. That's a given: we're all flawed, we all get angry. And so I have tried to be tolerant ... but my tolerance and goodwill have their limits.

I used to make a distinction between online and offline behavior. If somebody seemed decent enough offline, but was a massive jerk online, I tried really hard to give them the benefit of the doubt and consider the online behavior to be an aberration or an act.

But I can't do that anymore.

If someone consistently acts like a raving maniac, drama queen, snarky intellectual bully, or trolltastic twit online, from here on out I'm going to assume that he is in his heart of hearts an unpleasant person I don't want to have anything to do with, regardless of how pleasant he seems to be at conventions, regardless of how many acclaimed books he's published, regardless of whether or not he gives generously to local charities.

It should go without saying that I have a zero-tolerance policy for trolling and flaming on my LJ. If to my eye you're flaming or trolling in a comment you leave, your post gets deleted.