Counsellor, I'm not saying we should accept a jerk or bully just because they are part of the community. What I'm saying is that, since they crave attention and thrive on community unrest, why give that to them? We've creating a situation that gives them just what they need, and we end up frustrated and good people leave disheartened.

Yes we can restore order when authority cracks down. The problem is, they won't do it. How much longer do we repeatedly bang our heads on the wall until we realize that it hurts for nothing?

We're left with but a few choices, one being a frustrated departure, effectively leaving those of us left behind to fight the fight with even less support. This will just create an infinite catch-22, well, just until this board trickles down to nothing.

The other choice (not a bad one IMHO) is "shunning" as you mentioned. If it is done, his authority is gone. He can no longer say "I rubbed elbows with XX and YY at the ZZ Do Quattro" and "I don't know why all this hostility, everything was fine when AA and I had tea at LAX last week." The perceived acceptance by everyone based on his physical attendance of functions would be gone. If we ignore his threads, he's left with "the silence is deafening" posts repeatedly over time. How much patience would anyone have posting that same thing over and over without reply? How fast would someone (even for a newbie) get tired of a broken record? Anything left of the flamer would simply burn itself out. Its happened before!

Finally, new members deserve more credit, at least the ones that are not made up. When I first began reading it didn't take long to figure out who's who and get an idea of the personnas here, and I'm only of average intellligence.

Anyway, this may already be an excercise in futility. The departure domino has been set in motion, and there may not be much left worth fighting for anyway.