Forum Moderators: rogerd
There is, or rather was, a BBS I'd spin by once a day for pure enjoyment. It was themed around a music genre, and had a highly "local" bend to it because it also served as a notice board for upcoming concerts and events related to that music genre.
It also had (somewhat paradoxically) a really fun sci/tech forum. It was fun in an "anything goes, no science/tech to weird to discuss" kind of way.
Anyhoo. This music genre has a very definite "scene" attached to it, and because the forum was focussed on local events, a very high % of the users were locals, many of whom knew each other. I was kinda an oddball, because though I enjoy the music, I have no interest in the "scene" and rarely go to concerts. I personally knew only 1 person who frequented IRL. I just went to talk about the music and weird science.
But, because a large segment of the users knew each other IRL, there was a certain amount of the buddy-buddy syndrome, the occassional flame war, and a certain amount of "scene politics." For close to 5 years, it was really never a major issue, and when it started to get a little out of hand, the mods quickly stepped in and deleted inapropriate comments, and banned the occassional member.
About a year ago, things took a turn for the worse when one person in particular started an attack on another user. Banning the user was ineffective, because he had a floating IP and just kept re-registering under different aliases. For reasons I still don't fully comprehend (partly because I don't know the individuals IRL), this situation mushroomed into an out-and-out war between two camps.
The mods did everything they could, as far as I could tell, to get the situation under control. In a matter of months, more accounts got deleted/banned than had been in the entire previous history of the board. Links to the TOS started getting posted in large numbers of threads. Posts, and in some cases, entire threads got deleted. And all to no avail. Both sides of the "war" just kept re-trenching, registering with different aliases, and even going so far as to start using a variety of anonymizing servers to hide their IPs.
The attacks, from both sides, got nastier and nastier, and started to break the unwritten "law of anonimity" that permeates a lot of boards, with people's real names and even photos of them, and other personal information, getting posted in various attacks. These types of posts would get quickly deleted, but in some cases, even a lapse of a few hours on the part of the mods (all volunteers), could lead to real problems.
It got to the point where, out of serious legal concerns (Libel, slander, etc), that the admin simply shut the board down entirely. Which was a shame, because it was a minority of the users that were involved with the "problems" (at worst, 15-20%), but given the nature of what was going on, I can completely sympathise with the admin for shutting the whole thing down. It was simply becoming far too time consuming to be constantly stamping out brush-fires.
I've since talked with the admin, (who happens to be the 1 person on the board I knew IRL), and he says he's going to let it sit for a few months while he rebuilds the entire thing with new software, new TOS, and about twice as many mods as he had before.
Overall, it was a pretty shocking experience. I've heard about this sort of thing happening before, but I've been BBSing since acoustic coupler days, and this is the first time I've actually seen it happen.
Has anyone else here seen a board go to crap in a hurry after being successful for years like this? Any other horror stories or suggestions on how to deal with it in the future? I've been "drafted" onto the new list of mods for when the site goes back up (partly because I know the admin, largely because I don't know anyone else there personally, so I won't be bringing my IRL prejudices to the board).
Any thoughts or suggetions for modding a board where a large % of the users know each other IRL, and there is a high risk of personal grievances spilling over into the cyber world?
If there were really far more good members than jerks wouldn't the BBS have held together during a 'new member timeout' whilst a method for dealing with jerks was worked out, such as moving to a more robust BBS system with better/easier controls?
The flamers were - lazy? They couldn't be encouraged to set up their own website and BBS, where they could hurl their insults from a distance?
Just how many members were there and at what rate would new members reasonably be expected to join? If the new member growth rate was not that high then why hurry to let people in when the chances were it was the same jerks coming back for more?
If the new member rate was really high then why not make the entry process a bit more challenging? Maybe require a $1.00 charge to a credit card or PayPal or by check to validate identity?
It seems to me a time-out to new members would have been the best approach early on. Bar the doors for 90 days with rare exception, say a new member validated by some other means - like a verifiable phone call.
QUESTION: Is it entirely possible to fake email addresses in a way that cannot be discerned? If 'no' then why not require that new members, during the 'cool down period', have to use an ISP email address (like mom and dad likely have) - one that is a bit harder to employ as a fake?
I don't know what software you were using, but I would have to agree with Webwork. When things do get out of control the first thing that I would do is to shut-down new user registration. Promptly banning a user doesn't get rid of them unfortunately and you need other tricks. Since you've has already shut down the forum and are going to get new forum software, I would strongly advise investing in some good, feature rich software instead of going with the free versions. Therefore if you encounter the same problem again (which is a risk if users know each other IRL) you'll have more ways to deal with troublemakers. For example, with the software I use, there's a nice little banning hack available (I haven't used it so far but I know it's there if I do need it). It bans the user but instead of telling them they've been banned, it displays realistic-looking random error messages(e.g. server too busy), loads the pages extremely slowly etc. etc. If it doesn't get rid of the angry user it will definately give them the opportunity to calm down. I'm not sure if new TOS are going to help. If someone is upset/angry I doubt they care about the forum rules.
It did help.
I'm just consistently amazed at the fine line you have to walk when you're on "the other side" of a forum, as an admin or mod.
On the one side, you want (at least I do), an open and inviting community, and good free discussion.
On the other side you want to prevent people from taking advantage of that for their own petty grievances and feuds.
I hate to sound elitest, but I sometimes long for the days when computers and BBSes were a "geeks-only" club (like in the dial up BBSes of the 80's). It just seemed to be a better class of people. I ran a dial up BBS for 4 years in the late 80s, and never had any serious problems (other than geeks I KNEW intentionally crashing the board then phoning me and telling me how they did it).
It just seems that the whole "wired" culture has taken a downturn over the past few years especially.
That's not a good thing for busy forums that attract a lot of new members, though. People who arrive via a search engine and want to reply or ask a related question may never come back if the registration process isn't quick. Still, it may be better than spam attacks or flame wars.
When Baldur's Gate came out years back, the developer and publisher set up message boards (were active months before the actual game release IIRC). There were a couple of "real" mods, and a LOT of us doing unofficial modding, tech help, etc. and then actual tech support as volunteers after the game came out due to the (as per normal) bugs, video and sound card troubles; RAM, low-end system, and other assorted problems.
It got nasty real fast. Some of us hung on for a couple of years, but eventually left the boards to the trolls. There was nothing in place to take care of serious foul-mouth disease, nothing to stop the script kiddies from taking the boards down with flood-attacks, on and on. What had been a really fun place for a short time became a cesspit.
I note that the current boards run by these folks are not only better from many angles tech-wise, they are also modded nearly full-time (still mostly by volunteers though), and seem to be frequented by FAR FAR more polite people.
It's a mixed-blessing sort of memory: on the one hand, I had a good time when things were good, and I felt as if I contributed (which was the point after all); but on the other hand, overall I left not only sad but with a bad taste in my mouth. (You'll note that didn't stop me from boarding! *laughs at self*)
