Forum Moderators: rogerd
But what would you do if your most well-known members starting turning on you, personally, for your moderating decisions and the decisions you've made on the site?
We've already removed several posts that criticise us personally for what we are doing, and this has caused bitter resentment and accusations of dictatorship etc. Now we're facing a rebellion from some very high profile members.
PS: We always remember there are more important things in the world than our little forum, but we do like to do the best we can so we're taking the situation seriously.
We've already removed several posts that criticise us personally for what we are doing, and this has caused bitter resentment and accusations of dictatorship etc. Now we're facing a rebellion from some very high profile members.
My comments are colored by the fact that I've seen a healthy community demolished by a situation like this, so I may feel more strongly about it than is warranted. In the case I experienced, the exodus wasn't caused by the changes the forum owner made but by the dictatorial attitude that people felt he had. Whether that attitude was really present or not, he did come across that way; possibly a matter of poor communication skills. Removing critical posts won't help to change that perception (as you've already found out).
I'd suggest trying not to remove the critical posts except as a last resort, that is, if a specific post is truly abusive or inflammatory. Even if you by policy remove all posts that personally criticize another forum member, it's a different matter (IMVHO) when the forum owner is the subject of the criticism, because you do have power that the rest don't. If you go into the reasons you made the decisions that some members are unhappy about, it may open up some dialogue. It actually says something positive about the forum that members care so strongly about it.
As a long term solution, do your best to stay in the shadows and let your members work out whatever the current problem may be. Just staying quiet until everything works itself out has worked for me.
Best bets:
- Clear and specific TOS to define what's allowed and what isn't.
- Consistent and friendly moderation, always pointing out the TOS reason.
A good TOS (and consistently holding people to the TOS) takes the focus off the people doing the moderation. If someone has a problem, they will have it with the TOS, not the person. This keeps thing from getting emotional, and the people who don't like the rules will end up going elsewhere.
This works a treat for me!
One is to stay in the background and moderate silently. When questions are raised about moderation decisions, a cut-and-paste response is given.
The other is to be a "personality" on the site, and take the flak personally. Great if you're the kind of person who take the abuse, because you can be the focus of users' bile.
For the record, I have tried both approaches, and problems mostly occur when the two are mixed or a weak, mid-position moderation stance is taken.
All in all I probably lost a half of the active members either by them leaving, being siphoned off or being banned (although I'd estimate the bans were probably only about a dozen in number, maybe less) in the two rounds of problems I had (the second round coming about 9 months after the first, and all about the same things) but it's better to have numerous bans due to wrecking attempts than have the whole forum destroyed.
[edited by: futuresky at 2:59 pm (utc) on Sep. 13, 2005]
It tends to clear the air a bit, and allows to me to respond to direct accusations, referencing TOS.
A blog is also a good place to address these sorts of comments - in our experience, our blog is only read by the real super users of the site, so the site drama doesn't clutter things up for new users.
What I've found is that some of the most heated input will occur in the comments section of the blog, which all things considered, isn't a bad place for it, as it's a couple steps removed from the site itself.
One final bit of advice - don't respond or correspond with angry users when YOU'RE angry. Don't hit send, don't hit submit, as nothing good can come of it.
And let the really outrageous accusations go unanswered - if you've run a "rule of law" site for a while, you've hopefully built up some good will with the majority of your user base.
I've seen this in operation and I've seen this fail again and again.
Sometimes, when you don't draw a line clearly, the line keeps getting pushed and moved around. This tends to breed new expectations, expectations that are increasingly difficult to manage. This breeds more discontent. Line pushing also can embolden the pusher(s) and next you have a battle for control, fractionalism, splinter groups starting a new forum, etc.
The process you describe may be natural evolution, especially if the group is fairly youthful.
The process you describe may also reflect a failure to manage expectations.
Forums rarely work in a democracy format, so if you decide that something is detrimental to the usefulness of the forum, then you should remove it. If someone thinks it is censorship or dictatorial attitude so be it. It is your perrogative. You will not make everyone happy. Some people love the very strict rules webmaster world has.. Others don't...
You need to do what makes you happy and creates the environment that you want. If some users get uppity and don't agree with you, so be it. Explain your reasons for doing what you did and move on.
I run several forums where the rules are very lax in comparison to most others. IOW off-topic discussions are allowed, commercial posts are generally not deleted as spam so long as they are relevant to the subject at hand, etc, etc, etc. But if somebody gets unfriendly toward another member, they get banned with no warning, no explanation, and no remorse. Maintaining a peaceful and friendly environment is easy this way.
More importantly, stay involved in the daily life of your forum. If you have a strong community, it won't be that easy for someone to pirate your members.
Make 'em disappear, filter any new site references, and be vigilant for solicitations.
I disagree with this to be honest - been there before and it just fuels the flames and drives more of your own community away.
The worst thing an admin can be is to try and control the flow of information - it's a petty act that will be enough to push even borderline users to "the other side".
Of course it depends on the reason for the dispute and exodus, but at the end of the day you pick your admin/mods for a reason - their skills, experience and contribution to your community - if you shun that then you look like you are in the wrong.
There's no reason why in this situation you couldn't simply smile and wish them all the best. You're not going to stop people going to their new forum - but you will suffer if you let it bug you or encourage them to "fight back".
Take the high road always - it may not be as gratifying as sweet, sweet revenge, but it is the better move for your community.
Members can rarely be "poached" by other sites. But they can easily be driven away by negative attitudes and petulance.
Take the high road always - it may not be as gratifying as sweet, sweet revenge, but it is the better move for your community.
You are right in a lot of ways and our members will ultimately see that. It is disconcerting to see those you thought you trusted do this. Yes, you do wish them the best and it should all wash out, I guess!
For me, that's meant having members 'apply' for membership by filling out a rather lengthy application. Yeah, we've probably 'lost' about 60% of the people who've created their accounts and just never filled out the form, but that's ok. The rest have been absolutely incredible people who've invested themselves and become a part of the community and as time goes on, the community becomes a part of them.
You just don't attack something you care about and when you do, its constructive. If its not? The rest of the community takes care of it :).
We've had almost ZERO trouble with spam since the community started over a year ago and the quality of members who've 'made it through' has been exceptional. Now all we have to do is make sure that we take good care of them :).
So, that's all well and good but mostly ideas for implementation in the beginning or while a community is still young.
For me, if my strongest members turned on me and began 'attacking' me now, I'd go spend time and very calmly and quietly talk with them. Figure out what they're challenges and frustrations are and do my best to work with them. Take your most challenging members and bring them to your side :).
-Jonathan Wold
The only way to avoid the public debacle they tend to turn into (as people love watching drama and taking sides) is to have a policy that all problems should be politely emailed to the admin staff, rather than being posted in public. Noone can accuse you of ignoring their opinion if someone chose to ignore a rule that explicitly states how to get the admin staff's attention.
