General behavior issues & moderation techniques

A member needs to go away who appears to be behaving the vast majority of the time in public. But behavior in PMs, especially to the staff, crossed the line, and now they need to go away.

I believe the sequence of events goes like this:

1. Ban them and they take things to other forums and they imply/rant they were mistreated. Probably signing up other accounts, and all that other stuff. All of that detracts from the forum, especially ad revenue, because we are a tiny niche community, Or:
2. Just put a muzzle on them and moderate their posts and disable PMs. The forum still works just like it did before but they see the 'your post will be approved soon' message for 1 second, then it disappears. There is no 'you are banned for the following reason' message that the person could take a screen shot of and post on other competing forums.

Here is the problem. My staff is not happy the person is being moderated and not banned. The person being moderated is making occasional posts/threads which of course appear visible to the staff, and they are worded in a way which really annoys the staff who don't really realize that others cannot see the posts, because they are understandably not happy with this person. They are fairly new to all this, especially the 'dealing with bad behavior' issues, whereas I've been dealing with these types of things for far too long.


1 - do you agree or disagree that moderating posts is worse than banning?
2 - if moderating posts is worse than banning then how can I convince the staff?


Personally I believe being moderated is a special hell, one that needs to be experienced before realizing how bad that is.


It would be great if this thread could stay in this forum because I'm sure my staff would recognize this situation and I don't want them to take this the wrong way.

Thank you in advance.

 

Well, if you ban a members they might go to another site and bitch about it, if you restrict them they would still go to another site and bitch about it, so about that it's nothing that you can really do.

1) Yes, I agree that moderating their posts is more hell than not posting at all, you have them on a leash, pretty much, and if they do something wrong, you can ban them which would be the icing on the cake.

2) If your staff doesn't know that it doesn't show publicly they should really learn to moderate and the moderation tools, no offense. They have much more control over him moderated than banned.

That's my opinion, newaiz. Before I recruited the mods I have now, I taught them around the system a bit, still am.

 

The staff do realize how things work, but right now emotions are so high they are not thinking - at all.

They can't sleep, eat, or think at this point. The main person that is upset is going away for the weekend so I hope they can calm down.

 

Either route would be viable in one way or another. This individual is clearly causing an inordinate number of problems and is refusing to cease doing so.

1. This is something that should be done only if this individual makes the decision to share these seemingly private matters with the public, or the general community. You're spot-on in saying that the member at hand will more than likely place the blame on you (as the administrator), making you appear as a power-hungry "monster". This is obviously not the case, but will appear to be so to those who are not aware of the actual matter at hand. This individual may also feel the need to circumvent all banning measures placed upon his/her original account and attempt to create additional accounts.
2. This appears to be a somewhat "peaceful" approach to a troublesome problem. While this could indeed work in your favor, it could also work against you. This member would not be able to continue on with his antics via the private messaging system, but he would be able to do so publicly, within the realm of the community. However, seeing as he tends to communicate on a more discrete level, he may not feel the need to share his inner-workings publicly and will either move on or begin to mature (possibly).

The only way to determine the success of each method is to give one of them a go.

I personally feel that moderating the individual (at least for the time being) will prove to be a bit more successful when compared to merely banning him and hoping for the best. If the threads being submitted are not viewable to the general community, there is really no harm in moderating his activity and restricting it to staff-level access only. Doing so is also enabling you to monitor his activity and make note of any progress that he may be making. Wishful thinking, but improvement on his/her part is always a possibility.

I don't necessarily believe that 'convincing' the staff team is necessary, however explaining and outlining the situation in detail (i.e. your reasoning, what is being done, who can view the moderated content, etc.) may assist in neutralizing their concerns.

I agree, and this thread will remain in this particular forum.

 

Thanks Chris.

It appears I failed to mention the troublesome member is quite bright. For the first time in months my site is not working at the moment.

Stay tuned...

 

It seems to have been my computer. I re-booted and it started working again. Times like this I really do appreciate 24/7 phone support because they confirmed that it was working on their end.


He started up another thread, which was moderated, and said he was going back the other site with 'all of his many friends'. My forum is an offshoot from that other site and was started because there were not sufficient resources there to accommodate the needs of the members.

I seriously doubt this is the end of the issue. Had I banned him he would have taken a screen shot of the banned message and would have become a martyr. He will continue to make posts/threads like a child poking a small creature with a stick for fun. I may need to start moving the threads he starts to an area where my moderators cannot see them because they seem to be upset when he does that. Frankly I find them humorous.

I'm not terribly worried about loosing members because this person asks them not to post on my site because I really don't want those people around anyway. And I seriously doubt anyone will stop posting on my forum because he asked them not to post. There will be some side effects and comments along the way for the people that are somewhat loyal, curious, and puzzled what is going on. Had I banned him there would be many PMs sent to me asking me what he had done to deserve such a thing.

 

And an update

As predicted a fairly neutral 3rd party contacted me asking why he was banned, pleading with me to be more understanding. I replied that his is not banned, most welcomed to post, but that his posts are moderated because we could not chance 1 person tearing down what we worked so hard to build up.

Then I received an email with all sorts of interesting colorful language from the person that was being moderated asking a 3rd time that wants to be banned. I did not reply to that email but a few days later did reply to the neutral 3rd party explaining how I could never ban someone who has contributed so much in the past (which is true) and that maybe, someday, all this will be forgotten. I basically gave him an honorable way out of his predicament because of all the flattery, an large olive branch so to speak.

He continues to contribute on the other forum. He did try to subtly start a forum war between the 2 forums but much to his chagrin the forum owners/mods are on extremely good terms and that will not be allowed to happen.

I've got an idea this is not the end to the situation.


Continue to stay tuned

 

One more thing, I'm actually between a 'rock and a hard place'. If change his settings so he is no longer moderated at this point, my staff would be extremely unhappy with me. Each and every one of them thinks he should be banned, and that might cause them to leave. And there is no way that can happen, they are extremely good people.

But if the person causing the trouble knew that he was really bugging the moderators he would continue to make moderated posts and threads using colorful language just for fun. Basically the situation is a explosion ready to occur.

I did not pass on the email on to the moderators because I'm trying to let this whole thing pass. In addition to the colorful wording there were all sorts of fun comments regarding sexual & political orientation, and even comments about the staffs ancestry.


I think it is hilarious that he thinks that email would bother me. :lol: