Member trying to undermine the community

Last night I found out that a member was trying to get people to leave my site and join his new forum - which he was about to start. He had not even bought the domain name yet.

I looked through the chat logs and found where he was getting members to help him pick a domain name. He was telling them the site was going to be free to advertise, no vip or premium membership, so I was wondering "how" he was going to pay for the server.

The weasel was banned and I gave a 6 month vip membership to one of the members he was talking to.

I have spent a total of over 3 years trying to build up my forum. And then people like him try to come in an undermine everything. To me, it shows a total lack of respect from one person to another.

 

I'm glad you caught this guy, Kevin. It is frustrating to know that somebody is using your community as a platform to obtain members for their own website.

Normally I wouldn't be too worried because if your site really is resourceful and enjoyable, your members will remain loyal to you and you won't have to worry about losing them. But that doesn't mean just let any advertising go on.

 

That annoys me I just found out one of my members of my site were responsible for the recent hacking of my website where they deleted everything on my website and so when my site was down he started contacting everyone from my site getting them to join his sport site he just started.

Thankfully you found your culprit before he did too much damage to your site.

 

Sorry you have to deal with someone trying to undermine you. It's obvious the guy doesn't know what he's doing, though, and his forum will likely fail (if it ever gets off the ground).

From the standpoint of most members, this would not exactly be a big draw. I can see why a vendor would be interested, but most members are going to think "that place will be covered in spam".

 

Crazy people,

I've mentioned owning a forum a few times and posted about a dozen links related to thread topics on your site. But I would never ask people to jump ship...it's wrong for one thing and it's two different themes.

 

I aint worried about people like him harming my community. My main forum has 810,156 post and 19,742 members. I'll probably break 20,000 members by the end of next week, maybe sooner.

People such as yourself 50cal, your active in my forums and as far as I'am concerned your a well respected member.

Its when someone comes in, talks about about the community, does not contribute anything and tries to get people to leave on top of all of that - that is when the problem starts. To me, those types of people are parasites, blood sucks, ticks, leaches or whatever else you want to call them.

I have not spent untold hours with promotion, video blogging, link building, all for someone to come in and try to profit from my work.

 

Thanks,

You got a really good forum for sure...it's some what addictive :o It flows really nice and filled with tons of useful info.

Anyhow, I can see the hard work you've put into it and don't blame you at all for the way you feel about this person(s).

 

I usually have a simple rule about this - don't do it behind my back, and we're good. Do it behind my back and... well I don't have to do anything more really. Most people have learned that lessen after the admin of the largest splinter forum was revealed to be snooping people's private messages... and making threats regarding them.

 

Kevin quick BAN Him ^^^ haha just joking.

 

I've had something similar done, and it'll happen again. We have the mod that allows us to read all PM's too (which is a bit controversial, but it's in our terms, so tuff) and we track all sorts of members you think are alright doing dodgy stuff.

We tend to PM them pointing out that we're aware of what they're doing and want them to stop. Then they tend to stop at least using the forums. You'll never stop them doing what they want to though, unless you gave him some sort of mod rights on your forum; which I'm guessing is way way out of the question now.

Good luck with that one, and chin up fella. Get rid, move on, and monitor 'his' forum and just do anything he's doing better, on your own MUCH MORE established forum.

 

Agree with you completely.

Yes you have to respond, but of course having a good forum is the best defense. Quite possible that anyone lured to the new forum will quickly decide that yours is better and more worth their time.

 

We had this posted recently:

Idiots like this really dont understand how much some administrators care for their forum. We were really angry with this and he well and truly deserved his ban.