Dealing with members
 

I am having a bit of a hard time from the user and moderator perspective. It seems that when the moderators say to a user hey can you take it easy it turns into a the moderators are nazis thread. The site has a little over 10k users so not everyone is going to be nice but I was just wondering how strict everyone is on their site and if you have like a good guideline on when to contact a user and tell them to knock it off.

One thing to keep in mind is that as an administrator or moderator, it is your community and you are responsible for taking care of it and taking action when needed. If that means not being as nice sometimes, it's simply a step you have to take.

I don't know of a single community where 100% of the memebers (staff included) get along 100% of the time. Rules are there for a reason. The same applies when you are at a place of business. The boss, ast. mgr or other are generall looked down on because they have to enforce certain guidelines.

Things happen, the best thing to do, however, is to stand your ground.

Think of it like this, mindcry... If you decided to throw a party and invited a few [thousand] friends ... just how strict would you be if they started tearing up your home? How far would you let that go before they were no longer welcome? ... before you'd call the police to have them escorted away?

When you invite members to join your community, they are like guests in your home. You've put a lot of time and effort arranging the food, entertainment, and everything else for their enjoyment. It's one thing if they get silly and boisterous -- a few broken plates, some spilled wine on the carpet, someone dancing on the table wearing a lampshade .. maybe -- but these things are to be expected.

As site owner/admin, you get to set the limits in your forum that you feel are appropriate for the enjoyment of your entire membership ... exactly the way you would when playing host at a party with guests in your home.

If i have any probs with a member,I PM them,and all my staff have been informed to take the same action,I find it the best action as making statments in threads usually irritates the situation more and before you know it you have keyboard hero's coming from everywhere,I find a subtle but straight to the point PM works everytime for me,you gotta remember its your board your the admin and you pay the bills,and 9 times outta the offending member see's your point

If there a real pain and keep coming back, you have to be firm. Personally I would just ban there IP each time and remove accounts they create without saying a word about it. Silence is golden :)

I have rules that no one is to question a Mod in public forum.

1: Warning
2: Warning
3: Ban

I was doing one warning, then one day ban, then one week ban, then one month ban. Made it a little worse. But with the new warning system 10 points = a ban. But everytime I ban someone I have 5 others complaining that I am a nazi. Although at this point some of them have left and started their own site so hopefully things will calm down. I banned all of them too to prevent spamming.

Well I agree with MindCry on this one. The problem is it's OK putting military style forum rules in place. I did the same a few years ago and had much the same kind of response as Mindcry. People looked at it as some kind of joke. And said I was on a (power trip) just because I ran a board. And just took the piss basically. So I don't bother anymore!

I might also add, that I saw that rule on another site once about not "Questioning Mods" on public boards. And there was a massive outcry. Were people said if the mod makes a statement in public and he's totally wrong in what he's saying, how the hell can we reply back to say "sorry but your wrong". Meaning he's aways right and member can never answer back for fear of getting banned if they do. That caused a hell off a load of trouble on this big board I used to be a member off. And was frown upon greatly until it was removed as a rule. And I'm talking about an official game forum run by a manufacturer of a well known game.

My rule: THIS IS MY PLACE!

I pay, I work on it, so no one will give me a hard time without being shown the door. Don't let anyone give you a hard time. My mods and myself are the ones in charge with everything, so we have all the duties and rights that come with this.

I have also stated some of this in my rules to make sure:

Seems like it's keeping them in a decent behaviour ...

We make our best effort to handle everything via PM, and do so from a generic moderator account. Most members have no idea who the mods are, so there is no personality for the user to associate the authority with. Taking things to PM and being respectful works wonders.