When members have a sense of 'entitlement'

[Quillz]

Originally Posted by Boofo

Since my site is so new and I have not had that problem so far, I'm thinking of using your little message line there as a stop-all to such actions before they get out of hand. I concur fully with your assessment. Thank you, sir.

My board is about a year old and has not yet had any major problems, either, so I may just do the same as you.

[Ohiosweetheart]

There has been the potential for a few major uprisings on my site, and it could have been a mess if I'd let it get to that. But I'm very quick to nip it in the bud.
Only twice has someone said, "if you ___________. I'm leaving". Or "if you don't __________, I'm leaving".
My answer is..............

"Don't let the doorknob hit ya where the good Lord split ya".
I don't react well to blackmail

[Eq4bits]

AMEN Peggy

[amykhar]

I think the problem becomes even worse when these 'entitled' members think they deserve to be staff and start getting an attitude because they are not.

Some people just don't get the concept that not everybody is cut out to be a moderator. And, it becomes difficult to say, 'look, you are not staff because: ' I mean, it's not easy to tell a long-term member that they are untrustworthy, impolite, mercenary or whatever flaw it is that you don't want on your team.

Conversations like, 'D, you'd make a lousy staff member because you tell every confidetial thing you know to everybody and you can't get along with anyone either.' or 'P, you're not mature enough or polite enough to be on staff and we just don't trust your motivations' have a tendency to go poorly. Especially when the 'entitled' members have a following.

[Chris M]

You can't give in to demands, but you also can't ignore them - They may just be some individual dislikes to the way things are ran by you, or they could be a wider-spread dislike by the community and they are the only ones gutsy enough to say so...

Constructive criticism works well and I encourage it; Destructive or otherwise rarely gets tolerated by me and if they cause more than their fair share of problems, they are kindly reminded that they have the option of behaving, leaving of their own accord or being assisted

Chris

[goodwillstacy]

Originally Posted by amykhar

I think the problem becomes even worse when these 'entitled' members think they deserve to be staff and start getting an attitude because they are not.

Some people just don't get the concept that not everybody is cut out to be a moderator. And, it becomes difficult to say, 'look, you are not staff because: ' I mean, it's not easy to tell a long-term member that they are untrustworthy, impolite, mercenary or whatever flaw it is that you don't want on your team.

Conversations like, 'D, you'd make a lousy staff member because you tell every confidetial thing you know to everybody and you can't get along with anyone either.' or 'P, you're not mature enough or polite enough to be on staff and we just don't trust your motivations' have a tendency to go poorly. Especially when the 'entitled' members have a following.

Gosh, I couldn't have written this any better. I am having this exact problem right now.
The member in question is posting to every single thread, within minutes of its posting (she has a lot of time on her hands, obviously). The mods are getting upset because they feel like they can't do their jobs by helping people out.... and *I* can't even post to a lot of the threads without being repetitive... she tends to throw everything but the kitchen sink in the posts. Since we're a health related non-profit, there is no way a member is going to know everything about the subject; yet she certainly tries. A lot of the time it's better to say "I am not sure but someone will be around shortly to help you out!" or whatever... instead, she gives horrible advice that I sometimes have to delete (like in response to a medication question.. "Take 1/2 a tablet 3 times a day and see how you tolerate that." Since when did we become doctors?!).

The worst part is that she a) wants to be a moderator (and thinks this is the way to become one) and b) has contributed a fair amount of money to the organization.

I have no idea how to tell her to back off and that she'll never get the moderator job... whenever I tell her something, she tends to tell EVERYONE. We had to take our shoutbox down because she published exactly where I was having medical treatment/surgery and every single detail of my pre-op appointment day.

In any case, I didn't mean to get on such a long rant, but I'm so frustrated. She's being passive aggressive now, and knows that I'm upset with her.. but instead of returning my call, she's doing little things that are manipulative and childish to let me know that she knows I'm pissed... like taking down her blog that I worked hours on to get running, or getting really depressed and sad so that I feel that I can't bring something up because it's really not the time.

Ugh!
Any ideas?
stacy

[Eriond]

it wont help in your case but to help forestall these problems for new sites having a policy like I used to have on IRC would be good. "Dont ask to be staff we will contact you"

Although it might cause problems later on, you could always try the "we dont have the requirement for new staff just yet, we will put you forward for concideration when the need arises" might be a way to calm her down.

I hooked up with a girl from my site a few months ago and during our relationship and now since she finished it she was asking for special concideration, not in a nasty or disruptive way, thankfully, but i always said no chance whenever she asked. My site has 2 groups that i want to get going in competitions etc and I did announce that members of my specific group could request a custom user title mine was Deamon of Darkness and she wanted Deamoness of Darkness, when she finished it she went ranking on telling me to take the title away but when i did she went into one on msn about me abusing my admin position etc, i told her straight with no pulling of punches that it was at her request that i removed it and it was in no way an abuse of power. She has now calmed down and comtinues to post so at least i have not lost a member (i have few active members at the mo so every post helps )

[Antivirus]

I just put em into miserable users usergroup and when they tell me they're having a problem with the site i just say "huh? everything's working fine from here, don't understand what you're talking about, it's gotta be your ISP or computer's gotta be infected with somethign nasty!"

:banana:

[Zachariah]

@ MPDev

Right on man ..... I hear ya. I love when they try :

we have the 1st amendment and freedom of speech.

Answer:

This is a privet site. You have the right to make you own site and post what you want there. You have the right to leave. You also have the right to be silent; I suggest you exercise that right. The rights of the Constitution do not apply in this situation.

This issue is closed.

@ goodwillstacy

I had a dozen users that would make it their personal quest in life to out post each other on everything. They talked and argued on every subject like it was IRC or IM with simple sentences putting their 2 cents worth in to up the post counts.

They were removed and all their content erased.

A year latter they came back and were normal people again. They learned to stay on subject and are not half bad to talk and debate with.

[rin]

Now I have a problem.
I wanted to change my forums completely. New theme, new rules new everything.
Since this would be such a big overhaul, I started asking my long term members what they would think about it. Everyone is positive about the change, giving me some suggestions that I totally agree on. Now the problem comes from the unsuspected. Two of my moderation team are strictly against a change, and I dont see a reason why they would be. I note that I have 7 Moderators, 5 of which are positive about the change. 2 negative.
I pay everything out of my pocket, they are just moderators. I would now say that 80 to 90 % of my members are up for the change, except for those 2. Makes me feel really bad as I already was about to get going on working those new stuff out.
They also criticise me for not asking them before asking the long term members.