When members have a sense of 'entitlement'

[MPDev]

I have the same thing happen on my site - no matter how much warning or input I ask for, there will always be a couple who say I didn't 'talk' to them enough. You cannot win, so I do what I want to do when I want to do it and let everyone know they are along for the ride; their input is important to me, but not at the expense of my enjoyment for the site.

I find that it's the 'vocal minority' who can make running a site the most stressful and unpleasent.

[PennylessZ28]

Originally Posted by MPDev

Have you ever run a site where the long-time members start to feel a sense of entitlement in decisions on how you run your site? You know the types, been around a while and gotten to know the others; but never paid a dime towards hosting or spent a minute actually doing any work on the site like Moderating or Admining, quick to complain, impatient when it comes to updates or new features (one I installed an Arcade hack and was hammered for more games within hours of posting it.). Yeah, those guys (and gals).

It's seems enivitible that at some point someone (or a small group) will start demanding changes - or use the 'my way or I'm outta here' approach to address issues. As an admin of several boards I've encountered this problem many times; some of the most vocal of my members seem to get on a rage where the scorched earth approach is their solution - trash the owners, trash the moderators and, finally, trash other members. Make so much noise and then proclaim their exit in a thread titled, "I'm outta here" proclaiming their hatred for how the site is run.

I usually deal with these trouble makers with simple and polite notes which say something to the effect of, "Thank you for your time on our site, it's been a pleasure having you here, but it would seem you have outgrown our little community. I wish you the best as you persue your interests elsewhere." and wait for them to either change their tune or leave on their own before taking the step of banning them.

I'm curious how others handle people like this on their site - it has to be the least enjoyable aspect of running a forum - dealing with unappreciative members; so when you are confronted with members who feel entitled to a say in how you run your site, how do you respond?

YES! I run a local car forum, that I've been running for the past 5 years. Most of the people are friends, which makes it 5 times more annoying and frustrating.

Recently I had a fall out with 2 of our orginal founding members for the reasons above.

I've invested over $2,000 dollars in hosting expenses, vbulletin and the sorts over the past 5 years running this site. No one ever contributed a dime, and I have done all the work on it.

Every now and then when something didn't work they would demand it be fixed, and give me a hard time, saying I don't care about the group becuase I haven't fixed it yet, like a broken photo gallery, or a broken link.

Just recently I made some changes in the staff and they felt offended enough that they had to end their friendships and leave.

I was fine, becuase my site has actually grown a significant percentage since they left.

But becuase they had been around for so long, they felt they some how had a say in things. Like it was a democrary. They forgot that the site is and always will be MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE!

I have this on my forum now:

Being a member at HRFBODY is not a right. The Forum is a private enterprise and its owner has the right to establish rules of behavior for participants. The owner has the right to remove members, make changes or do whatever he wants with the site. [S]WITHOUT NOTICE[/S].

Normally I ignore it, but it does get frustrating. A few months ago I moved to a new server, one that I setup on my own and I manage. And to be honest, I'm WINGING IT and GUESSING 90% of the time. And the site has crashed a few times and I've got a few making stupid comments that really tick me off. Telling me about how LS1Tech and other sites dont' crash.

I work hard to make my site different from all the other lame boring DEFAULT VB color scheme car sites that are out there.

I posted this last time someone said something "It's my money and my server, and until otherwise, I'll crash it as much as I'd like"

Whats really annoying is one of the old members who left, he went out and got all these business cards made for the group, which I said I didn't want, I didn't like etc, anyhow he was made when I denied him being an ADMIN and felt that becuase he had bought the cards he had some how contributed and was owed......

I'm sorry I don't sell stock in my website.

Luickly most of you don't have to listen to your users whine and complain to you on the weekend at your usual hang out spots or what not.

Originally Posted by MPDev

I've found that over the years my tastes and interests have changed; sometimes I am very active in my communities, others times I am not. I've run community sites for a long time and what keeps me interested is nudging the direction of the site so that it matches my interests - as you can imagine some people are very uncomfortable with changes of any kind. They want it their way, the way they expect it to be or no way; I've found this to be particularily true on sites with a diverse range of ages - teens into adulthood.

I've seen alot of people come and go, I gave up trying to please everyone a long time ago. After all, I'm the guy paying the bills, so it seems reasonable to me that I should determine the direction of the site. I try to be receptive to ideas and suggestions, but nothing gets under my skin more than members who have a sense that they are the ones who should be determining how you run your site or spend your time.

But no matter how level-headed you play it, you can expect alot of pushback from even a few members whenever you do even the smallest of things. How we handle those people and how we keep our interest in the site strong is an important issue that faces everyone who runs their own community.

I can relate to this one too. I made some changes recently that again, upset several people.

But I want the changes, becuase they reflect back on me. See I'm a christian, and have been struggling with this for awhile, but I had to even dump two forums I had come up with just becuase the concept did not align itself with my moral belief structure.

I recently set some standards to make my site family safe and clean up the act.

I used to allow people to post freely with no censorship, but now I am censoring things.

Just trying to steer the group out of the filth and into a better enviroment.

I was tired of every post being garabge. I just didnt' want to be assoicated with that.

Cool thing is when there is a STANDARD that people can clearly see, they will either be attracted to it, or repealed by it.

Most people have accepted it and are fine with the changes.

[MPDev]

Perfect examples, Michael. On a related note, I used to have a pretty relaxed standard for posting on one of my sites; still do in fact, but only now the ground rules include "respect". I've decided that there is enough trash/smack talking out there that anyone can go to any number of sites and find it - so on my site we don't allow it. You either communicate respectfully or you are told you are not welcome on our site.

You might think this would hurt membership, but it hasn't. We have hundreds of users online at any given time (down from the thousands when we allowed nude photos) and a stronger sense of community by the contributing members. Many people on our site say they stay for the friendships they have made and thats just the way I want it.

I can get trash talk anywhere. Kicking back and enjoying some good talk with people who aren't morons is alot more fun than the alternatives, IMO.

[oldedit]

I'm in the midst of one of our periodic debates over what goes and what doesn't in our politics and religion forums. At any given time, we'll have 20 to 45 members and a couple of hundred guests on the board. We have 13,000 members and close to 400,000 posts. The board's approaching its fifth anniversary.

A couple of years ago I simply deleted the politics forum, and lost my best members to another board they created. It since has imploded under the weight of the same members who caused me to delete the first politics forum.

After that board imploded, I brought back the politics forum and added a religion forum.

Everybody understood the rules against flaming, pornography, foul language. The old timers who flounced a couple of years ago insist on being able to say whatever they please, but they usually conform to my rules on my board.

A couple of old timers are big on gay marriage, and post a lot about that and sexual issues important to women, who make up 99% of the board.

This upset the anti-gay marriage and pro religious crowd. An old timer who's created his own "Christian" version of our board came over and posted a poll asking if the posts on sex and gay marriage drove away members and kept new ones from joining. After a week of this, I suggested that "flooding" the board with sex and gay marriage threads was a bit over the top. The ladies "flounced" and took some active posters with them to their "home" board, which has a lot of our former members.

My approach has been to discuss the issues, explain why I have to keep the board tone civil and acceptable to all and at the same time encourage debate and interesting discussions. They don't buy it, accusing me of "censorship" and of driving a particularly controversial and active poster away, which isn't what I did.

So now I've lost my active posters in the politics and religion forums, a few of whom actively posted in other forums as well. My general philosophy is that this will all blow over. I'll lose some, win some. The new members are more important to my business than the old timers, most of whom leave after a couple of years anyway due to the nature of our board and their lives.

The purpose of the politics and religion sites is the same as the money and investing, movie, weight loss, books and other off topic forums. That is, I am trying to provide a place where friends made in our on topic forums can discuss whatever interests them. The politics and religion forums get relatively little participation, but the people who post in them do so frequently and have a lot of fun debating, when they're not fighting, flaming , etc. And I like to talk politics.

Since I own and moderate the board by myself, I make the decisions after listening to suggestions and complaints. And I often engage in online debates about policy, etc. Sometimes these debates become our most active threads for awhile. It may be a mistake, because some people get upset and leave.

What I say is that if you are going to post about sex three or four times in one afternoon, you're hurting the board, and this may not be the best place for you. And if all you're going to do is advocate for gay marriage and nothing else, this may not be the place for you. Of course, if you leave, you lose a great platform for discussing issues important to you, but that's your decision.

The old timers know I can zap and will if I need too. They also know I zap trolls in a flash, and they know that I don't want to zap any threads nor ban them. So we have this little dance going on. I don't think they're looking too good, and some of the members are telling them to get cool or get lost.

We'll see.

[pds]

These problems are pretty common once your board grows. We have about 2500 active members, and I have seen it all happen, just like in the real world.

Religious Differences
Lifestyle Differences
Political Differences

Those three cause the most issues. We insist on tolerance, respect, and a sense of humor on our site, and it seems if you have those three, the community develops quite well. That being said, you'll always have issues, it helps to be firm and consistent in how you deal with them.

[PixelFx]

All I can say is I feel your pain ..

[ociosos]

what i do is given them responsabilities... for example make them mod or VIP...
we organize events... they are vips in those events... free shirts... things like that....

but if they wanna leave i let them go... nobody gonna tell me what to do...

anyways we are like 7100s already i try to keep all of them happy ofcourse i got a execellent staff helping me out... yep check it out is a spanish forum...
www.ociosos.cl

i hope it work for you...

free mercandaise 4 the most active members.. thats the key

[MentaL]

I ban people who do that.

[wtricks]

Oh, that brings up some nice memorries

BAck then when I was a nice girl and a beginner in forum administration I had some problems with some members. I tried to keep them happy, but failed since they had diferent opinions. I feared I'd lose them. Well, lost them anyway and one started a vendetta on my forums in other projects. He callled my site many "nice" names and tried to give me a bad reputation. Well, needless to say that he also started a competing forum only to fail after 1 year. My forums are still on and going strong.

CONCLUSION: no one is irreplaceable. As an admin I need to keep my members happy and try to provide them with what they need. That doesn't mean I owe them something at all. it just means I run a nice community and I want them to feel good. If they're not feeling nice they can always go and leave me alone.

i have some long time members that have been together with me from where we were on a free hosted subdomain till we got to our own VB license. They've stood by me through all the hard times (host changes, domain move, new scripts installing and so on), always ready to point out an error, congratulate me for my work and updates, give ideas to grow more. As you can imagine I am greateful to them for all this support. Still, this means we're friends as long as they abide by the rules. As soon as I feel like one member is detrimental to my community, I wil inactivate the account.

There are members who think they can have more than anyone else because of their tenure. It's in the end a matter of diplomacy to keep the pleased and also keep them on their feet. I have managed this by getting them involved in the site and making them realise they are important and that we also need those "forum newbs" to keep the community growing. They criticism is always met with attention from my part, but i never promised acting on this. I fo take the ideas and CHOSE myself if they're viable or not. They feel important because they know I do listen to them, but they also know that I have the final decision.