Get much controversy at your board?

[fury]

Seems like every week we've got a new controversy at OTC that's threatening to cause a mass exodus and/or collapse the site. This latest one just happened today, and was about members being paranoid that every single new member signup was an alternate identity of a member (who's been banned for a couple months) that's not well-liked, even though it is not feasible that this person would do so at all, let alone several times a week.

So, do you get much controversy? If so, does it affect the activity at your board much? If so, or if not, what do you usually do about it? Do you take it to private messages? Do you deal with it out in the open? Do you lock any thread that discusses it and turn it into a taboo subject?

If you used to get much controversy at your board and don't now, was there anything you did that reduced it?

I'm looking for ideas here because it seems like this could become a major problem, in this latest controversy we "lost" a long-time member (as in, nearly 11k posts) who claims he left the site because it's different than what it used to be, more than just because of this latest controversy.

Why leave a site because it's different than what it used to be? Isn't that the ultimate goal of a site, to be dynamic and maintain an active and fresh user base? How many boards can you name that have survived with a small core of old school posters, with any new members that may arrive being shunned or just drifting off into another site? I can't name any...

Sorry about the long ramble.

[N9ne]

Seems like every week we've got a new controversy at OTC that's threatening to cause a mass exodus and/or collapse the site. This latest one just happened today, and was about members being paranoid that every single new member signup was an alternate identity of a member (who's been banned for a couple months) that's not well-liked, even though it is not feasible that this person would do so at all, let alone several times a week.

So, do you get much controversy? If so, does it affect the activity at your board much? If so, or if not, what do you usually do about it? Do you take it to private messages? Do you deal with it out in the open? Do you lock any thread that discusses it and turn it into a taboo subject?

If you used to get much controversy at your board and don't now, was there anything you did that reduced it?

I'm looking for ideas here because it seems like this could become a major problem, in this latest controversy we "lost" a long-time member (as in, nearly 11k posts) who claims he left the site because it's different than what it used to be, more than just because of this latest controversy.

Why leave a site because it's different than what it used to be? Isn't that the ultimate goal of a site, to be dynamic and maintain an active and fresh user base? How many boards can you name that have survived with a small core of old school posters, with any new members that may arrive being shunned or just drifting off into another site? I can't name any...

Sorry about the long ramble.

I delt with controversies in the open, mainly proving people wrong. It teaches them not to do it again as everyone knows they did it and it also shows the others the result of sparking up things like this.

People do leave because of change and it is irritating but I suppose that's life but I've found that 90% of those who leave for petty things come back very soon after .

[fury]

I delt with controversies in the open, mainly proving people wrong. It teaches them not to do it again as everyone knows they did it and it also shows the others the result of sparking up things like this.

People do leave because of change and it is irritating but I suppose that's life but I've found that 90% of those who leave for petty things come back very soon after .

Yeah, me too, that's why I put quotes around the "lost", cause he and I both know damn well he's gonna come crawling back. Nobody who posts that much at OTC can live without it for very long.

[merk]

At the moment i sort of run an oldschool poster based forum.


We only get a few new members register each week, its still going strong, but as interest dies off from the game that we've specialised in.

[Jake Bunce]

I had one guy leave for religious reasons and stubbornness, and another leave because the swarm didn't like him. I also banned a guy once for being an uber Mac zealot (Mac vs PC debate gone bad).

Both the religious guy and Mac zealot were active, long-time members. The religous guy deleted over half his posts before I caught him and put a stop to it. Later I restored his deleted posts from a backup and emailed him about it.

I always handle these situations privately, not publically.

[MarkB]

Always amuses me when members act like old women (my apologies to any old women who may be reading). Not on my forum, fortunately, but on another I used to admin they were very protective of their community, and would come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who dared to challenge them. They were also highly paranoid... and were still talking, 3 years after the fact (!), about one guy who had a lot of people fooled with a 'fake identity'. LOL

[Stryker]

Traffic and posts used to triple on my board when there were a few controversal topics on the go, but now people tend to avoid them because of the rows they cause. It's a difficult one because strong opinions make people who they are. If people stop offering them you're left with a very stale 'discussion' forum where people stick only to safe topics.

I never lock these kind of topics, I just let them play out until we reach a natural conclusion - that usually involves slinging mud at each other and then making up afterwards, and agreeing to attack the issues rather than each other in future. As I said before, the result is usually that people avoid bringing up the same topics again and traffic steadily declines.

Personally I think heated (but controlled) debate is perfectly healthy and should be encouraged. You can't agree on everything all of the time and shouldn't be expected to pretend you do.

[Mr. HillBilly]

I don't have any on my boards because I really have no one that even uses it1 :P

[Andrew111888]

Occasionally we do, and a few weeks ago two members were post avid posters in our debate forum and religion forum, in each thread the resorted to name calling and *repeatedly* PMed me telling me to get the other member to leave them alone.

In the end, when neither would shut their mouths and abide by my ruling or terms of service, I suspended them both for three days (one threw a huge fit when I wouldn't revoke his suspension after he 'apologized' and said he'd never come back)

He came back the day his suspension was over, and they both generally play by the rules now.

[phill2003]

well i dont have any members so unless i get on my own wick there isnt much room for any problems really

[Kathy]

Always amuses me when members act like old women (my apologies to any old women who may be reading).

Apologies accepted

I expect my members to act like old women...because 80% of them are. The rest are young women who sometimes act old....

[Tolitz]

Whenever controversy sprouts and threatens to become a holy war, I post something asking them to stop and drop it, then I close the topic ... usual consequence of this is that they start 2-3 more topics trying to continue the endless discussion and I close them too ... then I receive PMs and emails telling me how unfair, how stupid and how ridiculous my site was for telling them to shut up ... a couple of them threaten to leave - I let them... One of them usually does leave, I don't flinch...

Then a few people try to pick up the crusade and condemn the site, accusing it of favoritism, repression and even communism (heh) ... I close those too, and suspend the ones who just won't shut up... I ban those who were already on probation before but won't shut up... after a week or two, forums go back to normal... some of those I suspend ask forgiveness - I forgive them and place them on probation.

After 5-6 months, the whole cycle starts again...

[N9ne]

Whenever controversy sprouts and threatens to become a holy war, I post something asking them to stop and drop it, then I close the topic ... usual consequence of this is that they start 2-3 more topics trying to continue the endless discussion and I close them too ... then I receive PMs and emails telling me how unfair, how stupid and how ridiculous my site was for telling them to shut up ... a couple of them threaten to leave - I let them... One of them usually does leave, I don't flinch...

Then a few people try to pick up the crusade and condemn the site, accusing it of favoritism, repression and even communism (heh) ... I close those too, and suspend the ones who just won't shut up... I ban those who were already on probation before but won't shut up... after a week or two, forums go back to normal... some of those I suspend ask forgiveness - I forgive them and place them on probation.

After 5-6 months, the whole cycle starts again...

You just told the story of my (ex-) forums...

[ehjay]

The problem with larger boards is that it becomes harder to track down and really focus on the individual problems as they pop up..

Most things can be avoided if you handle the issue before it explodes. But yes, I've had and always will have my fair share of controversy.. seems the regulars live off of it.

[Matthew Gordon]

I had my board turned into a church. I didn't ban the 5 *******s since technically, no rules were broken, but I should have. Went from around 600 posts a day to about 10 posts a day literally overnight, and are now around 50 posts a day or less.