[Debate] Member Management & Rule Enforcement

-Are you generally strict or lenient?
I am generally pretty strict, but not unreasonably so. Most of my rules are simply common sense, and people who are polite, don't talk back to the staff, and behave do very well. People who insist on talking back to us everytime we make a decision tend to get us very annoyed. We know what we're doing, and our methods have worked for us. We don't mind opinions by any means, but we don't like people who want to come in and tell us how to run our site, and believe, it's happened more than once. There are some things we do not tolerate (undermining the staff, arguing OOC with fellow members (discussions are fine, arguing is not), spamming) and others that we might overlook a couple of times (posts that are too short).

-Do you take into account the length of a person's membership when dealing with troublesome members or drama?
Yes, to some degree. I'm not favoritist, or anything, but like you said, Artemis, a long member should know better. If they break an infraction, we're going to think less of them than some noob who just joined. We don't give them a harsher punishment, but we are usually harsher in our tone.

-Do you believe consistency is good or bad?
Yes, consistency is important. Every member should be treated the same, regardless of rank, privledge, or length of time on the site. It's not good to be "elitist", though I've been accused of being like that before, though it's not true.

-If you have a warning system, how does it work?
We have a set warning level based on the number of warnings. Usually, we give a couple - depending on the rule broken - of warnings before raising it, and then there's two raises before a week supsension, two more before a month, and then two more before a final ban. Members can ask for their warning level lowered after 30 days of good behavior, though we do take into consideration past infractions when raising it again, should the act up.

-What did you think is the best way to manage a forum?
I have found that making sure that the rules are spelt out with no room for "well, it's not said in the rules" things to occur. That's the main reason why my rules seem so strict - I've had that happen too many times. Especially since I run roleplay forums, I have to make sure that it's clearly stated what is and is not allowed. Most of the time, everyone's fine, but then there's a couple people who seem to have not read anything. However, when dealing, it's best to try and be polite. I do tend to come off as cold/sarcastic at times, though it's never intentional.

Are you generally strict or lenient?
Very lenient, on my own site. I have certain rules in place which are just common sense, and those I'll get very annoyed at having broken, but certain rules deal with creative situations (such as I won't allow new characters to be made under the age of thirteen) and occasionally a member will break that rule. As long as they're using common sense, I won't bother with punishing them. Of course, if I'm just a moderator on the site and see such a situation, I'll generally take it higher up.

Do you take into account the length of a person's membership when dealing with troublesome members or drama?
To a minor degree. A handful of sites I'm on deal with a lot of first-time roleplayers. Some don't last long, but I believe with a bit of a helping hand, in the form of forgiveness and guidance when they step out of line, they'll learn fairly quickly.
Do you believe consistency is good or bad?
I believe it to be highly important.. As has already been mentioned several times, it is important to appear as unbiased.
If you have a warning system, how does it work?
So far, there has not been a need for a warning system - the members are fairly good at regulating themselves. I don't like to ban, and have only done so once in my time as staff on any board, but the occasion warning (usually around ten percent) helps to keep the troublemakers in line.
What did you think is the best way to manage a forum? (For example, have you found certain methods of interacting with members or giving warnings/bans that seems to work more than others?)
I think that all we really need to do is to interact in a friendly way and encourage members not to form cliques, but rather to think of every member as a part of one big group of friends. Also, this includes members that may occasionally break rules, whether intentionally or not.

Are you generally strict or lenient?
Generally, I consider myself lenient. I mean, if someone starts dropping the f-bomb every two seconds and starts harassing someone, then I'll probably get a little more serious ... but that never happens with me, so I'm not worried about it. Of course, if someone's a repeat offender, it's only logical to be stricter about it -- and I have ended up banning people before.

Do you take into account the length of a person's membership when dealing with troublesome members or drama?
Usually not. The thing is, I try to make it quite clear that the rules are there for a reason, so if someone neglects to read them, I shouldn't be responsible for that. Therefore, I might simply warn someone who just joined or someone who's been a member for a year -- and work my way up from there. I typically only run RP sites, and people who tend to join my RP sites are people who have RPed before; my rules are pretty straight-forward and common sense, for the most part, so there's no sense in someone breaking them no matter how long they've been a part of the site.

Do you believe consistency is good or bad?
As others have said, consistency is vital. Being biased is a terrible, terrible thing, and you should be beaten down with a ruler if you're biased toward someone who clearly deserves punishment -- and that doesn't simply mean going easy on your friends. You shouldn't treat someone else more poorly simply because you two aren't good friends. If two people break the same rule in the same way, both should be punished equally.

If you have a warning system, how does it work?
This is where the leniency comes in. I don't really have a problem with people, and as such, I've never actually used the warning bar. I try to stay as fair as possible; when that doesn't work, I get stricter and more serious about it, which would eventually lead to me banning said person. I don't really have a "warning" system as far as the warning bar goes, but I do give plenty of chances for redemption.

What did you think is the best way to manage a forum? (For example, have you found certain methods of interacting with members or giving warnings/bans that seems to work more than others?)
Well, as "interacting with members" was mentioned, I'll use that for an example. If the administrators (or any staff members) are not friendly with the site's members, the members will probably not feel welcome and, as such, leave. Common sense, right? It's also vital for each staff members to be active. Yes, not everyone can be on 24/7, but if you're so busy that you're gone for days at a time, and you need to answer questions, grade applications (for RP sites), or simply converse with your members, having the site isn't a good idea. It might be a good idea to have some sort of staff member(s) to help answer questions and whatnot, but if you do have staff members to assist you ... it's important for them to actually do their job. Basically, if the staff isn't good enough, how in the world is the site supposed to kick off properly?

Are you generally strict or lenient?

I think this question isn't as black and white as it seems. You tell someone you're strict with running a site, and they're not pleased. A "lenient" site seems more fun, because the assumption is there's more to do, and people are more relaxed. So, I'll say I'm neither. I'm firm with the rules we have in place, but depending on individual situations the head admin and I might make exceptions. If necessary, I can be hard-nosed on a subject, or whilst enforcing a particular rule, but I don't think I'm either strict nor lenient.

Do you take into account the length of a person's membership when dealing with troublesome members or drama?

Most definitely. However, we also take into consideration whether they're a constant problem member, what the problem or situation may be, as well as their attitudes in dealing with myself and/or other staff members. However, in terms of warnings, they generally get the same treatment as new members -- a warning, then an increase in warning level, and so on down the warning system. Of course, that is if they've not been warned before. If they have, we do pick up where things were left off.

That said, there are certain situations where some people should just know better -- and those times I am a lot more hard nosed about it. In all honesty, I think it really depends on the situation, and what exactly the trouble or drama entails.

Do you believe consistency is good or bad?

I believe it's a great thing. I don't think you can be 100% consistent, or even should be; sometimes there are situations which call for the use of your judgment, that may not be consistent with past decisions. But I believe that you should be as consistent as possible, and when you do deviate from the norm, you should be ready to eloquently and politely explain your choice to any questioning member, without resorting to "because I'm the admin, that's why."

If you have a warning system, how does it work?

Again, it varies from case to case, but as a general rule is as follows:




What did you think is the best way to manage a forum? (For example, have you found certain methods of interacting with members or giving warnings/bans that seems to work more than others?)

Again, I think it really depends. I think the best way to manage a forum is to be able to talk freely with your members. They should be able to approach even just a single staff member with any concern that they have, without being afraid of retribution for a differing idea, new suggestion, or disagreement with the staff [as long as they're polite about it]. I think you need to be able to walk that fine line of being buddy buddy with your members, but without letting your personal feelings and relationships get in the way of your staffing. Members will see this, and appreciate the fact that they can have a relationship with their staff members, and that favouritism is not allowed.

Exactly. The first site I RP'd on -- to this day -- the admins are very much for favouritism, and I'm still afraid to ask them for anything [even five years after my original joining]. Even if the main admin seems unapproachable [because, think of it, the phrase "head administrator" is a little daunting], it would do well to have a co-admin or gmod that members feel comfortable talking to. That's my role on the site I spoke of earlier.

In terms of rules being to strict, while we don't think our rules are that way, we are definitely open to new ideas, especially when backed by good reasoning. In fact, we just changed a few of our rules this new year to accommodate the fact that the subject matter of our forum isn't as popular as it once was, and whilst we're still active, the overall daily registration is down.

And I agree in terms of cliques. I hate them. However, I think it's sometimes a little bit inevitable, especially on RP forums where not everyone RPs together. I think, however, the solution to that is to be open in OOC areas, and be accepting of new players to your storyline whenever possible [some storylines are closed, but if you have more than one character you can always help a new member feel welcome by offering to play with a character not in a closed line].

Also, moderators should be instructed to do this, too - it annoys the life out of me when the moderators refuse to post, seeing as they're the first ones I turn to if I have a problem and I like to get to know them before said problem happens (most of the time it doesn't, but 'be prepared' is the scout's motto).



I'm not quite so active on the CBox, but I tend to hand out my email a lot, and will MSN for hours with members.