I’d like to offer some of my thoughts on the online bullying that occurs here at SKA. But first, I’d like to share a quote from a recent Steve Brock article:
“How to Handle Online Community Member Issues: Embrace Them Until It Hurts
At Mzinga, we think the best communities are ones in which all opinions are welcome and we view all community members as wanting the community to be a success, with robust and dynamic interaction and free of abuse, disruption, or spam. Occasionally, however, we encounter content that violates the Terms of Service or a forum rule. From a best practices perspective, here is how we handle these issues.
Our vision is to do everything we can to help a member become a successful participant (embrace them) until it becomes evident that their purpose it to hurt the community. At that point, the goal becomes one of preventing their interaction.
Unless a post is overtly malicious, we view all initial violations as a member making a mistake: they were unaware of a rule or they let another member make them mad and they attacked them. Since most of the communities we moderate receive high traffic, we view deletions of content as first warnings. If a member sees that their content has been deleted, it is a warning that they have done something wrong and they should consult the rules for guidance. We don’t notify every member when we remove content, as it is our experience that 98% of them know why their content is removed and will adjust their interaction so it doesn’t happen again.
If a member has further violations – of a different rule or the same one – we may send a warning of encouragement to review the forum rules and asking them to make adjustments to comply with them.
If the content is sufficiently malicious, offensive, or it is spam, we gag the account. This means that the member can still read content, but is prevented from participating. A member may have their account opened back up if they write to the moderation manager and ask for reinstatement. Initially, this is almost always granted and the member is provided with a copy of the forum rules for reference. During this process, it is easy to make a distinction between those who are sincere about wanting to stay within the rules and those who aren’t. If we feel that a member is benefitting from our embrace, we continue the education and encouragement process. If the embrace doesn’t change the conduct, there comes a time when the member is permanently prevented from interacting.
Many community software platforms do not have the ability to verify an email address or to track an IP, so a permanently gagged member will sometimes create a new account and go right back to posting violations. Our moderators, assisted by reports from members, are vigilant about looking for members who do this and are able to take rapid action.
If a member is determined to hurt the community through the creation of multiple accounts, trying to hack the site, flooding the violation queue with reports of non-violations, we contact the member’s ISP. The abuse divisions of these companies are very responsive to our reports and if they can’t convince one of their subscribers to stop their actions, they will terminate their Internet accounts.
Embracing community members as a moderation best practice is part of a larger campaign for Internet Citizenship. It is our hope that members use what they have learned about how to interact online and apply it to their lives in the real world.
Are you interested in ways to use Mzinga moderation and customer service in your community? Send us an email or call us and you will be on your way to maximizing your community’s potential.”
WELL SAID STEVE! Unfortunately I have forgotten what my own thoughts were. Have a good day everyone.
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