Fantastic article John, a heavy hand can chop of your own foot as we all know, but the strategies you have pointed out are excellent examples of how to possibly avoid losing a potentially good member.
Many forums have their trolls and, unfortunately a good member of any such forum can become defensive of themselves and subconsciously take that mode to another forum and post in a similar vein.
I leaned this from my own experience through being on one forum which was just totally inappropriate with a dog eat dog attitude. When I started my forum, I was to heavy handed, and soon learned that this attitude would not work and was not necessary. To earn respect, you have to give respect.
I personally hate banning anyone, so I will be putting into practice some of these strategy’s you have mentioned in you article as well as presenting this article to my fellow Admin.
