Have you been harassed on forums?

[Deleted member 49125]

I feel it’s sad. People get more bold when they can’t see others. They can become bullies. I only had one member that was a major jerk on my own forum. I messaged them privately to tone down some innuendos. They then posted in the public section of my forum, daring me to ban their butt. I deleted the posts when I came back on & banned them ASAP. That fortunately was the only major time.

How do you handle it?

 

[Shortie_]

I have unfortunately recently and in the past had issues with both members and staff on forums. Usually, I can ignore what gets said and no fire back but in some cases, something just has to be said, and if I feel something needs to be said after someone has said something to me or has been quite harassing in the sense that it becomes overwhelming I tend to sit and put a response as politely as I can to defend myself and to voice how I feel about the constant bombardment of harassment. If that fails I will let the staff deal with it or if it's my own forum I will deal with it in the form of a suspension or ban depending on the severity of the problem.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Over the years I've messed with forums, I've been harassed a few times. I was accused of being a thief because I was thought to be the same person as another.

It led to a pretty big fallout and me changing forum software. It was pretty dramatic.

I've been bullied on quite a bit or at least tried to be bullied on. I don't the internet serious enough to be that impacted by it.

At least not back then.

Nowadays, I stay out of topics that make negative people and I try to get along with everyone 🙂

 

[Jay™]

I have been a few times; however, I don't put up with crap online and in person, so I put a stop to it fairly quickly.

 

[Carlos X]

I've had many instances of this. Hell, I've experienced similar stories as everyone in this thread.

- Being accused for stuff i didn't say or do.
- Being accused for being someone else.
- Being accused of meaning one thing, for another thing.
- I argue with some members.

As admin, I've had some problem members. I just had it like a few weeks ago. A member was being a jerk to members and myself, I gave him some leeway to improve, but once he pressed a button, I banned him. He came back, started to attack me and my members, I banned him again. I never heard from him again.

Outside of my forums, I am still getting harassed by a tiny group of man babies who just wouldn't STFU, and leave me alone. Constantly checking my social media, making up garbage posts, gossiping about me... and SEO is picking up on it.

Sigh.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I actually had to ban someone the other day for harassment. It was the first person I've banned in forever (aside from spammers).

He really enjoyed telling me how my forum was a failure and that I was a failure and so on. I was always nice to him from the get-go. He just has some sort of problem if you don't see it his way.

He would had made things toxic.

But I banned him before he could.

 

[Carlos X]

I actually had to ban someone the other day for harassment. It was the first person I've banned in forever (aside from spammers).

He really enjoyed telling me how my forum was a failure and that I was a failure and so on. I was always nice to him from the get-go. He just has some sort of problem if you don't see it his way.

He would had made things toxic.

But I banned him before he could.

I gave you a "Wow," but I've experienced similar many times.

 

[Joshua Farrell]

I can honestly state that I don't love the abuse. Being an admin here for as long as I was, there was some things I wish I wasn't on the receiving end of. One of those cases, being accused of not trying to help out with things, during quite literally my most active year here. This being back when it was the year of, and the following year after Sean Melton sold the forum. I had issues with both fellow staff members (one of the few staff being an admin also on the forum), and several members and former staff, who had it in their mind that because of lack of input from the owner at the time (that being a separate story in itself, honestly), that the best way to get things the way they wanted, was to attempt to get rid of the only person that they thought was in their way.

Eventually, things worked out. Though, the whole situation reeked of betrayal.

 

[Forums Forever]

Back in the early days of forums, harassment was pretty much the common language in many circles. People threw around insults like they were terms of endearment. Paradoxically, I also felt that the Internet in general was less toxic back then in many ways in the sense that the decentralized nature of it made it easier to get away from people or crowds that you did not enjoy. Today, things are so much more centralized that it is much easier for harassers to find and pursue their victims.

 

[MrDawn]

Yeah, there's been several forums where I didn't fit in and ended up leaving them. It happens.

 

[Smokey]

That's happened to me in the past. I've left entire communities due to harassment. When it's the staff doing it, leaving is your only option. When it's members, you can tell a staff member, and if nothing is done, then leaving becomes your only option. I don't tolerate that sort of stuff on my own forum and if it happens, the offender gets banned with the quickness. It's that simple.