I'm slowly disliking my members more and more. Recently a mod went on a power trip and started threatening members with "taking action against them" which was not agreed. I had told her I did not want to get involved but would remove the rate option if the particular users wanted that.
She turned it into a drama fest and had half the forum messaging me to take action and I became the bad guy for removing rates from everyone for a day. She is being praised for offering to help "as a member" since it was not her place as a mod. She clearly threatened them and asked if she could give our punishments and intervene as a mod and was told no but she could discuss it and offer to update their profiles to remove rating IF they WANTED that.
How do you handle drama like this? Do you just let it slide and move on or do you respond to the remarks that are incorrect?
I would respond, probably by creating a short announcement. I would also talk to the mod again as she should have not done that if it was not agreed on.
What is the rating? I can't tell if it's like a rep point or a "disagree", "drama queen", etc.. type rating.
From my personal experience running a board with other staff members, you want to be careful with who you give power to. I had several incidents, much not unlike the one you describe, where I had to step in. If you don't reign in the mods/admins and set in stone how you want YOUR community run, they can and will, run wild which will run off your loyal members.
I was incredibly clear on what help I needed and what she and the other mod could do. All they were suppose to do is assist with removing content that was reported and in violation of the photo sharing rule (can't post another members pic) or if someone posted personal contact info (phone number, address, etc.)
I made this so clear before and after she agreed and she still doesn't get it. She is still inboxing me that I am wrong for not backing her up for wanting to resolve a fight.
She was told this:
"I wouldn't really want intervene unless they are leaking out of the drama llama. I can disable them from being able to post ratings but can not disable one person receiving rates. I really enjoy the ratings which is why I paid extra to have them added to the software package. You can start a meditation chat and add Silva, me and agent into the convo. I'll be leaving for a client's house but can review the messages when I get back. If they both agree to have their ratings disabled I would do that for them."
She responded with this:
"Verbal notice:
This is a conversation based on a resolution before taking any further action against an account.
Purposed resolution. You both agree to stop abusing the ratings system. The issue you have should be handled in the Drama Lama forum. Not by abusing the tools given. Should one or either of you continue to abuse it in revenge as you have been. You will find the tool removed from your account. Other members will still be able to rate you.
Keep the drama to the Lama forum.All moderators will be observing this.
You can choose to acknowledge this message by not acknowledging it the consideration will be that you agree to ratings being removed."
I am so angry that she thought she could take this kind of authority when it was not her place and she was not told to do so. These members were keeping the fight in a private forum for this kind of garbage and I had not received any other complaints. She doesn't like one of the users and was in my inbox every day since being appointed requesting I change her custom title to "cry baby" or ban her from the site for disrespecting her. I have been disrespected by members but I have remained objective about it.
I did end up speaking up. I am just so angry that she is telling users that she was just being nice and helping.
The ratings are things like "like, agree, disagree, funny, drunk, old, etc." and users can rate each post on the forum. I can set each rate to be negative, positive or neutral and there is a board for most positive rates and most negative rates. Rates given and received also show on the users profile.
I have hidden the negative rate board and the popup totals for negative and neutral rates and enabled the ratings with some additions. I also made the drunk rate a neutral rate since I think it's funny and never thought it would be taken so seriously.
I recommend that you do your best to dispel the drama. I don't know all of the details, only what you posted, but it seems to me that your best option is to publicly side with the mod, while privately telling her not to do that again. That way, your forum doesn't look like the staff team is in turmoil. You can tell the members who the moderator made angry that they shouldn't do what they were doing again, but that it wasn't all that bad anyway. Try to be the voice of reason, saying that it's no big deal. As long as you present a strong image of "there is no drama," then there won't be any, because you'll be in control.
Once the situation dies down a bit and the drama is over, I recommend dismissing the mod. That will be a LOT easier to do when you have the situation under control, and aren't in crisis mode.
Haven't had this issue in quite some time, at least not as an administrator/moderator, but I have had this happen from a member's perspective. I was on a Backstreet Boys forum once, and they were having some trouble with someone on YouTube who claimed she was the guys' first ever fans. Luckily the singers themselves and their management/whatever caught on to this and last I remember they conducted an investigation which eventually led to the person's YouTube account being impersonated. All I can do is hope and pray that crap like that doesn't happen on my forum. One incident we did have, though, is sometimes we have problems where members would say, "Oh, you should automatically ban so and so because he/she is constantly breaking rules on other forums, they've been scamming others, etc, and you need to ban them now so they don't bring those problems to your site too." I'm always pissed when someone tells me this, because we have a rule on my forum that whatever happens on another site, ANY site, that a person is causing havoc to other staff on other forums, those problems need to STAY on said forums and not be dragged on to my site. We deal with members on an as-needed basis. Not because of stupid rumors, even if it is true of what all they're doing on another site. We all run our sites differently, and one of my rules is that you don't come on my forum and tell me that people are causing problems on other forums. If they cause trouble on my site, we take action as we see fit. We don't say, "Oh, so and so told us you were permanently banned from Forum Promotion for ban evading, rule breaking, whatever, so we're banning you here so that doesn't happen again.' That's not how I operate.
She already asked to be removed. The users who were on the side she didn't like were arguing that she was over stepping her boundaries and because they are really not well liked in general the entire forum did side with the mod who was in the wrong. I did step in and clarify that she did not have the authority to make the statements that she made and that she was in fact advised against the statements made since the backlash was that I (the site) was the bad guy and she was a golden girl who gracefully stepped down after the site unfairly removed the rating feature from the users and the site was "catering" to the user that the members were fighting with.
I have known most of these posters for over a year. I have only been running this forum for a week but I do know there are some that want to fight. I made a private forum for them and made a rule that they are not allowed to post drama outside of the "drama llama" forum. I also banned a few things they could post to protect user privacy. So far they have been doing well with these rules. I had asked for help only because I am unavailable during the day and want to be sure that content is moved to the DL if needed so it is not mucking up the real forum and any banned content is removed quickly.
I'm really disappointed. I have another member who is helping but also running a business during the day and not as available. I really thought this user would do a good job and did not expect the power to run to her head. I tried to work with her in private but she really had her heart set on beating people with her mod stick that was too short to really reach.<br /><br />-- 11 Mar 2015, 23:00 --<br /><br />I feel the same way Ashley, a lot of the fighting is from a couple of other sites that these members are a part of and I am treating all members equally and only judging based on their contributions to my new site. I'm not interested in a popularity contest and I know some of the members of my site are not well liked and there are various cliques that have moved in from other sites because of the features on lemon-sauced but there are good threads being posted and I'm happy with the forum so far. I did not actually see the same old Merc/Sparks drama in the private forum as a problem until the mod made it a problem.
To be honest I am still confused about the problem, so I'm sorry in advance if I'm in the wrong track. This only happened to me once in another forum, and I was not the admin but only a global moderator. What I did back then was re-investigate the situation, listen to stories from both sides, and consult the situation with fellow global moderators and admins. The decision was then communicated to the parties related.
I assume you are the owner/founder of the forum, so the final decision is in your hands. Do take time to listen and analyze the situation, though. And make the final judgement after discussing it with someone else to avoid bias. Even if you end up making a decision against the moderator, if you're positive it's not appropriate with your ideals and rules of the forum, you have the right to make that call.
You can't please everyone, and not everyone have the same mindset or understanding about rules and the purpose of the forum. If this moderator can't be talked to clarify this problem, I think it's best to let her go. Best done when the problem has been taken care of, I agree with Sinon on that one. Although if she looks like she's going to abuse her mod power, it might be better to remove her power as soon as possible.
Sometimes people take their as a way to show that they are supreme, but they do not like it when they are proven wrong. The best way to deal it is to discuss the matters with the users and staff that causes the drama and make it clear who's side you are on as the admin. You will end up in the people admitting their mistakes or just quitting your forum.
A terrible way would be to let the forum deal with it as it would create more drama, users will go one against another and your forum will go down the abyss.
There is complete revolt going on with members of the particular category where the drama is. They are now raging against having the admin publicly announce the actions taken by the mod were inappropriate. I do believe my wording was influenced by my anger and I regret that. Active members have dropped slightly but not enough for me to budge on my feelings that the mod had acted inappropriately. I do feel it was important to let the users know that the way she behaved was not a representation of the site and in fact she had been clearly instructed other wise by all staff.
I do not want to see this garbage fighting bring down a wonderful forum. There is confusion from members thinking they are in control and get to decide how things are run and there are clearly cliques who are unable to remain unbiased. The fighting in that particular forum category is an embarrassment to the site and if some of them leave as a result of admin decisions it will be for the best.
