I'm in the middle of a bit of a debate with some of the moderators of my message board concerning changes to our "disciplinary" policy for troublesome community members. Several people have expressed strong preference towards using simple temporary bans (following warnings) for people who cause trouble on our boards. I'm trying to encourage them to start using the moderation queue more, instead.

I'd like to hear some input from some other community owners who've been using the moderation queue, to see how it's worked in contrast to the older practice of just banning troublesome people.

My argument so far has basically been that the mod queue makes for a more proactive way to deal with troublemakers that can hopefully "rehabilitate" them into contributing more positively in the community. The problem, it seems, is the amount of work that it takes -- or at least, what the other mods are perceiving as extra work. Does it really require a lot of extra work to handle the moderation queue? At the current rates, there wouldn't be more than two or three people in the queue at a time -- at most.

Basically, I'm looking for more arguments to use. Some help would be appreciated.

Hi Dan! My take on your problem is this - if you only have 2 or 3 posts at a time to moderate, that's not a terribly heavy work load, and I think the benefits of moderation outweigh the benefits of banning. Here's why:

1. If you ban people, you're effectively saying "I don't like what you have to say, therefore I'm not going to allow you to express your opinion." It gets anti-free speech when taken too far.

2. People are FAR more likely to respect a moderator who treats them like fellow human beings, and therefore more likely to contribute to your forums in a way that does not offend others. For example, sometimes people act like my 4 year old. If you send them to "time out", they're likely to sit there and stew, and think "this is so unfair!" Occasionally they'll lash out and become even more of a pain. On the other hand, if you take the time to explain what about their behavior you don't like, they're more likely to say "ok - I'm sorry!" and less likely to be a repeat offender. Granted, sometimes a time out is necessary for someone to cool down, but for the most part, if you treat people like intelligent human beings, they're more likely to act like intelligent human beings.

3. If the moderators are opposed to a little extra work, maybe they should reevaluate their commitment to the community. It can be refreshing to really think about why you're involved in something - I think most people will realize that they're part of it for a reason, and though their reasons may change, not knowing why you do something is just as much of a motivation killer as not wanting to do it in the first place.

Anyway, I hope that helps your argument in some way! Let us know how it turns out!

Generally, when I'm deciding whether to moderate or ban someone, I take into consideration their past contributions to the board. If it's someone who went "temporarily insane" but has contributed useful stuff in the past, I'll tend to moderate them. If it's someone who showed up and made a mess off the bat, I might just ban them after a warning. To me, the person who starts off that way will tend to stay a problem in the future.

Another benefit of moderation can be that you let the person "scream into an empty room" for a few posts (in the queue), they realize that their rants aren't appearing, and then they calm down and behave.

Good luck! Hopefully some more folks will post their ideas here as well...we have a wealth of experienced admins here.

Thanks, Laurie and Rosemary! I'll let you know how things turn out.

Well, after some discussion, it seems that most of my moderators have come around to see things my way. Turns out that part of the problem was a misunderstanding about when bans would be applicable (i.e. for blatantly disruptive members who aren't there for discussion). Your suggestions definitely helped paint a better picture about why the moderation queue is useful, though! Thanks again for your advice!

For some reason I think of my old days administrating a Tries server. People would come in and cause a problem, right off the bat, and we would Kick/Ban them. But then if someone we knew was having a bad day and doing stupid things to vent we would just force them to observer for a map and they would get the point.

I agree with everything that was said here. It's all about the person and what was done.

Though non of the forum banning/moderating is even close to as fun as kick/banning people in tribes. It was fun playing and watching their character just dissapear from the server.

Oddly satisfying.

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Originally posted by Jonmark Weber:
Though non of the forum banning/moderating is even close to as fun as kick/banning people in tribes. It was fun playing and watching their character just dissapear from the server.

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That sounds like the "boot" function in Chime. It's very satisfying to see the user disappear from the chat when they get booted. (I've only had a couple of occasions to do it, of course!)

I even found a great little "boot" image to use as the button in the Chime UI!

Ohhh yeah. There is just something satisfying with watching the user get dropped. The best part about the tribes one is that we could taunt them just before kick banning them. Nothing like doing a Bruce Cambell quote just before kick/banning someone.

"Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun!"

Player SoAndSo has been kicked from the server and banned!

Ahhh, those were the days.