Cori, We're pretty lucky in that for the most part, the big drama is all being conducted off-site behind closed doors or is pretty isolated in our Board Biz area. The rest of the site really doesn't know much of what's going on.

I'd like to ask for some help here if you guys are up for it...in the end, we'd like to hire a regular admin to take over our boards (but that's not my issue right here). In the mean time, to clean up this mess, we'd like to bring in outsiders with board admin experience (or super-mods) that you guys might be able to recommend and loan out for a couple of days. We'd like someone not affiliated with our site to read over our rules, read over what has been said and done and then voice their opinions regarding what action we should make next (banning, suspending, etc.,).

We (my husband & I, along with our mods) feel that this would allow those that are trying to blame the current mod/admin team for taking things personally to just deal with the fact that outside professionals, with experience in running a board, but no ties to our site might be the best course of action and force them to just suck it up and deal with it.

Let me know if any of you are interested.

~Katy

PS - in our case, it's the very lack of details, combined with the lies being perpetuated by others and fueled by pure hatred that is what they're all focusing on. Funny...our numbers are surpassing our regular weekday numbers, not even counting the fact that this is a holiday weekend!

The above request for help still stands, but I do have a brief update - we've decided to close down our boards for a bit. I've been dealing with this for a few days now (and feel free to say hello to them, as they're in here as well reading along - that would be the 14 guests reading along).

I'm still more than interested in ideas and suggestions from others of you...especially since I know they're reading along.

sent you a PM

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The Biggest Boards | Political Disgust | JAMOOZA

I would help if I could, but the timing is just really bad for me The kids and I are starting back up to school so I will barely have time to breathe I hope you are able to get some help with this! Please keep us posted on how things are going!

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Hi Katy

First, always keep your chin up; I can totally sympathise with what you're going through - we've been in past situations where we've been stalked, harassed, threatened, lied about, slandered/libelled, attempts to bully us, intimidate and basically cause trouble after banning 'troublesome' members and a moderator too in one case - one of our past members was even the recipient of some cowardly 'hate mail' (via snailmail) from one of these sad, misguided individuals. It's all part of the dynamic world of the forum community.

Above all, never, ever stoop to their level or retaliate in the same way as they do - you are right to take the moral high ground and stay above it. Ignore them & offer a nil response, ban them where you feel it is necessary; don't get into circular, self-defeating, emotionally/physically draining discussions or explanations and concentrate on damage-limitation wherever applicable and possible.

Others are right, once you move on you can put it behind you and remember it's their loss, not yours. Unfortunately some misguided and self-inflated, egotistical banned forum members do think their departure will often 'defeat' or 'deflate' a forum - they will find out that they are not indispensable and you will flourish without them!

Take Care and remember that this bad time will pass - you will look back at it more positively in future.

PS: Did I remind you to 'ignore, ignore, ignore' them?!

PPS: Katy - please PM me if you'd like, I am more than willing to share experiences and strategies in more detail and I'm willing to help you further if needed.

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In situations like this i believe that having a good set of rules is neccesary; but more so - ensuring they are enforced on everyone is very much so key.

At the risk of sounding too hard; i set things straight. On my site we have a disciplinary system by which you are warned, then given an infraction, then a short three hour ban, then a ten hour ban, and then a suspension. There are only so many levels to this because i operate a 24/7 chat room which my staff are charged with policing. For staff the system is simply a three strikes and your out policy. No acceptions. No ifs. Not buts.

I totally believe that sticking by a pre-determined system is both the fairest, and easiest thing to do. Ive had one or two cases where ive had to ban an administrator, and friends from the site - but it had to be done.

As for how much your users need to know about cases - personally we dont disclose information on such matters, and only discuss it via our support ticket system.

Hope that helped... ?

On our forum, a lot of people complain about having to pay for access to download files etc. I generally let them have talk about the situation and just respond to it. If it gets to be like out of control where the conversation is not constructive but like a pissing match i shut it down.

I think that it is important many times to let the stuff air out, because i figure that many other members probably have there own qualms and questions about the same things so its better that they hear your explanation than dream up something themselves or let other people tell them why things are they way they are. If things get personal i just shut it down immediately. We have a ton of new web users on the site and one of the reasons everyone comes is because we try to make it as friendly and non hostile as possible.