Some amount of disagreement among community members is probably inevitable. Just as in face-to-face communities, sometimes people get on each other's nerves. Rather than hoping against hope that it won't happen in your community, it's better to plan for problems from the outset and have a strategy in place for dealing with them.
What You Can Do
You can minimize the unpleasantness -- and help douse the flames when it happens -- with a judicious application of software tools and common-sense people skills. Here are five strategies you can use:
1. Choose software that allows you to deal with -- and prevent -- problems. One approach is to use moderation, which is when some or all posts are read and approved by a moderator before they go live. Reading every single post is obviously time-consuming for your community staff, but some software allows you to specify a list of objectionable words, and then it queues for moderation only posts that contain those words. Webcrossing allows you to set a different objectionable word list for each folder, if you wish.
Another tactic is to deny problem users access to some or all of your site, or to withdraw certain privileges. These users can either be denied access completely (you delete their existing user name, and they can't register again), or they can be denied access to a given area within the site (since they're logged in, the software knows who they are and can be programmed to not let them into certain areas). Or you can set it so they can read posts but not post anything themselves. You may not need these tools often, but when you do, they can be lifesavers. You can do this with Access Lists with Webcrossing.
A third approach puts the responsibility in the hands of the users by giving them filtering tools that allow them to block postings from people whom they find difficult. Webcrossing provides a "bozo filter" if you use the default Tabular Message View.
2. Write a watertight "terms of service" document. Require your participants to agree to the document when they register. It doesn't have to be legalistic and scary, nor should it discourage the discussion of issues. But it should specify that attacks on individuals are not permitted. The advantage of having something in writing is that if someone gets unruly and you need to take action, you have an existing document that you can direct them to, and your enforcement actions won't seem arbitrary. Webcrossing's Register Plus plugin allows you to require agreement to your Terms of Service in order to register.
3. Plan a "seeding" period. It's amazing how many new sites skip this step. But it can be crucial for setting the stage and settings expectations for behavior. Before you open your community, invite a couple dozen people to come in behind the scenes. These should be experienced message board participants and people whom you can count on to help you get some interesting conversation going. Besides simply making it seem like "somebody's home" when the public arrives, these folks will set the stage for what will come when the doors open, including being role models for your users-to-come about what kind of behavior is usual and expected.
4. Use facilitators to shape the discussion. Faciliators can model civil disagreement and discussion and deal with problems when they arise. They can deal with your participants via private e-mail and encourage them to work out their issues with each other without making your community an unpleasant place to be. When all else fails, they can use the software tools available to them, as outlined in strategy #1, above. A good facilitator is worth his or her weight in gold!
5. Resign yourself to the fact that you're never going to please everyone. Taking action when things get out of hand is sometimes the only way to prevent your community from self-destructing; your "good" users will usually appreciate your taking action against people who are causing trouble. Otherwise, the positive contributors will get disgusted and may start to spend their time elsewhere. But at the same time, when a facilitator acts with a "cop hat" on, he or she is going to raise the ire of those in your community who have problems with authority, no matter who is wearing the hat. You may get complaints about First Amendment rights and censorship. The trick is to not take it personally and remember that for both you and your participants, everything online feels more intense than it would offline. Thus, if you can encourage people to take a "time out" of a few days to get perspective, it's likely to help a great deal.
Using a combination of Webcrossing tools and good facilitation, you can minimize the flames in your community.
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