Staffing Rude Guests in the C-Box - How to deal with them?

[Icewolf 258]

This is something I've noticed in the short time I've been running my board, and I've recently seen it on other boards I've looked at, where a 'guest' comes to a site, and posts rude stuff in the c-box, usually an argument over an ad you've placed somewhere. They don't bother leaving any contact details, don't bother telling you which forum they are from (or if they do, they don't bother making it easy by linking their site - I wouldn't mind that, to be honest, because although it may look like they're advertising, they aren't, they'd just be telling you that there's a problem.) They usually try to be anon by calling themselves 'guest' or something, and proceed to tell admins how to run their site.

 

I've also had guests who show an interest in the board, ask tons of questions which would be answered if they read through the information you've already posted, and tell you they don't like a certain rule, or concept you have on your site by claiming it's unfair or something along those lines.

 

I was wondering how you deal with stuff like this because it seems to me that they like trying to get under the skins of admins to cause a fight. I'm not going to get upset with someone because they missed a rule, or haven't read something yet because I understand that sometimes people can be over enthusiastic when they come across a new site, but what is annoying is the attempt at being anonymous or telling the admins how they should run their site. Usually, I've just deleted such messages because they don't look nice to people when they first come to your board.

[Syn 1]

Ban and delete. No response. They don't deserve it and they can't come back unless they have a dynamic IP or a proxy. 

[txernest 0]

Yeah, when I get particularly argumentative guests, I log their IPs, log the convo for context, and delete the messages so people don't have to see the negativity. They're not the kind of people that we want on the site anyway, y'know? If they're causing problems before they've even made a character, then they're going to be more trouble than its worth.

 

Now, because of things like people sharing IPs, IPs changing all the time, and dynamic IPs/proxies, I don't often outright IP-ban. It can cause problems for other people and the most problematic people I've met utilize proxies because they're always getting banned. That's why I log everything I can about the interactions I have with problem people. IP address, email, the way they conducted themselves, etc.

 

I do try to be nice to guests until they're outright rude, and we've had people come into the cbox before and argue points until they get banned.

 

At one point in time, a potential member was bothering us about how the way we ran our site didn't make sense to them and asking for something that we had already told them 'no' on and when they kept going on about it. (And irritating members in the cbox while we were reviewing the app.) Basically they had a character that they wanted to have fingers in ALL the pies with and we were like "yeah, see, that doesn't work here" and told her that the character would never work the way she was written and this wasn't the site for her. And she started arguing in the cbox about it. Like we denied the app, and she insisted about fixing it all the while with us being like "no, seriously, she doesn't work." And then...

 

Oh, hold on.

 

Member: Frankly the mods word is final. That is how this site is run. Endless debates trying to work the rules of a new site around a past character of yours is a pointless debate. If the way we play here isn't to your liking then sorry but we cant bend to everyone who has an exception. Thats the way these work. It wasnt a good match for that character. Filling the Cbox with a debate helps nothing and is unbecoming.

Potential: Member, you aren't my boss.

Potential: Frankly, you could be quiet as I actually try to work with them.

 

Yeah, they got themselves a permanent ban from our site. Don't come in and be rude to our members. Especially when the member in question is one of our younger ones that we're all a bit protective of.

[Dusty 55]

Firstly, remember the Cbox is public and people are watching. 

• Adhere to all your own Cbox rules yourself.
• Note down the IP address and anything else they may have entered by hovering over the ban button.
• Don't inflame the situation or encourage any of your members to be inflammatory. (swearing at them or using derogatory language)
• If they are merely being thoughtless the best way to interact with them is by being polite, friendly and businesslike which often pulls them back into line.
• If the guest is being a pure troll, then ban them and delete their messages.

[Guest Archaic Cyborg]

Cboxes are a magnet for guests who aren't THAT intrested in joining.. and they also want to question 'why' the site is run the way it is. Troublemakers like that need to have the last say, 'everyone is a critic', anonymity is readily availble for drive-by 'ur game sucks, I can run a better one1112!'. Asking questions is faster than reading threads, apparently, too. 

 

You learn to just ignore, delete and ban obvious trolls, negativity/rants, and answer some legit questions with patience and such =D ala 'we cannot change xyz because this is the way we designed the game. If we made an exception, we must make exceptions for everyone who asks in order to be fair, but this game is not a free-for-all."

 

You could also filter the cbox with silly or serious answers to dumb questions! I.e 'is this site active / can i play an OC / are PBs allowed'. I use Monty Python quotes for the filters. :E

[Icewolf 258]

From some of the questions I have been getting, I wonder if the people know anything about the fandom beyond the movies. I have to stop myself from getting annoyed with them, though. I've not had 'is this site active' yet, but I've had things like hi in it, which is usually in the middle of the night.

[Kaycakes 78]

Oh! We got a rude guest on the second day of our opening. I left the message up because it didn't seem like a big deal and was not directed as an assault on anyone. It was merely someone who thought that our site wouldn't anywhere further than "dining room drama" which I had no idea what it meant until one of my co-admins explained it to me. I left it up also out of pure curiosity and because I was amused, plus it fell way back and went out of sight as the cbox rolled along.

 

It's kind of a souvenir for my first site adminning, I won't lie.

 

I like how the others in this thread have dealt with their rude guests so far, too. I have some fall-back plan for dealing with it, particularly argumentative prospective members, which is to simply shut it down. My problem is going to be more that I'm a push-over for those who seem to actually have enthusiasm and do make some effort, asking or messing up without malice. It's just, when it gets to be too much, I'll politely say okay, well, this isn't working, and boot them out. I hope. -_- My temper is pretty freaking bad, lol.

[Morrigan 1,826]

Personally I direct people to more private methods of conversing. I give out my Skype to everyone and if they really want to duke it out and tell me how shitty I am they can do it in private, on skype, where I can easily ignore them and the negativity is gone. Personally it's easily wiped out of the cBox or any other chat room method and I'm not willing to entertain it. I actually do not support advertising forums for that specific reason though, the "you did it wrong" thing.

 

Yeah it may not help me in getting new members but I hate that method and it's more trouble than it's worth.

[EmCrisis 0]

For me , if they really get out of hand, they get banned from the cbox. Rude guests often ruin things for new members who potentially wanna join. I don't allow that on my site. Banning is what i usually do if they keep it up.

[Death Kitten 200]

I use an off site chat for my game, but all the advice still applies. Be polite, be firm, and don't hesitate to ban if they don't get a clue. I usually start with a polite warning in the group chat, then reinforce in private if they don't seem to get it. Side stepping to private isn't an easy option when someone is anon though, so skip to banning if necessary.

 

I don't get so many drive bys, and (sadly) I can't use filters on messages (how I would love to filter all cursing into Klingon 💕). I've been lucky to only have to ban one person, and they earned it hard core.

[Guest Archaic Cyborg]

On 1 January 2017 at 0:52 AM, SithLordOfSnark said:

Lately I've been dealing with guests coming into the C-Box of my sites and bitching about divergences from canon, face claims we choose to use for canons, and other things. Keep in mind that MOST of my sites are AU, so diverging from canon is something that is BOUND to happen.

 

It's gotten to the point where I will literally tell them to f*ck off, because I'm really not in the mood to explain myself to someone that never had any intention of joining anyway.

 

My games are always AU in one way or another, and I aaalllways get idiots bitching 'UR CANON IS WRONG'. No shit, Sherlock. AU = canon differences, wowzers. I thought having an obnoxious 'AU' label plastered everywhere would be explanatory enough! But, apparently not.

[CovertSphinx 710]

I'm doing an experiment where I basically made the chat Member-Only. There IS a guest friendly board that's labeled as such for guests who are serious about any of their questions/concerns.

[Cyn 52]

We've had people arguing over our rules and restrictions too and we've told them what others in here have too. It's our site, our members love it. If you don't like it then please exit left and fins somewhere else.

 

In the case of harassment or rudeness, then it's ban time.

[Indio 11]

Even though just about all the answers guests have about the site are written out in the lore/rules/etc, I answer people's questions anyway just because it feels rude to answer with "It's in xyz here's the link". Part of the reason why I'm an admin is to answer questions anyone might have, even if you don't bother to do your part. I do pass along the link as a "friendly reminder".  

 

I've also had some people who join the site, find something to cause drama over, and let 'er rip in the cbox and see how much shit they can stir up. My rule of thumb is instead carrying on the conversation in the cbox, I let them know this conversation isn't cbox appropriate and direct the conversation to PM or to Skype/AIM me and we'll talk. Usually pot-stirrers will stop once they realize the staff aren't children, but there are some who want to go down in flames. If they continue, their messages are deleted and I notify them that they will be banned from the cbox but are still welcome to contact me through a messaging service.

 

Any arguments regarding the site being too strictly run is usually met with a nicer form of  "I'm sorry you feel that way". We don't give exceptions just because you don't like how we do face claims or lore because, like someone said, we'd have to do it with everyone.

[nianaris 0]

I've actually had a call for a raid on my forum from another site. Some of the members had out right stole complete sprites(Fire Emblem style) or parts of them without asking for permission. I was at work at the time, but was on a smoke break while it started. All of them were pretty chill people except for one, I had quickly cbox banned him only so that didn't fill up quickly with their crud about the time one of my staff members had clued me and another in this might be a raid.

 

We were going to ban and delete any trollish messages, luckily it was just one person. They made an account only to pick a fight some more. I left the thread open but banned them and politely left a post encouraging them to join the site to send me or the moderator I delegated the situation to. It had a happen ending, we removed the images in question and changed the rules to reflect it.

 

The only other time I had a problem was when a banned member used a proxy to get back on the site to trash talk me and brag about getting around the ban. At that time I had a couple new members who for some reason thought they would get banned for asking questions(I'm guessing from a previous site). I deleted his messages as well as banned that IP and explained to them what they had done to get banned and how rare it is for somebody to get banned.