Staffing Flood of "trolls" ?

[Scout 26]

My site has been open around two months now. We're small, but our core member base has been amazing and active. We're a marvel based site, set right before Infinity War, and recently I've had a horrible time with members. Since the hype for Infinity War started right before its release, I've had an influx of people coming through my site, which normally would be great, except all of these people are causing problems. In the past two weeks I have had to ban two members for copy pasting applications straight from wikipedia, another member for being belligerent in the discord, and another member who joined, demanded that I share skin codes with them - demanded that I link them to everything on the site - and then posted an application that was again copy pasted from wikipedia. They promptly cussed me out when the application was denied. I have been running sites for years and years now, seriously for the past four years, and have done mod work before that. 

 

I have NEVER had so many issues with this, with members who have no regard for how a role play works, refuse to even read the rules, and seem to be just around to stir the pot! I have changed our site rules to make sure that things are clearly spelled out, but this still seems to happen once a week! 

 

Has anybody else experienced this lately? Is it just new fans coming into the marvel genre with infinity war hype? Are trolls out to get us? How do you handle belligerent potential members?

[Uaithne 543]

The curse of a popular genre.

 

The thing is that there are a wide variety of RPers out there and not everybody adheres to the social customs that we do on this part of the internet.  So you get folks who come from diverse RPing backgrounds or who have very little RP experience who get to your site by googling "[popular genre] roleplay."

 

In some places, copying and pasting from wikipedia is perfectly fine because the application is not about the member's interpretation and representation of the character as much as it is a general "who is this character?".  Does that make sense?  I'm trying to come up with an analogy to illustrate what I'm saying but nothing worthwhile is coming to mind.

 

Back in the day many years ago, I ran a Hunger Games site in the heyday of the genre.  We got lots of people who google searched "Hunger Games roleplay" and came upon our doorsteps.  Not everybody knew the ins and outs of RPing as we know it.  When faced with a situation such as this, it's helpful to be very clear and upfront about it in the rules or some prominent part of board documentation.  Acknowledging that not everybody has the same RP background but they'll be expected to adhere to the rules and customs of the site in order to integrate into the board is important.  Obviously you wouldn't write it like that.  But this helps give people some guidance so that they're aware that things don't run like they're used to it running and that you expect people to go along with how things are done in these parts of the internet.

 

Unfortunately you're going to end up with people who don't read the rules, or who don't read the board documentation.  That's inevitable.  But if somebody signs up and posts an app, they are ultimately responsible for the documentation that they're supposed to read.  It helps to give them a friendly reminder at first and then be tougher on them when they either refuse or can't follow the basic steps.

 

It's not really a troll thing as much as it is a different RP culture thing.  At least in my experience.

[Scout 26]

@Uaithne Thanks so much for your input here! I never really thought about it that way before! I think you're right, a lot of people are moving from "chat based" or other types of RP over to forums when big things happen / genres get popular. I'll take your advice and use it to try to make my rules more concise, and let the admin team know how to respond to these issues. I HATE having to deny people, especially because I don't want a "reputation" as a site that denies a lot of applications. I think I'll try to come up with some sort of  response to people who seem very confused and/or disruptive to the community so that all site staff are on the same page about this!

[To The Minamobile 14]

In my experience, when you're running a fandom site, and something big happens within the fandom – e.g. a new Marvel movie coming out – you'll inevitably get an influx of members with their own new interest in the genre. The problem is, like @Uaithne said, with that sheer numbers game comes an increased likelihood that you'll get problematic members, particularly people who are maybe less experienced or who've come from places with wildly different site culture.

 

Honestly, the fact that you're getting all of these people is (although it may seem odd for me to say it) actually a really good sign about the health and popularity of your site. If the problematic members are noticing your site and think it's interesting enough to take a crack at, then so inevitably will people who are much more suited to your community. Look on the bright side: Your site brings all the members to the yard. It's just that you've got the occasional bad egg for every dozen.

[Sage 289]

@Uaithne and @To The Minamobile are really spot on here. The only fandom rp genre I stick to is Sailor Moon, and any time there's big news in the community, like when the new anime came out, we get an influx of the "troll" type wannabe members that just don't know how things work. They're just hyped up for the new whatever (and in a genre that rarely gets new things, it's huge news) and want to feed the hype. Usually, if you can identify these kinds of players early on, you can flag them for it and kind of write them off. It's...not a nice thing to do? But it gets exhausting real fast when they all flood you at once. 

 

Other than that, the only thing you can really do is just be clear in your rules about what's not gonna fly, and anytime it happens, just link them to the rules so you don't have to keep explaining yourself over and over. And just weather the storm - it'll be over sooner rather than later.