ALWAYS tell the reason of BAN.
warnings work better if you show that all you care is your community and you dont mind giving him a chance to become a member of this community!

Well I am careful when using that tactic. It’s more of a.. “brushing insults off” thing. Such as, we have a picture-drawing facility and Mr. DOA drew a picture of a certain part of the male anatomy and put “<– Smiley” next to it.. rather than booting I simply said “I’m a rocket ship?” – I got the lols, he got bored.. left.

I reckon gagging & ignoring works a lot more than booting. The only time I use the ban button really is for perverts/sexual harassment.

Bat – Ignoring abusive users (as long as the action isn’t detrimental to the community) is nearly always the best course of action. No attention = no gratification = bored user = goodbye user.

Smiley – Yup, this can be an effective tactic but it takes more effort and could backfire if users feeling you are ‘bullying’ another user or being less professional than they may otherwise expect.

I just think there comes a point where even for someone like him, it MUST get boring doing the same old thing all the time. The novelty has to wear off after a while doesn,t it?

There are actually quite a few of the “old” abusers who I never see any more. They arn,t “boot on sight” any more, so I think that has taken the fun out of it for them. When they were, they had to resort to using allsorts of different user names (all of which I have written down) to hide from me. Now they don,t need to bother because they arn,t going to get booted, (well not unless I,m feeling evil)

The other night we had someone from above mentioned site in mine (DOA) – it seems someone is a tad jealous after seeing the chat full (after months of posting on above mentioned boards that it’ll never go anywhere). Abusing, being a general tit – luckily he can’t scroll because if you type too fast it locks the ‘send’ function.

Usually he’d have gotten booted.. then he’d have come back 2 minutes later, and he would do that all night as he’s a child and gets off on the attention.

Instead I just sat there out-witting him at every insult. Not only did the users show support for me by their usual ‘lols’ and such, taking the thunder away from him – in the end he just said ” this I’m bored” and left to return to JC.

A calm approach works better than booting a lot of the time. If they insult you, just turn it into a joke. It’s not fun insulting someone who can’t be insulted.. they leave. And you and your users get a laugh out of it at the same time. Bonus.

We did use to have a user who would “double sign in” and then start rows, claiming to be two different people!

On Just Chat we have this wondeful “gag” feature. I actually prefer to use that rather than eject people, because I find it amusing to picture them sitting there, hammering away on their keyboard, hurling all this abuse, and no one takes a blind bit of notice. Eventually the silly gonk gets bored with the lack of attention/response and leaves.

And yes, some people do indeed have far too much time on their hands. It amazes me the lengths some people will go too to get attention.

I currently have a user who does his best to wind me up every time he comes in. I sit there and chat and don,t take a blind bit of notice of him. I don,t eject him because that would do two things: It would show him that I,m paying attention to him(which is the last thing I want) and by ejecting him, it would give him the impression he has “got to me”.

So I just leave him on gag sitting there wittering away to himself and eventually he gets bored and goes away to play with his toys somewhere else. That, in my opinion is FAR more effective than ejecting him. Some people eh? ,)

Oh and incidentally, the abusive user who posted all over the boards hasn,t reapeared,so Martins tactics do work. Just Chat 1, abusive gonk 0. Shame. ,)

The biggest problem is giving the trolls/abusers any form of acknowledgment. That gives them the attention they crave and a reason to keep coming back for more. If they get their accounts deleted per your tactics and no one gives them the time of day, they almost always grow tired and move on.

Of course, then you have the joyous occasions when they sign up under two different names and argue with “each other.” Yeah, some people have FAR too much time on their hands.

Patrick – Thanks for mentioning Post Remover; I will have to check it out. You make a good point about the benefits of hiding but keeping abusive content should it need to be referred to at a later dat.

Archie – The harder and more inconvenient you make it for someone to cause trouble in your forum, the quicker they will give in. It basically comes down to being a battle of the wills!

Bat – Exactly; most abusers behave that way because they crave attention. If their content is removed before it can be responded to, they will soon lost interest.

Nicole – Yup, some troublemakers can be extremely persistent. It sometimes makes me wonder just what that person could achieve if they only set their mind to something productive rather than dedicating their time to causing trouble in an online community!

Dean – If you have clear site rules, your members cannot complain if you take action when they break them. Perhaps in your situation it would help if moderators were a little more anonymous to prevent disgruntled members knocking on their doors!

Amish – I am glad you have seen the effectiveness of this kind of approach.

Mr Woc – Allowing users to login but not be able to use features may confuse some users, but not your serial troublemakers – they will know exactly what has happened! Like you, I tend to avoid deleting accounts as this makes it easier for the abusive member to re-register and further develop their reputation.

Gemma – I am sure they’ll turn up eventually! I am glad you found the article useful – perhaps it will come in useful in the future.

Koala – I would consider this a form of spam, and would consequently warn or take further action against such users. Unfortunately spammers will crawl out of the woodwork as a forum becomes more popular, and is something you need to ensure you keep on top of.

Hamurabi – Banning a user’s IP isn’t always effective. They may have a dynamic IP address or use proxy servers. As a result it is often far more effective to make it increasingly inconvenient for the abusive member to gain access to the forum and post.

Tahoe – It pays to be prepared; you may want to install the hack as a preventative measure so if trouble does strike, you are well prepared!

Gerard – I always recommend communicating with members that are causing your problems. After all, they may simply not understand the rules or etiquette of your community. When it comes to serial troublemakers though, I take action without wasting time on further, fruitless communication.

TigerTom – You’re right, you shouldn’t waste any emotional energy on such users. You should simply take the necessary action, and move on. Regardless of how often they come back and try to cause trouble.

HostV – If you delete posts without informing the member, you risk the issue cropping up again. It is far better to speak to the member so they are aware that what they are doing is wrong. I only take rudimentary action against members without any communication once they become serial troublemakers.

Frederick – It’s a shame you felt the need to delete all your forums; I don’t think blogs are any more immune to abusive users than forums are.

Eva – You can say that again!