I got to enjoy the following emails alongside my breakfast this morning (both from the same individual):
10.10AM
Dont you ever ask me to change the name i use to go into your poxy chat room as the name i use is my name if your idiots that seem to think they are in charge ask me to change my name again i will make it my business to find your governing body and get you removed for discrimination.
10.28AM
ONE OF YOUR CHAT GUIDES IS GOING TO GET YOU BANNED FROM RUNNING ANYTHING BUT A KIDS TEA PARTY WHEN I AM FINISHED NOW AS THE SKABBY LITTLE SHIT THAT YOU ARE AT LEAST HAVE SOME MANNERS AND REPLY.
As we don’t allow any sexual content whatsoever in the chat rooms at Just Chat (including chat names), this user was told to leave and change their name to something other than ‘Randy’ by one of our moderators. It appears they took issue with this and are now demanding restitution.
In cases like this, I don’t respond – no good would come out of it, and besides; when someone uses language like this they don’t deserve a response. Oh, and compared to some emails I get, this guy is a pussycat.
You can reduce the number of abusive emails you receive by making your community harder to join. Prevent anonymity, and make people work to get in. For Just Chat, that would go against what the site stands for – so I just let emails like this stand testament to the fact we’re doing a good job.
PS – In case you were wondering, this person’s real name wasn’t Randy (they forgot to change the Sender Name associated with their email address when writing to complain).
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Glad you added that PS. That’s exactly what I was going to ask.
But, did the moderator know it wasn’t his name? I agree with the policy in general but I can imagine if you ever had someone who is actually named Randy they could be quite upset at it. LOL!
Michelle
It would have been difficult, Michelle. Unfortunately, we can never prove someone’s real name – so our moderators have to make a judgement call. In this case, it would appear that they were correct.
Not to defend the person….but could it not have been a case of an ‘official’ email not matching the ‘unofficial’ name?
For instance – a good friend of mine’s real name is Robert. His email is robert.X@x.com. He goes by the name “Randy” (true story…not just making this up to match your offender here).
What would your admin’s do in this case? his email wouldn’t have matched his name but everyone calls him Randy. Of course, my friend wouldn’t have been quite as obtuse as your ‘Randy’ but you get the drift.
Managing communities / chat rooms is hard work…hats off to the people that do that regularly.
That could of course have been the case (although the Sender Name was very different in this case). It’s a difficult situation – by default, someone using this name at Just Chat will typically be asked to change it (at the discretion of the moderator on duty at the time). If someone claims it’s their real name, then discretion to allow it to remain again lies with the moderator on duty.
That being said, this person did little to encourage us to change our mind.
Makes sense…based on the responses in your original post, I think they should have left too.
Great post! And it is so true. I’ve learned to let the emails roll on over my shoulder and I try to get a good laugh because I get emails 10 times harsher than this all the time. Sometimes I just look for the amusement in another adults immaturity. Taking any of it to heart only causes stress. I too tend to stop replying. Usually I’ll send the one general follow up and that’s it. My favorite so far has been when some guy told me that I wasn’t Homeland Security and I had no right to view his personal and private discussions on his chat wall. Even though our Terms of Service clearly state that we not only have the right to view but to edit or remove as well.
You’re absolutely right…an email like this just means you’re doing your job correctly. Rhino skin is one of the key qualifications for a good community manager!
This is indeed interesting. Thanks for this Martin. Community Management could go crazy if one looks at thinks on a personal level. I do manage Facebook Pages where people come and share links [Spam]. I promptly delete the same.
Regards
Pervara
Hi guys
The post made me laugh, as I get these kind of emails daily, they are either usually abusive or some times veiled threats lol, usually saying they will report me to some body or the police or something, best just to ignore them really as you say no good can come out of it by arguing anyhow.
Woc
“i will make it my business to find your governing body and get you removed for discrimination.”
I love that stuff.
Patrick
an angry person indeed. I get that make it a little bit harder to join, but I have ‘joined’ some forums that require 250 validated posts before you can post a signature. I think there has to be a balance as if you make it too hard to join, no one is going to bother contributing.
I think you may have made the right choice about “randy”.
A thick skin and a good sense of humor. The all caps wins my heart every time. People are just funny. Thanks for this helpful post.
Ah, the good old rage e-mails. I actually enjoy getting them, especially from butt-hurt trolls I’ve out-witted.
I used to take them as a compliment, myself. If they’re that angry that they spend their time sending you abusive e-mails about being removed from the room etc – that means, they think the site is good enough for them to BE there in the first place. They want to be there. That, in my opinion, is a compliment.
I’ll be honest, in my younger days, I used to play with the trolls. Heck, nobody was trollier than I at one point, the age old saying of “never troll a troll” was lost on some of the butt-hurt abusers I used to get, but I often sent them over the edge and forced them into an even more fiery, red-faced, key-board bashing rage at my witty one liner quips directed towards them.
These days, in my new project, I will indeed take a much more professional approach and simply ignore any particularly abusive e-mails/comments, and reply politely to ones who are merely highly annoyed.