Forum Fueds -- Good or Bad?

I manage a small web forum. The forum has around 3500 articles and 550 registered users. It is not SEO or webmaster related.

I've been trying to keep my forum a "nice" place, largely because the forum was attacked a couple of times by Internet trolls who came in and posted hundreds of messages for the sole purpose of annoying the forums tiny user base.

Right now, some of the forum members are fighting with other forum members. This isn't like before, these are "real" posters. They just aren't playing nice with each other. The usual causes are to blame, mostly poor social skills.

I worry that this tension will drive away current and potential forum members. At this point, that forum needs almost every member it can get!

On the other hand, I know that one of the reasons I return to DP so frequently is a frustrated desire to talk some sense into anthonycea/gworld, etc... I know that I will never succeed, but for some insane reason I keep trying.

The forum fueds are actually some sort of bizarre masochistic draw to DP. This confuses me to no end. I sometimes wonder if gworld is a paid poster, because he is extremely effective in getting other members to post -- even if only to correct his seemingly endless stupidity.

My questions are:

When do trolls attract forum members and when do they repel forum members?

When are forum fueds good for a forum and when are they bad for a forum?

Should I try to talk my forum members into behaving better, or should I let the trouble run its course?

What do you think?

 

They attract forum members when they tell their friends to help in the fued, probably when these lose the feud - or something like that.
They are good for a forum if the community is already big, bad if the forum is just starting out.

You can let the trouble continue to run its course, stop it if it gets out of hand.

 

Personally I'd classify the buggers in the same scummy pond as kiddie scripters, spammers and similar low life and boot them out.

Almost everyone has a button that fires them up - politics, religion, late trains,whatever - but if someone is doing nothing but rattling cages to aggravate the existing members I'd IP ban them for life without a second thought.

.

 

Misunderstandings can very easily start and get out of control in forums because of the problems trying to communicate in a "text only" environment.

Can't you just step in and say "This thread's going nowhere... unproductive etc.. and I'll have to close it unless you can bring it to some kind of conclusion..etc"?

 

Hey Will how much is the 700Club paying to come up with this nonsense havent you heard of the ban an delete move.....

All you do is whine and cry, take the good an the bad, its the nature of the game...

BTW this is the introduction forum....Did you just remember who you are, or forgot who you were supposed to be.....

 

Speaking of forum trolls...

 

Just look at the 3,000 post long anti-war thread. It became nothing but a big fued from the 2nd page on

I hope his user name wasn't 5 characters long!

 

and it was started by THE troll of DP. So a troll at times can get a lot of stuff out if you want more pages for the spiders. But there are many times where the troll can be totally abusive to others and should be told to stop or be banned.

 

Nah, he probably meant me.


But, I do like the charachter of this forum, it's kinda the anti-WMW.

 

Discussions are good to share oppinions on various matters but sometimes people try to oppose their views on others by getting really personal and then the discussion is more going to be a discussion for the sake of holding a discussion and result will be not listening to each other, etc.

Of course sometimes a litlle frustration is visible in posts and acts of minor sarcasm that are being made and that's all right as long as things can be picked up from where things started deviating but i have seen posts where things really got out of hand in my oppinion and even if someone made a point about something it's going to be completely ignored because the hostile attitude or ambiance that is been created can not be reversed because of people unforgivingness or because of posts being made not able to return to the point of the neutral dialogue that a discussion perhaps was started from.

My advice to you Will is to step in and tell them to either hold a normal discussion and get back on topic again or otherwise the thread will be locked!!

Escalation is not a far step from frustration and before you know it a lot of people will not return anymore depending on the rest of the content of the forum.

Also other sections of the forum may not run so good anymore as well since it's the same people maybe that are also participating in other discussions and continue their hostile activities overthere maybe even luring others intentially or unintentially in this hostility.

Just some friendly advice

 

Nothing wrong with a little "point, counter-point". It helps to keep the blood flow pumping in the brain and elsewhere. Try not to let it get personal and remember that there are people who will push buttons just for the sake of pushing buttons and there are people who will push buttons just to get you thinking. Nothing wrong with a little thinking now and then.

 

good short term
bad long term

 

How do you mean?

 

because some people act like little bitches and leave when they get their feeling hurt

 

*gulp* I'll plead Guilty!!!

May: Flood the boards with virgin threads.
June: Nasty pictures.
July: GoogleGuy
August: 1337
September: Wacko goes nuts!!!
October: Wacko and 1337 meet!!!
November: Time for da Wacko board!!
December: 5,000th post special, and Digital Point 1337!!!

May-December: New daily wacko threads/Polls!!! Thanks to SiteTutor, er Mike Dammien, er no Blog Maniec, er...what's his newest uzer name??!!!!

January..... I'm taking suggestions!!!!!

 

I like forum feuds. Their cool and they get everyone posting their arguments. There is nothing like a good fight.

 

I agree 100%. I love the way this forum is managed... but there have been some threads where there should of been a harder intervention by the mods. One thing is to say someone is stupid in the heat of a discussion, but racist comments or foul language shouldn't be allowed.

 

Hmmm... I've seen two racist comments here on DP...

 

Yeah... so?