Benali, that's the way I see things, too, generally.
I have the following tools at my disposal for "crowd control":
- "Soft" control - I can harangue someone until they leave permanently or at least stop posting. I've done that a few times, now. And sometimes, amazingly, people want to come back.
- Banning - I can block someone from seeing the board by several means: IP address, email address, or user name.
- Block access to sections selectively: I can make either of the two private sections invisible to certain members. I can also give members fine grained access to sections that they see, such as ability to read, not post; ability to post to an existing discussion; or add ability to "lead", start a new thread. Lastly, I can give any member a very low posts per day quota.
- There is a "warn" feature on this board. I can set a number of times to warn someone before they are temporarily banned. So all I have to do is use the warn function.
The challenge I have before me as board-runner is to distinguish between a personality conflicts and genuinely toxic personalities in making this kind of determination. Another criteria is observing deliberate but less obvious toxic patterns, like using passive aggressive comments instead of outright attacks on others. IOW, constantly being a smartass or condescending without a wink.
One criteria I use is whether the person seems to have fights with people who don't appear to fight with anyone else on the board. I will back off if I think I'm the only one fighting, or that I am provoking the fight. I did this yesterday. Even when some board members can't admit that they were in error, ever, I will, just to get things to come to a close.
Lastly, as always, not putting myself on a pedestal, but the role of board runner is incredibly easy to criticize, and everyone seems to have an opinion and some people think that their opinion should be "the" way that I do things. Opinions are like @$$holes, everyone has one and they all stink! And there are opinions rampant on running this board ranging from "you're a f*cking idiot and you're becoming like the old board owner, let all discussions happen with no control because that's the way that the internet is supposed to be" to "get rid of anything extraneous that detracts from the mission."
So, I just do the best I can to appease and/or satisfy most people. But, basically, I agree with your points.
