Came across this amazing article which very rightly classifies the users on a forum. See where do you fit.
Source: vBulletin Community Forum - Identify Origins of Forum Drama
You can say that there is a political party like structure in community websites similar to the real world - we have the Conservatives, Liberals, Independents, and Loyalist. Each party has its own set of merits and problems. I created the list in order of management difficulty.
- Conservative users are individuals that are stuck in the past and have or are becoming discontent with how the community is changing to not fit their preference. Members in this party significantly include established users with very vocal opinions. BEWARE! Due to their high level of activity and connections with other members, they must be dealt with in a careful manner, otherwise they can rally other established users to their ideals and cause quite a commotion in your forum – even creating their own rival community.
- Liberals on the other hand are users which look to the future but suggest many but not necessarily needed changes. They become discontent when they see no progress in the community and become easily bored. These users are usually new or have no experience in running a community of their own, so they do not consider the cause and effects of their actions and suggestions – but their enthusiasm should always be welcomed. Overtime (if they stay long enough), they can transition into the conservative party.
- Independents are the individuals who are not involved with any of the forum politics and try to avoid drama as much as possible. These users are either established or new - emphasis on the latter. Their ideals can be swayed to any political party.
- Loyalists are my favorite type of users. As the title suggest, they are loyal and happy with the current administration - the problem arises when you appoint users disliked by the loyalist to your admin team or have betrayed them in some way.
As the “President†of your community, you must be decisive and consistent with your decisions. Try your best to cater to all parties, but consider your overall objective along the process. Remember that it’s IMPOSSIBLE to please everyone, regardless of what approach you take.
Different Characteristics/ Viewpoints
Not everything is black and white when dealing with people. There will always be a grey area when you’re analyzing point of views - what maybe offensive to some, might be perfectly fine with others. Differences of opinions can lead to a flame war. Usually, the topics in which users get heated over are religion, politics, or anything that is deemed controversial or debatable. You must learn how to deal with these types of threads and most importantly the users contributing to them - not to mention you must master the ways of looking at both sides of the arguments.
Attention Seekers
Naturally, human beings are social creatures and need social interactions, feedback, and validations of their worth. Why do you think social networks are the #1 most visited websites? Forums are a great way of expressing oneself, but when does it become too much? When you start seeing people do it in an immature way such as creating threads to receive negative reactions, bringing in events that occurred in the past and trying to revive it again, or trying to rally up the other members just to make themselves look like a leader, then it will become a problem and a nuisance for you and your forum. So try your best to quell users from posting narcissistic threads.
Cliques
I know this sounds very “highschool,†but let’s face the facts, forums, especially young ones, are very susceptible to having a “Gang†or “Clique†mentality due to how the medium is setup. Interacting with people on a daily or weekly basis will eventually, overtime, create a bond between these members. When these members start becoming real close, they might start becoming hostile to newer or even older members.
This will become a great concern for you because the bigger the “clique†is, the more likely they’ll have bigger influence on your forum. It’s imperative that you identify these cliques and determine how you’ll deal with them.
As the administrator of your community, it’s your job to make your forum as friendly to both new and old users alike.
Trolls/Devils
From wikipedia "Troll- someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion." Trolls are born from the crazy in all of us.
There are even creatures worst than trolls - I call these creatures Devils. They like to spread gossip, rumors, and anything that stirs up drama in the forum just to leave a negative atmosphere in the community. Grab your ban hammer and destroy these creatures!
Source: vBulletin Community Forum - Identify Origins of Forum Drama
