Resolving personal conflicts

by **black metal knight** Mon Jul 14, 2008 9:18 pm

Personal conflicts happen in all communities, even online ones. There are certain people you may not get along with or agree with here as any other community, but this should be looked on as a strength and not a weakness. But with this diversity comes responsibility of the staff to keep things civil, and in this we have been soft, hoping members would be able to work out their own personal problems. This doesn't seem to work all the time, so we are going to make a few changes and suggestions for the members here.

1. We will be enforcing the No Insults or Personal Attacks rule with a strong hand. This means if you feel that you are being personally attacked or insulted, you need to report the post in question so we can deal with it. We are also going to ask that you let us handle it and not throw insults or attacks back at the offender, because this makes our job of enforcement of the rules near impossible. How can you expect us to reprimand the offending member when you mount your own counter attack?

2. If you have a personality conflict with another member and you cannot deal with them on the boards, put them on ignore. This is a great feature, use it. Just remember that an internet attack is only successful when the intended victim fights back. If we see a one sided attack going on (meaning you are not fighting back) then we can step in and deal with the situation without complaints since it will be clear to all whom the problem is.

3. If you are attacking, belittling, insulting, trolling or flaming another member, you will be dealt with quickly and decisively. It will not matter if you have been a member for 1 day or 100 days, we will look at the problem and deal with it in an unbiased manner.

4. Veronica is not your mother and I am not your father. We try to look at every situation from an outside perspective. We work very hard at being fair and just in all these situations. But it is very hard when people complain about situations that they themselves are deeply involved in. We cannot babysit every member on the site and step into the middle of every disagreement. This is where we are asking that members step up and take some of the responsibility of keeping this a pleasant site to post at.

Thank you