UBB.Developers Forums Community Development Promoting Your Community Forum Showcase Hyperuser/Suffocating forum user?

Do any of you have a forum regular who is just too involved? Someone who posts constantly, is logged in 12+ hrs a day, and sort of suffocates others by the sheer volume of posts?

If so, what have you done to manage this type of person?

Aside from wishing for a hack to limit the # of posts a person can make per day, I have emailed our user - which only results in email bombing campaigns against me. He has a lot of influence, if you will, so banning him is not an option.

Other thoughts?

Heh, I have quite a few users that do that (only not nearly to that extent) so it evens out really well for me. Everyone keeps active, and the others post more because everyone else is.

I dunno about the 12 hours a day thing though, that seems like way to much time on the computer. I guess the best thing to do is just let him do it, maybe he'll get sick of it eventually. Or better yet, post more yourself, or encourage others to post more by having contests and rewards for more quality posts.

We had someone who managed to get... About 3000 posts in 1-2 months :|. Most of the topics on the board ended up being between him and one other member, who we banned for about 5 days (but for a different reason -- spamming our site on another board). We'll probably get 'Joe' back when we open our 6.3 (when it's released) since he's a school m8, but I dunno what you can do.

My members seem to be heavily influenced on the "quality over quantity" quote.

At larger boards though, it can get out of hand. The member might be SPAMming. Or maybe the member is just really into your message board. It really depends on the member.

~Jon

on my personal boards, i kinda like having 'crazy' members like that -- makes everything a little more lively, and there's always something new.

but, on my corporate boards... it does get to be a hassle, and after awhile 'enough is enough' so to speak.

a quick fix is just really bumping up your flood control time. maybe even 3-5 mintues, if need be.

if thats too drastic, you might just try PMing the person -- find out whats up. maybe ask them to limit their posting barrage to ONE forum on your boards (possibly a 'misc' forum)

We tried to handle this tactfully - I privately emailed the user. He was very offended, to put it mildly. He disappeared for a week. Someone asked where he was on one of the boards, which provoked him.

He lashed out, exploded, said he was targeted and singled out, chastised me and our mods, and just generally caused major problems which we are still feeling.

Another mod locked the 54-reply thread, then the nasty emails started.

So this really backfired. But the good thing is he's on strike 2, one more and this problem will be solved for us, repercussions be damned.

Another approach (too late for this particular case) would be to try to get him involved in working on some project for your site. If you could keep him busy enough, he wouldn't have time to post a lot.

I tend to agree with Rob, I could use a few crazy posters myself, it keeps the action moving But like DaveL said, give them something to do, like head up a project or something to feed their need for attention and get somethings done on your site that you don't have time for

Crazy posters aren't that bad. They can be good at times. Keep conversation up. But being logged in 12+ hours a day on that one forum is too long.

Well, the saga continues. After our email war a few weeks ago, this user finally got disgusted enough to do something. :rolleyes:

He got himself a domain, a server, and vBulletin and started his own forum.

He spent days on end manually harvesting our reader email addresses by clicking on email links, profiles, and homepage icons. Along with a few other guys, they got things rolling and sent out an email inviting everyone over.

No doubt we'll lose some hits, but we now have one less major frickin' headache to worry about; and by virtue of him leaving the posting quality of our board in question has already increased.

There's a certain type of board troll who has to be at the center of attention, and believes he has a right to be. They can wreck a good board if you let them -- if they don't respond to a nice request to chill, then you've gotta ban them. Influence or not, most other users will usually be understanding.

Users like that are the ones that keep your jobs as administrators and moderators busy.

The important thing to consider is whether or not the user creates value for the forum. Nobody likes when someone responds to every post -- but adds little in terms of constructive conversation. On the other hand, sometimes the traffic helps keep the conversation going.

In many cases, frequent posters want to be accepted by your community and recognized as a regular. When you "confront" a user like this about posting too much or being annoying, in a sense you are rejecting them, which is bad, which is why dealing with them is a dicey situation.

Giving them something else to do will help to occupy their time, as well as may them feel more welcome.

Of course there is the other type of user, that wants to be the center of attention.

If the user adds value to the forum, try to keep them, but try to break their habit of posting endlessly. If the user doesn't add value, then they are expendable, and you should try to get rid of them in a way that is the least disruptive to your community.

Here's one for y'all... what do you do with a poster whose grammar and spelling is so atrocious that understanding ANY of what is posted is near impossible?? ... It's not as if this poster CAN'T post properly... It is that they have developed this "style"... and are damn proud of it!... yes, there is a little bit of a language thing going on... but not as bad as is portrayed... I have privately emailed the individual and asked that they please post properly... "we all really enjoy your posts... blahblahblah... sometimes difficult to understand... blahblahblah... help us out... yadayadayada.... " ... and I got it right back in the face... :rolleyes: ... this person went around to a bunch of other boards slamming my board and saying that I was banning her etc... (which I never did do)... she IS very proud of how many sites she has been banned from... nightmare!... For the most part, I just ignored this poster... skip over her posts... but it is annoying... I DON'T want to ban her... that would feed her and she would go around trashing my board... but I really don't want potential new members to think that her posts are representative of the quality of posts at my board... know what I mean?

we have a poster that bumps old topics alot after he replys to new ones, at one point last night month old topics where on page one of our off topic forum Oo, i had to have a lil talk with him..

Reading this thread is rather refreshing.

Messageboard communities can really bring out some personalities.

I think one of my biggest peeves is when a small group of members try to act like moderators. (Trust me--they ain't moderating material! )

I also have one member (who is also in the above group) who likes to post in quite a few topics--and usually her posts are, "I agree."

I've decided, however, that she is a lonely young lady who probably doesn't have a lot of friends IRL. So if the board helps her to be part of something, I just ignore her and move on.

I do have one dicey situation where a member who left in a huff has come back. She's caused problems a couple of times. Like someone described, she has a lot of influence.

She was a moderator, but she got when I tried to tell her that deleting posts that start a controversy--leaving the subsequent posts dangling--is NOT what we want to do.

So she left, and I removed her as moderator. I probably should've announced something, but I didn't. Sure enough, I soon had a "Where's ___" thread posted by another member.

I went in and posted and said that she decided to take a break from the board (her words). Then some of her buddies tried to bring issues into it--and all of a sudden, we had a board battle.

Ironically, she also created a board for herself--and recruited a small group of people from my site over to hers. She calls it, and I kid you not, the "no slam zone for _____". :rolleyes:

(She felt that she was being picked on ... she's the type who would zing someone with a subtle insult; for most, it'd go over their heads; for some, they called her on it ... and then she'd cry wolf--saying she was being picked on)

Her board must be pretty boring because she came back to mine a couple weeks ago and took over a thread.

With problem posters, I've taken the subtle route, and I've taken the blunt. I don't know if there is a right/wrong way--especially with those who have a screw-loose.

One other rambling thought--I've pretty much accepted the spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors that members make. What drives me crazy: ALL CAPS, too big of font (I have a hack installed that allows for font size to be altered), and broken UBB code (especially with the quotes).

Yeah, I know the sort you mean. There's one who does that over on the UD forums from time-to-time. It did get quite silly at one point with an entire thread getting side-tracked into non-native-English speakers saying they couldn't read it (along with a lot of English speakers). They did sort of get the hint, and the posts are slightly more readble now, although I tend to ignore most of them, since they never say anything useful anyway.

Since you've already tried talking to them, I don't know what else to suggest.

And then there are people who post long rambling paragraphs with lots of ..., rather than using sentences and white space to enhance readability.

MMMMM.... yes... quite annoying.... isn't it? ....

Yes it is annoying. But what can ya do? *shrugs*

well, from what i can gather...

1) this poster is a problem
2) you spoke to them
3) the problems got worse
4) she bad mouthed your board

step 5, in my mind, would be to remove the poster. she's already treating your boards as a place she was banned from and is trying to 'avenge' his dishonor upon.

step 5 could be a repeate of step 2, if you want. speak with them, explain your situation, yadda yadda...

but, if that doesnt work, then id stand with my step 5, and just eliminate the problem at the source.

if a poster isnt contributing to their boards and, worse yet, they're disrupting them, they're not someone you need on them at all.