Posted by FredT [ 24.175.116.95 ] on May 08, 2005 at 06:14:11:

In Reply to: Might be amusing posted by manualblock on May 07, 2005 at 12:17:00:

I have zero patience with the R le Cat types on audio forums. These forums reflect the real world of diverse personality types, and like the real world you find a broad range of behaviors. Some people are always nice, others are always nasty, most fall somewhere in between. Most of us are abrasive from time to time, but if our overall intentions are good, others find it easy to overlook our bad posts. And if someone tactfully points out that we are out of line, we are able to see that and we respond appropriately in our future posts. But a few unbalanced people somehow decide it's fun to draw attention to themselves by attacking and insulting others. Eventually they become locked into this pattern and couldn't change if they wanted to.

In my early days as an HR manager I thought I could help these people in my organization to change by reasoning with them. Waste of time. I eventually came to recognize the only way to deal with these types was to warn them, which they always object to in their usual aggressive and insulting way, then to fire them when their behavior didn't change. I didn't fire them because they made me uncomfortable and mad, but because of the havoc they caused among their peers. Otherwise productive people would become intimidated in meetings and distracted from their work - good people began to feel stressed, mistakes increased, and productivity declined.

It's the same on an audio forum. One really obnoxious person can chase away the most knowledgable contributors; the people you most want to be active on the forum. If you delete one of their posts they will use the "censorship" card in subsequent posts to create more havoc. So the best remedy is to warn them privately then ban them permanently.

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