How often do you go to a forum (yours or someone elses) and find a post that really pushes your buttons. As a community administrator, the emotional responses the written word can cause has the potential to bring about an endless round of drama, flouncing and emotional outbursts. Look at this single phrase:- Don't be a jerk On its own, it's not really going to bother a person much, but add a bit of flare and dramatic effect and you can find yourself in the middle of an emotional outburst before you realise it. Let's look at that phrase again. What if it was written like this:- Don't be a jerk! Or how about:- Don't be a jerk Or even:- Don't be a jerk Which one wants you to bash away at the keyboard and rant back the most? Why? The reason really is simple - the smiley attached (or the lack of emotional indication at all) triggers an automatic defensive response in most people. But, really, how do you know that the smiley indicator is a true representation of the emotion behind the words? So, how do you check your emotional responses to statements made in posts?
never. sticks and stones. I'm actually a pretty cold forum admin. Nothing a member does will get me riled up. I don't ban users out of anger, and I don't make posts towards "bad users" in haste
I think there's only one person that pushes my button and that is the fact he's currently still persisting in breathing so until mr sympathy card man does one my button is constantly on. Anyone that says they're buttons can't be pushed is flat out lying, everyone has a breaking point and there's no exception to that rule.
Well, we all have our breaking points... But. Because I have the capability of flying off the handle, I also have a duty to keep that in check. One thing that used to make me laugh was a moderator application that asked the applicant to show incidents of impartiality and discuss how they could remain impartial. I laughed at the question: nobody is bias-free, the application question basically is asking you to lie and say you are. Even if you're apathetic, that's a bias in itself. =) My response there is that I always take the time to handle decisions on a rational basis rather than an emotional one. If I'm mad, I make a list why I'm mad (it's well known in my community that if I start popping out the bullet points I'm agitated or excited about something) and let it go up in the realms of the supermods and other administrators; not in front of the community. But I don't jump to action without at least bouncing it off somebody else and going through the process of making that list. Of course, different admins can get away with different things. There's one community I keep an eye out on (don't participate, they're an offshoot forum and some of my members get agitated by them so I need to be "in the loop" though) where one admin is a total princess. She maintains a public post with regular ranting in it, whether it's directed at her life, the people on her forum (which she habitually calls children to start with and then the language devolves), or even occasionally at my community. If I did something like that in my community, I'd get lynched in minutes, but over there she gets patted on and praised and told what a wonderful human being she is and how brave and special she is for leaving it all hanging out like that (it's amusing to see how many of these advocates names turn grey -- their equivalent of a banned account -- as you look back through this thread, though, and how it's an ever-changing list of names). Lesson: Different communities will tolerate different tones from their admin. My community expects professionalism, so when I have these moments of emotion I flip to a private circle with it; other communities are more lax and forgiving and you can probably wear your heart on your sleeve a bit more. They key for me is making sure that, yes, I am a feeling, breathing human being, that it isn't what determines decisions on how I handle my community. But I'd be a liar, liar, pants on fire if I said it wasn't a factor taken into consideration; it just should never be the sole factor, at least not if you want to have anybody left at the end of the day, because we all tick each other off over something eventually.
If for some reason, a member or post triggers a negative emotion from me, I let my emotion calm down before I deal with it (if it needs dealing with). I try to be as neutral and cool-headed as possible most of the time.
The first I would do is take a step back and ask myself "Have I been a jerk?" and try to be real honest with myself. I'm human, maybe I am having a bad day and that's coming across on the forum. I would try to look at the situation from his point of view and if he's correct the ball is in my court to make things right. I'm not saying anybody should be allowed call an Admin a jerk and get away with it but if it's a fair call then to take unwarrented punitive action against someone speaking the truth would have a very negative effect on my standing within the community. Of course if I haven't been a jerk then I'll slap seven shades of shyte out of him.
I'm the same, I rarely get riled up and I'd never post anything I that wouldn't be prepared to say to someone, face to face.
