The "What would you do?" Game!

This is a new one I just thought of. I will give a scenario and you will respond with how you would handle it. Then give your own scenario and the next poster will go, and so on. I suppose it doesn't have to be modertator-specific, but maybe at least until we run out of different scenarios.



A member joins your forum. They "really like" the forum. They're heavily contributing to it and are very active. The problem is that their posts are not of the highest quality. While on topic most of the time, they can still be considered spam or chain-posting. You get a few complaints from your other members about them, but they aren't technically breaking any rules.

 

We get these kinds of users from time to time, and while it's grab-your-hair-and-tear-it-out annoying to see, we're pretty much given a bit of leeway to scrutinize said user to straighten up their words a bit more in order to make it a bit more readable.

So what would you do if you were contending with spam posts, but you're the only available mod when you receive a PM from a regular user asking for your help with something?

 

Respond in a new tab to the user that you are really busy dealing with bots at the moment and that when you have a second to breathe, you'll deal with his/her problem.

Person posts a potentially offensive racist picture in a section which is hidden to the public. (I'll show you the example, if you want... it's the Sun Times "what do we all have in common" shooped pic about stealing bikes)

 

I would get rid of it, and admonish the user that hateful posts are still against the rules, even in the private section.

What would you do if someone was posting great content, but every post had at least one deeplink to their site?

 

A good, thoughtful piece of writing is frequently valued at a few cents a word. A permanent deeplink on a PR0 page is a few dollars at best. It's a good trade if the link adds value.

Your most active member is proud to be a part of your forum, a donor and is sure to greet and get to know everyone. However, she eventually turns caustic, harassing people she doesn't like off of your forum as if desiring solely to keep it to a 'manageable size'. Turning to stricter rules results in her using those rules as a club and baiting people into violating them. What do you do?

 

Oh - fun game!

I think I'd try out that 'tachy goes coventry' function of vBulletin.

What would you do if you were absolutely certain that someone was inventing all their long tales of woe, but you had no smoking gun - and the forum members were all heaping sympathy and prayers on them and making noises about taking up a collection to help them out?

 

I've had this happen on my forum, actually; I sent private messages to the people who responded to the poster with the tale of woe and advised them not to send any money until I had checked the guy out. Sure enough, he was a scammer, but no one sent anything.

What would you do if an otherwise knowledgeable and helpful member started inciting others to misbehave simply because he thought it was funny to irritate you?

 

I would go annoy the user for trying to annoy me.

So, what would you do if the server you were hosted on had a meltdown and your only backup that worked was 12 months old?

 

I'd probably go on a insane rampage through my room. But no, really I'd probably upload the backup from 12 months ago and look for a new server. If that doesn't work out I'd probably start fresh on a new and more reliable server.

What would you do if:

A new gang of members goes throughout your forum posting up illegal downloads, pornographic content, and other pieces that violate your software's Terms of Service? This happens when your forum is at the most active and most of staff is busy at work or on vacation?

 

By then concerned users would probably have emailed me about the inappropriate content, so I'd temporarily deputize one or two, give them a crash course on how to delete, and work long into the night cleaning things up.

What would you do if you were on vacation when one of your staff called saying the site was down, but you couldn't get to a computer?

 

That actually happened to me when the opening show for U2's last tour was posted on my site. Users swarmed it and brought our little server to it's knees. I had to call our host when I was out in the middle of nowhere driving home from the opening show. My hubby took pictures of me leaning against these rocks on the phone with our host with this beautiful view into a canyon in the background.

What would you do if your two favorite mods got into a disagreement and each said they wouldn't stay if you didn't get rid of the other?

 

I would try to explain to them that their decision and threat is immature and won't result in the best outcome for the site. I would convince them that they are both imperative to the success of the forum and I would like to keep them both, regardless of their interpersonal disputes.

What would you do if you had a gift exchange, and one member purposely ignored all correspondence and didn't visit the forum, and ultimately received a gift without sending one to their assigned recipient?

 

We are adults here, deal with it. Worse things have happened.



What do you do if your spending too much time on the forum and your spouse gets a boyfriend/girlfriend?

 

I'll slap shit out of him and leave him castrated...


What if a Admin you're working with revokes your admin permissions and leaves the site with out telling you?

 

Really? They sign up specifically for the gift exchange and then intentionally bail out just to scam their recipient, and you don't do anything about it? I'm surprised, really.

We're talking about an elderly community, meaning an innocent old lady is the one who was "scammed".

I guess there really isn't anything I could do. If the community hadn't launched yet, I would restart it on my own. If it was already going though, then I would..... probably do the same thing. You say the other admin leaves the site, so there's nothing stopping me from diverting the membership to my own creation.

What would you do if you were being harassed via e-mail by a group of members who are revolting against your community because they were banned?

 

Mark them as spam in my mailbox so that I wouldn't see their emails.

What would you do if a few of your mods were trying to revolt against you and turn members away from the site?

 

Time for a new moderator team.

What would you do if another forum orchestrated an attack against yours?

 

That happened on a forum I used to help moderate except it was the other way around. Someone accidentally revealed a linkback to another forum and the members saw it and saw that the other forum was making fun of people in our members picture thread. The members then took it upon themselves to get back at them by trolling their forum. We let them have a little bit of fun for like an hour and then made them stop.

What would you do if someone keeps spamming your forum with porn and using a proxy to make new accounts?

 

Halt new user registrations temporarily, then implement a new security measure or two ASAP.


Let's say that you run a gaming community, so more than just a webserver is being paid for. You've got a fairly decent job, and a few good members are donating faithfully, every month. It's not much, but you can keep the payments up. Then you find out you're getting laid off, and you know the donations may not even pay for the web server. What would you do?

 

ask for donations off other members, and in return, give them special privelidges on your forum, and you can also be paid to put ads on your forum cant you, money can come from that, remove things that you have to pay for but really dont need

(although my forums are free hosted anyway so dont have problems like that)


what would you do if one of your members was constantly complaining about things, demanding a bigger pm inbox, different games in the arcade, never read the stickies but demanded to know why they werent told about important things...