Do you have "cliquey" members?

[Tom]

If you own a decently sized, fairly active forum with a nice member count, you probably know what member cliques are.



In short, member cliques are a group of members who are not open to new people, change and just think they are superior to all else.



How do you handle these kinds of members?

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

I dont mind them if they arent rude to others. If they are then thats when I will say something.

I do find it off putting though when I join a new forum and I try to get involved in conversations and the people just quote each other and totally disregard my posts. But like I said, there isnt really much you can do about that as long as they arent out right treating the new members badly.

 

[Bluezone777]

We don't have anything like this on Rapture and I am glad because it's terrible when you have cliques take over because it really ruins the whole idea of a community when mini communities form from within your board that don't want outsiders to have any way of fitting in.

 

[Peace2]

You don't have to own a forum to recognize cliquey members on messageboards.

What bugs me about them is their inability to:

speak for themselves

think for themselves

think outside of their friend's opinion

form an opinion that didn't originate from their friend



The things that really bug me about them is:



They defend their friend at all times

They are so co-dependent to the point where they can't join a board without asking one of their friends to keep them company.

They're disrespectful to people who even so much as seem like someone is being mean to them.



It sucks as an admin to see such a group I suppose..you can't really tell them how you REALLY feel without breaking one of your own rules.

 

[Skillet]

Yeah, sometimes I see it. As long as they don't infringe any rules, it doesn't bug me. Let's be honest; we all have people we like more than others. Those people just act on it more than the rest.

 

[Kingmush]

I see it a lot in other forums (for some reason especially more larger forums). As for my forum...honestly a lot of my members are like that in terms of we all get into a huge MSN chat like everyday and chat it up but on the forum they are pretty nice to new members and invite others.

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

On HUGE forums (like digital point) I can see why people do this, because if you want to get to know someone, you need to latch on to a couple people otherwise you will just be lost in a sea of people.

On smaller forums, there isn't really a point.