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Have you ever been a part of forum drama or dealt with it?

Kale

Kale

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Has anyone ever dealt with or been a part of forum drama? What was the situation?

Yes, I have caused drama and been involved in drama before back during my younger years on forums and the web. So many years ago, and cannot recall any exact situation.
 
Dealt with it, been a part of it, but never caused it, at least not on purpose.

It was always the same or similar scenario: I reply to a thread, state my opinion on a given subject, followed by some random keyboard warrior attacking me on a personal level for it or simply mocking and ridiculing me for my opinion because, apparently, you are not allowed to disagree with anyone on the Internet, even politely, without them going berserk about it and calling in the reinforcements in a form of a forum staff, or other staff members, if the berserker is a staff member.

Staff decided the "winner" based on the popularity or a rank, in case it involved two staff members of different ranks, which means I usually drew the short straw.

Star Trek Wow GIF
 
Absolutely!! Been involved in, dealt with, even accidentally caused, lol. Been involved with big and small forums over the past 25 years or so, definitely had drama over the years :D
 
Yup, it happens. Also happens in the real world too. Whenever you have to co-exist with other humans, drama is bound to happen. I try to stay out of it for the most part though.
 
Whether you loved it or hated it, one thing it always ensured was that you were never bored being there. There was always a show of one sort of another going on and sometimes you were on one side or the other and the other times you were the audience watching the show from afar. I was one of the four admins who ran that place for those who don't know.
 
Dealt with it, been a part of it, never caused it. But it's something the forum I am talking about does it a lot with new members...
But it's a common thing on that forum.
 
Cedric said:
Who here remembers the ZB News Broadcast? Any of ya’ll drama is nothing compared to the NB’s back in the day. :p
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It sounds super familiar...?? I swear I recall this but don't quite remember.
Bluezone777 said:
Whether you loved it or hated it, one thing it always ensured was that you were never bored being there. There was always a show of one sort of another going on and sometimes you were on one side or the other and the other times you were the audience watching the show from afar. I was one of the four admins who ran that place for those who don't know.
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Again swear I recall ZB News Broadcast. I wonder if there's any wayback archive stuff of it. I think it just seems super super familiar.

Ohhh yeah I remember now..


and Bell Tree Forums I do recall for sure

Bell Tree News and Interview on Zathyus News Broadcast

On the vB move of course. News report: http://zathyusnb.com?topic=4025250/ Interview with me: http://zathyusnb.com?topic=4025244/ In the interview I confirmed that the theme will change with the time of day.
www.belltreeforums.com
 
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Kale said:
Has anyone ever dealt with or been a part of forum drama? What was the situation?

Yes, I have caused drama and been involved in drama before back during my younger years on forums and the web. So many years ago, and cannot recall any exact situation.
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Yeah, both watching and being a part of it.
 
I am still surprised Bell Tree is even around. It looks and seems active still in 2022 which I am surprised but not surprised considering it's an Animal Crossing forum.
 
Yes and my way of dealing with it was to resign from aforesaid fora. I must have resigned from more fora than I joined. Some of them are now defunct, which causes me much pleasure.
 
Cedric said:
Who here remembers the ZB News Broadcast? Any of ya’ll drama is nothing compared to the NB’s back in the day. :p
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I do! Was a member :D
Kale said:
Bell Tree
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Unrelated to the conversation but the theme on that forum looks awesome. :clap:

Phillip said:
Dealt with it, been a part of it, never caused it. But it's something the forum I am talking about does it a lot with new members...
But it's a common thing on that forum.
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Drama with new members? Thats a good way to chase people away!
 
Nebulous said:
Drama with new members? Thats a good way to chase people away!
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Yeah totally agree. I never got into posting a lot on there cause of it and then found out I was banned cause the other person was friends with the staff.
 
Phillip said:
Yeah totally agree. I never got into posting a lot on there cause of it and then found out I was banned cause the other person was friends with the staff.
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That sucks, sounds like a place nobody needs to spend time at anyways. Maybe they did you a favor by banning you.
 
Nebulous said:
That sucks, sounds like a place nobody needs to spend time at anyways. Maybe they did you a favor by banning you.
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That's what I am thinking as well. Either way, they ended up shutting down after a year away from it.
 
Nebulous said:
Unrelated to the conversation but the theme on that forum looks awesome. :clap:
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It looks great for sure. Also it's called off topix, after all.

Still I thought that forum closed down years ago...

Anyway... yeah the drama over on that ZB News Broadcast forum was kind of petty thinking back.
 
Some positive drama can help boost activity, if done right and with the right people. If you're unsure how someone would react to being teased, you can try proverbially poking that person a bit to gauge their reaction and work your way from there, either up or back down, being fully prepared to receive a negative reaction. If that happens, don't try to mock and ridicule the person for not being a good sport. Just apologize and back off.

Debate threads are spawning pools for negative drama, and all posters there should steer clear of going after someone on a personal level as a head-bashing weapon for having a different opinion on the subject. Staff members should closely monitor such threads and nip every hint of drama in the bud, before it grows out of control.

I'm still unsure if staff members should even participate in debates, especially when they get heated. I've seen how staff members like to abuse their superior status to win in such debates by provoking the non-staff members into saying or doing something that's against the forum rules, like cursing at them for being arrogant, pompous jerks, so they'd have an excuse to ban them and therefore have the final word, to make their opinion final and no longer open for debate.

Reputation system can also cause drama if (ab)used as a weapon against the unlike-minded individuals, to tell them to shut up. I've seen it happen lots of times. I've also witnessed forum staff condoning such behavior because "it's not against the rules", but at the same time turning a blind eye on blatant rules' violations, when it suited them. Hypocrites.
 
Yes, one reason I try to even stay out of debates mod or not. I just know that those kinda forums are just filled with people calling each other stupid, shut up, you're an idiot, etc. I do think that is a good rule of thumb as a staffer too. Stay out of the debate forums and only get involved if it is going too far.
 
If anyone recalls InvisionFree Skin Zone, I sometimes got involved with some of the drama there. It seems most of the drama was caused by Nicola at the time, but by being such an overly large forum there were multiple contributors. I probably only got involved to riot against Nicola since she was the one who originally restricted me from directly supporting people on the official InvisionFree support board for a pretty stupid reason.
 
Cory said:
If anyone recalls InvisionFree Skin Zone, I sometimes got involved with some of the drama there. It seems most of the drama was caused by Nicola at the time, but by being such an overly large forum there were multiple contributors. I probably only got involved to riot against Nicola since she was the one who originally restricted me from directly supporting people on the official InvisionFree support board for a pretty stupid reason.
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Oh Nicola. She was a true bitch sometimes. 😅
 
Tell me more about this Nicola person. I r curious now. :)
 
Cory said:
If anyone recalls InvisionFree Skin Zone, I sometimes got involved with some of the drama there. It seems most of the drama was caused by Nicola at the time, but by being such an overly large forum there were multiple contributors. I probably only got involved to riot against Nicola since she was the one who originally restricted me from directly supporting people on the official InvisionFree support board for a pretty stupid reason.
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Don't recall being on that forum or that person.
 
Cedric said:
Oh Nicola. She was a true bitch sometimes. 😅
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Indeed she was. Hopefully, she's matured by now.

Smiley said:
Tell me more about this Nicola person. I r curious now. :)
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She was an administrator of InvisionFree Skin Zone, the largest forum on InvisionFree. She was quite the control freak and always had to get her way, she would outright ban people for speaking against her. She was the definition of drama on that forum where when she didn't agree with someone she would cause an uproar.
 
Does anyone remember gamergate? Well... back in 2013 I used to own a Mighty No 9 forum and I had to deal with a bunch of people joining my forum since they were upset with one of the people working on Mighty No 9... They got banned from the official forums and flocked over to my site. I was using phpbb and forgot to set the registrations from immediate activation to admin approval. That was a nightmare to deal with. I think I have the chat logs still with my old staff members on one of my flash drives. Other than that drama, I never had to deal with anything else.
 
Ravenfreak said:
Does anyone remember gamergate? Well... back in 2013 I used to own a Mighty No 9 forum and I had to deal with a bunch of people joining my forum since they were upset with one of the people working on Mighty No 9... They got banned from the official forums and flocked over to my site. I was using phpbb and forgot to set the registrations from immediate activation to admin approval. That was a nightmare to deal with. I think I have the chat logs still with my old staff members on one of my flash drives. Other than that drama, I never had to deal with anything else.
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Most places I was a member/user of banned the topic/discussion of Gamergate due to the drama it'd just cause and be a headache for staff.
 

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