Okay, I've seen this issue recently on a couple of boards I play on, so I feel I should ask this question before something like this happens to my board.

Here's the scenario:

I'm on a board where all players need to have their character applications approved before they start to post on the board. Pretty self-explanatory, eh? It's part of pretty much every other board in the multiverse. Great, glad everyone's on the same page!

So, along comes this newbie, and she submits a character application to the community feedback forum (where people can get suggestions from the community on how to fix their profile). Problem? She starts posting on the IC boards before the character's even been approved! To make matters worse, she's also sending members random PMs with her character talking IC to our characters. It's really annoying.

Normally, this sort of thing would most likely result in a banning. My question is: How do you (nicely) tell a member who just isn't "getting it" to go away? One of my problems is that I don't like coming across as mean to anyone. (I would make a horrible boss 'cause I'd never be able to fire anyone!)

Oh, and, yes, the above scenario actually happened, it's so "When Members Go Bad..."

How do I deal humanely with members like the one described above?

Well, you know exactly what the problem is with her, so it's pretty easy to talk to her... Just do it in a nice way. Like, "Hey, I know you may be unfamiliar with our rules and I apologize if anything was unclear, but we don't allow interacting in-character before you're accepted. I hope you can understand!" That's how I would word it. Do you really want her to leave, though? Because... then it might get tricky. I guess you could say "This doesn't seem like the board for you. I hope you find a better one suited to your needs" or something.

Well, sweetie, yo uneed to be a little more firm. Simple as that. I was the same way, I didn't want to step on anyone's toes, but I also wanted to lead. You can't do both unfrotunately.

With my board, I simply don't allow members to post while they're in the Auditioning stage. They can only post in the OOC sections of the board. Period. This avoids that problem. :)

But to deal with it, that's a tough one.

I assume you haven't said anything to her yet? Just llet her know that she's not supposed to post IC until her application is approved. SOmething liek this:

Name;

Please remember that you are not permitted to post IC until your application has been approved. I have deleted all offending posts up until this point. If you continue, I will be forced to impliment furter punishment.

You name here


Nice and professional, non-threatening, but firm.

To avoid this, you could also make two separate "Auditioning" and "Member" groups. The people who aren't accepted are in the Auditioning group, and are only allowed to post in certain forums. Use permission masks to do this, not rules. Once accepted, just move them to the Member group, where they have full access to everything. This doesn't solve the PM issue, but it will take out most of the problems.

I, too, use permissions to force players to wait until their characters are approved. It makes it easy for us as staff so we don't have to go chasing down rogue members' posts.

But as for the PMs, I'd agree, that's a bit harder.

Anyways, Silver Wolf wrote up a good template for sending the member a kind, but firm, message.