I'm still looking for inspiration to rebuild my board. Unfortunately, I had to deal with quite a number of problematic members. I was wondering if any of you have any horror stories to share about problematic members you had to deal with as just a member or a member of staff.

The members I hate are the ones that think it's cool to be pessimistic-tough-guys. Not sure if any other admins can relate, but they ALWAYS find problems in EVERYTHING and then when you fix it or improve it, they never say thank you or anything, they just find something else to complain about.

Does anyone know the type I'm talking about?

You get those ones who create their own little gang, which they think is so much cooler than the administration. They try breaking the rules, or making their characters immune to the rules and you end up having to ban them for the good of the site. But usually, it's at the expense of everyone's happiness.

I know exactly what type of members you two are talking about. One of the problems I prayed I did not have to deal with on my board was a certain member. I've known him on the other XIN RPBs. He was a mix of the wannabe "pessimistic tough guy" and the type that thought he was immune to the rules. He's one of the core reasons that XIN-themed RPing has gone down the septic tank.

Oh my gods, I've had to deal with that years ago.

It had me constantly headdesking until I finally laid down the law. Ughhh...

When I rebuild, the one major problematic member I had to deal with, automatic ban hammer... Also, it's not everyday one gets a member who's seems to be a closet sociopath IRL. Ever since the problem member caused me much damage, I kept a profile on him for future reference. I cross-referenced all the information from all the stunts he pulled, testimony from members that knew him from other boards, etc, with the criteria of a sociopath. The member met all the criteria...

I have a few of those on my site, one imparticular. I've gtten to where I'm ignoring them. They're the only ones with a problem. Well, voicing it, anyway.

My biggest pet peeve when it comes to members is players who just can't take constructive criticism. They don't want to hear that their character is too perfect. They don't want to hear that their character is not plausible. Basically, they just want to hear that they're wonderful, and please please, join another character, so that I can have the pleasure of reading some more exquisitely written bull.

And if the inability to absorb constructive criticism comes with a complete lack of grasp on reality... just shoot me now.

We had a problematic member on another forum I administered who was the admins best friend in RL, which caused endless amounts of problems. She was a big fan of sex scenes with characters (and with members in RL where she would cyber) and she started a massive flame war at one point with another problematic member.

We warned her that if she did anything on that scale again then she'd be banned and she understood. A few weeks later, she applied for an admin position and then PM'd me about it. I said that she shouldn't of done that as it lessens her chances and then left it at that.

We chose our mods, and she was not one of them. I got a PM from her asking why. I said that it was because she started the flame war and therefore wasn't applicable because it wasn't that long ago it happened. All the admins agreed that it was the right thing to do and she wouldn't be an admin.

Two days later the head admin made problem child an admin, thus undermiming the applications and making them worthless. It all went to pot from there. Over the course of several months, she...

'changed the rules without prior consent'
'changed the name of our site without telling anyone, so we thought the site was shutdown'
'started a massive drama attack which ended up her banning a member'
'begged me for c-sex'
'wouldn't take no for an answer'

In the end the admins got sick of her and we gave her the royal boot up the bum, knocking her off the admin position. She basically cried to the head admin (her best friend) and begged for the position back. Needless to say, she got it back. Things went down the pot from there as she changed the plot etc. etc. She was booted out and given a permanent ban.

Eventually she managed to get back into the site by begging to the admin and most of the members had enough and upped sticks, moved on to another site. I stayed because I couldn't find another site. But all that went to pot when she was given another admin position.

I'm not entirely sure what happened then because I left. But trouble-features is still there. I went back to the site again for old times sake and she's behaving herself now, which is something. Then I look at my inbox and end up finding a message from her, begging for c-sex. I promptly left the site again.

First of all Madman, the fact that she was begging you for things like that, is sick.

On another note, the worst member I've seen on one of my sites was a girl that couldn't seem to post with proper grammar. Granted, we're willing to work with people whose first language isn't english. We're willing to work with people who are starting out in Rping, but this girl didn't have any of those problems.

So here's the story; she started out with an application that was acceptable it had a few grammatical errors, but most of them seemed more like typos. The head admin accepted her.

Her first few posts were fine until suddenly her grammar started to get worse and worse. Eventually, no one wanted to play with her because it was so bad. The head admin PMed her a few times asking her what she could do to help. When the member just replied that she would do better, that was accepted. The members posts then went right back to being fine. She was using proper grammar and spelling, however a week later we were back to the same old thing. The head admin PMed her a second time and she said she would work on it and the process started over again; her grammar was fine for a week then went backto the horrible grammar.

All the while she was whining that no one would RP with her.

The Admin finally sent her a last warning; telling her that her grammar had to improve and stay improved if she wanted to continue RPing at that site. She said she understood, but yet again it improved for a week then quickly went back to the bad grammar. Her characters passwords were changed and she was booted from the site.

This however, didn't keep her away. Because of the actions that were taken the member started attacking our admin on the c-box, which ended up creating a massive snowball effect. Our head admin was very perfessional and tried to ignore the insults, but the members that were fed up with the bad member and were quite loyal friends to the admin started to rise to the admins defense. I'm sorry to say that I was one of the members that stooped to her level. She had the gall to get one of her 'friends' (still to this day we don't know whether it was someone else or just her using a different name) to start throwing insults and it poisoned the site. No one was posting and no one was playing anymore.

Unfortunately, this ended with the closing of the site. The head admin did a revamp and opened up version 2.0. Some new rules were added. If there were any attacks on the C-box they were to be ignored or told to take it up with the admin. Any members that decided to make the jump from V1.0 to V2.0 were prompty imformed of the rule changes.

Oh, but the fun doesn't stop there. Once the new site was opened a new character applied with a very similar e-mail address and IP address. Now the member that had started all of this had said she was a college student. There was no reason to doubt her. This new member, however, said she was a working mom at age 17 with three kids (Pff). Whatever, we knew who she was we really didn't care what her story was.

Well, we tried to take the high road and give her a second chance, all this time not letting on that we knew exactly who she was. The entire process started over again; bad grammar, a PM, a week of improvement, and then bad grammar again. Finally, the admin told her we knew who she was and she asked her to leave without a fuss. Did she? I think not. Instead she went onto our c-box and started to start the same old stuff, but this time everyone ignored her. She left and we haven't heard from her since.

Alright sorry for that really long story, but that one member has been the only problematic person we've had. I know some of you are going to wonder, well why didn't you just ban her. We tried. Trust me, we tried everything. We banned every e-mail address she used, but she would just make a similar one. We banned her IP address, but she would just use a different one. It was a lost cause.

Yep, it was. But in my defence, it's meant to be a Horror Story so I told a horror story.

MWAHAHAHAHA

And kudos for ignoring the member, there may be such things as happy endings after all :lol:

Now we're getting somewhere. Exactly the horror stories I'm looking for. ^_^

I'm trying to prepare myself for when I rebuild. I'm trying to ensure that the RP environment is a safe and peaceful one. It's pretty interesting that it takes at least one problematic member to bring down a board. But it gets more intriguing that a member can single-handedly bring down a whole RP community down through the septic tank. Again, I'm going to have to use "XIN 2" as my punching bag again. The events that took place on XIN 2 at the hands of a certain member ended up poisoning my board.

The XIN RP community is pretty much two communities: the stats community and the statless community. However, neither side is willing to crossover. There is one main statless board which is "XIN 1." The rift between XIN 1 and XIN 2 is very big. XIN 2 is stats. The way XIN 2 is staffed, it's the epicenter of how stats RPing can be evil. I do take a centrist view on stats and no stats. But, the other XIN boards (my board included) used stats. XIN is based on a flash animation by Max Mao and Steven Lim. In combat, there is something nicknamed as "XIN Physics." I had to use stats to put a cap on things to keep players from going overboard.

In the beginning, XIN 2 was a good board. After about one year, it all started going down south due to a member named "Karl." Karl is the nickname I'm giving for the problematic member. Granted, there was a staff member who other said that was far worse. But, the guy had left long ago. Pretty much Karl had thrived on XIN 2. He pretty much ended up getting a good portion of the active staff members wrapped around his fingers. With that, Karl managed to get away with all sorts of things.

There were many things Karl had done that should have warranted a banning, let alone a permanent banning. But, staff would not do anything. Karl would get away with godding in fights and metagaming in threads. In fights, Karl suffers from IDTHS (I Don't Take Hits Syndrome). He would be "omnipotent" in "everything." When people disagreed with him, Karl would attack them. The guy claims to be intelligent. But, he's extremely ignorant. He's arrogant and stubborn about it. Karl refuses to learn.

While Karl was wrong on so many things, he continued to argue his point until the other side gives. Karl has a warped view on "might is right." He made the environment on XIN 2 very hostile. Karl ended up BSing his way through everything. Yet, the staff turned a blind eye to him. That is the major reason for the rift between XIN 2 and XIN 3A.

Also, not many people wanted to RP with him. Karl did not know why many people wanted to RP with him.

Two members left and created their own XIN boards "XIN 3A" and "XIN 3B." However, Karl ended up joining XIN 3A. I only played on XIN 2 for a few months and left because of Karl. Karl couldn't stand to see a player that was more intelligent than he was. On XIN 2, Karl had the OOC power.

While on XIN 3A, Karl had no influence. But, it did not stop him from causing havoc which almost killed my friend's board. For the first year since my friend established XIN 3A, he allowed sex threads to take place. The members did that in moderation. However, Karl decided to have a rape campaign. It irked my friend and he banned sex threads. However, the rape campaign nearly killed activity on XIN 3A. The activity almost died.

A few months later, I created my board "Mugen Hall" which is deemed to be XIN 5. There was one board called XIN 4, made by two of my friends. But, the rift between XIN 1 and XIN 2 caused it to die.

While Karl proved to be a nightmare on XIN 2 and partially on XIN 3A, he proved to become a major horror story on my board. I made all sorts of advanced themes and concepts for Mugen Hall. Mainly, I was expecting people from XIN 2 and XIN 3A to be joining. XIN 3B ended up dying months earlier because the chance of admins. And I was praying that Karl wouldn't join. The way I designed the board was to keep people like Karl from ruining things.

Boy, was I wrong...

I sent an email to the creators of XIN. I specifically requested that they don't announce it yet. All of a sudden, I find out that the creators announced it. I wanted to kick myself.

Suddenly when it's RP ready, I get a flow of brand-spanking new people that have neither played on XIN 2 or XIN 3A. I was pretty surprised to get members that were from XIN 1. I specifically created Mugen Hall is a hub for the different XIN boards. Then all of a sudden, Karl ends up joining. I knew it from the username. Karl ends up using the same username. But, he creates a new guy. However, this person is no different from his other guy. So far things are relaxed. Granted that Karl is a good writer, he's a terrible role-player. Like many have said Mary-Sues and Gary-Stus are played, not made. He played like a total Gary-Stu. Which is one of the reasons that XIN 2 went down the gutter.

That's when the horror story started to begin.

When XIN 3B died, my friend worked out a way that they can continue on XIN 3A. Like XIN 1, XIN 3B's community kept to themselves. They haven't played on XIN 2. They wouldn't have met Karl. Karl exploited and capitalized on it for his own self-gain. I started to learn more about Karl. I didn't like what I learned about him.

After this one IC fight between two characters, there was a disagreement. It should have been a dispute between these two players. But Karl decided to jump in. It only made things worse. This was the start of Karl's constant trouble-making. He continued to bring up stuff involving a specific member. The specific member herself didn't seem to have the courage to bring up such issues herself. Karl was trying to be all "friendly" with her so he could get some c-sex. Karl seemed to be very obsessive about this one member OOCly. Unfortunately for him, he wouldn't get the c-sex that he wanted so badly.

Karl does the next best thing, their characters get into a fight. In the fight, Karl decides to molest the girl's character. Karl godded and so forth. The girl's friend brought up the issue with me. However, there was not anything I could do because the member didn't bring it up. One of my staff members had caught Karl godding in the fight on several occasions. The staff member was about to intervene, but the member begged him not to.

She would stop RPing with Karl. Karl does the next best thing, he starts stalking her in threads. The guy was pretty obsessive about her. Then I had to tell the member and her friend to not RP with him anymore. They listened. But, that was not the end of Karl's trouble making.

I was extremely close to reaching common ground with the XIN boards. However, Karl destroyed that. He used scare tactics on my members. Since a good portion of my members were new to XIN RP, Karl exploited it for his own self-gain. If I was able to reach common ground, Karl would not have anywhere to "thrive." Karl tried to manipulate my board for his own self-gain. While the environment was peaceful after Karl left, the damage was done.

I had my first major quest taking place which was very popular. I had to put it to a halt because there were not enough active members. Karl's stunt nearly killed my member base and board activity.

Karl even tried twice to spark an insurrection on my board. He was trying to take over it.

Also, a few of my staff members were thinking that there is good in Karl. However, Karl is the type of member that is unredeemable. Karl could be considered a XIN RP veteran. However, Karl still RPs and acts like a complete n00b. Karl constantly pushed the envelope. However, there were people that continued to try to reach out to Karl. Karl took advantage of that one.

But, I used the several months of peace to try to rebuild and so forth. Karl returned to XIN 2. Because my friend, one of XIN 2's staff members talked him into going back. I told him about the damage Karl caused. My friend said he would "talk" to Karl about it. All of a sudden, XIN 2 became a very hostile environment. My friend was talking about how Karl has fallen on "hard times."

Before Karl left my board, he made some BS post trying to garner sympathy. He talked about how he vomited from drinking too much during New Year's Eve. Karl talked about how the doctor ran a blood test and detected a high amount of stress in his blood and should cut out the things that gave him the most stress. He cited my board as the thing giving him the most stress. Karl said that the stress caused him to punch a hole through the wall.

Karl is pretty much a pathogen to any RP forum. I'd call him the troll of all trolls.

Mainly, I did not pay attention to what happened on XIN 2. But, my friend Christi was in an IC relationship with his character. OOCly, he treated her like crap. During the time, my friend Geerhard was getting sick and tired of XIN 2. He wanted to join my board. I was telling him to wait at least a month for I can do some repairs to my board. Unfortunately, Geerhard did not comprehend the problems I had to hammer out.

Then he talked to Christi about joining him on Mugen Hall. I had no idea he was talking to her. She followed him. Her friend Daniel also came along to. It was good, activity was picking up again. But look and behold, I see that Karl had come back. He did not post a come-back thread. However, he did post in Christi's introduction thread. Karl pretty much left XIN 2 and stalked Christi on Mugen Hall.

My friend, who staffs on XIN 2, he became nothing more than Karl's puppet.

So far, Mugen Hall is inactive. One of my main priorities is to hammer out the problems that plague XIN RP itself, which affected my board. I do wish that I had Karl's IP information at the beginning.

Ever since Karl had returned, I created a profile on him for future reference. Frighteningly enough, I think Karl's a closet sociopath. I did research on the symptoms and criteria on the disorder and cross-referenced to the profile I conducted on Karl.