okay, i have a little problem.

my board, at worlds end, has about fifty members now and pretty much everyone is very literate. however, someone joined recently whose just not. they put their bio up and i aksed them to run it through a word processor to get capital letters and the like, and i showed him where one of his sentences was wrong and how to correct it. all he did was correct the one sentence i had shown, using my example, when pretty much all of them were the same. he also hadn't met the word minimum for some sections.

i pmed him saying what was wrong and all he pmed back was 'there's nothing wrong. i can't add anymore'. i was just like 'hang on, this is my board; don't try and argue'.

gah.

help?

Not to be rude, but how can you expect someone to follow your rules if you can't follow them yourself? (there isn't a single capital letter.)

Anyway, It's a simple solution. If the guy refuses to fix his application after you have asked him. Ban/delete him. If he is detrimental to your site, and doesn't follow the rules, delete him. What's so hard? (This isn't sarcastic, I'm seriously wondering what's so hard about banning members that blatently disobey rules and won't do anything to fix them.)

I agree wholeheartedly, Fantasystar.

You can't be afraid to enforce your own damn rules. They're there for a reason, they're visible for anyone to see. If he can't make minimums and he refuses to change his applications when the rules state as much, you can't keep giving ground. As soon as you bend the rules, you set a negative precedent – and that is always a dangerous path to traverse.

Half of these issues that some members post can be resolved if they simply would enforce their own rules.

Woah, people, relax. He/she is simply asking a question. I would agree with you if this was the style of typing he used to address people on the board, but as it is we don't know.

As for the actual problem, I would say that they are correct. If the person is stubborn and will not follow the rules as you have asked, tell him/her that the board is too high level of a place for them if they cannot see the problems with their application and ban them. Is there another issue like you know this person in RL? Or that they know someone in the rpg and if you don't allow them, you'll upset others? Either way I would still ban them for being indignant. If its your first time banning, then yes, I understand. Sometimes its hard to get rid of a person that might be a productive member of the site if only they would do this. The point is that they are not doing that, so you'll have to let them go.

And on a side note, if you are not using capitals like in the post you just put up, I would highly suggest that you do on your site, otherwise no one will take you seriously as an administrator.

I think that confusion is probably coming in from the fact that you use no capitals in your site layout, titles, or descriptions, but require it in posts. This shift might be a little much for some people. You might either want to make allowance for all lowercase, or change your layout to include capitals.

It may be that he is just one of those roleplayers that does not see the problems in his writing. You get those sometimes. I know brilliant people who can't spell to save their lives and spellcheck doesn't always catch everything. If you are willing, then work with him, and if not, then just refuse his application until it meets your standards. Either he will give up and leave or he will try to adapt.

Sorry about the caps, I usually type OOC without caps and IC with caps. I realise that was kinda silly lol, sorry. I always use IC with caps, I even use caps in MSN which some people find wierd o.O

This is the first time I've banned someone, and as you say, I don't really want to loose someone who might be a potentially great member. I also don't want to get a rep. as a 'picky admin'; I know of sites that have died because of that.

I have tried, that's the problem: I helped him with a paragraph, hoping he would understand that the problem applied to all of his writing and he just changed the bits I had written out.

It's not just spelling: its sentences that run onto each other and stuff that doesn't even make sense. For instance, have you ever heard of someone having a 'dirty posture'? I certainly haven't.

Thanks for the help guys ^_^.

Well, actually, you don't really have to ban him, now that I think about it.

See, If you, like most sites, have the rule that you can't post until after you are accepted, then just don't accept him. Say, you won't until he makes a good enough profile. If he posts outside of the forum a lot, against your rules. Then ban him. But most often, just putting down that rule should be enough to make them give up and go elsewere

That's a little tricky and underhanded, I'd say. If you're going to decline an application decline him. If he keeps on hassling you, then ban him. If you ban one person, you won't get a rep. If you ban lots of people then you will, especially if its for tinny things. This is not. He is undermining your authority, and if he continues to do so he will not be a productive member of your site.