How To Deal With Rude Members
Every once in a while there's a bit of drama in the WA community, so I wanted to address a few points on what I recommend you do when these things happen. They are not official rules, and just my opinion.
I think the main think to keep in mind when taking action (or not taking action), is to first ask yourself: "Am I personally offended, or is this a detriment to the community?"
Below are a few situations I've run into, and how I recommend handling them.
Recruiting or Selling Other Products
If the person has filled out their profile and is a premium member, I remind them that this is not allowed in WA. If it's in chat, I just type a quick message in chat and that usually solves it right away.
If it's a question in classrooms, I usually send a PM and ask them to delete the post. A lot of the time the member will delete it quickly and apologize. Maybe they didn't know, or just wanted to be cheeky. Who know. But I don't think it's necessary to lynch a good member for a small mistake!
If the member is a free member that hasn't filled in their profile, and doesn't respond to requests to stop posting that stuff, I just mark it as spam.
Abusive Language
Most people catch on pretty quickly that f-bombs and similar language doesn't really fly here in the community. Honestly, I don't really see this as a problem very often. I just remind people that this is a family friendly place, and have never had a real issue.
If someone continues, I would just mark it as spam. I'm not sure that's the correct way to deal with it, but it's better than arguing. Most people will just ignore the person after a while anyway.
If it happens over PM, report it to Kyle or Carson.
Starter Complaints
Some people rock up in WA with guns blazin', and start getting upset when they see that they can only get 10 lessons with the free membership and need to upgrade to get the rest of the training. I just tell them that there's no requirement to upgrade, and that they still have access to 100's of free training modules, even after their 7 day Premium access expires.
You can direct them to WA member training or to this training by BIS about how to work on your site as a free member past day 7. You can also ask what they want to do and see if you can find a good training for them.
No need to leave them hanging, or make them feel like people that don't upgrade are chopped liver.
General Abrasiveness
Some people just have it in their mind that they want to cause trouble. Some guy last week was going around saying that WA was a pyramid scheme, and sometimes some 'more experienced' marketers will start calling everyone n00bs and that they want to know where the 'meat' of the training is.
Some folks just can't be bothered to be polite. But it's not worth getting into an argument. I try to respond as politely as possible. Responding in kindness usually does a lot to turn the conversation around, and people are always surprised at what a positive vibe we have here in WA.
If the person continues with this behavior, I just ignore them. If they still keep on, I find the spam button real quick. After a certain point a person like this starts to detract from what WA is - a place for education. Getting write-access removed isn't a death sentence. They can still access the training, but might need a time-out to figure out why they're behaving this way. Kyle and Carson are pretty good at following up with people that want write-access restored.
Arguments
This is a tough one, and depends on the situation. If you are arguing with someone over SEO advice or something related to online business, that's great! Keep it civil, and I think a healthy debate is something everyone can learn from. Even if people start to get butthurt, I still think that hashing this stuff out can be fun and interesting.
If you or someone else is arguing over the existence of aliens or political viewpoints, it probably isn't to the benefit of the community. This usually happens in chat as opposed to the classrooms.
I don't recommend you 'appoint yourself' to moderator and tell people what's OK or not OK to talk about. Personally, I just try to compensate by talking to another person about something online business related to steer the vibe of chat away from the troublemakers. Most people catch on quickly.
If you think it's starting to affect other conversations and making WA look like a bunch of teenagers arguing over Justin Bieber's new haircut rather than a professional online business community, then I don't think it's out of line to politely say something about changing the topic of conversation.
Note: I also talk about dumb stuff in chat quite a bit! Chat can definitely be fun, silly, and non-productive sometimes. But there's definitely a difference between 'hanging out by the water cooler' and having a flame war.
Anyway, I think everyone does a good job of this already, so it's not really an instructional course on how to behave in WA. I just wanted to create a resource in case the question comes up, so I can direct people to this post.
What are your thoughts?
Any situations I didn't cover that you have suggestions about?
Recent Comments
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Great points, Nathaniel! I've dealt with difficult customers over the past 30 or so years and find your info spot-on!
I am impressed by your professional and rational suggestions. I have bookmarked and thank you for this post.
Great resource to point peeps to - bookmarked. I've already met a 'self-appointed' moderator along the way, so this is useful - you also have a hilarious writing style and just expanded my vocab quite a bit :D
Great post Nathaniel. So far, I've only met kind and supportive folks. I really like it here at WA.
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Evidence of good old fashioned common sense at work here Nathaniel, thank you!
I totally agree that healthy debate has its place, and is something everyone should and can learn from. Lets be professional and conduct ourselves responsibly, always upholding the right to free speech and being open to differences in opinion.....that's what enables us to grow in wisdom!
Viva WA!
~Arthur