Demand Satisfaction!

Today is a watershed day at Get Satisfaction. We banned our first user.

One of the core jobs we see ourselves as having at Get Satisfaction is helping companies who use our site develop smarter approaches to community management. We want to help define and shape the ideas growing up around community management, and we spend a lot of time thinking about how to deal with difficult community management issues, particularly ones that are often swept under the rug. In a typical forum, for example, a company will quietly delete a user it doesn’t like. We’re not fond of that approach. Since we’re dedicated to doing things differently — with openness and transparency — we’re going talk a little bit about why we’re banning our first user.

While we’ve had numerous trolls and griefers and, well, possibly crazy people on our site, we’ve always rolled up our sleeves and tried to find new ways to encourage and reshape conversations. We’ve been successful at that, partly because the vast majority of people on our site are here to solve specific problems. Our goal is to do everything we can to avoid lowering the “ban hammer.” However, we’ve come to the conclusion that sometimes there is simply not a way to deal with a member of the community who insists on constantly and consistently harassing other community members.

And when (I hear some of you positing this in your mind already) do we determine when the line has been crossed? When does a person pass beyond being a meddlesome, troublesome troll and into the ban-hammer hall of shame? I’ll be honest and say that this is an extremely difficult question, but it’s one to which we’ve given a lot of thought.

Here are a few things that got our first user banned:

• Clear (and multiple) violations of our community guidelines
• A continued pattern of harassment of company employees
• Numerous dismissals of our attempts at changing the discourse
• Complaints about the user from other customers — complaints to company employees who are engaged in helping customers and complaints to us at Get Satisfaction

Beyond all of that (which certainly is enough), we were also persuaded by employees of the company, who, after many months of attacks and derision, sent us this message: “On a near daily basis, we have support staff who are growing frustrated with being personally bashed before we even get a chance to reply to other customers.” When dedicated employees of companies who choose to use our site — and who continually do a great job of helping their customers — start complaining that they can’t even respond to their customers without being attacked by a troll, something has gone wrong.

My own personal opinion about trolls and banning: One of the biggest challenges facing online communities is anonymity. This particular person used anonymity as a calling card and a weapon wherever possible. While we can all quickly agree that there are numerous situations where masks are preferred and even necessary, it’s hard to deny that anonymity can be a casting call for bad actors. While we don’t insist that everyone on Get Satisfaction use their real name, we do want to create a space where trusted relationships will flourish. Anonymous members who insist that they don’t have to play nice, who consistently refuse to respect the rest of the community, and who go to great lengths to stir up grief simply won’t be allowed to bring the conversation to a halt. We’ve seen plenty of forums where anonymity degrades and descends into anarchy, and that’s not an option for us. We owe it to our customer communities to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Which is not to say that there isn’t room for dissent and customer dissatisfaction. Indeed, there is. We’re all for customers standing up and making companies come clean about deficiencies in their products and services. But, as we’ve articulated in our Customer-Company Pact , a consistently adversarial tone will only get you so far. If you’re truly interested in productive ends, you’ll get farther and accomplish more if you act with at least a modicum of understanding and cooperation, especially if the company is willing to meet you half-way. 

We’ve put our ban hammer back into its case, and we’ll be replacing the glass that we broke. Our hope is that we won’t have to break it out again anytime soon, and that — when we do — we’ll expend the same amount of thought and consideration in our decision. We feel that we’ve reached a stage in the development of Get Satisfaction where the consequence of inaction against trolls and bad actors actually validates bad behavior. We don’t want to imply that this is okay, and we’re going to continue to be vigilant about other users who our community flags as troublesome, and keep stepping up to the challenges that come with shaping great communities.