He responds to every post.
He doesn’t ever accept he’s wrong and becomes incredibly defensive if anybody disagrees with him. Contradictory views are not tolerated.
He provokes people into exhausting debates on any issue.
If you randomly put 100 people in a room together, you will find someone like this.
You will find someone insecure, craving validation, and using the community as a vehicle to do it.
If you have a community of 1000 people, you probably have 10 of these people. Alone they’re ok, together it can be quite destructive.
One solution is to remove them. ‘Sorry, this community is not right for you‘.
Another is to distract them. ‘Instead of having you comment on every discussion, you can have your own blog to share your thoughts‘.
A third is just to tell them the problem. ‘Members don’t like it when you comment on every post, you look defensive and insecure, please stop‘.
The first is the simplest, but you might feel bad. The second is the ideal solution, but members usually can’t resist participating in the forum anyway. The third is the most likely to work.
If you want to master the social science approach to building successful communities, sign up for our Professional Community Management course.
Registration is open now. The course begins on April 28th.