Wednesday, November 28, 2007
There's A Nutter On Your Site. What Do You Do?
One of my sites is a kind of bespoke forum that I have developed, and it has gained a small but dedicated following of regular users. As the moderator on the site, I can see everything that goes on. Who's signing up, what email address they use, what IP address they have and so on.
Recently I've found myself in a bit of a pickle after noticing an individual sign up with multiple user IDs and attempt to use the multiple IDs to create conversations that might lead to the individual meeting up with another user on the site, and also push conversations in kind of lewd direction. Basically the individual in the first instance tried to arrange a meeting with a longstanding user, and then when that didn't work, used the second ID to contact the same user and say how great the other ID was. And now seems to have a third ID and is leading conversations in the direction of a group meeting, which would probably involve only two people if it ever happened.
As the site administrator, this leaves me in a quandary. Do I just manage the technical side, and leave the ecosystem to develop naturally and accept that people do use websites in ways which are not always honest, but as consenting adults who should be aware of the risks, it's none of my business. Do I intervene and alert the user who is the target of the machinations that all is not as it seems with the people they are chatting with on the site? Do I have a duty of care to my users, or should I stand back and see each user as equal as the other to whom I owe no special favours and shouldn't be divulging information gleaned by my access to IP and registration information.
What would you do? Let them get on with it and hope nobody gets hurt, or get involved and use the knowledge I have as site admin to stop this before it goes too far?
Recently I've found myself in a bit of a pickle after noticing an individual sign up with multiple user IDs and attempt to use the multiple IDs to create conversations that might lead to the individual meeting up with another user on the site, and also push conversations in kind of lewd direction. Basically the individual in the first instance tried to arrange a meeting with a longstanding user, and then when that didn't work, used the second ID to contact the same user and say how great the other ID was. And now seems to have a third ID and is leading conversations in the direction of a group meeting, which would probably involve only two people if it ever happened.
As the site administrator, this leaves me in a quandary. Do I just manage the technical side, and leave the ecosystem to develop naturally and accept that people do use websites in ways which are not always honest, but as consenting adults who should be aware of the risks, it's none of my business. Do I intervene and alert the user who is the target of the machinations that all is not as it seems with the people they are chatting with on the site? Do I have a duty of care to my users, or should I stand back and see each user as equal as the other to whom I owe no special favours and shouldn't be divulging information gleaned by my access to IP and registration information.
What would you do? Let them get on with it and hope nobody gets hurt, or get involved and use the knowledge I have as site admin to stop this before it goes too far?
Labels: dilemma
Permalink // posted by Rob @ 10:54 PM 
Comments:
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Ban his IP immediately -- his antics could gut your site in the long run.
Permalink // posted by 
: 11:28 PM
: 11:28 PM
I think you owe it to your users to intervene - even if it's under the premise of "user has multiple accounts" - perhaps contact the user and ask what's the deal with the multiple accounts?
Another option is perhaps contact the other person and just say something cropped up during admin updates - and you've spotted that X,Y,Z user is from the same IP and you thought perhaps they should be aware in reference to any public forums posts they've made.
Imagine the scenario if something bad happened.. how would you feel? how would your long term users feel? Imo you should offer some degree of protection to your forum users.
If all that seems a bit awkward.. you could always IP block the person!
Another option is perhaps contact the other person and just say something cropped up during admin updates - and you've spotted that X,Y,Z user is from the same IP and you thought perhaps they should be aware in reference to any public forums posts they've made.
Imagine the scenario if something bad happened.. how would you feel? how would your long term users feel? Imo you should offer some degree of protection to your forum users.
If all that seems a bit awkward.. you could always IP block the person!
Thanks for the comments guys. Problem with banning the IP is that the guy has some dynamic IP so it's not going to be effective.
I think I probably will act in the way you suggest Jason and contact the other person and let them know discreetly that the information I can see suggestion they should treat very carefully.
I think what's holding me up slightly is that I would prefer to act in a scaleable way, and have systems that will protect users if I have 10 or 50 times the current user base but that's not really a good reason to just act on the knowledge I have right now.
I'd like a technical solution really. Maybe something that prevented the same IP posting under different names within a time frame, although that is hampered by big ISPs like AOL using proxies so many users arrive via the same IP.
But I guess in this instance, I do just have to intervene.
(although one wonders what an "incident" would do for traffic!)
I think I probably will act in the way you suggest Jason and contact the other person and let them know discreetly that the information I can see suggestion they should treat very carefully.
I think what's holding me up slightly is that I would prefer to act in a scaleable way, and have systems that will protect users if I have 10 or 50 times the current user base but that's not really a good reason to just act on the knowledge I have right now.
I'd like a technical solution really. Maybe something that prevented the same IP posting under different names within a time frame, although that is hampered by big ISPs like AOL using proxies so many users arrive via the same IP.
But I guess in this instance, I do just have to intervene.
(although one wonders what an "incident" would do for traffic!)
> (although one wonders what an "incident" would do for traffic!)
Nothing good, if the incident involved a stalking and a stabbing...
The trouble with scalable solutions to situations like this is that the number of different ways individual people can find to play silly buggers is almost infinite.
Best plan, if you have a community that's strong enough to stand on its own two feet, is to find two or three volunteer moderators from among the membership. Ones that command genuine respect from your users, but will have the courage / well-developed sense of duty required to take necessary decisions that might make them unpopular.
Oh - and discourage real-life meetings (even innocent ones) at all costs, they're the death of forums. You want people to do all their interacting on your forum, not down the pub or by IM. Once they've got together in person a few times, they don't need your site any more.
Nothing good, if the incident involved a stalking and a stabbing...
The trouble with scalable solutions to situations like this is that the number of different ways individual people can find to play silly buggers is almost infinite.
Best plan, if you have a community that's strong enough to stand on its own two feet, is to find two or three volunteer moderators from among the membership. Ones that command genuine respect from your users, but will have the courage / well-developed sense of duty required to take necessary decisions that might make them unpopular.
Oh - and discourage real-life meetings (even innocent ones) at all costs, they're the death of forums. You want people to do all their interacting on your forum, not down the pub or by IM. Once they've got together in person a few times, they don't need your site any more.
Rob
I agree with Jason - you need to step in on this one.
More generally, isn't bad user behaviour a potential problem with running any sort of forum? I've always presumed offering a forum is full of hassle??
John
I agree with Jason - you need to step in on this one.
More generally, isn't bad user behaviour a potential problem with running any sort of forum? I've always presumed offering a forum is full of hassle??
John
Thanks for the comments. I did decide that I had to do something and emailed the girl through Facebook (I suspended my onsite messaging pending me deciding what to do), so let's hope she got it bearing in mind my recent post questioning Facebook's reliability hehe!
Andy - some good points. I do already have a couple of moderators I appointed but they have limited powers. I think giving them more scope, showing them more of what I can see and vetting sign ups would be a good way to go. Thanks for the suggestion.
John - Yep, forums can be a pain. Actually this site takes a lot of my time and makes no money, in fact it costs me a bit through advertising but I guess it's a "labour of love" and it has a slightly altruistic edge to it.
I tried to do a new forum on a different site recently using phpbb and the thing was so inundated with spam and spammer sign ups I've just had to abort it. So forums can be real hassle.
Andy - some good points. I do already have a couple of moderators I appointed but they have limited powers. I think giving them more scope, showing them more of what I can see and vetting sign ups would be a good way to go. Thanks for the suggestion.
John - Yep, forums can be a pain. Actually this site takes a lot of my time and makes no money, in fact it costs me a bit through advertising but I guess it's a "labour of love" and it has a slightly altruistic edge to it.
I tried to do a new forum on a different site recently using phpbb and the thing was so inundated with spam and spammer sign ups I've just had to abort it. So forums can be real hassle.
I would agree that you should get rid of your nutter in whatever way you can. He is probably not as innocent as he seems and a meeting could lead to criminal activity. This would eventually lead back to you and your credibilty not to mention all the problems that may ensue with hosting your site in the future.
At least if you are seen to have tried to stop this you will be in the clear,
Kathy
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At least if you are seen to have tried to stop this you will be in the clear,
Kathy
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