

Ask HN: Dealing with abusive users - MicahWedemeyer

Every now and then I get a really abusive support email from a user calling me all kinds of names. Usually they can't log in for whatever reason (wrong password, email, whatever) and they just come out swinging.<p>I try to be as professional as possible, but I'm wondering if I'm just better off straight-up banning their account and just ignoring them.<p>My reasoning is that I have a fairly tight-knit community, and I'm worried about trolls and flamers breaking it up. So, if someone is willing to treat the site staff like crap, I assume they'll do the same or worse to another community member. Cause problems in my community and it will lose me money. I don't want that.<p>In addition, the a-holes are never, ever paying subscribers, so I lose nothing by booting them.<p>As I see it, I have a couple choices:<p>1) Freeze their account, no warning, no email response.<p>2) Freeze their account, giving a reason.<p>3) Give a warning, then freeze the account if they continue.<p>4) Be professional and try to solve their problem, assuming they're having a bad day.<p>Up to now, I've been doing option 4. I'm starting to get the inclination to switch to option 1.<p>My only fear is that by locking someone out I will somehow piss off the 1 wacko in the bunch who will make it his mission to cause trouble. Even if I freeze an account, someone can sign up with a new email address and be a douche.<p>Anyone else deal with this? Any advice?
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jacquesm
We have this on a daily basis.

We deal with it like this:

\- first we write the email that we would like to write telling them exactly
how we feel

\- we then delete this email

\- we then write an _overly_ friendly email which takes care of the users
complaint and adds sugar on top as well as a pony.

Usually they get the message and they'll apologize for their behaviour

One exception is made for people that threaten legal action, these are without
exception barred from the service and requested to follow through. I really
can't stand it when people pull out their 'lawyer gun' at the first
opportunity, and it raises an immediate red flag, these are real trouble
makers, and will continue to be so in the future, so we see no reason to have
them in our userbase.

To date nobody has ever followed through on our invitation to press suit.

I really wonder what is wrong with those types, by the time I threaten to sick
a lawyer on to someone I'm 100% prepared to go through with it, and I reserve
that for those times where such action is really warranted, such as outright
fraud.

Wackos are a fact of life, as the profile of your site increases you'll have
to deal with some of that anyway, better be prepared and use your support
queue as the selector determining which 'wackos' are only temporarily deranged
and which are really firing on 3 or less pistons. Those you can do without,
even if they try to make more trouble later.

A nice example from HN is the user 'arrington', a complete douchebag that made
it his mission to destroy HN after being kicked off. It was 'before my time',
but I've seen some of the fallout from it and it wasn't pretty, but it did go
away after some hacks that made the site more robust against that sort of
thing. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!

~~~
stakent
Thanks for providing ready to use introduction for user support staff manual.

~~~
jacquesm
By the way, I can corroborate the 'assholes are never paying users' statistic,
it's the freeloaders that seem to engender the jackasses. Paying members are
almost always articulate and somewhat forgiving of errors on our end.

~~~
kls
I have a personal theory about this. I think it is a personality type.

I had a friend who later in life became a free loader (and drug addict). I
tried to help him and his family out by letting them stay a while while he
tried to kick his habit.

Anyway long story short, from the moment they walked through the door, there
was an attitude of entitlement because they where being victimized (in their
mind).

When you confronted them about things, they would become very hostile like you
where the one victimizing them.

I believe that this is a learned behavior that a certain segment of the
population uses as a survival mechanism. It preys on the fact that a larger
portion of society likes to avoid conflict and therefore will seek to sooth
the situation.

The worst part about my personal situation was that his kids where also
learning this behavior, and where actively being used against me by playing up
the putting kids on the street argument. Which I eventually had to do for the
sake my own family.

Anyway, I think the non-paying complaining assholes are a lesser form of this
personality type.

------
ErrantX
All of our abusive ones are forwarded to me; I write sugar sweet emails and
try to fix their problem like any other support email. But sign it like this:

 _Tom

XXX Product Manager / Team Lead

P.S. Please take a quick look at this friendly FAQ <link> on how we suggest
users contact staff members. We try our best to answer queries and fix
problems as fast as possible; however, I inform staff they have a right not to
suffer verbal abuse, which is why I have personally dealt with your email"_

Usually you get a really bashful apology (and anyone that follows up the abuse
gets a terse "you had a last chance, sorry" email and a perma ban :))

i.e. I know people get pissed and write emails they later regret (everyone
does it) - but twice uses up their credit :)

------
slig
If your main worry is that they will start trolling/flamming your community,
you could try <http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hell%20ban>

~~~
njl
At some point, they will realize that this is happening, and there will be
outrage when they communicate about it to their friends via an outside
channel. Be prepared for a lot of splashback.

~~~
DenisM
Make it a 85% hell ban - they will never figure out what happened, yet they
will not be able to continue flaming.

------
cullenking
I personally wouldn't ban them unless they were actively making it difficult
and unenjoyable for other users. I don't mind laughing a bit at a disparaging
message, but I have a thicker skin than most. However, what I wouldn't mind
doing for the really abusive is grabbing a beer and cooking up something that
makes them feel abashed. A personal homepage for their account with something
like 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you' plastered across the
top. Man, maybe even make the banner randomly draw from a list of trite
sayings...'Consideration for others is an important virtue'.

We get a few rough emails/suggestions come through, but haven't had to deal
with anything profane. Usually it's something like "This site is terrible, it
doesn't work worth crap and I can't believe you have any users". It's almost
always something really hilarious that causes it (javascript being turned off,
they are using IE6). I respond with an explanation, query for more and try to
help. Everytime the person turns their attitude around and says thanks, that
we have good service. I am sure that will change when our userbase grows, but
it is working well so far.

On a sort of related note, I did have a user put in a name of F YOU (but fully
spelled out, yes all in caps). Best part is they were an active and seemingly
happy member. I am not for censorship, however, we are currently a small site,
so his name might come up semi-often for other users. Enough to drive down the
value for other users, which is when I draw the line. I decided to change it
to LOVE YOU. It's still there, even though the person has used the site many
times since I made the change. They must have a good sense of humour :)

------
prawn
I have a forum that allows anonymous posts. I have a list of banned IPs, sets
of IPs that must register to post, various banned words (spam, mostly), banned
user agent strings, etc but there are still griefers that get a new IP and
return. Any tips on how to block them more aggressively?

~~~
mcav
Use flash cookies. Set them to recreate themselves to sync when the user
clears their browser cookies. That has proven tremendously effective for me.
Flash cookies get a bad rap -- but they're a very effective way to keep people
out.

~~~
slig
Is your code open source? I googled about this once, but couldn't find
anything. I posted on stackoverflow and I was instructed to build one myself
using flex. Fair enough, but I never did.

------
anthony_franco
We've always dealt with abusive users in a polite manner. A lot of times they
just love the attention and drama.

But time and time again, once we fed them the attention they craved, they
became some of our biggest allies in the community.

------
MicahWedemeyer
I really strongly disagree with all the suggestions that involve punking,
shaming, or otherwise battling the offenders. Like I said, they are _never_
paying members. It's not my job to teach them anything, and they're not going
to learn it anyway.

If I spend time punking worthless trolls, it's not time spent enhancing the
site for the users I do care about. It can be fun to get down in the mud and
fight with someone, but considering that they will never become a paying
subscriber, it's really just a waste of my time.

Instead, I just want to minimize the amount of trouble they cause.

------
drm237
You may want to experiment with adding an "Emotional State" option to your
support form following the Wufoo approach. They say that a large number of
people fill it out and the byproduct is that people use calmer language
because they are conveying how they feel through the dropdown instead of
having to do it in the text.

edit: Here's the link to their blog post:
[http://particletree.com/features/on-asking-users-for-
their-f...](http://particletree.com/features/on-asking-users-for-their-
feelings/)

------
ananthrk
Patrick's (patio11) advice in dealing with such frustrations from long back:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=666171>

------
michaelfairley
Not Always Right (<http://notalwaysright.com/>) has shown me that some
customers cost you more than they'll make you, ans has convinced that keeping
users who consistently waste time and resources is not the best strategy.

------
DenisM
In addition to already suggested hellban I suggest exponential back-off in
response time as a way of dealing with anyone you don't like. They will either
calm down or leave in frustration.

