#oneaday Day 487: Community Management

I'm grateful that I've never really had to deal with any major issues in the community surrounding the work that I do. I think this is — hopefully, anyway — due to the fact that my work itself sets certain expectations, and makes it clear that I have no patience for anyone who is going to be a dick about things. That doesn't mean people can't have fun, of course, but it means that people can't be a dick.

A friend of mine runs a reasonably active, moderately sized Discord server. A while back, there was a user there who frequently caused trouble, often getting into arguments and becoming disproportionately angry towards people who really didn't deserve any ire at all, let alone the amount of rage he was flinging at them. He left once, then asked to come back. He left again, then asked to come back. Then he left again, and my friend told him that this was it; if he asked to come back again, he would be refused.

Right now, he's in my friend's DMs trying to guilt-trip him into taking him back into the server. The guy in question has pretty severe autism and clear anger management issues, but is unwilling to do anything about them despite the fact that he recognises they are both a problem. Instead, he prefers to offload his problems onto others and blame them for him lashing out. It's a difficult situation for my friend, who doesn't want to come across as being mean or discriminatory towards someone suffering with genuine, rather strong mental health issues, but the conversation in the server since this guy has left has been much lighter, more pleasant and more open.

People who were hesitant to speak up now discuss things without fear of being shouted down without provocation. People (for the most part, anyway) respectfully discuss their opinions without putting others down. And while disagreements still happen, they're generally resolved pretty quickly rather than being constantly brought up as ongoing grudges.

I don't envy my friend for having to deal with this, particularly as I know he's much too nice to just block the dude and be done with him. But I'm also glad — and grateful — that people like you lovely lot have never given me any trouble; and in exchange, I hope I've never given you any grief either! Thanks for that!