Conflict on a community is something that is quite common. Dealing with it as a community leader can make things quite challenging, but it is an important skill for you as a leader to develop in order to maintain a constructive and healthy online community.
Below are some tips and steps that will help you as a community leader manage conflict effectively:
Establish and Enforce Forum Rules
Having guidelines and rules in place that are clear and well-communicated is crucial. The rules that are set and laid out for community members to see should cover the following
- Language that should not be used on the forum
- The expected behaviour on the forum
- Consequences for rule violations
The rules should be enforced consistently when the need arises.
Stay Calm and Objective
It is essential to stay calm and remain objective when conflict arises within your community. Becoming emotionally involved or taking sides during the conflict should be avoided at all costs.
Your role as the community leader is to keep things calm and facilitate a resolution.
Use Private Communication
When conflict arises and it is brought to your attention, it is important to encourage all individuals involved in the conflict to communicate privately before things escalate.
In some cases, some conflicts and misunderstandings can be resolved through one-on-one discussions which will prevent the conflict from spilling out into the public forum.
Moderation Tools
When you need to address specific issues in a conflict, using moderation tools is a must. These can include any of the following
- Temporary bans
- Thread locking
- Warnings being given
You should ensure that any actions you take align with the community’s rules and guidelines you have set out.
Listen Actively
During a conflict, as a community leader, you should ensure that you actively listen to all sides of the conflict. Be sure to acknowledge their feelings and understand their perspectives.
By actively listening to all sides of the conflict, this can help in finding common ground and defusing tension.
Open Dialogue
Consider facilitating an open discussion where all parties are involved if the conflict continues. This can allow them to not only express their concerns but you as the community leader can encourage individuals of each party to provide feedback that is constructive rather than attacking or venting each other.
Mediation
Sometimes you may find that conflict can not be resolved through direct communication. This can be common and you may need to act as a mediator.
Acting as a mediator involves helping all parties involved in the conflict find solutions and compromises.
Encourage Empathy
Encourage community members who are involved in the conflict to consider different perspectives and put themselves in others’ shoes. Empathy is something that can go a long way when it comes to resolving conflicts.
Promote Constructive Criticism
Ensure that any criticism and feedback are constructive and focus on the issue at hand rather than being personal attacks.
Members should be encouraged to provide suggestions on how things can be improved when it comes to dealing with conflicts.
Transparency
When you make decisions or take action, you should ensure that you are transparent.
You should communicate clearly with all parties that are involved in the conflict about the actions you have taken and the reasons you took the actions you did.
Keep Track of Incidents
Records of conflicts and interactions that are problematic should be kept.
Being able to go back to this documentation can be very useful if similar conflicts arise in the future or if you need to take further action on a previous conflict.
Reflect, Learn and Adapt
When dealing with conflicts in your community, you should reflect on how each conflict is handled and learn from each experience. You should adjust your rules and approach to conflicts as and when you feel it is necessary to help prevent similar conflicts from occurring in the future.
Seek Support
Sometimes, conflicts can become persistent or severe. When this happens you may feel that you need to involve higher-ranking administrators or moderators.
Taking this approach and bringing in higher-ranking staff can provide you with additional guidance and support.
Additionally, you can visit Admin Junkies for advice.
Self-Care
Dealing with any conflicts no matter how big or small they may be can be emotionally draining. You should ensure that you seek advice and support from other community leaders or administrators and most importantly, ensure that you take care of yourself.
Conclusion
Always remember that conflicts are inevitable in any online community. How you handle each conflict as it arises can make a significant difference in the overall culture and health of your community.
Fairness, effective communication and consistency are key to successfully managing conflict on your forum as a forum leader.
Ja sa bong
October 29, 2023Never be too fast to make a decision on any case of conflict in your forum. Take time and use all the mod tools to investigate everything, make inquiries and ask lots of questions. After gathering all the information on the conflict, process them to find out the truth before giving a judgement based off your community rules and regulations.
The Raven
October 29, 2023Wow, very good article! Luckily for me I never had issues where two or more members get into heated argument. However, this article provides really good tips on how to deal with this kind of stuff and I will most definitely write this down.
In fact, I will make sure forum rules are very clear and very detailed so that it can cover all kind of possible problems.
Riberet19
October 29, 2023Good article and well thought out about all the important aspects in terms of conflict resolution in your community, I think that attending to your community is as important, as knowing how to listen and accept constructive criticism, it is also important to treat each conflict separately and try to solve it with the parties involved in private as the article comments, Conflicts are something that cannot be avoided, but they can be tackled and solved quickly if you know how to do it.