Is forum drama a good thing or bad thing?

[cpvr]

Is forum drama a good or bad thing? Sometimes drama on a forum can drive in more users and drive up traffic, but it can also be a bad thing depending on the situation & what’s it about.

It’s a 50-50 thing, but how do you feel about forum drama? Is it healthy or bad?

 

[Darth Cognus]

The good side of being known for forum drama is the good side of setting your house on fire. People oogle and gawk and it gets traffic right up but your house still burns down when you play with it.

Keep your fire in the fireplace, safer and your house will stick around much longer.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I think it's more bad than good, I wouldn't want to deal with that headache. I had to deal with it once on Mighty No. 9 Universe after some drama was going down on the official Mighty No. 9 forums, lots of people got banned and they ended up coming to my forum. They were fine, but the people who were on the moderator's side on the official forums came over to my forum and started to wreck havoc on my forum. Though we did get quite a influx of members, it was a nightmare to deal with. Plus I was at work when things were going down and I managed to get the tail end of it afterwards. I think I still have chat logs between me and my staff on Skype somewhere on a old hard drive...

 

[ten thousand]

At the risk of stating the obvious: a forum is just people hanging out and talking to each other. Even in small groups the social dynamics are complicated and you're always gonna have people who disagree and can't get along etc.

Here's what I think: those people disagreeing with each other are an opportunity for them to grow and gain new perspectives, and one of the most fun parts of being a community founder is cultivating an environment where that sort of growth can happen and helping it along by mediating where you can. You set the culture and tone of your community, you can make a place welcoming to people who disagree while setting clear expectations for behavior, e.g. polite and open-minded.

But of course there are those people who just drink the drama and want to cause chaos, but those people are easy to spot and should probably be ejected from your community as soon as you identify them. Not all activity ("traffic") is good activity. I'd take a small community with high-quality discussions over a large community full of noise.

 

[ladyquack]

I enjoy forum drama as much as I enjoy having teeth pulled - which is to say, I don't enjoy it at all lol. I'm a fan of people solving their differences off site. I just can't think of any situation in which drama would be a good thing for my forum.

 

[ten thousand]

I enjoy forum drama as much as I enjoy having teeth pulled - which is to say, I don't enjoy it at all lol. I'm a fan of people solving their differences off site. I just can't think of any situation in which drama would be a good thing for my forum.

I think that's a reasonable stance to take, especially if your community is on the smaller side. I just fear that trying to avoid "all" drama is against the nature of human socializing, so I guess my stance above is from a perspective of... it's gonna happen, what's the best way to handle it when it does?

I also think in an era where small internet communities are rare, you kinda want to hold on to every member you can. If they have the capacity to be a positive contribution to your community then helping them to move past conflict is in the best interest of the community. Again excluding the sort of people that just feed on the drama and want to cause chaos -- kick 'em out asap.

 

[Bluezone777]

I feel these days people are so afraid of drama that they will do anything needed to prevent it even if it means owning a boring uninteresting forum where no one cares about anything or stands for anything because doing either would risk there being some drama on it then they go out of their way to openly wonder just why no one wants to have anything to do with my forum as if it is some unexplainable mystery. The thing about drama is that it is often a byproduct of one's growth and development. There is no growing and developing of a person or people without drama.

I never went out of my way to encourage it in the communities I ran but I most certainly didn't flee from it if it came but dealt with it more often then not with thoughtful discussion and debate which is how you reconcile differences and heal divides between people. The thing about drama when you really think about it is most if not all of it all begins when a person or people no longer feel that they are being heard and the longer they go feeling unheard is when they start getting angrier and the fights start to break out. People aren't as bothered as you might imagine being disagreed with as long as they feel heard.

 

[Nomad]

If you can keep it under control and stop it from going nasty forum drama is a good thing.

 

[Ravenfreak]

People aren't as bothered as you might imagine being disagreed with as long as they feel heard.

That's the thing though I've noticed online recently, everyone is talking over each other and no one is heard. This causes the drama and debates to get out of hand on most platforms online these days and then people start calling each other names. Maybe it won't happen as much on a forum than on Reddit or social media...

 

[Paul]

Yeah.....nah....too old for that rubbish.

 

[Henrywrites]

If you can keep it under control and stop it from going nasty forum drama is a good thing.

The truth is that most of the times, it always goes out of hand and that is where the problem comes in. So, it is better not to have any drama at all.

 

[zoldos]

I say no. I've actually shut several forums down due to drama....

 

[Nomad]

It is true that most of the time dramas go nasty.

 

[Shortie]

I am someone that tends to stay away from any kind of drama and any drama I see on a forum never looks good to me.

It happens a lot though and in most cases, you will find that when there is drama, people will be interested until that drama goes away, it gives you that little bit of traffic for a small amount of time but it could also ruin reputations too.