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4 Comments

Should i allow political trolls in my forum?

Hello

I am member of various forums for many years. In most of them, the vast majority of discussions has to do with political issues. In 80% of threads, discussion will turn to a battle between supporters of the major political parties in Greece. I don't know if the same happens to other countries too, maybe it's a characteristic of Greece.
Form one point of view, this sounds good for traffic on the other hand however, the quality of discussions and threads worsens dramatically.

What is your opinion on this? Should i allow some fanatic supporters of political parties to troll my forum (4-5 of them could create five times the current content of my forum) or i should keep it clear, with low traffic and content creation frequency low though?

Thanks

  1. 2

    I find that for newer communities, you end up with some early adopters who tend to have something to say. They also tend to have political opinions and might decide to stake their ground. Many online communities in the United States lean one political direction or another, but people come anyway if there is good content, and they tolerate the political discussions because they are a distraction.

    If you can organize the forum topics and create a political only space, great. But if they derail conversations with politics, close the thread

  2. 2

    I would also recommend they take the political discussion elsewhere unless your forum is made for political discussions. Agree with @rosiesherry

  3. 2

    I wouldn't, (unless it's a community related to politics, but it looks like it's a business one?) it sounds like they are spoiling the party for everyone else.

    It's super important to (dis)allow behaviour in communities, if you don't tackle it it will kill your own community longer term. Why allow them to waste everyone's time with unhelpful conversations?

    There's a perception that communities need to have lots of discussions happening to make them valuable, this is so untrue. Better to have a low amount of high quality posts than it being scattered with posts that are not helpful.

    It's up to you to set the rules and take action where need be.

    1. 2

      Thanks! I totally agree.
      Another option is to limit such discussions to a couple of specific threads, so that they will fight there. If one can succeed on this, i think it's the best option. You gain their traffic (which is huge in many cases, as these people discuss a lot) while keeping clear all the other threads

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