Drama is something every clan has to deal with at some point, be it from clan members, communities, or previous members.  A clan leader is often judged by how well he or she handles the situation, so lets look at what you can do to reduce or solve episodes of drama in your team.

Real Issues Vs. False Problems

Lets start out by understanding that drama is not members complaining about the clan rules, or being upset about things like recruitment, servers, or website items and wanting to help improve those things. These are legitimate concerns that relate to the team and how well it is doing in that persons eyes. These kinds of concerns can usually be solved by allowing the complaining member to get involved in correcting the problems. There may be a difference of opinion on HOW to fix these problems or if there even IS a problem, but it doesn’t qualify as drama.

When I say clan drama I mean the emotional and over-hyped arguments and squabbles that destroy moral and occupy your clan in a back-and-forth bitch slapping contest. Things, often unrelated to clan operations, that boil down to members disagreeing to the point that they are flaming away at each other.

• Real issues are usually resolved in a civil manner with idea sharing, compromise and maintain an exiting upbeat conversation. Everyone is interested in the teams improvement and are more than willing to converse and share openly.
• False problems are very polarized, a sort of  “you are either with me or against me!” mentality. Someone feels wronged and want everyone to know how they were jilted. Its very emotional, and many members will not want to post comments.

Drama can come from outside the clan also and can often be easier to solve, but much more public. Lets look at that first and come back to our inter-clan rivalry…

Community Related Drama

Your team has spent a good bit of time recruiting on public community forums, you have visited and registered on many sites, and possibly gotten involved in leagues and scrims via public forums. You could be faced with postings against your team or members of your team on these websites.

Perhaps former members are posting about how horrible your clan is, maybe a rival team thinks you cheat, or maybe a guest on one of your servers has come forth to tell the world about how they got banned for nothing. These sorts of things happen pretty often, but are pretty easy to solve.  Starting with the basics…

• Don’t respond immediately! You are subject to an emotional outburst, time to think and consult others will help make a solid response.
• On just about any public forum, you can contact a moderator via private message and let them know about the incident. This puts you in the position of the victim and can help to keep your recruiting posts clear in the future.
• Inform any needed clan staff. If a specific member has been accused of cheating, they may want to know about it. ( Make sure they observe bullet one up there ^)
• Any response given should be polite and filled with things they can do to correct the problem (Kill ‘em with kindness!) Post the link to your “Ban-Lift Request” thread in your forum, pass along the contact info for your public relations officer, or other diplomatic officers. These actions make you look good to a public community, and can take away from the legitimacy of claims made against you.

Always stay professional in your postings concerning drama in public forums. The staff on the forum won’t deal with much drama before they lock it down and get upset. They will look to stop the problem, and if you are polite and the other guy is a jerk chances are good he is the one that will get watched and possibly banned… not you!

Settling Clan Disagreements

Ok, back to our internal clan issues…

The first thing that should be done is to determine if the problem is a case of clan rule violations. If, as an example, you have a member claiming that another is cheating, then you can solve the problem using direct communication with the two members, yourself, and the rules. Remember that a simple accusation is not proof of any wrong doing. It may just be a case of mistaken events or communication. You may also want to point out to the accusing member that you would rather hear about this in private than posted in the forums.

If the problem is not about a rule violation (most drama stuff isn’t) then you will need to communicate directly with both members privately and again at the same time to figure out who has what problem and why. You will not be able to solve all these kinds of issues, but here are a few things to remember as you try…

• Keep your head, and don’t take sides.
• Explain your position. It will help if both members understand how you feel and why.
• Try to maintain privacy so that neither member feels that their reputation has been lost in the team.
• If this started with a forum post… Let both members know you will post a topic to the rest of the team about the issue, and do so. ( The post should be made to let everyone know you are working on the problem… it should also be respectful to both parties!)
• Try to find a resolution and keep both parties in the loop about how you plan to solve the issue.

Above all else, don’t simply delete drama threads and hope it disappears. A black-out doesn’t solve anything, it pisses off the poster, and puts doubt in the other members minds as to your intentions and ability to solve problems. Keep up communication and be honest!

 

-Hedge

© 2010 TribeHaven