Grease Monkee wrote:
First, a simple example;
- Newbi is a disruptive moron, HardAss(admin) gives him simple clear
instructions on how not to be disruptive moron, once. 2) Newbi replies to HardAss(admin); "Fuck You", and continues to disrupt. 3) HardAss blocks Newbi and gives another short, clear lecture on how to behave 4) Newbi replies by spitting venom and calling for justice over his violated civil rights. 5) Cycle repeats, escalating each time in the tone of rhetoric and length of blocks. 6) Along comes NiceGuy(admin) who sticks up for Newbi, telling him "..listen, I will unblock you, but you gotta do x,y and z..." Thereby supplying a face saving mechanism for Newbi. 7) Newbi either starts to behave, or gets blocked for longer and longer periods
The most common mistake made implementing this strategy is that NiceGuy is overly critical of HardAss, not realising that his mentorship of Newbi won't work without the threat of HardAss looming. Likewise, HardAss often takes it personally when NiceGuy unblocks someone, not realising it as a face saving feature that allows Newbi to behave.
Good faith communication among admins is critical to this sort of thing. In such a case, NiceGuy should try to contact HardAss beforehand to get agreement on the strategy. Or _even better_, HardAss admins should seek out NiceGuy admins and say to them "Look here, I've been bonking this guy on the head for a bit, to minimal effect, but if you want to come in and befriend him and try and turn him about, I'm happy to lay off."
--Jimbo