John_Dean — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 21:53:18 +0000

For me the best way is to ban them (ban e-mails and them names). And after that you'll have only good members
This is not a joke, if you do that - your forum will get more "real" traffic and good reputation.
Good Luck !
Best Regards
John Dean

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jjack — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 19:08:06 +0000

longhornfreak;214915 wrote: A separate forum is an option, also if your forum grows, eventually they will overpower them, and they can keep their inside jokes to theirselves

That's kind of what I was thinking. I just didn't want to get caught in a catch-22 where if I get more members the inside jokes will go away...BUT I won't get more members until the jokes go away.

longhornfreak — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 02:51:46 +0000

A separate forum is an option, also if your forum grows, eventually they will overpower them, and they can keep their inside jokes to theirselves

jjack — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 16:50:01 +0000

Those are some good suggestions...thanks!

I think I'm going to kind of combine the two. I talked to some of the "outside" members and they pointed out that it wasn't as bad as I thought, and that most of the inside stuff goes on in one specific forum of the board. I think I'm just going to request that members keep all the personal stuff confined to that forum and keep it out of the rest of them. If it gets out of hand I could make it a more formal rule.

Thanks again

Megan — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 15:56:40 +0000

Making them a separate forum that is only visible to them might be a way to get this out of their system.

I would start with a simple suggestion - "Guys, can we keep the personal stuff off the forum? We don't want to alienate the other members. Thanks :)" (or whatever kind of language would be most appropriate for your group.

If that doesn't work you might need to have more of an open discussion with them about it. Or you could speak to a couple of the ringleaders privately.

Banning is always a last resort

wamasterhunter — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 01:09:40 +0000

What I did is create a seperate forum that only certian members could see. then all that stuff goes in there, and the others do not know about it.