Old Faithful erupting
Creative Commons License photo credit: gr8dnes

A funny thing happened the other day. On one of my communities, member1 requested some help with an image, which member2 started to do (for free), but didn’t finish. Member1 made a post complaining about how the way member2 went about it was sneaky, used some profanity and was generally disrespectful.

I removed it and sent him a message explaining why I removed the post and why his comments toward member2 were inappropriate (basically a brief explanation of how free requests don’t make you entitled to anyone’s time and how you have to be patient).

He didn’t see that message. He made another reply asking why his post was deleted and member3 replied to his question, trying to help. That reply ended with this:

“… you will most likely have the admin’s answer to your question via PM.”

Ha. It’s great when members know what to expect from me. Which is information about why something was removed. Agree or disagree with the action I have taken, there won’t be any mystery or confusion, I will have sent you a message to explain it. Member3 knew that and he was correct. I had already contacted member1, who then saw the message and basically posted in the thread that he was wrong to do what he did.

Those fun little moments, where members recognize what you do and why you do it, can provide a great little lift as you go about your business.