How do people react when you send a PM

[dojo]

In a normal community anyone can make mistakes. A post that is a bit too "hard" on someone else, a signature that's longer with 2 characters, an avatar too big. Small or serious issues arise each day.

When this happens, it's normal to send that member a PM reminding of the rules and mentioning the rules he broke.

Now: let's see how they respond to such PMs. Do they just apologise? Do they become over defensive telling you they didn't do anything wrong? How is your experience in this matter?

[webguy]

I have experience only as the "receiving one". I just sent a reply with an apology. I'm a polite guy after all

[dojo]

I had members who got a bit "iffy" when receiving a PM from me, but most of the time I try to make it as friendly and nice as possible. And this way they understand that: 1. I am not that angry since I didn't ban them, 2. I do value their contribution (as I let them know in the PM), 3. we do have some rules we need to abide so that the forums won't turn into chaos.

Given the fact our members are getting more and more educated as live online is concered, the "evil" responses are less encountered. Most would just reply that they failed to read that rule and apologise.

[dreamsync]

I've done this once or twice for my forum. I can't remember exactly what the infraction was, but when sending a pm I made it as nice sounding as possible. Chances are the user did not realize they had broken one of the rules.

I got the same results as mentioned above: they apologized and made the changes. I think as long as you're not harsh, their response will usually be fine.

[cornnfedd]

i have had it at both extremes from apologies to abuse back and their eventual banning. lol

depends on their personality i guess..

[bdude]

I've never had anyone break the rules on my forum, but if they made a minor infraction I'd send a kind PM explaining the situation

[0rion]

I am always professional and kind when sending PMs for any reason. I have been forwarded some not-so-nice PMs from mods to members in the past that really made me cringe, so I am always careful of how I word things.

Because of this, I have found the responses to be pleasant and often apologetic.

On the flip-side, I had once received a very nasty PM by a forum admin that made me not go back to that particular forum although it was overall very interesting and active. The 'offense' was a link in my siggy. Perhaps if all their rules would have been in the same place, I would have caught that particular one. Shame on me for not searching the entire site for it! lol

[dojo]

Well, I have a lot of people who break the sig rules, even if they're in one place and visible. But to come aggressively to the member for this is just stupid in my opinion. You did a good thing by moving from there

[Shax]

I had to do it twice to 2 different members, and neither replied. They didn't stick around either, which lead me to believe that they knew they did wrong. But I was as kind as can be in the PM, I just reminded them of the rules as all.

[DanoruX]

Haven't had it happen much, but they understand when it does.