Allow members to block creepers, trolls, and spammers

Picture this: It’s the holiday and your team is taking a much deserved break. The rest of the organization is for the most part also enjoying this break. Unbeknowst to you, McCreepy Doomsday is sending innapropriate messages to your unsuspecting members. Your members ignore the messages, flag the messages, but the messages from McCreepy Doomsday keep coming and they’re escalating. Your members are now trying to reach your community managers, but everyone is out on holiday. 

Your community member feels unsafe. So unsafe, they take to social media and start trashing the community and company. No one is responding on social because your team is out.

When you come back from vacation, you see the damage and reach out to the community member. Unfortunately, they’ve lost faith in you and the community and have vowed to never return.

The problem: Members can’t report spam directly from messages or block members. The community member who is being harrased has to change their experience on the community: they can allow messages from everyone, only connections, or no one. Not only does the member suffer by being harrased, but now they have to change their experience because of a troll.

The solution: Allow members to block/unblock other community members. They must first flag them (so a report is available to moderators) or go through a confirmation process and then they have the option to block the member. The moderator must have visibility into flagged and blocked users. The member must have visibility into who they have blocked and the option to edit that list.

This might not be a problem while your community is small. You have a handle of your moderation plan and are almost always staffed. This is one of those safety issues you want to be preventive over reactive.