ERE.net is home to a large professional community - today there are over 50,000 members of the ERE Network, and they come to the site for the amazing professional education and networking opportunities that the community and ERE staff have developed over the years.
Too often, what they find are personal disputes and squabbles, and it is usually a small group of people at the center. These beefs take up huge amounts of time and energy for those involved, and sometimes the personal history and recriminations go back for years.
The arguments between our members are none of my business, as long as they take place in private or on other web sites. They become my business when those personal arguments disrupt the conversations and flow of useful professional information to the community on ERE.net.
The thing is, the other 49,990 members of the network don't care about these personal disputes. At best, they find them uninteresting. At worst, they regard them as annoyances that distract from the true reason that they visit ERE - to learn about the profession of recruiting. Put another way, the silent majority wants to talk about substance, not get sucked into a few members' personality conflicts.
Last week - for the second time in ERE's nearly nine-year history - I made the decision to ban one of our active members from our site because she demonstrated an ongoing pattern of disrupting conversation and engaging in personal disputes on the public discussion boards on ERE.net.
To date, I've avoided posting about this decision because I didn't want to needlessly embarrass anyone (which is also why I am not using her name in this post). However, my lack of explanation and transparency in decision-making has resulted in a number of people publicly speculating about what happened, and that is further disrupting the experience of the silent majority on the ERE site -- the exact opposite of the intended effect.
So, for those that have been asking:
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The decision to ban her from the site was one that we did not take lightly. It came after no less than three members of the ERE staff -- including myself -- gave pointed warnings about the disruptions that she was causing. In turn, these warnings were made after we received multiple complaints from a broad group of ERE members.
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This decision was not made because we were trying to enforce or censor any particular point of view - I firmly believe that ERE needs to be a place where ideas can be discussed freely. I believe just as strongly that those debates need to not reach the level of personal grievances -- the online equivalent of shouting down the other side.
I appreciate that some ERE members will disagree with this decision, and that they find this individual's contributions to our dialogue to be useful additions. I understand that point of view, and I am certain that the individual in question will continue to be a vocal member of the online recruiting community. She will just do so on other websites with more permissive policies. I encourage you to continue your dialogue with her on those sites.
I realize that this is a hot-button issue that many on ERE feel strongly about, and that there will be some ERE members who will want to have a dialogue about or express their displeasure with my decision. The place for that is here on my blog -- not the discussion groups. This largely personal issue affecting a small number of ERE members should not be allowed to disrupt the experience of the silent majority.
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