What would you do if your members harassed people elsewhere?

It kind of depends on the level of harassment, but so long as they are following my site's rules then I wouldn't do a thing.

If they are not breaking the rules on MY forums then that is fine. What they do else where and how they get disciplined is a whole another story!

I agree with you here. If it’s on MY forums then it’ll be a problem. But if it’s like hacking then It’s a different story - id probably take action 

Posted by: Malcolm

I agree with you here. If it’s on MY forums then it’ll be a problem. But if it’s like hacking then It’s a different story - id probably take action 

No I'd certainly agree with you on that one. As I said, as long as you are not causing problems on my site, you're not really my problem. Hacking/DOX'ing/etc. on the other hand are all problems I will watch you for if you are suspected/caught doing it elsewhere. No way in hell would I want my site or my users subjected to that kind of stuff. To be quite honest, if it's solid and concrete evidence in that instance I would probably take some pro-active action and shut that member down before it can become a problem. I'd rather lose a member to that that lose all of them to downtime/hacking related issues. 

I think I would do nothing if they are not breaking any rule on my site. Maybe they have some personal scores to settle on that particular site so it's the job of the moderators of that site to take action. 

It happened it on other site and it won't matter to me. The admin of the respected site would take action against it. Harassment happening on my site will be taken care by me. It's simple. They choose to go there and are responsible for themselves. 

It has happened. Actually the member started out on another site, then came to ours. The two sites were ranked #1 and #2 on Google (when rankings were a thing) for the term "anime forums." The guy, a 36 year old, was banned for getting in an argument with a 14-year-old girl and being downright horrible. He said she was cyberbullying him. She wasn't. One of the admins of that site was friends with me and sent me a Skype message that he had just signed up with us and explained all he had done.

I decided to give him a chance since he hadn't done anything yet. Ultimately, he lasted a month before he behaved in exactly the same way, this time attacking a 17-year-old girl for no reason. I saw the PM conversation with her permission and she had said nothing at all to provoke him. In fact she apologised to him several times despite doing nothing. 

I ended up having to ban him for a month, then he signed up again and send both myself and the kid images from rottendotcom. I just permabanned. 

Had I banned him to begin with, I'd have avoided the drama. However, I would still do the same thing again. I think people have a right to be given a chance to behave differently, especially since it's a different site.

One of our members harassing someone on another site would get a good talking to though. I wouldn't ban them though if they didn't do anything on our own site. It is up to the admin of the second site to ban them.

Posted by: Shannon

It has happened. Actually the member started out on another site, then came to ours. The two sites were ranked #1 and #2 on Google (when rankings were a thing) for the term "anime forums." The guy, a 36 year old, was banned for getting in an argument with a 14-year-old girl and being downright horrible. He said she was cyberbullying him. She wasn't. One of the admins of that site was friends with me and sent me a Skype message that he had just signed up with us and explained all he had done.

I decided to give him a chance since he hadn't done anything yet. Ultimately, he lasted a month before he behaved in exactly the same way, this time attacking a 17-year-old girl for no reason. I saw the PM conversation with her permission and she had said nothing at all to provoke him. In fact she apologised to him several times despite doing nothing. 

I ended up having to ban him for a month, then he signed up again and send both myself and the kid images from rottendotcom. I just permabanned. 

Had I banned him to begin with, I'd have avoided the drama. However, I would still do the same thing again. I think people have a right to be given a chance to behave differently, especially since it's a different site.

One of our members harassing someone on another site would get a good talking to though. I wouldn't ban them though if they didn't do anything on our own site. It is up to the admin of the second site to ban them.

Seems like the one who says is the victim is the predator itself. It looks like he is the real cyberbully.

I do remember something like this happening back on a RP site, someone was trying to become a love interest to another member, things got nasty on the, I think it was chatango shoutbox and spilled onto the forum itself. A lot of people ended up being banned.

It depends.

If the person has doxxed somebody from your website and the abuse and harassment originated from your website, in that the parties didn't know each other before your website, I think you have a duty of care to stamp out that type of behaviour.

At the same time, I totally agree with you, you can't police stuff that goes on, on other websites. You don't want to come across as running a dictatorship but if there's proof a person is breaking the law (harassing and abusing someone) on another website, they can prove that person is a member on your website (beyond any doubt) then I'd question if you want someone like that on your website anyway.

The last thing you'd want is to be involved in a nasty legal battle between those parties.

It's difficult though, especially in this day and age where screenshots can be faked, it leaves you in an impossible situation.

There is no right or wrong answer.