What are the best strategies for managing problematic participants on email mailing lists?
Summary
What email marketers say8Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Neil Patel shares that effective moderation, clear guidelines, and active community management are crucial for handling problematic users on forums. Ignoring the problem isn't an option.
Email marketer from Email Geeks suggests that it's often possible to identify annoying posters based on quirks in their writing style, which can be caught with regex on the message body.
Email marketer from Reddit explains that using the 'mute' feature can effectively silence disruptive individuals without escalating the situation or involving moderators, useful for personal management of a thread.
Email marketer from SitePoint advises against feeding trolls by engaging with them. Instead, delete their comments, ban them if necessary, and focus on fostering a positive community environment. Also don't reveal you're doing it.
Email marketer from XenForo explains that implementing a clear and accessible reporting system allows community members to flag problematic content or users, enabling moderators to address issues promptly and efficiently.
Email marketer from Email Geeks suggests filtering based on modifications to the From address (e.g., Reply-To, x-sender) made by MLM systems.
Email marketer from DigitalOcean explains that using tools such as Akismet and reCAPTCHA can help prevent spam, while also advising to require email verification to stop bots from creating accounts.
Email marketer from Quicksprout recommends having a clear policy and process for banning users who consistently violate community guidelines, including warnings and temporary suspensions before permanent bans.
What the experts say6Expert opinions
Expert from Word to the Wise shares that sending different messages, and sending less, to those less engaged customers in your segmentation may help reduce complaints and therefore reduce problematic users.
Expert from Spam Resource shares that strategies to reduce complaints involve sending wanted mail, improving sending reputation, and reducing the amount of mail sent to less engaged users.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that the most frustrating thing about DMARC is that it can prevent blocking problematic participants on some mailing lists.
Expert from Spam Resource explains to address complaint senders, identify the source, work towards mitigation via feedback loops, and consider blocking if necessary.
Expert from Word to the Wise identifies some people complain to get off a list, some people will complain whatever you do, and also that complaints can be caused by technical mistakes, so to categorise them and deal with appropriately.
Expert from Email Geeks describes blocking at the MTA level as a pretty nuclear option, used in extreme cases where senders refuse to unsubscribe recipients. It was used as a last resort and needed digging into MTA manuals to do.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from Apache shares that SpamAssassin can be deployed to aggressively filter email based on content and origin, reducing the amount of spam and unwanted messages that reach the mailing list, and therefore also reducing problematic participants.
Documentation from RFC Editor explains that the message-id field can be used to identify specific messages, which enables admins to trace disruptive messages back to their sources. If from the same place frequently then this can be a signal to automatically filter from that sender.
Documentation from Discourse explains that utilizing built-in moderation tools for community forums, like flagging, silencing, and suspending users, provides effective ways to manage disruptive behavior and maintain a healthy environment.
Documentation from Mailchimp shares the importance of requiring confirmed opt-in for mailing lists to ensure subscribers actively want to participate, reducing the likelihood of problematic users and improving list quality.
Documentation from Google Groups shares that controlling group membership settings (e.g., moderation of new members, posting permissions) allows administrators to filter out potentially problematic users before they can disrupt the group.