Advice sought to resolve community "issue" I have an rp comm that has been running very successfully since Last May - almost a year at this point. We've all gotten along as players, there has always been a lot of respect for me as a mod, we have always discussed community questions and issues and worked them out together, so that all players have felt like their opinions have contributed and been taken into consideration.
But of course, this is too good to be true for it to stay this way, apparently.
After the holidays, things were slow to pick back up again, which is fine. It's expected. But once it did, I noticed that a few players started really slacking. Not that they weren't around, but that they were basically not playing the way they played before. One-lining in a storybook comm, not previewing and spell-checking their posts, ASTERISKING to get out of having to scene, etc... and we have always tried to keep the place very high quality. Then I began to see characters playing, but not being updated. So I held a brief OOC chat, we discussed all of this, and everything was fine. At least that is what I was told. But of course nothing changed.
Long story short, after asking repeatedly I ended up having to go through the journals one by one to see when everyone's last update was, and what it was, and in doing so I found quite a few who were still (after being asked repeatedly) not displaying an FO post (which is rp basics, is it not?), still had their character bios out in the public eye (which we have ALWAYS required to be locked because of the nature of the game and the potential for harassment to players), and other things that should have been taken care of a long, long time ago.
I put up a post pointing these things out. And I said that I was starting to get a little annoyed that apparently some players, after being included in everything from community plot planning to problem resolution so that it would be a place THEY helped build - did not have enough respect to please just do the few things that I asked and be done with it. So I gave them a time limit to fix the journals, update the ones that needed updating, and for those who had significantly slacked off to pick up their normal rp styles and continue on like the game was intended to be.
Instead of doing this, a group of three or four players instead complained that I had no right to make them do these things and that I could not expect perfect rp from people who just didn't write like that, yadda, yadda... even though ALL of these people had been accepted with perfectly fine examples and they'd ALL roleplayed fine until recently. This unfortunately turned into a MAJOR issue that is still going on.
Now what we have is one player who is the spokesperson, who has rallied about four under her wing, and they whisper to each other about how bad the modding is and how the comm is starting to suck, and the spokesperson has taken to threatening me with statements such as "You better just get off everyone's case and leave them alone or they're all going to leave," etc... Talking to this person gets nowhere. It makes things worse.
So, I'm sure you're all saying by now "Boot her!" And I want to. Because this is uncalled for, and is a bad attitude for a comm that previously everyone respected everyone else. I want to kick her out so badly right now because the whole atmosphere in the comm has changed since she started with all of this, but I can't because - and she knows this - if I kick her, those other 4 will go with her, and unfortunately they play some integral characters to the storyline. Essentially, kicking her will be the death of the comm.
So... what do I do? Because it's getting ridiculous. She's harassed me almost every night this week about something. It can't go on.