Recently, I found myself in a bit of an unusual situation as the Admin for a Science Fiction/Fantasy discussion group. A flame war broke out, which is not that unusual with any online group. What made this flame war a bit stickier than usual was that it broke out between a troll and the now-retired-admin who is currently a regular member.
At first, I attempted to let the two of them work it out, adult-to-adult, and that approach seemed to work when the ex-admin voluntarily deleted his comments that started the flame war. No one asked him to delete his thread so I thought the situation was resolved and the group could now move on to other sci-fi/fantasy related discussions. Then the ex-admin RE-POSTED his thread, with ADDITIONAL comments that were guaranteed to incite the troll to respond and the flame war resumed! That's when I stepped in and informed both parties to take their disagreement off the list and hash it out privately. The ex-admin then sends me a private message about how he's innocent and the other troll started it, etc. etc., etc. while other members, on the list, started taking sides in the flame war. I posted a public statement, TO EVERYBODY on the sci-fi/fantasy list that I DON'T CARE WHO STARTED THIS FLAME WAR! IT STOPS NOW! (I was prepared to to ban both parties, even if one of them used to be the admin for this very group.) The troll disappeared on his own and the ex-admin is sulking because I refused to side with him against the troll. (The ex-admin is close to my age so he's old enough to know better than to try to fight with a college-aged troll. It's like trying to wrestle with a pig in a mud pit. One gets dirty and the pig enjoys it.)
