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March 24, 2005
To Block or Not to Block: Belligerent IM Patrons
We're three months into offering the IM reference program I'm coordinating here at my library, and an issue is emerging that I'm not sure how to deal with. We have people coming into the service and being flat-out abusive to staff. We think they’re mostly kids, but you never can tell. Here are a couple of sample situations:
- Patron sends us a message with a real honest-to-goodness question (usually homework-sounding). We give the patron an answer, patron replies “That’s not what I {expletive} wanted! {expletive}! {expletive} you.” Sometimes in this situation, the patron will then apologize, ask another question, and then be abusive again.
- The first message we get from the patron is abusive: “{expletive} you and your {expletive} mother, {expletive}!” or “Hi, do u like sexxxx with girls?”
With either situation, our librarians send one of our “inappropriate” scripts (e.g. “If you have a question, please rephrase it with more appropriate language.”) or write our own messages to cover the specific situation. Often though in the second situation, when we send a reply, the patron has already logged off. So, they log in, send the message, and log off. New version of crank calling, I guess.
I’ve only had this happen a few times on our web-based chat reference service (AskNow), and never on e-mail. Why is IM so different? Perhaps the targeted group is younger, and more apt to this type of behavior?
I also want to differentiate between the above inappropriate messages and the casual curse word thrown into the conversation, like "{expletive}, this site rocks!”
Currently, we’re sending the inappropriate scripts, telling the patrons goodbye, and then ignoring them. But is that enough?
I am loathe to keep a "naughty list" and block patrons after repeated inappropriate use. Besides, if we block the screen name, the person can just spend 5 minutes and get another one. However, it really is becoming a hostile-work-environment issue at this point. I don’t want to put our librarians in the position of being assaulted or insulted on the job.
If we did keep a naughty list and block people on it, what would the criteria be? Would we be legally obligated to keep transcripts for each naughty interaction, so we would have documentation about who did what? Would we have to warn the patron that we’re going to block his or her screen name? Would we block infinitely, or just for a week, a month?
I would be very interested to hear from other libraries offering IM or other chat reference, and how you deal with these kinds of interactions.
March 24, 2005 | Permalink
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Comments
The academic library that I work at doesn't use IM but uses LivePerson/HumanClick but we have set it up to be as close to an IM environment as possible. We've been doing chat for some years now and the number of rude and belligerent patrons has been surprisingly rare. Only recently have we had a really annoying repeat offender.
I argued against a special IM policy to deal with these offenders at our last Reference meeting as I believe that IM behaviour should parallel regular "in-library" behavior (and could be covered by our existing policies).
And I agree with Megn - I would strongly suggest that when a chat that becomes vulgar or abusive that the librarian makes a statement like "Abusive behaviour is not tolerated" and end the chat immediately. The same user might try again a handful of times to get you to engage again but when eventually they learn that you aren't going to play with them, they stop. We're more gentle with the patrons are lonely and just want to chat but we do show them "tough love" as well.
Hope this helps
Mita
Posted by: Mita | April 4, 2005
Thanks to both Joe and Sharon (and Meg'n who commented on my blog post: http://librarianinblack.typepad.com/librarianinblack/2005/03/to_block_or_not.html#comments)
I've read through everything recommended by y'all, but I'm left with the same problem. Unlike Joe & Sharon, I would estimate that about 25% (not 6%) of our current traffic is belligerent. And it's not just one or two people. It's at least a dozen...probably more.
I like the idea that Meg'n presented of having a clear policy posted on the website, stating that IMs with inappropriate language will be ignored. I'm going to pursue that. And ignoring does work (well, better than anything else, anyway). If the person gets no response, he or she gets bored very quickly.
I'm still hesitant about blocking a username though. There's something in me that doesn't want to block services, but it's not really service when all the person gets out of it is some self-gratuitous cursing. But it sounds like other libraries may block without hesitation if the behavior warrants it, so maybe that's what we need to do.
Posted by: Sarah Houghton (Librarian in Black) | March25, 2005
Apologies for the length of this. You'll get more belligerant patrons via IM than via e-mail because there's an immediate gratification with IM. The harasser knows that someone is receiving the message and will respond shortly. You probably don't get the harassment on the chat reference service because it's more obscure.
In college, I spent a lot of time as a creator on muds and talkers. You deal with a lot of attention-seeking gits when you're a cre. While this is a little bit different (as you can't see or block by IP if the harassment gets overly bad, but you also don't have to worry about him/her harassing some poor innocent passerby), some of the same principles apply.
1. On your Web site, have a clearly posted use and abuse policy for the IM reference service.
2. Don't respond at all to harassing IMs. Giving them the official response is still acknowledging and encouraging them. So long as your use policy states that any IMs containing foul language or of a harassing nature will be ignored, I think you're fine.
3. If a person keeps sending harassing IMs, block the username. You can also try reporting particularly bad abusers to Yahoo, AOL, etc., but don't expect much help there. Whatever you do, don't reward the harasser with an IM response. Without any feedback, they eventually get tired and go away. It may take a while, but it's the most effective response.
If it were your personal IM account getting this treatment, I'd tell you to have fun with said harasser, but with a library's account, you really need to be professional and just ignore them rather than jerking them around. More's the pity, sometimes.
You may have already known everything I just said, and I'm sure some people will disagree, but those are my feelings (based on about 4 years of hours-a-day experience. Let's not ask what I should hve been doing instead.)
Posted by: Meg'n | March25, 2005
