The world is discovering a debate that community professionals have been having for two decades: should you, and how do you, reign in a top contributor that actively breaks the rules of your community?

For the health of the community, you must hold everyone accountable. But how?

Proper governance of any community starts with guidelines, or a code of conduct. You put a stake in the ground about the types of behaviors that are encouraged and those that are not. To the best of your ability, apply them evenly to ALL members. This is your North Star.

Along the way, situations will arise that you hadn't accounted for in your guidelines. You'll be forced to consider existing rules, write new ones, and even do a 180 on some that aren't working as intended. This is a normal function as your community evolves.

What you do not do is cave to top contributors that break the rules, wield their power to ostracize other members, or generally make the experience bad for everyone else.

In fact, you should hold top contributors, superusers, and community celebrities to a HIGHER standard.

Why, then, do community managers allow bad actors to continue acting bad without recourse as laid out in the guidelines? Metrics and fear.

They're concerned that reprimanding this user will harm their engagement metrics and that the community won't be the same in their absence.

So, you are forced to decide between the thing on which your job performance is measured (Metrics) or moderate appropriately to the guidelines.

This seems like an obvious choice morally, but it's hard to square if you believe that you could potentially lose your job as a result.

Which is why as a community professional it is critical to have the backing from your organization to make the correct moderation and management decisions to maintain a healthy community, not just the largest one.

I have dealt with this situation numerous times throughout my career at both the moderator and strategic level - it is never easy and the consequences can weigh heavily, even without the added pressure of it being the President of the United States of America.

In B2B settings, you are often confronted with the fact that you'll be reprimanding or banning a paying customer/partner that may work at one of your largest accounts.

In consumer settings, it may be your most popular member, top viewed streamer, or top-grossing affiliate.

What I do know is that as hard as it may be to make the decision, I never once regretted getting rid of someone toxic. The loss of their participation was easily outweighed by the trust gained from remaining members and the overall health of the community.

People are free to manage their communities as they see fit. I know who I am, what I stand for, and what I think is important when I'm responsible for building, growing, and managing a healthy community.

My advice: don't allow toxic people to take control of your community.