For a community-scale solution, this article seems correct.
I expect spats, arguments, occasional insults, and even inevitable grudges. We’ve all done that. But in the end, I expect you to act like a group of friends who care about each other, no matter how dumb some of us might be, no matter what political opinions some of us hold, no matter what games some of us like or dislike.
One of the first things I learned when I began researching discussion platforms two years ago is the importance of empathy as the fundamental basis of all stable long term communities.
Hate is easy to recognize. Cruelty is easy to recognize. You do not tolerate these in your community, full stop. But what about behavior that isn’t so obviously corrosive? What about behavior patterns that seem sort of vaguely negative, but … nobody can show you exactly how this behavior is directly hurting anyone?
Disagreement is fine, even expected, provided people can disagree in an agreeable way. But when someone joins your community for the sole purpose of disagreeing, that’s Endless Contrarianism. If all a community member can seem to contribute is endlessly pointing out how wrong everyone else is, and how everything about this community is headed in the wrong direction – that’s not building constructive discussion – or the community.
Axe-Grinding is when a user keeps constantly gravitating back to the same pet issue or theme for weeks or months on end. This rapidly becomes tiresome to other participants who have probably heard everything this person has to say on that topic multiple times already.
Griefing is when someone goes out of their way to bait a particular person for weeks or months on end. By that I mean they pointedly follow them around, choosing to engage on whatever topic that person appears in, and needle the other person in any way they can, but always strictly by the book and not in violation of any rules… technically.
In any discussion, there is a general expectation that everyone there is participating in good faith – that they have an open mind, no particular agenda, and no bias against the participants or the topic. While short term disagreement is fine, it’s important that the people in your community have the ability to reset and approach each new topic with a clean(ish) slate. When you don’t do that, when people carry ill will from previous discussions toward the participants or topic into new discussions, that’s a grudge. Grudges can easily lead to every other dark community pattern on this list. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to recognize grudges when they emerge so the community can intervene and point out what’s happening, and all the negative consequences of a grudge.
For a community-scale solution, this article seems correct.